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Rikki & Vikki


TailChao

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11 hours ago, TailChao said:

Nah, Ocean State Job Lot.

 

 

Sure, but I think these consoles already have great libraries which explore the nuances of their respective hardware. While it's always possible to bring something new to a platform, I was hoping there'd be enough interest in the ones that weren't - which is also why we made the game available on Steam, with significant effort behind that.

 

The target was always "a new game which also happens to be available on the for old hardware" rather than "a game which you should buy because it's on old hardware" - We had a few cases where players on Steam finished the game and enjoyed it without knowing it was even on the 7800, that was the point I wanted to make.

 

 

I've followed Morphcat's work for years and think they did an incredibly good job with Micro Mages. Everything on this, including the game content, Kickstarter campaign, and "educational video" were all tip-top. To be honest, I think they also had a way better product than us.

 

 

Here's the thing, we weren't defining success based upon the number of cartridges sold - but rather how many copies were moved on Steam. I discussed this a few pages back, but it was completely infeasible to profit exclusively from the cartridge sales unless we were charging several hundred dollars per unit. This was not due to hardware costs, plastics, or packaging - but the investment in the game software. We were trying to offer something competitive with similarly priced titles on Steam. Having the cartridges available through more outlets would probably move tens of units, not thousands.

 

To be blunt : we needed 8,000 - 10,000 full priced downloads before August of this year in order to continue. I don't mean to belittle anyone else's work, but this is the cost of doing software development full time rather than as a hobby and paying your collaborators barely above minimum wage.

If you are able to make conversion to

1) IOS

2) Android

 

- one or both -

 

 and get some rumour going, methinks you may suddenly get some larger numbers of downloads.

 

I don’t what program-language was used, or what it would take to make it available for IOS and Android, but at least I would guess the grfx and sound would not be very hard to port.

 

On IOS there has been a ton of retro-style games put out.

 

Just a few thoughts.

Edited by Giles N
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Just a reminder for anyone concerned about audio mixing with A/V modifications and the different variations of the 7800 hardware - the game supports two sound effects volumes and has a knob for adjusting the music volume. Check out the Troubleshooting section of the F.A.Q. for details and a link to 8-Bit Guy's demonstration.

 

The only consoles which have documented issues with expansion audio are the Peritel 7800s.

 

14 hours ago, Shawn said:

Yep, including things like an MP3 decoder :)

Or 8-Track Expansion Deck.

 

 

9 hours ago, Giles N said:

If you are able to make conversion to

1) IOS

2) Android

 

- one or both -

 

 and get some rumour going, methinks you may suddenly get some larger numbers of downloads.

Our only target for another port would have been the Nintendo Switch, which is a much better fit for the title than smartphones. Again, the game has been out for nearly a year and we've not been able to get enough interest or support to continue. There is no reason to further invest in something which is, despite our best efforts, unable to generate sales.

 

There was little interest from news sites in covering the game, it was not a product people wanted to buy, this is not happening.

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1 hour ago, TailChao said:

 

 

Or 8-Track Expansion Deck.

 

 

I made a little add on that uses the expansion port to power an MP3 decoder to add the atari jingle to the bios start up of the 7800. When I try to use the audio in line from the expansion port I found it didn't play nice. As soon as the audio in line was engaged it seemed to want video as well as it killed the native video signal but did keep the audio. Weather or not that is exactly what is going on I'm not sure and didn't bother putting the time into figuring it out. What I ended up doing was using a mini laptop speaker inside the expansion box as pictured below. It provided more then enough volume to execute the idea successfully. For a gutted LED lightbox as a shell from the dollar store, a cut down IDE female connector with added header pins, an mp3 decoder board with an sd card attached and a prototyping pcb tying it all together it turned out better than expected for a little one off trinket device. Lot's of other options to expand on the idea for sure. Including and 8-track as you mentioned :) One thing I made sure of was that it didn't draw too much power from the 7800. This device only draws 170ma total.

