The Video Game Homebrew Crash of 2016

[Schizophretard]

Has the crash happened yet?

Coleco Chameleon.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Coleco Chameleon.

Well, it will probably crash and burn unless Mike and Co pull a unicorn out of their butts in time for the toy fair (if they fail to have a working prototype, they will be the laughing stock of the Chicago event). Regardless I fail to see how does this relate to the predicted crash in the homebrew market as specified by the OP? Most retro gamers would rather buy the homebrews for the original system than a wannabe.

[Schizophretard]

Well, it will probably crash and burn unless Mike and Co pull a unicorn out of their butts in time for the toy fair (if they fail to have a working prototype, they will be the laughing stock of the Chicago event). Regardless I fail to see how does this relate to the predicted crash in the homebrew market as specified by the OP? Most retro gamers would rather buy the homebrews for the original system than a wannabe.

It relates because Coleco attends all the crashes.

[Andromeda Stardust]

It relates because Coleco attends all the crashes.

So does Atari. Nintendo must have done something right because since they got in the gaming business, we have not experienced another. I have a feeling the market for AAA titles may crash soon due to mobile though. Ironic also that many indie games, whether HD or faux pixellated, play and feel more like old school 8-bit and 16-bit era games then their modern AAA counterparts. Should modern consoles experience a second crash at the hands of mobile, it will only lead to a revival of interest in retro consoles.

[Schizophretard]

So does Atari.

It is in a Jaguar case.

[+Propane13]

So, does this thread mean that a few of the rock stars are moving on?

 

If so, that's kind of sad, but I understand.

 

Every few years, I give up Atari stuff for awhile, for various reasons. The older I get, the farther I feel removed from my childhood where the Atari really defined me. But, if it wasn't for Atari, I wouldn't be who I am today. So, I just need a break from time to time. I will say that I thought it was really exciting breaking into programming in the late 90's / early 2000's when people were new to it. At that time, there were so many secrets to unlock. It sort of made an "Atari Renaissance". The few people who programmed early-on in the homebrew community were the discoverers-- I can still remember when folks learned how to make their own carts by cannibalizing other ones, and how people did not really understand bank-switching. In those days, if you learned, you were a pioneer, and you shared your discoveries, which people would validate. Even the Atari 7800 had its own hurdles-- with the encryption piece, there was no way to put any code on real hardware, and there were no emulators at the beginning. Eventually, someone figured out how to get past encryption via a 4K "code drop" from another game, and then eventually the drives with the key on it were found. Finally, emulators caught up to hardware, so you could compile, program, and verify in just a few seconds.

 

Today, it's a different world. I think BoulderDash really pushed the envelope, almost as far as possible. I personally was very grateful for what was done on that project-- securing proper rights, etc. It was an amazing effort. The community should be proud. But now, what's left to do? We have PCB's at the ready, near-perfect emulation, basic tools, programmer guides and videos everywhere-- it's essentially very easy for someone to get started and make something, and that creation could be good or absolutely terrible. It's easier than ever to sell your creation, too. I don't feel like it was like that in the older days (it's odd to think of the late 90's / early 00's as the "older days"). In addition, back in those days, there were Holy Grail prototypes, and the community looked in wonder, chasing rumors. Compare that to today, when a lot of prototypes that were holy grails have been found and reproduced for people to play. It's a different time than it used to be.

 

I wonder if that's part of the reason that programmers are getting tired-- maybe it's not the new folks, but it's that it's now a different time. Maybe there's less of an envelope to push these days. Maybe there are no real new worlds to discover. Perhaps the hobby has hit its maximum point, and because of it, the floodgates are open for people to create what they want at the flick of a wrist. I really don't know where we can go from here.

 

So, I put forth the question-- are people really upset because modern coders are creating bad games in quick succession (and making money from them), or more that there's nothing left to discover, and that the possibilities of pioneering and sharing is so small at this point that it's a less fun hobby? If you take into account what people are doing currently, you may just be extending this disappointment, because a lot of the new games aren't new at all-- they're fast-buck grabs. There are few items out there that are exciting (hint: Ballblazer) when wading through the rest. Everybody's got to have a reason that the hobby is fun for them. If there's no burning questions left ahead, and no one to challenge those who have been there before, I wonder if that's the real reason that folks are getting tired.

