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Groovybee 7800 Games Reviewed!


Cousin Vinnie

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In a year that features around 15 amazing 7800 Homebrews hitting the scene, leave it to Atari 7800 Forever to review a tandem of 12 year old games of ill repute. Everyone has an opinion about the man that made these games... now there's some ink about the carts themselves. 

 

Silverback reviews WORM!

www.atari7800forever.com/wormr.html

 

Funkmaster V reviews WASP! 

www.atari7800forever.com/waspr.html

waspss1.png

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27 minutes ago, Silver Back said:

I do think he had some good visuals in wasp however simplistic that game was. I could see the main character sprite being his mascot character with a little more work and effort. Apple Snapple isn't half bad either but worm is meh in my eyes. 

Apple Snaffle's gameplay looks great, but if Im not mistaken, someone did "Major Minor's" animation for Mark. The spinning drill and the brown bag animations are terrific. 

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1 hour ago, Cousin Vinnie said:

Lol... no.

 

Read the review of WASP on Atari7800Forever and that will catch you up to speed. 

 

"Overall: Groovybee might have turned out to be a taint, but he made up for it by making some of the worst homebrews for the 7800 that exist. But all cruel jokes aside, he did show promise. Mark Ball was almost completed with two intriguing works-in-process, a breezy platformer called Henry's Hen House which featured 2 working screens and an excellent Boulderdash rip off entitled Apple Snaffle. I really wish he finished Apple Snaffle, but he disappeared before it was finished just like a grifter, or fart, always does. Worm! is better than Wasp! Both are bad... and these games only prove that you can add all of the superfluous exclamation points you want to boring animals' names and terrible video game titles, but it only makes the situation more pathetic and a tad sadder for the casual observer. Hard pass."


 

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3 hours ago, Cousin Vinnie said:

Apple Snaffle's gameplay looks great, but if Im not mistaken, someone did "Major Minor's" animation for Mark. The spinning drill and the brown bag animations are terrific. 

It's been a while since I played this one. Let me load it up on the concerto to refresh my memory

 

@Cousin Vinnie your right I never played that demo of apple snaffle before. I did play something similar but the one you was talking about had fantastic animations and sprites. I take back my previous comment apple snaffle is tops by far, wasp was ok and worm is disappointing. 

Edited by Silver Back
Checked out apple snaffle
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7 hours ago, Shawn said:

 

"Overall: Groovybee might have turned out to be a taint, but he made up for it by making some of the worst homebrews for the 7800 that exist. But all cruel jokes aside, he did show promise. Mark Ball was almost completed with two intriguing works-in-process, a breezy platformer called Henry's Hen House which featured 2 working screens and an excellent Boulderdash rip off entitled Apple Snaffle. I really wish he finished Apple Snaffle, but he disappeared before it was finished just like a grifter, or fart, always does. Worm! is better than Wasp! Both are bad... and these games only prove that you can add all of the superfluous exclamation points you want to boring animals' names and terrible video game titles, but it only makes the situation more pathetic and a tad sadder for the casual observer. Hard pass."


 

and more specifically-


 

"Wasp! Is the first Atari 7800 release by disgraced hobby programmer Mark Ball (aka Groovybee). Is there such a thing as a disgraced video game programmer? LOL... why... yes... apparently there is.
Not only is this guy responsible for some total shit Prosystem games named Wasp! And Worm!, he stole money from people investing into what turned out to be vaporware Intellivision homebrews and he screwed around and helped tank the Atari 7800 XM module by wasting people's time and making false promises. What a guy. Eventually, he was shamed into the ether of internet obscurity, an accomplishment I hope to achieve one day. Maybe he's a decent guy deep down and just made some mistakes, but he stole money from people and that kind of makes you a butthole forever in my book. It is too bad, too... although Wasp! And Worm! are really crappy, he exhibited flashes of programming competence and there's evidence that he would have produced some pretty good games down the road."
   
 
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22 minutes ago, Trebor said:

He jumped to the Intellivision scene.

that is a bit of an understatement.

 

He jumped over to the Intellivision scene caused a bit of a ruckus (as you can see in that link you posted) and he jumped right on out and kept going.

 

He was nice enough at PRGE2016, but he hasn't been seen on AtariAge since July of 2018

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4 hours ago, fdr4prez said:

that is a bit of an understatement.

 

He jumped over to the Intellivision scene caused a bit of a ruckus (as you can see in that link you posted) and he jumped right on out and kept going.

