Announcing: Novagen - Volume 1

[+CyranoJ]

Announcing: "Novagen - Volume 1"

 

A new compilation of games to be released at PRGE2023 and then shortly after via the AtariAge store, featuring "Backlash" and "Encounter!"

 

To me, Paul Woakes was a coding God, and it has been an honor to work on bringing these games to the Jaguar. 

 

Here's some footage from the titles - enjoy!

 

 

 

[+orpheuswaking]

Please tell me there will be a Vol II with Mercenary and Mercenary Second City 

[+CyranoJ]

6 hours ago, orpheuswaking said:

Please tell me there will be a Vol II with Mercenary and Mercenary Second City 

🤫

[+swlovinist]

Nice one!   Thanks for sharing

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew has the Exclusive World Premiere of Backlash & Encounter! from Novagen Volume 1 on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch, hope you can join us!

 

Tue Jul 25, 2023 | LIVE @ 6PM PT | 9PM ET | 1AM GMT+1Day

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Backlash (2023 Exclusive Premiere | Jag) by Lawrence Staveley @CyranoJ
• Encounter! (2023 Exclusive Premiere | Jag) by Lawrence Staveley @CyranoJ
• Block'em Sock'em (2023 | Jag) by Second Dimension / Reboot / Lawrence Staveley @CyranoJ (Code) / Roald Strauss (Music) / J. Leal (Graphics) / John Hancock @swlovinist
• Flappy Chicken (2023 WIP | Jag) by Frédéric Descharmes @Fadest (Code) / ansimuz (Graphics & Sound Effects) / dma-sc (Music)

WATCH AT 1080P FOR BEST QUALITY

 

[UHATEIT]

Man these look awesome! The footage of Encounter reminds me of Guardian on the Amiga CD32, similar colors and gameplay. These look promising, excellent work!

[Goochman]

Loved Encounter on the 8bit - didnt realize it was released for the ST (assume a conversion)?

[+jgkspsx]

Super cool!

[joeyaage]

Played lots of Backlash on Atari ST, a fun blast. Never seen Encounter before so a pleasant surprise.

Is that YM chip emulation being used, then...

[doctorclu]

Oh excellent!  You decided to port Encounter afterall!  Nice!

[Albert]

Novagen Volume 1 will be making its debut at next week's Portland Retro Gaming Expo!  Here's a preview of the packaging design by @BitJag:

\

If you're not able to attend the show, Novagen Volume 1 will be available in the AtariAge Store in November.

 

 ..Al

[SlidellMan]

Congratulations, Cyrano, on getting this two-for-one release out the door.

[Atari030]

Oh hell, another one.... there goes the budget. 8-)

[Rick Dangerous]

These look amazing!  Can't wait to experience these games for the first time on Jaguar! 

 

Backlash has a bit of a Space Harrier vibe to it...

[+BitJag]

Another day closer to seeing the AtariAge store update with a pile of new releases, so here is another time lapse.  This time, the creation for the box art of Novagen Volume 1, a pair of fun arcade shooters that have made their way over to the Jaguar.

 

I grew up with an Atari ST and I never knew these games existed until @CyranoJ and @Albert approached me about doing this 3D illustration and the layout/design for the packaging/manual.  I was aware of the Mercenary games, other games by the late Paul Woakes, so it was a bit of treat to discover Encounter and Backlash for the first time, and that they were both making it from the ST to my favorite cat. 

 

To be a part of this migration was also a treat, and opportunity I'm very grateful for.  I hope people enjoy this new official collection for the Jaguar, and the small recorded bit of my processes of adding to the total experience these memorable games.  (Don't forget to look at the manual when you get this, there are some additional renders for the various enemies and tank to look at and enjoy).

 

 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew presents...

