Free Atari games at Taco Bell...

[lapetino]

whose idea was it to display the burned-in image of '1 Coin 1 Play' on the screen? Talk about paying attention to detail! A nice touch, BUT... I wonder if anybody playing the game would think that's strange or if they get the humor or realism you guys were striving for?

 

 

Mine, thanks for noticing.

 

Tried to do whatever I could to enhance the experience in these, which is why there's a glow in Asteroids and Lunar Lander as well to try and reproduce the vector monitor glow effect.

 

I also tried enhancing the "evolved" versions from Stainless' wherever I could (I'm sure people know by now I'm not a big fan of their releases). Still had to use their sprites for Centipede Evolved. The original version of Breakout actually had a working control panel and spinner that moved in time to the user's mouse motion. And they all had reproductions of their original start buttons - (oversized circular lit up 1 player start for Breakout, blinking red led cone for Asteroids, etc.).

 

Breakout Evolved and Lunar Lander Evolved are completely our own design. On Breakout Evolved, I wanted to go for an overall Tron look rather than the stupid Arkanoid clone look all the others went for. You'll note I even added LED number circuitry in the playfield background for the score, balls, etc. to kind of make it look like the handheld LED games of our youth in the playfield area.

 

Lunar Lander Evolved's concept was joint between Curt and I. He came up with the idea of using the NASA samples, and the bonus level concept. I came up with the idea and method of combining the original vector lines with actual sprites to pay homage to the original. I wanted to do similar in Asteroids Evolved, but they made us tie it in to the PSP Asteroids Evolved. So that's why they have the black look but with vector outlines.

 

That's cool stuff. Thanks for the insight into how you designed these games. Excellent! It's nice to see all the care that went into them.

[Raiu]

Damn, I'm on the wrong continent to pick one of these up. I'll see if I can get anyone in the States to hold a copy for me!

 

-DS-

[aftermac]

Finally, got them!

 

The person at the counter (a different one) still had no idea what I was talking about. I, again, had to have the person turn around and look at the poster behind her. She then asked, "you want a Kid's meal?"... "No, I just want the games." Again, she was just totally confused. Then, she didn't even know how to ring up a Gordita meal (neither did the guy last week). Finally, she got someone who knew what they talking about to find the games. Oh, well at least I have them now...

[Mirage]

In Asteroids, both Classic and Evolved, on Mac, if I "Zoom" to go to full-screen, the bullets don't go as far as they should... they only go the distance on the screen that they would in small mode. And it runs at about half speed too. MacBookPro 2.66C2D 4gb, so it's not the computer. Also, sometimes I can't choose the "Zoom" function at all, but that's probably an Air issue. It's too bad, because I want to play these in full screen mode, not little window mode, but it's nitpicking, b/c they're fine in small screen mode too. The only other thing I've noticed is the aforementioned useless mouse control mode on Centipede, which is too bad, but not unexpected.

 

Otherwise, these things are great! I love Lunar Lander, it's already my favorite. The presentation on these things is spot-on, really captures the spirit and mood. Hopefully these will get some kids interested in classic-style gaming. Great job!

[Retro Rogue]

In Asteroids, both Classic and Evolved, on Mac, if I "Zoom" to go to full-screen, the bullets don't go as far as they should... they only go the distance on the screen that they would in small mode. And it runs at about half speed too. MacBookPro 2.66C2D 4gb, so it's not the computer.

 

Zoom is not a supported feature. That automatically makes Flash scale everything and work twice as hard. To support zoom we would have had to have multiple pre-scaled sprites of everything, which wasn't in the project scope.

 

 

Also, sometimes I can't choose the "Zoom" function at all, but that's probably an Air issue.

 

See above.

 

It's too bad, because I want to play these in full screen mode, not little window mode, but it's nitpicking, b/c they're fine in small screen mode too.

 

They're designed for standard 1024 x 768 resolution (which is considered bare bones low end now). If you want, reset your resolution to that and it'll be full screen.

 

The only other thing I've noticed is the aforementioned useless mouse control mode on Centipede, which is too bad, but not unexpected.