 

-John

[Keatah]

Most retro gamers would rather buy the homebrews for the original system than a wannabe.

 

That's right.

 

 

Every few years, I give up Atari stuff for awhile, for various reasons. The older I get, the farther I feel removed from my childhood where the Atari really defined me. But, if it wasn't for Atari, I wouldn't be who I am today. So, I just need a break from time to time. I will say that I thought it was really exciting breaking into programming in the late 90's / early 2000's when people were new to it. At that time, there were so many secrets to unlock. It sort of made an "Atari Renaissance".

 

I think it is both these points.

 

As these times pass, people are beginning to rethink even having a collection. Hence all the downsizing threads.

[Keatah]

CROSSPOST:

 

I also want to add that's it's been one hella great run, building up a digital & emulation collection. I had high hopes it would become the easily manageable all-in-one machine I envisioned as a kid. A kid simply wanting to combine and consolidate all the videogames into one console. And after some 25 years it exceeded all the goals set for it. One small box containing all the classics. Beautifully archived and preserved for all future time.

 

The bulk of the repository is complete. And I'm putting it into maintenance mode. Standby mode, rather. A quiet time is approaching and I don't expect any major new categories to be opened. Consider it a closing of the door but still leaving the light on.

 

The twilight hours are upon us. Fast approaching is the time when arbitrary game X is played it will be the last.

[Jinks]

I think it takes more to truely impress people with the games being made today.

Many new games are new concepts with no nostalgia attached to them. This makes it harder for everyone to appreciate.

People many times enjoy things in groups and need approval of others to even give anything new a try(looking at ya like button facebook) The technical aspects of making these games seems pushed to the limit in stock form and people want a new wave of games in a new form be it a super 2600 cart, sgm or xm.

I played zippy 20 times yesterday and thought wow this is mind blowing when you think about the system specs and everything. It truely is a well put together game. I also wonder who is enjoying this game and why are people not giving reviews of it on this site and starting threads about how great it is? Is it that they dont take their collectable games out of the bag? I don't know but I am kinda wierd if it was me that made it some praise would be nice to see. The copies sold etc. would not really mean much considering people would buy a cart of a snowstorm if it was numbered and sold for 500 bucks. Hell they would buy 10 for that pos game and then tell everybody how hard core they are.

[Jinks]

The twilight hours are upon us. Fast approaching is the time when arbitrary game X is played it will be the last.

Fuck no. I quit my life hobby to be an atari gamer. I will have an atari on my deathbed.

[Keatah]

..I don't know but I am kinda wierd if it was me that made it some praise would be nice to see. The copies sold etc. would not really mean much considering people would buy a cart of a snowstorm if it was numbered and sold for 500 bucks. Hell they would buy 10 for that pos game and then tell everybody how hard core they are.

 

Exactly what happened with that Slow Year high-art crap. People payed hundreds for a limited edition cart which did nothing but show you blowing wind.

[CPUWIZ]

$500

[+iesposta]

There is a lot more to push in the Atari 2600.

When I joined this hobby, batari Basic DPC+ Kernel was finishing up. I made DK Arcade 2600 as my first game! (Okay it was a small group because my game logic would have been enemies move back and forth - simple.)

 

I think it really hurt batari that his efforts were ignored. Here is a framework to make 10 detailed multi-color players and a multi-color asymmetrical playfield, 2 balls and a missile and multi-color background. It had a few bugs, but everyone deemed it either not ready, or didn't wish to learn.

 

There have only been a few that use the Harmony as a logic coprocessor.

 

Bus Stuffing Kernels will let coders squeeze even more commands each scan line.

 

A finished Prototype for Xevious 2600 was just found -- and amazingly the rom was shared BEFORE a cartridge run.

 

I admit there is less programming discovery now than in the 2000's, but it will go on.

The first smooth 1 pixel horizontal playfield scroll was created. It is limited to regular CRT displays unfortunately. By regular I mean a Sony WEGA will attempt to fix what it sees as a not standard signal. A regular TV will just display the off signal, and the playfield will scroll 1 pixel horizontally. The Sony WEGA doesn't completely correct things so a 2-pixel horizontal scroll should be possible.

