Megamania. It was like Space Invaders against household items. Your space ship looks pretty much like a low-rez Starship Enterprise or Klingon ship or something.;) (I have it here next to me somewhere... too lazy to pop it in and check)
That was frickin' awesome.:) (The other day I bought the new Hitchicker Guide to the Galaxy DVD and was amused by the 'asteroids'-style effects in one of the scenes... I had forgotten about that!)
Activison and Electronics Arts both kind of portrayed their programmers as stars. With EA there was especially a "_rock_ star" feeling to it. Ah, those were the days. If only I were 10-15 years older...
The easter egg was well known, actually. There was a secret item in the black castle's dungeon (you know, where you couldn't see anything except right around you). It was a 1x1 pixel dot. Oh... and it was invisible. AND, it was inside a little area that you couldn't get to without the bridge. (And since it was dark in that room, you'd almost never notice there was a little blocked-off area.)
Well, get the dot... and guess what? NOW you have to CARRY it (remember, it's invisible) to a particular part of the world... near the gold castle, I believe. It was a room with a vertical line for a wall, instead of a solid wall on the side. You need to have a few additional items in that room, so that the vertical wall would kinda flicker some (too many sprites on the screen).
After doing all this, you now carry the dot (I think) THROUGH the wall, and you'll see the name of the author on the screen.
Adventure was awesome. It's still one of my #1 favorite games of all times (even though I own every other system between the 2600 and the PS2).
That fscking bat was a pain in the ass, and it made for hilarious frustration in that game. He'd fly by, carrying a pissed off dragon, and go "oh hey! that's a nice shiney sword you've got there... *YOINK!*" And leave you with aforementioned lizard...
About how many man-hours does a typical game take?
I seem to have this knack for whipping out a playable game in about 2 days. It doesn't mean it's complete, by all means. It just means it can be demoed. (Well, actually, Bug Squish was such a simple game, that it really did only take about 2 days to get a first 'finished' version out the door.)
Of course, as with all Open Source stuff, my games are never done. (Either I just didn't get around to finishing them, or there's just little tweaks or patches here or there that come in months or even years later:^) )
Audacity has been GREAT. I normally use random sounds I find on free sound archives on the 'net, but Audacity has been letting me create and tweak some of my own, original sound effects. It has a long way to go (it crashes on me sometimes, and there's not NEARLY enough filters and effects yet), but it's been #2 to The Gimp for me lately.
The 2nd time we did this, we simply used fullscreen VNC. In both cases, the boxes looked like an average Linux box... we just didn't need to do any partitioning or installing or annoy the IT department.:^)
At the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis last year, we handed out about 100 DemoLinux discs to passers-by, so they can try Linux out at home without installing anything.
Uh... didn't The Kompany really start out focusing on KDE? Hence the _K_?:^P
Kaboom! and Tempest 2000
on
Gaming Zone?
·
· Score: 2
Kaboom! for the Atari 2600 and Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar are the only two games for which I've ever entered a trance-like state.
With Kaboom!, it was an attempt to hit the 10,000 point mark. By the time I was at the higher levels, all there was in front of me was the TV - the rest of the room and the people in it faded into the background. It was cool.:^)
With Tempest, you need strong focus to see past the flying pixels and giant "EXCELLENT!" that get between you and the baddies down the tube. The techno music helps a lot, too.;^)
The only other game that's come close was WipEout for the PlayStation. With that game, though, it just got to the point of "need to pause before scratching nose."
Sacramento's was good. I have a feeling there'd've been more than the 12 who showed up if the venue hadn't changed at 12:30 that afternoon.:) (Someone forgot to see if the winning venue _existed!_ D'oh!)
Anyway, I was there, 'representin' the big LUG in the area, LUGOD. The head of the smaller SacLUG (a coworker of mine at Worldcom, in fact) was there too.
Interestingly, most of the folks who showed up were people I've never met - so they aren't regular LUG'ers. They will be, though. Bwahaha.
One dude who came had just recently moved to the west coast (if you could call Sacramento that!) from Flordia.
As with one of the posted meet-ups above, noone brought their digital camera. I had my Zaurus, though, of course, and showed off the recently-ported Doom running on it, and handed out some leftover handouts Sharp gave me for LUGOD.;^)
I don't understand people wanting to use the stylus to poke the keys on the keyboard. (1) it's MUCH slower than using your thumbs! (2) just use the on-screen keyboard!
Adventure for the 2600 was the first game with an easter egg. It was also based on the text-based Adventure game, but turned graphical (if you could call those graphics).
