KaeruYojimbo

Good players are going to figure that stuff out eventually. That's part of what makes them good players. They pay close attention to what's going on in a game to figure out every little thing that happens and any way they can get more points. Even stuff the developer doesn't realize is there. A few years ago a couple of High Score Club players found a bug in Ms. Galactopus that would sometimes give out a huge end of level bonus (and keep in mind that this was after the initial run of carts had been made and sold, so as far as I was concerned, this was a finished game, not a WIP). I tracked it down and fixed it before things got crazy, but if I hadn't I'm sure it wouldn't have been long before the best players figured out exactly how to trigger it consistently and get massive scores. So combine that with the fact that the top players are just flat out better at playing video games than I am and any advantage I have as the developer goes away pretty quickly. I'm pretty good at my games, partly because I know what's going on under the hood and partly because I spend a lot of time playing them during development, but I'm nowhere near the best.

You can choose to play as a female character in Penult.

Ms. Galactopus is the antagonist, not sure if that counts as a lead character. In Halloween you control Laurie Strode. Ladybug? I can't remeber if it specifically says your ladybug is a lady ladybug.

I'm interested in one.

I've heard worse. I almost went with Scroat Belly instead of Dead O. I hope you were you able to at least stay under the radar of the Monastat 7 lawyers.

I did, by chance, grow up in Wichita. But I never went to any shows at the Silver Bullet. What was your band called?

Local bands used to play shows at the Eagles Lodge in the town where I grew up and the bar was between the entrance and the area where the stage was, so you'd walk past 4-5 retired guys just sitting there quietly nursing beers while loud-ass music was coming from around the corner. I never heard any of them talk, but I always imagined any conversations went something like this: Eagle #1: What's this band called again? Eagle #2: Dead Orchestra Eagle #1: Jesus! They're name's as terrible as their music. Eagle #2: Yeah, but it's still better than listening to my sister-in-law talk about her cats. Anyway, music is definitely a shortcoming for Atari, but it isn't their Achilles Heel. A long history of poor management and terrible decisions is their Achilles Heel. Lack of music is just a by-product of that. We didn't really expect music in games in the 2600 and 5200 years, but by the late 80's it was becoming common. A sizeable chunk of the 7800 library is ports of old (even then) arcade games. Even with dedicated musicians and better sound hardware, I'm not so sure a lot of developers were going to think to add a soundtrack to ports of Galaga and Robotron.

I think pretty much everyone but Atari used channels 3/4. Where I lived channel 3 was the local NBC affiliate, so all of my consoles were on channel 4 except the 2600. To this day I can still tell you which channels were which networks where I grew up (3-NBC, 8-PBS, 10-ABC, 12-CBS), but because I use the onscreen menu to watch TV now, I struggle to remember which channel each network is on where I live now.

Here's the first update of 2024, if nothing else earning me a spot on the 2024 WIP list. There are two main changes. First, I removed the random level regeneration triggering room that I added in the last update. Second, rifts now appear at every level. They are stationary in the first level, so they can easily be avoided (or entered intentionally if you find yourself stuck and want to use them to jump to a different part of the level). I also updated Galactopus a little. He will now shoot at you (I can't remember if he could do that yet in the last update I posted, but he definitely can now). The game is very nearly finished at this point. I don't plan on making any more major changes or additions, just tweaks and bug fixes. Shattered Earth 20240306.bin

I thought of that after I posted, but VROOM only uses the buttons, not the rotary control and the QuadTari can only read the buttons. So VROOM works but you can't play Kaboom through a QuadTari.

No. There's an FAQ on the QuadTari website that should clear things up, but basically the problem here is you're assuming that the 2600 would "see" everything plugged into the QuadTari as being plugged into the left port, which isn't the case. For games that aren't written specifically for the QuadTari, port 1 equals the left port, port 2 equals the right port and ports 3 and 4 don't exist. And the whole thing is kind of moot anyway because the QuadTari doesn't support the paddles. An extension cable is a better solution to your problem if you don't want to replace your joystick cable.

I picked up Turbo Arcade at PRGE last year, but I haven't ordered anything from their website. Top quality cart and packaging (and, it goes without saying, the game on the cart is top quality too).

Bumper Bash uses the paddle controllers. Holding both buttons at the same time pulls back the plunger, releasing them launches the ball. The control scheme alone makes it my favorite pinball game on the 2600.

Game of the Bear and Game of the Bear 2 are both very good platformers.

I started working on a Pico-8 version of Galactopus last year. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to work on it after I finish some other projects.