[Lee Krueger]

Well, we were all surprised at NWCGE this weekend when a current Atari Employee disclosed an unheard of Atari 2600 game from Sega. I hate to post this little teaser, but I figured you should hear about it from me as I am sure little tidbits will be leaking out soon. As I get organized from the NWCGE activities, I will post some pictures and more details.

The game is called IXION. The game features a title screen much like other Sega game releases. Gameplay appears to be complete. And you know what... the game is alot of fun. The gameplay is a bit hard to describe as it is unique and unlike any other 2600 title I have played. Basically, you must fill the screen with squares and catch the "magic square" to spell the letters IXION. Sounds easy, but there are baddies you must contend with. You can shoot the baddies and or destroy them with your helpers (round balls). The round balls are set in motion by your shots and help fill the squares on the screen.

Not much of a description, but I can provide more details as I play it more.

We are in the process of trying to contact the original game programmer to get more details.


As soon as we get more details, we will post them here.

Regards,
-Lee

[Tempest]

Whoa! Sounds interesting. Got a screenshot?

Tempest

[Lee Krueger]

Quote

Whoa! Sounds interesting. Got a screenshot?  

Yes, we took screen shots. However, most of the NWCGE staff are on the road or at work today, so you will have to wait a day or so until we can post them. Please be patient.

I was surprised at how fun the game was to play. I suspect the game got canned because of the game crash of '84.

A full NWCGE report is forthcoming. Including Joe Decuirs awesome keynote presentation, which held the audience interest for more than an hour. Joe even participated in the Atari 2600 Championships for a coupel of games. He did quite well, I might add.

Regards,
-Lee

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Two protos in just one day!

[Mindfield]

Awesome! Ixion was a hella cool game on the 8-bit Atari. Unique sort of game.

For those that aren't aware of this little gem here's a brief synopsis (and a few screenies from the 8-bit verison):

You control a small tank-like vehicle with turret. You can rotate the turret in any of the 8 joystick directions to fire at enemies. There is also a ball on the screen that is capable of "healing" tiles -- essentially replacing tiles on the screen that are missing, making them traversable. The ball will also destroy any enemies it crosses and pick up letters. Ultimately, the point of each round is to collect the letters IXION while trying to stay alive. In between levels is a bonus round where you start off on a completely empty screen and must shoot (or later bump when you can move) the ball to "heal" as many tiles as quickly as possible. The more tiles healed on each bonus round, the higher your bonus.

It's a cool game and I'm a little astonished there was to be a 2600 version of it.

Here's a few screenies to give you an idea of gameplay.

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[Lee Krueger]

Awesome.... That is the game.

Do you have instructions or can you point me somewhere that has them.

Thanks!

-Lee

[Mindfield]

Lee Krueger said:

Awesome.... That is the game.

Do you have instructions or can you point me somewhere that has them.

Thanks!

-Lee

Unfortunately I couldn't find a thing -- not in my own collection or in an extensive googling (which included scouring the 8-bit webring). The only place that would have had it is the old Holmes site, but he's been closed for couple of years now (or rather, has moved on to bigger and Sega things)

The closest I could find was the KLOV entry for the Sega arcade proto.

[Stingray]

I've got the arcade proto rom in my MAME cab. It is a pretty fun game.

-S

[www.atarimania.com]

Hello folks,

More on the A8 version here: http://www.atarimani...28&SOFT_ID=2629

This seems to be the "original" release, not the crappy pirated version. The US GOLD copyright would indicate a forthcoming European release. SEGA probably pulled the plug before any agreement could be reached with the UK company (just my theory).

Some other interesting things revealed by the code:
- there is a 1983 SEGA copyright (if this is in place of the US Gold copyright, I suspect this means the company already knew the game wouldn't be released in the US)
- the game size is 16KB, which could mean a cartridge release was planned
- there seems to be a cheat mode!
- the programmer left his name (I won't post it here because I don't know if it's a good thing but you can find it easily).

Your turn now, bloodhounds

--
Atarimania
http://www.atarimania.com

[ATARIPITBULL]

Just when you thought you have heard about all of the 2600 games that were supposed to be made.

1) Was it made into a 2600 cartridge ?
2) Does it already have a label design on it ?
3) Was it only going to be made in Europe ?
4) Are there any plans of releasing it now in complete box form ?

[sku_u]

Is this a puzzle game? I'm looking forward to finding out more about it!

