How come all the good Nintendo DS games come out later this year? Star Fox Command, Mario Hoops 3 on 3, and especially Yoshi's Island 2. My frothing demand for this game increases. I loved the original and wanted a sequel. Since the original Yoshi's Island was Super Mario World 2, does this mean that Yoshi's Island 2 is Super Mario World 3? Well, anyway, apart from making Mario Bros. 2, I've been slacking off on making Batari 2600 Basic games because I don't have any ideas. Just bought Brain Age
Here's something interesting I didn't know until recently: Tengen was founded by Atari! So technically, Atari made video games for the NES. Not only that, 5 licensed ones with the Nintendo seal on them! That's why I started collecting Tengen games for the NES. The black weird looking ones that aren't licensed by Nintendo. I have 3 so far: Klax, RBI Baseball 1, and RBI Baseball 2. The RBI Baseball 1 & 2 are nice because they have a "watch" feature that makes the computer play against itself,
I'm 3/4 of the way to having 100 NES games. Well, two of them only work part of the time. And both were made by Data East. "Al Unser Jr. Turbo Racing", "Cybernoid", "Double Dribble", "Kickle Cubicle", "T&C Surf Designs" and "Wacky Races" were the lucky 6 to get the total up to 75. As for 2600 games, still no new ones, and the ones were there I already had. Wish I had a Coleco Adam, there's like 6 games for it. Why? Who didn't care to have 6 Coleco Adam games. Why didn't they just sell the s
We used to have this unusual weather-related record. Every year since the National Weather Service started keeping records in 1892, it has never rained more than a trace amount on July 12th. That 113-year-old tradition was broken when 0.06 inches of rain fell earlier today. If it had just waited one more day, we could still have our record, but no. I guess records were meant to be broken. It was fun while it lasted. I'm going to Game Crazy Friday evening and there had better be some Atari 2600 g
Before I got into Atari programming, I used to think up of little games I could make. And after watching the "Time Machine" episode of The Brak Show, I knew Headkicker was a must. Zorak and Brak are playing this Atari-2600-graphics-like game called Headkicker where Brak is laying down and Zorak keeps kicking Brak's head. I didn't care if it would turn out to be a boring game, I must own it! Fast forward a few years later, and here I am making my own Atari 2600 games thanks to Batari and his wond
There's been some pretty weird programs for video game systems that aren't games. Take Nintendo's Electroplankton, Animal Crossing, and Nintendogs. The tireless bAtari 2600 BASIC programmers have been cooking up some as well, like "Atari OS" and batari's calculator. I threw my hat in the ring and made a timer. What practical use a timer for an Atari 2600 could have is beyond me. I'm also working on a multiplication table, which I'm having difficulty with (unless the answer to every multiplicatio
Posted my Batari BASIC version of Super Mario Bros. 2 intro screens. Even added a door to go in. What I couldn't add were enemies and the ability to jump. If there aren't any enemies in the intro screens, you wouldn't need to jump (you could put enemies in at the bottom intro screen near the door, and like stomp them like a Goomba or something. Come to think of it, seeing a Goomba in this game would be pretty funny. And then once you go through the door, you would fight Birdo, who is throwing eg
That's what it seems like in the summer where I live. Either it's really hot or kinda cold. Imagine a light switch with the settings "really hot" and "kinda cold." Right now, mommy nature flipped the switch to kinda cold, and boy am I happy. But soon, she'll flip the switch back to really hot, so I'm gonna have to enjoy this cool weather while it's here.
In other news, I called the one Game Crazy store in my town I haven't inquired about 2600 games, and they said they didn't have any. So (hopef
Have a safe & happy fourth of July! Here in Oregon, we're not allowed to even have bottle rockets! It's true! But we can have the dinky stuff sold at the fireworks stands, some of which aren't really dinky at all, but actually kind of cool. And thunder passed by here about an hour ago, no lightning though, so Mother Nature is getting into the swing of things. So get out there and play the retro games that have fireworks to celebrate. Super Mario Bros. is the only one that comes to my mind. S
July 2nd is half-way through the year. I put a new Batari Basic game up in the forums. Its working title was "No Squish" but I changed it to "Dipstick" after No Squish's title screen looked stupid. I've decided to lay off working on a new game for the 2007 Minigame Compo until November because, while about 25% finished, it'll take way less than half-a-year to complete it. It's top-secret right now, but I'll tell you this much: it has paddles and a ball, and it's not a Pong rip-off.
Whatever that is. A brand new month has dawned upon this earth. And today being July 1, I want to wish all the Canadians a happy Canada Day. I will watch South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut in your honour. I kid, really. I even put the u in honor. I went to Victoria BC once. From what I remember (and it's not much), it's a very beautiful place, and there's white Christmas-like lights all around the Capitol building. In Oregon, we have a golden man atop our dome on our Capitol building. I drive
It's much cooler here, and boy am I happy. Our dog has had trouble with the heat, panting, sweating, and his arthritis has really been acting up, and he's been having diarrhea. Don't know why he has arthritis, he's only 8 years old for pete's sake. In other news, Oregon finally has something to be proud of as OSU won the College World Series in baseball, and both Oregon teams in the NWL are kicking the east division's butts. Salem has a tough series with the Everett team, so it's #1 playing #2 f
Strange weather events are happening here. Yesterday's high was 103, and Sunday's was 100. Guess what part of the country I live in. OREGON! Yes, a heat wave in Oregon! Our definition of a heat wave is 3 or more days of 90+ weather. And with Saturday's high of 94, it was a heat wave. Up in Portland, their high of 102 yesterday is the hottest temperature ever for the whole month of June! Luckily, the temperature is going down, and I'm surprised I'm saying I like that it's going to be 80 tomorrow!