Would be great for Champ Games new Scramble 2600 to have options to select smooth scroll, and if that doesn't work, 2 pixel scroll, or regular full playfield 4 pixel scroll.

 

AtariAge store just released 14 new games in November 2015.

 

AtariVox+ is killer hardware for Man Goes Down, soon Wizard of Wor speech, high score saving and more.

[+iesposta]

Plus I am playing lots of the "true Trak-ball" hacked games of late 2015 early 2016.

Complete improvement all around, and frustrating games like Reactor and Star Wars The Arcade Game are a joy to play with mouse-pointer-like Trak-Ball control.

[Andromeda Stardust]

 

Exactly what happened with that Slow Year high-art crap. People payed hundreds for a limited edition cart which did nothing but show you blowing wind.

Like the annual 8-bit Xmas releases from RetroUSB? 2013 and 2015 were phenomenal single player games. The rest were just passable multiplayer minigames with festive lights and music.

[+Propane13]

I guess the issue I have with bus-stuffing kernels, etc is... when does it cease to be an Atari 2600 game?

Sure, it can play on the hardware, but all of the heavy lifting is no longer done by the system, but is instead done by external hardware.

 

However, I guess by that argument, BoulderDash wouldn't really count either (or even Pitfall 2, for that matter).

While things are getting more interesting with what can be done, I wonder if maybe it's "too far". I'm probably alone on that thought, but it does cross my mind occasionally.

 

Part of the reason I love the 2600 is that it's a pain to program for, yet people seem to be able to make something work on it, and sometimes, they're really, really cool games. When they do get something awesome to happen, I sit there in awe of their accomplishments. With hardware tools, a lot of those hurdles can be removed or circumvented, so while I'm more impressed from a hardware perspective, the software difficulty seems to no longer be part of the equation, which saddens me a little.

[eshu]

While things are getting more interesting with what can be done, I wonder if maybe it's "too far". I'm probably alone on that thought, but it does cross my mind occasionally.

 

You're not alone, but I take a very much each to his own attitude - I've said it before, but it's basically "homebrew hardware". It doesn't interest me to see what the 2600 can do outside the confines of what was around during it's lifetime, but that doesn't mean I'm not impressed with what people have done with DPC+ etc..

 

I really think people are being hasty to say that the 2600 has been pushed as far as it can go, based on "normal" bankswitching etc..

 

I'm afraid I'm going to refer to a bunch of my own incomplete projects, I'm not trying to show off but obviously I know how they work etc...

 

We only recently (in 2600 terms) got the 32 character routing going (see http://atariage.com/forums/topic/180632-32-character-text-display/?p=2281053),as the resp trick becomes better understood.

 

I've also been having a lot of fun with RAM kernels (some people call them self-modifying, but normally the modification is done outside of the actual kernel), I think theres still a lot of potential in this - see: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/195210-very-early-wip-of-something-ive-been-working-on-for-ages/and http://atariage.com/forums/topic/223257-arkanoid-2600/?p=2985254 - I think circus atariage employs similar techniques.

 

I started getting somewhere with the smooth scrolling playfield stuff ieposta mentions (see http://atariage.com/forums/topic/224946-smooth-scrolling-playfield-i-think-ive-done-it/) - tbh I got burnt out on it, will try to pick it up again once I have a CRT to test with....

 

Then theres also the great work RevEng has done on perceptual tuning and my own little contribution on just intonation - see http://atariage.com/forums/topic/247042-tia-perceptual-tuning/

 

All these are relatively recent, and I'd like to think have pushed the envelope just a little bit further...

Edited January 5, 2016 by eshu

[Thomas Jentzsch]

However, I guess by that argument, BoulderDash wouldn't really count either (or even Pitfall 2, for that matter).

It sure feeds my ego , that Boulder Dash is always mentioned when it comes to discussing extra hardware (DPC(+), ARM etc.). But Boulder Dash is written in pure, good old 650x assembler. Absolutely no extra hardware acceleration is used, just quite some extra RAM to be able to store and handle the big game area.

Edited January 5, 2016 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Propane13]

I stand corrected. Consider me shocked.

