List of ports u want from other systems...

[ZillaRUSH]

My List:

2600

Star Fox

Yars Revenge

Rally Racer

Mr. Yo Yo

Galaxian

 

5200

Sea Dragon

Laser Hawk

Xevious

Blow Sub

Galaga

 

CV

Pepper II

Pooyan

Time Pilot

Bosconian

Juno First

[+Steve Jones]

One of those will be available soon at PRGE, also Time Pilot is being developed by ArtRag, there is a thread about it on here.

I would love to see Galaga but I'm not sure the Intellivision can handle that many aliens all flying at the same time.

[crade]

Robotron!

[+cmadruga]

I have thought about some of the games on the list...

[+Steve Jones]

Any of them doable?

[JohnPCAE]

Many are with an ACC plugged in...

[+cmadruga]

1 hour ago, Steve Jones said:

Any of them doable?

They are all doable one way or another. It's all about the compromises 🙂

Like Galaga, for instance: the Intellivision's vertical resolution is what it is. We either accept enemies being closer than the original, or we have to reduce # enemies to make room, etc.

Edited September 28, 2022 by cmadruga

[mr_me]

4 hours ago, cmadruga said:

Like Galaga, for instance: the Intellivision's vertical resolution is what it is. We either accept enemies being closer than the original, or we have to reduce # enemies to make room, etc.

Or make enemies smaller, less detailed with fewer pixels. 

[+cmadruga]

9 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Or make enemies smaller, less detailed with fewer pixels. 

Yes, and effectively reducing visual quality... To my point: compromises, compromises...

 

But I think Arturo demonstrated with Galaxian that having enemies closer than the original still makes for a very good game that retains the original flavor.

Along the same lines, I haven't played that recent Gorf port yet, but I haven't seen anyone complaining about the shorter enemy distance either.

I think Galaga could be implemented the same way.

[+Steve Jones]

6 hours ago, JohnPCAE said:

Many are with an ACC plugged in...

what is an ACC ?

[+fdr4prez]

15 minutes ago, Steve Jones said:

what is an ACC ?

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/266459-birds-nest/

[+DZ-Jay]

6 hours ago, cmadruga said:

Yes, and effectively reducing visual quality... To my point: compromises, compromises...

 

But I think Arturo demonstrated with Galaxian that having enemies closer than the original still makes for a very good game that retains the original flavor.

Along the same lines, I haven't played that recent Gorf port yet, but I haven't seen anyone complaining about the shorter enemy distance either.

I think Galaga could be implemented the same way.

I agree.  My only concern with Arturo's Galaxian was that the speed and the enemy shooting patterns needed to be scaled a bit more due to the reduced vertical distance, but this was an observation taken from a development test version -- I am sure that would be addressed in the production version once the game is tweaked and polished.

 

I only point this out because the compromises are not merely aesthetic, but are also mechanical.  Smaller enemies or shorter distances affect the dynamics of object interactions, which must then be compensated for.  It is something that gets missed is some conversions.

 

The best conversions are the ones that offer a glimpse of the "look and feel" -- the essence -- of the original, reproducing the core game-play dynamics within the bounds of the target platform, while taking advantage of the platform's strengths.

 

All that to say that I believe Galaga would be possible -- you just have to distill its essence and reproduce those aspects that make it uniquely "Galaga," in the best "Intellivision" way possible.

 

Sometimes that's the shape of the ships, sometimes it's their movement patterns, sometimes it's the sound effects, sometimes it's all that.  Whatever it is, the player will either get it or not when they play it.

 

    dZ.

Edited September 29, 2022 by DZ-Jay

[mr_me]

It depends on what your objective is with your "port".  If it's to replicate the original gameplay as closely as possible, than the compromise should be graphics quality to maintain that gameplay.  In Galaga and Galaxian the enemy dive bombs are a big part of the game play and dramatically reducing that distance makes for a different game experience.  Which is fine, if your objective is to replicate the graphics as closely as possible, resulting in a compromise in gameplay.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 minute ago, mr_me said:

It depends on what your objective is with your "port".  If it's to replicate the original gameplay as closely as possible, than the compromise should be graphics quality to maintain that gameplay.  In Galaga and Galaxian the enemy dive bombs are a big part of the game play and dramatically reducing that distance makes for a different game experience.  Which is fine, if your objective is to replicate the graphics as closely as possible, resulting in a compromise in gameplay.

 

Of course, it depends on the objectives of the programmer.  I was just assuming that the objective would be to have a game that's fun and interesting in the target platform that elicited the same feel as the original.

 

If your goal is merely to make it look like the original, then sure, you only focus on the graphics.  God knows shelves are replete of pretty arcade ports that are not much fun to play.

 

    -dZ.

[Jaxivision]

Yar's Revenge is a must.

Edited September 29, 2022 by Jaxivision

[mr_me]

32 minutes ago, DZ-Jay said:

 

Of course, it depends on the objectives of the programmer.  I was just assuming that the objective would be to have a game that's fun and interesting in the target platform that elicited the same feel as the original.

 

If your goal is merely to make it look like the original, then sure, you only focus on the graphics.  God knows shelves are replete of pretty arcade ports that are not much fun to play.