Wouldn't it be nice to program the weather like you program games? It's a heat wave here in Oregon, and yesterday the high was 100 (Fahrenheit)! Today, it's supposed to be 101 and I have to go out right in the hottest time of the day (I don't have a choice.) Also, I'm working hard on making "Ants" more enjoyable. I'll post the latest version today if anyone replies to that thread. I've added a game over screen and made an ant crawl across the title screen.
I showed my Mom Ms. Pac-Man on the Atari 2600 and she commented that she had a hard time moving her up. So then I plugged in Freeway, thinking that would be an easier game, and I was right. Not only that, but she likes the game! She used to play Tetris, Pipe Dream and Pac-Man on the NES. I still have those games, but she has a lot less free time now. She doesn't usually like things I like (Mystery Science Theater 3000, Monty Python's Flying Circus to name a few), but she likes Freeway. Her score
Well, after months of searching, I finally got an E.T. cart. You'd think something with a rarity of 1 would be easy to find, wouldn't you? Sure, there were lots of Pac-Man carts, lots of Space Invaders, lots of Combat in stores, but no E.T.s to my amazement. I still don't get the point of the game, but it was, IMO, a "must have" game in any Atari 2600 collection, and now I have it. And I'd like to say thanks again to Godzilla Joe for sending it to me. You da man!
Went to the used video game store a few hours ago and got the following NES games: Elevator Action, Milon's Secret Castle, Pipe Dream and Zelda 2. I've been wanting Pipe Dream for the NES for a long time now, and I finally got it. First saw it in the store 3 weeks ago and was surprised to find it still there. Well, it's with me now. Finally got a Zelda game, one series that's been eluding my collection. I now have 69 games and 3 complete rows in my box. 23 more NES games and I can fill up the wh
Sorry I'm late with today's blog, it's just that I can't really think of anything to say today except that tomorrow I'm going to the used video game store to pick up some games. Come to think of it, this is a lot better than writing this at 12-1am Pacific time. Maybe I'll write all my blog entries around this time every day. I could use a little sleep, and I'm thinking about going to sleep at around 11 am tonight (2 am Eastern) seeing as how I only got a little less than 5 hours of sleep last ni
As it turns out, a hacker got into the site. I checked a few minutes ago and the number of files dropped again from 22 to 19! As part of working their problem out, they disabled the uploading files page, which is bad cuz I have a new NES MIDI, and it's not that often I have a new MIDI to submit. Hopefully this'll end up in an update. I was wondering when someone would notice the new-files page would have over 3,000 MIDIs on it, too bad it was a hacker that noticed it first.
If any of you are in the Atari 2600 forums, I've started two posts where I've taken requests for MIDIs. Well, anyway, all those MIDIs I make for people I also send to the Video Game Music Archive ( www.vgmusic.com ). I've been submitting MIDIs to this site for a year and a half, so I know how it works. BTW, look in the Atari 2600 section, and those that say either sequenced by Chris Read or Mister E are mine. I more than doubled the Atari 2600 section Well, anyway, under the New Files section,
Here it is, the middle of June, and here in Oregon, there hasn't been one day so far this month where the temperature got past 80. I'm serious. Actually, I don't really care what it does. If it gets hot, the girls will wear less, and if it stays cool, I won't be sweating. Seems the more I get into Atari 2600, the more things having nothing to do start having connections to it. For example, right now I'm listening to "Up & Down" by Pink Floyd, and it just occured to me that there's an Atari 2
Well, I've done it. I've bought every Atari 2600 game in the used video game stores in my town. What now? I'll start back up again on my NES collection. I only have 61 of those. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to buy more Atari 2600 games, but there aren't any more. Saw Pipe Dream in the Keizer Game Crazy, and I hope to gawd it's still there. And after a 1-1 tie, the America gets its first World Cup point but still looking for its first win. I think we would win the World Cup if we played Realsport
I like games where you can just pick up and play them without having to know much. Games like Super Mario Bros. series, Mario Kart series, Tetris, Sonic, etc. But looking at my Atari 2600 selection, there are very few games like that.
For example, Blueprint. How do you play that? I don't know. What do you do in Skateboardin'? How do you even start playing Ghostbusters? Sure, I could look up the manual on AtariAge, but at this stage, it's a moot point. I'm already disinterested in the game. For
I spent the night over at my dad's apartment last saturday. My mom & dad are divorced and I live with my mom, so sometimes when dad doesn't have to go to work on Saturday i spend the night with him. Anyway, he took me to a used video game store and I bought 4 atari 2600 games there. I brought my Atari with me and went into his bedroom and hooked up my atari while he was in the living room watching tv. As I was playing my new video games, I glanced over at his dresser. On the top of it were h
-=stupid games news=- issue 1 / summer 2006
- My first game I ever made for the Atari 2600 (that I ever cared about, anyway) is in the Minigame Compo ‘06. Zyx (pronounced “Zicks”) is an alien face that eats bananas. At first, I wanted Zyx to be a yard gnome, but that would be hard to pull off given an 8x8 sprite to work with, so he became a simple alien smiley face from the planet Plim. Why bananas,
though? Cuz I felt like it. This final version has a health meter that shows how many of yo
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