help me develop a game

[dazreid]

Hi guys.

I'm currently trying to start up an international Atari 2600 hobby development team. The idea is that prgorammers for the system can come together and all help me create games for the 2600 which we'll hopefully publish? Anyone interested?

 

If so please email me at dazreid@aol.com

 

I am acting as game designer and producer and am looking for a talented code team for the first project. The ideal people i need is:

 

Lead programmer: Handle the actual game code

Intro Progammer: Program a cool title screen]

Credit programmer: Program the game's end credits

 

If you have some other ability you wanna offer then please email me anyways )

 

All the best

 

Darren

[Nukey Shay]

Have you worked with 6502 machine language before? Have you tried some of your ideas in other programming languages before? If the answer to one or both is "no" you need to rethink this deal.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Hi Darren,

I'm afraid your idea won't work. Nearly all 2600 homebrew games are the work of individuals. And the chance of developing the whole thing yourself, is one big attracting point for programmers.

 

I bet, you won't find people, who want to share their credits for their "brilliant" kernel (the heart of any 2600 program) with somebody who "just" managed the team or "simply" wrote an intro screen.

 

And designing games for the 2600 without a lot of knowledge of it's massive limitations is not possible, too.

[Albert]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thomas Jentzsch:

I'm afraid your idea won't work. Nearly all 2600 homebrew games are the work of individuals. And the chance of developing the

whole

thing yourself, is one big attracting point for programmers.

---

 

I have to agree with Thomas here. I'd like to develop a 2600 game someday, and I have every intention of going at it myself. I might use some routines here and there from fellow 2600 programmers and I'll probably have to lean on them every once and again when I get stumped. But the bulk of the effort will be my own, and will be something I can take pride in when finished.

 

The 2600 is one of the few consoles that allow a single individual to do the design, programming, graphics and sound. Heck, many homebrew authors even manufacture the carts, boxes, manuals and labels themselves! It becomes more and more difficult to take on all these tasks as consoles get more complex. You can't avoid working with large teams of programmers, artists, designers, musicians, producers, etc. on modern systems. Or most complex software systems, these days, it doesn't have to be just games.

 

So as a professional game developer myself who's been part of many large teams, the challenge of creating an enjoyable 2600 game by myself is very appealing and one I greatly look forward to. While I appreciate your desire to help produce games for the 2600, I don't think you'll find many 2600 programmers willing to share the glory on a homebrew title.

 

..Al

[Cybergoth]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Darren Reid:

I am acting as game designer and producer and am looking for a talented code team for the first project.

---

 

Well, I've read that many times the last years. There seems to be a general misunderstanding, how a 2600 game can be done.

 

It simply is not possible to design a VCS game without beeing a VCS programmer.

 

Someone standing outside has almost no chance in designing a VCS game. There's soooo much you need to know about the machines limitations, you can only learn that, by programing at least one game yourself.

 

Some gameplay decissions come directly from programming limitations, some game features result directly from programming tricks.

 

It's all about both finding compromises and pushing the thing to limit.

 

Only the programmer can do that.

 

Maybe, as an example, if Thomas would design a VCS game and I would program it or vice-versa, that *might* work, because we are both programmers (and gamers ) and know what we're talking about. Some doubt

 

So, as an advice: Try learning to program the VCS yourself. It's fun!

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[dazreid]

Actually I am 2600 prgrammer and do know the system well but i am also involved in Jaguar development where i work as a designer for a team, the idea behind my proposal being to do what the jaguar community does, genuinly work to making the game the best it can be with loads of different people from around the world, i had no idea the 2600 was so anti-social

[Cybergoth]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Darren Reid:

i had no idea the 2600 was so anti-social

---

 

Well, I on the other side new perfectly well that giving you a proper answer was only a waste of time.

 

Yet I'm answering, because there's still little hope left in me, that someone understands some day.

 

Greetings,

Manuel

[Snider-man]

quote

 i had no idea the 2600 was so anti-social  

 

And I am completely unsurprised with your attitude. Several respected programmers explained - politely and patiently - why no one would probably be willing to take direction from you when you yourself have not contributed anything to the 2600 community. Your general attitude in your first message read lcame across like this:

 

"Hey, I wanna make a game, but have no experience or inclination to learn ASM, but I want you to program and build the programming and then I'll produce it and take credit for it because I have expereince in making games but only in QBASIC which isn't really the same but people at my junior high school say my games are good how about it?"

 

We get a LOT of letters like this. Yours sounded the same. "Be a programmer for me and I'll produce it." We replied politely. You snapped back. You've probably alienated the very people who could've helped you if you hadn't developed an attitude. I wish you well and luck with your Jaguar endeavors.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Darren Reid:

i had no idea the 2600 was so anti-social

---

Oops, and I always thought the 2600 community was (one of) the most social ones I know. Must have been totally wrong...

 

BTW: Where can I find any information about your Atari related work in the Web? I searched, but I couldn't find much. Only your post to the Stella Mailing List, where you asked, if it is possible to program for the 2600 without using assembler. Hmm...

