Yes! Got my "Programming the 6502 Book"!

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 7:57 pm

*Facts*! I now have facts available to me. Facts that will aid me in designing and writing software for the Atari 2600.

It took forever to get it off of eBay as well. But no matter. It's mine, and at a reasonable price.

They said that "this way... leads madness, Jonsey!" Oh, and how! And how! But I will show they as I program... with my fists!

I can't decide whether I should try to port an existing game that never made it to the 2600, or create a wholly new one. But, I think we had this debate before in this base, and I don't have anything new to add. Ah, well.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 8:55 pm

What the hell are you gonna program for the 2600? Block car racing? My favorite was always dodge'em.
How about Blockworm Jim 4 (attack of the cubes)

I seen a 2600 for sale at EB gameplace a couple months ago. I thought to myself.... Now thats a starter system for someone with no gaming experience whatsoever.

Use the joystick to steer the block around the other block. Dont touch the sides! Oh no The blocks collided!

Start programming for the C64! Yeah! thats the ticket!
(I suddenly realise that the C64 was able to accept 2600 carts.) that frightens me.

THE
BOOP DIDIDIDIDIDIDI BLEEP
AARDVARK

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 9:14 pm

AArdvark wrote: (I suddenly realise that the C64 was able to accept 2600 carts.)

No it couldn't. Put down the crack pipe and step away from the keyboard.

The C= computers did, however, use the same joysticks.

Well, Jonsey, Glenn Saunders is working on Death Derby, which is pretty much Death Race 2000. If you saw the Dancing Baby you know there's some immensely cool stuff going on with 3F bankswitching and prerendered animation.

There are two sports simulations I'd be interested in, and I'd be happy to collaborate (as if I had the time) on either of them:

Curling and Croquet. Croquet would be a lot like Atari Golf, actually, where you had a little map. Except, and here's the gimmick, you'd line up the direction of your shot on the map of the course. Then you'd decide how hard you swung while looking at a swing-meter and a head-on picture of your shoes and the ball.

Curling would be, well, you know, Curling (I don't know the rules either).

Also along the same lines would be Cricket, which would make the low speed of the Atari a positive virtue in terms of an authentic gaming experience.

Bruce

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Tue Jan 28, 2003 10:29 pm

Yeah, I could see curling, cricket and croquet, but I don't like those sports much. Well, maybe curling (never really tried it) but I am thinking that my best bet might be to go over-the-top in terms of violence. I'd love it if I made a game that someone in the media cited as being too extreme and a bad influence on children. I think (hope?) that the 2600 has one more game like that left in it.

The Death Race thingie will kick a lot of butt. I can't wait. I hope he makes carts available.

Maybe I should try a game using the Dark Mage text adventure engine for starters. Did you find the experience to be one filled to the brim with opportunities for learning?

Two other things I could do would be to look at a list of Arcade, C64 and Atari 400 games and try to get a few down which never existed before and then take a look at novels that have lost their copyright as of late (H.G. Wells and so forth) and see if there is anything there that would make an interesting game. Presuming nothing original strikes me, which it isn't.

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 12:28 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote: Maybe I should try a game using the Dark Mage text adventure engine for starters. Did you find the experience to be one filled to the brim with opportunities for learning?

Yep. But I still haven't written my own display kernel, and I'm sort of scared to.

I suggest you use Thomas Jentzsch's text engine, though, as it has the right # of scan lines and includes the letter Z.

Bruce

bruce · Post by **bruce** » Wed Jan 29, 2003 2:15 pm

http://icing.org/game/rules/world/wcf/ruleplay.htm

C'mon. You know you want to.

Bruce

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Feb 08, 2003 8:45 pm

Program Quake for the Atari 2600!

I have every confidence that you are the man to do it!

I'd download an emulator just to see it!

I bet you could make some killer mazes with all those building blocks!

As a reply to the C=64 cart thing. I used to have a box full of them. some of which were the same as 2600 games. hence me thinking the carts were interchangeable. I used to have pitfall2 and moon patrol. Whoo!! and some speedloader cart that made loading floppies almost 50% faster! whoo! And a sid cart that LET ME PLAY SONGS IN STEREO! F-ING STEREO!!!

god, what a crap system that was....

I still have my 1802 monitor...Oooo treasure!
when (disremember the name) computer store on E. henrietta rd. stopped supporting them i went there and picked up a dozen of the little bastards for 5 bucks each.
went home and made 3 good working ones out of them. (the main problem is that the video chip got fried quite often)
packed up 15 boxes full of commie stuff and gave them to goodwill three weeks after I unpacked my PII 350Mhz.

join the real world, son..

THE
SALVATION ARMY
AARDVARK