27 replies to this topic

[revolutionika]

We all remember donkey kong on intv,right? maybe the worst looking game of the era.

in case you dont remember:



And Beeslife just announced a new DK game/rom on their site....hopefully it will come to a cart????? here: beeslife DK

A quote from beeslife: "DONKEY KONG: this is the updated version showing that it is possilbe to play a graphically pleasant version on the Intellivision. *UNFINISHED*




And a gif/screen of the new game.....i think it speaks for itself:

***click on the link above for a bigger screen,and all 4 levels!!!***

Edited by revolutionika, Mon Apr 19, 2010 10:09 PM.

[IntellivisionDude]

Wow nice, looks like the Intellivision had unlimited potential as long as people put effort into making the game.

This has been debated a lot. Some say it was intentional, some say it is only a myth.

http://www.atariage....-intellivision/

[jaybird3rd]

Intellivision Productions posted something about the "Donkey Kong was intentionally bad" rumor recently:

Quote

That was our speculation back then, since we didn't see how it could have been so bad. But since then we've come to realize that with no one with Intellivision experience on staff at Coleco, working only from 3rd-party reverse-engineered programming manuals under time pressure, yeah, it could be that bad. Activision, Imagic & Atari had experienced Intellivision programmers on their staffs to help with their Intellivision cartridges. We like to think of the Mattel Electronics, INTV Corp., Dextell Ltd., Activision, Imagic & Atarisoft games as having Blue Sky Rangers DNA. Coleco, Sega, Parker Bros. & Interphase: no Blue Sky Rangers DNA.

Then there's this interesting anecdote from Blue Sky Ranger Dave Akers:

Quote

I vaguely remember sneaking into Coleco's closed booth at the summer 1982 CES, and seeing a version of Donkey Kong for Intellivision that looked better than the final version. Maybe they programmed a version for an 8k cartridge, and finally decided to shoehorn it into a 4k cartridge? Or perhaps the "Intellivision" version at the show was just a simulation that was actually running on different hardware? It was 28 years ago, so my memory is fuzzy...

[revolutionika]

rgw825, on Mon Apr 19, 2010 10:17 PM, said:

Wow nice, looks like the Intellivision had unlimited potential as long as people put effort into making the game.

This has been debated a lot. Some say it was intentional, some say it is only a myth.

http://www.atariage....-intellivision/

i remember that thread,and i read it a few years ago on some other site.

I think it was done intentionally.but oh well.......

I just hope they can release it on a cart,but maybe they cant for legal reasons???

[cmart604]

Cool seeing all 4 levels for the INTV. Maybe we'll see a new DK for both the INTV and the CV this year...

[Mazerati]

looks awesome! the only thing i would change is
i would take out the "how high can you get screen" and make the girl look better and more worth saving

[Pixelboy]

Very impressive indeed.

[chrisbid]

interesting that they kept the shell of the graphics from the original

i wonder how tight the controls are?

[1980gamer]

interesting that they kept the shell of the graphics from the original

? What makes you say that? The screen layout is changed completely.
Mario and Kong are completely different as well.
The oil barrel and rolling barrels are also changed.

i wonder how tight the controls are?

It plays very well!

It seems pretty close to complete to me. However, it is a two player game.

It doesn't let you select one player.

It has a little scoring problem when jumping barrels and you can die from barrels above you.

gene

[chrisbid]

1980gamer, on Thu Apr 22, 2010 7:47 PM, said:

interesting that they kept the shell of the graphics from the original

? What makes you say that? The screen layout is changed completely.
Mario and Kong are completely different as well.
The oil barrel and rolling barrels are also changed.

the ladders, girders, and pauline are all the same color and look untouched from the original. its not so much a complaint, as an observation that this build of dk was based off the original (a game that is generally considered to be really poor) versus being built from scratch. actually, if this is as good as it looks to be, that is quite admirable. a longtime turd can indeed be polished and turned into somethinge else.

[Vic George 2K3]

Still looks like the structures are made of honeycomb popsicle sticks, but at least the Mario and Donkey Kong graphics are better in the improved version. Love the inclusion of the other two screens also.

[thrax]

That new one looks awesome.

[cparsley]

still the DK purists will get on you as the orientation ends wrong, as DK should be top left instead of top right on the girder level.

[Shannon]

http://www.atariage....ost__p__1949584

[Jess Ragan]

Sweet masturbating monkeys, I want this game YESTERDAY!

I'm totally awful at Donkey Kong, but it's always been a quest of mine to find a truly faithful version of the game for a home system. It's like the search for the holy grail, or perhaps more accurately Don Quixote's tilting at windmills, judging from the quality of most of these translations. If this version of DK is for real, then it's already got a leg up over not only the official Intellivision version, but conversions on far more advanced game systems.

In short, me wanty.

[BydoEmpire]

I got to play this at CGE 2k7 and it was awesome. Really a great job. However, I don't see how this is in any way "evidence" INTV DK was *intentionally* crap. But that particular dead horse has been beaten over the last few years...

