What is the reason, that is stopping more homebrew authors from developing for the 5200?

[ledzep]

4 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

an additional 2” depth and 2” width all around makes a big difference.

there’s no downplaying the size, the 5200 is simply huge and makes sense why a Jr. was being considered

 

 

I agree that it's bigger, but makes a big difference?  Ok, what changes if it's smaller, like 2600 size?  Game speed?  Controller accuracy?  Game library size?  This is the most useless criticism of the console that I've heard.  Are some people playing 5200 games by holding the console in one hand and the controller in the other?  Do gamers live in porta potties and are severely limited for game console space?  Is there a game console tax I'm unaware of based on console weight or volume?

 

When the 5200 stops being sold in stores, then the second largest console becomes the new largest console.  So, does that console instantly become less popular than it was because it's "so big" compared to the other consoles still being sold?  No.  Is there any correlation between console size and gaming performance?  I can just imagine homebrew programmers talking about how they would be open to making new 5200 games if only the console was a little smaller.

[+Ryan Witmer]

I write 5200 games because the console is so big.  It's the grandest of stages.

[Clint Thompson]

7 hours ago, ledzep said:

I agree that it's bigger, but makes a big difference?  

It was discussion veering slightly OT more about factoring the overall image/success of the 5200 and of course not at all why homebrewers do or do not make games for it. That is nonsensical. 
 

You’re exaggerating my comments of literal size and dimension into something else entirely. It’s like you chose one of my later comments not having read previous posts and took it word for word on its own. I said RAM and Controllers. Size was entirely separate on a different note. 
 

I did learn that cart sizes are massive though, that I didn’t expect to see. So I’m ready to see these 512K carts! They can match the consoles demanding presence 😅

[ledzep]

4 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

It was discussion veering slightly OT more about factoring the overall image/success of the 5200 and of course not at all why homebrewers do or do not make games for it. That is nonsensical. 
 

You’re exaggerating my comments of literal size and dimension into something else entirely. It’s like you chose one of my later comments not having read previous posts and took it word for word on its own. I said RAM and Controllers. Size was entirely separate on a different note. 

 

You said it makes a big difference ("there's no downplaying the size").  For what?  And I'm not singling you out, I've heard that argument before many times.  The 5200 was huge!  Ok, so?  I remember when flatscreen TVs (plasmas) first started showing up, the early adopter friends of mine were ssoooooo relieved to be able to own them because, you know, those 36" CRTs were so deep!  And they were so heavy!  Made it so hard to enjoy watching movies, I guess?

 

Yes, the RAM changes from the computers were significant, as were the controllers, though I don't get how people were that baffled by them, either.  They must have all sucked at playing Red Baron or Tailgunner in the arcades as well since those analog joysticks didn't center, either.  I cannot defend the fire buttons, though, egh.

 

4 hours ago, Clint Thompson said:

I did learn that cart sizes are massive though, that I didn’t expect to see. So I’m ready to see these 512K carts! They can match the consoles demanding presence 😅

 

True.  It's amazing how expensive RAM was back in the day, a fucking 4k 2600 cartridge was deemed sufficient!?  Oh shit, this game is 8k!!  8!!!!  I commend those programmers getting anything useful out of such little space.  Can you imagine someone coding a modern game for Intel CPUs in Assembler?

[CPUWIZ]

17 minutes ago, ledzep said:

Can you imagine someone coding a modern game for Intel CPUs in Assembler?

 

Unfortunately, most programmers are no longer capable.  I re-wrote the entire Unreal Engine Math libraries in SSE (And NEON - For Switch) more than once (UE3 + 4) and hardly anyone could even understand what the code was actually doing.  Even though my commenting is old school and had a comment on almost every single line.  😛

[+Gemintronic]

There was 5200bas.  But, that died out and was long unmaintained by the time I heard of it.  It seemed to be more assembly than BASIC as well.

 

Nowadays, I'm pretty sure a dialect of BASIC for Atari computers has added the 5200 as a target.. but, I still don't hear of any activity.

 

My hot take then is lack of interested homebrewers combined with few dev suite options combined with how the heck do you make carts?  I mean, there must be options but not as obvious as other platforms.

[+swlovinist]

8 hours ago, Gemintronic said:

There was 5200bas.  But, that died out and was long unmaintained by the time I heard of it.  It seemed to be more assembly than BASIC as well.

 

Nowadays, I'm pretty sure a dialect of BASIC for Atari computers has added the 5200 as a target.. but, I still don't hear of any activity.

 

My hot take then is lack of interested homebrewers combined with few dev suite options combined with how the heck do you make carts?  I mean, there must be options but not as obvious as other platforms.

