Is this year 'the year' for Homebrews?

[DracIsBack]

I'm looking at all the different things coming out of various Homebrewers and thinking that this might be 'the year' for most 7800 Homebrews. Either that or damn close as I remember quite a few during the contest a few years ago.

 

Regardless, many great things happening! Thanks to all the Homebrew contributors who've spent the time on our little system.

[8th lutz]

This is a great year for homebrew games indeed. It has been a few years that I've seen so many Homebrew contributors working on an Atari 7800 game console in a year.

 

I hope there will be a good amount of Atari 7800 homebrew games being worked on next year.

[GroovyBee]

I've a few more ideas for 7800 games. Roll on 2010!

[PacManPlus]

The other thing that seems to help is the we seem to each have different strengths.

 

I.E. GroovyBee's strong points is that he can come up with original games, whereas I like to do arcade ports (also he has much more creativity/originality than I have - which is most likely why I stick to arcade ports)

Speaking of which, I have my own list that I would like to work on.

 

John (Propane13) is doing a port currently, but I see that he also started doing his own thing with the scrolling demo he created. The scene is growing

 

One can hope that kenfused gets the bug to start working on the 7800 again

[Underball]

The 7800 homebrew scene has been on a slow but steady rate of awesome since about 2003.

 

I would love to see more Classic Arcade ports, by the way PMP.

 

In no particular order, I'd love to see:

 

Crystal Castles

Popeye

Spy Hunter

Gauntlet

Ghosts & Goblins

a better Donkey Kong port

Track & Field

Pengo

Time Pilot

Gyruss

Zaxxon

Vanguard

Defender/Stargate

Mighty Bombjack

Contra

[[d2f]Iggy*SJB]

Scramble.

 

For the love of God.... Scramble!

[Curt Vendel]

Scramble would be INCREDIBLE!!! and Bob has a great side scoller engine that would help...

 

2010 should definitely be a VERY strong year for the Atari 7800 :-)

 

 

Curt

 

Iggy*SJB' date='Wed Dec 9, 2009 5:23 PM' timestamp='1260397412' post='1894254']

Scramble.

 

For the love of God.... Scramble!

[Armonigann]

Nice Choices Uderball especially on the

 

Ghost n Goblins

Might Bomb Jack

Stargate

Vangaurd

 

and of course...sweet, sweet Spy Hunter..for the 7800..

Edited December 9, 2009 by Armonigann

[atarian63]

All these mentioned "wants" are on my list too! Been buying all new items as they become available here.

Thanks to all who have made them happen!

[carmel_andrews]

Perhaps this present 'home-brew' scene (i.e across all classic retro systems) is sort of representative of the software market when these machines were in their heyday, so I would guess that the present home-brew scene is 80's stylee games etc making a comeback and also a modern version of the 80 style of software company/publisher

 

Do we really need the likes of infoatari/EA/Acti-blizzard etc writing software for our systems....Nooo, keep them well away, we have found better developers thanks

[8th lutz]

Contra and Ghost'N Goblins being Arcade ports for the Atari 7800 would great additions for the Atari 7800 I think those two games need to be higher than 32k rom cartridge for sure.

 

The question would be if a 48k rom cartridge would be good enough considering the length of the arcade game and the amount of rom a cartridge could be for the Atari 7800. The last thing the Atari 7800 needs is an arcade port that is weaker than it should be for the system.

 

You could have a good version of Ghosts & Goblins as a 32k rom game as the homebrew Colecovision version showed, but that version sacrificed some things like the opening scene after you press the start button,items, enermies, length of some of the levels and music in the stages. For a Colecovision game, Ghost n Zombies is a great arcade port for a game that is more advanced than the Colecovision is designed for.

 

The Atari 7800 is capable of doing better than the Colecovision an arcade port of Ghost'N Goblins based on the fact the Atari 7800 has more memory than Colecovision has. The main concern would be getting the opening scene that shows the princess getting kidnapped and have the levels be as long as the arcade version as possible. Music during games a game level shouldn't be a main concern.

Edited December 10, 2009 by 8th lutz

[DracIsBack]

The Atari 7800 is capable of doing better than the Colecovision an arcade port of Ghost'N Goblins based on the fact the Atari 7800 has more memory than Colecovision has.

 

Would you believe the Colecovision actually has more memory than the 7800 and NES?

[8th lutz]

The Atari 7800 is capable of doing better than the Colecovision an arcade port of Ghost'N Goblins based on the fact the Atari 7800 has more memory than Colecovision has.

 

Would you believe the Colecovision actually has more memory than the 7800 and NES?

 

No, I wouldn't at first because Homebrew programmers for the Colecovision like Opcade talked about the Colecovision only has 1k of ram. Opcade made it sound like in the past that the Nes had more memory than the Colecovision. Opcade created the Super Expansion Module for having more ram to work with.

 

The homebrew developers for the also Colecovision mentioned the past that the Colecovision wasn't built for 128k Cartridges before the Mega cart.

Edited December 10, 2009 by 8th lutz

[Ransom]

I believe the CV has 1K of system RAM and 16K of video RAM, whereas the NES has 2K system and 2K video RAM and the 7800 has 4K of RAM.

 

If I remembered that right, that may be where the confusion comes from. The CV has less system RAM than the 7800 and NES, but much more available for video than either of those.

Edited December 10, 2009 by Ransom

[8th lutz]

I believe the CV has 1K of system RAM and 16K of video RAM, whereas the NES has 2K system and 2K video RAM and the 7800 has 4K of RAM.

 

If I remembered that right, that may be where the confusion comes from.

That is what made me confused because I remember that Atari 7800 having 4k of system ram.

Edited December 10, 2009 by 8th lutz

[gdement]

I don't know anything about the CV but I would assume the size of the video RAM doesn't do the programmer any good, it's just used up by video after all. The design of some consoles need more video RAM than others, but if it's dedicated to video then that's all it's good for.

 

In the 7800, the programmer can allocate only as much video RAM as needed, and keep the rest for other things. The shared memory setup is more storage efficient than the NES, but the bigger downside is it's also slower.

Edited December 10, 2009 by gdement