Slashdot Mirror

Is it the speed or the address space, or what, that you're calling limited?

On the 2600, the CPU has to generate the video signal, each frame (@60/50Hz), all the time.
The playfield makes up around 50% of the analog video signal's beam time. Therefore, even if you use
all tricks to have the CPU available for game logic on left, right, top & bottom border, you still have less
than 50% of the CPU time available.

If you want to use the hardware sprites (movable overlays), you have
around 30% CPU time (=0.36MHz) left for game logic.

http://www.alienbill.com/2600/101/02breach.html

I don't know if you're being serious, but you're wrong: Pong is actually a decent head to head game.

For starters: the name is a reasonably clever reduction of Ping Pong.

Heh, and some people got into it, at least enouugh so that it had its own strategy guide! ... I'm not kidding, that's from 1976.

The gameplay works well because of the ricochet mechanic: you want to get the ball on the corner of your bat so it's a sharper angle, but go too far and you'll miss it.

Of course I might be biased, I wrote a sequel to it that combines it with Joust on the Atari 2600: JoustPong / Flap-Ping (Atari's lawyers are still cranky about the name "Pong"....) If you thought the control scheme of Pong was simple...JoustPong just needs a single click pushbutton!

The granddaddy of all consoles does actually have one of the largest active homebrewing scenes.
Just a random selection of links:

http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/user/print/a/4849
http://www.atariage.com/2600/programming/
http://www.alienbill.com/2600/

I've been consulting with Fred Quimby a bit to make the Semi-Official Batari BASIC homepage:
http://alienbill.com/2600/basic/

It will contain the latest builds along with sample code, screenshots, and future documentation.

How can you have an article about one-button games and not mention that classic Atari 2600 homebrew, JoustPong?!? (Now known as "Flap-Ping" since Atari whined about the use of the word "Pong" in the title.)

Here's a link to the Usenet discussion that led to the creation of the game. Note the tendency towards KSS (Kitchen Sick Syndrome) by a few of the posters. ;)

Well, with emulators and such, its gotten a little easier, plus there's a great support community there. I've tried to add to it with my 2600 101 tutorial and assorted other tools. A decent debugger is still pending, however.

Did you complete a game? Even obscure 2600 games get attention with the community on atariage.com... love to know what it is, even if in retrospect it doesn't feel like your finest programming hour, but especially if it does... :-)

Well, with emulators and such, its gotten a little easier, plus there's a great support community there. I've tried to add to it with my 2600 101 tutorial and assorted other tools. A decent debugger is still pending, however.

Did you complete a game? Even obscure 2600 games get attention with the community on atariage.com... love to know what it is, even if in retrospect it doesn't feel like your finest programming hour, but especially if it does... :-)

Heh. Are you really an old Atari 2600 programmer?

I wrote my own 2600 homebrew game, got it released by AtariAge.com w/ promotional T-shirts and everything.

Anyway, one thing that intrigues me these days isn't advanced gameplay on the 2600 -- its 2600-like gameplay in modern settings, minigames...especially those found in "party" compilations.

But some classics will always shine above all others - like Defender for example. A good game is all about fun and gameplay - and that's pretty much timeless.
<streetcred>As a guy who's been around "rec.games.video.classic" since the early 1990s, and has actually written an 2600 game</streetcred> I'd say: Pac-Man, yes. Defender...eh, not so much. Defender always had a kind of "elitest" vibe that I think limits its mass appeal in the long run. They deliberately made it difficult to control, and I think that's the bad way to increase the toughness of a game.

Pac-Man though...nearly everyone can clear a board or two, and its visuals are so stylized that they barely look dated.

Still, Eugene Jarvis is frickin' brilliant. Robotron was so amazing...

This is an interesting problem in general.

I made the homebrew JoustPong for the Atari 2600.

I'm not sure where it falls on the originality spectrum...it melds elements of Joust and Pong, and technically it's a port since I also wrote it for Windows and in Java, but it's not a port or clone of any well-known game.

The Atari 2600 is a different scene from the DC, and any port to it is a SERIOUS challenge, but the DC is a lot more flexible, and I can see your point that a port of a game that is much better on a 1990-era PC isn't much of a breakthrough.

