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Imagic -- No games for the 5200?


SoundGammon

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1 hour ago, SoundGammon said:

I've always wondered why Imagic never made games for the 5200.

 

They did Demon Attack and Atlantis for the 8-bits, which were converted to the 5200.

 

Anyone ever ask the guys who worked there why?

This could be one of those "game crash era" debates... I mean, take Activision and maybe Parker bros out of the equation and there wasn't many 3rd party games period for the 5200...

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Imagic did produce a few games for the Atari 400/800 computers: in addition to Atlantis and Demon Attack, there were also (by way of the 1-2-3 pack) Wing War, Quick Step, and Laser Gates.  It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so.  Someday I'd like to collect all five games into one album cartridge for the 5200.

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7 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

Imagic did produce a few games for the Atari 400/800 computers: in addition to Atlantis and Demon Attack, there were also (by way of the 1-2-3 pack) Wing War, Quick Step, and Laser Gates.  It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so.  Someday I'd like to collect all five games into one album cartridge for the 5200.

Well perhaps now would be the time to provide Big Sexy owners these games for them, and since Imagic wouldn't do it, maybe one of you guys can do it for them!!! @Wrathchild, or @tep392, are either of you guys up to it, do you feel kinda 5200 "sexy" (as in "Big Sexy") right about now??? This wasn't ME asking this time, this was our fellow Atarians, so please, for them, how about it!!!

Laser Gates.xex Quick Step.xex Wing Wars.xex

Edited by BIGHMW
correct wrong punctuation mark
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9 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

It would have been relatively easy to produce 5200 versions as well, but perhaps they decided there wasn't enough of a market to release them—or, perhaps their own money troubles by that time prevented them from doing so.

 

But they were releasing new games for the Odyssey 2 in 1983, which had next to no market at that point.

And they did pick up ColecoVision which was getting a few games as late as 1984.

 

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The Odyssey2 may have had little market share in 1982/83 but it had a larger install base.  More importantly it exceeded the one million units mark which was a cutoff for some publishers.  If Atari hadn't cancelled the 5200 in 1984 it might have gotten more third party cartridges that year.

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Maybe it was as simple as being redundant. The 5200 couldn't really do anything more or better than the 400/800. At least that's how us kids saw it back then. The analog controllers were a moot point even if they provided better control in some games. They were just so unreliable and overall frustrating. Back then I must have gone through 6 extra controllers. It seemed the side buttons were the first to go.

 

@mr_me

Indeed the million mark was a real turning point for publishers. At the same time, however, the industry was still very new. I would like to have seen a lower barrier of maybe 500,000.

 

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Your mileage may vary with these quick conversions. Both were new to me, so no nostalgia and I can't get into playing either of them.

 

I like that Wing Wars keeps everything very simple (no scrolling, basic P/Ms) but it does the job OK. I changed the controls so the second trigger launches a fireball, no need to hold the joystick down. There is some impressive programming in Quick Step where it changes colour registers on the fly each scanline so that every individual item of food has a totally independent colour.

ww.bin qs.bin

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Little issue, involving the alternate fire button on my 7800 CX24 stick I use through Redemption, it seems not to work, I read the PDF of the 2600 game and know more about how to play it but is there a glitch or did my one and only fully-working CX24 stick I use as a digital alternative to the CX52 go out on me, must be those dreaded pop-o-matic fire buttons again, same thing that killed the others. :( 

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(for @playsoft, as I was unable to PM him)

 

Dear Paul,

 

Thanks for making Wing War and Quick Step for the 5200, but I DO have a special request in which is also somewhat 8-bit-to-5200 port-related.

 

I am having a controller problem with the 5200 version of Asteroids, it seems like there just isn't enough 'dead zone' in it in order to separate going from one direction to another, she has tendencies of being "off-center" and has been known for not having the most stable of control like the 8-bit version does. I never have this problem with other similarly-controlled games (like Star Island, Megaoids, Delta Space Arena, and even Meteorites) in which seem to be more stable.

 

I also know that if it really came down to which ONE system to own if I could only have one, it would be the 5200. With games like Ryan Witmer's brilliant IntelliDiscs, your terrific 8-bit-to-5200 conversion of Yar's Strike you did for us last year, as well as Tempest, Qix, Hangly-Man, Beef Drop, and the Mean Hamster Software titles among others it seems like it's a slam dunk to stick with Big Sexy.

 

So for me to keep my 5200 running great, I just wanted to ask you to if maybe you can please fix the controller problem with Asteroids, I am including both the (somewhat faulty) 5200 port as well as the 8-bit original version and I hope that maybe you can fix the problem with the centering and with the over-sensitivity she has. She plays great except for the controller issue, once that's fixed then she would be PERFECT as she would've been the original pack-in game back in 1982 if not for the control issues.

 

Thanks, and have a great week!!!

 

Ray Jackson

AtariAge user ID: BIGHMW

Host of The Atari Report

Asteroids.bin Asteroids.xex

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Ray,

 

The Asteroids code keeps track of the lowest and highest values it reads from each POT. It splits this range into quarters so that a value in the first quarter is up/left and a value in the last quarter is down/right. The other 2 quarters form the dead zone, which is 50% of the range, which ought to be enough.

 

A perfectly operating POT would give values in the range $00 to $E4. You probably won't get that but you want the range centred around the mid-point. The CX52 I have plugged in a the moment reads $0F/$CE/$09/$D7 when fully up/down/left/right.

 

Run the attached cal.bin to see what values you are getting from your controller.

cal.bin

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10 hours ago, bohoki said:

i guess they didnt feel they sold enough units to make it worth while they made plenty of games for the c64

 

demon attack,moonsweeper,dragonfire,chopperhunt,nova blast

Yes it looks like Quick Step and Wing Wars were both written for cart but ended up on a compilation disk, so it seems they were cutting their losses on the Atari 8-bit computers.

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