Jumpman Jr

[Toucan]

It's been a while since I've been posting in the TI community in general, but I have been in lurk mode for the past few years. I've been involved with the TI since 1998, so it's nice to see this great forum over here on AtariAge vs. what we have on the TI Listserver.

 

Anyway, I wanted to make mention that I noticed someone found a Jumpman Jr. conversion for DBT before it was changed to Junkman Jr. I noticed someone got in touch with Steve Mildon the programmer so I became curious, is there any connection to this Jumpman Jr. and the official one Epyx mentioned for the TI-99/4A in 1983? The TI version of Jumpman Jr. by Epyx was even listed for sale by one TI vendor with a part number. I have talked with Epyx people in the past and most in management knew about the TI titles, Bob Botch (head of marketing) even thought the TI titles were released, some of them anyway. I just wanted to see if anyone out there knows if Junkman Jr was a reworked version of the original Epyx Jumpman Jr code or if it was made from scratch by Steve Mildon? I have yet to find out who did any TI programming at Epyx, but it most likely would have been contracted out. However, all the magagement seemed to think they were far in development, even going as far as saying they might have seen some type of limited release.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Toucan

[Toucan]

Here's the original 1983 annoucement from Epyx:

 

Epyx Computer Software plans to make several of their programs available for the 4A, seven on cartridge and six on cassette. The cassette titles include; Seawolf, Spectar, Gun Fight, Circus, Starfire and Fire One.

 

The cartridges are:

Jumpman Jr. - 12 screens featuring electrocution traps, moving walls, hellstones, and other dangers.

Pitstop - Fast paced racing action, plus the strategy of the pits.

Gateway to Apshai - 8 different screens with 50 chambers per screen. Explore the dark labrynth of rooms and caverns which lead to the fabled Temple of Apshai. Glorious treasures and nasty monsters!

Lunar Outpost - Alien invaders are preparing a full scale invasion of Earth, and your Lunar Outposts are all that stand between the invasion force and ultimate defeat. Strategy and 3-D graphics are featured.

Swat Rescue - Police action plus strategy and planning are combined in this new high-resolution graphics game.

Silicon Warrior - 3-D graphics, characters that disappear and reappear and real time competition for up to 4 players.

Fun with Music - Learn and play music on your video screen, easy to use with its handy keyboard overlay, the perfect blend of education and fun.

 

Bob Botch from Epyx had this to say on the subject in 2005 when I e-mailed him:

 

Yes I did spend six years at Epyx as VP of Marketing and it was a fun time in the industry. We did lose most of our e-mail when VoiceWeb was closed so I was not in a position to respond to anything sent to that address.

 

Bob Ogden and I go back a long way and continue to work together although not in the game space.

 

The first six were an arcade license deal and I do not know who developed them. The arcade company was called Exidy. I am pretty sure we did ship Seawolf, Circus and Fire One. However the games were not done well. I am not sure we even shipped all of them. I think we ended up putting multiple games together on one disc and selling them as a budget price line. We stopped selling cassettes around that time.

 

I think all the games listed as cartridge below were developed in house.

All these games were done around the time we were making a big push toward carts for the C-64.

Edited February 1, 2015 by Toucan

[+OLD CS1]

I would love to see a TI conversion of Pit Stop, especially if well done.

[PeBo]

Interesting post. I always wondered what happened to the planned Epyx (and Brøderbund) releases, and how far the development actually got.

 

It's exciting to think that the code might have been completed and may very well be sitting in some archive somewhere.

 

How cool would an Apshai game have been!?!?! I still play the Atari version of 'Trilogy' quite often...would have loved to have seen one for the 99.

 

Jumpman Jr was the very first game I ever played on an 800XL...loaded from tape - sometimes. More often than not, at about the 15 minute mark it would crap out, and we'd have to rewind and try again. Spent more than a few evenings "loading" Jumpman Jr for hours before actually getting to play it. Junkman Jr is cool, but it differs enough from Jumpman Jr, that I'm guessing it was a stand alone project and had nothing to do with the anticipated Epyx release aside from ripping off the premise/gameplay (but what do I know?)

 

 

Not familiar with « Fun with Music », but seing it listed did make me think that Mindscape's « Bank Street Music Writer » or EA's « Music Construction Set » would have also made excellent ports for the TI

 

Agree with Old CS1, Pit Stop would have been very cool to see.

 

Mind you, I certainly never expected to see a TI « Pitfall » port appear 25 years after the fact, so who knows what surprises are secretly being brought back to life in the corner of someone's basement as I type this!?!

Edited February 1, 2015 by PeBo