how many people have ECS here and would like a new game for it?

[vprette]

just wondering if an ECS homebrew would have sense for collectors :-)

Edited January 26, 2012 by vprette

[roberto]

Actually, writing an ECS game is one of the things I'd like to do as soon as I finish the current iPhone game I'm working on in my free time... hopefully soon!

[vprette]

Actually, writing an ECS game is one of the things I'd like to do as soon as I finish the current iPhone game I'm working on in my free time... hopefully soon!

 

do you have any experience in ECS development? if yes, can we share effort?

[roberto]

Actually, writing an ECS game is one of the things I'd like to do as soon as I finish the current iPhone game I'm working on in my free time... hopefully soon!

 

do you have any experience in ECS development? if yes, can we share effort?

 

Unfortunately I don't: I just got an ECS recently and I'm very curious to experiment with it...

[jaybird3rd]

Yes, absolutely! There's all kinds of potential there waiting to be explored, particularly multi-player games (via the two extra hand controllers) and games which can make use of the cassette I/O for storage (level data, game saves, etc).

[vprette]

Yes, absolutely! There's all kinds of potential there waiting to be explored, particularly multi-player games (via the two extra hand controllers) and games which can make use of the cassette I/O for storage (level data, game saves, etc).

 

this is far away from my capacities, but at least I start studying the possibility of ECS implementation for a text based adventure

[+LS650]

How about a homebrew that will run on a standard Inty but uses the ECS for optional stuff. I think Space Patrol does this with music and sound effects.

[atari5200dude82]

Yes, i would like to see more Ecs games. Also more Intellivoice games too.

[vprette]

seems 90% of people here have an ECS in house :-)

[Intymike]

Inty Bomberman for 4 players...just dreaming

[jaybird3rd]

seems 90% of people here have an ECS in house :-)

I own two, one new in the box and a used one from eBay, which I restored from a non-functional, water-damaged state. I still use the restored one for everyday gaming.

[BassGuitari]

I have an ECS, but it would depend on what the game is.

 

If it's a rehash of a game I can already play a thousand other places, I probably wouldn't be interested unless it was something really special (an arcade-quality Galaga, perhaps, or Miner 2049er?). I don't buy homebrews just for the sake of having homebrews.

 

Otherwise, even simple BASIC games would be fun, if for no other reason than to have something to actually load or program into the ECS. Like the old Star Trek, Battleship, or "Explore the 10x10x10 grid Dungeon" games. Or a Roguelike.

 

[GroovyBee]

Inty Bomberman for 4 players...just dreaming

 

I had thought about doing an Inty version of my 7800 XM game Fruitarian. It'd need a major revamp of the graphics but I think it would be quite playable.

[+thegoldenband]

I don't have an ECS, but I'll probably pick one up at some point. It'd be great to see games that use it as an enhancement: extra levels, additional channels of sound à la Space Patrol, using the keyboard to simplify UI tasks (input passwords), Easter eggs that can only be triggered with the ECS -- that kind of thing.

 

ECS-only games are a slightly tougher sell, but the more vibrant the Intellivision community becomes, the more people will want to have it.

[+cmart604]

Inty Bomberman for 4 players...just dreaming

 

I had thought about doing an Inty version of my 7800 XM game Fruitarian. It'd need a major revamp of the graphics but I think it would be quite playable.

 

2 player would be fine too! Slightly off topic, what game is furthest along amongst your 7800 games?

[roberto]

2 player would be fine too! Slightly off topic, what game is furthest along amongst your 7800 games?

 

Wow! 7800 games under production simultaneously! That's multitasking!!

Edited January 27, 2012 by roberto

[GroovyBee]

2 player would be fine too! Slightly off topic, what game is furthest along amongst your 7800 games?

 

Good question! You can play them but they all need work to get them into release candidates e.g. level design, sound effects, more graphics (in some cases) plus some need more coding time and bug fixing to add the bells and whistles.

[GroovyBee]

Wow! 7800 games under production simultaneously! That's multitasking!!

 

I think it would be kinda cool to do a multi-platform release on the same day. It'd be a ton of work but lots of fun. Probably not for any of the games I've got on the go at the moment.

[Intymike]

Inty Bomberman for 4 players...just dreaming

 

I had thought about doing an Inty version of my 7800 XM game Fruitarian. It'd need a major revamp of the graphics but I think it would be quite playable.

 

Nice! I´am looking toward the Inty conversion.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Intymike

[intvnut]

I don't have an ECS, but I'll probably pick one up at some point. It'd be great to see games that use it as an enhancement: extra levels, additional channels of sound à la Space Patrol, using the keyboard to simplify UI tasks (input passwords), Easter eggs that can only be triggered with the ECS -- that kind of thing.

 

ECS-only games are a slightly tougher sell, but the more vibrant the Intellivision community becomes, the more people will want to have it.

 

Well, from a technical perspective, the main things the ECS gives you are:

• 3 more channels of sound and 1 more channel of noise
  
• Access to either the alphanumeric keyboard, synthesizer keyboard, or two more Inty 2 style controllers
  
• 2K of 8-bit RAM
  

I don't really include the tape drive or printer port, but I suppose you could count those also if you like.

 

The ECS doesn't really help you get more levels, although if you have a cart design that doesn't add more RAM, the additional 2K RAM could help with more complex games. Since my own cart design gives 8K of 16-bit RAM, though, the 2K in the ECS isn't too exciting to me.

 

In Space Patrol, I just use the extra sound channels. It really does add a lot to the result, IMHO. I don't use the RAM or anything else from it though.

