Arkyology - New prototype discovered - Finished Game!

[Albert]

1 minute ago, pwalters said:

I've contacted Albert again to see if he is willing to move forward. If not, in a few months I might have the time to put into it.

I just sent you a detailed response. 

 

 ..Al

[+stupus]

Im more than happy to have you guys use the artwork i made and posted sometime back too. And i could do more on doing the rest of the box too if desired, or anyone else could use it to finish 1 too.

[pwalters]

I've been conversing with Albert this morning and we would like to get this cartridge out early in 2020. Things are a little bit to hectic right at the moment with the Portland show coming up, and the holiday season.

 

To that end, Albert tells me the first thing we need is the verbiage for the manual on how to use and play the game.

 

With the high level of creativity and enthusiasm in this forum. I would like to try a little 'Crowd Sourcing' to get the manual text done.

 

I know many of you have seen/read prototypical game manuals a lot more recently and often than I have...

 

I've read through some and here are the basic sections that I've seen:

 

1. GAME NAME

2. Description teaser for what the game.

--- Example:  Guide Noah through the Ark helping him feed and take care of the animals during the flood. Noah must navigate through 3 levels, avoiding obstacles such as birds, turtles, and alligators .. ( more descriptive text)

3. Game Play   : Description of how the game is played, what the buttons do and why..

4. Controls <perhaps redundant as number 3 above kind of covers this?

5. Final advice and/or challenge : Example: 'Can you guide Noah through 40 days and nights?'

 

I'm positive this group can put collaboriatively put together a great manual!

 

Anyone care to start?

 

 

PS: Just a note that my lawyers had to pound into my thick skull years ago: The verbiage will be public domain. No royalties will be paid, and no copyrights will be inferred.

 

 

[+bfstats]

For the manual, I would suggest you include, on the inside of the back page, your own story about your involvement in the development of the game and whatever other history you can remember about the company during those years. Give yourself some credit! It gives us Classic Game Enthusiasts a more personal feel for the game which was sadly lacking back in the day. Consider it a chance to further connect with a community that values very highly those who reach out to us from the past.

[lazzeri]

Excellent news!

[Mountain King]

15 hours ago, pwalters said:

 

 

Anyone care to start?

 

 

 

I might give it a shot for you.

[Swami]

1.  Since the bird hazard is an unknown species, the game was designed to be like an Activision game and the bird looks a lot like a crane, I vote we call it a crane in honor of David Crane. 

 

2. I’m assuming the turtle is a snapping turtle, since it sounds more treacherous. 

 

3. Are the reptiles alligators or crocodiles? 

 

Probably need a poll for #1 and #3, but I’m at work, can’t access game related sites and don’t want to mess with the full version on my phone. I can set one up tonight, though. 

 

Edit: the consensus according to pretty much everywhere seems to be alligators, so, IMHO, I don’t think a poll is needed. I’ll still do one for the generic bird. 

[Swami]

I took a shot at the instructions, as well, just for some other ideas. Didn't know if I would get to it or not. Here it is, rough draft. This is for the mostly unmodified Arkyology, with no difficulty settings. It applies to the original as well as those with graphical and bug fixes. If changes in difficulty, life number, alligators, etc., are made they can be incorporated. Go ahead with providing any corrections/comments.

 

 

This is just the instructions, BTW. I'll leave illustrating to others, although I have one picture that could be fitting attached below, as it shows a 3-floor ark and has most or all of the animals on the ark, except the porcupine and alligator.

 

BTW, for the suggested bonus card, I believe the animal in pen 1 (top left) is a saber tooth tiger, pen 4 animal has stripes and is either a house cat or possibly jaguar (I am going with house cat). I think pen 7 is a plain old dog, pen 8 is a swan and pen 10 is a kangaroo, I believe, and the rest are pretty obvious. Also, pen 3 could be various types of deer (Reindeer, elk, white tail)

 

Edit Sep5, 2037 CST: already updated manual from two to three. A couple minor typos and added information about number of lives, which I forgot.

 

Edit Sep6, 1853 CST: scroll down three posts for latest version 4.

 

 

 

[Swami]

Throwing this out there early. Someone should work on an "I made it one week on the ark" patch or something.

[Machine]

5 minutes ago, Swami said:

Throwing this out there early. Someone should work on an "I made it one week on the ark" patch or something.

Got to get the Activision Rainbow in there .....

I have had patches made before, but I suck at artwork. If someone does the art, I will check on having them run off.

[Swami]

Formatted manual, v4, text only

 

As far as I am concerned, this is my final pre-review draft. I do have to check a little closer if you can get on the ladders at slight angles and planned to put a high score table on the back of the activity card, but I won’t make any more changes to the posted version until whatever the next steps in the process are done, so reviewers don’t have to keep downloading new versions. 

