Koronis Rift

[Heaven/TQA]

i just played for 2 hours koronis rift and its a great game... it's one of the games which use mode10 for the main gfx and its doing it quite good. lucasfilm artist have done a great job as they made nice gfx (the ships) even in a 4:1 ratio of mode10... the other screenlayout is done very well and fits perfect together... its looking really professional and with they had an "atari sunglass" on when they designed and mixed all kind of gfx modes in one...

 

i like the control scheme as well as its very easy to navigate and to activate modules or call the lut roboter... again...very well done...

 

not to mention the "star wars"-like sound effects which are very very well designed as well... the engines, the alert signals etc...

 

imho a very underestimated game... btw. i am not sure if it was a commercial success...

 

and if you never played koronis... then do it...

 

btw. the only issue i do not like is... they used the build in atari font... but maybe they had to fit it into 48k and so the 1k for the new font was too much...

[Allas]

It's a pity Atari let some people stole the last Lucasfilm projects ("Ballblaster", "Jaggilines"). These great piece of software is only compared with the best later 90's games. Even now are 10/10 games. That colorful robot screen in motion, I'll never forget.

 

Still im awating the day that incomplete Laberynth Atari project leave to the domain public.

[Rybags]

It was a bit of a tedious game to play. Only so many objects you could keep, and working out what combination to use took time.

 

Did the game actually have a set ending?

 

Of the games they did, The Eidelon could have had massive potential as an engine for a 3D RPG.

[Ghost...]

Not to mention the fractal graphics. Here is a nice

article about Lucasfilm games tm <pling>

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n8/Lucasfilm.html

 

best!

Ghost...

[Fröhn]

Koronis Rift is propably one of the best examples of what the Atari can do. If you want to amaze C64 people, show it (says a C64 person, hehe)

[www.atarimania.com]

Still im awating the day that incomplete Laberynth Atari project leave to the domain public.

I doubt this really exists. According to David Fox, the Atari version was never started.

 

--

Atari Frog

http://www.atarimania.com

[Albert]

Koronis Rift was a pretty amazing game for the time. I remember playing it quite a bit, but I never did reach any sort of end game (if such a thing even exists?) It's pretty remarkable what LucasFilm was able to do with the 8-bit computers. All of their games were great, and pushed the machines to their limits. It's a shame they only programmed four games for the Atari 8-bit computers..

 

..Al

[Heaven/TQA]

it's interesting that atari had this "new nintendo style" 1st party development program as Lucasfilm & Atari had a dev contract... which Nintendo will establish in the console area years later...

 

or did atari had such in 2600 era as well?

[frogstar_robot]

Koronis Rift was a pretty amazing game for the time. I remember playing it quite a bit, but I never did reach any sort of end game (if such a thing even exists?) It's pretty remarkable what LucasFilm was able to do with the 8-bit computers. All of their games were great, and pushed the machines to their limits. It's a shame they only programmed four games for the Atari 8-bit computers..

 

..Al

 

I believe Level 20 was the final level. It didn't have "hulks" to rob but had these ground bases that fired "black fireballs" at you. If you destroyed them all, there was no level 21 and I presume your scavenger/prospector gets to go off and enjoy his salvaged riches.

[Albert]

Koronis Rift was a pretty amazing game for the time. I remember playing it quite a bit, but I never did reach any sort of end game (if such a thing even exists?) It's pretty remarkable what LucasFilm was able to do with the 8-bit computers. All of their games were great, and pushed the machines to their limits. It's a shame they only programmed four games for the Atari 8-bit computers..

 

..Al

 

I believe Level 20 was the final level. It didn't have "hulks" to rob but had these ground bases that fired "black fireballs" at you. If you destroyed them all, there was no level 21 and I presume your scavenger/prospector gets to go off and enjoy his salvaged riches.

Have you personally played this level? I certainly didn't get that far in the game as it was pretty difficult. Good to know that it had an ending, though, and hopefully when you completed level 20 you actually saw some type of satisfying conclusion.

 

..Al

[+remowilliams]

I certainly didn't get that far in the game as it was pretty difficult.

That's an understatement

 

I love Koronis Rift, but I don't think I've ever made it past level 10 even. And I have it on cart and everything

 

 

I'll have to try to cheat one of these days and actually see the end of it.

[frogstar_robot]

Koronis Rift was a pretty amazing game for the time. I remember playing it quite a bit, but I never did reach any sort of end game (if such a thing even exists?) It's pretty remarkable what LucasFilm was able to do with the 8-bit computers. All of their games were great, and pushed the machines to their limits. It's a shame they only programmed four games for the Atari 8-bit computers..