I think ideally a port or even an original game on a console or other non-PC system is mostly worthwhile if it takes advantage of that system; like DC would be better than a PC for multiplayer "couch" games, some ports to Palm are cool just 'cause it's portable (text adventures are a good example, because they don't demand constant attention and/or reflexes)

Anyway, there are some orginal games, but ports require less imagination, and sometimes have more of a built in audience--or at least people know what to expect.

I actually made (and published through AtariAge) my own Atari homebrew, JoustPong -- Pong with a Flap Button. I kept a developer's journal of the experiece.

I also made a newbie's tutorial, linked to at the end of the O'Reilly article: 2600 101. And currently I'm (slowly) working on 2600 cookbook...O'Reilly fans should find the format very familiar.

Overall, that's a great techie introduction to the hobby.

I actually made (and published through AtariAge) my own Atari homebrew, JoustPong -- Pong with a Flap Button. I kept a developer's journal of the experiece.

I also made a newbie's tutorial, linked to at the end of the O'Reilly article: 2600 101. And currently I'm (slowly) working on 2600 cookbook...O'Reilly fans should find the format very familiar.

Overall, that's a great techie introduction to the hobby.

I actually made (and published through AtariAge) my own Atari homebrew, JoustPong -- Pong with a Flap Button. I kept a developer's journal of the experiece.

I also made a newbie's tutorial, linked to at the end of the O'Reilly article: 2600 101. And currently I'm (slowly) working on 2600 cookbook...O'Reilly fans should find the format very familiar.

Overall, that's a great techie introduction to the hobby.

take it from a Gamer thats been Gaming since the Atari 2600(a lifetime of gaming as i'm only 23)
Take it from a gamer who has JoustPongwritten a published homebrew game for the Atari 2600....the PS2 controller sucks.

I mean, it is a subjective opinion. Apparently some people like the thumbsticks' position, but other people think it SUCKS. I always thought the shoulder buttons were too difficult to insitinctively tell apart as well.

I find GC and Xbox as totally ergonomic. And the dualshock always seemed reasonably sturdy. Though maybe not hurlworthy, I dunno.

There's a reasonably active indie/homebew scene.

For the 2600, it's based on the [stella] mailing list, and for the manufacturing, AtariAge.com is a great bet for someone who just wants their game manufactured and publicized and not (nec. maximizing pure profit, just taking a royalty per cart)

I just had my first atari 2600 game JoustPong made, released it at "PhillyClassic 5". You can order it at atari age.

People interested in trying it themselves...it's not easy to learn to program it, but isn't too bad if you know assembly or at least are good in some high level languages. I recommend my own tutorial, 2600 101 for people looking to learn.

There's a reasonably active indie/homebew scene.

For the 2600, it's based on the [stella] mailing list, and for the manufacturing, AtariAge.com is a great bet for someone who just wants their game manufactured and publicized and not (nec. maximizing pure profit, just taking a royalty per cart)

I just had my first atari 2600 game JoustPong made, released it at "PhillyClassic 5". You can order it at atari age.

People interested in trying it themselves...it's not easy to learn to program it, but isn't too bad if you know assembly or at least are good in some high level languages. I recommend my own tutorial, 2600 101 for people looking to learn.

I released my new 2600 Homebrew JoustPong! It was cool selling cartridges and talking to people about it.

I haven't had the chance to read all the responses, but I think it bears pointing out that even the great video game crash of '84 wasn't all that terrible. A lof of games got deeply discounted, it was a bit of a lull in consoles and arcades, but a lot of people discoverd home computer gaming ("don't copy that floppy!" ;-) -- but people didn't go off and do something else.

The demographic shift *is* interesting, where we are kind of seeing the retirement of the first generation of gamers, but...I mean, aren't a lot of other industries worried about consumers moving TO videogames from whatever they're trying to sell, not the other way around?

Well, what the hell do I know...I'm getting ready to release my first atari 2600 game JoustPong at PhillyClassic next weekend!

Yeah, they're really great with the homebrew community, they're helping me put my in development game JoustPong into actual hardware for release at PhillyClassic.

JoustPong controls more simply....press button to flap and move your paddle/player into position, against gravity. (I'm also trying a port for the atari 2600.

Trickier to control than pong, but in some ways simpler.