 

If you're talking about the Trak pad, there's a learning curve. It's not a point and move pad, it's a virtual trakball designed to recreate trakball motions. I.E. you literally do motions on it and out of it like there would with an actual trakball. Fast start and stop swipes and such. For example, placing the mouse point on the pad, holding down the click and flinging it off the pad will make the virtual ball "spin" and you'll actually see the player move off in that direction then start to decay. Playing around with it, you can get variations of that.

 

We actually had another version where the player would follow the shortest path towards the mouse pointer, but it created to much confusion when hitting mushrooms (since the player sprite stops of course) and they were afraid about kids getting way to confused. So we compromised and did the keyboard controls with this thrown in for the adults that wanted to play around with it. I also added a bit of extra play to the arrow keys as well. If you hold the keys down you get a larger and faster "sweeping" of the player sprite, and short taps produce finer motions.

 

Otherwise, these things are great! I love Lunar Lander, it's already my favorite. The presentation on these things is spot-on, really captures the spirit and mood. Hopefully these will get some kids interested in classic-style gaming. Great job!

 

Thanks!

[Mirage]

Cool, thanks for the answers. I figured that I wasn't supposed to be making it full screen and it was just an Air thing. Not a big deal. My native screen res is 1920x1200, so I can see how that would tax it quite a bit. I'll play with the Centipede virtual trackball thing more... the way you explain it, it sounds pretty cool and worth getting used to.

 

Lunar Lander seriously rocks, as do the other ones. Everyone needs to not hesitate and pick these things up before they're all gone.

[coyo5050]

So is this a widespread thing now at Taco Bell. The one I went to in Western NY didnt have em and just looked at me like I had two heads. All I ended up with was a couple soft tacos and a belly ache later

[Atariman]

I'm experiencing some pretty bad slowdowns that were previously mentioned. Compared to the minimum requirements on the packaging, my computer is no slouch (Dual Athlon MP 2800+s, ATI Radeon HD3850, 3GB RAM, XP SP3). I've also noticed that the 10's digit in Lunar Lander seems to be a bit funky. It never blanks for me on my game - the "slowest" I can go is 10 (when it is really zero). That really threw me - I thought I was going 10 down, then suddenly I was going "11" up!

 

It's definitely not another process - while any of those games are running (even when I scale my display way back to 1024x768), they are hammering CPU1. As soon as I exit, my resources go back to normal.

 

Other than that, my experience at Taco Bell was pretty typical. They seemed to be confused by my request that I wanted to purchase some of the games that they had advertised right next to the register, they brought up the dopey kids toys and plunked them on my tray and I had to have them go in the back and pull the games instead (why would I want the other crap?).

[BrianC]

Asteroids has short range on my computer in 1024x768 (and no zoom) and the games run slow too. Not a more recent comp and it doesn't seem to like Air. 1.8 GHz Athlon XP, over 480 MB of RAM, and 32 MB S3 Prosavage DDR with the latest drivers in Windows XP. Breakout also acts funny on hard when the paddle shrinks (it won't let me move the paddle when it shrinks and I tried the mouse and keyboard when this happens).

[ovalbugmann]

Got the four discs tonight! First I went to a franchise Taco Bell and they weren't running the promotion, so I then went to a corporate Taco Bell and they had them. I asked the guy at the counter if they had the four Atari game CDs in and I pointed to the kids meal poster behind me with pictures of the discs. He said, "Atari! huh?, that's waay old school, but yeah one CD comes with a kids meal" I said can I just buy something else and get the four cds with it? He said Ok. So I ordered a 7-Layer burrito and he rung up the four cds, I did asked for them for free but only one CD is free with ordering a kids meal he said. So I paid for my food + $3.96 for the four Cds.

 

They say for ages 3 and up. I will install Asteroids first.

[Curt Vendel]

We were directed to make the Evolved look similar to the Stainless stuff --- that was like pulling teeth from a live great white! The mess of asset files were had to sift through was a mish mosh of nonsense, then they did they own custom graphic formats and wouldn't give Atari the filters, then when they did give them the filters, they didn't work right --- Marty and I had to do a lot of manual recreation...