 

    -dZ.

 

Yes, and that's what I mean by compromise gameplay, it's in reference to comparing a "port" to the original game.  A "port" with gameplay compromises can be very fun but plays differently than the original.  There is a Pacman homebrew on PC called Paku Paku that used a graphics compromised 160x100 resolution compared to the official Atari version using 320x200.  It looks very blocky, yet they still managed to replicate the maze and the gameplay can still be accurately replicated in programming.

[+DZ-Jay]

37 minutes ago, mr_me said:

 

Yes, and that's what I mean by compromise gameplay, it's in reference to comparing a "port" to the original game.  A "port" with gameplay compromises can be very fun but plays differently than the original.  There is a Pacman homebrew on PC called Paku Paku that used a graphics compromised 160x100 resolution compared to the official Atari version using 320x200.  It looks very blocky, yet they still managed to replicate the maze and the gameplay can still be accurately replicated in programming.

 

 

I understand.  I guess my point was slightly different:  you could aim at adjusting the mechanics slightly to fit the visual compromises while maintaining the same game-play that strongly evokes the original game.

 

For instance, in the port of Pac-Man I was working on (before it turned into some other game), because the size of the play-field changed, the size of the object hit-boxes and their speed needed to be adjusted as well.

 

By scaling adequately the size of the virtual tile map to conform to the new screen dimensions, and adjusting the speed by a commensurate amount, the same enemy AI emergent behaviour from the original could be replicated.

 

The key was to follow through with the scaling in many aspects of the game:  the attack and energizer timers, the AI decision points, the sprite relative speeds — even the sprite animation speed.

 

Plus the scaling is not necessarily linear across all aspects.  There was ultimately a very subjective criterion of play-testing and tweaking to see what felt right and Pac-Man-ish.

 

It may seem obvious when laid out like that, but I will assure you that it was nothing of the sort at that time.

 

(Of course, I do not suggest that my results were perfect.  There were still many compromises; but like I always say, if you get the essential things right, the player will forgive the rest.)

 

    dZ.

[+cmadruga]

The good news is one does not need to start from scratch when considering these design questions if a game has been extensively ported.
Looking at Galaga ports for the MSX, Sord M5 and SG-1000... I think those ports feel right and preserve the original's level of challenge. You guys should give those a try.

Those proportions could work perfectly well on the Intellivision. Meaning: having just 4 or 5 rows between the lowest enemy and the player. And with horizontal space to spare for the dashboard on the right.

 

Of course, on the Intellivision you can forget about those stars scrolling on the background.

But that element is not necessary so one can have the "Galaga experience" on the Intellivision.

 

... and pressing the side buttons frequently is going to be a pain, so introducing auto-fire like Vanguard or using Cote's new joystick are some of the options.

Edited September 29, 2022 by cmadruga

[+Lathe26]

List of ports I want from other systems...

• USB
• Ethernet
• HDMI
• DisplayPort
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• NFC

[+DZ-Jay]

18 hours ago, cmadruga said:

The good news is one does not need to start from scratch when considering these design questions if a game has been extensively ported.
Looking at Galaga ports for the MSX, Sord M5 and SG-1000... I think those ports feel right and preserve the original's level of challenge. You guys should give those a try.

 

That's a very good point!  I'll check those out. 
 

6 hours ago, Lathe26 said:

List of ports I want from other systems...

• USB
• Ethernet
• HDMI
• DisplayPort
• Bluetooth
• Wi-Fi
• NFC

 

You forgot Mos Eisley, from the Tatooine system. 😄

 

    dZ.

[carlsson]

I still stand behind my point that for ports or clones, it is more rewarding to dig up unknown gems which makes the Intellivision version semi-exclusive rather than trying to recreate a title available almost everywhere else and which everyone know by heart exactly how it should look and play (licensing issues not brought into the equation).

[+DZ-Jay]

56 minutes ago, carlsson said:

I still stand behind my point that for ports or clones, it is more rewarding to dig up unknown gems which makes the Intellivision version semi-exclusive rather than trying to recreate a title available almost everywhere else and which everyone know by heart exactly how it should look and play (licensing issues not brought into the equation).

That's a good point, and I agree -- with one minor caveat:  I also stand by my point (stated many times in the past) that it is even more rewarding to create something brand new -- perhaps inspired by, or based on, some other title (*ahem*), so as to avoid having to invent game play mechanics out of whole cloth -- but original on its own merits; and play to the strengths of the Intellivision.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

 

   dZ.

[carlsson]

I agree, but brand new game ideas are even further from perfect ports of already familiar games.

 

Yars' Revenge is an interesting choice since it was conceived as a demake of Star Castle, which later has been ported to 2600 and I believe would be doable on Intellivision too, without taking the demake detour.

[+DZ-Jay]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I agree, but brand new game ideas are even further from perfect ports of already familiar games.

 

I don't quite get what you mean.  Are you saying that brand new game ideas are worse than imperfect ports of a familiar game?

 

   -dZ.

 

[carlsson]

No. I meant that in a discussion about which games would be worth porting, games that don't exist elsewhere are quite off-topic. Perhaps oddly worded.