ZPH Tribute Stream to Nukey Shay/Kurt Howe's Work

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

On Tuesday September 28th, 2021 ZeroPage Homebrew will be honouring Nukey Shay/Kurt Howe's work on the Atari 2600 by playing a number of his games on the stream.

 

Let me know what your favourite games of his are so we can play the best of the best of his work!

 

Some already mentioned:

• Missile Command Arcade
• Hack'em! / Hangly Man
• Pac-Man 8K
• 2 Player Berzerk
• Another Adventure

 

EDIT: Here's the stream linked below:

 

 (WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)

 

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hack'em! / Hangly Man

[SoundGammon]

River Raid III

[Trebor]

What I really appreciate and enjoy with Nukey's work is I feel it reflects some of the closest to being highly probable to an actual release back in the day, if (slightly) better resources and circumstances were present.  I most certainly enjoy other hacks and the complete remakes for the VCS; however, Nukey provided a number of really nice upgrades and polish to the original retail releases with some of the highest realm of possibility and feasibility factoring to me, within a similar reality:

 

The already mentioned: 

Pac-Man

(Download click here)

 

Others:

Ms. Pac-Man

(Download click here)

 

Galaxian

(Download click here)

 

Space Invaders Deluxe

(Download click here)

 

Keeps all the above within 8K and provides source code.. very cool work from a very cool individual, whose absence is felt by many.

[Trebor]

13 hours ago, ZeroPage Homebrew said:

• 2 Player Berzerk

The above links to a file dated June 3rd.  There a newer version from Nukey, file date June 17th here.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

44 minutes ago, Trebor said:

The above links to a file dated June 3rd.  There a newer version from Nukey, file date June 17th here.

Sorry about that, I was linking to the start of the discussion thread and not directly to the latest binary. More of a resource for me for research when talking about the game on the show.

 

- James

[+Cafeman]

Good idea. I will be there.

[alex_79]

I like Exidy's Circus, an hack of "Circus Atari":

256(!) variations, including simultaneous 2 player modes, where the second player moves a barrier to defend the balloons. (check the instructions included in the zip file in the first post for the huge game select matrix).

 

Unfortunately there are some glitches in the title screen. (13 years ago 2600 emulators weren't as accurate as they are now).

Here's my attempt to fix the issues (hopefully I didn't break anything in the process...)

 

Exidy_Circus_VSYNC_fix.zip

[+Cafeman]

Nukey Shay's Adventure kernel was also used for KevinMOS3's Adventure Enhanced.  Are there others as well?

[Omegamatrix]

8 hours ago, Cafeman said:

Nukey Shay's Adventure kernel was also used for KevinMOS3's Adventure Enhanced.  Are there others as well?

Yeah I think they did a lot of work together. Galaxian Expanded and WoW too.

 

Here are some of my favorites. I don't know if they are the latest roms:

Bottomless Pitfall! (Pitfall! Hack) (2004) (Kurt Howe).bin

Hack 'Em - Hangly Man (16K) (Pesco Hack) (2006) (Kurt Howe).bin

Monkey_Test.bin

Space Invaders Deluxe (8K) (Space Invaders Hack) (2005) (Kurt Howe).bin

WoW16k.bin

Jr. Pac-Man Throttle (Jr. Pac-Man Hack) (2005) (Kurt Howe).bin

 

 

WoW I think is an older Version an older version I think. Check KevinMOS3's thread for new roms, and the Galaxian rom. Monkey Test is built off a previous Jungle King hack, but the stuff added is great. I love Jr. Pac-Man Throttle. Makes that game so much more playable.

[Arenafoot]

His best hack IMO is River Raid 3! I covered it in volume 3 pg 116 of my book. This is the only title of his I've covered in any of my books, as most of his work are sprite hacks or controller type hacks. He will be greatly missed.

 

 

[tkarner]

I remember Nukey for three projects.

1. As already mentioned, his PacMan hacks are the best.

2. Galaxian. He and KevinMos3 reworked Galaxian so extensively that I consider it more of a homebrew than a hack. Probably the best home version out there.

3. Starpath Superchanger hacks. If you don't remember, before we had SD card multicarts like the Harmony, the only way to play game binaries on real hardware (other than owning the cartridges) was to load them via the Starpath Supercharger. It wasn't perfect. Due to the Supercharger's memory limits it only worked for 2k and 4k games. I think all the 2k games worked but only about half the 4k games did. So Nukey hacked the binaries of hundreds of games to work with the Supercharger. Kind of moot nowadays but at the time this was huge. I remember working with him on this, mostly identifying which games needed hacking.

Galaxian-Arc-Exp.bin

[chewy]

the pool game has a great huge hack by him

[Trebor]

I put together a tribute collection of Kurt's work as posted through his Nukey Shay moniker.  The scope of the collection is strictly the files he posted directly with no additional modifications made by other parties.  Two sub-folders are included in addition to the main, which sorts according to files designed specifically for the Supercharger, and those designed for the Flashback Portable.

 

It's important to keep in mind that files for those devices may not function properly outside of their target equipment.  The FB Portable files particularly can employ techniques that possibly cause synchronization issues on other displays.

 

Files that are not labelled for a particular region are most likely NTSC; however, there is an abundance of PAL and PAL60 designated files as well.  Some files without a region specified, and especially those with "Palette Select" in the file name, can swap between NTSC and PAL palettes by utilizing the B&W switch for the console (Pause button on the 7800).

 

Although not intended to be all-inclusive, even with the limited scope, there are well over 350 files, and it does a respectable job in representing his legacy.  I can only imagine if involving everything Kurt either influenced or assisted, that number would double.  Thanks to Nukey, once again, for the great times and amazingly awesome work.. you are missed.

 

Nukey Shay Tribute Collection.zip

[Prizrak]

I've used this archive for PlusCart because it does the man justice more than what I had pulled together for the Plus Store.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

[doctorclu]

I like how Nukey fixed a lot of games to work on the Atari Flashback Portable, and for the Super Charger.

 

I think if there was one game I like, and still play, it is the Star Raiders hack that uses the switches on the Flashback Portable or regular Atari 2600, rather than needing a keyboard controller:

 

 

[keithbk]

If you are going to be doing "Another Adventure" this coming Tuesday, I will do my best to be on your Twitch chat to help answer any questions. Let me know.

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

1 hour ago, keithbk said:

If you are going to be doing "Another Adventure" this coming Tuesday, I will do my best to be on your Twitch chat to help answer any questions. Let me know.

It's a great game and there's a very good chance we'll be including it in the lineup. I'll be announcing the games by Monday at the latest.

 

That would be great to have some help with the game, thank you so much!

 

- James

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is broadcasting a tribute stream to the legacy of Nukey Shay / Kurt Howe on tomorrow's (Tue Sep 28, 2021) stream LIVE on Twitch at 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day. I hope you'll be able to join us in remembering Kurt and his incredible contributions to the homebrew community!

 

ZPH Twitch Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Missile Command Arcade (2006 Hack) by Kurt Howe @Nukey Shay
• Pac-Man Arcade Enhanced (2011 Hack) by Kurt Howe @Nukey Shay
• River Raid 3 (2017 Hack) by Kurt Howe @Nukey Shay
• Another Adventure (2011 Hack) by Keith C Bradbury @keithbk and Kurt Howe @Nukey Shay
• Galaxian Arcade Expanded (2010 Hack) by Kurt Howe @Nukey Shay and Kevin Mosley @KevinMos3

 (WATCH AT 1080P60 FOR FULL QUALITY)