Flappo Bird

[Mr SQL]

I created Flappy, not Flappo Bird.

 

KC Monster Maze worked the next day because I tried it on a stock Heavy Sixer on a CRT. (It still doesn't play correctly on two AV modded systems on an LCD TV (4 Switch, & Light Sixer).)

 

P.S. I have edited that original KC review -- if you go back to the KC thread you can read the changes. Also I really like Barnstorming, so I made my Flappy like Barnstorming. People that hate Barnstorming may not like Flappy for similar reasons.

iesposta,

I liked your critique because while it was extreme, it pointed out there is a considerable difference in the fun without the classic hardware; I agree 100% it's not any fun when a game doesn't look much like it's demo and I'm very glad that you had both the heavy sixer and CRT retro equipment to fully enjoy it

 

I wish I could get better perf on LCD displays and on Stella but it is not possible to get them to match a heavy sixer and a CRT; another side of the coin here is that the old StarPath demos looked much better in the 80's for only being able to see them on CRT.

 

We all have different perspectives and as developers we can sometimes be critical of other developers ideas and processes on how a game and a release should go, particularly if they don't mirror our own ideas. Add to this there are also different expectations from gamers and collectors; not all collectors game and not all gamers collect!

 

I do tend to be more focused on the game than the packaging, but I understand both are important and that for a collector who does not play the games the packaging can actually be more important than the game.

 

EDIT: I like Flappy and Barnstorming both, good point about the similarlity - for me a game can be simple or complex as long as it's fun and both of those games are fun

Edited March 16, 2014 by Mr SQL

[raindog]

The situation for the 2600 is pretty different. We are just a very small group of people. My main concern is that more and more games are sold by the package before the game. Quite frequently the package seems to be there even before the game. We are getting closer to eventually selling "sealed bricks". As a devoted developer, I obviously do not like this situation.

 

I personally couldn't care less about "CIB" or shrinkwrap or authentic Supercharger cassette releases or any of that stuff. Honestly, if Al shut down the store today, I'd still be playing stuff on my Harmony, or more often, in Stella. If there were something I absolutely needed to have on cart for some reason, I have a feeling there's a Tiki-faced douchebag who'd still be happy to take my money.

 

But what we are doing is nostalgic for a lot of people -- not me, because I never had a VCS growing up, only got one in '99 when I'd done a couple hacks and was writing my first homebrew, but I think most people. A lot of us did have a vision when we were kids of having this huge, pristine video game collection, and the "limited edition, complete in box" phenomenon is a manifestation of that. I do still have my first issue of "Retro" shrinkwrapped and read the PDF on my tablet, the nostalgic urge to read a paper magazine currently offset by the nostalgic urge to have a "sealed, mint condition" issue #1 of anything.

 

 

And some people like to eat their own poo and cut themselves.

 

I hardly think someone who likes randomly-generated crap more than Zelda is qualified to be a self-appointed arbiter of taste in video games.

Edited March 16, 2014 by raindog

[+Random Terrain]

I hardly think someone who likes randomly-generated crap more than Zelda is qualified to be a self-appointed arbiter of taste in video games.

It's not my fault if you hardly think. What does taste have to do with recognizing unnecessary wear and tear on the player? And Zelda-style games can be made using controlled randomness. It's only "randomly-generated crap" if the programmer is lazy and goes out of his way to 'prove' that it can't be done so he can go back to making static action puzzles.

[raindog]

Yes, we've all seen the same two links to your own website that you post every single time this comes up as if repeating your belief makes it the truth. What you consider a "static action puzzle" I consider a world to explore and then return to again and again, until I know that world as well as I know the towns I visit on real-life vacation. But more salient to this thread,

 

What does taste have to do with recognizing unnecessary wear and tear

 

Whether something is necessary or not is a judgment call, making it a matter of taste. Track and Field would, in my opinion, not have been as good without the frantic tapping of buttons. I considered Decathlon a halfway-decent attempt to capture that at home, and while I broke a joystick playing some version of it, I never got an RSI from it, and this is the first I've heard the idea that anyone would have, while I (like many others) did get an RSI from playing Wii games -- the kind with all the "Why don't you take a break?" messages and millions of dollars of R&D to make the Wiimote "ergonomic" -- that put me in a sling for 3 weeks, and not the good kind.

 

Not every game, genre, or control style you dislike is bad. I'd be a fool to say GTA III or Street Fighter II or Halo were bad games, but I can say they're not to my taste and I resent their existence for spawning hundreds of games (in the crime simulator, fighting game and multiplayer-focused FPS genres) while my favorite genre, 3D mascot platformer with green grass and blue skies, has become something that developers practically apologize for or cripple with gimmicks from other genres (vehicle building, heavy combat, time limits) over exploration.

