Lynx Homebrews... Where'd They Go?

[Ze_ro]

While wandering mostly aimlessly through the net, I'm surprised at the number of promising yet unfinished Lynx homebrew stuff that's been (as far as I can tell) abandoned.

 

TNT Terry: A great looking clone of Bomberman, being programmed by Laurens Simonis. Unfortunately, the last news update happened years ago Same goes for another game of his, Para-Lemmings, as well as his Panther project.

 

Zow: I don't know much about this game other than that I seem to have a rom called "Conquest of Zow", and AtariHQ has a writeup about this game. It was/is being worked on by Harry Dodgson ... I suppose this page provides some information when it says "Never to be released" next to the game... (Note also the pseudo screenshot of Demolition Derby.. I've had a hard time finding any more information than this about it)

 

Space Battle: Another Harry Dodgson title. I just found this game a few minutes ago. It looks like a great clone of Space War... unfortunately, it also says "Last updated Aug 3, 2000" at the bottom of the page (Ironically, that day was my 20th birthday...)

 

Lode Runner: This game seems complete to me, although AtariHQ claims the game will eventually have more options such as game saving and such... is this still being worked on? (Programmer: Kurt Olsen)

 

Puzzler 2000 (About halfway down the page): My Markus Wuehl, it's a clone of Puzzle Fighter by Capcom. Looks like it hasn't been updated since 1999

 

Marble Madness: Matthias Domin was working on this, and a bunch of screenshots are available on his page (along with a number of interesting demos). I've tried this one, and it's actually quite promising... but again, the site hasn't been updated since 2000

 

Stardreamer: This looks to me like Elite for the Lynx! I recently found a ROM of this game, and though I couldn't really figure the game out, it looks very intriguing. I'm not sure when the last update was, but a screenshot says "Stardreamer 2000"....

 

Planar Wars: This is (as far as I know) a different game from Songbird's Remnant. Although I can't seem to find any information about it. Does this even exist, or am I just imagining things?

 

Wolfenstein 3D: I can't seem to find any good links for this, but I remember that someone was working on this... I also remember that it was pretty slow the last time I saw it.

 

Loopz: I'm not completely sure if this is a homebrew game, an (un)finished prototype, or a prototype that was finished by homebrew guys (like CyberVirus was).

 

Some other vaguely homebrew related stuff that's worth mentioning:

• Lynx Generation 2. I recognize that logo from Othello...

• More homebrew games... Check out some of the screenshots!

• In fact, the whole Xnet site is worth checking out.

• Lynxworld. Suffers from somewhat poor design, but has some interesting stuff.

• Stuff Barry Bankhead is/was working on

• A big list of games "in development". Unfortunately, many of the links are broken...

 

Anyone have any information on any of this? Have Laurens Simonis, Bastian Shick, and Matthias Domin given up on their work? Have they secretly given their code to Songbird to finish up? (Note that Songbird's webpage mentions 2 mysterious Lynx projects as being under development) Did the Lynx homebrew scene die 2 years ago, with Carl Forhan being the sole survivor? Will I stop asking questions any time soon? Any information would be great.

 

--Zero

[bolid]

All I know is that I contacted one of authors of Stardreamer 2-3 months ago asking for permission to put some things (including PDF about great Lynx flash cart) on my site and he told me they are still working on Stardreamer and they just found a new graphics man. I hope that game will be finished some day because he also told me it will have save feature.

[Harry_Dodgson]

Hi,

 

Zow started as a collection of sound and graphics demos. It was killed when someone who had no right to, released a version to the 'net. That action also made me sick enough to stop all Lynx work for almost exactly two years. The version out there is rather embarrassing and I tried to get people to stop putting it out on their ROM pages. Everytime someone agreed, someone else would start a new page and it would be out there again. Two years later, I put 3 months of work into Lynx Othello and released it. AtariHQ never contacted me about anything or they would have accurate data.

 

Demolition Derby evolved into Space Battles. I left the title screen on my webpage because I liked the way it looked.

 

Space Battles is a nice 2-8 player ComLynxed (LGSS compatible) game. It isn't much fun for 1-player though. It's gotten good feedback at Atari conventions. The last update refers to the webpage, not the code. Last time I updated the code was probably a year ago when I added some sounds and improved the ComLynx update text.

 

Loopz is a 99% complete game, done by HMS. If you've gotten the one from the 'net, it has a Bastian Schick easter egg demo in it. Like Zow, it was released to the 'net without the permission of the author or copyright holder.

 

Harry

[Songbird]

Many of those hobby developers are still in touch with each other, however not many homebrews are in active development currently AFAIK. I'm always trying to rectify that, of course.

 

Planar Wars was originally supposed to be a 2D overhead ship combat game, however I thought it would be cooler to do a 3D Space Invaders / Starmaster style of game instead. I have an old alpha of PW somewhere, along with some really simplistic screen captures.

 

There are a few new homebrews not on your list that are popping up, so hopefully we will see some other games released in the coming months, because I simply don't have enough time to do everything. I really wish Ultravore was ready to ship, but it still needs quite a few months of work on it...

[Tom-Lynx]

I actually own a couple Loopz carts and the game plays quite well, even though it boots up with the beta version number. It can comlynx 2 players if you have two carts.

 

Tom

[Ze_ro]

Well, it's definitely good to hear that not everything has been abandoned quite yet I've been thinking of trying my hand at Lynx programming, but there's definitely not as much information about it as there is about 2600 programming... Is the hardware hard to program for? I've noticed a few libraries of functions out there for the Lynx, can they control some of the Lynx's higher level abilities like sprite scaling and comlynx traffic? If all I have to do is learn some graphics commands and program the rest in C, I'd love to give it a shot...

