Students Make Atari Games Look Like Atari Again
One of the main themes of Racing the Beam is the strong affinity between the Atari VCS and the CRT television. The system was designed around the TV and it interfaces with that display in an unusual and specific way.
In today's world of huge, sharp LCD monitors, it's hard to remember what a videogame image looked like on an ordinary television of the late 1970s. Emulators like Stella make it possible to play Atari games on modern computers, serving the function of archival tool, development platform, and player for these original games. But unfortunately, they also give an inaccurate impression of what Atari games looked like on a television.
An Atari game played on a television would exhibit a number of visual characteristics that cannot be seen on an LCD display:
Texture. The display itself is not constructed out of pixels like a monitor, but out of the phosphorescent glow of an electron beam as it shines through a focusing grate. The result produces slightly separated colored dots on the screen, which become less visible as the viewer moves away from the set.
Afterimage. The phosphor glow padding a bit of time to "burn off" and leaves more of an afterimage on the human retina compared to an LCD display. As a result, images might linger after they had moved or changed. Atari programmers took advantage of this feature to "flicker" objects between frames.
Color Bleed. The edges of sprites and scanlines appear as sharp edges in an emulator. But on a television, luminance from these areas would bleed into neighboring sectors, both softening the hard edges of pixel-objects and blending colors together.
Noise. A television transmission is sent via RF, so a natural amount of noise is introduced into the image ... this is hard to see in a normal TV broadcast, but the large, flat areas of color in a videogame will exhibit slight vibration.
Many of today's players may only experience Atari games in emulation. Indeed, many of my students may have little to no memory of CRT televisions at all. Given such factors, it seems even more important to improve the graphical accuracy of tools like Stella.
In Spring 2009, I tasked a Georgia Tech Computer Science capstone group to modify Stella, adding settings to simulate the CRT behaviors described above. The group consisted of five committed and talented CS seniors: Edward Booth, Michael Cook, Justin Dobbs, Will Rowland, and Prince Yang.
The results are, to my eyes, fantastic. Take a look at the before/after comparisons and you'll see the difference immediately (please click for full-resolution images; the results are harder to see scaled down).
Despite being mighty impressive, the results in a live game are far more remarkable. Edward and his colleagues have done a fantastic job.
They are currently working with the maintainer of the free, open-source Stella emulator to patch their changes into the main build, where the effects will be available as a configurable option. Expect to see it there shortly, where hopefully it will benefit players, creators, educators, and archivists alike. Given that we'll be placing the code back into Stella's repository, I'm also hopeful that this software might be extended for use in other emulators for computer systems that used televisions as their primary output.
Link: http://www.digitallounge.gatech.edu/gaming/index.html?id=2824
Penguicon 7.0 Highlights
Day Two...
Jeff and I grabbed some lunch, then returned to the con to the Atari 2600 competition. This was supposed to be a showdown between Wil Wheaton and Linux Journal editor Shawn Powers on the game Combat. Wheaton's substitute didn't show up either, so members of the audience took on Shawn while Scalzi did the play by play. I was surprised how much fun it was to watch two people play an ancient game. It kept us entertained for 45 minutes.
Link: http://www.bbspot.com/News/2009/05/penguicon-highlights.html
The Only Atari Jaguar Game of 2009
After six years of development that began eight years after its platform stopped being manufactured, Mad Bodies will be released on the Atari Jaguar this year.
Remember the Atari Jaguar? One of those systems best left forgotten, like the Virtual Boy or the Sega 32X. Most of us only remember it as a joke, but these days you'll find people who are devoted to any consumer relic of times gone by, and the Jaguar is no different. Take the fine folks of FORCE Design, for instance. They've been working on a Jaguar game for six years now, and, now, finally, it's ready for the world.
It's called Mad Bodies, and it's a cross between a top down shoot-em-up and Breakout (you know, that arcade game where you bounce a ball to break down walls, like vertical Pong). Mad Bodies, FORCE Design writes, "will always get some bodies mad. It wouldn't be Mad Bodies if nobodies get mad!!"
These guys have been working on a Jaguar game for more than half a decade. You shouldn't be surprised that they're a little bit crazy.
The premise for the game's just as incomprehensible. A new evil is threatening the safety of the galaxy, and it's up to heroes like ETHunter, Thunderbird and uh, Wes, to stop Graphics Man from destroying the world. How to stop said Graphics Man? Why "enter the Dark Knight Games tournment co-hosted by Dave Vaporware," of course.
Mad Bodies features 10 stages, "excellent sfx" and "cool bosses." Pre-ordering the game will cost you $80, plus shipping.
Link: http://www.madbodies.com/
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx70z7Ic4sY
From: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/91533-The-Only-Atari-Jagu...
2600 Connection May/June 2009
The May/June 2009 issue of 2600 Connection newsletter is now available. Features in this latest issue (#99) include:
* Celebrity Endorsed 2600
* CGE 2K DVD Set Review
* Just Like The Real Arcade Game – Tapper, Space Invaders
* Rare Ware – Video Jogger / Video Reflex
* Fathom (2600) Map – Tips & Strategy
* Letters
* News & Notes
* Classified Ads
The 2600 Connection is a printed newsletter published bimonthly. To learn how to purchase this issue or buy a subscription, please visit the 2600 Connection website.