 

I loved Joust, too, back in the day. It would kind of tickle me to get a Flappy Bird clone up and running on Joust hardware. I bet someone will reveal something like that in exactly 15 days, the 'long-lost' arcade version of Flappy Bird.

[+Random Terrain]

Yes, we've all seen the same two links to your own website that you post every single time this comes up as if repeating your belief makes it the truth.

No, we all haven't seen the links. This web site gets a lot of new visitors who don't even sign up, so the links are more for them than for those who fight against whatever I say as if their belief is the only truth. A lot of people claim to have a "why can't we all get along" attitude, but they'll usually try to fight against any idea that might threaten the status quo as if they own stock in it (no matter what the subject is). The crowd knows best. Don't go against the crowd.

 

And about links, I often add links to my posts related to whatever subject I'm talking about, whether the links are to my web site or various other web sites out there in Internet land.

 

 

 

 

What you consider a "static action puzzle" I consider a world to explore and then return to again and again, until I know that world as well as I know the towns I visit on real-life vacation.

So you go into those towns in real life and look for bad men to beat up or kill? Are they always hiding in the same places? Or maybe you're a secret agent in real life who visits the same towns as you travel around the world. Are all of the clues you're looking for in each separate case always in the same place in each town?

 

Anyway, most people who visit the same town or city in real life on vacation don't follow the same path every time and don't visit the same places in the same order. Some places may not even be there the next time they go back.

 

 

 

 

Whether something is necessary or not is a judgment call, making it a matter of taste. Track and Field would, in my opinion, not have been as good without the frantic tapping of buttons. I considered Decathlon a halfway-decent attempt to capture that at home, and while I broke a joystick playing some version of it, I never got an RSI from it, and this is the first I've heard the idea that anyone would have, while I (like many others) did get an RSI from playing Wii games -- the kind with all the "Why don't you take a break?" messages and millions of dollars of R&D to make the Wiimote "ergonomic" -- that put me in a sling for 3 weeks, and not the good kind.

You didn't get a repetitive stress injury from poorly designed controller interactions on the Atari 2600 and never heard of such a thing, so it never happened to anyone? Only certain games on the Atari 2600 had poorly designed controller interactions, but, as far as I know, most games on the Wii would be more likely to cause a problem. I already said this back in January of 2007:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/100807-nintendos-wii-not-for-me-how-about-you/?p=1222479

Back to the Wii, you can already get a repetitive stress injury playing with a regular controller, but constantly playing with your Wii would surely give you more chances to injure yourself. You don't have to be psychic to envision all of the upcoming lawsuits.

 

 

 

Not every game, genre, or control style you dislike is bad. I'd be a fool to say GTA III or Street Fighter II or Halo were bad games, but I can say they're not to my taste and I resent their existence for spawning hundreds of games (in the crime simulator, fighting game and multiplayer-focused FPS genres) while my favorite genre, 3D mascot platformer with green grass and blue skies, has become something that developers practically apologize for or cripple with gimmicks from other genres (vehicle building, heavy combat, time limits) over exploration.

Like I said before, I'm not talking about genres here. I'm talking about poorly designed controller interactions. A game that mixes up the controller interactions is better for all players. For example, letting players move the joystick in different directions instead of making them frantically jerk the joystick back and forth between two directions as fast as they can is better for all humans who have two hands and two arms. And not forcing players to press and release the fire button as fast as they possibly can is good for all people who have normal human hands. It's not a matter of taste, it's common sense to anyone who has a clear mind.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I remember some very boring religion lessons at school. Fortunately I had a Casio calculator with a very good keyboard. So we regularly played a game of who could tap the '=' most frequently within one minute. The calculator would count the hits for us. IIRC the record was way above 300.

In the end we had to switch fingers and even hands, but we had a lot of fun and we got through those boring lessons mentally unharmed.

[enthusi]

Hehe, reminds me of the 'game' who can stop the shortest time on those by-then-popular arm watches. I seem to recall 11 ms as record...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hehe, reminds me of the 'game' who can stop the shortest time on those by-then-popular arm watches. I seem to recall 11 ms as record...

Yea, we played that one too.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

We'll be featuring Flappo Bird LIVE on this Wednesday's ZeroPage Homebrew stream on Twitch at 11AM PT | 2PM ET | 6PM GMT! Hope everyone can watch!

 

We'll also discuss some of the topics brought up in this thread about the game.

 

Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.t...ropagehomebrew/

 

Games:
- Chaotic Grill (2019 WIP Update) by Philip Blackman aka splendidnut
- Flappo Bird (2014) by Thomas Hopper aka TACS Games
- You Can't Win (2011) by Chris Read aka atari2600land
- Caverns (2019) by Harold Thijssen