JoustPong controls more simply....press button to flap and move your paddle/player into position, against gravity. (I'm also trying a port for the atari 2600.

Trickier to control than pong, but in some ways simpler.

Oh, also, I'm making a game for the 2600 called "JoustPong" which is "Pong with a Flap button"...a bit like SF-cave in that regard, using "going against gravity" as a way of making a minimal-control, decent-movement-complexity game.

The page for the atari 2600 version is here, or you can check out an earlier java version.

Oh, also, I'm making a game for the 2600 called "JoustPong" which is "Pong with a Flap button"...a bit like SF-cave in that regard, using "going against gravity" as a way of making a minimal-control, decent-movement-complexity game.

The page for the atari 2600 version is here, or you can check out an earlier java version.

Joust Pong.

I believe this is the first year that 2600 games have been allowed in the competition, and since most 2600 games are 4K, this is why you see many 2600 homebrew authors submitting their games. The following list contains more information about each of the entries, including some that have not yet appeared on the Minigame Competition page:

Climber 5
Jammed
JoustPong
Gunfight
Qb
SCSIcide
Skeleton+
Space Treat Deluxe
Warring Worms

Additionally, many authors have released the source code to their games, which is invaluable if you're trying to learn how to program the 2600. Some examples relevant to the competition: Gunfight, Qb, SCSIcide, and Space Treat Deluxe.

And finally, some other links people may find useful:

Atari 2600 Emulators
List of Released 2600 Homebrews
Games in Development

Enjoy!

2600 101. Albert from AtariAge has eventual plans to give it a permanent home there.

Good place to get a feel for the basics.

What's even more scary than the 4K ROM limit is the 128 bytes of RAM. Yes, 128 bytes. 6502 assembly is easy, and the Stella chip architecture was an amazing acheivement. Read the Stella Programmer's Guide (available here) to be truly amazed at what it took those guys to develop games.

In my game I'm just at the point where I have a playfield, a moveable player, and one missile I can shoot. And that took a lot of effort. You know you're doing hardcore software development when you have to count cycles to make sure you're not computing when the electron beam is actually being drawn. You have 2700 or so cycles to work with "above" the television image per screen for computation, and only about 48 for each scan line before you start messing up your game image because you're still doing computation. It's interesting because you're tied to the physical progression of the electron beam across the TV.

arrowweb.com and ezpublishing.com both offer
$7-$15/mo hosting...CGI scripts and UNLIMITED BANDWIDTH--the catch is the total storage space is on the low end, 50-100megs.
all my sites run on one of them, and I've been pretty happy. ezpublishing seems slightly more reliable, but has a funkier CGI setup.

Cookbooks tend to be better than average...the Perl and Java ones from O'Reilly are great, the PHP one I got from somewhere else was ok.

I tend to add a cookbook section to my Atari 2600 programming Tutorial, 2600 101

Running Joust on 128 BYTES ram? I think you and Michael are pulling our legs. By way of comparison, this post is 129 bytes long.

The RAM is only used to store game state that changes while you play. This would be the level number, the score, the position and velocity of your character, and the positions and velocities of enemy characters and of the eggs that spawn.

This most certainly would fit in 128 bytes.

The Atari has a very, very bizzare internal architecture. A good page describing it is at:

http://www.alienbill.com/vgames/atari.tech.html

Also (and this is backed up by Blizzard's Bill Roper in that one Gamespy Top 50 that was posted here) Wing Commander also sold a huge number of the then-current 386 systems.

This article is barely academic, it's more of a mishmash "here are some games that were important or I think are cool." The text he throws to justify including The Sims and Black and White show that. ("It isn't really a multiplayer game..." etc.)

It reminds me of the paper I wrote for an A-life class, http://www.alienbill.com/vgames/alife.html, where I use the flimsiest excuse to argue why 2600 Battlezone is batter than Robot Tank. I then tried to show Classic Video Games as containing simple examples of A-life, which was pushing it. (I think that paper brought me from a solid A to a B+)

2. To those who write 'programming 2600 games is easy'... check out the source code for Combat. (It's a bit down that page). Sure, if you wanted to write some c++ game that shows a block that shoots other blocks, no problem. But for those of us purists, nothing beats the original code.

Just port an emulator and be done with it! Oh wait, it's impossible to emulate PONG... :)