A Different Thought Experiment: Atari 2600/7800 Demakes, Ports and Projects

[Maztr_0n]

So a little context...

some on the forum had done thought experiments about modern day indie games running on the 2600+ being a possibility, and while i thought perhaps leveraging some of the hardware to perhaps boost performances, sound and visual as well as other capabilities to, say a stock 7800 system could be interesting, i dont think it's worth diverting attention away from improving 2600/7800 compatibility and bringing new life to those platforms as well. But the idea did make me think of many of the impressive 8-Bit Demakes on other 8-bit systems officially and not-so officially or even just games based on more modern titles for older systems as well as Ports of contemporary arcade/console/home computer or homebrews from other systems being ported to the system. Not to mention a lot of great homebrew in general.

and before i go any further, i dont have a lick of knowledge about hardware so i know comparing a game boy/color or nes or sega master system title to 7800/2600 is not really as cut and dry as comparing a PS5 to an Xbox Series X for example, much more different then than now, and of course its not even just as simple as a very popular system like game boy has a lot of homebrew so therefore atari systems could be equal, that sadly might not be the case at least in terms of quantity or interest unfortunately, dont expect an official mcdonalds game or anything. And even just comparing systems, each had their own tricks for memory or the like or cartridge upgrades. So ya know, custom chips for 7800 would have to be made for example from scratch for something like a ram expansion or such.

So that out of the way, i also know there are really good resources for newcomers to dev on the 2600/7800 and perhaps soon with the + it could become even easier, but to digress, instead of say a 2600+ exclusive port of, likely a 2D indie title like Stardew Valley, Celeste, Deltarune, Death Road to Canada, TinyLife, Retro City Rampage, ETC.

How realistic would it be to just focus on compatibility and helping homebrewers with dev tools or licensing deals or the like to do demakes or ports or what not for 2600/7800/2600+ be, what would that take, what would you speculatively wanna see, if theres room to grow the install-base substantially enough to justify R&D costs, etc etc etc.

So thats my thought experiment, to add some to this post i'd say also at the very least, there are games like Karateka on 7800 that aren't as well liked as other versions, for stuff like that would an enhanced edition or ground up port be considered? Or updated M-Network games and such? Or at least a few ports of the most beloved homebrew titles for atari versions. IDK lets just have fun with this.

[tradyblix]

Personally it seems like with experienced devs, modern tools, and money from big companies, it shouldn't be that hard to get some period (up through 85 or so) arcade ports that can be done (for 7800), with official cart releases for the system.

 

The problem with companies tho is that they're always having to focus on market realities and making profit for themselves and worse, shareholders. Since this is an ultra niche thing that few people are into, there's not a lot of wiggle room for cash. 

So, would I like an officially sanctioned Konami release of Gradius 7800 ? Or other cool arcade games that we never got but could get ? Yes, but nobody at those companies is gonna do it because there's no money. 

 

Ben says stuffs in the pipeline, so hopefully I'm proven wrong, because there's several thing I'd like and would love to buy new carts at that sweet 29.99 price point, but yeah. I'm not holding out a ton of hope it will actually happen with the titles that would be worth playing. 

 

Imagine Altered Beast 7800 for example. Or Gauntlet 7800 with 4 player support. Or Star Wars, the vector arcade port, for 7800. Or any of the 194x type games. (I know a guy made a prototype of one, but I'm talking actual, legal releases). Tempest 7800 would be amazing. 

 

The actual arcade Tron for 7800. I mean the list could go on. Still waiting on my Bubble Bobble

 

[shane857]

Personally i would love to see a 7800 remake of Dark Chambers with added speech. Gauntlet stylee!

[DEANJIMMY]

Demake😊

[+sramirez2008]

15 minutes ago, DEANJIMMY said:

Demake😊

Great demake.

[+sramirez2008]

1 hour ago, tradyblix said:

The actual arcade Tron for 7800.

I’d love to see a 7800 port of Tron. 

