p.opus Posted September 14, 2015 Share Posted September 14, 2015 Super cool. The closest I came to the games industry was as a game tester for Microsoft. My one credit is as one of the core testers for Close Combat III the Russian Front. I worked on others as part of the test team(Pinball arcade, Baseball, Midtown Madness, AOE expansion) They were basically bug bashes but I was only "assigned" to that game. Soon thereafter, the projects started drying up and with them our positions as testers. I remember spending one afternoon playing with my test lead's Rokenbok just to see if we could get one car to replace another car's receiver. Ed Fries was an amazing guy, He was head of gaming (this was prior to his work with X-Box.). The dude was a genius. That job was so fun. probably the best year and a half I ever had. The entire Microsoft games division was eventually folded, but what good times we had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRV Posted September 14, 2015 Author Share Posted September 14, 2015 Other items of interest: - Video featuring representatives from Tuni talking about the CVS arcade system - Trademark for a water slide from E.T. Industries - New entry on my site for Tuni Electro Services/Enter-Tech - Were El Grande and Reaction developed by Enter-Tech? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 (edited) Other items of interest: - Video featuring representatives from Tuni talking about the CVS arcade system - Trademark for a water slide from E.T. Industries - New entry on my site for Tuni Electro Services/Enter-Tech - Were El Grande and Reaction developed by Enter-Tech? Interesting, thanks for posting this. Looked like Bonnie had trouble getting the board working. It was funny how the reporter asked why the screen was upside down! It looked to me in the video like she removed and then plugged back in the ROM cartridge board without powering down the game. The gaming and gray-market games that I developed at Enter-Tech, Ltd. were: El Grande 5-Card Draw, Jackpot Joker Poker, Reaction, High Rollers, and a Nevada gaming control approved 5-card draw Video Poker that was sold in Las Vegas and other Nevada areas by Casino Coin Company. I was hired originally to make from a board/software that was licensed from a San Diego company (can't remember the name) for El Grande and I was the programmer on all of these games. The first Moppet game, Tugboat, was originally written on the standard El-Grande board, but the graphics just weren't good enough so we developed a daughter board that added graphics capabilities. If you look at a Moppet board you'll see it is a large daughter board that is plugged into the base board. The base is the El Grande board. Edited September 15, 2015 by pwalters 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 (edited) Other items of interest: - New entry on my site for Tuni Electro Services/Enter-Tech Just an update.. the original founder/owner's name was James Thuney. His last name was pronounced the same as the company's name 'Tuni', but the spelling was different. I think I posted earlier listing his last name as "Tuni" because I never saw it spelled until just recently. Edited September 15, 2015 by pwalters 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 (edited) Super cool. The closest I came to the games industry was as a game tester for Microsoft. My one credit is as one of the core testers for Close Combat III the Russian Front. I worked on others as part of the test team(Pinball arcade, Baseball, Midtown Madness, AOE expansion) They were basically bug bashes but I was only "assigned" to that game. Soon thereafter, the projects started drying up and with them our positions as testers. I remember spending one afternoon playing with my test lead's Rokenbok just to see if we could get one car to replace another car's receiver. Ed Fries was an amazing guy, He was head of gaming (this was prior to his work with X-Box.). The dude was a genius. That job was so fun. probably the best year and a half I ever had. The entire Microsoft games division was eventually folded, but what good times we had. Sounds like you had a blast! I really loved developing games too, and it was a very enjoyable time. Edited September 15, 2015 by pwalters Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rom Hunter Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Is it up on Atarimania yet? Done: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-arkyology_30287.html Paul, it's 1 player only, right? Or can 2 players (alt. turns) play the game as well? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
high voltage Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Nice All these Bible games popping up all of the sudden (well, this and Red Sea Crossing) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitkraft Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 I love this thread! Thank you pwalters for coming here and telling this story. I love to hear all this inside information from someone who was really there. It's also so cool to read so much history about a rare/unreleased game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mockduck Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 This is great, thank you for sharing and unearthing Atari VCS history! The game itself looks really solid; something I would definitely play. Too cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariTexas Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Nice All these Bible games popping up all of the sudden (well, this and Red Sea Crossing) Could it mean the end is nigh? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ScottyDont00 Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Thanks for sharing your story and anything else we are lucky enough to maybe play or learn from you! Made my day catching up on this forum! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted September 15, 2015 Share Posted September 15, 2015 Done: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-arkyology_30287.html Paul, it's 1 player only, right? Or can 2 players (alt. turns) play the game as well? Yes, it's only one player... And to everyone -- thanks so much for your kind words. I'm glad that the work I did over 30 years ago is of interest today! We are looking into the best way to do a proper release of Arkyology like it should have had 30 years ago.... stay tuned 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chas10e Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Could it mean the end is nigh? I'm thankful what Noah endured so we can have these great games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari5200dude82 Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 Yes it looks super cool and very good and cool history of the game. Thanks for sharing and bringing it to the Atari community, If ever released on cart, I would like a copy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
noice87 Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I am the Steve people are referring too. I have never worked for Moppet Video/Enter tech. I was just a big collector of Moppet Video games.cabinets and someone started the rumor and I went along with it to mess with the guy.. At the height I had 19 cabs. I sold them all off. I had a Bernstein Bears as well. I think someone else discovered one as well so there is more than one. I could tell the later style cabinets were done by a different company as they were crap. Boards were crap as well with all of the small trace wires. Do you have any info on River Patrol, ACCA or Kid's Video Playtime? I had a super mini cab with River Patrol basically same as Tug Boat. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sloth-machine Posted September 16, 2015 Share Posted September 16, 2015 I would be awesome to have a cart version and a rom version, both for purchase. I need a rom image for my Harmony Cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin Posted September 17, 2015 Share Posted September 17, 2015 Added to our database! :thumbsup: http://atariboxed.com/index.php?go=detail&modul_refnumber=1815 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chas10e Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 Yes, it's only one player... And to everyone -- thanks so much for your kind words. I'm glad that the work I did over 30 years ago is of interest today! We are looking into the best way to do a proper release of Arkyology like it should have had 30 years ago.... stay tuned was there any sketches or ideas for cover art ....who would have done that for you if not yourself do you think ? the manual ... I imagine the story of Noah would be included ...I would hope your story will be included as well what would the cart shell have been do you think ? like how did they go about contracting-out these details back in the day ? Added to our database! :thumbsup: http://atariboxed.com/index.php?go=detail&modul_refnumber=1815 isn't the "genre" atari 2600 ? hoping above questions fills in some of them "blanks" also found the article in the original post: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1984/01/15/page/299/article/from-concerts-to-games-sparrows-line-up-of-christian-videos 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted September 18, 2015 Share Posted September 18, 2015 was there any sketches or ideas for cover art ....who would have done that for you if not yourself do you think ? the manual ... I imagine the story of Noah would be included ...I would hope your story will be included as well what would the cart shell have been do you think ? like how did they go about contracting-out these details back in the day ? isn't the "genre" atari 2600 ? hoping above questions fills in some of them "blanks" also found the article in the original post: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1984/01/15/page/299/article/from-concerts-to-games-sparrows-line-up-of-christian-videos The problem they ran into was the production cost of the F8 ROM's. As I recall it was something like $40k to do the smallest run of masked ROM's that supported the F8 banking internally. They didn't want to produce a cartridge with EPROM or OTP, and external circuitry to support the banking. They knew up front the game would need 8k, but they either didn't do much planning or just ran out of money. I remember their head guy complaining about how much we charged to develop the games, and how hard it was to afford it. Being a religious organization, their focus was on 'teaching' the kids who would play the game the basics of these biblical stories. So I would guess the insert would include the story, putting it in the context of Sparrow's belief system. I loved that archived newspaper, scroll down to the next page and you can see ads for a $399 19" color TV, VHS tapes, and a Betamax VCR! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mountain King Posted September 22, 2015 Share Posted September 22, 2015 was there any sketches or ideas for cover art ....who would have done that for you if not yourself do you think ? the manual ... I imagine the story of Noah would be included ...I would hope your story will be included as well what would the cart shell have been do you think ? like how did they go about contracting-out these details back in the day ? isn't the "genre" atari 2600 ? hoping above questions fills in some of them "blanks" also found the article in the original post: http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1984/01/15/page/299/article/from-concerts-to-games-sparrows-line-up-of-christian-videos Nice article. I'm curious how well this game would have done, since the market at the time seemed to lend itself to Arcade conversion. 