 

And that you are playing in a band. Cool, but not very Atari related...

 

[ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: Thomas Jentzsch ]

[DanBoris]

I personally don't think that type of team development lends it's self well to the 2600. On newer system like the Jaguar the game can easily be broken into independant modules that different people can work on, eg. Person X writes the game logic, Person Y writes the graphics engine, etc. This would be very difficult the 2600 since everything in a 2600 program is so tightly interrelated. You also couldn't hand something like graphic design to another person, since the appearence of the graphics is heavily dependant on the display engine you write.

 

What does work well (which is what is done a lot on this message board) is to have a group of people you can bounce ideas and problems off of. That way you develop the game with one programmer, but when you get stuck on something you have people that can lend ideas and suggestions.

 

Dan

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Darren Reid:

Actually I am 2600 prgrammer and do know the system well but i am also involved in Jaguar development where i work as a designer for a team, the idea behind my proposal being to do what the jaguar community does, genuinly work to making the game the best it can be with loads of different people from around the world, i had no idea the 2600 was so anti-social

---

 

[ 04-05-2002: Message edited by: Dan Boris ]

[Snider-man]

Don't waste your breath any further. This message was taken from the Atari Lynx message board on this very site.

quote:

---

Hi guys

 

I am currently working as a designer on an atarti Jaguar project. The team i work with is truely international and it is great fun and i was

wondering of anyone would want to try something similar for the Lynx? Any aspiring programmers etc?

 

email me at dazreid@aol.com

 

Daz

---

 

I daresay, he'll be posting the same request to the Atari 5200 and Atari 7800 boards next, before moving on to the Intelivision, Colecovision and Vectrex boards.

[Nukey Shay]

We are always willing to take time out to help on any stumbling blocks you get along the way...which is kinda as much as we CAN do, considering the tricky timing issues programming games for the 2600. Teams working independantly on entire sections of the program wouldn't work all that well.

[Heaven/TQA]

guyz, i have to disagree to a certain point...

 

it can be done...

 

on atari 8bit we have sound designers, gfx man, designers & coders...

 

myself is throuwing ideas into taquart and my coders try to sort them & implement them into code... our gfx man is drawing the stuff for us...and we have the music.... so... to be completly honest it can be done...

 

even for the 2600... i truly believe...

 

you can code the kernel and everything to a certain point. BUT when the game is finished... a good gfx man can even make better animations out of the 8x8 chars or even set the DLIs better because he has a better understanding of colors... that is my experience even in the homebrew scene... f.e. in atari 7800 senso the gfx of the "Ready" & "Go!" was done by my high professional screen designer at work!

 

the game itself will be still looking homebrew...but if you have a artist overlooking than it might become more professional.

 

and how the code itself is spreaded...where is the problem? some coder will write the intro, some the outro and one the game... and?`where is the problem? if all of them are experienced 2600 coders than it works... i tell f.e. thomas, your intro starts at adress xxxx and you have 512 bytes for it... wait for the start key and then jump to my game routine @ adress blablabla... after game over my routine jumps to bbbb, which will be handled by dan boris... and he has again 512 bytes for it...

 

and? where is the REAL problem for that?????

 

 

think about it...

 

hve

 

ps. we are all a big coding team to a certain point even right now...

[Thomas Jentzsch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Heaven/TQA:

you can code the kernel and everything to a certain point. BUT when the game is finished... a good gfx man can even make better animations out of the 8x8 chars or even set the DLIs better because he has a better understanding of colors...

---

Ok that's possible, and the same goes for the music too.

 

quote

and how the code itself is spreaded...where is the problem? some coder will write the intro, some the outro and one the game... and?`where is the problem? if all of them are experienced 2600 coders than it works... i tell f.e. thomas, your intro starts at adress xxxx and you have 512 bytes for it... wait for the start key and then jump to my game routine @ adress blablabla... after game over my routine jumps to bbbb, which will be handled by dan boris... and he has again 512 bytes for it...

The problem with the 2600 is, that you are allways short of ressources (RAM, ROM, cycles). So you are making compromises over and over.

 

Since the display kernel is the heart of any 2600 program, everything else is programmed around it. And it's hard to reuse somebody elses kernel for something different, just because every good kernel is highly specialized for its task.

 

So, when you split a project to several people, you will probably come out with having a lot of different kernels, which will use up a lot of your valuable ROM and RAM space. If you do it on your own, you know exactly the limitations of the existing kernel and how you could modify it to suit multiple parts of the project. Or perhaps even change the game to suit the kernel...

 

When I think about Thrust, which is a large 16K project, except for some non programming tasks (sound, graphic design, label), I can hardly find a way, how the coding could have been divided. Even the level design is so much connected to the restrictions of the kernel, that it would have been nearly impossible for somebody else to make a possible level.

 

You could perhaps reuse some more general routines like checking the switches or the joystick (even this is tightly intgrated in the rest of the code in Thrust), but there is no fun in programming that. So who would like to do that boring stuff only.