Help me in my quest of Attack of the Mutant Camels.

[Micheloni2600]

Hello all, I'm very new to the homebrew/conversion community when it comes to the 5200. I had just come across a sold listing on eBay about a month ago of the conversion of Jeff Minters Attack of the Mutant Camels to the 5200. 

 

I cannot see to find anywhere to purchase that these days unless one were to come up again for sale online. My hope here is that in this forum someone could help me along the way as I've been dying to play this game! As well as have it in it's own cart! If anyone is able to flash a board for me with this conversion on it I would pay for the services in a heartbeat! 

 

Nothing but my best regards and hopefully someone could help me along the way here thank you! 

[Albert]

If Jeff Minter gave me permission to make cartridges of this, I'd be glad to create a nice label for it and add it to eBay and the AtariAge Store.  I'd also want to talk to whoever did the conversion from the Atari 8-bit.  There's a few other Atari 8-bit games he did that could also potentially be done in this fashion (not sure what has been ported to the 5200, though).

 

 ..Al

[Micheloni2600]

Now please don't quote me on this but I believe the permissions were given sometime years ago from him. At one time on Good deal games.com I talked with their tech support. They had stated they had carried that cart because the permissions were given to make physical copies of it. But they no longer have the game in stock and never plan on reproducing physical carts for it. 

 

Wish I was aware of it some time long ago. Hoping maybe one day I can retain a physical cartridge of it in the spirit of Jeff because he's got some cool concepts!

[rra]

The history of Attack of the Mutant Camels for the Atari 8bit is a little confusing.   There was the Llamasoft Atari 400/800 release that is similar to Parker Brothers Empire Strikes Back.  In the USA, Jeff Minter's distributer, Human Engineered Software (HES), also released a version of Gridrunner II that they re-titled Attack of the Mutant Camels.  Very confusing for us in the USA that there were two Jeff Minter games called Attack of the Mutant Camels.  So the Atari 5200 version of Attack of the Mutant Camels isan unauthorized port of the HES release of Attack of the Mutant Camels, which is really Gridrunner II. 

 

This confusion of the two versions of Attack of the Mutant Camels for the Atari 8bit was even covered in one of the chapters of Digital Eclipse's new release "Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story."    To my knowledge, there is no Atari 5200 port of the original Attack of the Mutant Camels, only the version that was a re-named Gridrunner II.

 

Here is an Atarimania link to the HES USA version of Attack of the Mutant Camels, which is really Gridrunner II.  This is the one that was converted to the Atari 5200.

https://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-attack-of-the-mutant-camels_424.html

 

Here is an Atarimania link to the Llamasoft version of Attack of the Mutant Camels - the original version.  I'm not aware of a 5200 conversion of this game.

https://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-attack-of-the-mutant-camels_422.html

 

[Micheloni2600]

I believe that this was a version 1 of the game that was listed for sale. I guess it's difficult to know without seeing the gameplay on this actual cart but it would leave one to believe it's the original version of the game (Star wars empire strikes back style) 

 

Hopefully one could surface again. Or some more insight could be given. I did not contact the seller to see where he had originally gotten it. But it's been in my mind for a few weeks at this point and hopefully something could come of it through this forum topic. 

[rra]

16 hours ago, Albert said:

If Jeff Minter gave me permission to make cartridges of this, I'd be glad to create a nice label for it and add it to eBay and the AtariAge Store.  I'd also want to talk to whoever did the conversion from the Atari 8-bit.  There's a few other Atari 8-bit games he did that could also potentially be done in this fashion (not sure what has been ported to the 5200, though).

 

 ..Al

Here is a post from the AtariAge user Classics who did the 8bit to 5200 conversions.  It lists all the ports that he did from the 8Bit to the 5200.  At one time he sold the carts.    This post was from way back in 2007.

 

3 hours ago, Micheloni2600 said:

I believe that this was a version 1 of the game that was listed for sale. I guess it's difficult to know without seeing the gameplay on this actual cart but it would leave one to believe it's the original version of the game (Star wars empire strikes back style) 

 

Definitely the Atari 5200 cart was from the HES Gridrunner II clone.  The cartridge label that you showed shows a copyright HES, which was the Gridrunner II version.  Here are the screenshots.  Note how the Gridrunner II screen says AMC in the upper left corner.

[Micheloni2600]

Thank you for the reply. So there hasn't even been a converted version of the original to game. Only the grid runner style game. 

 

This is really I shame, is it possible someone out there could still do the conversion? 

 

I guess its one of those situations that will probably never end up happening? 

 

My very best regards.

[holygrailvideogames.com]

On 4/2/2024 at 9:20 AM, Micheloni2600 said:

Now please don't quote me on this but I believe the permissions were given sometime years ago from him. At one time on Good deal games.com I talked with their tech support. They had stated they had carried that cart because the permissions were given to make physical copies of it. But they no longer have the game in stock and never plan on reproducing physical carts for it. 

 

Wish I was aware of it some time long ago. Hoping maybe one day I can retain a physical cartridge of it in the spirit of Jeff because he's got some cool concepts!

Gooddealgames.com shows it is available.   I don't know if that is accurate or how recently they said that they were sold out.

[CPUWIZ]

That AMC cart above sure looks like one of mine, I am always trying to make sure to get the copyright correct.