It's also still one of my all-time favorite games on the 2600. The bat just PISSES me off in games 2 and 3.:)
One of these days I'm going to make a proper Adventure update/clone for Linux/Windows/MacOS. (Thank you, Sam Lantinga!)
The 5200 was just an 800 whose memory map got stuck in a blender, the OS yanked, and the controller turned into an easily broken analog piece of crap.:) There were also not very many games.
Ben is cool. I hung out with him a lot at least year's Classic Gaming Expo. The portable 2600s were cool, and I love the way you can 'link' them for two-player games like Combat.
Now if only Infogrames or JAKKS would hire this guy, we'd have a REAL retro system to stick in our pockets.
(Of course, I've got Stella on my Zaurus, but it's not quite the same.)
I'm a huge Atari fan (own a 2600, 2600 Jr, two Jaguars, two Lynxes, a 1200XL, an 800XL and an 800), but honestly, I never liked the ST.
The Amiga was MUCH more impressive to me. I still want to get a 500 or 1000 one of these days.
One of the things not many people know is that the Amiga was actually designed by a lot of the same people who designed the 2600 and/or 400/800, and some of whom went on to design the Lynx.
They share a lot of the same nifty architecture. (Atari 800's "Display List Interrupt" was just the early version of Amiga's "Copper"... and the Atari Lynx has the same feature, though I don't know if it has a specific name)
Atari ST was pretty much Tramiel's idea which he brought over when he moved from Commodore to Atari.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't tempt me !!!
Megamania. It was like Space Invaders against household items. Your space ship looks pretty much like a low-rez Starship Enterprise or Klingon ship or something. ;)
(I have it here next to me somewhere... too lazy to pop it in and check)
That was frickin' awesome. :)
(The other day I bought the new Hitchicker Guide to the Galaxy DVD and was amused by the 'asteroids'-style effects in one of the scenes... I had forgotten about that!)
Why do I have the feeling that this article wouldn't have been posted if not for the Bill Gates reference?
*snicker* [innocent whistling]
Activison and Electronics Arts both kind of portrayed their programmers as stars. With EA there was especially a "_rock_ star" feeling to it. Ah, those were the days. If only I were 10-15 years older...
The easter egg was well known, actually. There was a secret item in the black castle's dungeon (you know, where you couldn't see anything except right around you). It was a 1x1 pixel dot. Oh... and it was invisible. AND, it was inside a little area that you couldn't get to without the bridge. (And since it was dark in that room, you'd almost never notice there was a little blocked-off area.)
:)
Well, get the dot... and guess what? NOW you have to CARRY it (remember, it's invisible) to a particular part of the world... near the gold castle, I believe. It was a room with a vertical line for a wall, instead of a solid wall on the side. You need to have a few additional items in that room, so that the vertical wall would kinda flicker some (too many sprites on the screen).
After doing all this, you now carry the dot (I think) THROUGH the wall, and you'll see the name of the author on the screen.
Pretty cool.
Adventure was awesome. It's still one of my #1 favorite games of all times (even though I own every other system between the 2600 and the PS2).
That fscking bat was a pain in the ass, and it made for hilarious frustration in that game. He'd fly by, carrying a pissed off dragon, and go "oh hey! that's a nice shiney sword you've got there... *YOINK!*" And leave you with aforementioned lizard...
For some reason, PGP Corp's slogan:
;)
Protecting Confidential Information,
In Transit, In Storage, Everywhere, All the Time.
just reminds me of the Depressed Persian Towtruck Man character from MadTV...
"Allll-ways... Allll zuh time..."
About how many man-hours does a typical game take?
:^) )
I seem to have this knack for whipping out a playable game in about 2 days. It doesn't mean it's complete, by all means. It just means it can be demoed. (Well, actually, Bug Squish was such a simple game, that it really did only take about 2 days to get a first 'finished' version out the door.)
Of course, as with all Open Source stuff, my games are never done. (Either I just didn't get around to finishing them, or there's just little tweaks or patches here or there that come in months or even years later
Yummy! Thanks!
Well, I guess they are. :)
Hehe.. I know how you feel. If only my cats would use the computer. (No puns about 'mice,' please)
Then I'd have some VERY inexpensive (and cuddly) beta testers.
So are they going to interview me next?
-bill!
(not sure I've "done anything of (even moderately) big scope"...)
