Atari Mr Run and Jump

[KevKelley]

Nice sleuthing @ZeroPage Homebrew
 

Didn’t the Atari release claim this got its start as a 2021 homebrew?

 

Personally I think the release is cool, as I had hoped this would be a direction Atari XP would go in (I always compare the VCS and Amico development to that of the Evercade and their focus on physical media and “curated” titles). I think the price at 60 is somewhat reasonable, although a bit on the high side. I would hope to see more titles develop. 
 

And personally I would love to see more things like colored cartridge shells or lights. I hope they look into more in-depth releases. I wonder what made them settle on this title and not some of the other titles out there that the many home brewers are working on. 
 

And also as a side note, I know there was some point of contention between home brewers and “pro brewers,” like Audacity. I wonder how people will view these releases, especially since this iteration of Atari can sometimes receive some hate for whatever they do. 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

40 minutes ago, KevKelley said:

Nice sleuthing @ZeroPage Homebrew
 

Didn’t the Atari release claim this got its start as a 2021 homebrew?

 

Thanks! The 2021 completion date felt weird to me as I DEFINITELY would have heard about it if it was publicly talked about only three years ago. I've been meticulously keeping track of new Atari 2600 releases for the past five years so it only makes sense that it wasn't on my radar because it was being developed back in 2016.

 

- James

 

[MrTrust]

56 minutes ago, KevKelley said:

And also as a side note, I know there was some point of contention between home brewers and “pro brewers,” like Audacity. I wonder how people will view these releases, especially since this iteration of Atari can sometimes receive some hate for whatever they do.

 

Audacity put out a very douche-y press release where they thumbed their noses at homebrewers for no discernable reason.  Nearly 100% of their prospective buyers were going to be people who admire the work of these homebrewers, so why gratuitously backhand them like that?  The whole thing became comical when people ended up waiting for weeks and weeks to get their orders, and then Crane and Kitchen turned around and expected patience because it was all volunteers working out of a garage.

 

Nevertheless, Circus Convoy was indeed a quality game with some neat new tech and features not normally seen on the 2600.  The price was high, but not astronomical all things considered.

 

The difference I see here is that Atari has also stepped on toes with their wording (although I think this case is a little more excusable), and the game just doesn't look anywhere near up to the current standards of 2600 games, and they're charging a premium for it.  That's called "ripping people off" in my book.

 

I don't know Mr. Mikula, and for all I know, he's a genius, but whatever language he wrote the game in, it has all the hallmarks of a novice bB game.  Nothing wrong with a novice bB game.  I wrote a novice bB game which I think is fun and gives you a decent number of features for 4k with the standard kernel.  

The place for something like that, though, is here.  It is an enthusiast's project.  You put it out for whoever wants it, you hope they enjoy it, and if they're gracious enough to say nice things about it, great.

 

But this isn't an enthusiast's project; it's a commercial product, and one that is as expensive as the newest, top-of-the-line games on current systems.  I understand the economics are different, but there's a standard these days.  You can't just act like Andrew Davie, Thomas Jentzch, Bob Decrecenzo, etc etc etc don't exist.  In 2023, $60 on 2600 buys you a whole lot more than what's on display in this game.

 

Atari just released a new 2600 game from John Van Ryzin!  Why not put that on a cartridge and make this the $5 VCS store download?  For the same reason they want to sell you a $75 Aquaventure cartridge with the board put it backwards, or an unpopulated replica of a Black Widow board.  Aquaventure is perfectly fine as a game, just as Mr. Run & Jump may indeed be, but the package they're selling in either case is still a rip-off.

[KevKelley]

11 minutes ago, MrTrust said:

Atari just released a new 2600 game from John Van Ryzin!  Why not put that on a cartridge and make this the $5 VCS store download? 

This is what I was wondering. I feel that they still haven’t quite figured out the retro market. I think they got the cash grab part but not the other half to make things more sustainable and interesting. I do wonder if this is what those other developers were hinting at when they had discussed 2600 versions of their games. 
 

I will probably pick this up as a curiosity but I wish the newest Atari released Atari game would have been better. Like Champ Games good or any of the others you had mentioned. Even some newer bB games would have been cool. 

[+jeremiahjt]

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the the way this release was worded. I saw it worded as the first Atari game and the first official game in 30 plus years. Both of those are true. No company named Atari has released a 2600 game in that time span. Some of you might take offense to the word official, but I think Atari using official is completely understandable here since Atari did create the console. Yes, I know it is a different Atari, but they have the name now. I never saw where it said the first 2600 game in that time span.