[Zonie]

1 hour ago, DEANJIMMY said:

Demake😊

Yeah. Was thinking that too. Demake.

 

[CPUWIZ]

Here is the problem:

 

[+sramirez2008]

24 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

Here is the problem:

 

Yep. Sad, but true.

[Maztr_0n]

Guess this mean we gotta hope theres enough moolah to justify it, hope a lot of us can be proven wrong and some cool stuff happens, because maybe... maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel... maybe not... who knows?

[Video]

Well there are plenty of programmers here that got mad skills and imagination that can, and do, make demakes (like halo) for little expectation. Maybe just have games made, and hope some companies will ok runs like Microsoft did.

 

I could see smaller indie groups being possibly ok with a demake for atari.

 

Cat quest please (whwhich for 7800 could be pretty darn close, minus the scaling towards the top of the screen.

 

Like Shane's idea, dark cavern with added voice (blue shot the food, lol) maybe while at it, add more tiers to the various pickups, maybe up to nine levels instead of just 3, that game is damn hard on, well, damn hard. Also graphical corrections, most levels look fine, but the bush levels have your character clipping through tiles on both axis.

[JetmanUK]

40 minutes ago, Video said:

Well there are plenty of programmers here that got mad skills and imagination that can, and do, make demakes (like halo) for little expectation. Maybe just have games made, and hope some companies will ok runs like Microsoft did.

 

I could see smaller indie groups being possibly ok with a demake for atari.

 

Cat quest please (whwhich for 7800 could be pretty darn close, minus the scaling towards the top of the screen.

 

Like Shane's idea, dark cavern with added voice (blue shot the food, lol) maybe while at it, add more tiers to the various pickups, maybe up to nine levels instead of just 3, that game is damn hard on, well, damn hard. Also graphical corrections, most levels look fine, but the bush levels have your character clipping through tiles on both axis.

He was talking about Dark Chambers. Dark Cavern needs to come back though! 😋😁

[Maztr_0n]

15 hours ago, Video said:

Well there are plenty of programmers here that got mad skills and imagination that can, and do, make demakes (like halo) for little expectation. Maybe just have games made, and hope some companies will ok runs like Microsoft did.

 

I could see smaller indie groups being possibly ok with a demake for atari.

 

Cat quest please (whwhich for 7800 could be pretty darn close, minus the scaling towards the top of the screen.

 

Like Shane's idea, dark cavern with added voice (blue shot the food, lol) maybe while at it, add more tiers to the various pickups, maybe up to nine levels instead of just 3, that game is damn hard on, well, damn hard. Also graphical corrections, most levels look fine, but the bush levels have your character clipping through tiles on both axis.

oh yeah i think this,

i think its likely that ya know if a company gives a Go-Ahead to something it might also open up more things, like for example SNK, they could agree to Ikari Warriors repressings, and perhaps eventually Vanguard, Ikari II, Guerilla War, etc. absolutely thats the way, and stuff like an updated 7800 Karateka, some Lynx era IPs that were going to be on 7800 finally coming to it, if Capcom was cool then that opens up new Commando carts as well as potentially series like Mega Man, Resident Evil and Contra.

Hell maybe even some indie devs would spot on for oddball demakes, imagine something like Wrestling Empire or Celeste on Atari? Heck what if the AMOS Basic source to the cult 1994 Polish Amiga beat-em-up Franko: The Crazy Revenge is officially given to someone to do a Lynx/7800 port? And i'm thinking if Pac-Man/Pole Position is cleared that even means we'd be in a timeline where Tamagotchi for the Atari 2600 is a possibility.

Not saying any of the third parties are things to get hyped and hopes on but theres a lot of 7800 titles, prototypes and the like that are 100% possible to be commissioned and released in the near future, so, think positive!

[Maztr_0n]

15 hours ago, Video said:

Well there are plenty of programmers here that got mad skills and imagination that can, and do, make demakes (like halo) for little expectation. Maybe just have games made, and hope some companies will ok runs like Microsoft did.

