15 replies to this topic

[rolenta]

Michael Thomasson of GoodDealGames announced the release of Escape It!, which he believes is the FIRST 2600 HOMEBREW GAME TO USE BANK-SWITCHING TECHNIQUE. The game is based on the European VideoPac (Odyssey2) game "Labyrinth." It is a two-player race to the exit game through a maze that is constantly changing while you navigate through it.

Only thirty copies of the game have been made. It is available from http://www.gooddealg...2600%20VCS.html

[maiki]

Definitely not the first. There are many many homebrew games that exceed the 4k ROM limit. If not most of them...

[Impaler_26]

Yep, this is definitely not the first homebrew game to use bank switching. I'm not 100% sure but i think the first one was Dark Mage from 1997.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

maiki, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 12:54 AM, said:

Definitely not the first. There are many many homebrew games that exceed the 4k ROM limit. If not most of them...

Using bank switching is standard for homebrew games for many, many years. E.g. Marble Craze (32k) and Thrust (16k) are more than 10 years old now! And they were even not the first ones!

Someone saying something different, must be very disconnected from the development scene.

[Gateway]

This game was programmed by accoustiguitar:

http://www.atariage....3814-escape-it/

And the GoodDeal listing mentions it's the same bankswitching used in Asteroids. I don't know, off the top of my head, if Asteroids used a unique bankswitching method or not. It may just be semantics.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Gateway, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 4:24 AM, said:

I don't know, off the top of my head, if Asteroids used a unique bankswitching method or not. It may just be semantics.

Asteroids was just the first game using bank switching. Nothing special here, it uses the standard method which all other Atari (and other) bank switching (without extra RAM) games use.

[gooddealgames]

Sorry for the confusion. While I am not new to the retrogaming community (been homebrewing for 12+ years now) I am relatively new to the VCS homebrew scene so please any mistakes that I may make. I've only published five VCS games so far. The game in discussion (Escape It!) uses bank-switching AND an extra memory chip, the Sara chip a/k/a the "super chip." These custom Atari chips are not something you can just buy from some old warehouse. They don't exist anywhere, so we had to take apart a Dig Dug or Crystal Castles, etc. There are only a handful of Sara based games and only these two are "common" that can be used to manufacture a new title.

Thanks for your kindness with the "semantics" comment, Stargunner :-)

Michael of GDG's Homebrew Heaven
www.GoodDealGames.com

[rolenta]

gooddealgames, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 3:11 PM, said:

Thanks for your kindness with the "semantics" comment, Stargunner :-)

Actually, you meant Gateway. Stargunner is a ranking.

[gooddealgames]

Yes, thank you Lenny and GATEWAY.
Like I said, I'm fallible... but I do my best!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

gooddealgames, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 4:57 PM, said:

Like I said, I'm fallible... but I do my best!

No big problem. Just fix the mistake and everything is fine.

[ls650]

So is it the first homebrew to use a Sara chip..?

[Byte Knight]

ls650, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 5:08 PM, said:

So is it the first homebrew to use a Sara chip..?

I know that Cave In uses the Sara chip, and it was released a few years ago...

[Nathan Strum]

Simple fix. Change: "Escape It! is the FIRST VCS HOMEBREW GAME TO USE THE BANK-SWITCHING TECHNIQUE AND THE SARA "SUPER CHIP.""

to: "Escape It! is our FIRST VCS HOMEBREW GAME TO USE THE BANK-SWITCHING TECHNIQUE AND THE SARA "SUPER CHIP.""

[accousticguitar]

I was going to plug this game and forgot. I'd better get on it!

[CPUWIZ]

ls650, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 5:08 PM, said:

So is it the first homebrew to use a Sara chip..?

Nope, even Seaweed Assault (which shipped today), is using 32K bankswitching & SARA.

@Michael: I am interested in where you got the boards from, to manufacture the game. I hope you didn't have someone design a new board. Hope all is well.

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[maiki]

CPUWIZ, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 10:19 PM, said:

Nope, even Seaweed Assault (which shipped today), is using 32K bankswitching & SARA.

An example of a 4k game on a 32k cartridge...