Atari 2600 - Moon Cresta

[Rab]

Hi guys,

 

I've just been playing an excellent Pal 60 version of Imagic's 'Demon Attack', one of my favourite shooters of all time and it got me to wondering whether the Atari 2600 and perhaps one of the many excellent programmers here would be able to create a decent port of another of my fav all time shooters, Michibusji's 'Moon Cresta'? To me this is one glaring omission in the Atari's catalogue of classic games and I was watching the Erratic movements of the Alien Birds in demon attack and though that there may be achance that that behaviour could be utilised into a decent and playable port of 'Moon Cresta'?

 

Please let me know what you think or if this idea is even possible on the Atari 2600...I know there is a decent version on the Atari 7800 but realise that it may be amuch harder task to port to its younger brother!!! If anyone feels that this project would be worthwhile or even possible please feel free to comment here..Im sure many of us would love a port of this great game and would consider a purchase if it were on Cartridge.

 

Best wishes

 

Rab ;0)

 

Fife

Scotland

 

p.s Just had another thought, how about a close to Arcade version of Monaco G.P.? The only other version of that I played was on Japanese Sega ages for the Saturn I think and on the SG1000 Comp from way back. Another great racing game thats been missing in action for far too long and as there is no Mame version people would im sure buy this for their Atari if it was available? What if we took Activisions Grand Prix and made it vertical, adding the Bridges and Ambulance? Is it possible?

 

 

[Rybags]

Demon Attack "works" because the aliens are vertically seperated which allows the kernal to display lots of stuff with minimal flicker.

 

In Moon Cresta, the movements are complex and it's possible for at least 4 of the 8 attackers to be in a similar vertical position.

This would mean flicker for sure - but no great problem since so many other games have the same affliction.

When the aliens coincide with the VPos of the player's ship - there's even more potential for flicker.

 

Bob's version for the 7800 is a fairly sizable program. Comes in around 32K IIRC.

Another problem might be lack of system RAM. There's the positions, direction and other attributes to keep track of for each enemy as well as the player's ship and bullets. I don't have the source code handy at the moment but the work variables for sure would be more than 2600 can cater for.

 

But corners can be cut and if necessary some sort of Ramcart might be necessary. It'd be a fair programming effort but I'd say it could be done.

[Rab]

Hi mate...

 

Thanks for your detailed reply...interesting..could be a great project for one of you gifted programmers out there?

 

all the best

 

Rab

[+Nathan Strum]

johnnywc (John Champeau) started on a 2600 version of Moon Cresta a few years ago. He didn't get very far with it, but he seemed confident a good version could be made.

[+Gemintronic]

Monaco G.P. would be easy. Especially if you find a way to use the ball/missiles as parts of the cars.

[iesposta]

Personally I would like to do Astro Blaster with AtariVox+ speech. Speech being a big part of the game, although it works well without speech - see Bob's 7800 Astro Blaster.

 

Also, the 7800 is at least 7 years younger than the 2600.

The 7800 is the younger brother. Or the 7800 is the 2600 plus evolution. Or 2600=parent? Have fun!

[BioForceApe]

 

A sprite for ship 1. It kinda looks dumbed down but it's the 2600, bro.