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New Atari 2600 Game Discovered - 28 years later


sydric

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The plan has always been to release the ROM to the community. I believe that the Personal Computer Museum will release the ROM once all of the reproduction cartridges have been shipped.

 

We have discovered that the ROM does not run correctly on emulators. It does run correctly on a Harmony cart as well as on the reproduction cartridges. So we know that the dump is good.

 

I will leave it to Sydric to decide when and how the ROM will be released.

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Have they been send out yet?

 

The believe that the carts are being shipped as people pay for them. Sydric is looking after everything. I don't know how many carts have been paid for or shipped.

 

I got notification that mine has been sent. Can't wait! :)

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Ha! Mine arrived today. The game's in black and white (presumably PAL incompatibility) but looks good... Now, if only I can find someone who's willing to play a 30 year old game. :P

 

I really like the packaging and I've already bored my girlfriend by forcing her to watch the DVD.

 

Good Work. :)

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Thanks to all that liked the packaging, DVD, etc. Sydric and I worked pretty hard to turn out a product that everyone would like.

 

It's interesting to hear from PFL that the game runs in black and white on a PAL system. I suspect that the line count might be inconsistent. When I spoke to the original programmer he indicated that he reverse engineered several other games to figure out how to program the 2600. Remember, this was done long before the Internet. He admitted that he really didn't know how everything worked. I haven't checked with an emulator to see what the line count is.

 

And my apologies to your girlfriend PFL. Mine feels the same way. I made her sit through the DVD too. She's also sick of me talking about the game all the time.

Edited by awhite2600
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  • 1 month later...

Late bump for this topic, but I finally got to play my copy of Extra Terrestrials. I had been avoiding the posts surrounding it as much as possible to keep the game a surprise.

 

First of all, great job to Syd and everyone at the PC Museum for a great job on this. It's very neat to see how this little piece of (almost) forgotten history unfolded. Thumbs all the way up... and next time I'm in Ontario I will absolutely pay a visit to the Museum!

 

The box design is great (the paperstock could have been heavier, or doubled up, but that's minor) and the DVD is a really nice extra treat. I popped in the game and didn't have a clue what to do, until I realised it was two player only. So I grabbed my four-year old to do this little review. :)

 

He really liked the game - he especially found the different alien choices fun (he liked the "jellyfish" and "purple mouse" the most). Control is difficult for him, the wall detection is quite finicky, so moving smoothly around the "maze" is not an easy task. In the end he prefered to play the "blue man", so he could do most of the chasing.

 

The game is definitely playable and has some charm to it. There are a few odd things in the gameplay, such as the "invisible alien friends" which don't seem to add much to the game. I thought perhaps the candy trail could be followed to catch the friends, but I don't think that's it. The "invisible wall" feature is a good way to balance the slower speed of the agent. I'm curious to see how fun the game would be with two people adept at moving through the wall gaps.

 

I'm sure it will be on our playlist again soon - my son was quite interested in the "lost and found" aspect of the game. He probably envisions that this was a buried pirate treasure found with a treasure map. :)

 

Again - great job, and a big thanks for bringing this into the community to share.

 

Is the original still on display at the museum, or locked away in a safe? ;)

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