[Albert]

/images/news/Qbert7800.jpgKen Siders, fresh from his development of Atari 5200, 8-bit, and 7800 versions of Beef Drop (a Burgertime port), has embarked on his next project: A port of the popular arcade game Q*bert. Originally revealed on April 1, 2005 as an April Fool's joke, Ken has already made significant progress on the game.

Gameplay-wise, Ken's rendition of Q*bert plays pretty much as you would expect Q*bert to. The most noticeable missing elements are all the enemies beyond the red balls, although this version is still somewhat challenging due to the speed and frequency with which those balls do bounce down towards you. The game already features a title screen as well as the "Level" screen that appears before each wave of levels. Q*bert for the 7800 shows great potential and is following in the footsteps of some other wonderful 7800 arcade ports, such as Food Fight.

You can view the original April Fool's thread here.

[Vic George 2K3]

Best April Fool's joke of this year.

[Vic George 2K3]

And better because it's going from joke to reality.

[SteveW]

I'm assuming that you won't be able to get the Q*Bert name, so what kind of Burgertime "Beef Drop" kind of thing are you guys going to do for this one?

[J.Max]

Someone else beat me to it...but I think it should be called Al*Bert.

[mojofltr]

Jeff Lee's account of Q*bert's history is very interesting. If this homebrew cannot be titled "Q*bert", then maybe "Snots and Boogers" or "@!#?@!" could be considered. :-)

[Albert]

J.Max said:

Someone else beat me to it...but I think it should be called Al*Bert.

I really have had nothing to do with this game, so I think it would be better to call it K*bert, after Ken Siders. And hey, K is somewhat close to "Q" when you say both names out loud.

..Al

[Bruce Tomlin]

Someone has already suggested Al*bert. :-) Somehow I don't think that one's gonna fly. Mabe Ru*bik? :-) Yeah, piss off two trademark holders at once! We've already been through that with Joust Pong. Hmm... wasn't the original name of Q*bert going to be those symbols in his speech balloon? Of course that makes it kind of hard to pronounce the name. Maybe Orange Drop or Fruit Drop. Mmm... fruit drops...

When I was playing this the other day I managed to get as far as the first level of the second round. Those damn balls can really fake you out. And then there's the urge to move the joystick at 60 degree angles instead of 90 degree angles.

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[Bruce Tomlin]

Gah. I duffed that.

(Mmm... Duff...)

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[kenfused]

Bruce Tomlin said:

When I was playing this the other day I managed to get as far as the first level of the second round.  Those damn balls can really fake you out.

I purposely made the balls go faster than normal so at least the game can have some challenge until more work is done it.

I may do some work on the control. Currently you have to rotate the stick, which isn't too bad a 2600 stick, but may be uncomfortable with a 7800 stick . The joystick diagonals currently don't do anything which may or may not be the best thing to do.

[mojofltr]

Bruce Tomlin said:

Someone has already suggested Al*bert. :-) Somehow I don't think that one's gonna fly. Mabe Ru*bik?...

Does anyone hold a trademark for QWERTY?

[kyle]

Any idea when beefdrop will be available on cart??

[moycon]

What about Queue*bert?

[Gregory DG]

How about Q*ernie? Then you could have Q*bert and Q*ernie.

[gdement]

What about "Q" ?

[Goochman]

kyle said:

Any idea when beefdrop will be available on cart??

Ken mentioned in the Beef Drop thread that he lost some files in an HD crash which would delay the 7800 Beef Drop cart release.

[Danno]

Goochman said:

kyle said:

Any idea when beefdrop will be available on cart??

Ken mentioned in the Beef Drop thread that he lost some files in an HD crash which would delay the 7800 Beef Drop cart release.

On April first.

[Bruce Tomlin]

Danno said:

Goochman said:

kyle said:

Any idea when beefdrop will be available on cart??

Ken mentioned in the Beef Drop thread that he lost some files in an HD crash which would delay the 7800 Beef Drop cart release.

On April first.

And then he mentioned it again on April 2.

[birdie3]

This game was one of my favourites when I was growing up in the eighties. This version really looks great thus far. I say this as a player as I am not a programmer in any sense. Up until now, I always thought the Colecovision version with it's great music and level indicators captured it best but this looks really promising.

Is it fair to assume that because of the walking on Atari/Infogrames eggshells that goes on here, this game will have to be changed slightly and renamed?

I always thought it would be cool if Q*Bert had a warp feature (ie: if you have completed certain tasks within a level, a special warp disk will appear and take you to either normally unattainable, further, or previous levels if you choose to jump on it). I personally don't think that having the ability to shoot at enemies would be very fun. That seems like it would really rob from the original gameplay dynamics. An extremely difficult but not impossible ending would also be sweet and/or maybe a co-operative two player mode like on Asteroids or Centipede.

[Trip_Cannon]

Gregory DG said:

How about Q*ernie? Then you could have Q*bert and Q*ernie.  

I don't think this suggestion got the attention it deserved...

[tillenterprises]

Qubie, Qubee, Quby, or Q*Bee?

[Danno]

Bruce Tomlin said:

Danno said:

Goochman said:

kyle said:

Any idea when beefdrop will be available on cart??

Ken mentioned in the Beef Drop thread that he lost some files in an HD crash which would delay the 7800 Beef Drop cart release.

On April first.

And then he mentioned it again on April 2.

Yep he did:

kenfused said:

Good News.
Turns out it wasn't a problem with the hard drive at all, but a problem with the clock in the computer.  Now that it is a new day here in the eastern time zone, things seem to have corrected themselves.

LOL.

I guess he got you twice?

[Shaggy the Atarian]

This is great news, it's cool to see that even more arcade classics will be showing up on the 7800. Of course there are a few titles that have been submitted for the homebrew contest that will add to that as well. 2005 is turning out to be a great year for Atari.

[Fellow Atari Man]

birdie3 said:

I always thought it would be cool if Q*Bert had a warp feature (ie: if you have completed certain tasks within a level, a special warp disk will appear and take you to either normally unattainable, further, or previous levels if you choose to jump on it).

I think that was done on a Q*Bert knock-off called Pogo Joe for the Commodore 64, or maybe there were a couple of discs on a level where if you landed on one, it'd teleport you to the other disc on the other side. I don't recall now...not that I even played it anyway, I just read a review of it, and it sounded like it was pretty good.

[Albert]

birdie3 said:

Is it fair to assume that because of the walking on Atari/Infogrames eggshells that goes on here, this game will have to be changed slightly and renamed?

Not sure, but someone must own the rights to the Q*bert name (Atari or otherwise), and changing the name of the game is one way to help divert attention away from it. Some research needs to be done to see who presently owns the rights to the game.

..Al