 

By the way... regarding Ultravore: all the screenshots I've seen show the same two characters. Are these the only two in the game?

 

--Zero

[atarimastermarty]

They all look like pretty good games. To bad they never got finished.

[+Zeptari]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bolid:

All I know is that I contacted one of authors of Stardreamer 2-3 months ago asking for permission to put some things (including PDF about great Lynx flash cart) on my site and he told me they are still working on Stardreamer and they just found a new graphics man. I hope that game will be finished some day because he also told me it will have save feature.

---

 

 

I was the original graphics man for Stardreamer. I did the titlescreen, cockpit interface and inventory icon's.

I had lots of fun at the time designing Lynx graphics... but somehow between the move from Florida and Mass I lost contact with team harmless... I wonder if my name with make it in the final game credits.

 

Link to info about my part of Stardreamer...

a little old....

http://users.rcn.com/alafleur/wishlist.htm

[Atari Smeghead]

Re: Loopz...

 

I just recently bought a copy from good ol' Best Electronics. It says it's version 0.06 from November 5, 1992 "Evaluation version."

 

It seems to be rather complete. It has music, different levels and gameplay options, although I can't confirm a lot of it for sure, since I've only played it enough to know that it's a fun, but challenging game.

It's a fun little puzzler, and at a price of $25.95, ya just can't beat it!

 

I'm doing all I can to keep the Lynx market rolling. They make it, I buy it!

[bolid]

That Lynx pool game looks great (on your web page)! Is there any more info abou it. Also Stardreamer graphics is cool!

 

Is there chance that you will continue to make graphics for Lynx games? Maybe you can help to Carl Forhan about new games?!

[Ze_ro]

I think that pool screenshot was just something he drew unfortunately. Of course, if Steel Talons and Hard Drivin' can be done on a Lynx, there's no reason a 3D Pool game couldn't be done.

 

Zeptari: It's funny that you mentioned Berzerk on your page... I was actually thinking of trying Berzerk as an initial effort in Lynx programming. Either that or Venture...

 

--Zero

[Songbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ze_ro:

Well, it's definitely good to hear that not everything has been abandoned quite yet I've been thinking of trying my hand at Lynx programming, but there's definitely not as much information about it as there is about 2600 programming... Is the hardware hard to program for? I've noticed a few libraries of functions out there for the Lynx, can they control some of the Lynx's higher level abilities like sprite scaling and comlynx traffic? If all I have to do is learn some graphics commands and program the rest in C, I'd love to give it a shot...

 

By the way... regarding Ultravore: all the screenshots I've seen show the same two characters. Are these the only two in the game?

 

--Zero

---

 

There are some C libraries out there which help make some of the grunt work easier on the Lynx. I've never tackled comlynx code yet (!) so I can't comment on that. SFX, Ponx, and Remnant were all done mainly in C, so I think I've demonstrated that certain games can be done in C rather than asm on the Lynx.

 

Overall, I'd say the Lynx is not that hard to program for. Each sprite has a sprite control block (SCB) which defines the X,Y location, hscaling, vscaling, etc., so you simply update those values as needed. Remnant is a great example of a game written in C which uses lots of motion and scaling.

 

Check out Matthias' page (visit the Songbird "Links" page to get to it), he's got some great examples with source code on how to do simple sprite programs!

 

There are only two characters in Ultravore currently. We'd like to add a third, but already there's not much room in the ROM because the existing characters have so many (cool!) frames of animation...

 

Did I mention the characters have special moves?

[Ze_ro]

I've actually managed to get all the development programs working, and was able to write a program that drew some lines and boxes on the screen... which is already a lot more than I was ever able to do on the 2600 I'm a long way from writing a game (Let alone a fun game that people will enjoy), but hopefully I'll eventually get something worthwhile going. It's easier than I though

 

--Zero

[+Zeptari]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Bolid:

That Lynx pool game looks great (on your web page)! Is there any more info abou it. Also Stardreamer graphics is cool!

 

Is there chance that you will continue to make graphics for Lynx games? Maybe you can help to Carl Forhan about new games?!

---

 

The Pool game is just something I drew. A game I think the Lynx needs. I beleive the Lynx has the right 3D power to make this type of game playable. I'll keep dreaming...

Stardreamer is playable. If you find the .rom file online...and use the Handy emulator.

 

 

I'd love to! I work cheap too!

Carl's games are really polished, from what I've seen.

I'd like to work on some conversions of old games from the 80's. Arcade,2600,8bit computers....etc.

 

ze_ro: Go with berzerk!

 

[ 05-26-2002: Message edited by: Zeptari ]

[bergbros]

I hate to harp on this question but I am intrigued and no one has answered it yet. I really liked the 720 game when it was in the arcade and I saw that it was in the works for the Lynx judging from their literature, however it was never released. How far along was the project? Is there any ROM image of the game? Is anyone interested in doing it? How would it play on the Lynx? THe arcade had a unique joystick, which really is a paddle.

[Ze_ro]

Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has any real information on 720... info about Lynx prototypes seems to be rather hard to come by. I've seen a handful of screenshots in various advertisements, but they could easily have been mock-ups, so they're a bad indication of the progress. I'm not aware of any prototypes of this game either, so aside from actual Atari employees, I doubt anyone could say how far along it was.

 

As for the controls, the NES version moves you in the direction you press... whereas MAME uses up for forward, and left/right for turning. Which they would use on the Lynx is anyones guess. I haven't played this game enough to know which control method works best.

 

--Zero