Byte Knight

I'm about halfway through this book now and lovin' it. Tons of references to the Atari 2600 and 80's pop culture. Anyone who frequents this forum will thoroughly enjoy this book!

RevEng, jrok, Tjoppen, Pac-Man-Red, and I are excited to announce a new Christmas compilation cartridge titled "The Byte Before Christmas." The cartridge is ready to go and will be featured in the AtariAge store once the label art is finished. You can submit your artwork to this thread, and the deadline for the submissions will be December 12th. The winner will get a free copy of the game autographed by all four programmers!

 xmascart.ntsc.rc1.png   89.94K   49 downloads

The Byte Before Christmas consists of the following games:

Naughty List by RevEng

 xmascart.ntsc.rc1.bin_1.png   27.66K   57 downloads

• After centuries of watching the Naughty List grow, jolly old Saint Nick has finally cracked and decided to level the playfield... very literally. In Naughty List you play as Santa, dropping packages to destroy ugly buildings and make way for lovely Christmas trees.

Bell Hopper by Tjoppen

 xmascart.ntsc.rc1.bin_3.png   32.36K   51 downloads

• The game is a demake/port of the flash game Winterbells. Hop from bell to bell to wake humanity and save Christmas.

Santa's Scabs by jrok

 xmascart.ntsc.rc1.bin_2.png   75.8K   50 downloads

• You are an unemployed worker caught in the grip of a worldwide global economic recession. While watching the news, wondering if you'll ever find work again, an interesting story catches your eye: Santa's elves have gone on strike! Summoning your entrepreneurial spirit, you decide to hitch a ride to the North Pole and brave the elven picket lines. Can you reach the workshop, make the toys, collect your paycheck and save Christmas... including your own Christmas?

Christmas Adventure by Byte Knight, RevEng, and Pac-Man-Red

 xmasadventure2.png   9.16K   52 downloads  xmasadventure2.bin_1.png   9.76K   51 downloads  xmasadventure2.bin_6.png   14.85K   43 downloads

• The Grinch has once again ruined Christmas by stealing all of Whoville's presents and scaring off the residents with his evil toys. Your task is to return the sack of presents back to your home. This is no easy task, since you must fend off three evil toys - the Nutcracker, a toy Robot, and a not-so-cuddly Teddy Bear. If you can get past these "toys gone wild", you'll have to deal with the Grinch himself. The Grinch's dog Max is also on the loose, swiping items from you at the most inopportune times...

Good luck and remember to get your artwork in by December 12th!

I missed out on the Atari Pint Glass Set, but I did pick up an Atari T-shirt from Target the other day for $10. It's not too bad, although I don't ever recall them using "Entertainment Technologies" in their logo... They also had a Pitfall and Pac Man shirt, so you've got almost half the week covered!

 photo.JPG   110.37K   85 downloads

I recently released a demo of my next Adventure game that I made with the help of sprite-artist extraordinaire, Pac-Man-Red. It's preliminarily called "Epic Adventure", but not everyone likes the title. Legal issues aside, do you think the game is worthy of the title "Adventure III"?

Click on the above link for more information about the game, and here are some pictures:

 Epic Adventure.png   48.37K   175 downloads

 advIII.jpg   48.41K   168 downloads

Hi guys,

I've been working on my next Adventure game for the last few months, and I think it's gotten to the point where it's actually kind of fun to play. Created with the DPC+ kernel (you'll need the latest version of Stella to play), it's preliminarily called "Epic Adventure".

It's an entirely new Adventure game built from the ground-up featuring 32 rooms / mazes with all-new items and enemies (see picture below). It's kind of a mixture of Adventure and Lord of the Rings. The goal of the game is "the usual" - get the golden chalice back to your home castle. But first, you must kill the Dragon in order for the chalice to appear in one of three places - the Wizard's Castle, the Dragon's Castle, or the Troll's Cave.

 epicadv.png   281.66K   446 downloads

Some new features:
• upgraded graphics
• new torch lighting effect
• one skeleton key to open all castles
• staff for long-range attacks
• amulet makes you invisible to enemies
• you can make the hawk drop objects by sniping him with the staff (if you're quick enough)
• the hawk will sometimes pick you up if you don't have any items, and you can control his x-axis while flying.
• when you're in the same room as the palintir, you'll move at half-speed.

Screenshots:

 advIII.jpg   48.41K   519 downloads  dpctest20.bas.bin_17.png   7.71K   262 downloads
 dpctest20.bas.bin_16.png   6.05K   232 downloads  dpctest20.bas.bin_13.png   8.51K   189 downloads

Still to be done:
• add sounds / AtariVox support
• death animations
• gate animations
• better ending
• title screen with music
• add randomized Level 3
• add logo at bottom of screen
• add boss - the Evil Magician himself!
• add Easter Egg

If anyone has any special interest in doing the above, please feel free to contribute!

The demo is Level 1 of the game, with all of the items nonrandomized and easy to find in or near your home castle. Test it out and let me know what you think!

 epicadv1.bin   32K   179 downloads

Latest version (Levels 1-3) as of 9/25/11:

 epicadv22.bin   32K   153 downloads

Special thanks:
Pac-Man-Red - nice Canadian who created all of the graphics.
RevEng - another nice Canadian who helped me figure out DPC+.
Random Terrain - batari Basic games would not be possible without his manual!
batari - all hail The Creator!