34 replies to this topic

[riffraff]

I'm pleased to announce my 2nd Bally Astrocade homebrew, Crazy Climber!

It's currently 99% finished (basically just working out a sound bug) and should be available for pre-order via BallyAlley in a short while.

I've been working with Adam Trionfo and Ken Lill to make sure we'll be able to produce a decent number of copies and everything looks good!

Adam will be able to give more details on the pre-ordering in the near future for those who are interested.

Here's a link to a video I made of the game last night:

Crazy Climber for the Bally Astrocade

For those who missed the first game, War, it was finally released in early October of last year. Only 20 copies were made of that one and there are no plans for any more. Here is a Nice and Games review of War

Mike G.

[Ransom]

That looks very nice! It's good to see that system get some love. It's tragic how it was stifled in the marketplace back when.

[save2600]

Ransom, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:50 PM, said:

That looks very nice! It's good to see that system get some love. It's tragic how it was stifled in the marketplace back when.

No kidding, but at least it looks like some quality homebrews are starting to surface. Crazy Climber looks awesome. Be neat if there was an option to use both controllers, like the arcade. Guess you'd have to make a special box for the Astrocade sticks to sit in though. I've never owned one of these systems, but think I'd like to get into it someday. Releases like this make a Bally purchase that much more tempting.

Personally, I'd love to see the Bally Astrocade become *the* classic arcade game system to have, as it was originally intended to be. Seems the system would be well suited for games like Zookeeper, Targ, Bagman, Turtles, etc. Some of the really good, but lesser known/popular titles would really help the system shine. I consider Crazy Climber in that echelon.

[Ransom]

save2600, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:56 PM, said:

Be neat if there was an option to use both controllers, like the arcade. Guess you'd have to make a special box for the Astrocade sticks to sit in though.

At the beginning of the video, he's offered a choice of one or two joysticks, so you do have that option. And the nice thing is, the controllers were made so that you can use them one-handed, so a special box wouldn't be strictly necessary.

save2600, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:56 PM, said:

Personally, I'd love to see the Bally Astrocade become *the* classic arcade game system to have, as it was originally intended to be. Seems the system would be well suited for games like Zookeeper, Targ, Bagman, Turtles, etc. Some of the really good, but lesser known/popular titles would really help the system shine. I consider Crazy Climber in that echelon.

That would be really neat! I'd add Zookeeper, Tank Battalion, and King & Balloon to that list.

[save2600]

Ransom, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 3:00 PM, said:

At the beginning of the video, he's offered a choice of one or two joysticks, so you do have that option. And the nice thing is, the controllers were made so that you can use them one-handed, so a special box wouldn't be strictly necessary.

Oh, cool - that's awesome then. I just watched the video at work real quick. Guess I wasn't paying that close attention. At a glance, looked like he was selecting which controller player one was to use.

Quote

That would be really neat! I'd add Zookeeper, Tank Battalion, and King & Balloon to that list.

Screw King and Balloon and it's annoying speech! How about Kaos instead?! Now there's a rare game that's actually fun to play. We had the arcade growing up and still have the marquee hanging in the gameroom for it

[Ransom]

save2600, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 3:28 PM, said:

Screw King and Balloon and it's annoying speech! How about Kaos instead?! Now there's a rare game that's actually fun to play. We had the arcade growing up and still have the marquee hanging in the gameroom for it

You had an arcade machine at home when you were growing up??

K&B's speech is annoying, so we'd have to leave that out of the port.

I'd never heard of Kaos. I just looked it up at KLOV. It seems like a pretty neat, unusual game. I vote yes on adding it to our magical insta-port project.

[save2600]

Ransom, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:14 PM, said:

You had an arcade machine at home when you were growing up??

Umm.. several. It's what my Dad did and I do now: arcade/pinball restoration. Have a basement and a garage full of the things. There's pics of the gameroom in the "show us your collection" forum.


Sorry for the slight off-topicness RiffRaff!

[riffraff]

Quote

Sorry for the slight off-topicness RiffRaff!

It's cool - I had a Crazy Climber machine as a kid.. =)

Quote

Guess you'd have to make a special box for the Astrocade sticks to sit in though.

