Berzerk II - (Concept , Box cover , map layout)

[Riko]

I had this idea i came up with back in college ages ago of a sequel to Berzerk called Berzerk II on the 2600. Disregarding my lack of understanding on what the hardware is capable of, this was my idea for a sequel. The game would set you in one of the 3 set positions at the bottom of the map, you would then need to navigate and avoid the robots and find 3 coloured dots (keys) in order to open the gates at the top to the boss. Once in there, 2 shields will cycle along and you will need to time your shots between the openings to destroy the boss ( he does not move ) , dodging lasers all the while, standing in front too long will result in being fired at. Once defeated, you will have 2 minutes to get out of the base, pausing (b/w switch) will bring up a blank map, with your position, and the exit position, you will use this to find your way out, the exit is random but always on the edge of the map. Once you escape you will start again and the game gets harder ect. I gather there would be a way to randomize the map slightly each time after the first, softlocks would be my concern. Some rooms will have lasers that fire and you need to run through, generally guarding the keys needed. Evil Otto will come as normal if you linger to long, and when the base is on countdown. He will have an angry face when you are escaping. Trap room exist as dead ends but a challenge for the player, defeating them all grants 1 extra hit, these can stack up to 3 extra hits. There are drone enemies now, both will charge and increase speed if your in their line of vision, one of them will hunt you down if they see you while the other just keeps on its set path, speeding up if only on that plane its on. The robots like usual keep their Ai as before, saying things to you depending on how you enter, or leave the screen, or die.

 

That is the just of the idea. The box art i hobbled together with AI and some manual editing to fix up some of the anatomy and a bit of the face, if this was a legit thing it would best be redrawn by someone else for proper authenticity. This game is placed about 40 years after the first, all have failed in their missions since and you are the last one up, failing results in the downfall of humanity, so this time you really cant afford to lose. I thought of having an ending game over where the robots say some grim one liner, though i cannot think of any of yet.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Link to the files in case they expire, larger map included - https://drive.proton.me/urls/XDY1E7BXD4#aRr2X4wG4m82

Edited December 3, 2023 by Riko
Typos

[BIGHMW]

25 minutes ago, Riko said:

I had this idea i came up with back in college ages ago of a sequel to Berzerk called Berzerk II on the 2600. Disregarding my lack of understanding on what the hardware is capable of, this was my idea for a sequel. The game would set you in one of the 3 set positions at the bottom of the map, you would then need to navigate and avoid the robots and find 3 coloured dots (keys) in order to open the gates at the top to the boss. Once in there, 2 shields will cycle along and you will need to time your shots between the openings to destroy the boss ( he does not move ) , dodging lasers all the while, standing in front too long will result in being fired at. Once defeated, you will have 2 minutes to get out of the base, pausing (b/w switch) will bring up a blank map, with your position, and the exit position, you will use this to find your way out, the exit is random but always on the edge of the map. Once you escape you will start again and the game gets harder ect. I gather there would be a way to randomize the map slightly each time after the first, softlocks would be my concern. Some rooms will have lasers that fire and you need to run through, generally guarding the keys needed. Evil Otto will come as normal if you linger to long, and when the base is on countdown. He will have an angry face when you are escaping. Trap room exist as dead ends but a challenge for the player, defeating them all grants 1 extra hit, these can stack up to 3 extra hits. There are drone enemies now, both will charge and increase speed if your in their line of vision, one of them will hunt you down if they see you while the other just keeps on its set path, speeding up if only on that plane its on. The robots like usual keep their Ai as before, saying things to you depending on how you enter, or leave the screen, or die.

 

That is the just of the idea. The box art i hobbled together with AI and some manual editing to fix up some of the anatomy and a bit of the face, if this was a legit thing it would best be redrawn by someone else for proper authenticity. This game is placed about 40 years after the first, all have failed in their missions since and you are the last one up, failing results in the downfall of humanity, so this time you really cant afford to lose. I thought of having an ending game over where the robots say some grim one liner, though i cannot think of any of yet.

 

Let me know what you think.

 

Link to the files in case they expire, larger map included - https://drive.proton.me/urls/XDY1E7BXD4#aRr2X4wG4m82

 

[BIGHMW]

Hey I dig that idea, I’d reserve myself a cartridge of it, perhaps maybe this might start rejuvenate my interest in collecting physical cartridges rather than just relying exclusively on ROMs after all I DO recognize and believe that NOT EVERYTHING is available digitally, I tell/told everyone the same shit about not everything’s on Spotify/Netflix/Hulu.

 

THERE ARE LEGITIMATE REASONS WHY certain things are not available digitally. A lot of older content is still not available digitally let alone even in current print although you can find older issues in circulation of it, a lot of my favorite CDs/records/tapes in my once-massive music collection have been out-of-print for decades. The same for my movies and music videos too, and TV series. Some of the I had to buy 30–45-year-old  VHS stock just to get on ANY format (i.e. “Night Games” starring Cindy Pickett - 1980). …and of course I DID digitize it onto DVD-R and rip into MP4 so I never have to worry about the almost 45-year-old tape being eaten up by my VCR or about wearing it down either, smart.  