 

ARKYOLOGY manual v4.docx

[pwalters]

This is very nice, Swami! I like where you are going with this. The picture is representative of the layout of the game, so it works well.

 

On the animal names, I like all three of your suggestions -- it is (or was supposed to be) an alligator. 

 

I had lunch with David Crane at a CES show in '92, I was doing some work for Absolute Entertainment for a GameBoy cart. David was really down to earth and easy to talk to so I like calling the bird a 'Crane'.

 

How do the patches work? Is it something printed in the manual or is it an actual patch of some type?

 

 

 

[chas10e]

2 hours ago, pwalters said:

This is very nice, Swami! I like where you are going with this. The picture is representative of the layout of the game, so it works well.

 

On the animal names, I like all three of your suggestions -- it is (or was supposed to be) an alligator. 

 

I had lunch with David Crane at a CES show in '92, I was doing some work for Absolute Entertainment for a GameBoy cart. David was really down to earth and easy to talk to so I like calling the bird a 'Crane'.

 

How do the patches work? Is it something printed in the manual or is it an actual patch of some type?

 

 

 

 

you remember BEFORE the internet ...... was a way to reward high score achievements

https://www.atariage.com/2600/archives/activision_patches.html

[+save2600]

...and this is how we took pictures of our scores to send in via snail mail!  

 

[Swami]

5 hours ago, pwalters said:

This is very nice, Swami! I like where you are going with this. The picture is representative of the layout of the game, so it works well.

 

On the animal names, I like all three of your suggestions -- it is (or was supposed to be) an alligator. 

 

I had lunch with David Crane at a CES show in '92, I was doing some work for Absolute Entertainment for a GameBoy cart. David was really down to earth and easy to talk to so I like calling the bird a 'Crane'.

 

How do the patches work? Is it something printed in the manual or is it an actual patch of some type?

 

 

 

Thanks so much!! As far as the patch goes, the patch for the Space Cactus Canyon homebrew is a good example. Scroll down to "Join the Space Cactus Captains" in the link. They are embroidered fabric patches that are made in some reasonable limited quantity.  You e-mail Atariage or whomever a picture of your Atari and TV with your score and they mail you a patch with a letter of congratulations.

 

https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1108

 

[Swami]

9 hours ago, pwalters said:

I had lunch with David Crane at a CES show in '92, I was doing some work for Absolute Entertainment for a GameBoy cart. David was really down to earth and easy to talk to so I like calling the bird a 'Crane'.

 

That sounds pretty cool.

Here's all the Animal Adversaries: David the Crane, Paul the Porcupine, George the Giant Turtle and Al the Gator ?

[+sramirez2008]

45 minutes ago, Swami said:

That sounds pretty cool.

Here's all the Animal Adversaries: David the Crane, Paul the Porcupine, George the Giant Turtle and Al the Gator ?

?

[Swami]

Supposedly done before, but not really. Here is my final, final submission for your consideration. May be a bit long, so feel free to edit or just take what you need for other instruction setups.

ARKYOLOGY manual final draft.docx

[hizzy]

Any news on this? I love Arkyology. I hope it comes out on cart!

[+sramirez2008]

On 3/21/2020 at 5:31 PM, hizzy said:

Any news on this? I love Arkyology. I hope it comes out on cart!

+1

[+sramirez2008]

Hi there. Any updates? I’m still hoping for a CIB release in the AA Store. I really, really like this game.
 

On 9/5/2019 at 10:34 PM, Swami said:

Throwing this out there early. Someone should work on an "I made it one week on the ark" patch or something

Btw, if a patch is made available, am I grandfathered in?

[Swami]

17 hours ago, sramirez2008 said:

Hi there. Any updates? I’m still hoping for a CIB release in the AA Store. I really, really like this game.
 

Btw, if a patch is made available, am I grandfathered in?

I think with the amount of years that have passed, we were lucky to get the ROM. I also wrote a manual that no one seems interested in illustrating.

[Sapicco]

You should press up some manuals, however that is done. I’ll take one!

[Swami]

5 hours ago, Sapicco said:

You should press up some manuals, however that is done. I’ll take one!

Here it is from 4 posts up, with a little background on David Pendergrass and Georgian Banov added at the end and the Ark image added at the beginning.

Also some folks made a nice covers for the manual/cartridge a few pages back. I added the image of the ark to the manual now as it is well done and has most of the animals from the game.

 

ARKYOLOGY manual final draft.docx

[KevKelley]

I had thought that while the game was done the original programmer was working on the ROM that was released earlier but was busy. I may be wrong but I I saw they had commented late last year that things were hectic and things haven't really calmed down since.

 

This was a project that I was looking forward to because the game is really wonderful to and a shame it never came out back in the day.