[Bill_Loguidice]

Yeah, the non-starter argument of Coleco illogically intentionally crippling their products aside, this is an awesome new development. I'm very much looking forward to its release.

[revolutionika]

BydoEmpire, on Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:09 AM, said:

I got to play this at CGE 2k7 and it was awesome. Really a great job. However, I don't see how this is in any way "evidence" INTV DK was *intentionally* crap. But that particular dead horse has been beaten over the last few years...

If just one guy in his house can program a better version in his spare time Verses a real video game developer who had all the programming tools and equiptment back in the day.....and the homebrew looks 20 times better,you do the math!

just my opinion i guess......but my opinions are always right!

[Bill_Loguidice]

revolutionika, on Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:40 AM, said:

BydoEmpire, on Fri Apr 30, 2010 10:09 AM, said:

I got to play this at CGE 2k7 and it was awesome. Really a great job. However, I don't see how this is in any way "evidence" INTV DK was *intentionally* crap. But that particular dead horse has been beaten over the last few years...

If just one guy in his house can program a better version in his spare time Verses a real video game developer who had all the programming tools and equiptment back in the day.....and the homebrew looks 20 times better,you do the math!

just my opinion i guess......but my opinions are always right!

Again, this has been argued to death. There's a difference between a homebrew programmer today with unlimited time, access to modern dev tools and technology (particularly no particular concern for cartridge space), no need to answer to anyone, no need to stick to a schedule, etc., versus a paid programmer back in the day - a working stiff - who very much had the opposite scenario (and no, I'm not diminishing a modern day homebrewer's obvious talent by saying that). Take a look at games like ET and Pac-Man on the Atari 2600. Were those intentionally crippled? No, it was just the case of the programmers not having enough time to do the job right. There have also been plenty of cases where levels in games were missing and other features were missing because cartridge sizes were constrained to say 4K, when they could have really used 8K, simply to hit a certain price point.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Quote

If just one guy in his house can program a better version in his spare time Verses a real video game developer who had all the programming tools and equiptment back in the day.....and the homebrew looks 20 times better,you do the math!

just my opinion i guess......but my opinions are always right!

Uhm please add some points to your mathematical equation, look developers who were often rushed and pressured to get a title ready for sale as quickly as possible. A LOT has been learned over the years as to technique plus when one has unlimited time to put attention and care into a work of love then yeah of course it will yield better results..........

[Rik]

INTV Donkey Kong, intentionally crap....no way.Lazy,lack of know how programming, or rushed, but no, not a less than spectacular game done on purpose, sorry, silly rumor that is.I don't and will never believe ANY company would shoot themselves in the foot, or for that matter, tarnish their image in a competitive market like this one.Making bad games on purpose, no, sorry, that's how how feel about that.

Edited by Rik, Thu May 13, 2010 6:32 PM.

[Nukey Shay]

For company A to create a port of a game for company B's system intentionally bad (in order to make the port for their own system appear to be that much better) does not make any sense at all...especially since systems X, Y, and Z have their own ports or clones that outshine company A's. Not only would they be losing the resources that went into the ship they were trying to sink (as per the plan), but would be doing so at a time that companies could no longer afford to piss away expenses (CV was one of the last players to enter the console wars).
They simply learned from third-party example that the only way to try to survive the road ahead was to start porting their licensed titles to systems other than their own due to market fragmentation & oversaturation. Old dogs are not always able to learn new tricks. Sometimes, it works (2600's DK was one of the most-popular games ever made for that console, Inty's DK wasn't so fortunate).

This "evidence" is nothing of the sort. The topic would be akin to stating that ALL titles are made intentionally bad, since "a better mousetrap" is constantly being invented. Ladybug for the 2600 is a more sophisticated dot-gobbling game than all three of Atari's Pac-Man games, therefore Atari's games were intentionally made bad. Uh-huh.

[PingvinBlueJeans]

Rik, on Thu May 13, 2010 6:26 PM, said:

I don't and will never believe ANY company would shoot themselves in the foot, or for that matter, tarnish their image in a competitive market like this one.

Not to mention the question of what self-respecting programmer would actually follow orders to intentionally program a bad game. And I wouldn't mind, but all of Coleco's games were developed by outside contractors, so that would mean they actually contracted (and thus paid) an outside firm to develop a shitty port. Seriously?

I wish people would stop repeating this incredibly stupid rumor which never had any foundation in fact.

[Nukey Shay]

It should also be mentioned that Coleco's 3rd-party ports (as a whole) are on the better end of the spectrum. If they were out to cripple competing machines with their own software, why make anything playable at all? Venture, Carnival, etc. should be total disasters. 'Course, then the argument would go..."Well, it's got the official name, so they could release any trash using it and the brainless public would buy it anyway" bunk.

[intvdave]

Mazerati, on Thu Apr 22, 2010 6:07 AM, said:

looks awesome! the only thing i would change is
i would take out the "how high can you get screen" and make the girl look better and more worth saving

Why would you take out the "how high can you get screen"? Does it not make it feel more like the arcade game?

There is only so much you can do on the Intellivision. If the girl was enhanced, something else would need to be changed.