[TwoShedsWilson]

Okay... not sure what the whole rant above is about. So I'm going to ignore it and move on.

 

This looks pretty cool and given the witchcraft people have been able to perform with the VCS in recent years it's probably possible. Hopefully this happens someday.

[Lord Thag]

Cool idea.

 

I had a similar idea back in the day, and programmed it in q-basic for DOS back in the 90s (now long lost). It worked pretty well. The berzerk game does lend itself well to a 'zelda dungeon' format with keycards and whatnot. With the larger memory cart/eeprom combos available today, this would probably be doable for sure (look at something like Haunted Adventure II, which has a similarly sized world). The art has a very 'Buck Rogers' vibe. I'd buy a cart in a second if something like this ever gets made. Berzerk is on of my favs.

[+sramirez2008]

Love the artwork and the idea. The humanoid reminds of Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century). <Oops, just realized @Lord Thag had mentioned this.>

 

Thanks for sharing.👍

 

 

[Riko]

I always been more for games with some sort of end, something that is not too common on the 2600 i find. This ideas been in my head for ages, I had attempted to make it myself though I could not figure how to code anything for the system so I long since gave up. Is still one of my favorite systems, nothing else looks or sounds quite like it and it's neat when it can do something it was never really intended to do. I only got into the 2600 back in the late 2000s for whatever reason, just something about it sparks interest for me. Idea probably will never see the light of day though I feel better giving it some semblance of form after all these years.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Riko
Typos.

[the4thman]

It looks great!!!! Thanks for putting it out into the universe. I'd so want to play/buy it. Feels true to the first game. Now all we need is someone like Champs games or others to program it.

[Riko]

15 minutes ago, the4thman said:

It looks great!!!! Thanks for putting it out into the universe. I'd so want to play/buy it. Feels true to the first game. Now all we need is someone like Champs games or others to program it.

Thanks! I actually drew out that map in college around 2009 or so on a bunch of lined paper and story stuff though i'd need to go dig through id forget where i stored those. The idea was the humanoids from the first game canonically fail and the robots more or less claim dominance, humanity is left to like a tiny hand full of people with you ( the player ) the only one competent enough for success, so failure means the end of everything basically. With how lacking the visuals are i feel injecting as much imagination as possible through the manual, cover art, lore is key to finding some deeper enjoyment in these games, at least that's how i feel about it.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Riko
Typos

[BIGHMW]

6 hours ago, TwoShedsWilson said:

Okay... not sure what the whole rant above is about. So I'm going to ignore it and move on.

The "rant" above, was to prove that in case a title is not available in or of a game programmer opts not to issue a game in digital form that it's no longer going to stop me from wanting to test it out on my consoles. That's all that was, a statement. And to prove to others that PHYSICAL MEDIA STILL MATTERS..... even in a digital world.

[TwoShedsWilson]

Just now, BIGHMW said:

The "rant" above, was to prove that in case a title is not available in or of a game programmer opts not to issue a game in digital form that it's no longer going to stop me from wanting to test it out on my consoles. That's all that was, a statement. And to prove to others that PHYSICAL MEDIA STILL MATTERS..... even in a digital world.

Nobody was talking about that?

[Riko]

Would be neat if some application was made to streamline 2600 development, like a executable GUI tool to just make objects and assign values to how stuff responds to what. It's been so long since i even attempted to make anything, i gather the process is still much the same.

[Mr SQL]

1 hour ago, Riko said:

Would be neat if some application was made to streamline 2600 development, like a executable GUI tool to just make objects and assign values to how stuff responds to what. It's been so long since i even attempted to make anything, i gather the process is still much the same.

 

You might want to checkout SuperCharger Disk Extended BASIC as an option for building your large Berzerk sequel.

 

This dev tool has GUI options for drawing screens and sprites and a tracker sequencer for the musical score and sound effects.

It's designed for modular development like Audacity/Activision uses in their fat carts so you could fit all the rooms in your design and share variables between modules.

 

I used it to design this Berzerk sequel with a large scrolling morphing board where characters slip through the edges of walls and shoot through them with environmentally unsafe weapons that bounce back to kill the wrong person and wreak havoc on the surroundings!  

 

[Riko]

Hey that's kinda cool! I'd prolly want it very close to the original as far as feel and look, so likely not changing too much there tho some stuff I'd have to figure how to go about ( Yars revenge glitchy garble graphics. Rainbow banding colors) among other stuff. It might be beyond my abilities though ill take a gander at it to see what its all bout!

[TrekMD]

Man, love that artwork!  Cool idea!

