Proving Plimpton Right

[sqoon]

I had this thought that if Mr. Plimpton was properly entitled to his bragging about superiority of Intellivision way back when, then some ingenious homebrewer should be able to prove him right. By that, I am looking squarely at games that we have repeatedly been told could not be done on the 2600 platform, specifically Atari branded arcade titles. Tempest, Gauntlet, I-Robot (Ok, maybe that one is a stretch), and maybe even something like Super Pac Man (not an Atari game, but still never done on the 2600).

 

I am thinking thatr if Parker Brothers could pull off Gyruss on the 2600, even in its scaled back form, then certainly Tempest is possible on the superior Intellivision console, right? When one looks at games like Swords and Serpents, and Treasure of Tarmin, it is not too much of a stretch to envision a slightly simplfied version of Gauntlet on our beloved platform is it?

 

Thoughts?

[bennybingo]

Tempest exists on the 2600 (at least a semi-finished proto does).

 

...it's not that it can't be done on the 2600...it's just that the final outcome sucked.

[Carl Mueller Jr]

There are major hurdles to doing vector-based games on the Intellivision. For one, it lacks a "APA" (all points addressable) mode. It's not that the hardware is not up to the task, exactly… They just failed to include the extra graphics RAM to make it possible. The see what I mean, look at Tutorvision. Here they did include the extra RAM and they were able to do things like half-width font.

Nevertheless, I don't think it's impossible. The boards would just have to be laid out specifically for the Intellivision.

Gauntlet should be possible. But the number of enemies on screen is another major hurdle. I believe other ports of the game make use of background tiles and graphics RAM sequencing to make up for this… But, it honestly doesn't look that good.

Super Pac-Man should not be a problem. I really want to kickstart my own version of Ms. Pac-Man… I think people would be impressed with what you can do and eight sprites here. Using background cards, I've sequenced the ghosts' eyes and it really adds a nice level of detail absent in most ports.

Carl

[sqoon]

Think abstract here. I am thinking Tempest would not have to be vector graphics at all. Look at how Atari handled Battlezone on the 2600. Completely different than the vector graphics original, but an excellent game in its own right. Maybe the Tempest playing field could be rendered in alternating colored swatches instead of vector-defined zones. Yes, the vector-definition might not be there in the Intellivision's abilities to render Tempest down to the tee, but again look at how Parker Brothers simplified Gyruss on the 2600 platform. A version of Tempest in spirit and playability is what I am suggesting.