 

also imagine Halo 7800... imagine if its some kind of 2 player Ikari Warriors/Commando style romp with the vehicles included, perhaps one where you can go against eachother in split screen?

[tradyblix]

On 8/2/2024 at 6:07 PM, Zonie said:

Yeah. Was thinking that too. Demake.

 

Played it on an emulator. Not terrible but don't think much of it. More of a curisoity item to have if you're a big Halo fan and want to make the 2600/+ look funny I think.

 

2600 games that are still worth playing are all about gameplay, think centipede, ms pac man, phoenix, etc etc. the only de-make I thought I wanted was that illegal zelda clone that was in progress, now that was awesome lol 

Edited August 4 by tradyblix

[tradyblix]

11 hours ago, Maztr_0n said:

oh yeah i think this,

i think its likely that ya know if a company gives a Go-Ahead to something it might also open up more things, like for example SNK, they could agree to Ikari Warriors repressings, and perhaps eventually Vanguard, Ikari II, Guerilla War, etc. absolutely thats the way, and stuff like an updated 7800 Karateka, some Lynx era IPs that were going to be on 7800 finally coming to it, if Capcom was cool then that opens up new Commando carts as well as potentially series like Mega Man, Resident Evil and Contra.

Hell maybe even some indie devs would spot on for oddball demakes, imagine something like Wrestling Empire or Celeste on Atari? Heck what if the AMOS Basic source to the cult 1994 Polish Amiga beat-em-up Franko: The Crazy Revenge is officially given to someone to do a Lynx/7800 port? And i'm thinking if Pac-Man/Pole Position is cleared that even means we'd be in a timeline where Tamagotchi for the Atari 2600 is a possibility.

Not saying any of the third parties are things to get hyped and hopes on but theres a lot of 7800 titles, prototypes and the like that are 100% possible to be commissioned and released in the near future, so, think positive!

I mean, if you think about it, there's little to no risk for companies to release games people would want on the 2600 or 7800 if they are made well. It's not like the 2600+ competes with any real consoles or even the virtual consoles on switch, etc. 

 

It would just be fun to pick up the legend of zelda for 2600 and play it in 2600 graphics. If these companies were smarter, they'd bring the freelancers that started this off in on a one off contract, give em 100k to finish the game to certain standards, publish it and charge 60 bucks for it. They could easily get away with it. I doubt they'll sell more than a couple thousand copies, but if you did a run of 25k copies, I think you could sell it out, there's still people who'd want it

[Maztr_0n]

58 minutes ago, tradyblix said:

I mean, if you think about it, there's little to no risk for companies to release games people would want on the 2600 or 7800 if they are made well. It's not like the 2600+ competes with any real consoles or even the virtual consoles on switch, etc. 

 

It would just be fun to pick up the legend of zelda for 2600 and play it in 2600 graphics. If these companies were smarter, they'd bring the freelancers that started this off in on a one off contract, give em 100k to finish the game to certain standards, publish it and charge 60 bucks for it. They could easily get away with it. I doubt they'll sell more than a couple thousand copies, but if you did a run of 25k copies, I think you could sell it out, there's still people who'd want it

Definetly

 

 

But you know... you know nintendo will never budge... thats the 1 company i think will never ever do anything with atari sadly, i think we'd see Sneak King 2600 and Zippy the Porcupine retooled as an official sonic title before nintendo ever decides anything.

 

 

But it would be cool to see a zelda type on 2600

[+pboland]

I get people want to see these "popular" titles on an Atari consoles, but nothing is stopping anyone from producing a game in the same context as these popular titles and just calling them something else. As an example, everyone like "Legend of Zelda" but did you know you can get the same experience as that game on a Sega Master System? The game is called "Golden Axe Warrior". It's practically a zelda clone. No it is not 100% the same (as in the story or the physical graphics) but the game mechanics and the way the game plays is so similar it is as obvious as your big toe that it was meant as a zelda clone game. And most zelda players like it (when they finally realize there's more than just the big N out there).

