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AtariAge News Archive
We've just added two new Atari Jaguar titles to the AtariAge Store! We're proud to reveal that Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and Fantasy World Dizzy are now available to pre-order. Each game includes a high-quality, professionally printed box, manual and label. Fantasy World Dizzy (like Treasure Island Dizzy before it) is limited to 250 copies. We expect to ship these games in July, so order today to make sure you're amongst the first to enjoy them!  Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe It's been two years since the last ball was thrown on a Speedball pitch. There are new teams, new stadia, and new rules. The arena is bigger, the players are tougher, and the action is faster than ever before. The challenge is this: take control of Brutal Deluxe, the worst team in Speedball history, and turn them into champions. Speedball 2 is a different ball game! Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe is a video game based on a violent futuristic cyberpunk sport that draws on elements of handball and ice hockey, and rewards violent play as well as goals. The concept of the game is very reminiscent of the 1975 film Rollerball. The original game was developed by Bitmap Brothers and is one of their most successful titles. Originally released for the Atari ST in 1990, Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe has been ported to a variety of additional systems and has finally made it's way to the Atari Jaguar! Fantasy World Dizzy Dizzy & Daisy strolled through the enchanted forest without a care in the world... But suddenly the Evil King's trolls seized poor Daisy! She was sent to the Wizards Weird's Tallest Tower, while Dizzy was dragged away and thrown into the deepest, darkest, dankest of the King's Dungeons in the bowels of Fantasy World. Dizzy was frightened! Who knew what fate awaited him...and he still hadn't done this week's homework! But then he remembered that he had a fresh green apple that he had planned to give to his teacher to escape detention, and he cheered up. And there was some bread and water on the table! A cunning plan began to brew in his mind... Dizzy and The Yolkfolk are characters created by the Oliver Twins, and these characters would appear in many games during the 8 and 16-bit eras. Most of their appearances were in multi-screen platform adventure puzzle games, however, they also appeared in some great arcade games as the title characters. Slowly, over the course of the series, we learn more about this odd little family and help them out of the tricky situations they find themselves in by visiting the many varied locations of their magical world. Fantasy World Dizzy is our second Dizzy release, following on the heels of Treasure Island Dizzy, which is still available for purchase (get it while supplies last, though!) You can learn more about Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe and Fantasy World Dizzy by visiting the AtariAge Store.
Darren Doyle of Greyfox Books has launched a Kickstarter campaign to create the first unofficially-licensed coffee table book on the Atari 8-bit Home Computer, Atari: A Visual History. The book pays a huge tribute to this incredible home computer, its product design, and its amazing catalogue of third-party software associated with this iconic 8-bit system. Atari: A Visual History is the very first book of this kind to be released for the Atari 8-bit home computer enthusiast in a visual compendium, ever! Darren has spent many months on development of this title and has acquired some incredible content along the way. Features of the book include:
The premise of the book is to cover a huge majority of classic third-party Atari 8-bit software from such amazing software houses as Datasoft, Broderbund, First Star Software and the likes. A selection of commercial and non-commercial homebrew games will also be covered in the book, giving these games the exposure in a visual compendium never seen in a format of this type before. Atari: A Visual History will also deliver a selection of interviews with game designers who worked on the Atari 8-bit. The three most popular computers of Atari's 8-bit computer range receive their very own profile coverage, with additional exclusive photography of these computers by Roberto Rogel, as well as a choice selection of Atari-related peripherals. The book will measure 170mm x 230mm (6” x 9”) and will only be available in hardcover form for maximum durability, comprising a whopping 420 pages of content. Please visit the Kickstarter campaign to learn more about Atari: A Visual History and make a pledge to support this project. You can discuss the book with its author Darren Doyle in our Atari 8-bit Computers Forum.
