Legacy versus ARM-based 2600 Game Development

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 minute ago, FujiSkunk said:

If this debate leads to any of our wonderful programmers leaving the scene, regardless of whether they've embraced enhanced hardware or remain enthusiasts for the original technology, I would be very sad.

I would rather leave the scene when I cannot voice my opinions anymore.

[+FujiSkunk]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I would rather leave the scene when I cannot voice my opinions anymore.

Please pardon the misunderstanding.  I don't mean to say we shouldn't have this conversation.  I mean to say this conversation shouldn't devolve to the point where someone decides it's not worth hanging around anymore.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

On 1/12/2020 at 11:20 PM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Personally I tend to ignore such ignorant comments, but somehow they add up at the back of my mind. 

 

51 minutes ago, SpiceWare said:

I try to ignore those slights, but they linger in the back of the mind...

Looks like we have the same problem.  

[+Cafeman]

Inception. 

[AW127]

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Hi @AW127, I'm not sure why you're posting inciting messages like this about ARM-supported games. My guess is that your opinion is based on incomplete/wrong information, so let me try to give some more color to that.

 

 

Ah interesting. When somebody has different meaning than you or the majority here and tell about it, then this person here writes "inciting messages". But when you tell your opinion, than this is not inciting to anybody, right? Not inciting maybe to some programers of normal Atari-2600, which thinks like me for example? Interesting. Goodbye free speech then. But i thought, here anybody can tell his opinion as long as he dont offend anybody. Maybe this is not longer the case then. Shut up, when you think, that ARM-games are not normal Atari-2600 games then is the new slogan.

 

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

The only German people in this thread are you and Thomas, right? So when you refer to "these people", you basically mean Thomas. And I never heard Thomas say that ARM-supported games are "not real Atari 2600 games"; I know that in this thread Thomas brought up the magical cutoff year of 1983 (in that year both bank-switching and extra RAM were available, but Pitfall II wasn't released yet), but these are his personal self-imposed restrictions for writing '2600 games; just as every '2600 developer has his/her own set of self-imposed restrictions, otherwise we wouldn't be writing games for that old system.

I wrote a story which happened in a german forum and that the intereset of the people there, goes down drastically, when they heard, that the game is supported by a strong modern chip and not a normal Atari-2600 game. What has this to do with "Thomas" or anybody else here? I just told this story, that you can see, that i am by far not the only person which think this way and when german people here have a more differentiated meaning, then so it be. Here more a standardised-opinion seems to dominate when it comes to the ARM-support, or maybe some people do not dare, to write what they think in this point. But i know for sure, that also here, i am not alone with my meaning, for example from some personal messages or emails that i got.

 

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

If you don't mean to say you "hate" these games or "condemn" these programmers, then please don't use these words at all.

 

Which words exactly???? I am very keen to hear WHICH words exactly? Where are my offending words against ARM programers. SHOW me now, quote them, that i can see them now.

 

And i tell you again, i don't see why i should not have the right here, to tell my meaning. And when i am permanent attacked for this, i tell my meaning again and again then. And i never offended anybody.

 

But my meaning is clear and strong - a retro-system is defined through his normal technical limits. A ARM-game can be a very good game, but it is not longer a normal Atari-2600 game for me and that ARM-games wins the most prices in last year and are mostly named for best games, shows the unfairness against new normal Atari-2600 very clear. A doped sportsman fights against a clean sportsman in the same competition. But there should be a competition for ARM-games and a competition for normal-games and not mixed up. This is my meaning about this point. When you feel personally offended by this, then it is your thing.

 

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

And in this quote you're referring to newly released ARM-supported games (like Galagon) as "so-called Atari-2600 games". That sounds both really rude and ignorant.

 

In which way is "so-called Atari-2600 games" an insult or something like that? You can not expect from me, to call those games "normal Atari-2600" games when they have the help of a technical super-boost. Help from technic which had nothing to do with the normal Atari-2600 anymore. So, of course they are not normal Atari-2600 games anymore. They look better than any Atari-7800 game, how could they be normal Atari-2600 games then? They are limited in some facts, cause the Atari-2600 sets some limits which also ARM-supportes games then must comply with, but overall they have support from a super-boost. I don't say "stop with this games", but you can not expect, that i call them "normal Atari-2600 games".

 

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

Of course Galagon is a highlight on the '2600! Just as Draconian, Aardvark and Boulderdash to name a few. But we all know that these are homebrew games and were not released during the active life-span of the '2600. And yes, we nowadays have better software tools, better hardware, and better (shared) knowledge on the '2600, so comparing them with games from the '2600 heyday doesn't make much sense.