 

DSCF9595.JPG.6da807999d0bce15038db406024845d5.JPG

 

 

 

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22 hours ago, Shawn said:

I made a little add on that uses the expansion port to power an MP3 decoder to add the atari jingle to the bios start up of the 7800. When I try to use the audio in line from the expansion port I found it didn't play nice. As soon as the audio in line was engaged it seemed to want video as well as it killed the native video signal but did keep the audio. Weather or not that is exactly what is going on I'm not sure and didn't bother putting the time into figuring it out.

I can think of two reasons for this...

  1. If you were lowering the EXTMEN pin, this disables Maria entirely - allowing an external device to drive her Y/C outputs.
  2. The signal amplitude strong enough to mess with the video - running it through a small capacitor and resistor (as the TIA and Cartridge Audio are) may have helped.

 

22 hours ago, Shawn said:

What I ended up doing was using a mini laptop speaker inside the expansion box as pictured below. It provided more then enough volume to execute the idea successfully. For a gutted LED lightbox as a shell from the dollar store, a cut down IDE female connector with added header pins, an mp3 decoder board with an sd card attached and a prototyping pcb tying it all together it turned out better than expected for a little one off trinket device. Lot's of other options to expand on the idea for sure.

Definitely, and that's a pretty neat way to use it.

 

The expansion port isn't very good for actual... uh, expansion of the hardware's capabilities. However, it does allow hijacking its video and audio output. You can effectively shut off the whole 7800 with EXTMEN, RDY, and OSCDIS and use it as a glorified switchbox. So if you want to combine a 7800 and 5200 into one nasty package, that's a way to do it.

 

Although I'm partial to what's available in the cartridge slot ;).

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3 hours ago, TailChao said:

I can think of two reasons for this...

  1. If you were lowering the EXTMEN pin, this disables Maria entirely - allowing an external device to drive her Y/C outputs.
  2. The signal amplitude strong enough to mess with the video - running it through a small capacitor and resistor (as the TIA and Cartridge Audio are) may have helped.

 

 

Ya I tried using a resistor in line to avoid the issue and also tried bypassing the tiny pre-amp on the decoder board but I didn't put a lot of time into it as I mentioned. It was just a quick little project to do "something" with the expansion port for fun. :) I think your first suggestion may be the more likely culprit.

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19 hours ago, funknflow5200 said:

man, this pains me greatly to read! This game is TOP NOTCH and a must have across all platforms. I still hope you are looking at a Switch release. I think (besides the 7800) it is the perfect platform for this platformer.

Unfortunately no, the only thing I'm looking into is employment.

 

I'll continue to maintain the 7800 and Windows versions, but that'll probably be the extent of it.

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On 11/20/2019 at 3:08 PM, TailChao said:

.

 

 

Our only target for another port would have been the Nintendo Switch, which is a much better fit for the title than smartphones. Again, the game has been out for nearly a year and we've not been able to get enough interest or support to continue. There is no reason to further invest in something which is, despite our best efforts, unable to generate sales.

 

There was little interest from news sites in covering the game, it was not a product people wanted to buy, this is not happening.

How did you experience the response from the Atari community?

 

Even though it may be difficult to obtain revenue from selling for a retro-console, how have you experienced the interest/demand/respond from

7800 owners/enthusiasts?

Edited by Giles N
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15 hours ago, Jinks said:

All the best on your job hunt. 

Thanks :)

 

8 hours ago, Giles N said:

How did you experience the response from the Atari community?

 

Even though it may be difficult to obtain revenue from selling for a retro-console, how have you experienced the interest/demand/respond from

7800 owners/enthusiasts?

I don't know of any measurably large Atari community outside of this one, so we'll go with that.

 

Based upon where sales and chatter were coming from, I'm under the impression that most of it was from outside the usual AtariAge gang. People who either had no experience with the 7800, or had one but weren't actively using it (i.e. weren't buying homebrews from the AtariAge store). Not that there was zero interest here, far from it, just the majority of discussion and sales were outside.