 This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of the Atari 400/800 computers, and to help celebrate this event, the Atari Museum has been working with one of the original Atari 400/800 computer engineers, Joe Decuir, to put on an exhibit at the annual Vintage Computer Festival East. This year's show takes place May 3-5, 2019 in Wall, New Jersey at the InfoAge Science and History Center. Each year the science center hosts a myriad of vintage computers from 8-bit home computers to mini and mainframes of all shapes and sizes. The Atari Museum exhibit hosted by Curt Vendel and Joe Decuir will feature every piece of hardware ever produced for the 400/800 series, as well as unique prototype equipment. But the 400/800 exhibit is just one small part of the overall Atari exhibit, which will also be a tribute to Jay Miner. Peter Fletcher, Bill Lange, Amiga Bill, and Dean Notarnicola will also be on hand, displaying Atari computers from the XL, XE, ST and Falcon series in this huge overall exhibit. The Lorraine will be there as well – Jay Miner’s amazing Amiga 1000. Thanks to Evan Koblentz, executive director of the Vintage Computer Festival (VCF), Joe Decuir will be giving a formal speaking presentation at VCF covering the Atari 400/800 computers, from their beginnings as an improved design over the Atari 2600, to the final production computer designs. Evan and Jay will then discuss the follow-up 68000-based computer that the Atari’s could have further evolve into, a design that would eventually see reality years later as the Amiga “Lorraine.” This is a rare and special opportunity, not just for Atari enthusiasts, but for anyone who loves the Atari 2600 to the Atari computers to the Amiga to see and meet the man who was involved in all three product designs. Please visit the Vintage Computer Festival website to learn more! Pictured above is the The Atari Home Computer Demonstrator, which will be on display as part of this exhibit.
 Our friends at Piko Interactive have opened up pre-ordering for their next two Atari Jaguar titles, Head over Heels and Impossamole! The games will be available for pre-order until April 15 2019. During the pre-order period they are discounted $5 and will see a price hike on and after April 2019! First up is the Gremlin graphics action platformer Impossamole. Monty Mole has been living in luxury since his previous adventures, but he has now been beamed up by an alien race who want him to do a job for them. Monty must trek through five worlds to retrieve the sacred scrolls of the race's Guardians. The platform-based gameplay is similar to Monty's earlier games, with primarily horizontal progress as well as ropes and ladders to navigate. Monty has developed a useful flying kick and has been given a smart bomb, with the potential to collect extra bombs and guns. Hazards, enemies and level designs are themed around each level, and range from cable cars and falling snowballs to Ninjas and Monkeys. Improvements have been made to the music and the gameplay for a better user experience. Impossamole features a cardboard box, instruction manual, and game cartridge. Next is Head Over Heels, the classic Ocean Software puzzle adventure. OK, let me try and explain this. You see, Heads (he's the one with arms) can glide and jump and shoot, but he can't carry anything. And Heels, the one with the feet, can carry things, but he can't shoot. And if you get them together then they can do all sorts of things... Let me try again. There's this evil emperor, see, called Blacktooth, and he's enslaved all these different planets. So Head and Heels are trying to liberate the Five Crowns and... well there are these doughnuts, and some fish and bunny rabbits, and... well, it's really sort of... unique. Head Over Heels is a great strategy puzzle game originally developed by Ocean Software for the Amiga, Atari ST, and other early computer platforms. Finally it is playable on the Atari Jaguar. Head over Heels includes a cardboard box, instruction manual, and game cartridge. Pre-Orders will ship by April 15, 2019. The $5 price hike will apply on and after this date. You can learn more over at Piko Interactive.
