Best Homebrew: 2018 Atari Awards

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2018 Atari Awards

Celebrating the best in Atari 2600 Homebrew

BEST HOMEBREW

 

Best Homebrew:

 

Selection should be based on the quality of the release as a whole including programming, graphics, music & sound, packaging and gameplay. Any game completed during the year is qualified. Games completed in a previous year are not eligible. Re-releases or updates to a previous version of the game are ineligible. Hacks and Demos are not eligible for this category and are only eligible in their specific category.

 

Voting:

 

Please select one of the choices for this category. The winner and runners up will be revealed LIVE during the 2018 Atari Awards Presentation Ceremony on ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel on February 23rd, 2019 at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT!

 

Nominees:

 

Balloon Trip by bluswimmer

Birds and Beans by bluswimmer

Dungeon II: Solstice by David Weavil / s0c7

Mappy by John W. Champeau aka johnnywc of Champ Games

Plague (bB) by Fehér János Zoltán aka MemberAtarian

Refraction by Norbert Landsteiner aka NoLand

Sheep It Up! (bB) by Dr. Ludos

Stripes of Terror by Krzysztof Kluczek, Michał Żuchowski, & Mariusz Górski

Sword of Surtr (bB) by Jeff Stermer aka ultima

Tyre Trax (bB) by Lewis Hill aka Muddyfunster

 

Download (Binaries/Instructions/Packaging): https://onedrive.live.com/?authkey=%21AG3wc7MKI7gPQis&id=EBF48A1964E7EEB5%21528&cid=EBF48A1964E7EEB5

 

Edited January 24, 2019 by cimmerian

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[EmuDan]

My vote for best homebrew has to go to Mappy. It's a fun, spot-on arcade port. The graphics, sounds, and music are all outstanding.

[nraygun]

I had to join this forum specifically to congratulate the team on Mappy for a job well done! The port is absolutely stunning and an impressive achievement given the hardware.

Wonder if Atari could have made an Atari 2600+ with a built-in DPC chip back in the day. Seems like it would have given the NES a run for its money.

Hat's off to the developers of Mappy!

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Wonder if Atari could have made an Atari 2600+ with a built-in DPC chip back in the day. Seems like it would have given the NES a run for its money.

Its not only a DPC, but also an ARM CPU powering Mappy. This would not have been feasible back then.

Edited February 8, 2019 by Thomas Jentzsch

[+Nathan Strum]

Its not only a DPC, but also an ARM CPU powering Mappy. This would not have been feasible back then.

 

I wonder though, if they could have theoretically built something with the technology of the day that would've given the same end result as what the ARM is doing? It may have been impractical or unaffordable for consumers, but I wonder if it would've been possible, and what form it would've taken? Something like the Graduate, maybe?

[Mr SQL]

I had to join this forum specifically to congratulate the team on Mappy for a job well done! The port is absolutely stunning and an impressive achievement given the hardware.

Wonder if Atari could have made an Atari 2600+ with a built-in DPC chip back in the day. Seems like it would have given the NES a run for its money.

Hat's off to the developers of Mappy!

 

It would have been possible to write a soft blitter chip, one was prototyped on the Apple before developing the Amiga hardware blitter.

 

This would have made it more competitive against the NES's PPU hardware blitter.

 

I wonder though, if they could have theoretically built something with the technology of the day that would've given the same end result as what the ARM is doing? It may have been impractical or unaffordable for consumers, but I wonder if it would've been possible, and what form it would've taken? Something like the Graduate, maybe?

 

No that ARM architecture has the potential to run a modern OS like Windows and Linux; it's architecture makes it more powerful than 1,000 6502's despite being only 100x as fast.

 

The answer is yes if you had a mainframe or more accurately a super computer hooked up instead of the Graduate; that wouldn't be very practical rather something you might see at Bell labs.

[nraygun]

 

It would have been possible to write a soft blitter chip, one was prototyped on the Apple before developing the Amiga hardware blitter.

 

This would have made it more competitive against the NES's PPU hardware blitter.

 

 

No that ARM architecture has the potential to run a modern OS like Windows and Linux; it's architecture makes it more powerful than 1,000 6502's despite being only 100x as fast.

 

The answer is yes if you had a mainframe or more accurately a super computer hooked up instead of the Graduate; that wouldn't be very practical rather something you might see at Bell labs.

 

Oh, I see, I didn't realize the cartridge had a whole other processor in it.

Found this, "DPC+ is an extension of the original DPC chip that was developed by Activision and included in the Pitfall 2 game released in 1982. It basically allows you to update graphics faster and much easier, and also includes more ROM, RAM and better sound. The DPC is actually implemented using a 70mhz ARM processor, so in addition to its features, it also allows you to write game logic in C which is then executed by the ARM. All interaction with the TIA still needs to be done in 6502 assembler."

 

So it's really like a whole new system given the additional ARM CPU. Sort of.

[Mr SQL]

 

Oh, I see, I didn't realize the cartridge had a whole other processor in it.

Found this, "DPC+ is an extension of the original DPC chip that was developed by Activision and included in the Pitfall 2 game released in 1982. It basically allows you to update graphics faster and much easier, and also includes more ROM, RAM and better sound. The DPC is actually implemented using a 70mhz ARM processor, so in addition to its features, it also allows you to write game logic in C which is then executed by the ARM. All interaction with the TIA still needs to be done in 6502 assembler."

 

So it's really like a whole new system given the additional ARM CPU. Sort of.

 

Yes these are 32-bit games, the better sound and graphics are from the 32-bit processing power and the extra RAM; no additional graphics or sound hardware is actually present until the programmer creates it via the flexible architecture (soft hardware).

 

I had a chance to play Mappy this weekend made it to level 5 - awesome gameplay!

[EmuDan]

 

I had a chance to play Mappy this weekend made it to level 5 - awesome gameplay!

Mappy is the first Atari 2600 game that I actually had trouble emulating. Using retropie on a raspberry pi 2, and I found that it won't work with the lr-stella. You have to switch to the standalone Stella emulator. There is some music slow-down, but the game is still playable!

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THE POLLS ARE CLOSED!!!

 

Thank you so much to everyone in the AtariAge community for participating in the 2018 Atari Awards! The final voting totals have been recorded as of 12:00:00AM PT February 19, 2019.

 

See everyone this Saturday, February 23, 2019, at 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT for the LIVE award presentations on ZeroPage Homebrew's Twitch channel!

 

ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

_{Note: Although it appears you are still able to vote, due to polling software in place, no more votes past the cutoff date will be counted.}