Well said, and wanted to give my input about an Atari console that often gets overlooked for good reasons by both gamers and collectors.   As a publisher of homebrew and independent games, I pursued other Atari platforms that I felt were 10 times easier to offer games on(2600/7800/Jaguar) as well as having enough demand to at least break even with revenue.   The market is just alot smaller which makes producing a game on the platform a higher risk of return(to at least make any $$$$ invested back.   

 

With that being said, I would love to see Blockem Sockem be ported to the 5200 some day, but would probably pursue someone that wanted to port it to the Atari 400/800 first as the market seems to be bigger.    I dont hate the 5200 at all, but understand its shortcomings.  

[English Invader]

As someone who has never had the opportunity to explore the 5200, I'll give my two cents.

 

I bought The400 Mini with a view to being a gateway into the system but that hasn't happened because of the highly publicised compatibility issues with the mini.  I've also had difficulties setting up 5200 emulation via Retropie.  I've been able to get into most systems but the 5200 has remained elusive and the original hardware remains completely out of the question.

 

I love the 2600, I love the 7800 and I have every reason to think that I would love the 5200 just as much if I had the same level of access to the system.  I'm a long time Lynx and ST owner and user, I'm Mr Atari and I'm just waiting to play all the classics and homebrews the 5200 has to offer.  Same deal with the Jaguar.

 

Provide an easy, user-friendly, affordable way to access the system and the market will be there.  If you build it, they will come.

[Zonie]

On 7/18/2024 at 5:25 AM, Clint Thompson said:

an additional 2” depth and 2” width all around makes a big difference.

there’s no downplaying the size, the 5200 is simply huge and makes sense why a Jr. was being considered

 

Who cares. Bigger was better and you could wrap the single cord around the base and put the controllers in the back. It should have been a more modern and cheaper to build 400.

On 7/18/2024 at 9:46 AM, else said:

Yea, this is the most surprising thing about Atari and the 5200 to me too.  Maybe it's a symptom of the dysfunction at Atari at the time or vice versa (hard to tell which is the cart and which is the horse here).  They also didn't seem to offer any (formal) repair program for the 5200 joysticks either.  Or if they did, it doesn't seem like it was widely known anyway.  I know they went through a number of iterations of membrane to try to fix them, but that didn't help the early adopters or even the midlife adopters.  I think if they had just done SOMETHING with regards to the controllers they might have been able to salvage the situation. But it's like they just it wither on the vine....

I think this is accurate. Spend a shit ton of development money repackaging what should have been a game console to begin with, and then make those horrible but cool looking controllers. There was no dev money left to fix the problem, and the CV ate its lunch.

[pirx]

what quite surprised me was the underwhelming response to our 5200 port of Scorch. But overall we are delighted to meet @RB5200 who was diligently testing the 5200 version and found many bugs and possible improvements. 
Anyways, the game is available at the store, Albert made truly great packaging and we can assure you Scorch is the most complex game ever published on 5200 (complex from the programming point of view and size of pure 6502 assembly). I can assure you, it is a miracle we fit all of it in 32K and 16K RAM.

[Jetboot Jack]

My 10c on this question...

 

The 5200 is not a global system - unlike the other Atari platforms it is locked to NTSC and North American availability (yes I have owned a couple, but they are a PITA to own and use in the UK)

The hardware is not reliable - the controllers are "fragile" in my experience, getting a working one is a bit hit and miss...

The similarities to the A8 line but less widely available, so why support a is,ilar but less powerful system...

 

It looks cool though!

 

sTeVE

[Crazy Climber]

On 7/31/2024 at 11:39 AM, pirx said:

what quite surprised me was the underwhelming response to our 5200 port of Scorch. 

I think a lot of people (myself included) are waiting for the first round of pre orders (last chance sale) to be mailed out before we do another pre order...

 

[+Cafeman]

On 7/31/2024 at 12:39 PM, pirx said:

what quite surprised me was the underwhelming response to our 5200 port of Scorch

 

A possible answer to that from my perspective, as I'm still a 5200 player and fan and I'm certainly willing to keep buying homebrews for it.   

 

I'm not knocking the Last Chance delays at all, but for me, there is little sense in ordering something when I haven't received last year's order yet.   Also, Scorch looks excellently done, but it's appeal is as a multi-player game. I rarely play multiplayer 5200 games anymore. I like single-player games because I play games on my own. Finally, I've owned several types of this tank/armaments/terrain destruction game in the past.  So even though it looks great, these are some reasons I have not pre-ordered the game. Certainly in the future. If I were at a show like PRGE and saw it, I'd snap it up immediately. 

 

If you all want more 5200 homebrew support, then buy what's out there, make videos of what's out there, support discussions on 5200 homebrew and what's out there.   Write actual fair reviews on the AA store.   You can start with considering purchasing, and also making videos and content, these recent 5200 homebrews.  

