Nostalgic

Oh no! I was certainly impressed by your work on the label; it's unfortunate that it didn't make it in there. I'm sorry to hear about that. Hopefully it'll make its way into the PC and/or Mac versions. (I still don't have my copies, so I can't see for myself. *pout* )

Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary says that kiseki is "a miracle." My Canon Wordtank gives alternate definitions: a locus, pyroxene, the death roll (really!). I couldn't find arumana in either one. It may not be one word, but two; "aru" means "certain" or "unspecified" when it modifies a noun. (aru daigaku = a certain university) However, the only definition I found for mana is "a Chinese character", so I'm not sure that two words makes sense either. I'm just a slightly-beyond-beginning student of Japanese. This is the best I can do.

Between the Hozer version and the AtariAge version, when I last got a count Euchre was approaching 40 sales. I didn't expect it to fly off the (virtual) store shelves as it is a bit of a niche product. The group of Atari homebrew buyers is small enough, but when you reduce the group to those who enjoy card games, and then reduce again to those who have heard of a game played in a specific region of the U.S., there isn't much of an audience left. I'm just glad that there are people out there enjoying my game. Who knows, perhaps its inclusion in Activision Anthology will drum up more interest...

I received my patch yesterday (or was it two days ago?). I'm very impressed! It looks nice and the inclusion of the letter is a nice touch. Kudos to all who were involved!

Did VGR drop off into the electronic ether? I remember his site being gone for a while. I never did get my T-shirt and I think I was the second or third person to solve level 5 and submit the code. Oh well.

I'm also stuck on the word search, having found 16 games out of the 26. I didn't find any diagonals yet. I was actually worried because I found very few horizontal and a lot of vertical. I don't know if that's because that's how the puzzle was arranged or if I just can't find words that are horizontal because they're too obvious. This is an enjoyable contest, even if the potential ROI (a $25 prize) is a lot less than the time I put into it. It's the challenge that makes it worthwhile. Thank you, Room 34, for establishing this contest! (I noticed that you seem very fond of one particular game in this word search... )

I would add Q*bert's Qubes (rarity 9) to the list. It's quite a good game, both technically and in the fun factor. I've never seen the arcade game to make a comparison, but on it's own it is very enjoyable. Though not nearly as rare, The Official Frogger (rarity 6) is very impressive, and kudos to you if you can find it on cassette rather than the Stella Gets a New Brain collection.

I thought that the GBA version was the first one to be released. It may just be a bad assumption, but the first press releases and articles that were mentioned here were both about the GBA version, so I thought it natural it would come out first. Also, does the "dolG" status depend on how many copies the stores buy or how many copies that consumers buy?

Then count me as the last post... for a few minutes, at least.

Won't we able to better comment on it once its released for testing? I'm eager to see this game in action. I'm glad you've returned to working on it!

Yup, and a great chance to attract more people to our great hobby. Not only that, it's also like putting a message in a bottle and seeing where it lands. I'll be curious to see what far-flung parts of the world start playing Euchre - as a card game, not a video game. Maybe it will gain popularity outside the Midwest U.S.!

Go to the Stella archives, enter "Big Dig" (with no quotes) in the Search field, then press Enter. This should give you plenty of results.

Search for the name "Big Dig" in the Stella archives. The work-in-progress is by Christopher Tumber.

I also vote for having Kablamo! finished first. Get it off your plate so that you can breathe a little easier. Plus, I have a certain fondness for card games.

My vote would be for a game similar to Boulder Dash, but different enough so that there'd be no problems with First Star. I'm not a fan of fighting games, so I doubt I'd go for Fu Kung. The DDR game - DiscoTech was the last name I am aware of - would also be good. I think it would be interesting to see some 8-bit computer games ported backward to the 2600, as was done with Qb. How about Xagon? In addition, there's plenty of Analog and Antic magazine games that could get the cloning treatment. I'd love to have some of the Tom Hudson/Kyle Peacock collaborations, like Fire Bug, available again. Of course, additional card games are always welcome.

When I was a kid, my Atari 800 XL was hooked up to a TV in the basement. The arrangement was unfortunately directly underneath a leaky toilet in my parents' bathroom. One day the darn thing left a gusher of water all over the computer. It didn't work... or so we thought. My parents bought me a 130 XE to replace it. However, I discovered about a month later that the 800 XL still worked! The only permanent damage was to the Reset button, which had to be pressed in a certain way to make it work. (Come to think of it, my 2600 also has a reset switch problem...) Anyhow, the moral of this story is that Atari parts survive!

I tried out Backfire in the Stella emulator on Linux. Between the small window size, small bullet size, and playing with the keyboard, I didn't do all that well. However, I'll echo the other sentiments here - this game is both enjoyable and challenging. I do want the opportunity to try to get more than a handful of points and settle into the "game rhythm" that lets a game go well. I'll also agree with Big Player on having the cannon you are currently controlling marked in some fashion. It would be a great help. I did have one annoyance, which I'm not sure is a bug or a feature. Right after destroying an enemy plane, if the barriers shift and your gun is right beneath or above it, either your shot continues through the plane, bounces, and destroys your gun right away, or the game still thinks the trigger is pressed and fires again, straight into the barrier. In short, it's easy to lose a gun right when the barriers change. Thanks for bringing Backfire to us!

As far as I can remember, it did.

Thank you for all the fun I had with it when I was younger!

Yes! That's the one! I think I downloaded it from some local BBS. I don't remember typing it in from a magazine.

There was an Atari 8-bit computer game that might be suited to the "track" idea. You draw lines of bricks from one wall to another. The blank areas don't get filled. There's a rotating happy face bouncing around the arena, destroying the bricks you lay down. If it contacts a line as you're drawing it, you lose a life. You move on to the next level by filling in a certain amount of the board. It felt like something out of Analog or Antic, but since I can't put a name to it, I can't easily find it. I do remember it being written in Basic. Something like this, the 2600 could do...

I enjoyed Flag Capture as a kid. I still break it out once in a while, though I do wish the 1-player mode was a little more compelling.

Let's not forget Howard Scott Warshaw, who gave us the blistering Yars' Revenge (consistently rated among the top 2600 games) and the eminently puzzling Raiders of the Lost Ark, taking adventure gaming on the 2600 to a new level. On top of that, he does documentaries and commercials!

I'd also love to see I, Robot for the 2600... or any home platform, for that matter. It's a sadly underrated and underappreciated game. I agree with Inky. A top-down version would be fun if the rest of the gameplay remained intact. Changing the playfield from one color to another while handling sprites might be a bit taxing, but perhaps you could collects dots or fill in holes instead.

I first encountered Oystron back in '98. I didn't buy a cartridge then, but I did record a WAV file to a cassette. I never did quite get the hang of the game. I cashed in some Euchre royalty money to buy Oystron just before Hozer closed up. I'm very happy that I did. Now that I read the manual I understand the game a bit better, but I've still yet to pass the second level. I keep trying, though. It's a solid action game, with just the right pace - careful movement followed by a very brief respite, all with some planning. It's the same addictive quality that Pac-Man has. Oystron is a must for anyone interested in homebrew games.