 

One thing both Marty and I right off the bat said was going to go was the constant "magical, sparkly, over the top explosions which they used on everything..."

 

We looked over the other evolves and decided that we would carry over only what was needed, but changes would be made to keep things more in line with a ideal that Marty and I worked back and forth to create which was a framework for doing updated "classics" that would maintain the original gameplay formula that made the games addictive and enjoyable - sound effects had to either stay true to form or could only be variants that still had the original classic sounding effect, we would blend familiar original graphics with new graphics to maintain lineage with the originals.

 

Too many "re-visioned" movies, games, music, etc... go so far away from what made then classic and timeless that they only bare a connection in name only and we are trying to maintain a stronger connection.

 

When Marty started to add the vector glow effect to the classic asteroids, that's when during the playtesting I saw how this was going to be a very strong winner of a game.

 

Are we 100% satisfied with the end result - NO... we never will be, there is always room for change and improvements. In fact Adobe Air would've allowed us to embed a network link to atari.com and each time the game was started - if an active network link was found, Air would check to see if a newer version of the game was available and would've prompted the player if they'd like to upgrade. We were hoping to implement it, but Atari wanted to keep things simple so it wasn't used, kind of a shame as it would've been fun to have added on features and such. I have an outline for a newer version of Centipede with additional game mechanics that add to the existing gameplay - maybe someday when Marty and I have some spare time and they make 72hr days the norm, we can go back and make those enhancements :-)

 

 

Curt

 

whose idea was it to display the burned-in image of '1 Coin 1 Play' on the screen? Talk about paying attention to detail! A nice touch, BUT... I wonder if anybody playing the game would think that's strange or if they get the humor or realism you guys were striving for?

 

 

Mine, thanks for noticing.

 

Tried to do whatever I could to enhance the experience in these, which is why there's a glow in Asteroids and Lunar Lander as well to try and reproduce the vector monitor glow effect.

 

I also tried enhancing the "evolved" versions from Stainless' wherever I could (I'm sure people know by now I'm not a big fan of their releases). That included cutting out the ridiculous exploding colors attempt at a Jeff Minter imitation. Still had to use their sprites for Centipede Evolved, but cleared all that up as well.

 

The original version of Breakout we had actually had a working control panel and spinner that moved in time to the user's mouse motion. And they all had reproductions of their original start buttons - (oversized circular lit up 1 player start for Breakout, blinking red led cone for Asteroids, etc.).

 

Breakout Evolved and Lunar Lander Evolved are completely our own design. On Breakout Evolved, I wanted to go for an overall Tron look rather than the stupid Arkanoid clone look all the others went for. You'll note I even added LED number circuitry in the playfield background for the score, balls, etc. to kind of make it look like the handheld LED games of our youth in the playfield area.

 

Lunar Lander Evolved's concept was joint between Curt and I. First and foremost, we wanted to wipe out that horrible deviation done on the PSP and bring it back towards the actual concept. He came up with the idea of tying it in to the lunar landing anniversary (these were done in 2009 mind you) and using the NASA samples, and the bonus level concept. I came up with the idea and method of combining the original vector lines with actual sprites to pay homage to the original. I wanted to do similar in Asteroids Evolved, but they made us tie it in to the PSP Asteroids Evolved. So that's why they have the black look but with vector outlines.

 

Curt, jump in if I left anything else yet regarding your design input, etc.

[+LS650]

I have tried out the 'Evolved' modes just once; no offence, but I prefer the Classics modes far more!

[SoulBlazer]

Had a job interview today and on the way home I stopped at a Taco Bell in Mass. I saw one sign in the place about the games, behind the counter, a poster with the Atari logo on it. I ordered my factorite meal there (steak queasadia and a soft taco) and then asked if I could buy the four atari games mentioned on the poster behind him. The guy said he wasn't sure if they had them in stock and he went and asked someone, probaly a manager. "Oh yeah, we just got those in" he responded, and he brought forward a small box, still sealed, that had the games. The person at the counter wasn't sure what was each, but when I saw inside the box and the four different colors I correctly guessed that each color was a game.

