Evercade?!

[Recycled]

Yea, first cart I want in a while. Not to sound sacrilege, but the last 6 to 8 carts didn't/don't interest me. I'll be grabbing the new C64 soon as it's released.

[Video]

Oh yeah, jump man Jr, I was surprised that didn't appear on c64-2 cart. I played the original a lot bitd, but never the second.

 

I got duke nukem finally. Plugged it in and, "no cartridge inserted" heh, guess I need to update my exp. I figure its just plug it into a computer and load updates from the website right?

 

It did work fine on my taito pocket, I was right, those shoulders suck if used excessively.

 

Oh, on saving problems, I'd hazard a guess most people that have problems use the in-game saves, which only work till you change games or power off. It would be handy if the in-game save worked, but I don't know what would be involved on that. So, you still have to save through the evercade menu. On DN3D I save in-game, which makes it more convenient to operate imo, but still save through evercade os before turning it off.

[+madman]

You can upgrade the EXP's firmware via wifi. 

[roots.genoa]

Which is basically the only point of having WiFi... I really hope it's not the reason the battery drains so fast, because Super Pocket's battery is so much better.

[Giles N]

On 12/8/2023 at 7:14 AM, jgkspsx said:

Game list:

 

Anarchy

Boulder Dash

Break Dance

Cyberdyne Warrior

Cybernoid II: The Revenge

Deliverance: Stormlord II

Exolon

Heavy Metal Paradroid

Jumpman Junior

Netherworld

Street Sports Soccer

Summer Games II

Super Cycle

 

Some really cool looking games there!

Thanks for updating!

 

Unfortunately - unless it’s the same old-same old, ie ‘really cool games too expensive’, the C64 collections mostly disappoint.

 

Loved Movie Monsters… slow but fun. Only slow action game I can think of that I like. But building-sized monsters cannot zwoosh about like rats.

 

- - -

 

Why don’t get stuff like Beyond the Ice Palace, IO, Armalyte, Hystheria, Mayhem in Monsterland, Sams Journey, Grand Prix Circuit, Stunt Car Racer, Turrican, Turrican 2…? 

 

I mean. I couid see that all of these on one cart would be overkill(-selling Evercades, sh*t,didIsaythat) to achieve, but I mean, c’mon - something more like this - punchy music, chunky or impressive graphics, atmospheric settings, … stuff like that… 

… the stuff I bought (well, my Dad really) when I was a kid… and loved to play, while semi-monochrome games were more often than not skipped and ignored…

Edited December 12, 2023 by Giles N

[+jgkspsx]

Indie Heroes 3 is announced:

 

Game list:

Alien Cat 2: Enhanced Edition

Big2Small

Bone Marrow

Bubble Seahorse Adventures

Chew Chew Mimic

Chibi Monster Br4wl

Donut Dodo

Doodle World Redrawn

The Little Tales of Alexandria

Magic and Legend: Time Knights

Orebody: Binder's Tale

Skate Cat

Thunder Paw

 

The new games look decent and I was already in for Donut Dodo, Big2Small, Bone Marrow, Orebody, and Chew Chew Mimic. I was hoping we would see some Atari system homebrew. Maybe next year  

[+Intellivision Master]

3 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

I was hoping we would see some Atari system homebrew. Maybe next year  

That would be nice.  

[+GoldLeader]

Atari homebrews would be nice!   Alas,  it's still cool to be playing them on original hardware!

 

That said,  you know what I want?  Even though I've already bought them a few times over...I want those Taito games to get off my Super Pocket and into an Evercade cart!  (Get outa my dreams and into my cart!,   heh)...

 

Well at least Volfied...And Space Invaders...maybe Bubble Bobble, oh and Elevator Action...I'll just take'em all!

 

I want them on them on the big (TV) screen!