 

Sun Dec 17, 2023 @ 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT
WATCH LIVE: https://twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/

WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

On Sunday December 17, 2023 ZeroPage Homebrew will be interviewing the developers of every single new physical release coming to the AtariAge store! Join us LIVE on Twitch while we unbox all the new Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, Jaguar and Lynx games and talk with the incredibly talented Atari community members about their games! Get your questions ready for the devs and following along in the Twitch chat as we pop in each of the 22 new releases into our Atari consoles!

 

NEW GAME RELEASES

 

Atari 2600: Berry Fun!, Bot&Tom, Caramujo, ElectroBall, Game of the Bear 2 Much To Bear, Immunity!, Penult, Quantum Tunnel, Robot Zed

Atari 5200: Scorch

Atari 7800: A.R.T.I., Death Merchant, E.X.O., Harpy's Curse, Millie and Molly, Oozy the Goo - Gaiden, Plumb Luck DX

Atari Jaguar: Defender of the Crown, Novagen Volume 1, Rocket Ranger
Atari Lynx: Growing Ties Deluxe, Odynexus

[Slider271]

On 7/21/2023 at 11:09 PM, CyranoJ said:

🤫

Mercenary and Second City were favourites of mine on the Amstrad CPC back in the day, would love to play them on the Jag

Edited January 1 by Slider271

[+Sargon]

Any updates on when the new AA Store games will begin shipping?

[+Sargon]

I haven't seen any update on the new AA releases in months.  Originally the store said that preorders were expected to ship in 2-3 months, but that was back in December.  Can we expect these anytime soon?

[mdkdue]

How long is a piece of string?

 

It’s something everyone is very frustrated with right now. 
 

Six months since payment and not a word….would be nice to at least know we are going to get what we paid for. I don’t think a simple update on the pre order status is too much too ask, but apparently it is.

 

YES everyone, I, and many others are really quite annoyed 😢

 

For those who are sick of waiting, it’s not like it’s possible to cancel either, believe me I’ve tried, but that was met with silence.

 

I think what everyone is so pissed off with is the complete lack of communication. We are all fine with having to wait, all it takes is a simple email or site update to let buyers know the current pre order status. If it’s gonna be a bit longer, fine, it’s gonna be a bit longer, we can all deal with that, but the silence…to me it just shows contempt for customers.

 

Never in my life has it felt so good to spend nearly £400…..😳
 

Unless AtariAge switches to a payment on dispatch model I personally will never purchase anything here ever again.

 

All I can say is, how can you can make payment for something (and we are not talking pennies here, this is HUNDREDS of pounds), hear nothing for six months, and not think you have been completely scammed??

 

I don’t know how this is even legal to be honest.

Edited May 5 by mdkdue

[+Sargon]

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

All I can say is, how can you can make payment for something (and we are not talking pennies here, this is HUNDREDS of pounds), hear nothing for six months, and not think you have been completely scammed??

I agree with much of what you are saying, but many of us have been ordering from AtariAge for years and they have never NOT delivered.  So while I do share the disappointment and agree that they need to do better with order fulfillment and communication, I think any suggestion of a potential scam is taking things too far.

[Albert]

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

It’s something everyone is very frustrated with right now. 

I'm sure some people are frustrated, but it has taken this long to ship pre-order games before. I'm not saying that's a great thing, mind you, but while it sometimes takes a long time to get orders out, everyone has always gotten what they paid for.  

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

For those who are sick of waiting, it’s not like it’s possible to cancel either, believe me I’ve tried, but that was met with silence.

I just looked through my emails, and I haven't seen a single email from you since you placed your order.  I also checked my PMs, and same thing there, I don't see any PMs from you regarding this.  It's possible you sent me something and I didn't see it, perhaps using another email address or via some other way.  I also searched for the order number and the only email I see referencing it is the original order email.  

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

I think what everyone is so pissed off with is the complete lack of communication. We are all fine with having to wait, all it takes is a simple email or site update to let buyers know the current pre order status. If it’s gonna be a bit longer, fine, it’s gonna be a bit longer, we can all deal with that, but the silence…to me it just shows contempt for customers.