 Champ Games is nearing completion on their latest game for the Atari 2600, Wizard of Wor Arcade. This updated version of Wizard of Wor offers many new features from the CBS original release, including updated graphics, sound effects, more mazes, speech (using the AtariVox), high scores, and many more! One additional feature that Champ Games has built into Wizard of Wor is the ability to create and save your own mazes! A maze editor has been added to the game that will allow you to create up to three custom mazes that are then playable as in the first three dungeons. If you have a SaveKey/AtariVox, you can also save the mazes so your creative work isn't lost when you power down your Atari. Each of the three custom mazes will have a default layout that will be shipped with the cartridge. This is where you come in! We are asking you to use the maze editor to design your best maze and send us a screenshot. If we choose your design, it will be included in the final version of Wizard of Wor Arcade and you will have your name added to the credits section of the official manual! For more information and official rules, please visit the Wizard of Wor Arcade Maze Design Contest in the AtariAge Forums. The contest ends Friday, March 8th, 2019 at midnight EST. Winners will be announced on March 10th! Good luck!
 Welcome to the 2018 Atari Awards, where YOU get to vote on your favorite homebrew games, hacks and demos of 2018! Voting Ends on February 18, 2019 at 23:59:59 PST. You can click each of the threads in the 2018 Atari Awards forum to vote, as well as the links below for each category. We've made available a package you can download containing game binaries, instructions, and packaging so you can make informed decisions when voting. The results of the 2018 edition of the Atari Awards will be announced LIVE on the ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel on February 23rd, 2019 at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT during a special broadcast. ZeroPage Homebrew will be announcing the winners and runners up on the broadcast in each of the categories along with LIVE acceptance speeches from the winners, plus much more! Results will then be posted in our 2018 Atari Awards forum. 2018 Atari Awards Categories:
 After a long hiatus, a new version of the Atari800MacX Atari 8-bit computer emulator for macOS is now available! Atari800MacX is a native macOS port of the popular Atari800 emulator, which forms the basis for many Atari 8-bit emulators on various platforms. Most importantly, version 5.0.0 of Atari800MacX supports the latest versions of macOS (Sierra and above). Changes in this new release include:
Happy New Year and welcome to 2019! For our Atari Jaguar fans, we're working on a new compilation of seven Atari Jaguar games released by Reboot over the last decade, all of which have been given an update with new graphics, music and other additions such as Pro Controller support and cartridge saves. Titled, "reBOOTed", this collection features 16+ megabytes of code, music and graphics squeezed into a 6 megabyte cartridge. Some of these titles never had a physical release while others were only available on Jaguar CD or in extremely limited runs due to production costs. reBOOTed features the following games:
 A major new version of the popular Atari 2600 emulator Stella has been released. Stella 6.0 introduces several new changes, with the largest of them involving cycle-exact TIA audio emulation. Several games that never worked correctly before, such as E.T. and Ms. Pac-Man, now sound exactly as they do on a real console. Stella is a multi-platform Atari 2600 VCS emulator released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), and versions are available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. Stella allows you to enjoy the large library of Atari 2600 titles on your computer, and it's also an exceptional tool for anyone creating new homebrew games for the 2600.
You can learn more about this latest version of Stella straight from its primary developer, including a complete list of improvements in Stella 6.0, in our Emulation Forum. Visit the official Stella website to download the appropriate veresion for your operating system.
CollectorVision has announced their CollectorVision Phoenix system, a new ColecoVision-compatible system based on FPGA technology. The Phoenix allows you to play ColecoVision cartridges just as you would on a regular ColecoVision. The Phoenix is compatible with all ColecoVision game cartridges and runs them with 100% accuracy. Since the Phoenix is based on FPGA technology, it will be possible to add support to play games from additional systems down the road. From the start, the Phoenix will allow you to enjoy ColecoVision and 2600 games.  Here are some of the Phoenix's features:
We're excited about this system, since original ColecoVision systems are notoriously fussy and difficult to repair. Having a new ColecoVision-compatible system using all new parts with HDMI output is a big win for ColecoVision fans! You can learn more about the Phoenix and how to buy one by visiting the CollectorVision Phoenix Kickstarter. You can also discuss the Phoenix in our ColecoVision / Adam Forum.
Please visit the official Portland Retro Gaming Expo website to learn more about the show. If you're attending the show, please stop by our booth, say hello, and play some new games!