[+Intellivision Master]

https://www.timeextension.com/news/2023/12/new-evercade-update-adds-turbo-fire-high-scores-and-more

 

I like the turbo fire feature being added.  The article also mentions the new free game for December. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by Intellivision Master

[+Intellivision Master]

If Blaze continues doing the free monthly games next year, it'd be nice to see something other than indie titles.  It would be good to have a retro game release monthly to try out before a new cart comes out.  Just like how they did it with the indie collections.  But make it for retro instead.  

[Bill Loguidice]

2 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

I was hoping we would see some Atari system homebrew. Maybe next year  

I don't consider that likely. I'm not sure if Atari is going to license to them anymore and they'd need a publisher with a pool of rights-clear Atari homebrews to put together a compelling enough cartridge. I'm also not sure if non-name Atari homebrews would sell well enough for them.

[+jgkspsx]

1 hour ago, Intellivision Master said:

If Blaze continues doing the free monthly games next year, it'd be nice to see something other than indie titles.  It would be good to have a retro game release monthly to try out before a new cart comes out.  Just like how they did it with the indie collections.  But make it for retro instead.  

I think licensing is the issue there. It's a lot easier to license from individual devs than from big companies, and it's probably easier to convince them to have it be included on a yearly anthology cart. Plus, would the retro game of the month just never be released on a cart? Or do you mean a preview of something that is coming?

[+jgkspsx]

54 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

I don't consider that likely. I'm not sure if Atari is going to license to them anymore and they'd need a publisher with a pool of rights-clear Atari homebrews to put together a compelling enough cartridge. I'm also not sure if non-name Atari homebrews would sell well enough for them.

There are dozens if not hundreds of 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrew developers, they don't need Atari's approval any more than any of the other Indie Heroes need Sega's or Nintendo's approvals.

[Bill Loguidice]

15 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

There are dozens if not hundreds of 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrew developers, they don't need Atari's approval any more than any of the other Indie Heroes need Sega's or Nintendo's approvals.

I'm well aware of that. My point stands. There's not necessarily a well-organized collection, so they'd have to go to individual authors, and the no-name games will have minimal appeal, and there's no way they're going to be able to license the rights for unauthorized ports from different publishers. It's just not worth it, as it would be the same effort and expense with far better return just to get the originals rather than 2600 (or other Atari platform) ports.

 

The "well-organized collection" of rights thing is also what prevents other platforms than the ones we've had to date being collected, in addition to the whole name recognition thing. There has to be a compelling enough package put together for enough people to buy them. They no doubt have enough data points proving that at this stage. It's been "easy" putting together the Amiga and C-64 collections because those rights are generally well-consolidated, plus they have strong appeal in the UK. That's not really the case with other platforms. 

[roots.genoa]

6 hours ago, GoldLeader said:

I want them on them on the big (TV) screen!

Well, I've got a solution for you, albeit a quite expensive one: buy a Taito Egret II Mini!

[+jgkspsx]

2 hours ago, Bill Loguidice said:

3 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

There are dozens if not hundreds of 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrew developers, they don't need Atari's approval any more than any of the other Indie Heroes need Sega's or Nintendo's approvals.

There's not necessarily a well-organized collection, so they'd have to go to individual authors, and the no-name games will have minimal appeal, and there's no way they're going to be able to license the rights for unauthorized ports from different publishers. It's just not worth it, as it would be the same effort and expense with far better return just to get the originals rather than 2600 (or other Atari platform) ports.

How do you think the Indie Heroes games work? How do you think they licensed @Songbird's and @Fadest's games? No mega corporation is licensing those... 🤔

[Bill Loguidice]

16 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

How do you think the Indie Heroes games work? How do you think they licensed @Songbird's and @Fadest's games? No mega corporation is licensing those... 🤔

Indie Heroes are modern games, with arguably a few well-known (albeit, indie) titles thrown into the mix. They have considerably more appeal to the Evercade audience. Again, it's a combination of factors. There's unlikely to be an audience for no-name Atari 2600 homebrews. Can you name say 13 really great Atari 2600 homebrews that don't infringe some type of copyright, i.e., wouldn't need an expensive IP license, and would also sell reasonably well to an unfamiliar market? More likely is a collection of ZX Spectrum games and other Euro-centric platforms well before they start to try and mine Atari 2600 homebrews (although those shouldn't be ruled out as a toss-in with more well-known commercial titles, much like Atari themselves has done). I'd consider that just about the last thing they'd do.

