What's the most advanced 2600 game?

[+Andrew Davie]

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

As a kid I was always impressed by VideoChess. All those complex rules and stuff! It was like artificial intelligence.

 

I wonder why a new and improved version hasn't been done yet?

 

Tempting. I wrote a 6502 chess program on my Atari 800 back in 1984 or so. My school project was a chess program, written in Pascal.

I used to be a huge, huuuge computer chess fan.

 

[+FujiSkunk]

Nowadays chess AI engines are coded separately from chess graphics engines.  You could go all out by building the chessboard rendering kernel, then creating a cartridge with an SD slot that lets you load different AI's.

[Keatah]

I would image that rendering a static chessboard is comparatively easy because it's free of time constraints unlike an action game. Also there's tons of memory available today and ways of accessing it compared to the 4k program of yesteryear.

 

Have it generate an 8 digit code to allow setup on another VCS. Or as a save-state.

 

Call it HyperChess, or SuperChess, or ViperChess..!

[+Nathan Strum]

RealSports Chess.

[Mr SQL]

7 hours ago, Andrew Davie said:

 

Tempting. I wrote a 6502 chess program on my Atari 800 back in 1984 or so. My school project was a chess program, written in Pascal.

I used to be a huge, huuuge computer chess fan.

 

Very cool Andrew! I was the president of the Chess club in school and also love the game (rated over 2000) but I had difficulty with the depth on programming attempts. I've seen programers like @nanochess write amazing Chess engines in less than 1K and was amazed by Peter Jennings MicroChess engine and Ron's more powerful 4K engine in the Fidelity Chess Challenger 7 that could use nearly all the space for the engine. I think that one rated at 1400 or over 1800, the Atari Chess engine is so impressive for rating about the same while still needing a big chunk of the 4K to render the board. 

3 hours ago, Keatah said:

I would image that rendering a static chessboard is comparatively easy because it's free of time constraints unlike an action game. Also there's tons of memory available today and ways of accessing it compared to the 4k program of yesteryear.

 

Have it generate an 8 digit code to allow setup on another VCS. Or as a save-state.

 

Call it HyperChess, or SuperChess, or ViperChess..!

I dunno - my favorite aspect of Video Chess is the mood tube effect on the screen. No other Chess does that.

[Polybius]

One that always stuck out to me was "Tunnel Runner" by CBS Electronics. Granted, it is a "Ram Plus" game that uses an additional chip to get it to 12k. still, the idea of a "3D", first person maze game on the Atari 2600 is still an incredible feat, especially in 1983.  Also, almost all of the Starpath games.  I would especially say " Escape from the Mind Master", which is another "3D" first-person maze crawler.  

 (Tunnel Runner, CBS, 1983)

 

(Escape from the MindMaster, Starpath, 1982) 

Edited October 16, 2019 by Polybius

[iesposta]

Fact is, Supercharger games are just 6K games played from a cart that is RAM, and those can have multi-load continuations.

The RAM space can be configured into different  ROM / RAM areas. 

 

If I’m missing anything more please tell. 

 

Escape From The Mindmaster is one of my top favorite games. 

[Mr SQL]

58 minutes ago, iesposta said:

Fact is, Supercharger games are just 6K games played from a cart that is RAM, and those can have multi-load continuations.

The RAM space can be configured into different  ROM / RAM areas. 

 

If I’m missing anything more please tell. 

 

Escape From The Mindmaster is one of my top favorite games. 

Right on it's just a 6K RAM board and we can't use all of it as RAM.

 

CBS "RAM Plus" give us just enough extra RAM that we could convert most of the SuperCharger games to CBS games and vice versa, Tunnel Runner and Escape from the Mindmaster are great examples of similar advanced graphics capabilities.

 

[Clint Thompson]

On 10/15/2019 at 10:35 AM, WolfAmongWolves said:

In the early 80s, I think the Imagic games were the most advanced. At the time many of their games just went a step beyond other publishers in terms of visual and aural details. Demon Attack is a prime example. The way the demons appeared, the pieces flying in from the left and right of the screen to form the complete creature accompanied by that scary whooshing noise just blew me away as a kid. Then, as you progressively shot the demons, the pitch of the music became higher and higher, adding a sense of urgency to the game. Compared to other shooters at the time it definitely stood out.

 

I also remember playing Laser Gates for the first time. Those epic explosions when you shot down the enemies in the tunnel, with glowing sparks flying in all directions and then fading, was unlike anything I'd seen up to that point. Each obstacle also had its own distinctive sound, so even with your eyes closed you could tell whether you were fighting a Byte Bat or a Homing Missile, or what type of force field you were coming up against. 

 

And finally Cosmic Ark: that huge scintillating spaceship descending from the top of the screen accompanied by that awesome warbling sound, the beasties that changed every two levels, and that escape shuttle that zipped away at the end of the game. 

You are so right about the Imagic games! Not only did they have a trademark designer box going for all of their releases but the majority of the games truly were amazing in comparison to most of the releases on the 2600. Funny you mention Laser Gates with the anxiety inducing sound tinkering up higher and higher, as that shared the same in Cosmic Ark as I remember it when the asteroids were coming at you from all sides.

 

Feel like Trick Shot deserves some attention as well. For what the game is, I can't imagine the wizardry required to pull it off on the 2600. The more I think about it, the more I realize I've probably spent more time on a few of the Imagic and Activision games than almost all of the others combined. Although the red label releases later in the 80s were also stellar and feel Garfield being a missed opportunity.