I appreciate every new homebrew game that's released for the '2600, no matter if it's using the original limits (4K ROM + 128 bytes RAM) or using extra ROM, RAM or co-processors.

 

I never said, that "Galagon", "Draconian", "Mappy" and all those games are NOT highlights. Of course they are. But i am getting stomach-pain when some day more ARM-games will come out, than normal Atari-2600 games and we are slowly on the way to this. Then only those games are named for "best games", getting all the prices and normal games will either completely disappear or will be very bad, cause programers think, "i can not win anything with my normal game anyway, why putting alot energy in it then." Then the Atari-2600, like it was, is dead. Maybe then we should call it Atari-26000 and giving it a higher number, that newbies can see from the beginning on: "Aaah those games are better than the ones on Atari-5200 and Atari-7800, cause the console has a higher number." Must be better technic then and true, the games really looks better.

 

6 hours ago, Dionoid said:

These C64 Super-CPU games you mention, require you to have a SCPU built into your C64, right? That means these SCPU games won't play on unmodified stock C64 machines, so that is where your comparison fails.

For me, using ARM chips as co-processor in the '2600 is a natural progression of the hardware. Quoting @Random Terrain:
"If you can plug a cartridge into an unmodified Atari VCS and play it, it's an Atari 2600 game. Doesn't matter if it has 20 gigabytes of RAM and a magical half-unicorn fairy living inside of the cartridge."

 

Sorry, but this is really nonsense. Only making it dependent from the point, if it is small enough to plug it inside a cartridge. You know, that also the C64 has game-cartridges, additionally to tapes and disks, right? Theoretically i could also put a SCPU directly inside such a game-cartridge. And then you think, it is okay, or what? But when the SCPU is plugged inside the C64-case instead and not directly in the game-cartdige, then it's not okay. *lol* This really makes no sense at all.

 

In the future, we will have alot cartridges like the RetroGen Adapter, which i mentioned before and also alot of machines, like the new "THEC64", which has the case of a normal C64, but inside works a software-emulator (VICE to be precise). The future technic will make alot of things possible and when i use all these then for my new game, then it is only fair, that this game then is NOT called "a normal ... game", whatever the retro-system is. Cause retro-systems are defined by their technical limits, this is, for what alot people love the retro-hardware. When there are no limits anymore, why then using the old systems at all? Where is the sense of this then? I also would not give alot money for a great oldtimer car, which looks from the outside like a great old famous car-model, when i would know, that it has the most modern motor of the newest Porsche or Ferrari model built inside and alot other modern technic too inside. Then i can buy a Porsche or a Ferrari from the beginning on and don't need to search for a oldtimer at all.

Edited January 24, 2020 by AW127

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Until now we had a very polite discussion, so please let us not get personal now. Thanks!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 minute ago, AW127 said:

I never said, that "Galagon", "Draconian", "Aardvark", "Mappy" and all those games are NOT highlights.

I take that as a compliment, but Aardvark is not an ARM game.

[AW127]

5 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I take that as a compliment, but Aardvark is not an ARM game.

*lol* I just mentioned exactly the same game-names, that "Dionoid" listed in his sentence before. Never played "Aardvark" until now, so i didn't knew. Okay then i delete "Aardvark". 

[AW127]

8 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Until now we had a very polite discussion, so please let us not get personal now. Thanks!

I was polite all the time, but after all those unfair attacks, i have enough and changed my tone as well.

[Mr SQL]

1 hour ago, AW127 said:

Ah interesting. When somebody has different meaning than you or the majority here and tell about it, then this person here writes "inciting messages". But when you tell your opinion, than this is not inciting to anybody, right? Not inciting maybe to some programers of normal Atari-2600, which thinks like me for example? Interesting. Goodbye free speech then. But i thought, here anybody can tell his opinion as long as he dont offend anybody. Maybe this is not longer the case then. Shut up, when you think, that ARM-games are not normal Atari-2600 games then is the new slogan.

Good point ...

7 hours ago, Dionoid said:

you're referring to newly released ARM-supported games (like Galagon) as "so-called Atari-2600 games". That sounds both really rude and ignorant.

It just means he doesn't consider them Atari games; the opinion is just as valid as yours and doesn't deserve the rude/ignorant insults or the curses that followed it from the other posters.

 

So I'll ask what do you think of all those "so-called Atari games" we wrote on other systems in the early 80's? The hardware was all commensurate for the timeframe and didn't include a modern processor to run the gameloop on, although some of those systems had a more powerful contemporary CPU and more RAM.