 

-John

[+KaeruYojimbo]

I guess the issue I have with bus-stuffing kernels, etc is... when does it cease to be an Atari 2600 game?

Sure, it can play on the hardware, but all of the heavy lifting is no longer done by the system, but is instead done by external hardware.

 

There will always be people who make this argument, and there will always be people who disagree.

 

Personally, I believe that if it plays on a stock VCS, it's a VCS game. And if someone creates a hardware add-on that allows more advanced games (like the Super Game Module for Colecovision), those will also be VCS games. Programmers in the 70's and 80's didn't limit themselves out of some sense of honor or set of rules stating what was a "true" VCS game. They made the best games they could with what they had and came up with ways to make better games and extend the commercial life of the system.

 

Homebrew is a little different, if only because the motivations are different. No one's livelihood depends on how many copies their game sells, but developers still want to make the best game they can. I don't really follow any other homebrew scenes, but I know they're out there for pretty much every console. And it seems pretty clear that having a hobbyist/homebrew life after the commercial life is the standard. The best way to keep those scenes alive is to keep making good games, regardless of how it's done.

[Mr SQL]

Some people say using bank-switching or Super Chip RAM is cheating, but I don't think it's cheating anymore than getting a RAM expansion board for the Altair bitd.

 

Of all the contemporary expansion hardware for the VCS I'm most impressed with the SuperCharger, it came out in 1982 and enabled 6K RAM games with enhanced graphics rivaling home computers. It also added a graphical OS with screen savers, a GUI help system and peripherals.

 

32-bit ARM games awesome but they cross the line as far as true 6502 Atari games go - likewise if you use an ARM coprocessor board for your Altair that's not vintage computing anymore; there are many perspective as to the retroness of the target hardware platform as well as the development and testing methodologies; ie, what constitutes modern computing.

 

And levels of understanding vary widley as per my initial example; indeed ARM games are not perceptibly different to many people than bank-switched games because both add extra hardware to the standard 1977 design; to the programmers who put the extra time in pushing the 6502 it's a different story

 

[+Random Terrain]

Part of the reason I love the 2600 is that it's a pain to program for, yet people seem to be able to make something work on it, and sometimes, they're really, really cool games. When they do get something awesome to happen, I sit there in awe of their accomplishments. With hardware tools, a lot of those hurdles can be removed or circumvented, so while I'm more impressed from a hardware perspective, the software difficulty seems to no longer be part of the equation, which saddens me a little.

Seems like a lot of people didn't know how hard it was to program the Atari 2600 back in the early 1980s. All they knew is that they had an Atari and they wanted to play games on it. I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't have cared if the programmers "programmed" by simply speaking to HAL 9000, describing what they want, and letting HAL do all of the hard work. One day an AI might really let us make games that way and I won't care as long as the games are fun, tested, and polished.

[CapitanClassic]

The dividing line between what is and isn't a VCS game is blurry. I suppose as long as the TIA is drawing to the TV screen, it is still a 2600 game. (I would suggest that a 32x game for Genesis is a 32x game, because the 32x does some of the drawing to the screen)

 

For example, of the top 10 best selling SNES titles, 3 have additional hardware support. (Mario Kart, Star Fox, SMW2:Yoshi's Island)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Super_NES_enhancement_chips#List_of_Super_NES_games_that_use_enhancement_chips

[+iesposta]

I stand corrected. Consider me shocked.

 

-John

As far as I know, a Bus Stuffing kernel, like the DPC's three channel in-tune sound on one of the Atari's 2 audio registers, are a software programming technique.

Using hardware like the DPC, DPC+, or the Harmony's ARM processor just removes some of that processing off the 6502 by preparing the data so the 6502 can grab and use the results without spending time itself to come up with the results.

 

In some analogies that is cheating, like using a calculator for a math test and not doing it in your head or on paper.

I understand admiration for purity, like something amazing in 4K.

But then there are too many banking schemes. Everything beyond 4K is cheating.

 

I don't like the term cheating. To me, cheating would be over-clocking, swapping the 6502 with some other processor, bypassing the TIA for another type of video card display output. Then it is no longer an Atari 2600.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

... swapping the 6502 with some other processor...

Hm, that's about what an ARM based game does.