Audacity has been GREAT. I normally use random sounds I find on free sound archives on the 'net, but Audacity has been letting me create and tweak some of my own, original sound effects. It has a long way to go (it crashes on me sometimes, and there's not NEARLY enough filters and effects yet), but it's been #2 to The Gimp for me lately.
I know the folks at LinuxGames.com call me 'prolific' every time they mention my name, since I churn out so many titles...
:^)
But this OSNews article (I'm mentioned at the top, before the actual interview with Michael) was a surprise! Cool!
And don't worry, I'm keeping it up, despite worrying about my job and my wedding this October.
The 2nd time we did this, we simply used fullscreen VNC. In both cases, the boxes looked like an average Linux box... we just didn't need to do any partitioning or installing or annoy the IT department. :^)
At the Whole Earth Festival at UC Davis last year, we handed out about 100 DemoLinux discs to passers-by, so they can try Linux out at home without installing anything.
Uh... didn't The Kompany really start out focusing on KDE? Hence the _K_? :^P
Kaboom! for the Atari 2600 and Tempest 2000 for the Atari Jaguar are the only two games for which I've ever entered a trance-like state.
:^)
;^)
With Kaboom!, it was an attempt to hit the 10,000 point mark. By the time I was at the higher levels, all there was in front of me was the TV - the rest of the room and the people in it faded into the background. It was cool.
With Tempest, you need strong focus to see past the flying pixels and giant "EXCELLENT!" that get between you and the baddies down the tube. The techno music helps a lot, too.
The only other game that's come close was WipEout for the PlayStation. With that game, though, it just got to the point of "need to pause before scratching nose."
-bill!
Sacramento's was good. I have a feeling there'd've been more than the 12 who showed up if the venue hadn't changed at 12:30 that afternoon. :) (Someone forgot to see if the winning venue _existed!_ D'oh!)
;^)
Anyway, I was there, 'representin' the big LUG in the area, LUGOD. The head of the smaller SacLUG (a coworker of mine at Worldcom, in fact) was there too.
Interestingly, most of the folks who showed up were people I've never met - so they aren't regular LUG'ers. They will be, though. Bwahaha.
One dude who came had just recently moved to the west coast (if you could call Sacramento that!) from Flordia.
As with one of the posted meet-ups above, noone brought their digital camera. I had my Zaurus, though, of course, and showed off the recently-ported Doom running on it, and handed out some leftover handouts Sharp gave me for LUGOD.
I should go into marketing...
-bill!
I don't understand people wanting to use the stylus to poke the keys on the keyboard. (1) it's MUCH slower than using your thumbs! (2) just use the on-screen keyboard!
Sheeesh!
-bill!
What does one have to do to get one of these fine IBM Linux hackers to come speak at a LUG? :)
-bill!
pr@lugod.org
http://www.lugod.org/
Adventure for the 2600 was the first game with an easter egg. It was also based on the text-based Adventure game, but turned graphical (if you could call those graphics).
:)
It's also still one of my all-time favorite games on the 2600. The bat just PISSES me off in games 2 and 3.
One of these days I'm going to make a proper Adventure update/clone for Linux/Windows/MacOS.
(Thank you, Sam Lantinga!)
The 5200 was just an 800 whose memory map got stuck in a blender, the OS yanked, and the controller turned into an easily broken analog piece of crap. :) There were also not very many games.
:)
;)
I'd like to see an 800/XL/XE portable.
Atari800 on my Zaurus will suffice for now.
(Ooh, or maybe a 7800!)
Ben is cool. I hung out with him a lot at least year's Classic Gaming Expo. The portable 2600s were cool, and I love the way you can 'link' them for two-player games like Combat.
Now if only Infogrames or JAKKS would hire this guy, we'd have a REAL retro system to stick in our pockets.
(Of course, I've got Stella on my Zaurus, but it's not quite the same.)
I'm a huge Atari fan (own a 2600, 2600 Jr, two Jaguars, two Lynxes, a 1200XL, an 800XL and an 800), but honestly, I never liked the ST.
The Amiga was MUCH more impressive to me. I still want to get a 500 or 1000 one of these days.
One of the things not many people know is that the Amiga was actually designed by a lot of the same people who designed the 2600 and/or 400/800, and some of whom went on to design the Lynx.
They share a lot of the same nifty architecture. (Atari 800's "Display List Interrupt" was just the early version of Amiga's "Copper"... and the Atari Lynx has the same feature, though I don't know if it has a specific name)
Atari ST was pretty much Tramiel's idea which he brought over when he moved from Commodore to Atari.
Weird, no?