AtariAge is proud to announce that Defender of the Crown and Treasure Island Dizzy are coming to the Atari Jaguar! Both of these chart-topping classic games are now available to pre-order in the AtariAge Store. Each game includes a high-quality, professionally printed box, manual and label, and each is being released in limited quantities (300 copies for Defender of the Crown and 250 for Treasure Island Dizzy).  Defender of the Crown IT IS A TIME OF LEGENDS. A time for heroes. A time of bitter strife, when great men rise above their peers to perform great deeds. A chapter of history is in the making. Your liege the king is dead, the throne vacant. Britain enters a season of destruction, a winter of killing that can end only when the last brave Saxon knight lies dead or the castles of the Normans lie in heaps of rubble, emptied of the foul oppressors that have enslaved your people. It is a time when foreign invaders shall learn truths administered by the shining blades of Saxon swords. It is a time when heroes are made, and legends are born. Defender of the Crown was Cinemaware's first game, making its debut on the Commodore Amiga back in 1986. A strategy computer game designed by Kellyn Beck, it raised the bar for computer graphics in home computer games. Defender of the Crown would be ported to many computer systems and game consoles over time and has now been realized on the Atari Jaguar. Treasure Island Dizzy Dizzy was looking forward to his round-the-world cruise. When he told the other Yolkfolk about the good deal he found, they wondered just what lay ahead of him. Dizzy enjoyed the cruise at first. The captain, Long John Silver, was a lovely old bloke with a kindly manner, good at insulting and degrading the fare paying punters. He was well-balanced -- he had a parrot on one shoulder and a chip on the other. Dizzy thought he would organize a game of cricket on the aft deck. In a fit of blinding stupidity, he used LJ's spare leg collection as makeshift stumps, and when they ere lost overboard he was made to walk the plank! That was how he came to find himself gently poaching on the silent, sun-kissed beach of a seemingly deserted island... He had to somehow find a way back to the Yolkfolk and lodge his compensation claim with the travel agent... Dizzy and The Yolkfolk are characters created by the Oliver Twins, and these characters would appear in many games during the 8 and 16-bit eras. Most of their appearances were in multi-screen platform adventure puzzle games, however, they also appeared in some great arcade games as the title characters. Slowly, over the course of the series, we learn more about this odd little family and help them out of the tricky situations they find themselves in by visiting the many varied locations of their magical world. You can learn more about Defender of the Crown and Treasure Island Dizzy by visiting the AtariAge Store.
You've surely seen QR Codes all over the place in the last decade. QR codes are a means of encoding information into a compact, square graphic that can be scanned (usually by cell phones these days) and decoded. Most often these codes are a link to a website, but they can be used to store any manner of information. Atari 2600 fan Seth Robinson recently embarked on the challenge of encoding Atari 2600 games as QR codes stored on paper cards, and then using a camera to decode the game and run it in an emulator. As QR codes can store about 3K of 8-bit data, a 2K Atari 2600 game can easily fit in a standard QR code. Larger 4K games can be encoded using two QR codes, one on each side of the card. You then have to flip the code to load the second half of the game. As a large percentage of Atari 2600 games are either 2K or 4K in size, this allows you to run quite a few games from QR codes. Seth used a Raspberry Pi and a Picamera and open source software to read the "PaperCart" Atari 2600 game cards he printed, and once decoded they are run in the RetroPie Atari 2600 emulator. For all the details about this PaperCart system system (including how to create your own), please visit Seth's Code Dojo page.
