finding-developer-of-mysterious-2600-game/

[+TheBF]

Not sure if anyone here can help with this.

Found on Hacker News.

 

Atari asks gamers for help finding developer of mysterious 2600 game | VentureBeat

[tschak909]

Great link.

-Thom

 

[ZippyRedPlumber]

According to @Tempest, Tod Frye did the kernel & Gary Shannon programmed the game

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/aquaventure/aquaventure.htm

 

 

[Tempest]

9 hours ago, ZippyRedPlumber said:

According to @Tempest, Tod Frye did the kernel & Gary Shannon programmed the game

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/aquaventure/aquaventure.htm

 

Yes that's about all we've been able to find out.  There's a small chance that Nick Turner was somehow involved as well, but that's just a theory based on some code we found (the next article will talk about that).  Unfortunately there really isn't much to go on, Aquaventure never appeared on any internal memos or documents that I've seen and both Gary and Tod's memories about the game are extremely hazy. 

[+Al_Nafuur]

9 hours ago, ZippyRedPlumber said:

According to @Tempest, Tod Frye did the kernel & Gary Shannon programmed the game

 

http://www.atariprotos.com/2600/software/aquaventure/aquaventure.htm

 

 

The Atari XP blog post is by Matt Reichert the maintainer of atariprotos.com

according to the post Tod Frye and Gary Shannon stated that they are not the original or lead Programmer of the game.

[Tempest]

1 minute ago, Al_Nafuur said:

according to the post Tod Frye and Gary Shannon stated that they are not the original or lead Programmer of the game.

Correct.  Tod may have done the kernel for the game (he's not 100% sure but says it looks like something he would have done) and Gary only did some minor tweaks to an already existing code base.  Tod was Gary's 'Group Leader' at the time (basically his manager) so he would have probably assigned Aquaventure to him to work on but like I said, he doesn't remember the game at all.  It's also possible that someone else (possibly the original programmer) simply used Tod's kernel code for the game (which was freely available) so there's a good chance Tod wasn't involved with the game at all.

 

There's a earlier prototype for Aquaventure in the possession of a friend of mine that might shed some more light on this.  He's going to try and get around to dumping it in the future.

[Tempest]

Just found out some new information.  I think the programmer mystery is finally coming together.  I'll post something once I've confirmed a few things.

[+Atari_Warlord]

Maybe this was originally going to be a licensed game based on a movie like "The Deep".  There are quite a few scuba diving movies pre-1983, but I couldn't quite find one that matched perfectly to the game play.

 

Another possibility since Warner owned DC comics, is that this was supposed to be Aquaman. This would explain the mermaid, but not why you can only breathe air or why the sea creatures are attacking you.   I think Warner also had some ownership of the Man from Atlantis TV series.

[Tempest]

53 minutes ago, Atari_Warlord said:

Maybe this was originally going to be a licensed game based on a movie like "The Deep".  There are quite a few scuba diving movies pre-1983, but I couldn't quite find one that matched perfectly to the game play.

 

Another possibility since Warner owned DC comics, is that this was supposed to be Aquaman. This would explain the mermaid, but not why you can only breathe air or why the sea creatures are attacking you.   I think Warner also had some ownership of the Man from Atlantis TV series.

Nope this was an original idea.  I'll have more to post shortly.

[jhd]

 

Aquaventure is my favourite unreleased game (by a significant margin); it is exciting to see that more information is coming to light after all of these years.

 

I eagerly await the next posting.