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Kickman for 2600 found and RELEASED!!


Dutchman2000

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51 minutes ago, Tempest said:

This was a first release candidate which Alex did for Midway.  It was only 4K because that was standard at the time and he squeezed what he could into it.  After Midway decided not to get into the home game business they sold it to Roklan who offered it to CBS.  CBS decided that it needed a few tweaks (title screen, code optimization, etc.) so they tapped Dick Balaska to do it.  After Dick made the changes (I'm curious if he got it into 4K with some optimization, I'd guess yes), CBS decided that they didn't want to release it after all since the arcade game wasn't a hit and there was the issue of Pac-Man licensing. 

Seems reasonable enough, although I question whether Roklan had any hand in this one at all.  CBS obviously had a licensing agreement directly with Bally Midway from the get-go, and Roklan certainly developed 2600 games but never published any so there doesn't seem to be any reason why they would be involved.  The Pac-Man license very well could've been an issue but it certainly didn't stop Commodore from releasing their version for the C64 with Pac-Men and ghosts intact.

 

51 minutes ago, Tempest said:

To me the game was mostly there, it just needed some minor code optimization and a title screen.  Yes it's missing the bonus round, but most 2600 ports of the time stripped out extras like bonus rounds to save space.  It is a bit simplified (I never saw more than one balloon fall), but I don't think this indicates that it's incomplete.  It's just a simple 2600 port.  Look at how many features other 2600 ports of the time were missing.

Like I said, it's a passable version of the game, especially considering it was developed in late '81/early '82 and was probably Alex's first VCS effort.   But there are issues with the kicking mechanic which of course isn't used all that much since only one balloon falls at a time.  It would be almost impossible to have more than one falling since the playfield is so short with so little void space above the cyclist.  And normally I wouldn't think too much of the missing bonus rounds if not for the fact that CBS's own advertising literature seemed to indicate that they were included ("Challenge Racks, too!").

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18 minutes ago, Tempest said:

The only reason I say Roklan is involved is that's what on the source code.  I'm sure Alex brought it with him to Roklan, but why update the source code if Roklan didn't have some claim on it?

Is the reference to Roklan actually in the original source or is that a notation that Ken added when he was assembling it?  Thomas first claimed it was in the code but then later recanted that claim.

All I know is, Balaska told me he was sent out to Bally Midway in Chicago.  That's where he claims to have worked on the game and also where he first met Bob Curtiss (who would later go on to work for Roklan and eventually CBS).  He didn't seem to know who Roklan was, or that they had developed games for CBS.

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1 hour ago, Psionic said:

Is the reference to Roklan actually in the original source or is that a notation that Ken added when he was assembling it?  Thomas first claimed it was in the code but then later recanted that claim.

All I know is, Balaska told me he was sent out to Bally Midway in Chicago.  That's where he claims to have worked on the game and also where he first met Bob Curtiss (who would later go on to work for Roklan and eventually CBS).  He didn't seem to know who Roklan was, or that they had developed games for CBS.

Ken would have to answer that, but I believe it's in the source code.  I don't think he added anything.

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10 hours ago, Psionic said:

And normally I wouldn't think too much of the missing bonus rounds if not for the fact that CBS's own advertising literature seemed to indicate that they were included ("Challenge Racks, too!").

This makes me wonder too. But (for us non native speakers) what does "Challenge Rack" mean in detail?

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Challenge Racks are like Bonus Rounds. That’s what Bally/Midway called them. 2600 Solar Fox for example has them.

 

Bally/Midway used this terminology for some reason. Case in point, in the dip switch settings of arcade games, such as PAC-Man & Galaga, one option setting was “auto rack advance”. And when set, it was like a level select code built in.

 

As Tempest stated: Bonus rounds and multiple stages and intros and between level animations, etc. were often omitted from 2600 games due to memory limitations. We were accustomed to that back in the day.

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23 minutes ago, Supergun said:

Challenge Racks are like Bonus Rounds. That’s what Bally/Midway called them. 2600 Solar Fox for example has them.

 

Bally/Midway used this terminology for some reason. Case in point, in the dip switch settings of arcade games, such as PAC-Man & Galaga, one option setting was “auto rack advance”. And when set, it was like a level select code built in.

Thanks for the detailed explanation.

 

23 minutes ago, Supergun said:

As Tempest stated: Bonus rounds and multiple stages and intros and between level animations, etc. were often omitted from 2600 games due to memory limitations. We were accustomed to that back in the day.

True. But here we have explicit advertising. Do similar cases exist?

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10 hours ago, Dutchman2000 said:

I added the notation when I re-arranged the game for modern assembly.  The ORIGINAL source only credits Alex. 

I stand corrected then.  So there was no mention of Roklan at all in the original assembly?  I'll have to update my page then.

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Regarding the use of Pac-Man, it seems that the arcade version of Kickman predated the arcade version of Ms. Pac-Man by about a month (Dec 1981 vs Jan 1982). Perhaps Namco paid little or no attention until Midway released the unauthorized sequel to their main game, or even had some agreement to use Pac-Man as a sidekick as long as it wasn't a Pac-Man game? I haven't read up on the full story, some sites claim Namco sued Midway for Ms. Pac-Man, others write that they were "ok" with it but eventually ended the partnership in 1984.