We know that not everyone cares about paying extra for a box when buying new homebrew games. We've updated eight of our latest games for the 2600 and 5200 in the AtariAge Store so you can now buy them without the box. These games still come with a high-quality label and manual, but the box is now optional. Here are the games: 
Here's a list of the games:
 A new release of the A7800 Atari 7800 emulator is now available. A7800 is a fork of the MAME Atari 7800 driver, with several enhancements and fixes added:
Last fall we released Jeff Minter Classics for the Atari Jaguar, containing two of Jeff Minter's most popular classic computing titles: Llamatron: 2112 and Revenge of the Mutant Camels. The excellent Atari ST versions of these games were brought to the Jaguar by Lawrence Staveley (author of Rebooteroids), joined together by a beautiful menu illustrated by William Thorup. Stunning artwork was also created by William Thorup for the box, manual, label and included double-sided poster. In celebration of Jeff Minter's announcement of a Playstation 4 port of Gridrunner, we're excited to reveal that Gridrunner has been hidden inside all copies of Jeff Minter Classics sold to date! We've put together a video that shows how you can unlock Gridrunner. Once you've done so, Gridrunner will be displayed on the menu when the cartridge boots up, so you only need to unlock it once: As an added bonus for Gridrunner, you can choose to use an Amiga or Atari ST mouse (with a proper adapter) to control your ship, in addition to the stock Jaguar controller. Playing Gridrunner with a mouse is a blast! If you don't already have a copy of Jeff Minter Classics, you can pick up a copy in the AtariAge Store. Happy Easter to all Atari Jaguar fans!
 Fans of the Atari ST, Amiga, Commodore 64 and other classic computers may fondly remember the game Stunt Car Racer, a 3D racing game that takes place on an elevated track. In the game, you are dropped onto the track by a crane, and you compete against other computer opponents in a race with no walls to prevent you from going over the sides! There are also gaps in the tracks that you must jump and clear, and care must be taken not to inflict too much damage on your car or your vehicle will be wrecked, causing you to forfeit the race. Now, nearly 30 years after Stunt Car Racer's initial release, it is finally available for Atari 8-bit computers! AtariAge members Fandal and Irgendwer have crafted a fantastic port of the game for Atari 8-bit computers, using the Commodore 64 version as a starting point. This new version of Stunt Car Racer contains all the features of the Commodore 64 version, as well as:
 AtariAge members MortoffGames and Clint Thompson are exploring the possibility of recreating the highly sought-after Jaguar Pro-Controller. The Atari Jaguar Pro Controller is similar in appearance to the standard Jaguar controller, but adds three new action buttons (X, Y, and Z) as well as two shoulder buttons (L and R) at the top of the unit. These new buttons are mapped to buttons on the keypad. The dpad and buttons on the Jaguar Pro Controller are also improved over the original controller. Several later Jaguar games include support for the Jaguar Pro Controller's button configuration, but even older games such as Alien vs. Predator benefit from the additional buttons.
Jaguar Pro Controllers are currently selling for over $200 on eBay. The price for these new controllers will be $60, and they will be sold in sets of two to help meet the minimum manufacturing requirements. If you'd like to express interest in purchasing one or more sets, please send a message with your full name and e-mail address by December 31st, 2017 to jagprocontroller@gmail.com. You can learn more details about the project and track its progress in our Atari Jaguar Forum.
 Free Play Florida 2017 is a three day celebration of the history, artistry, competition, and creation of electronic gaming of all kinds driven by the enthusiastic gamers of the south east. Free Play Florida features 200 arcade and pinball games, hundreds of consoles, and countless things to learn, play and see! This November 17th thru the 19th, Free Play Florida is being held in Orlando at the beautiful DoubleTree Sea World by Hilton right off I-4 and International Drive. Many current and classic and current pinball and arcade games will be on display, all set to free play! Join the International Flipper Pinball Association (IFPA) sanctioned pinball tournament and compete with the best in the state of Florida, sit in on speaker panels that include industry icons, and visit vendors selling parts, memorabilia, and some of the coolest themed art on the planet! AtariAge will be present for the first time at this year's Free Play Florida, with all the new homebrew games we had for sale at last month's Portland Retro Gaming Expo, as well as games that were released in the AtariAge Store back in June. We'll also have several systems setup so you can play our latest homebrew games. If you're an Atari 2600 fan, be sure to check out the FPF 2017 Atari Cartridge being made available at the show. This is a limited edition hack of Midnight Magic (modified by Scott Dayton of NEO Games), complete with cartridge, manual and box. Proceeds benefit Free Play Florida (a non-profit organization), to help them continue offering this great event in the future! A few copies are still available for purchase online, and once those are gone, the only way to obtain a copy will be to purchase one at the show. To learn more, please visit the Free Play Florida website. Hope to see you there!