 

He was nice enough at PRGE2016, but he hasn't been seen on AtariAge since July of 2018

Mark was involved with Atariage members past July of 2018. He was still was one of the Volunteers of the Atari 7800 XM past July of 2018. Curt Vendel mentioned his involvement as late as July of 2020.  I was under the impression Mark was still involved with the project based what Curt mentioned at the time with him used terms like email.

 

A month after Curt sent an Email to Mark, Curt past away.  I don't know if anyone for the 7800 XM team contacted Mark after Curt's death. I know the project was on hold due to Curt's death and is assumed canceled. I am sure the need to contact Mark for the 7800 XM is not there since the project almost vaporware. I know a small amount of people got the 7800 XM that worked on the project including Mark himself I believe. The other thing is he's not  a well liked person due to his past actions and him not being contacted does make sense.

 

As far as the Intellivision scene goes with him, he was not completely honest with those people. The fact is Mark was working on the 7800 XM at times despite taking money for the 2 Intellivision games. Mark also was doing other Intellivision projects after accepting money for the 2 pre-order games. 

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17 hours ago, 8th lutz said:

Mark was involved with Atariage members past July of 2018. He was still was one of the Volunteers of the Atari 7800 XM past July of 2018. Curt Vendel mentioned his involvement as late as July of 2020.  I was under the impression Mark was still involved with the project based what Curt mentioned at the time with him used terms like email.

 

A month after Curt sent an Email to Mark, Curt past away.  I don't know if anyone for the 7800 XM team contacted Mark after Curt's death. I know the project was on hold due to Curt's death and is assumed canceled. I am sure the need to contact Mark for the 7800 XM is not there since the project almost vaporware. I know a small amount of people got the 7800 XM that worked on the project including Mark himself I believe. The other thing is he's not  a well liked person due to his past actions and him not being contacted does make sense.

 

As far as the Intellivision scene goes with him, he was not completely honest with those people. The fact is Mark was working on the 7800 XM at times despite taking money for the 2 Intellivision games. Mark also was doing other Intellivision projects after accepting money for the 2 pre-order games. 

Tep was working with Curt on the XM when Curt passed. Mark was long gone before that. He's code locust. He shows up randomly, steals people's proprietary code, pretends to help them for a short time, makes a bunch of empty promises, and then cusses everyone out and leaves when he can't deliver.

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42 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

Tep was working with Curt on the XM when Curt passed. Mark was long gone before that. He's code locust. He shows up randomly, steals people's proprietary code, pretends to help them for a short time, makes a bunch of empty promises, and then cusses everyone out and leaves when he can't deliver.

I know Perry was working with Curt when he died. I know Tep had problems with Mark also with the 7800 XM also.  I do have proof of Curt claiming Mark was working on the 7800 XM in 2020 although that is odd.

 

Curt Mentioned Mark aka Groovybee working on the User end bios on March 11, 2020 post:

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/300377-xm-has-shipped/?do=findComment&comment=4479375

 

If Mark aka Groovybee wasn't working on the user end bios according March 11th, 2020, why would Curt claimed Mark was working on it?

 

Also this is a link that showed Curt mentioned he emailed Mark about the bios on July 18th, 2020 post:  https://forums.atariage.com/topic/300377-xm-has-shipped/?do=findComment&comment=4588420

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, 8th lutz said:

 

 

If Mark aka Groovybee wasn't working on the user end bios according March 11th, 2020, why would Curt claimed Mark was working on it?

 

 

 

A lot was said by him that was 100 percent untrue. It was a shit show (at best) from start to never finished.  Discussion about it only brings up the truth of it all and it ain't pretty if being honest about that near decade long fiasco. I feel very sorry to everyone that lost money to both gentlemen's ventures.

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8 hours ago, Cousin Vinnie said:

It's very odd, I keep getting messages from people wanting my thoughts on his games, and someone sent me a game called Monster! I never heard of. So............ let's give that one a whirl.

 

www.atari7800forever.com/monsterr.html

From what I can tell, it's basically a remake of Universal's Space Panic, and only a so-so one at that.

 

 

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I'm a little slow in my middle aged brain. I have found all the roms mentioned above (Apple Snaffle really is a lot of fun & maddening at the same time), but Monster eludes me. I've searched multiple archives and nothing. Any clues would be great. On another note, I had completely forgotten about Space Panic (that brain again, work damnit!). Not a lot of arcades had that one, where I lived, back in the day. It's one of the few games I preferred on the ColecoVision over the arcade original.

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