disjaukifa Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Hey Guys, Ya'll got to check this out, I got in the mail a game called Maciver today. It came with a piece of paper that was printed out and torn in half with the following description: I work for a think tank in Madison, and during the major protest this year, we were taking pictures and documenting it. There were some real screwballs that didn't like us hanging around. There were zombie protesters that interrupted a ceremony for the special olympics, a guy on a segway who staged disruptions during the committee meetings, and finally there was this guy in a pink dress who chased our intern around the Capitol for taking pictures. That's where the idea for this game came from. Here are the pictures of the cartridge: If I understand the back hand writing on the cartridge its the 7 of 7 cartridges produced. Here's a video of the game being played by me that I just uploaded: [media=''] [/media] Its just a crazy little game! -Disjaukifa Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck D. Head Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 Hmmm, I bet Rick Weis might be able to shed a little light on this game.............. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Weis Posted October 11, 2011 Share Posted October 11, 2011 thought it was an interesting game so I have 7 made for our show. don't know any more about the game then what was on the piece of paper telling about it. Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 Hmmm, I bet Rick Weis might be able to shed a little light on this game.............. thought it was an interesting game so I have 7 made for our show. don't know any more about the game then what was on the piece of paper telling about it. Rick Hahah yeah I guess I should have mentioned I bought the game from Rick. I've played for about 30 minutes now, and its one of the strange games that once you really think about the description and get it in your head, it becomes a goofy fun game! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomas Jentzsch Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Done with batari basic it seems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+swlovinist Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 I absolutely love the backstory for this game... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 Done with batari basic it seems. Honestly I'm not completely sure what its done it, I actually think it might be done in assembly. I'm in the process of trying to build a cartridge dumper along with my various other projects so we can have a digital copy of this game. Its so quirky that its awesome. I absolutely love the backstory for this game... The back story in this game actually improves the gameplay 10 fold, you have the guy in a pink dress, you have the guy on a segway and you have the zombies as well. Its fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impaler_26 Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Done with batari basic it seems. Yep, i'm sure it's done with bB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 Done with batari basic it seems. Yep, i'm sure it's done with bB. Going to sound like such a noob but if I dumb the game, I can covert the binary to Machine Language correct? From there it will be easy to see if it was done in bB because of how the memory map will be setup right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impaler_26 Posted October 12, 2011 Share Posted October 12, 2011 Going to sound like such a noob but if I dumb the game, I can covert the binary to Machine Language correct? From there it will be easy to see if it was done in bB because of how the memory map will be setup right? Yup, once you have dumped the game it will be easy to find out if it's done with bB. You can disassemble the .bin with DiStella (the game looks like it's 4K so disassembling it should be easy). You could also just compare it with another bB-game with Hack-O-Matic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 12, 2011 Author Share Posted October 12, 2011 Going to sound like such a noob but if I dumb the game, I can covert the binary to Machine Language correct? From there it will be easy to see if it was done in bB because of how the memory map will be setup right? Yup, once you have dumped the game it will be easy to find out if it's done with bB. You can disassemble the .bin with DiStella (the game looks like it's 4K so disassembling it should be easy). You could also just compare it with another bB-game with Hack-O-Matic. Yup thats what I thought, just need to get my dumper built . . . which is going to be a while because of my various other projects going on at the moment! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boski Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 If you'd like to buy a copy of the game from the person who programmed it, please send a check for $20 to Bill Osmulski, 1528 Morningside Dr. Apt#8, Janesville, WI 53546. (Add $5 for international orders.) Glad everyone seems to enjoy it, though a little puzzled by the distribution. You can also contact me at bosmulski@yahoo.com or my Atariage account. Glad to answer any background questions too. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 If you'd like to buy a copy of the game from the person who programmed it, please send a check for $20 to Bill Osmulski, 1528 Morningside Dr. Apt#8, Janesville, WI 53546. (Add $5 for international orders.) Glad everyone seems to enjoy it, though a little puzzled by the distribution. You can also contact me at bosmulski@yahoo.com or my Atariage account. Glad to answer any background questions too. You programmed this? Was it done in Batari Basic? I'd love to know more about it, quirky little game! In response to your comment about distribution, I thought you had made a small run, I was just offered the game with some other homebrews and got it, played it and had a good time. Have you released the game before? The back story that was supplied with the game made it appear that you had released it. Oh yeah, the one final question I have. What the heck does Maciver mean? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boski Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well, the back story is from me. I met Scott Williamson and Dan Iacovelli in Chicago this past summer and they inspired me to get into the hobby. The advice to new writers is always write about what you know, so I programmed about what I know. The protests in Madison this year were crazy, and I was there everyday doing video stories about them, so I made my first Atari game about them. I found the only youtube video about batari visual basic programming and some online manuals and went from there. I used to program in BASIC and BASICA when I was a kid, and I fiddle with actionscript3 for projects at work now. So it wasn't hard to pick up the basics. (I'm already starting to study microcontrollers and assembly language. It's incredible how quickly this hobby pushes you.) Anyway, Randy Crihfield published the game for me, and I gave him permission to sell it. He said he would pay me a small royalty for each one he sold. Not ticked off at all, just a little surprised to stumble across your post that you bought one from someone else. Still, I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I definitely like the idea of making Atari 2600 games based on current events, and will probably continue along that theme. Thank you for the kind review. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well, the back story is from me. I met Scott Williamson and Dan Iacovelli in Chicago this past summer and they inspired me to get into the hobby. The advice to new writers is always write about what you know, so I programmed about what I know. The protests in Madison this year were crazy, and I was there everyday doing video stories about them, so I made my first Atari game about them. I found the only youtube video about batari visual basic programming and some online manuals and went from there. I used to program in BASIC and BASICA when I was a kid, and I fiddle with actionscript3 for projects at work now. So it wasn't hard to pick up the basics. (I'm already starting to study microcontrollers and assembly language. It's incredible how quickly this hobby pushes you.) Anyway, Randy Crihfield published the game for me, and I gave him permission to sell it. He said he would pay me a small royalty for each one he sold. Not ticked off at all, just a little surprised to stumble across your post that you bought one from someone else. Still, I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I definitely like the idea of making Atari 2600 games based on current events, and will probably continue along that theme. Thank you for the kind review. Randy Crihfield . . . well this cartridge was defiantly made by him. My guess is that he sold it to someone who then in turn sold it to me. Its got the Hozer logo on it on the bottom left if you look at my first picture I posted. Whats Maciver? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boski Posted October 13, 2011 Share Posted October 13, 2011 Well we'll see if there's a royalty check in the mail then! Anyway, I work for a conservative think tank called the MacIver Institute. I used to be a TV reporter and now I do investigative video stories for them that are posted on youtube. You can guess from the game that the protesters hate my guts. Anyway, I'd like to think a hobby like Atari 2600 programming is politics neutral, so I'm not looking to pick any fights here. I picked up the hobby to get away from all that stress and blow off some steam. I'm actually expecting a couple test carts from Randy any day now of my new game that takes the protesters' side. I got a lot of help from people on this forum in developing it, so there are definitely no hard feelings if people are enjoying my first game and I'm not getting any monetary compensation from it. It's not like you're going to get rich from this hobby, but it definitely is enriching! BTW, I think it's really awesome that whoever sold it to you already went through all seven of their copies! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disjaukifa Posted October 13, 2011 Author Share Posted October 13, 2011 Thanks for the information, I posted this thread in hopes to find out who programmed it and what it stood for. I saw that there was a website on the bottom of the cartridge, but it wasn't clear on the label so I couldn't make it out though now I know its the website for the MacIver Institute. Thanks for sharing the above information. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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