 

And what about Nolan's "so-called Atari games". Those include ARM games and also games on any platform under the sun provided the game is easy to play and difficult to master? I agree with that and don't consider ET an Atari game by that definition, and my definition is even more liberal since I think Double Dutch on the playground is an Atari game... 

[+splendidnut]

On 1/18/2020 at 2:00 AM, Thomas Jentzsch said:

What makes me wonder here on AtariAge is, that critical discussions are often perceived negative (some people even actively try to stall a discussion because they are afraid of that perceived negativity). We had the same problem with bB, where people thought that bB games got dismissed in general. Even after it had been made very clear multiple times by multiple people discussing that this is not the case. And the same is now happening with ARM games. And again, no one is against ARM games in general and this has been made very clear multiple times too. Still some people perceive the discussion like this.

 

I don't know if this is a cultural thing. I am from Germany and here we like(d?) to discuss the pros and cons open minded. And a discussion alone and exchanging arguments doesn't mean that one side is in favor in general and the other side is against in general. There is no simple black and white, reasonable discussions are about all kinds of shades of grey. And usually these shades are only regarding certain aspects of a topic and not the whole idea in general.

 

Maybe this is a cultural thing, I don't know. Or we have lost the ability to recognize nuances only lately (some general developments make me think so). Heck, if one would start a discussion about the pros and cons of boxed releases, I almost sure now that someone would come around and assume that the OP is against boxes in general.  

I think it's both a cultural thing and an issue with "Here comes everyone".   The social aspects of society have come so far in such a short period of time (mainly due to the internet), that we are all still trying to adjust to all the changes.  On top of that, almost everybody is on the internet now as opposed to 20 years ago when only the more technically inclined (and dare I say, more intelligent people) were.  So we have a huge, diverse group of people who think radically different who are trying to communicate with one another.

 

Most of the issues in this thread are because people are not taking the time to understand someone else's viewpoint and ask for clarification when necessary. 

[+splendidnut]

I will say that one of the more positive things that has happened in this community in the last few years has been @ZeroPage Homebrew 's show.  The crew there have done a great job at highlighting ALL the Atari 2600 homebrew games regardless of technology used.

[AW127]

15 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

I will say that one of the more positive things that has happened in this community in the last few years has been @ZeroPage Homebrew 's show.  The crew there have done a great job at highlighting ALL the Atari 2600 homebrew games regardless of technology used.

Of course. Nobody here in this thread will be another meaning in this point, for sure. Nobody ever demanded, that a certain kind of games, if arm-supported or not, should not be tested, not be made public or not be showed the general public. The discussion is more about the description of certain games and maybe about a better distinctness of all the game types and also about mixed-up competitions. At least from my side.

[christo930]

15 minutes ago, splendidnut said:

I will say that one of the more positive things that has happened in this community in the last few years has been @ZeroPage Homebrew 's show.  The crew there have done a great job at highlighting ALL the Atari 2600 homebrew games regardless of technology used.

I heard about this spat on that show.  I think they badly mischaracterized what was going on here and described it as "concern trolling"  It's become very common these days to characterize anyone who disagrees with you as some sort of troll.

 

People have differences in opinions.  It is impossible to discuss any difference if you assume your "opponent" is acting in bad faith.

 

Given the absolute reliance on the developers ZPH has, I just don't understand this attack on people who have differences of opinions especially given a contest.  I think it is much more arguable that in the context of a contest, the argument that they are different has a lot more merit.

 

[adamchevy]

I’m not a programmer of 2600 games(yet!) but I am nevertheless inspired to keep trying by all of the amazing Homebrew games I’ve played over the past 6 or 7 years.

I have always really enjoyed the open discussions here on Atariage about game creation and I hope it continues!

I’m sorry that some of the older developers feel that it’s not the same any more. I too get a bit frustrated when things change, but that’s inevitable with most things.

I do think that there is a lot of respect for Homebrew developers on the Atariage forums, and I think it will always stay this way. We wouldn’t have a continuation of this great hobby without you guys! Thanks so much for what you have done and continue to do. I hope you all have a great 2020! I look forward to seeing all of the new projects, and I hope to be able to support them with my pocket book.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

20 minutes ago, christo930 said:

I think they badly mischaracterized what was going on here and described it as "concern trolling" 

I was pretty upset about their very biased presentation of the topic.

[AW127]

18 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I was pretty upset about their very biased presentation of the topic.

What can you expect? When here in the thread some people threaten, that they will stop making new games, if discussions like this here goes on, then you can not expect, that a games-channel will be neutral in this point. They then automatically are against those things. I have never expected something else, if disappointing somehow or not, i don't care anyway. Never expected, that these channel-operators will see it from a neutral position.