If you think I am showing contempt for customers, you obviously do not know me very well.  I spend an incredible amount of my time building games for orders.  I'm currently doing virtually everything myself, which includes building games and shipping them out to customers.  And even when I am buried in orders, I won't take shortcuts to sacrifice quality in production of the games, nor will I take shortcuts in taking care to package games to make sure they arrive safely. Yes, I can do better in sending out more updates, and I definitely need to send one out regarding pre-orders, and I will do that this week.  And, yes, in the future I intend to hire someone to help with physical production and shipping (see below).

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

Unless AtariAge switches to a payment on dispatch model I personally will never purchase anything here ever again.

That's unlikely to change, however, I am working on making the following improvements to the store, so this time next year I should be able to get 95% of orders out within a week.

 

1. Move to Flash-based boards for most 2600, 7800, and Jaguar games.  The Lynx boards we have are already flash-based, so no need to do anything there.  Basically, these flash boards will arrive completely assembled, and all I have to do to use them is plug them into a fixture and program the game onto them. Versus what I typically have to do now:

• Program EPROM
• Program PLD (for a large percentage of 2600 and 7800 games)
• Populate boards (with anywhere from 2-4 chips, one or more caps and resistors, and sometimes other parts)
• Solder boards (which sometimes takes multiple steps, as some boards have parts on BOTH sides, and you can only work on one side at a time)
• Assemble boards into shells

The goal is to have these boards already assembled into blank cartridge shells, so the above tasks will be replaced by this simple step:

• Plug cartridge into fixture and program

That's it!  This alone will save an enormous amount of time. We are going to put our 2600 Aria board into mass production soon, which will suffice for most bankswitching schemes and cover 90% of the 2600 games sold in the store.  Most of the remaining 2600 games use our more advanced Melody board, which we will also manufacture in larger quantities than we do now.  We've developed several new 7800 flash boards that I'm actively testing, and I will soon have a Jaguar flash board to test.  Longer term we'll do flash boards for the 5200 and Atari 8-bit computers as well.

 

2. I'm having boxes, manuals, and labels printed for slower selling games, so I don't have to spend time printing these materials myself.  This is normally a time consuming step when working on large batches of orders.  Two weeks ago I submitted a large manual order for 18 different games, which includes several manuals I've never had professionally printed before.  These arrived on Friday.  I will continue doing this over time. 

 

3. We're currently working on moving the AtariAge Store to Shopify.  Once this is complete, I will have access to MUCH better reporting options, which will, again, save me significant time when I'm working on orders.  The current store is greatly lacking in this department.  When I begin work on a new batch of orders, I have to manually go through all the pending orders and put the games I need to build into a spreadsheet (including important details such as whether a game is NTSC or PAL, if an optional box is included, etc.)  With the new store, I'll be able to generate this detailed report trivially.  Additionally, I'll also be able to more easily see when a customer has several outstanding orders, so I can be sure to ship them together, which also saves time (rather than shipping, say, three orders separately).  

 

4. I will be moving soon, and one of the goals with this move will be to setup a more formal AtariAge production facility, either on-site or in commercial space nearby.  Once this is in place, I will be able to hire someone to assist with production and shipping, which will be a big step in making sure the vast majority of orders go out within days, instead of weeks or months.

 

5. I'm going to find and buy bubble wrap bags that perfectly fit boxed games.  Right now, I'm using 1' x 2' sections of bubble wrap that I then wrap around boxed games and assemble using scotch tape.  This may seem like a trivial thing, but it's very time consuming when you're shipping hundreds of boxed games at a time, so this will be a big time saver when shipping.
 

6. We're also working on brand new 2600/7800 shells, and I received the first CAD drawings recently, we've made some changes, and I'll have prototypes soon.  These shells will not have the problematic moving dust cover pieces or spring, and they will firmly hold the circuit boards in place so there's no play or wobble with them (which can cause issues where a game isn't always easy to insert into a system).  Right now, the 7800 shells I'm using are not the greatest, so I'm very much looking forward to having our own shells that don't have the compromises I often see with third-party shells.  The new shells will also not have those big holes in the corner that 7800 shells often have.  These are the shells I will be able to use with the flash boards mentioned above so I can have hundreds (if not thousands) of carts ready at any given time that I can simply flash program, test, label, and ship games as orders arrive.
 

