19 replies to this topic

[CPUWIZ]

http://corporate.infogrames.com/pressrelea...ry.html?sid=592



* back to work *

[Albert]

Wow, they put that press release out just three days before the event? I was aware of it, but I didn't realize it was last weekend! I notice that Curt Vendel was on the Advisory Panel. I'd like to know how the competition went and more about the games that were created!

..Al

[Cobra Commander]

http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...7146&highlight=I think it got posted in the wrong forum, sort of.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

I just checked the developer kit. They are using Gamemaker with some 2600 limitiations (resolution, colors, but far from being realistic).

The results won't be even close to real 2600 games.

[moycon]

Maybe they are just looking for unique gameplay ideas and offer this as an easy way to see and judge them before taking that idea and actually coding a 2600 game using the same play mechanics??

[kencrisis]

There's an article about it in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/06/arts/des...ign/06game.html

[Rob Mitchell]

"New York is home to a vibrant game design community, from industry-leading game companies such as Atari to numerous institutions offering programs in game development education including New York University, Renssaeler Polytechnic Institute, Mercy College, and the School of Visual Arts. Approximately 10 teams of five students each from these schools will participate in the Retro Redux Game Jam."



Ok .. I just walked out and got my copy of the NYTimes. The article begins at the bottom of page Arts page B1.

Here are some choice quotes:

"Getting young programmers to make games for the Atari 2600 is asking them to return to gaming's Stone Age, .."

""THis is a great exerciase for them, because instead of wirrying about flashy graphics, they have to return to core concepts of game play, and that means asking, 'Is it fun?'" said Katie Salen ... These old games have a lot to teach."

Four prizes: "Each prize comes with a trophy: an old-school 2600 joystick mounted on a wooden base. But are the joysticks authentic? "They better be," she says, "We bought them on eBay.""

An 11 yo son of a faculty member comments, "The old games are actually addictive," he says. "Like Pac-Man or Mario you can play for hours and hours. The old games were more original. Now they're all the same, just with different pictures. The graphics are great now, but they're boring a lot of the time."

The winner is a game called "Ninja Garden" by a group of "programmers" called Club Awesome. There is a screen shot on page B7. Square image, 10x 15 graphics filled with palm tree icons which make a kinda walking land maze. Occasional bombs on the screen. A bush or two. And a walking man. There are the Windows the minimize, maximize and close boxes in the upper right just for reference.

The "game" looks similar to what Paul Slocum has put together for his RPG. And it will require extensive knowledge of 2600 programming to make it a reality .. which Atari/Infogrames wants .. Andrew Davie or Thomas Jentzsch .. maybe Dennis Debro .. Want to step up to the plate?


Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Kepone]

Well you know the saying:

"Anything they do, we can do better".

I'm sure that none of the people in that contest, have the ability to create compelling games like Thrust or Climber 5.

[Kepone]

And sometimes I wish I knew how to program games. The only programming language I'm familiar with right now is Java and I barely understand it.

[oleanhosting]

http://news.com.com/Images+An+angry+Atari+...html?tag=cd.top

[mojofltr]

Does anyone know if the game entries eventually be available to the public for download? It would be very interested to see what they came up with. :-)

Kepone said:

And sometimes I wish I knew how to program games. The only programming language I'm familiar with right now is Java and I barely understand it.

Warning: I'm going to go a bit off topic
I realize that this is in the Atari 2600 forum, so If you meant program VCS games, read no further - I can't help you out. If you meant games in general, I'll tell you that with the right software, anyone can put together a simple video game in very little time without knowing a single line of code.
I really don't know why it isn't more popular, but Europress/Clickteam has a line of game development tools that are much easier to use than Gamemaker. You don't need to know how to write one line of code. It's really as simple as importing some graphics and telling them how to respond to input and to eachother. Okay, so it's a little more involved than that if you want to make a very good game, but you'd be amazed to find that a simple game can take only an hour (or even minutes) to put together!

I own a copy of Klik 'n' Play, The Games Factory, and Multimedia Fusion (v1.2) (shareward versions here). I prefer The Games Factory of these. Klik 'n' Play is comparitively limited (no scrolling, etc), and Multimedia Fusion (1.2) was too buggy/clunky for me (Supposedly fixed since 1.5, but I'm not going to pay again). They also offer another product called Jamagic that allows for 3-D game design, but I've never used it.