Edited January 24, 2020 by AW127

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I won't speculate about James' motivation, but I am very sure that what you assume is not the case here. 

 

 

[hizzy]

I find this topic fascinating, but I'm afraid to contribute because my knowledge is not nearly as deep as many of the participants. Also, I don't want to alienate anyone. 

 

I don't see any method of programming to be superior or inferior. As someone said earlier, if it can play on a 2600 then it is a 2600 game. I've enjoyed the creations of Spiceware and Champ Games. What they are able to do is magic to me. I've been learning assembly and I find it cool. If I tend to talk about that more, or seem to prefer it, it's only because it's within my limited sphere of understanding.  I haven't tried bB, but I don't see why that would be considered inauthentic. If it produces a game that can play on the Atari, it's fine by me.

 

I don't see non-ARM games as an endangered species. Look at Easmith's games. That guy is pumping them out and they are super! My personal favorite of the last few years, Astronomer, isn't an ARM game. Everytime I say I'm going to stop playing, I end up playing five more rounds. Astronomer looks like it was made 40 years ago. Why do I keep going back? The concept is addictive.

 

I'm trying to not let programming get in the way of playing. I used to translate films from French, Mandarin, and Russian. When I would watch movies at home to relax, I spent more time thinking about how I would translate a line differently instead of actually watching the movie. It kind of ruined cinema for me. I don't want that to happen to me in regards to my Atari fun. 

 

I will end with this: This discussion has got me thinking more about game concepts and less about the various programming methods. When you hit upon a good idea for a game, that is what makes the game. The presentation is worthless if the end result isn't entertaining. This is what I appreciate most right now - the imagination it takes to actually put these things together and make them fun. Kudos to you all

[Keatah]

I've said it before, if it fits in the slot it's a VCS game. Many local friends agree too. And then of course you have SNES games that use in-cart processors - not unlike MB's MicroVision, too.

 

As a kid I didn't think about processors in a cart. I was "locked into" the concept of one processor per system. And the cost also prohibited me from even thinking of thinking about CPUs in carts. But I *did* muse over extra RAM and ROM and specialized logic gates to control and "map out" memory or move chunks of it around. Think very simple stripped-down DPC. I even wondered about having controller ports on the carts for special analog controls or for things more complex than a simple 8-way stick. Thought about lights and speakers and other nebulous do-dads.

 

Great times when we naive and just enjoyed the games and competitions.

 

BTW ..and if we did differentiate back in the day (we did) it would have been "against" the SuperCharger. We all called them SuperCharger games. Not Atari games. Not VCS games. But SuperCharger games. It was almost its own platform. And they had their own section on my wall of carts.

 

I tend to recall the separation was because of the style of the game, the extra depth of the game rules, the higher resolution graphics, and the fact we had to use the SuperCharger + cassette player. It had little or nothing to do with the internal hardware of the SC itself. We didn't care about it other than the coolness factor because of more and bigger chips inside.

 

 

Edited January 24, 2020 by Keatah

[+Andrew Davie]

1 hour ago, christo930 said:

I heard about this spat on that show.  I think they badly mischaracterized what was going on here and described it as "concern trolling"  It's become very common these days to characterize anyone who disagrees with you as some sort of troll.

 

People have differences in opinions.  It is impossible to discuss any difference if you assume your "opponent" is acting in bad faith.

 

Given the absolute reliance on the developers ZPH has, I just don't understand this attack on people who have differences of opinions especially given a contest.  I think it is much more arguable that in the context of a contest, the argument that they are different has a lot more merit.

 

While I do think ZPH is doing a wonderful job showing and sharing homebrews...  I also watched that particular discussion and thought they did a woeful and misrepresented job of presenting the situation. I was appalled, to be honest, at their classification of people with a different viewpoint as "gatekeeper trolls". 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

While I do think ZPH is doing a wonderful job showing and sharing homebrews...  I also watched that particular discussion and thought they did a woeful and misrepresented job of presenting the situation. I was appalled, to be honest, at their classification of people with a different viewpoint as "gatekeeper trolls". 

 

50 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I was pretty upset about their very biased presentation of the topic.

I think you're both absolutely right, I was hesitant to bring up this discussion on the show and my instincts said to stay out of it, I should have listened to them. Thank you for the feedback!

 

- James

[CapitanClassic]

23 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

I was pretty upset about their very biased presentation of the topic.

I agree that I don’t think anyone commenting on this thread was Concern Trolling (definition: To pretend to ally with a viewpoint, while secretly being against that viewpoint and voicing concerns).

