Nintellisivion - Reimaginging Intellivision Lives DS

[+wavemotion]

I grew up with my best friend having an Intellivision (I had the Atari 2600 and later Colecovision). We played endless rounds of both original AD&D games and Tron Solar Sailor - though they were 1 player games, we would play them as co-op using both controllers (one person steering and the other shooting, etc). I suspect we weren't alone in that method - and we spent a summer really enjoying these games. 

Over the decades, I picked up every Intellivision Lives collection from the PC versions on Windows 95/98 (can't remember which) and later on the PSX, PS2 and DS.

But I was always felt a little underwhelmed by these efforts. While I loved supporting the original programmers and those who carried forward the legacy of the original games -- those versions left a bit to be desired.  The DS is one of my favorite platforms and Intellivision Lives DS version was particularly disappointing given that the touch screen was about as close as we can get to the original keypad controllers on a handheld device. After waiting what felt like a year since learning about it and the eventual release, the game left me scratching my head. How could anyone that loved the system release this?  The entire bottom row of of icons on Treasure of Tarmin (aka Minotaur) was missing!  For AD&D Cloudy Mountain (aka Adventure), the game wouldn't register arrow clicks ... and more often than not, when trying to run and shoot at the same time, the running man sprite would just run through and get stuck in solid walls.  Space Spartans seemed to omit any sort of number counting - you couldn't tell how many aliens were in your sector nor what energy you had left.  In the end, I did my best to play my beloved Treasure of Tarmin using a cheat sheet for weapon strength and memorization of what was in my pack/hands but the experience was seriously handicapped. 

Fast forward a decade and I finally decided to learn how to program the DS/DSi. After working on 4 emulators for the Atari line (StellaDS, 5200DS, 7800DS and XEGS-DS), I turned my attention to Nintellivision - a DS/DSi emulator for the Matel Intellivision.  The idea was to fix the issues in the original Intellivision Lives DS release. I used the open-source (but now abandoned) BLISS core as it lent itself to easy conversion to the DS. I wrapped in a layer of input controls, display output and a generic touch-screen keypad. I added a slew of configuration options to map Intellivision keypad buttons to DS buttons so you can customize your game as you like. Support for things like the Dual-Action Controller (one controller for move/fire and the other for keypad so you can move/shoot at the same time in many games) is included. I've added a high score list for 10 scores per game. Compatibility is fairly high ... about 97% of all games run correctly and smoothly on the DSi... a smaller number run full speed on the older DS-LITE hardware. It supports intellivoice via SP0256 emulation (not .WAV files).  It supports JLP acceleration and RAM (not flash yet) so you can play great games like Grail of the Gods or Super Pixel Bros. There is no ECS support yet.

Lastly, I do allow for custom overlays that you can design and create touch-screen hot-spots for. I won't release anything that isn't open source - but if you want to create a cool custom overlay for your favorite game via GIMP, you can do so (see below for my custom Treasure of Tarmin - my favorite game... this is using a scan of the Overlay and manipulated to be horizontal... it's for my personal use only). 

The emulator is free, of course. It runs on a DSi via SD card and something like Twilight Menu or Unlaunch (google is your friend here). On the DS it requires running from a Flash Cart.

 

 

Edited September 18, 2021 by llabnip
Fix images.

[ClassicGMR]

Intellivision Lives DS was the absolute biggest disappointment I have ever had with an Intellivision/Blue Sky Rangers sanctioned release. The games I wanted the most are unplayable, the interface is "meh" and in a lot of games the screens are cut off. I still - to this day - can't believe they signed off on it. Felt like such a cash grab.

 

I will be definitely looking into this (even though I have a DS Lite) thank you!