PC / Atari Combination Games

[snicklin]

This may sound quite odd, but it's an idea which just entered my head and I wonder if anyone has seen anything like this before?

 

I am thinking of the concept of you having some software on the PC which asks you a few questions and then from the results of those questions, goes off and compiles an Atari game which is specific to you.

 

So here is an example:

 

You have a Football (Soccer for some) management system.

 

You are on the PC and you select that you would like to manage Marseilles in the French league.

 

The PC downloads all the latest data for Marseilles and the French league.

 

The PC compiles a binary for you and tells you to either transfer it to the Atari or run it through emulation.

 

The "PC" could in fact be a web page.

 

 

Has anything like this ever been done before? I appreciate you might have a build system which asks a few questions, but I am thinking of something with a bit more to it than that.

 

 

[Rybags]

In a sense things like the flashcart building software is like that - you tell it what binaries, Roms etc you want and it builds the image and/or a bootable file that will flash a cart over SIO.

 

I can see what you're getting at - doing something that customises based on a template and some user supplied values would be easy enough.

 

Maybe something already exists, e.g. there's a whole lot of user-created Boulderdash and Robbo games out there. A level editor at the PC side only needs to combine data with the game engine and probably create some tables and stuff.

 

What would be cool is an adventure creator that can create images based on the Infocomm Z-machine.

[snicklin]

Yes, I think that you've caught onto the tune of what I was thinking.

 

With regards to the Boulderdash level creation, well, to me, that is a little like when I use CharPad to design the graphics for my game.

 

But if you can harness the internet, that could be quite powerful. Using real-life data would be great for sports simulations.

 

Your level design idea could be created into an online-contest. For example, you could have an online Boulderdash editor which everyone in a contest would submit a level to. Then the "creator" program on the PC would download them automatically and build the executables and then everyone competes for a high score.

 

Or you could have some kinds of stocks/shares game which downloads real data at the start.

 

Maybe you could have your own user-submitted graphics in games, like an avatar which you've drawn on a website.