AtariAge Day 2023: Dev Interviews & Unboxing Every New AtariAge Game!

[+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

 

Developer Interviews: @Muddyfunster @Thomas Jentzsch @Sprybug @LordKraken @drludos @littaum @Revontuli @vhzc @CyranoJ @Karl G @graywest @mksmith @Atarius Maximus @SmittyB @Sohl @kikipdph @pirx

 

 

 

[mhodgeshvs]

Is Boom! Not being released for the 2600 on this batch?

[+LS650]

Will there be any indication as to which of the new 2600/7800 carts are compatible with the 2600+..?

I am interested in picking up some new carts, but only if they'll work on my new Plus, as it has become my "daily driver" for Atari games.

[+SmittyB]

@ls650 I can't speak for the 2600 carts, but for the 7800 we'll have to wait until the 2600+ gets its first update to see. At the moment the 7800 side of things has a number of problems that are going to be patched out so while at the moment I don't think any homebrew works (I could be wrong) the compatibility will greatly improve before too long.

[mhodgeshvs]

Al, as every December, I need your help with my Christmas budget, so can you tell me what paycheck you’ll be confiscating? I get paid on the 15th of every month.

thank you. 

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

 

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

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

 

 

 

[mhodgeshvs]

Any idea when these might start coming together? Seems like an update should be timely soon.

[+Karl G]

17 hours ago, mhodgeshvs said:

Any idea when these might start coming together? Seems like an update should be timely soon.

An update was emailed out yesterday.

[mhodgeshvs]

I didn’t get it. What did it say?

[+Karl G]

2 hours ago, mhodgeshvs said:

I didn’t get it. What did it say?

Here's what I got via email:

 

Quote

Greetings!

 

It's been a while since I've sent a Last Chance order update, as I've been hard at work on these orders, as well as doing some other things that will help improve delivery times for orders in the future. 

 

First, Last Chance orders!  I always have a large batch of these orders in progress at any given time, and right now I'm in the middle of building over 800 games that I should have completed by the end of this week, and they will then go out next weekend.  This comprises roughly 100 orders, with the number of games in these orders ranging from a single game to, in some cases, 30 or more games!  

 

It's taken me longer than I wanted to get this particular batch completed, but I'm in the home stretch now.  Once these go out, I'll then dive immediately into the nest batch of Last Chance orders (at least another 100).  Also, I would like to point out that the number of games ordered in a period of 4-5 weeks last summer is more than I typically sell in an ENTIRE YEAR, and as I am still (presently) doing nearly all the work myself in getting these games out, it is a slow process, and I'm working on these nearly every day of the week.

 

Beyond the Last Chance orders, I would like to say a few things about where things are headed in the future.  One of my goals for this time next year is to have 95% of all orders shipped in less than a week.  Feel free to skip this section if you're not interested in learning more about this. 

 

I'm currently working on several things to help meet this goal:

 

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.  Just last week I submitted a large manual order for 18 different games, which includes several manuals I've never had professionally printed before. 

 

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 of these last week and will 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. 

 

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 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.

 

That's all for this update.  As before, if your shipping address has changed since you placed your order, please respond to this email and let me know, and I'll update your order (or orders) with your new shipping address.

 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reply.  Do please keep in mind that these days, it may take me a week or so for me to respond, since I am trying to focus on physical production of games, but I will respond.  

 

Take care, 

 

 ..Al

 

[mhodgeshvs]

Thanks very much!