AtariBuff Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 (edited) As Archon being one of my most favourite video games and its name pops up in this very forum quite often, I decided to pull the trigger: The ColecoVision will have its Archon A developer has been contracted who already started programming. Funding and publishing will be taken care of by myself. The road to completion will be a long and rocky one, but I'm utterly confident in the developer to see things to the end for a predicted release in 2015. More news as they happen Edited May 21, 2014 by AtariBuff 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cimerians Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 Played this on my C64 way back. Awesome news! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bennybingo Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 SWEET!!!!!!!!!!! Count me in for a CIB copy! :thumbsup: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ikrananka Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 Same here 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 Same here! I played hours against a friend on C64 and Atari XL at that game back in time! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Yurkie Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 (edited) Here is a longplay video of gameplay on the C64. I hope the process goes well on this AtariBuff Edited May 16, 2014 by Yurkie 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 This is one of my favorite games of all time, and the C-64 version is probably the best looking pure 8-bit version (I don't count the NES version as the timing is different, though it certainly looks better overall). What do we expect in terms of graphical target? Something more like the Atari 8-bit version or something more like the C-64 version? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+grips03 Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 As Archon being one of my most favourite video games and its name pops up in this very forum quite often, I decided to pull the trigger: The ColecoVision will have its Archon A developer has been contracted who already started programming. Funding and publishing will be taken care of by myself. The road to completion will be a long and rocky one, but I'm utterly confident in the developer to see things to the end for a predicted release in 2015. More news as they happen Archon 1 or the better Archon 2 Adept? Either way I'm buying. thanks for making this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperboy Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 I'm in for a copy! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 Archon 1 or the better Archon 2 Adept? I've rarely heard anyone express the opinion that Archon 2: Adept was the better game. Interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariBuff Posted May 16, 2014 Author Share Posted May 16, 2014 Bill, it's a bit too early to think details. We hope - in this preliminary stage of development - that it will resemble Archon I at all Seriously, considering the ColecoVision's limitations compared to the C64 and Atari XL/XE the developer has his hands full to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 Bill, it's a bit too early to think details. We hope - in this preliminary stage of development - that it will resemble Archon I at all Seriously, considering the ColecoVision's limitations compared to the C64 and Atari XL/XE the developer has his hands full to do. Agreed. I think the question comes down to RAM limitations. I think the lowest RAM system it was ever ported to was the Atari 8-bit computer conversion to the Atari 5200, which has 16K. How that can be accomplished on a 1K ColecoVision, I just don't know. It seems like requiring an Adam or SGM might be the only way to go. Good luck, though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 We hope - in this preliminary stage of development - that it will resemble Archon I at all Would a board game heavily inspired by Archon, but not being a perfect replica be within your aim? While it goes without saying, there still is IP to protect around the game but perhaps you or a future publisher already planned to sort it out if it ends up as a replica with the original name. I happen to have read about the guy who recently designed an Archon board game using his 3D printer, and he was granted rights to publish details about it as long as it did not end up as a commercial product, so it is not an entire minefield of cease & desist. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youki Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 This is one of my favorite games of all time, and the C-64 version is probably the best looking pure 8-bit version (I don't count the NES version as the timing is different, though it certainly looks better overall). What do we expect in terms of graphical target? Something more like the Atari 8-bit version or something more like the C-64 version? There are lot of port of Archon 8 and 16 bit , all looks really different to each other. Apple 2 , Zx Spectrum , Amstrad CPC, Atari 8bit, C64 , Amiga , Dos ... and i think there are some version i'm not aware of. I'm looking foward to look the result on a colecovision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
InfraMan Posted May 16, 2014 Share Posted May 16, 2014 That's awesome news... the C-64 version of Archon is one of my all-time favorite games, and it would definitely be cool to see what the CV can do with it! The sequel never hooked me in the same way as the original, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 Agreed. I think the question comes down to RAM limitations. I think the lowest RAM system it was ever ported to was the Atari 8-bit computer conversion to the Atari 5200, which has 16K. How that can be accomplished on a 1K ColecoVision, I just don't know. It seems like requiring an Adam or SGM might be the only way to go. Good luck, though. It definitely should be possible to do in 1KB of RAM. The only reason the other systems have to have RAM because data from floppy disk has to be loaded to RAM first, then assess the data. With cartridges, the data is available right away since it can see all 32KB. Only loading the Colecovision need to do is load the graphic data into the VRAM. You can keep the graphic compressed on ROM and it can unpack directly to VRAM. Archon is one of the game I played on the Atari 8-bit computer. This will be a cool game for the Colecovision. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
digress Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 I looked through the video. I played it back in the 80's too. I see no reason why this can't be done exactly on colecovision and with better graphics than this C64 version so I don't think the designer will much problems limitations wise. There are 36 characters on the screen with 2 colours each but only 2 of these are animating at any one time and the rest can be just tiles. and the battle scene the characters are 1 colour plus 1 projectile each so it won't break the 4 sprites per line rule. This is entirely possible on colecovision It's going to turn out great I have no doubt. Bill, it's a bit too early to think details. We hope - in this preliminary stage of development - that it will resemble Archon I at all Seriously, considering the ColecoVision's limitations compared to the C64 and Atari XL/XE the developer has his hands full to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pixelboy Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 It's always good to see a classic game added to the ColecoVision library. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manoau2002 Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 Reminds me alot of the board game stratego. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Loguidice Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 It's not necessarily the visuals or the one on one combat that will be a significant challenge in my opinion. It will be the game logic and AI (memory-wise), as well as tuning the gameplay just right. Archon games (from the first through the many sequels) have always succeeded or failed based on how well they've played. That's not easy to replicate. Once you got past the original 8-bit versions, it arguably took until the release of "Archon: Classic" a few years back before someone was able to get it right again, which is amazing, because even the original developers failed to replicate the same fine-tuned performance they achieved with the original classic. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NIAD Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 As far as the A.I. goes then, wouldn't it be best to disassemble the C=64 version to use as a basis for the ColecoVision version. I understand that there would be differeneces in code due to the different CPUs used by the respective systems, but if the programmer has a good knowledge of programming on both CPUs, then the A.I. (game logic) could be converted accordingly instead of having to be programmed from scratch. Great to see this classic game possibly being made for the CV! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retroillucid Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 Sweeet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imstarryeyed Posted May 17, 2014 Share Posted May 17, 2014 Oh wow what a great announcement, I am totally in for one. I would love to see Archon II as well as I am in the camp that it was a better game, at least in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LynxVGL Posted May 18, 2014 Share Posted May 18, 2014 Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Archon is one of the original classic EA games. I'd LOVE for someone to bring MULE over too. And Star Raiders... But that's another post entirely. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SiLic0ne t0aD Posted May 18, 2014 Share Posted May 18, 2014 Sweet, I'm in for one as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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