[+jgkspsx]

I can think of HUNDREDS of original, non-infringing 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrews that are better than half of the "indie heroes" we've gotten. They too are "modern games".
 

Doodle World and Time Knights and the platformers that the grade schooler made with NESMaker are just bad games. I would kind of like to see a moratorium on NESMaker and GBStudio games, to be honest.
 

We would be way better off with Mr Yo Yo or ExO or Ynxa than virtually any of the generic platformers we've gotten on the indie carts. You need to spend more time in some of the Atari forums, it seems.

[Bill Loguidice]

3 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

I can think of HUNDREDS of original, non-infringing 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrews that are better than half of the "indie heroes" we've gotten. They too are "modern games".
 

Doodle World and Time Knights and the platformers that the grade schooler made with NESMaker are just bad games. I would kind of like to see a moratorium on NESMaker and GBStudio games, to be honest.
 

We would be way better off with Mr Yo Yo or ExO or Ynxa. You need to spend more time in some of the Atari forums, it seems.

You're clearly passionate about it, but I don't think that's the popular consensus, or a practical thought. Pre-Crash systems are always a tough sell outside of known Atari 2600 games, particularly for something relatively Euro-centric like the Evercade. I'm a big fan and supporter of homebrews, but I know that's it's always a tough sales road for these types of games when they don't have a license attached or are ports of well-known pre-existing games, two things again, that a platform like the Evercade wouldn't bother with. They'd just do one license for the source and not bother with a homebrew.

 

Regardless, it's a moot point because it's almost certainly not going to be something they'll pursue. I don't think anyone looking at it objectively thinks a collection of 13 even very good no-name Atari 2600 homebrews would sell much.

 

In terms of the modern indies, that's still something of a name recognition and is something that the Evercade audience has been proven to connect with.

[+madman]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

Can you name say 13 really great Atari 2600 homebrews that don't infringe some type of copyright, i.e., wouldn't need an expensive IP license, and would also sell reasonably well to an unfamiliar market? 

He likes literally any game on any Atari system, they're all great games, not a single stinker ever made in his eyes. 

10 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

I can think of HUNDREDS of original, non-infringing 2600, 7800, and Lynx homebrews that are better than half of the "indie heroes" we've gotten.

See. There's hundreds of "great" Atari homebrew games. Simple as that.

[+jgkspsx]

Maybe y'all should find a different site?

[+jgkspsx]

52 minutes ago, Bill Loguidice said:

a collection of 13 even very good no-name Atari 2600 homebrews would sell much

This is your idea, not mine. They should expand the Game of the Month program to include them along with other games, or just throw them on an Indie Heroes collection as a bonus as they did with various other games. They included an objectively not great INTV homebrew on the Sydney Hunter Collection, a collection that probably should not have happened at all.

[+madman]

4 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Maybe y'all should find a different site?

Or maybe you can admit that not every game ever made is great? Well to be fair, you don't like Mario games and you'd rather play Spectrum games, so there are some games that aren't your thing.

[+jgkspsx]

Wait, is @madman an alt account for @famicommander, or are they just kindred spirits?

[+madman]

1 hour ago, Bill Loguidice said:

You're clearly passionate about it, but I don't think that's the popular consensus, or a practical thought.

 

6 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Wait, is @madman an alt account for @famicommander, or are they just kindred spirits?

Don't forget Bill, he also admits not every game ever made is great. We must all be the same person, because we are clearly the only 3 people on an Atari forum who would say there's a bad Atari game. Everyone else is sane and knows every single 2600 homebrew is a must play game and will appeal to all audiences.