 

As far as the value, I bet it sells just fine. It will probably sell out which will make it a success. Atari's job is to make money, not make people on AtariAge happy. Now those two do not have to be mutually exclusive, but they do not also have to go hand-in-hand either. If this game bombs in the sales numbers then Atari, and I, were wrong.

 

As far as the quality of the game, I have no idea. I did not watch the gameplay and I am no expert on 2600 homebrews. I think I have only five or six 2600 homebrews. Something tells me that if it was a community member here that made this, the comments disparaging the game's quality would be almost non-existent.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

1 hour ago, jeremiahjt said:

Something tells me that if it was a community member here that made this, the comments disparaging the game's quality would be almost non-existent.

If a community member had made this game, the community would have given them constructive feedback and helped them improve the game, thus making disparaging remarks unnecessary.

 

I really hope the Spider Maze level flicker is just from bad recording and not how the game actually performs. Either way, the game looks pretty meh from what the video shows and definitely not worth the $60 asking price.

Edited June 14, 2023 by KaeruYojimbo

[+Mitch]

Maybe I missed it but what is the CX number for this release?

 

Mitch

[Thomas Jentzsch]

4 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the the way this release was worded.

Well, it seems deliberately worded in a way, so that many people will misunderstand it. Just looks at the press releases resulting from it.

 

And therefore it discredits the homebrew community. IMHO.

[MrTrust]

7 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

I see absolutely nothing wrong with the the way this release was worded. I saw it worded as the first Atari game and the first official game in 30 plus years.

 

When you have to use multiple qualifiers in order to make your statement, it is because your statement has no meaning. 

 

There have been other "Atari" games released since 1990, and Atari themselves have released some of them, including Yars' Return, which they published on a cartridge.  A game like Circus Convoy or Galagon is as "official" as any other third-party 2600 title ever was.  It's been since 1990 since there was a game published, on cartridge, by Atari, first, before a digital version or any other publisher does it.  That's the only way the statement is technically true.

 

In other words, Atari is putting out a homebrew cartridge.  That's what this is.   They're not technically lying, but they're deliberately trying to give the impression that it's a more significant event than it is.

 

7 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

Something tells me that if it was a community member here that made this, the comments disparaging the game's quality would be almost non-existent.

 

Correct, because a community member would likely not hype it in a disingenuous way, and not charge $60 for it.  A community member would probably give it away, or sell it through the AA store at $45.  That community member's game would also not be represented by a company which has engendered an enormous amount of ill will among the community by peddling cheap products at comically inflated prices.

 

7 hours ago, jeremiahjt said:

Atari's job is to make money...

 

The fact that they found enough suckers to sell out of their $100 Super Breakout cartridges doesn't mean that it was an honorable thing to do, or that the product was any good.  Those of us who are not suckers, however, have very good reason to distrust the company, and this game exhibits many of the qualities that have led us to that distrust.

[+KaeruYojimbo]

From the developer's website:

 

[zzip]

21 hours ago, Mockduck said:

The First New Atari Game on a Cartridge in 32 Years

It is literally the first brand new game that Atari, the company, put on a cartridge in 32 years.   I don't see anything wrong wtih that statement, why does everyone take offense at everything?

[tschak909]

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

It is literally the first brand new game that Atari, the company, put on a cartridge in 32 years.   I don't see anything wrong wtih that statement, why does everyone take offense at everything?

Because that's literally not how it was pitched, at all. 

 

It's a slap in the face to those who started on the Stella-mailing-list (raise of hands, how many people signed up on that?),

It's a slap in the face to people like Bob Colbert, who made the first Okie Dokie cartridges in 1996.

It's a slap in the face to everybody who made the development environments that the commercial sharks are benefiting from.

 

Need I go on?

 

But we've reached that point, where the soil has been turned over again, and enough people have forgotten, so the opportunistic f**ks can ride a hyperspeculated market to toilet paper over a mess of bad business decisions and court cases.

 

-Thom

[Thomas Jentzsch]

8 minutes ago, zzip said:

Why does everyone take offense at everything?

These are the resulting headlines in the web:

Quote

'Mr. Run and Jump' will be the first official cartridge for the Atari 2600 since 1990

Quote

'Mr. Run and Jump' Is the First New Atari 2600 Cartridge in Decades

Quote

Atari 2600 Gets First New Game on a Cartridge in 32 Years

Quote

Atari 2600 gets its first official game cartridge in 33 years

Quote

The first official Atari 2600 cartridge in over 30 years is on its way

Quote

Atari Just Announced The First New Atari 2600 Game In More Than 30 Years

See the problem?

 

BTW: Several headlines are repeated on multiple pages. Looks like they are either copying other websites or Atari's press material.