 

Here's a passage I found:

 

Quote

Midway itself delivered what many feel is an absolute bomb - Kick-Man, the game in which a man on a unicycle catches balloons on his head. George Gomez, who supervised the project, concedes the game was a failure. “Thematically, it didn’t attract people. It didn’t really capture anyone’s imagination. Kick-Man’s just a reaction game. You can’t base a whole game on reaction anymore.” Not even Hank Ross’ eleventh hour addition of a balloon-gobbling Pac-Man could pull Kick-Man through.

 

http://vgpavilion.com/mags/1982/12/vg/the-house-that-pac-built/

Edited by carlsson
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So it sounds like Alex did the game for Midway, then moved on to Roklan.  Midway sold the rights to the game to CBS who tapped Dick Balaska to fix the game for release (adding a title screen, bug fixes, code compression, etc.), but then CBS decided not to release it after all (most likely because the arcade game tanked).  

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Another article on Pac-Man:

 

Time (magazine), January 18, 1982:

Hank Ross had another idea that everyone hoped would give the game a last, irresistible quirk of personality. This is known in the business as "the tweak." He proposed having Bally's enormously popular Pac Man, a dot-gobbling yellow disc, help the player by eating balloons on the clown's head. And so it came to pass, and a sneak preview was held at a local arcade. The results, after all of this R.&D., were disastrous. The game, renamed Kick, took too long to play and thus took in too few quarters. To remedy this, the rate of fall of the balloons was slightly speeded up.

 

http://gamearchive.askey.org/General/Articles/ClassicNews/1982/TimePg54.htm

 

Since Hank Ross was the co-founder of Midway and executive, it would seem like he knew what they had the rights to do, or he just gambled.

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16 hours ago, Crimefighter said:

Kickman for the 2600 is quite a simple barebones version - balloon stacking is half the arcade game and seems to only be able to do four rows instead of eight. 

Not surprising since the Commodore 64 version also only allowed a stack of four balloons.  At least in this 2600 port you can properly bounce balloons between the stack and the side edge of the screen to make them easier to control.  On the C64, the falling balloons pass right through your stack and drift across the screen making them almost impossible to kick as several fall at once.  They also don't pop automatically once you reach a full stack of four balloons unless you have a Pac-Man on your head which means you have to pop the falling balloons at the very top of the stack.  So it actually ends up being harder than the arcade version.  By comparison, this version is slightly worse in some ways yet slightly better in others.

 

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

I haven't read up on the full story, some sites claim Namco sued Midway for Ms. Pac-Man, others write that they were "ok" with it but eventually ended the partnership in 1984.

 I think Namco was perturbed that they were not consulted in the beginning but they did have input into the development of Ms. Pac-Man and I'm certainly not aware of them ever suing.  The partnership was ended, but I think that was due to Bally Midway really taking liberties with the license later on (in creating stuff like Professor Pac-Man).

 

5 hours ago, Tempest said:

So it sounds like Alex did the game for Midway, then moved on to Roklan.  Midway sold the rights to the game to CBS who tapped Dick Balaska to fix the game for release (adding a title screen, bug fixes, code compression, etc.), but then CBS decided not to release it after all (most likely because the arcade game tanked). 

Seems about right.  Obviously Alex showed the game to someone at Roklan and either gave them a copy, or simply left it behind when he quit and left for California.
 

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

Since Hank Ross was the co-founder of Midway and executive, it would seem like he knew what they had the rights to do, or he just gambled.

I would bet on the latter.  Actually, Bill Adams told me that when GCC first brought Crazy Otto/Ms. Pac-Man to Midway, the first thing Mr. Ross did was ask him and the other programmers in-house "Why couldn't you guys come up with something like that?".  Bill's response was "I didn't know we were allowed to!".

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1)  This is incredibly fun.  Love this game!

 

2) I could have sworn that I saw a screenshot of a different Kickman for the 2600 with some backgrounds in there. I saw it in a magazine some 25 years ago or so, and I recall @JeffVav 's name attached to it...

Edited by Inky
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8 hours ago, Inky said:

2) I could have sworn that I saw a screenshot of a different Kickman for the 2600 with some backgrounds in there. I saw it in a magazine some 25 years ago or so, and I recall @JeffVav 's name attached to it...

There was a homebrew attempt by someone else at Digital Eclipse, Mike Mika. (Warning: Flickering)

 

 

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On 10/21/2019 at 6:47 PM, Omegamatrix said:

It's been an amazing year for prototype releases.

Please elaborate for somebody who hasn't the time to keep up with such excitement these days.

 

What other prototypes were released to quality 2019 as "amazing"?

 

Thanks!

-Jason

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No...this was basically "proof of concept" code featuring all the significant gameplay elements...not the version that Dick had created/expanded from it.  It sounds like it went though a crunch phase before he even saw it, tho (since he doesn't recall it being 2 bytes beyond where the cold start vector belongs).

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58 minutes ago, Tempest said:

Ha!  Now that's funny.  Is the real model number known?

M8774 - Wizard of Wor

- Targ

M8793 - Gorf

- Maddenness

- Kickman

4L-2486 - Blueprint

4L-2487 - Solar Fox

- Domino Man

4L-2520 - Tunnel Runner

Stomp It

4L-2737 - Omega Race

4L-2738 - Mountain King

- Wings

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