Link: http://2600connection.atari.org/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
Retrogaming Times Monthly #60 Published
The May 2009 issue of Retrogaming Times Monthly has been published. This month's issue (#60) has some new authors, new columns and ten articles:
* Laughing Pixels (Tom Zjaba's VG comics)
* RTM Idiocy - The Misadventures Of PIGBEAR
* Apple ][ Incider - GBA Championship Basketball (Apple IIGS Version)
* The Thrill Of Defeat - Pleasure & Punishment On The Unexpanded Timex
Sinclair 1000
* Videological Dig - 1983 Atarisoft Radio Commercial
* Gaming Studies With The Tomy Tutor: Car-Azy Racer
* Game Reviews Go On The Air
* Phoenix Is My Game! What Is Your Game?
* Creating Atari 2600 Games With Batari BASIC
You can read these articles and more inside the Retrogaming Times Monthly, now running 140 months in a row! You can also browse their archives to catch up on past issues.
Link: http://www.retrogamingtimes.com/
From: http://www.atariage.com/
Demo In Paris 2.0
Hello / Sector One writes:
DEMO IN PARIS 2
The second edition of DEMO IN PARIS has just been announced with a lot of news ... and with the same organizers (hello Popsy Team / Sector One)
It will take place on 15 May 2009 in the canteen (Paris).
Link: http://www.popsyteam.org/demoinparis2/
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
[JagCD] Orion_'s Jaguar Collection
I'm very proud to introduce what I consider my masterpiece in homebrew game programming. This is a Jaguar CD compilation of 8 Jaguar Games/Prototypes/Intros I made during the last 3 years I spent on Jaguar programming. All this selectable by a nice presentation menu.
I put a lot of time and effort in making and polishing this compilation, I'm giving it to you for free, and I hope you will really enjoy it. Have fun !
You will find the following:
Osmozys Final:
-The Final version of my game Osmozys, a 3D puzzle game featuring:
->A completely made-from-scratch 3D engine.
->6 wide HiColor raytraced scrolling backgrounds.
->6 Hi-Quality Audio CD tracks.
->25 Complete levels with difficulty ranging from easy to hard.
->User-friendly controls using an easy-to-use Camera Rotation System.
(L/R ProController compatible)
and also, Osmozys JagCode Version, a fixed version of DiamJag and JungleJag !
as well as 2 exclusives beta of SeaPlane ! an unfinished game that was planned for the JagCF.
plus 2 little extra intros..
Link: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=143536
From: http://www.dhs.nu/
Pressure Cooker - Atari 2600
Well, I don't know what it is about burgers and video games. Apparently they are a great thing to have in them, whether they are a item that you can collect for points or a health boost, they seem to very popular.
This game I owned on the Atari 2600. The premise was really simple and I think it could translate well to many of the 99cents games that people buy. You were give a list below of 4 items that were thrown at you. God only knows why the food came hurling out at you, couldn't he just run to the other side and pick it up?!! So you have to catch a bun, put it on the conveyor, then get what ever if not all 4 items on the burger and topped off with the top of the bun before it fell off the conveyor. Then you took that burger and put in a colored bag below the main screen . After you got all the bags(orders) filled you made it past the level. Pretty simple, simple fun.
This was a great game, easy to play, easy to get into, if you didn't need the item being thrown at you, you could hold the button and the item would bounce off of you and back at the guy who threw it at you to begin with. So the further you got into the game, the faster and larger the orders became.
The music for this game, (that's right music, there was a great little tune that played at the beginning of the game. But then it turned into the same 5 beats over and over again.) was a catchy little tune and for an Atari 2600 game to have music. WOW!!!!
Atari was great for having badges, that if you got a certain high score, you could take a Polaroid of your TV screen showing the high score, mail it off and they would send you a iron-on badge to go on your cool acid wash jean jacket. I personally never mailed any of my high scores away. For one, my mom would say, "What a waste to take a picture of the TV and then pay to mail it away. Don't you know we only have 4 pictures left on the Polaroid?!!Are you crazy Boy!!!"
Needless to say, my acid wash jean jacket was bare. But if you are looking for a great little addictive game to play for 15-20 min. Then this is a must in the food game dept.
6/10
Link: http://pacroid.blogspot.com/2009/05/pressure-cooker-atari-2600.html
Old Atari game makes for new iPirates
The creator of iCombat weighed in with his thoughts on newly-popular piracy of iPhone apps with an interesting conclusion: It's not worth the trouble to police the pirates, and they might even prove helpful.
iCombat, a take on Combat for Atari 2600 (that we quite liked), suffered from a huge ratio of pirates to legitimate users: Nearly 5:1 for the app's first week before levelling out to about 1:1 later. That's right, five times as many pirates as paying users.
Link: http://www.icombatgame.com/2009/05/08/my-experience-getting-owned-b...
From: http://gizmodo.com/5247023/an-iphone-app-developers-take-on-piracy-...
Atari Joystick Belt Buckle
This is a Belt Buckle which was made in the shape of an old style Joystick controller. This Joystick Belt Buckle color is silver. It will fit most belts.
Link: http://www.stylinonline.com/bucatarijoystick.html
From: http://pumacomics.ods.org/2009/05/Atari-Joystick-Belt-Buckle/