[Riko]

2 hours ago, Mr SQL said:

 

You might want to checkout SuperCharger Disk Extended BASIC as an option for building your large Berzerk sequel.

 

This dev tool has GUI options for drawing screens and sprites and a tracker sequencer for the musical score and sound effects.

It's designed for modular development like Audacity/Activision uses in their fat carts so you could fit all the rooms in your design and share variables between modules.

 

I used it to design this Berzerk sequel with a large scrolling morphing board where characters slip through the edges of walls and shoot through them with environmentally unsafe weapons that bounce back to kill the wrong person and wreak havoc on the surroundings!  

 

I tried to find some guides online or some documentation though could hardly find too much. I had found the SuperCharger_Disk_BASIC.zip and said to extract with Stella into a folder and run it in powershell, executing just runs a 2600 game called Starblitz ( I think ? ). Not really sure how to go about this much, or if i even am on the right track. Is all very new to me though thought id investigate some.

[Mr SQL]

2 hours ago, Riko said:

I tried to find some guides online or some documentation though could hardly find too much. I had found the SuperCharger_Disk_BASIC.zip and said to extract with Stella into a folder and run it in powershell, executing just runs a 2600 game called Starblitz ( I think ? ). Not really sure how to go about this much, or if i even am on the right track. Is all very new to me though thought id investigate some.

You are on the right track! If you wish to use the compiler from the command line it will always compile the program "program.txt".

I recommend using the PowerShell ISE (already installed on windows) to run the compiler. It will compile any .txt or .bas program you also have open in the ISE, you should be able to compile any of the sample programs or create a new one.

 

[KainXavier]

I'm glad to see a follow-up post about this game, and I love all of the design work you've done!  I'm also kind of impressed by the AI-generated cover.  Evil Otto meets Thomas the Tank Engine meets Grumpy Cat.   I'm too busy with my own stuff to take on a new project, but I can try to help debug any ASM if you get stuck.

[Riko]

27 minutes ago, KainXavier said:

I'm glad to see a follow-up post about this game, and I love all of the design work you've done!  I'm also kind of impressed by the AI-generated cover.  Evil Otto meets Thomas the Tank Engine meets Grumpy Cat.   I'm too busy with my own stuff to take on a new project, but I can try to help debug any ASM if you get stuck.

 

Heya! Well currently im attempting to figure out the first sort of lead i was given with the contents from SuperCharger_Disk_BASIC.zip as i was suggested to use, though i have no idea what to do with those contents in powershell what to run, or not to run, or how to make any use of em. I did find map creators online which can make screens and then export them as hex values ( i think ) , though i really am wandering in the darkness. I guess in a perfect world, for me would be to take the existing berzerk.bin, gut and alter it to a point then start building upon it. Unlike normally where every screen is randomly generated ( I assume ), i would need a structure where (If go this way, load this room set + everything else) among other things. For now ill keep diggin around or taking any suggestions or leads until i hit my limits with it, though if there was a way to just, visually open a rom, and just edit stuff visually then edit values for more complex things and mechanics id be good, though thats me hoping.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Riko
Typos

[KainXavier]

I've not used SuperCharger Disk Extended BASIC so I'm not sure how much help I could be there.  I can probably follow the logic okay, at least. 

 

Also, if you're wanting to modify Berzerk's existing code, you'll need to learn 6502 assembly.  I found SpiceWare's tutorials pretty helpful.  6502.org is also a good reference.  Thankfully, Dennis Debro has already done the hard work of reverse-engineering the game.  You can look at Berzerk's disassembly here.

 

That said, assembly language can be pretty intimidating if you've never programmed before.  What Mr SQL suggested or something like batari Basic might be the best place to start.

[TwoShedsWilson]

I haven't tried to do anything with it yet and I would guess it's probably limited, but this does exist:

https://haroldo-ok.itch.io/vcs-game-maker

[+Intellivision Master]

It's a great idea.  The art design is really cool.  If this ever comes out, I'd buy a copy.

Edited December 5, 2023 by Intellivision Master

[vagabondartist]

I love this. I can’t stand AI images but I love everything you’ve put together.

I’ve been making my own box art for all the loose carts I’ve purchased, so it’s a similar thing, conceptually.

There is an updated Crystal Castles design I want to throw together kind of like what you’ve done.

Edited December 5, 2023 by vagabondartist

[Warboss Gegguz]

I'd be down with any update of Berzerk. If my PFP didn't give it away, it's a favorite of mine.

I imagine this would be much more reasonable to pull off than a port of Frenzy at least.

[Riko]

44 minutes ago, Warboss Gegguz said:

I'd be down with any update of Berzerk. If my PFP didn't give it away, it's a favorite of mine.

I imagine this would be much more reasonable to pull off than a port of Frenzy at least.

It was the first one i played and i kind really enjoyed the vibe. I found it kind of scary honestly, just how quiet and minimal it all was.