8 out of 10 top game sales were Arcade ports. The top 10 Video Game sales from the same page. 1. Q*Bert 2. Ms. Pac-Man 3. Pole Position 4. Mr. Do! 5. Popeye 6. Centipede 7. River Raid 8. Kangaroo 9. Enduro 10. Jungle Hunt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grendel Posted October 3, 2015 Share Posted October 3, 2015 Not sure of the etiquette for responding to this, but I worked for PPC back in the early 80's doing pixel art (I was 14). I worked on Pot 'o Gold (development name), Pirate's Treasure and their fist game Chaos. I remember they commissioned some ceramic dragons for the development team. Let me know if you want to know more and I'll see if I can dredge through the tar pit of memory. grendel A little more info about the Moppet Games and Tuni/Enter-Tech etc. Leprechaun and Pirate's Treasure were actually designed by a separate group called Pacific Polytechnical Corp in Santa Cruz. The main programmer of the games was Todd A Blume (who also designed Beezer). Blume programmed in a language called FILTH (a variant of FORTH) developed by Shel Kaphan. Pacific Polytechnical Corp was founded by a group of friends from UC Santa Cruz, including Shel Kaphan (who later became Amazon's first employee and wrote its initial software). Others at PPC included Ken Clements (President), Frank Frazier, and David Dougherty. PPC also designed Kaos for Game Plan and later established a division called FrobCo that developed the Frob 26 and Frob 52 (Atari 2600/5200 development systems for the Apple II). From what was reported in the trade press, E.T. Marketing of Temp manufactured games for Tuni Electo Services. E.T. had been founded by Tuni's marketing director Patrick Reed. The Moppet games were marketed by Enter-Tech Ltd of Tempe and Intrepid Marketing of Los Altos (I think E.T. marketed them as well). Here is a brief section from my book on E.T. and Tuni: "Beezer, Leprechaun, and Pirates Treasure were introduced at the 1982 AMOA show in November, along with Tugboat and Desert Race. By then, one of the companies involved in the venture, Tuni Electro Services, was already in trouble. In September 1982, E.T. Marketing announced that it had acquired all of Tuni's assets pending approval by the company’s creditors and board of directors. The creditors included the principals of Enter-Tech and in December, Enter-Tech entered into negotiations with Tuni to block the E.T. takeover (RePlay 3/83; Play Meter 3/15/84). But Tuni was not out of the woods yet. A month later Tuni was pushed into bankruptcy by Dracott Ltd of Switzerland and its assets were frozen. Dracott, the parent company of Enter-Tech, had invested $2 million in Tuni and did not want Enter-tech to have to assume its liabilities. In March, Enter-Tech acquired the company's assets and reorganized it¸ successfully bringing it out of Chapter 11 in December 1983 (RePlay 1/84; Play Meter 3/15/84). Under the Enter-Tech name, the company continued to produce Moppet games. Late in 1983, it struck a licensing deal with King Features Syndicate, which was best known for the many comic strips it distributed to newspapers worldwide. The deal resulted in two games base on King Features properties. The first was The Berenstain Bears in Big Paw's Cave. The game was based on the line of children’s book created by Stan and Jan Berenstain that had become a hot property after a series of NBC specials earlier in the year, including one called "Big Paw’s Cave." The game involved guiding a baby bear down a winding path through Big Paw’s Cave trying to retrieve stolen honey without waking the sleeping Big Paw. In early 1984, EnterTech licensed King Features’ most famous property – Popeye – for use in a seventh Moppet video. By then, however, the concept had all but died. Big Paw’s cave seems to have been produced only in small numbers[1] while Popeye does not appear to have been produced at all [1] This is somewhat uncertain. The claim is based largely on collectors’ claims that only a single copy (at the Harborview Hospital in Seattle) is known to have existed. Trade magazines, however, announced the game’s release and included it in their catalogs and it was shown at the 1983 AMOA. Keith Smith allincolorforaquarter.BlogSpot.com 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CRV Posted October 4, 2015 Author Share Posted October 4, 2015 Not sure of the etiquette for responding to this, but I worked for PPC back in the early 80's doing pixel art (I was 14). I worked on Pot 'o Gold (development name), Pirate's Treasure and their fist game Chaos. I remember they commissioned some ceramic dragons for the development team. Let me know if you want to know more and I'll see if I can dredge through the tar pit of memory. Please do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwalters Posted October 5, 2015 Share Posted October 5, 2015 Not sure of the etiquette for responding to this, but I worked for PPC back in the early 80's doing pixel art (I was 14). I worked on Pot 'o Gold (development name), Pirate's Treasure and their fist game Chaos. I remember they commissioned some ceramic dragons for the development team. Let me know if you want to know more and I'll see if I can dredge through the tar pit of memory. grendel Hey Grendel, glad you joined into the conversation! I didn't know much about the origin of the Leprechaun and Pirates Treasure games. In Tempe, we had a lot of development going on in addition to the Moppet line. One day a few of the games came in and we spent some time looking into it.. My development team, of course, took a good long look at the circuit board, and how it worked, but apart from that we were hands off on those games. I would love to hear more of what you may remember from your end! Paul Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
broncoman Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 were in tempe ? I live there Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Omegamatrix Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 Whatever happened to this? Is there going to be a release? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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