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PentaGo


darryl1970

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37 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

I don't necessarily want a full CIB for every great homebrew, but I *do* want to support the authors. Hell, I'd Paypal money tomorrow (*) if I could get the full ROMs for this, Popeye and a bunch of others from different folks. Champ Games is already doing digital downloads for their 2600 games. I seriously hope Albert gets something similar for AA Store games too. I don't have infinite storage space for pretty boxes, and even "just" a bare cart can become burdensome once you have a few hundred of them. With POKEYs being so expensive, and HOKEY not quite ready for prime time, a digitally-signed ROM download would be perfect for me, especially for games I don't have a deep emotional attachment to but just happen to really like.

 

(*) tomorrow is a metaphor. Realistically, it means, "next payday," and that's still about 9 days away, but you get the idea. :)

$2.99 would rule. I think that is what Unholy is selling for.

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8 minutes ago, Yurkie said:

$2.99 would rule. I think that is what Unholy is selling for.

That's lower than I think most good games are worth as digital downloads, to be honest. $9.99 - $14.99 would be in line with what I think people would pay without a whole lot of self-doubt and over-thinking. There's a psychology to pricing, in addition to a fairness factor. If a boxed game costs $60 - 75, the premium is the box, the packaging, the printed 4-color manual and inserts, the physical cart, the PCB and components, etc., PLUS something for the developer. For those who have the ability to play the game as intended WITHOUT the need for the cart/PCB/components, etc. plus the effort to package it all up and ship it, we still need to fairly compensate the guy who actually wrote the game and made all the fun possible. Champ is selling his games for $20 which is - I think - on the upper edge of "easy buy" for most people for something as intangible and ephemeral as a digital-only 2600 game, but it appears to be working for him so maybe that's a better price point than I think. I dunno. 


Either way, I'd buy a digital PENGO if I could. :) 

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On 11/9/2021 at 9:38 AM, Silver Back said:

I have a question. If I buy a digital release of this game or any other, am I then allowed to order a custom cart from the Atari age store and have the binary placed on the cart?  
 

obviously if a boxed copy is produced or going to be produced it wouldn’t be needed, I’m mostly ask about a digital only type release. 

Best to just message Albert and ask. I believe I have read on the forums in the past that if the author communicated to Albert authorizing the physical copy on a cart that Albert had made one or more carts for people in the past under those circumstances.

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2 hours ago, john_q_atari said:

Best to just message Albert and ask. I believe I have read on the forums in the past that if the author communicated to Albert authorizing the physical copy on a cart that Albert had made one or more carts for people in the past under those circumstances.

Honestly if I could somehow get my hands on a flash cart I’d be more than willing to spend 15-20 on a binary. But since they all seem to be out of stock I figured I’d ask for in the mean time. Albert’s been great answering any silly question I come up with so thank you for the advice. 
Ultimately I want you awesome developers to get compensated for your hard work and I just want to be able to play on real hardware. However that can be done I’ll support it. 
 

I can’t wait to play pengo on my 7800!

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ZeroPage Homebrew is playing of Pengo on tomorrow's stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!


Games:

 (WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR BEST QUALITY)

 

 

 

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Love the bootleg reference :D

 

Played through it; nothing really to report other than it's a lot of fun.

 

My only question comes down to POKEY sound on the Concerto.  I'm not 100% convinced that the POKEY on mine is kicking in on this game.  That said, I've been wrong before.  Is there a way to tell if it's being detected and working - e.g., a sound effect or similar that won't be heard under TIA-only sound?

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7 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Love the bootleg reference :D

Glad you like that.

7 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Played through it; nothing really to report other than it's a lot of fun.

Great to hear.

7 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

My only question comes down to POKEY sound on the Concerto.  I'm not 100% convinced that the POKEY on mine is kicking in on this game.  That said, I've been wrong before.  Is there a way to tell if it's being detected and working - e.g., a sound effect or similar that won't be heard under TIA-only sound?

If the background tune is playing in POKEY mode, it's POKEY. Flip the left difficulty switch off and on. TIA has a completely different music tone than the POKEY tunes.

 

The "Got Bonus" notes use some POKEY enhancement. That is one of the places that POKEY sometimes gets out of sync on Concerto.

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So many of the modern releases really show how they should have been done.  Little touches like the font and attract modes and an attention to detail of the games.  Of course, they didn't have youtube videos showing every single level of the game or in some cases disassembly of the arcade machine.  Still, they were hundreds of thousands of dollar projects and for successful ones, million dollars plus projects.

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7 hours ago, christo930 said:

So many of the modern releases really show how they should have been done.  Little touches like the font and attract modes and an attention to detail of the games.  Of course, they didn't have youtube videos showing every single level of the game or in some cases disassembly of the arcade machine.  Still, they were hundreds of thousands of dollar projects and for successful ones, million dollars plus projects.

There are other factors to consider, in addition to YouTube and MAME. This is a hobby and a labor of love now. I do not have a restriction on RAM or deadline on time. A 144k cart and POKEY, would have been NEO GEO type prices back in the day (assuming Pengo would have been released in the initial 84 release time frame). A modern-day i7 with VSCode is light-years better than the tools that developers had in the day. I have a deep appreciation for what we got back in the 80's, because developers had to squeeze every little bit out of what they had. It was a special type of art!

 

My appreciation kind of ends at the 2600, 5200, and initial batch of 7800 commercial games. When the 7800 was re-released, it was a budget system. With N-do cornering the market, it may have been necessary to treat it as such. Since the 7800 wasn't where the money was going to be made, it would have been hard to pay for quality releases. It seems the system got a couple good releases, but the rest are quite disappointing.

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50 minutes ago, darryl1970 said:

I think I may consider it done, as far as game mechanics and music. It seems pretty balanced for the difficulty levels. I haven't noticed any major bugs.

Just have to state it is super impressive.  To have a well-balanced polished port without any major bugs is wonderful; in a relatively short time space no less, is awesome.  Thank you for sharing and providing this to the community.

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1 hour ago, darryl1970 said:

It seems pretty balanced for the difficulty levels.

I agree.  I die very quickly playing the actual arcade game, and I die equally as quickly playing this one!!!  ;-)

Another one of those games that I love, but for some reason don't play well...

(there are a LOT of them to be fair)   

 

Great job!!!

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2 hours ago, darryl1970 said:

I think I may consider it done, as far as game mechanics and music. It seems pretty balanced for the difficulty levels. I haven't noticed any major bugs.

You've really brought home the arcade experience with this port.?

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16 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

I really love this port and (as I said above) I'd buy a licensed ROM to play today if I could. 


That said, I still wonder: is the final game going to be entitled PENGO or the bootleg name? I have no attachment to either one, just pure curiosity on my part.

That is the big catch for me. I don't know if the bootleg name is enough. I am not sure what makes some titles more off-limits than others. I obviously understand when the N is involved.

 

I am really very bummed about this, so I just haven't had the energy to dig into it. I apologize.  I will though.

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