If you're an Atari Jaguar fan, we have three new Jaguar games we'll be selling for the first time at this year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo, taking place October 20-22! The three titles are Jeff Minter Classics (containing Llamatron 2112 and Revenge of the Mutant Camels), Escape 2042, and AstroStorm. Each game features a high-quality, professionally printed box, manual and cartridge label. Jeff Minter Classics also includes a double-sided poster featuring the stunning box art created by William Thorup for the package. 
More information about each game below: Jeff Minter Classics For the first time on the Atari Jaguar, experience Jeff Minter's classic games "Llamatron 2112" and "Revenge of the Mutant Camels". Both games have been brought to the platform with the full blessing of Jeff Minter himself and are contained on a single cartridge. Llamatron 2112: You play the part of a totally hard laser-spitting llama. Your mission is to collect all the tiny sheep, llamas, camels and goats you see on each wave. Standing in your way are great herds of unintelligent but numerous Grunt enemies, plus a veritable menagerie of nasty creeps which fire at you, dodge your fire, emit fire hydrants, try to ram you, murder your llamas and shoot your ass off with lasers. Kill them deadly. Not everything can be killed, and some enemies take more than one shot to destroy. Your ultimate objective - destroy the Ozric Tentacle of level 99 and get to Herd Heaven on level 100. Revenge of the Mutant Camels: You are a rather threadbare-looking camel. If you are playing CPU Assist or Two-Player, you are accompanied by a large shaggy goat creature called an Ancipital. You are the Good Guys. Your mission is simple: stay alive through 42 zones of 7km each. These zones are populated by rampant telephone kiosks, skiing kangaroos, butch Greenham Common Peace Women, manic Minters, flying sheep and all the usual nonsense. These are the Bad Guys. They try to kill you off and you, naturally, and in keeping with the traditionally calm, rational, and thoughtful nature of videogames, get to waste them with lots of spectacularly destructive weaponry. AstroStorm Sometime in the future, aliens arrive. A high quantity of large rocks have started raining from the sky causing devastation all around Earth. You must command the Earth Defense Craft to search our solar system and destroy any anomalous rocks or aliens before it's too late. Is this our last stand? AstroStrom features a campaign story with 40 levels, skirmish mode with random levels, arcade modes for quick pick up and play, a mix of gameplay styles between shooting and space flying, powerups you can activate at strategic moments, separate scoreboards for each game type, and more! Escape 2042 In the year 2042, a socialist government is in power, but nobody had foreseen the progressive dictatorship that settled in. The elites of the government hid behind a sham democracy, disconnected from the life the people were leading, and acted solely in their own interests. The regime considered the dissidents as conspiracy theorists, treated them like terrorists and locked them away in highly-secured prisons. You are Shun, a computer engineer and member of the Truth Defenders coalition. After a clandestine operation to inform the people, you are locked away in the highly-secured prison Bulor 24. But your knowledge on security systems will enable you to escape. Your turn now to escape as fast as you can from this place! Escape 2042 game takes place in three different environments (prison, desert, forest) and is interspersed with two mini-games, including a reversed “Shoot’em Up” and an original rappelling game! Avoid the security cameras, collect grenades to get rid of your enemies, and exercise your working memory by hacking the computers of the prison to unlock the doors or to deactivate the safety systems. For those unable to attend the Portland Retro Gaming Expo, we'll be adding all three of these titles to the AtariAge Store in November. 1 2 3 4 5 6 ... 83 Next |
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