 

Some game styles really would benefit from keyboard support. Any game with text input, really. It's probably worth finding a better way to interface a computer keyboard to an Intellivision though.

 

A couple people have mentioned the idea of writing a four player game. I'm a little more dubious on that other than for the novelty factor. It's hard enough to get a second person interested in playing an Intellivision game with you these days, and I wonder whether a game concept that scales to 4 players would be as fun with only 2 or 1 player. It's certainly possible--there are games out there that do that successfully--but I think there's a reason the 5200 dropped two of its controller ports. Even on my Wii, we've only played 3-player a handful of times.

 

The synthesizer is an interesting, untapped resource. How many people have the synthesizer keyboard, though?

[jaybird3rd]

A couple people have mentioned the idea of writing a four player game. I'm a little more dubious on that other than for the novelty factor. It's hard enough to get a second person interested in playing an Intellivision game with you these days, and I wonder whether a game concept that scales to 4 players would be as fun with only 2 or 1 player. It's certainly possible--there are games out there that do that successfully--but I think there's a reason the 5200 dropped two of its controller ports. Even on my Wii, we've only played 3-player a handful of times.

I agree that it would certainly be more of a "niche" product, but I'm still very interested in trying a workable four-player game. "Party games" are an under-explored genre in homebrew, in my opinion: most of us in this hobby are collectors to some degree, and I'm sure many of us are always eager to find as many opportunities as possible to show off our collections to friends and fellow hobbyists. What better way to do that than with a game that allows as many people to participate as possible? I think it would be wonderful for holidays, family get-togethers, classic gaming shows, and other social events. Unfortunately, there aren't many four-player games for the classic systems which lend themselves to that, with the notable exception of Warlords. I'm interested in it mostly as a game design challenge. One idea I have, for example, is a strategy game inspired by Dan Bunten's Robot Rascals, which (unlike Bunten's original) also offers a computer opponent for single-player games.

 

The synthesizer is an interesting, untapped resource. How many people have the synthesizer keyboard, though?

I've got one, but yes, I'm afraid that makes me part of a very small minority, even among hard-core Intellivision fans.

[intvnut]

I agree that it would certainly be more of a "niche" product, but I'm still very interested in trying a workable four-player game.

 

Well, the ECS today lets you plug in two more controllers, and I've published code in the past that shows how to read them. (It's pretty much identical to reading the main unit's controllers, only at $FE/$FF instead of $1FE/$1FF.) Folks, get writing!

[jaybird3rd]

Well, the ECS today lets you plug in two more controllers, and I've published code in the past that shows how to read them. (It's pretty much identical to reading the main unit's controllers, only at $FE/$FF instead of $1FE/$1FF.) Folks, get writing!

Yes, I think I've used one of your samples on my Intellivision, to test the ports on my Computer Adaptor.

 

I swear I'll get to the Intellivision someday; I've just got some Aquarius projects and a few other things I need to get out of the way first. I only wish I had more time for this stuff!

[Rev]

Well, the ECS today lets you plug in two more controllers, and I've published code in the past that shows how to read them. (It's pretty much identical to reading the main unit's controllers, only at $FE/$FF instead of $1FE/$1FF.) Folks, get writing!

Yes, I think I've used one of your samples on my Intellivision, to test the ports on my Computer Adaptor.

 

I swear I'll get to the Intellivision someday; I've just got some Aquarius projects and a few other things I need to get out of the way first. I only wish I had more time for this stuff!

 

 

If only someone could make a living writing games for classic systems! There is obviously a market for them. But its just done in peoples spare time.

 

If some worked 8 to 10 hours a day writing a homebrew game from scratch, how long would it take until it was ready to put on a PCB? (just an average time)

[+thegoldenband]

• Access to either the alphanumeric keyboard, synthesizer keyboard, or two more Inty 2 style controllers
  

 

Aha, I didn't know that was an either/or. (Stands to reason, since I don't have an ECS.)

 

The ECS doesn't really help you get more levels, although if you have a cart design that doesn't add more RAM, the additional 2K RAM could help with more complex games. Since my own cart design gives 8K of 16-bit RAM, though, the 2K in the ECS isn't too exciting to me.

 

The extra RAM was what I had in mind for extra levels -- well, that and the additional input options -- but I didn't know your cart design had that much onboard RAM!

 

Some game styles really would benefit from keyboard support. Any game with text input, really.

 

Definitely. I can imagine a game that incorporates a bunch of different playstyles, and that adds an extra ECS-exclusive level that uses the keyboard input.

 

A couple people have mentioned the idea of writing a four player game. I'm a little more dubious on that other than for the novelty factor. It's hard enough to get a second person interested in playing an Intellivision game with you these days, and I wonder whether a game concept that scales to 4 players would be as fun with only 2 or 1 player. It's certainly possible--there are games out there that do that successfully--but I think there's a reason the 5200 dropped two of its controller ports. Even on my Wii, we've only played 3-player a handful of times.

 

I suppose it depends on the kind of social scene you're in. My girlfriend and I tend to hang out with other couples, so 4-player games are a natural fit, and we've played them on the Dreamcast, N64, and GameCube. When I saw my family over Christmas, we played a lot of 4-player Wii, and if I'd had another set of paddles, we'd probably have ventured Warlords or Medieval Mayhem on the VCS. It's actually kind of amazing how ahead of its time the VCS was in that regard.

 

"Party games" are an under-explored genre in homebrew, in my opinion

 

Absolutely agreed. I'm nobody's programmer, but I've been thinking for a while about various designs for 3- and 4-player games. I wish there were more of them on the VCS, and with the ECS in play (so many acronyms!) then the Inty would be an option too.