Atari 2600 Ixion Prototype Released

[keilbaca]

I just played it on my Atari using the Cuttle Cart- THIS IS FUN!  Please consider putting it on a cart for sale in the store

916971[/snapback]

 

Indeed, except I would prefer a hacked harder version. Its too easy to put onto a cart in this state.

[birdie3]

I just played it on my Atari using the Cuttle Cart- THIS IS FUN!   Please consider putting it on a cart for sale in the store

916971[/snapback]

 

Indeed, except I would prefer a hacked harder version. Its too easy to put onto a cart in this state.

917006[/snapback]

 

 

Agreed.

[+Nathan Strum]

The keyboard works great for me. That's all I have is Stella. Maybe it's because MAC's stink?!

 

Funny... mine smells just fine.

 

Maybe it's you.

[tillenterprises]

I just played it on my Atari using the Cuttle Cart- THIS IS FUN!   Please consider putting it on a cart for sale in the store

916971[/snapback]

 

Indeed, except I would prefer a hacked harder version. Its too easy to put onto a cart in this state.

917006[/snapback]

 

 

You're right- it does take awhile for it to get hard (but so does Spider Fighter and Seaquest). How about the original version, and hacked harder versions included using the game select switch?

[Cootster]

Been playing it almost non-stop for a few days. Great, great game, and much easier once I figured out that the shots worked Gorf-style and you can't just constantly jab the button.

 

It's definitely a lot like Solar Fox, and a little like Targ/Universal Chaos and Thunderground. My only quibble is that it doesn't mix up the locations of the white blocks enough, it seems that if the corners are filled in that the block will always appear in one of them. If you keep the outside open, you can pretty much just coast after getting the first one.

[+Psionic]

When disassemling IXION for the PAL conversion, I stumbled on some obviously unused code (~350 bytes, duplicated from bank 1) in the 2nd bank. So there was some space left for maybe some additional features, music or polishing.

Thomas, I wasn't aware you had done a disassembly of this title.

 

I mention this because one of the programmers who worked on this game told me about an easter egg he put in the game, which I suspect was removed by the second programmer. Anything else unusual in the code?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I mention this because one of the programmers who worked on this game told me about an easter egg he put in the game, which I suspect was removed by the second programmer. Anything else unusual in the code?

Nothing that I remember. Did the programmer mention any detail about the easter egg?

[+Psionic]

Did the programmer mention any detail about the easter egg?

Here's what he said...

 

I worked on this in '82. It is obvious that someone else finished this so it could be released in '84. The final game is a variation of the unreleased arcade game. One of the things the arcade game had was a turret (very difficult to control on a single joystick/button) and the shells from the cannon could destroy a tile if they did not hit anything by the end of their flight.

 

Someone had to have worked on it after me to finish it. I had only the first screen (mostly) done. Scoring was in place, IXION was in place, tiles worked (on/off), tank moved, tank could shoot, but no ball, no enemies. I did have an Easter egg which allowed you to play NIXON instead of IXION, but NIXON was in Japanese kanji if I remember right (the game was supposed to be released in Japan).

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Here's what he said...

 

I worked on this in '82. It is obvious that someone else finished this so it could be released in '84. The final game is a variation of the unreleased arcade game. One of the things the arcade game had was a turret (very difficult to control on a single joystick/button) and the shells from the cannon could destroy a tile if they did not hit anything by the end of their flight.

 

Someone had to have worked on it after me to finish it. I had only the first screen (mostly) done. Scoring was in place, IXION was in place, tiles worked (on/off), tank moved, tank could shoot, but no ball, no enemies. I did have an Easter egg which allowed you to play NIXON instead of IXION, but NIXON was in Japanese kanji if I remember right (the game was supposed to be released in Japan).

There are no traces of this EE in the code, but from the existing code, it would have taken just a few bytes to change IXION into NIXON.

 

There is a table with 5 entries pointing to the characters. Add a 2nd table pointing to the characters in a different order and the EE would be done. Plus some code to trigger the EE of course.

[+Psionic]

There are no traces of this EE in the code, but from the existing code, it would have taken just a few bytes to change IXION into NIXON.

 

There is a table with 5 entries pointing to the characters. Add a 2nd table pointing to the characters in a different order and the EE would be done. Plus some code to trigger the EE of course.

Makes sense. It could simply have been removed, or the second version could have been coded from scratch for all we know.

[dcameron]

There are no traces of this EE in the code, but from the existing code, it would have taken just a few bytes to change IXION into NIXON.

 

There is a table with 5 entries pointing to the characters. Add a 2nd table pointing to the characters in a different order and the EE would be done. Plus some code to trigger the EE of course.

Makes sense. It could simply have been removed, or the second version could have been coded from scratch for all we know.

 

This all makes sense from what I know. From what I know, what you have here is a continuation of the original work by Stance Nixon. I do not know what additional, additional work was done by Thomas. As is often the case when you leave a project unfinished, your credit is removed. (As a side note, there is a actually a movement in the game industry to ensure people who started projects, had works derived from their work or a sequel created from their work, are given appropriate credit - http://www.igda.org/credit-standards.)

[+Psionic]

This all makes sense from what I know. From what I know, what you have here is a continuation of the original work by Stance Nixon. I do not know what additional, additional work was done by Thomas. As is often the case when you leave a project unfinished, your credit is removed. (As a side note, there is a actually a movement in the game industry to ensure people who started projects, had works derived from their work or a sequel created from their work, are given appropriate credit - http://www.igda.org/credit-standards.)

Well, I can't say I'm surprised. Sega never credited any of their designers in the early days anyway, which is why so many of them tried to sneak their names/initials/etc. in there in the first place.

[tremoloman2006]

This is one of my favortie games for the 2600 hands down! Original, fun, and challenging once the diffuculty ramps up!