Bert's Pigeons

Entry posted by atari2600land in Atari 2600 February 6

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I was perusing the Vault of Abandoned Projects (a.k.a. my hard drive). I came across this game I was working on which was a spiritual successor to the CCW 2600 games. I figured Bert needed his own game. (I had attempted a proper Count's Castle where the object was to count the number of bats on the screen and press the corresponding number on the Kid's Controller), but Bert. Everyone likes Bert. More than the Count. So I think I began this in place of it. Which it doesn't really matter since we'd probably need permission to release this anyway. So I'm doing it here.

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Originally the title screen had just Bert's face on it. You wouldn't believe how much trouble it was to add the title of the game AND also keep it a steady 262 scanlines. It took about 2 hours to add the letters, fix the letters, fix the letters some more, then make it 262 scanlines. So what does Bert do in "Bert's Pigeons"?

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Bert's pigeons drop squares of three different colors. Bert's job is to pick up the squares and put them in the corresponding color bin here. Imagine my surprise when I actually got three different playfield colors like in the picture to work like they do. I previously didn't know I could do that! I tried to end the game, but I got to 20 without it ending.

I think it'd be kind of fun to release this in a limited amount with Kid's Controller overlays and all. But first I need to work on it some more. Put in it something to make it exciting. But also make it appeal to its target audience. But what? Do you have any ideas?

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