• Scorch (2024)  Perhaps hard to do since it isn't available as cart yet. 
• All of the Phaser Cat 5200 homebrews: 
  •  Magical Fairy Force (2020) .  Unique concept, interesting character design and art. 
  • Realsports Curling (2018).  There is 1 5-star review currently on the AA store.  A unique sports game, analog control, multi-player, uses the keypad.  VideoGameCritic and his friends wrote a very positive review of the game. 
  • Ratcatcher (2016).  Another very unique concept, you won't play this game anywhere else. 
  • Rob 'n' Banks (2022).  There is 1 5-star review currently on the AA store.  Lock 'n' Chase port, no flicker, added cinematics and pokey music. 
  • Intellidiscs (2021).  Discs of Tron type of game!  Looks like you'll have to download the ROM from PhaseCat on this one. 
  • You can tell Ryan Witmer loved the 5200 and exerted effort on different graphics modes (even Mode F, his Phaser Cat graphic!) ,  analog and even trak-ball control, and offering 4-player games, even if few will utilize that. 
• There are a many older 5200 HB games.  Some are still sold in AA store, others were removed over the years.  
  • My opinion is some of the non-port earlier 5200 games, like a couple of the Mean Hamster games,  could have used more time baking in the oven.  You'd probably have to locate ROMs for these unless you stumble over someone selling them.  I recall HH / Spooky Mansion 3D and Combat II Advanced being original games, but he had mostly ports like Klax , Gauntlet, and the First Star ports. 
  • Castle Crisis is a decent shooter that is still available in the AA store. It has 2-button horizontal shooting aspects as well as the vertical shots.  My memory tells my Castle Crisis was the 1st on-cart Atari 5200 homebrew.  Check it out if you haven't already. 
• Also, Video61 sells 5200 homebrews. I'm not sure which were actually released and available, but I've noticed Venture (2021) and HeliCommander (2021) which has nice parallax scrolling and chopper shmups action.  

c(_) 

[A Black Falcon]

When it comes to 5200 homebrew games, given how few of them there are I'll probably just get all the ones available, but I am significantly more interested in games that take advantage of the systems' controller better -- that is, designed for analog controls and such -- as opposed to titles which straight port an A8 game or something to the 5200 with digital controls mapped to the analog stick.  For a classic example of this it's fantastic how Galaxian has two movement speeds depending on how far you push the stick.  Of course some games are better with digital controls, and there are digital control options for the 5200, but none are official or easy to get... surely like a lot of people I still don't have any, only the official controllers and trakball.

 

As for Scorch, if I ordered it now would I actually receive anything anytime soon?  The games from last years' PRGE all still list as "Preorder" in the store.  It's a game I will order once I get any kind of sense of when it will actually release, assuming that they haven't yet.

Edited September 1 by A Black Falcon

[Greg2600]

On 7/19/2024 at 4:24 PM, swlovinist said:

With that being said, I would love to see Blockem Sockem be ported to the 5200 some day, but would probably pursue someone that wanted to port it to the Atari 400/800 first as the market seems to be bigger.    I don't hate the 5200 at all, but understand its shortcomings.  

In fact that's often the only way homebrew comes to the 5200, by way of 400/800, which were somewhat popular in Europe.  

[+swlovinist]

Good news:  Looks like this will happen ;).   I will let the developer of this version announce it when ready :).  

[Wrathchild]

On 9/1/2024 at 4:10 PM, Cafeman said:

There are a many older 5200 HB games.  Some are still sold in AA store

 

I think I'm right in saying that either Classics/AtariMax or @Albert/AtariAge can make cartridges from the ROM images of ports I've done in the past.

That said, many 5200 owners tend to have a AtariMax multi-cart capable of playing the images so hence not in need that service.  

http://www.mkeates.f9.co.uk/5200/ (I might be missing some later titles you can find in the 5200)

[Greg2600]

29 minutes ago, Wrathchild said:

I think I'm right in saying that either Classics/AtariMax or @Albert/AtariAge can make cartridges from the ROM images of ports I've done in the past.

That said, many 5200 owners tend to have a AtariMax multi-cart capable of playing the images so hence not in need that service.  

http://www.mkeates.f9.co.uk/5200/ (I might be missing some later titles you can find in the 5200)

Thanks again for your contributions over the years.  AtariAge won't sell them anymore, because most of the 8-bit conversions are not licensed to Atari S.A. 

[Wrathchild]

9 hours ago, Greg2600 said:

AtariAge won't sell them anymore, because most of the 8-bit conversions are not licensed to Atari S.A. 

Thanks, I was think to ask if things had changed since the purchase.

 

Is @Bryan's banking board available from other sources (even pcbway type - build your own) and caes? 

[rra]

I'm happy to announce that the AtariAge release of the A/W/A Anthology should be available at the 2024 Portland Retro Gaming Expo.  This release consists of 14 Atari 5200 homebrew games on a single 512K multicart cartridge playable on original Atari 5200 hardware.