Klik 'n' Play for schools is now free "to be used within the bounds of a school activity", but can be downloaded here and is fully functional... AFAIK, it is only missing the extra sprites and sounds that would have come on the cd-rom.

Clickteam links to several other fan sites that are full of homebrew Klik games. You've probably played a few of them before now and didn't realize it. ie you may have seen the remake of Aquaventure by Chris Och that he posted here in the forums, or even my own remake of Centipede.

Sorry to run with this, I know I must sound like a representative for Clickteam, but so many times I've heard people say, "if I only knew how to program..."... Well, put a game together and if it is fun, then maybe a programmer will take you up on your game ideas.

[mojofltr]

mojodufus said:

Does anyone know if the game entries eventually be available to the public for download? It would be very interested to see what they came up with. :-)

Ah, I missed the part about them being developed for the Atari Flashback. Probably not then, eh? :-|

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

Thomas Jentzsch said:

The results won't be even close to real 2600 games.

So maybe the next FB is a NES-on-a-Chip again?

Greetings,
Manuel

[vdub_bobby]

I downloaded the devkit and there are some interesting things in the documentation they provide. I noticed that whoever wrote them seems to be familiar with the standard 2600 programming documentation on the web - they use the NTSC color chart (same image) found on K Israel's tutorial (http://alienbill.com...01/06happy.html), and they use the same names for the different 2600 sounds that P Slocum does in his music guide (http://qotile.net/fi...music_guide.txt). A few excerpts.
From the Visual Design doc:

Quote

http://www.emuunlim.com/stellax/ is a solid Windows based emulator downloadable for free. A copy has been provided in the folder containing this document. Several classic games have been included with this distribution of the emulator and should be ready to play immediately.

http://www.AtariAge.com has an exceptional library of 2600 ROMS – the only way to learn is to play. Download an emulator for your platform and take plenty of screen shots.  

Interesting that they give props to Stella and AtariAge here; also amusing that they tell them to go out and download ROMs.
Anyway; from the Sound Design doc:

Quote

Voices
There are eight unique voices or instruments included in the SDK as .wav samples. They are Bass, Buzz, Lead, Low Bass, Noise, Pitfall, Saw, and Square. These are the only source materials allowed to be used in your sound design and these samples cannot be edited.

The sound doc is actually pretty accurate; it is the graphics doc that is wildly misleading:

Quote

Maximum Display Resolution:160 x 215
Number of colors: The 128 colors of the NTSC palette

And that is pretty much it for graphics. Well, they do mention the aspect ratio (they give 2:1) for pixels. But no mention of PF limitations, color limitations, or sprite limitations at all! Which is probably why most of the screenshots of the prospective games look like blocky NES games, complete with tiles.

[Zach]

The Ninja Garden title screen looks doable. Not simple, but doable.

[Kepone]

@mojoflter- I was thinking more among the lines of programming for the 2600 but I might gave that gamemaker stuff a shot just to see if the general idea of making games even appeals to me. From what I understand, 2600 programming is not a walk in the park.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Did you notice the screen at picture #3. Looks like Aztec Challenge, doesn't it?

[sku_u]

If the big FB2 surprise is getting a bunch of college students to use modern programming tools to create games that kind of resemble what a VCS game would have looked like, FB2's going to go down the same path as FB1 in communities like this one.

[vdub_bobby]

Thomas Jentzsch said:

Did you notice the screen at picture #3. Looks like Aztec Challenge, doesn't it?

Yup, sure does. Weird.

What cracks me up is, at least from the screenshots shown, the graphics are not only inaccurate, but crappy! Some of the sprites are hideously blocky.

Ok, I'm gonna post some of the screenshots here for everybody's amusement :)

Attached Thumbnails

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[Haydn Jones]

how many
thngs can you see wrong with 8? Will any of these games make it on 2600 hardware? mabe they are making a 7800 on a chip and asked for the designs to be approx 2600 quality so they are easy to convert. or mayde they diddnt think it through.

anyone in the competition join up here? should realy be the first port of call.

Haydn