 

..Al

 

I believe Level 20 was the final level. It didn't have "hulks" to rob but had these ground bases that fired "black fireballs" at you. If you destroyed them all, there was no level 21 and I presume your scavenger/prospector gets to go off and enjoy his salvaged riches.

Have you personally played this level? I certainly didn't get that far in the game as it was pretty difficult. Good to know that it had an ending, though, and hopefully when you completed level 20 you actually saw some type of satisfying conclusion.

 

..Al

 

I personally played it but it 15 years ago. I don't recall that the game had any sort of finale or "Congratuations, You retire rich; the salvager of the legendary Rift!". You just got to the level and had to fight your way through the ground bases (I can't remember if returning to the ship was locked out or not.) and then there were no other levels.

[Velcro_SP]

I remember this, liked it a lot. You indulged the "collecting" instinct with the various systems you could gather. It was indeed a really advanced game technically. Eidolon was also quite advanced, and yes, it was something of a real-time first-person 3D engine that could have been built on. Eidolon had a high level of difficulty I found, Koronis Rift less so.

[mdbzzzz]

I wrote a cheater for Koronis Rift in 1987 and published it in the Puget Sound Atari Newsletter. I've attached the original newsletter article.

 

Before using the cheater you must first use a disk sector copier on the original copy protected disk. Then you run a BASIC program to modify the saved game data on the copied disk. To play the game you boot with the original copy-protected disk and then return to the mother ship to load the saved game on the modified disk. Doesn't work with the cracked version of the game. (Version 1.1. Do a disk directory on the game to read the version number. The cheat was written for version 3.0 which was published by Epyx.)

 

I've also attached some screen dumps of level 20. The second from the left display at the top of the screen dump is the mapper. Image the_20.jpg shows a map of the range of mountains in the shape of the number 20. Any one been able to get to the center of the zero? I've wondered whether there was anything in there. The only hulks on level 20 are grounded saucers that can kill you even with maximum shields when you get too close. Best to fire at them from a safe distance. The image Loot_saucer_base.jpg is the only thing that I've been able to find in Rift 20 that could be called a base. The base is in the lower right hand side of the rift (from the perspective of the mapper) and you enter the base from the upper left hand side. About as far away as you can get. Once you (temporarily) clear all the saucers you can loot the base with the RT. The base then disintegrates. The RT freezes and you need to quickly shoot it before the saucers come back. You can then return to the mother ship. End of game and there are no messages. What was the first game to give a congradulatory message on the completion of the game? I don't think it was Koronis Rift. You can use a disk sector editor to find all the messages in the game and none of them are an acknowledgment of the end of the game.

 

koronis.tar.gz

[Harry]

i just played for 2 hours koronis rift and its a great game... it's one of the games which use mode10 for the main gfx and its doing it quite good. lucasfilm artist have done a great job as they made nice gfx (the ships) even in a 4:1 ratio of mode10... the other screenlayout is done very well and fits perfect together... its looking really professional and with they had an "atari sunglass" on when they designed and mixed all kind of gfx modes in one...

 

i like the control scheme as well as its very easy to navigate and to activate modules or call the lut roboter... again...very well done...

 

not to mention the "star wars"-like sound effects which are very very well designed as well... the engines, the alert signals etc...

 

imho a very underestimated game... btw. i am not sure if it was a commercial success...

 

and if you never played koronis... then do it...

 

btw. the only issue i do not like is... they used the build in atari font... but maybe they had to fit it into 48k and so the 1k for the new font was too much...

 

 

Hi,

 

I've been playing KORONIS RIFT (a disk version) for the first time and I can't get any sign of life from the Shield Indicator VDU!

I've read through the Game Instructions and I still can't see what I'm doing wrong.

As far as I can tell, I have the Shield Module on board - and it is activated - but the VDU is blank!?

 

Please help me if you can ... those Gaurdian Saucers are giving me a pasting!

 

-Harry-

[Harry]

Shields won't work - KORONIS RIFT

 

I've been playing KORONIS RIFT (a disk version) for the first time and I can't get any sign of life from the Shield Indicator VDU!

I've read through the Game Instructions and I still can't see what I'm doing wrong.

As far as I can tell, I have the Shield Module on board - and it is activated - but the VDU is blank!?

 

Please help me if you can ... those Gaurdian Saucers are giving me a pasting!

 

-Harry-

[Rybags]

You have to try combinations of modules.

 

Sometimes better weapons mean shield drain, some modules need more energy to even work at all.

 

It takes practice - you learn after a while what to save for later and what to discard.

 

That's from memory anyway, I haven't played it in years.

[Gunstar]

That was a whole part of the strategy of the game was to find what worked well or didn't, and what combinations work best together. sometimes there were things you find that are beneficial, but don't seem to work until you combine them with something else or aquire more energy, etc.