 

Who cares if a game is called "Slappy McSlapperson's Legendary Quest" or "Legend of Zelda"?, As long as the experience is the same, who cares???? I know I don't.

[MrChickenz]

On 8/2/2024 at 7:31 PM, CPUWIZ said:

Here is the problem:

 

Where did you get all this?

[tradyblix]

Games could be crowdsourced today. I don't really see much of that actually going on. Plus companies run the world and have for some time and are stupidly rich, they can afford it

[MarcinJ]

2 hours ago, tradyblix said:

I mean, if you think about it, there's little to no risk for companies to release games people would want on the 2600 or 7800 if they are made well. It's not like the 2600+ competes with any real consoles or even the virtual consoles on switch, etc. 

 

It would just be fun to pick up the legend of zelda for 2600 and play it in 2600 graphics. If these companies were smarter, they'd bring the freelancers that started this off in on a one off contract, give em 100k to finish the game to certain standards, publish it and charge 60 bucks for it. They could easily get away with it. I doubt they'll sell more than a couple thousand copies, but if you did a run of 25k copies, I think you could sell it out, there's still people who'd want it

Why would Nintendo care about niche product of 2600+  and investing money in a really poor version of their legacy?  I am sorry but it makes no sense at all. If Atari was a big player and would sell millions of consoles this is a market you want to be. At the moment 2600+ is a product for hobbyist and it is actually in interest of Nintendo not to support Atari with highly popular game franchises, but support its own retro products. 

[tradyblix]

4 hours ago, MarcinJ said:

Why would Nintendo care about niche product of 2600+  and investing money in a really poor version of their legacy?  I am sorry but it makes no sense at all. If Atari was a big player and would sell millions of consoles this is a market you want to be. At the moment 2600+ is a product for hobbyist and it is actually in interest of Nintendo not to support Atari with highly popular game franchises, but support its own retro products. 

Never said they would. I know they won't, they're a horrible company and always have been. Will never forget having to have grey sweat instead of blood in Mortal Kombat. Soooo lame... why I boycott them to this day.

 

I just thought it would be cool and one of the cooler games I've seen for 2600 is the Zelda remake. If they were smart, they'd win some public relations. Telling me it won't happen is like saying "water's wet" No shit. This thread is all about wishing. 

 

You know would else would be cool on the 7800 that doesnt' involve that dumpster-fire of a company ? Gaplus. That would be dope, we need more good shooters and that's an interesting and often overlooked one. 

Edited August 4 by tradyblix

[Maztr_0n]

i'll just dip my toe in the fantasy action/adventure/rpg ring and say, besides Atari's Secret Quest IP, if theres a collab to do, Shadowrun would be excellent.

[KainXavier]

My hope is that Atari will begin exploring licensed de-makes and backports.  They're probably the only company with enough clout, capital, and interest to do so.  (And many of these products already exist, albeit in an unofficial capacity.)  That said, I absolutely think there is a market for it, and we really just need one company experiencing moderate success to convince the rest of the industry.

 

Also, I've got way too many unfinished projects to take on another, but I would love to see some of radiangames' work show up on retro hardware.  Crossfire / Crossfighter in particular.  (Note: The Crossfire I'm talking about is a bullet-hell shooter where you jump between the floor and the ceiling to avoid enemy fire.)

 

Lastly, spinning off of Shadowrun, how about Shadowgate?  I would love to see it and the other MacVenture games released for the 7800.  Maybe the ST ports could serve as a base?

 

Edit: @tradyblix I second Gaplus!  Getting Namco (and GCC / AtGames) on board with would be a huge win!

Edited August 5 by KainXavier
Gaplus is too awesome to not comment.

[MarcinJ]

9 hours ago, tradyblix said:

You know would else would be cool on the 7800 that doesnt' involve that dumpster-fire of a company ? Gaplus. That would be dope, we need more good shooters and that's an interesting and often overlooked one. 

I do not know Gaplus. @Ben from Plaion was showing in the other thread a proof-of-principle R-Type running increadibly smooth on 7800.