I asked about the best way to do something like this back in 2007. Best idea I got was to space out the 2 joysticks with a pink eraser and hold them together with twisty-ties. (Rubber bands were not stable enough)

Hey that thread is still here.

Quote

Screw King and Balloon and it's annoying speech! How about Kaos instead?

Both of those games are on my long list of potential future-games.

Edited by riffraff, Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:37 PM.

[Ransom]

riffraff, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 6:32 PM, said:

Quote

Screw King and Balloon and it's annoying speech! How about Kaos instead?

Both of those games are on my long list of potential future-games.

Cool!

Is there a supply issue for making new carts? I noticed that your earlier release was limited to 20, and that no more would ever be made.

[Ransom]

save2600, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 5:17 PM, said:

Ransom, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 4:14 PM, said:

You had an arcade machine at home when you were growing up??

Umm.. several. It's what my Dad did and I do now: arcade/pinball restoration. Have a basement and a garage full of the things. There's pics of the gameroom in the "show us your collection" forum.

Nice fringe benefit.

[TMOSteel]

riffraff, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 2:12 PM, said:

I'm pleased to announce my 2nd Bally Astrocade homebrew, Crazy Climber!

It's currently 99% finished (basically just working out a sound bug) and should be available for pre-order via BallyAlley in a short while.

I've been working with Adam Trionfo and Ken Lill to make sure we'll be able to produce a decent number of copies and everything looks good!

Adam will be able to give more details on the pre-ordering in the near future for those who are interested.

Here's a link to a video I made of the game last night:

Crazy Climber for the Bally Astrocade

For those who missed the first game, War, it was finally released in early October of last year. Only 20 copies were made of that one and there are no plans for any more. Here is a Nice and Games review of War

Mike G.

You the man Mike! Can't wait to fire this one up when its ready, even more so than when I was waiting for War!

[riffraff]

Ransom, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 7:48 PM, said:

Is there a supply issue for making new carts? I noticed that your earlier release was limited to 20, and that no more would ever be made.

Yes and no. Originally for War we used parts that were available. Since then we've come up with some more spare PCBs, the strong possibility to make new PCB's, and a decent cache of shells.

I envy the 2600 and CV homebrewers that don't seem to have this issue =)

Mike G.

[Ransom]

riffraff, on Fri Jan 28, 2011 8:47 PM, said:

Yes and no. Originally for War we used parts that were available. Since then we've come up with some more spare PCBs, the strong possibility to make new PCB's, and a decent cache of shells.

That's good to hear that you may be able to produce more games in teh future. Although I don't own an Astrocade, I have looked at reviews of the games on YouTube and saw War on there a while back. Very impressive work! If they'd been able to code as well as you do back then, the system would have done much better.

I had an Astrocade back in the 90s, but I only had a few carts for it (the common/boring stuff) so I hardly ever played it. Like everyone, though, I loved the controllers.

[Darrin9999]

I`m in for 1 and a copy of war if you make more..

[RayXambeR]

Great to see another homebrew game for the Astrocade!
As Darrin9999, I'm in for one War-repro and of course one copy of Crazy Climber! Good luck to finish this great project.

[akator]

Great work

[GroovyBee]

The Astrocade looks an interesting machine to program for. Although I'm not taking my research any further because I have far too many projects on the go as it is.

Anyways... Its good to see homebrew for any of the old machines.

[SpiceWare]

Impressive!

[toymailman]

Cool. Glad to see homebrews released for this system. I didn't even know about WAR. I have a few cart shells for the Astrocade if you can make me one of each.

[Nathan Strum]

That looks great! Nice work.

[videogamecritic]

Mike G,
The Video Game Critic would very much like to purchase and review this one!
Also War, if it becomes available again. Love the Astrocade!
Please contact me on my site.
Thanks
Dave (The Video Game Critic)
www.videogamecritic.net

[riffraff]

As soon as Adam is ready to take the preorders I'll make sure to update this thread with the info.

Mike G.

[Cliff Friedel]

Very nice work!

[rpgcollector]

I am in for a copy of this and war if you make some more. Thanks.

[dalder]

It looks awesome! Keep me updated please also if you decide to make some more WAR. I would be interested in WAR for Bally Astrocade too thanks.