 

This was somewhat desired, since it wasn't possible to fund another game based just upon the cartridge sales - we needed to move units on Steam.

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4 hours ago, TailChao said:

Thanks :)

 

I don't know of any measurably large Atari community outside of this one, so we'll go with that.

 

Based upon where sales and chatter were coming from, I'm under the impression that most of it was from outside the usual AtariAge gang. People who either had no experience with the 7800, or had one but weren't actively using it (i.e. weren't buying homebrews from the AtariAge store). Not that there was zero interest here, far from it, just the majority of discussion and sales were outside.

 

This was somewhat desired, since it wasn't possible to fund another game based just upon the cartridge sales - we needed to move units on Steam.

So how much did you sell on Steam by end of August (if I may ask)?

 

Anyway, does the 7800 version comes in both NTSC and PAL versions?

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4 hours ago, Giles N said:

So how much did you sell on Steam by end of August (if I may ask)?

 

Anyway, does the 7800 version comes in both NTSC and PAL versions?

That is: will the same cartridge work on both a PAL console and a NTSC console, or will there be one for PAL and another for NTSC?

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19 hours ago, Giles N said:

So how much did you sell on Steam by end of August (if I may ask)?

These numbers are available a few pages back.

 

14 hours ago, Giles N said:

That is: will the same cartridge work on both a PAL console and a NTSC console, or will there be one for PAL and another for NTSC?

It's a single cartridge which works in both regions.

 

13 hours ago, Theallknowingsause said:

Why didn't you sell it on the atari age store?

I offered and there was no interest.

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14 hours ago, Theallknowingsause said:

Why didn't you sell it on the atari age store?

 

55 minutes ago, TailChao said:

I offered and there was no interest.

 

I'm not going to pretend I know enough about the workings of a store for homebrew game titles to know if that was a good or bad call... but my initial response is to scold Albert cartoon mom-style. You know, where you can only see their legs & the bottom of an dress/apron? "Al-bert! What do you think you're doing?!" ?

 

I hope you're able to get back into game development sometime. I didn't find out about Rikki & Vikki until this year, but it's so bloody fantastic I'm now looking at overpriced copies of Zaku on Ebay just to see what else you've done (on that note- anybody got a copy of Zaku for sale? I'm interested!)

 

Perhaps I'll message the LoadingReadyRun folks & see if they'd accept a gifted Steam copy to play on Twitch. Couldn't hurt. If only I knew how to get ahold of the Game Grumps...

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Glad to hear copies are arriving safely.

 

2 minutes ago, HoshiChiri said:

I'm not going to pretend I know enough about the workings of a store for homebrew game titles to know if that was a good or bad call... but my initial response is to scold Albert cartoon mom-style. You know, where you can only see their legs & the bottom of an dress/apron? "Al-bert! What do you think you're doing?!" ?

Haha, well it's his prerogative regarding what is and isn't featured. Zaku wasn't sold or heavily promoted through AtariAge, either - and technically we're selling a competing product, so no hard feelings.

 

 

2 minutes ago, HoshiChiri said:

I hope you're able to get back into game development sometime. I didn't find out about Rikki & Vikki until this year, but it's so bloody fantastic I'm now looking at overpriced copies of Zaku on Ebay just to see what else you've done (on that note- anybody got a copy of Zaku for sale? I'm interested!)

I'm not leaving game development entirely, but rather won't be investing as much time in it. I was able to pursue Rikki & Vikki because the scope of the project was small enough that it could be shipped without relying on external funding, and the mechanics were unique enough to justify the investment. That combination is extremely rare.

 

I have a lot of difficulty looking back at Zaku, some of the content was added when I was 14 - 15 and had zero experience. So I can't say whether or not the price is worth it, haha.

 

 

2 minutes ago, HoshiChiri said:

Perhaps I'll message the LoadingReadyRun folks & see if they'd accept a gifted Steam copy to play on Twitch. Couldn't hurt. If only I knew how to get ahold of the Game Grumps...

