an idea ...

[kencrisis]

I had an idea tonight, and searched AA and could not find anything like it. I've only been back into the 2600 and on AA for 6 months now, so forgive me if this has already been discussed or if there's already something like this out there.

 

The problem: you grab a game from your growing collection that you haven't played in a while and can't remember what the A/B switches do. You just want to play, but you have to go look for your manual, or look it up on AA and read through the manual to find the A/B switch information (it always seems to be in a different place in the manual depending on the game, doesn't it?).

 

Now, while I have a real love for my manuals and spend a lot of time pouring over them for fun on its own, sometimes you just want to play and don't want to waste any time.

 

My solution: SwitchBase, an online database devoted solely to collecting and displaying what the A/B switches do on 2600 games. I envision a simple page with a search field and a text box below that pops up a short description of the relevant information.

 

What are your thoughts on this? Would you find this useful? Ideas on implementing it? (While I make my living maintaining a non-profit Web site, my experience is pretty lo-fi and I would have to do some research on how to make this as fast, easy and pleasing as possible.)

[Albert]

If someone wanted to put together a list of what the difficulty switches do for each game, I would be happy to add a "Difficulty Switches" entry to each 2600 game in the database. For instance, the Adventure entry could have this,

 

Difficulty Switches

When the Left Difficulty switch is in the B position, the Dragons will hesitate before they bite you. Therefore, when the left difficulty switch is in the A position, it is more difficult to escape them.

 

Or something along those lines. I don't have time to dig through all the manuals to gather this information, but it would not take me long at all to add to the site if it was handed to me in a consistent form, preferrably sorted alphabetically by name.

 

..Al

[kencrisis]

I would be happy to collect, filter and edit the information for this. To avoid the potential of having this thread explode, I suggest that everyone PM me or send an email to info@sillybirdrecords.com.

 

To make this as easy as possible on Albert, I'd like to send him one big batch of info. So, let's set a deadline for this of 2/1/05. Albert: sticky?

 

Of course, I assume that information may come in after that date (and ther could possibly be arguments over the "better explanation," so I'd like to keep it to the actual manual text unless you REALLY KNOW you're text is superior. Albert, if you have any other ideas on how to make this easy for you, let me know.

[kencrisis]

OK, and it anyone wants to jibe me about my editing abilities based on the problems in that last post, it's really late and I'm off to bed. Hopefully 12 years as a copyeditor will prove effective. (Just wanted to diffuse a potential for jokesterism.)