[Lee Krueger]

Quote

Just when you thought you have heard about all of the 2600 games that were supposed to be made.  

1) Was it made into a 2600 cartridge ?  
2) Does it already have a label design on it ?  
3) Was it only going to be made in Europe ?  
4) Are there any plans of releasing it now in complete box form ?

1) Just an eprom on a board (I'm not sure what you mean by a cartridge)
2) Not sure (*)
3) It is NTSC (*)
4) ???? (*)


(*) All this depends upon several things. First of all, we would like to contact the original programmer before steps 3 & 4 are intiated. From what I know, contacting the programmer may not be very hard. We will have to wait and see. Please be patient.

Quote

Is this a puzzle game? I'm looking forward to finding out more about it!

Hmmm.... it is kind of like a puzzle game. Kind of like a shooter. More of a shooter.. I guess

-Lee

[ANTHONY ATARI]

How come it looks like a nintendo game or something? Those dont look like 2600 graphics to me. Those are excellent graphics for the 2600, dont you think?

[bjk7382]

ANTHONY ATARI said:

How come it looks like a nintendo game or something? Those dont look like 2600 graphics to me. Those are excellent graphics for the 2600, dont you think?

There are no 2600 screenshots posted here yet. The ones posted above are from the Atari 8bit computers.

[Mindfield]

I'd consdier it more of an action game than anything. Upon consideration, I can certainly see a 2600 version being possible, albeit with stripped down graphics (probably without all the different tile sets, though you never know; they could have crammed a few different tile sets into a 4k ROM) I'm curious about the flicker tho. Consdering there's generally 3 enemies per screen and up to 3 balls, plus your tank and as many as 4 missiles at once, I can imagine the flicker could get a little wrenching.

[PackratVG]

I saw the game in action at the show. There's a little bit of flicker, but not much. The most that we ever saw on the screen was the ship, two enemies, and two balls. No one got past the first ten or so levels, though. I spent quite a bit of time playing it as well and liked it a lot. As for the tiles, they change color every round, but not their shape. If I'm not mistaken, the copyright said 1984.

Thanks,
Jarett

[Mindfield]

PackratVG said:

I saw the game in action at the show.  There's a little bit of flicker, but not much.  The most that we ever saw on the screen was the ship, two enemies, and two balls.  No one got past the first ten or so levels, though.  I spent quite a bit of time playing it as well and liked it a lot.  As for the tiles, they change color every round, but not their shape.  If I'm not mistaken, the copyright said 1984.

Thanks,
Jarett

That would make sense. Sounds very cool! I can't wait to see this thing. It'd make for a great repro!

[Video]

Weird, I'd love to see how that game's put together. I mean, look, it's got 13 Hi res background tiles in a row (looks to be 16+ pixels each) I'd love to see how they did that, and see if someone can pull it off in homebrews.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Video said:

Weird, I'd love to see how that game's put together.  I mean, look, it's got 13 Hi res background tiles in a row (looks to be 16+ pixels each)  I'd love to see how they did that, and see if someone can pull it off in homebrews.

Maybe you missed that those are no Atari 2600 screenshots.

[Lee Krueger]

I'll see what I can do tonight about screen shots.

-Lee

[Lee Krueger]

OK... as promised, the first screenshots of IXION are available at the NWCGE website. I'm sorry the description is a bit sparse, but as time permits, more information will be forthcoming. It appears that we have a good chance in contacting the original programmer. With that said, we want to withhold any speculation until we can chat with him (her?).

http://NWCGE.org





Regards,
-Lee

[Tempest]

The graphics kind of remind me Thunderground. I wonder if they had the same programmer?

Tempest

[Mindfield]

Interesting screenshot. Is the sprite multiplexing responsible for the absent enemies or were there just none on-screen at the time the shot was snapped? (I know it's pretty well impossible to get a proper shot in an emulator whenever there's flicker; you'll just get whatever sprites are "on" in that particular frame)

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Tempest said:

The graphics kind of remind me Thunderground.  

Yes, the bottom part looks quite identical. That might be a hint, though the necessary code is nothing too special.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Mindfield said:

(I know it's pretty well impossible to get a proper shot in an emulator whenever there's flicker; you'll just get whatever sprites are "on" in that particular frame)

Using z26's phosphoric effect emulation (-f100 -B) you can make better screenshots with flickering objects.