Definitely, and it's appreciated!

 

Watching streamers play the game (popular or not) has actually been one of the best parts of this project. You can see what works and doesn't for a variety of players, a perfect focus test where you're not in the room. There's a lot of things I would design differently now based upon these observations.

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4 hours ago, TailChao said:

I offered and there was no interest.

What the heck? Your game is hands down the best game for the Atari 7800! And after release already had some great reviews, I don't understand why they wouldn't want to support your excellent game >:O

Edited by Theallknowingsause
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19 minutes ago, Theallknowingsause said:

What the heck? Your game is hands down the best game for the Atari 7800! And after release already had some great reviews, I don't understand why they wouldn't want to support your excellent game >:O

This is pure guessing so keep that in mind. Albert makes all this by hand. I'm assuming he would have been more invested in something someone else put together which means more money in it on his part with no guarantee of sales.

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I'd rather not make assumptions about why the game wasn't supported. It could have simply been forgotten among other products - and at this point it's irrelevant.

 

To be 100% clear : I do not feel it was or is AtariAge's responsibility to promote or feature any game in their store, ours was no exception.

Edited by TailChao
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3 hours ago, TailChao said:

I'd rather not make assumptions about why the game wasn't supported. It could have simply been forgotten among other products - and at this point it's irrelevant.

 

To be 100% clear : I do not feel it was or is AtariAge's responsibility to promote or feature any game in their store, ours was no exception.

I think you and AtariAge easily could make win-win deals.

 

Both you and Albert have contributed a lot to Atari-retro-gaming...

 

Could come to think of many interesting prospects or ideas...

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7 hours ago, TailChao said:

 

 Zaku wasn't sold or heavily promoted through AtariAge, either - and technically we're selling a competing product, so no hard feelings.

 

I'm not leaving game development entirely, 

 

I have a lot of difficulty looking back at

Zaku,

some of the content was added when I was 14 - 15 and had zero experience. So I can't say whether or not the price is worth it, haha.

 

Zaku?

 

Is that another 7800 game?

 

Or a game for another retro-console?

 

(I mean since Atari and AtariAge are mentioned)?

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1 hour ago, Giles N said:

I think you and AtariAge easily could make win-win deals.

 

Both you and Albert have contributed a lot to Atari-retro-gaming...

 

Could come to think of many interesting prospects or ideas...

I am not interested in pursing anything at this time or further discussing the matter.

 

To be 100% clear, again : if we were to "make a win-win deal" this would have had to happen over half a year ago. It did not, and I am no longer willing to put an ancient pile of transistors in front of my own well being. I understand you're enthusiastic about the 7800, but please understand that when I say "it is not happening" it means "it is not happening" - period.

 

 

1 hour ago, Giles N said:

Zaku?

 

Is that another 7800 game?

 

Or a game for another retro-console?

Zaku was a title for the Atari Lynx which was published by Super Fighter Team in 2009. I was also the lead on that project.

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25 minutes ago, TailChao said:

I am not interested in pursing anything at this time or further discussing the matter.

 

To be 100% clear, again : if we were to "make a win-win deal" this would have had to happen over half a year ago. It did not, and I am no longer willing to put an ancient pile of transistors in front of my own well being. I understand you're enthusiastic about the 7800, but please understand that when I say "it is not happening" it means "it is not happening" - period.

 

 

Zaku was a title for the Atari Lynx which was published by Super Fighter Team in 2009. I was also the lead on that project.

Ok, actually - as I’m also in a place in my life where I have to prioritize time and energy, I really do think I understand you.

 

Let me say; I’ve only been on AtariAge for about 6-7 months or so, so I’m not aquainted with everything thats been going on.

 

For me this is ‘hobbyism’ (ie. relaxation and fun-time), and I totally understand that life has its priorities.

 

And if this is about your wellbeing, I’m actually sorry if I came across as ‘pushy’.

 

That was not (!) my intention

 

I wish you all the best whatever you pursue or do.

 

?

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