[Tempest]

My take on this is that it's just marketing hype.  I don't think Atari was purposely trying to pretend that the homebrew scene doesn't exist or disparage all the people who have made new games over the last 30 years.  I think they literally meant the first new game FROM ATARI in 30 years.  Marketing needs to be simple and succinct, saying "The first official new game from the current company called Atari in 30 years" maybe be more accurate, but it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.  I think people are making too much of this, looking for something that's not there to get angry about (which seems to be everyone's favorite pastime these days). 

 

Websites inaccurately repeating the original headline or munging it like a bad game of telephone is more a symptom of the current state of internet journalism than it something Atari did.  Unless those quotes are actually coming from Atari's press release.

 

But that's just my take on things, make up your own minds.

[+x=usr(1536)]

11 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

BTW: Several headlines are repeated on multiple pages. Looks like they are either copying other websites or Atari's press material.

The irony being that Atari recently released a product that plagiarised copy printed on it from Wikipedia.

 

I gave Rosen a chance after the debacle that was Chesnais.  Nothing has really changed except the focus of the cash grabs.

[zzip]

6 minutes ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

Quote

'Mr. Run and Jump' will be the first official cartridge for the Atari 2600 since 1990

Quote

'Mr. Run and Jump' Is the First New Atari 2600 Cartridge in Decades

Quote

Atari 2600 Gets First New Game on a Cartridge in 32 Years

Quote

Atari 2600 gets its first official game cartridge in 33 years

Quote

The first official Atari 2600 cartridge in over 30 years is on its way

Quote

Atari Just Announced The First New Atari 2600 Game In More Than 30 Years

See the problem?

Yeah, journalists misreport things,  no shock there. 

 

10 minutes ago, tschak909 said:

It's a slap in the face to those who started on the Stella-mailing-list (raise of hands, how many people signed up on that?),

It's a slap in the face to people like Bob Colbert, who made the first Okie Dokie cartridges in 1996.

It's a slap in the face to everybody who made the development environments that the commercial sharks are benefiting from.

 

Need I go on?

You are reading way too much into the statement. 

 

 

[Thomas Jentzsch]

1 minute ago, zzip said:

Yeah, journalists misreport things,  no shock there. 

The more, if you give them misleading information.

[tschak909]

3 minutes ago, zzip said:

Yeah, journalists misreport things,  no shock there. 

 

You are reading way too much into the statement. 

 

 

I know first-hand how PR departments work.

 

-Thom

[+KaeruYojimbo]

13 minutes ago, zzip said:

Yeah, journalists misreport things,  no shock there.

This isn't on journalists. This is a minor story that most media outlets aren't going to waste time writing a story on. Someone low on the org chart is just going to copy and paste the press release and move on to the next of the hundred other press releases they have to sift through that day.

Edited June 14, 2023 by KaeruYojimbo

[zzip]

1 minute ago, Thomas Jentzsch said:

The more, if you give them misleading information.

Nah they'll still find a way.

 

Problem is Atari was one of those names like Kleenix.   Atari wasn't just the company,  But "Play Atari" could mean you were playing the 2600 and some people used "Play Atari" to generically mean play videogames.

 

So some people might see First new Atari cart in 32 years as meaning the first cart released for the system.   But that's interpretation.   In this case it just means first cart by Atari the company and it's perfectly accurate as written.

[zzip]

Just now, KaeruYojimbo said:

This isn't on journalists. This is a minor story that most media outlets aren't going to waste time writing a story on. Someone low on the org chart is just going to copy and paste the press release and move on to the next of the hundred other press releases they have to sift through that day.

Then all the headlines would be identical, but they aren't.  The headline writers put their own interpretation of the announcement, and most of the ones listed above are inaccurate.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

6 minutes ago, zzip said:

So some people might see First new Atari cart in 32 years as meaning the first cart released for the system. 

I suppose by far the most people who are not e.g. here at AtariAge will exactly understand it like that. So do most of the journalists. And that was IMO clearly the intention of Atari.

[Thomas Jentzsch]

2 minutes ago, zzip said:

most of the ones listed above are inaccurate.

Which one is correct?

[+x=usr(1536)]

11 minutes ago, zzip said:

So some people might see First new Atari cart in 32 years as meaning the first cart released for the system.   But that's interpretation.   In this case it just means first cart by Atari the company and it's perfectly accurate as written.

A statement can be both accurate and disingenuous.  The two are not mutually-exclusive.

[+Gemintronic]

Clicked on a bunch of posted links and didn't find the video with the flicker.  My navigation skills are lacking today.