7. Finally, we're looking into making plastic inserts for boxes, rather than the cardboard ones I'm using now.  These will better hold the game cartridge in place, and will also better protect the box from deformation.  And, in terms of efficiency, these are much faster to use, as I won't have to fold eight flaps for every boxed game that I assemble.

2 hours ago, mdkdue said:

All I can say is, how can you can make payment for something (and we are not talking pennies here, this is HUNDREDS of pounds), hear nothing for six months, and not think you have been completely scammed??

You've made two previous large orders and received those fine.  I've shipped many thousands of orders over the years.  Why would I start scamming people now?  If that's what I wanted to do, I'm sure there's much easier ways to about it.

 

What has greatly slowed me down with the pre-order games is that I am still working on getting Last Chance games built and shipped.  I am making good progress on that front, but it's very time consuming as I sold more games in that sale in a month than I normally sell in a year.  And I thought I would be done with those by the end of 2023, but obviously that didn't happen.  I'm also working on shipping regular orders as well.  Having said that, I will start shipping pre-order games in a week (not this upcoming week, but after that).  So, your order (and others' orders) will ship soon.

 

 ..Al

[Iwantgames:)]

It’s not just AtariAge, a lot of places have long lead times. I ordered Quake II PS5 from Limited Run and it took so long I actually forgot I ordered it when it just showed up 😂 

 

and it’s a lot more work making carts than cds I’d imagine and AtariAge is a smaller operation 

[Machine]

6 hours ago, mdkdue said:

How long is a piece of string?

 

It’s something everyone is very frustrated with right now. 
 

Six months since payment and not a word….would be nice to at least know we are going to get what we paid for. I don’t think a simple update on the pre order status is too much too ask, but apparently it is.

 

YES everyone, I, and many others are really quite annoyed 😢

 

For those who are sick of waiting, it’s not like it’s possible to cancel either, believe me I’ve tried, but that was met with silence.

 

I think what everyone is so pissed off with is the complete lack of communication. We are all fine with having to wait, all it takes is a simple email or site update to let buyers know the current pre order status. If it’s gonna be a bit longer, fine, it’s gonna be a bit longer, we can all deal with that, but the silence…to me it just shows contempt for customers.

 

Never in my life has it felt so good to spend nearly £400…..😳
 

Unless AtariAge switches to a payment on dispatch model I personally will never purchase anything here ever again.

 

All I can say is, how can you can make payment for something (and we are not talking pennies here, this is HUNDREDS of pounds), hear nothing for six months, and not think you have been completely scammed??

 

I don’t know how this is even legal to be honest.

 

Very harsh and uncalled for in my opinion.

I have received a few update emails about orders over the last several months. The last-chance sale was massive.

I can easily look up my orders on the store's order page too. Just log in and it shows if your order has shipped or is still pending.

This is a community, thanks to Albert and others.

Edited May 6 by Machine

[Albert]

Just now, Iwantgames:) said:

and it’s a lot more work making carts than cds I’d imagine and AtariAge is a smaller operation 

Right now it's a one-man operation, but as mentioned above, the plan is to hire someone once we're moved and things settle down a bit.  And Atari is helping in areas where there's overlap between what I do and what they do (mostly business-related stuff, but they are going to help with social media (which I simply do not have time to do now), they hired someone who is doing the bulk of the work with the store migration to Shopify, and other tasks). 

 

And, I wish I was just making CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays versus physical cartridges.  Those are infinitely easier all around.  But they also aren't nearly as cool as cartridges and all the fun printed materials for games published in the AtariAge Store.

 

It will get better, the Last Chance games are beating me down right now, but I will be victorious in the end, and shipping times will greatly improve.

 

 ..Al