 

I only paid .99 cents for each one.

 

Not tried the games out yet, I'll report later on about it.

 

I really like the artwork on the packaging and the trivia that was on it.

[Mirage]

How is everyone else doing with the virtual trackball thing in Centipede? Is anyone getting the hang of it? What does anyone else think about it?

 

For reference, wgungfu's explanation from post above:

 

"If you're talking about the Trak pad, there's a learning curve. It's not a point and move pad, it's a virtual trakball designed to recreate trakball motions. I.E. you literally do motions on it and out of it like there would with an actual trakball. Fast start and stop swipes and such. For example, placing the mouse point on the pad, holding down the click and flinging it off the pad will make the virtual ball "spin" and you'll actually see the player move off in that direction then start to decay. Playing around with it, you can get variations of that."

[thebiggw]

I got mine today at lunch. I haven't tried them out, however I do not see any reference to Curt, Legacy Engineering, etc. To bad Atari didn't give credit where credit was due. Unless this was done on purpose through Curt and the people of Legacy Engineering. I do however hope that these sell like hotcakes and bring Atari back into the classic gaming arena.

 

I also just want to extend my thanks to Curt and the people of Legacy Engineering for all their hard work at keeping the classic games alive!!

[thebiggw]

Well I tried the breakout game and I see Legacy Engineering's logo upon start up!! I'm so glad to see that I hope it drives more people to your website!!

 

PS I guess I have to retract my previous statement.....oopsie

[cimerians]

One thing both Marty and I right off the bat said was going to go was the constant "magical, sparkly, over the top explosions which they used on everything..."

 

 

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

I cannot stand that sh~t.

 

My god man, most Atari games I donwloaded on Xbox live to try out were more annoying than fun. My ship would disappear inside a mass of sparkles and pixie dust. Made me want to throttle the programmers.

[fiddlepaddle]

Just curious... I noticed that the back of each game has what looks like a serial number "3289VVB", for example. Anybody know how this number is constructed? All my games have either "VVB" or "VVA".

[coyo5050]

Yeah this time I got the games too and not just a belly ache!

[bani]

picked up 4 complete sets tonight. 16 discs

 

if the salesperson doesn't know how to ring them up, tell them to ring it up as "toy". mine came up at $0.95 ea.

[StanJr]

Finally got mine. Had to coerce the stupid manager to open the box so I could get them:

 

"Do you guys have the new Atari games?" Indicating poster on wall under kid's menu.

"Uh, yeah, but we haven't opened them yet."

"Could you, please I'd like one of each."

"Ummmmm.......(disappears-3 mins.) yeah, here you go..."

 

what the hell, its a promotion, they should be falling all over people to take them.

 

Anywho, got mine, can't wait to play them!

 

Thanks guys!

[Tom-Lynx]

I got my set of 4 a couple days ago (had to get the manager to look in boxes...they had no idea they had them) and installed them today.

 

My laptop is a 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, and there are no speed issues at all. Everything works perfectly.

 

My favorite is Asteroids in classic mode.... I love the effects of the black & white burn-in screen.

 

I do wish that the screen space was expandable / stretchable, but that is a minor complaint and I assume it is because the games are compiled in Flash.

[homerwannabee]

Got my set today. I asked the girl if she had the video games at the drive through, and she said "The what?" And I respond with, "You know the CD's." Then a few seconds pass by, and I get "Oh you mean the toys." And I go "Sure" Luckily I was able to get my games, but it seems almost nobody is actually buying these.

[Cebus Capucinis]

My Taco Hell did not have them.

[+LS650]

"Do you guys have the new Atari games?" Indicating poster on wall under kid's menu.

"Uh, yeah, but we haven't opened them yet."

"Could you, please I'd like one of each."

"Ummmmm.......(disappears-3 mins.) yeah, here you go..."

Huh? How is that 'stupid'? The manager spent three minutes going out of his way to help a customer...