 

The people voicing concerns that ARM games aren’t properly labeled as Atari 2600 ARM supported games have been vehemently arguing that non-ARM games shouldn’t be compared to them rather then pretending to be on the same side as people who believe ARM games are just an extension of technological advancements that come with 40+ years.

 

I think ZPH might have overreacted because the discussion has lead to some great 2600 developers indicating that similar comments have made them want to quit the community.

 

While I side with RT that I’d it plugs into the slot and is displayed on the TV it’s an Atari 2600 game, and I have a hard time understanding the argument that extra-ram / co-processors / better tools somehow stop it from being an Atari game, those people are entitled to have that opinion. I also understand some developers challenging themselves and restricting themselves to 4K (or less) and coming up with some unique games like NoRAM Pong and RAM Pong. Or writing only in 6502 assembly, or challenging themselves to make the best game possible on the Atari’s meager resources by using ARM assistance.

 

Games like NES Doom have modified my opinion of what an Atari 2600 game is from a developer viewpoint. NES Doom doesn’t qualify as an NES game, because the game didn’t have to be rewritten for the NES. The real work was developing the driver that converts the output of the RaspberryPi to a format that the NES’s picture processing unit can display. Once that was done, anything that runs on the RasPi now runs on the NES.

 

The wonderful thing about something like SpiceC is that a game can be written in C and be more easily ported to multiple platforms, rather than trudging along in 6502 assembly and having to rewrite the game extensively if you want to port it to other platforms. (A question for the developers here: How difficult is it to port your Atari 2600 assembly game to other platforms like the Atari 400/800, C64, or NES? I figure since the Audio/Graphical hardware is so different between the platforms that the majority of the code has to be rewritten anyway. I would figure that a800 shouldn’t be too different though since it supports a ball, 4player/4missile (although my understanding is it supports multiple graphic modes and many games have to constantly switch between those modes to draw the screen. I.e. MULE uses character mode to write text at the bottom of the screen, but uses one of the other graphics modes to display the plots)

 

For developers who have written in bBasic, or DCP+, and 6502 assembler, does developing the game using those other frameworks feel the same as writing 6502 assembly? I get the feeling you still need to be very cognizant of the TIA’s ability to only output two players, two missiles, and a ball per scanline. If that is the case, then bBasic/DCP+/ARM games would still feel very much like developing a game for the Atari 2600 using only 6502 assembler.

[Mr SQL]

7 minutes ago, Andrew Davie said:

While I do think ZPH is doing a wonderful job showing and sharing homebrews...  I also watched that particular discussion and thought they did a woeful and misrepresented job of presenting the situation. I was appalled, to be honest, at their classification of people with a different viewpoint as "gatekeeper trolls". 

X3, agree the ZeroPage crew should not be calling anyone trolls - now I'm not going to release my new ARM game until they apologize; ok they did just as I was typing this good I'll be releasing this one in France on schedule then as Berzerk Friendly Fire - I thought it was a cool pun for game to bear ARMS; there are actually twin processors in the special cart but it's not a double ender. One processor handles the sound like the DPC chip in Pitfall II, and the other faster processor runs the gameloop in ARM assembly so there is enough time to render game through the TIA:

 

Can you spot the fake? I added a tape loading intro to this to pretend it was done with 6K SuperCharger graphics, but a lot of people are able to clearly spot it as game all about ARMS...

 

 

[RevEng]

2 hours ago, CapitanClassic said:

For developers who have written in bBasic, or DCP+, and 6502 assembler, does developing the game using those other frameworks feel the same as writing 6502 assembly? I get the feeling you still need to be very cognizant of the TIA’s ability to only output two players, two missiles, and a ball per scanline. If that is the case, then bBasic/DCP+/ARM games would still feel very much like developing a game for the Atari 2600 using only 6502 assembler.

There are commonalities between writing in bB vs 6502 assembly, but on the balance it's a different experience.

 

The bB-only coder will never know the joy of squeezing as many features as possible into 76 cycles, to max out a display kernel. Honestly, it's a hoot when you don't think you can make things fit the way you want, and then you figure out how to squeeze in some important update right before it's needed, by splitting it across less critical parts of the 76. You're also less constrained in assembly by those two players, two missiles, and a ball, since you have freedom to reuse them in different horizontal parts of the screen.

 

You write a heck of a lot more lines of code in assembly language than you do in bB, code patterns are less visually obvious, and being at a lower level means you need to deal with one more layer of abstraction in your thinking. As a result you spend a lot more time doing the long long grind of polishing the game. If that long long grind conjures up romantic images, you probably have the wrong picture. bB coding on the whole is more of an even keel, and it's usually wrapped up quicker.