Battle for Asciion is so text-based that it includes a unique feature we call Textshot™.
Instead of saving screenshots as images, Textshot™ captures the current frame and saves it as a plain .TXT file containing the actual ASCII characters displayed on screen.
That's just awesome on a fresh level. I wonder if this is a standard 80 column screen, which would mean 25 lines tall. Being pure text screams to be ported to some retro systems. But, I don't think most of them could handle 80x25 text modes. Although this appears to be fully mono color. The C128 for sure. I think I remember the c64 being able to do 80 with some tricks, but not native. This would be a perfect game for the Commander X16. Someone tag The 8-Bit Guy.
Eh, on second thought, looking at Relevo's other games, I'll wait until some reviews circulate first. Their MO seems to be fun ideas with weak execution.
Love content like this from Time Extension. What a great read. I have found memories of the Exodus soundtrack. I still listen to the C64 version randomly. It's just so good.
I'm glad you said the quiet part out loud. If it wasn't for the IP, most of these games are just barely meh. Some don't/aren't able to use much of the IP designs to even really make it feel like the game is connected to the story. Looked up some gameplay video for M3, and ya that's not great. If they designed this game after the actually decent Ironman game, that might be worth checking out. But, not this, which is sad.
This make more sense now. But, is no better outcome. I think the era of home replica of these machine is over. It really scratched the itch, but prices have climbed and floor space is limited. I think the market is saturated with their current approach.
The only way forward is compilations, which is less attractive to license holders; less money for them. I think this is going to end up a multi-year fad and its time is over.
Are we sure it was technically the biggest? Those ones done with building lights are pretty big. Just because they used 2000 drones, doesn't automatically equate to biggest.
I'm waiting for someone to hack an entire city's grid and program it to be played from the ISS. THAT would be the biggest.
Surprised more hasn't been said about this. It's been covered in some blogs. John Diamonon was the former Senior Vice President of Licensing and Business Development. He was the guy that setup most of the key license deals. He left in 2023. That's why we haven't seen anything exciting from them in years. Without new exciting products, everyone just stopped caring. But, the other real truth is that you can only sell so many of these cabinets to the same market so many times. Unless you have a large unused space, most people don't have room for more than one or two of these things. How do you choose which one to take up precious living room space with?
Also, after awhile, you kinda get tired of playing the same game. A week, a month, a few months, we all eventually get bored with a game. Then you have the thing sitting there taking up floorspace. Most people can't keep buying new ones due to limited space.
I always thought they would have done better as an interchangeable platform. You invest in the cabinet and controls, which maybe the controls can be swapped out, and you buy or sub licenses for the games. I'm not sure how the business model would work so it doesn't suck for either side. Key point is that customers need rotating selection, and the business has to be able to make enough money per title to obtain new licenses. That business development would have to involve a combination of initial payment plus royalties. You'd need operating capital for that initial payment and structure to maintain the mess of royalties across multiple titles and publishers.
I was going to say something to tie-in with Christmas, which would be Christmas Lemmings. LOL. But, y'all have made some really good comments about how Japanese developer focus the whole series has been. So, that's not a solid guess. If they're going to keep to Japan based developers, digging in with chatgpt, I was directed to Universal Entertainment being the odd man out. So, Mr. Do! it is.
The other one was Technōs Japan for Double Dragon. But, seeing how they are actively releasing DD games this probably isn't it.
I think there is significant business challenge in the retro market. No one really knows how long the market will last. Will Millennials want 70/80s retro, move on to their own era or retro, or not care about real hardware and be totally find with pure emulation?
I've written my opinion on this situation before. If that Italian company was making more than random accessories with the brand name, I'd be more considerate of their situation. But, they're producing garbage products that have little to do with the core brand identity. Legally, that's probably not a valid argument against. But, we're talking public opinion here; which appears to be against them.
Hopefully things get resolved while we're alive and care. I'm sure we'd all love to see the Amiga get a real hardware product like this. I kinda miss being able to slap a 3.5" in and just boot to a game bypassing workbench completely.
@hste Oh ya the play and charge kit was garbage. I had several so my friends and I could play multiplayer Halo together. They didn't last a year, or about a year. I went back to batteries and then to rechargeable ones.
I'm still death gripping an OG wired 360 controller on my PC. I'm actively looking for a backup wired controller. Clicky dpads are no-go for me.
Yeah, only way I finished Xenon/2 was with a trainer. I tried to play w/o, really did. But, if you really wanted to get to the end it was the only way to do it.
If I'm following along accurately, this only affects the European market. It certainly does not affect the US. Not sure about other territories.
My opinion, but I don't have must respect for these guys if they're okay with slapping the name on just about any random thing. I assume they've had zero involvement in the community, and I haven't read they had any interest in obtaining the actual IP. So, it's just a name to them that they're willing to slap on random accessories for no real reason other than a license fee.
Unfortunately, I assume none of this would matter in court about trying to pull the license from them. Hopefully they can avoid a nasty court battle, but maybe they have some creative ideas about how to skirt the territory license thing.
I loved the original game. I know the combat was shallower than other fighters, but I enjoyed the characters and the environments. It was a lot of fun as a system launch title. I think I played BAT2. Kinda fuzzy on that. I never did play BAT3.
I'd probably pick this up just to remember the old game. I doubt I remember any of the move or strategies at all.
Fiscal 2026 release? ugh, I'm going to forget about this before then.
I'd think the first real war might be Atari, Intellivision and Colecovision. AT least, I remember having those kinds of debates at school. Wasn't much of a heated war like what started later by Nintendo and Sega. I'd say that was the first major console war.
The issue is that it feels like he never learned, or matured as the result of these misses. It makes me not want to trust that he will deliver on his promises. Full credit for what he's done in the past. Yes, the industry really needs minds like him. But, we need the mind to mature. Or, at least pair him with someone to help guide the project.
I'd be eager to see what his next idea is, but I have little faith that it'll be something I'll want to play. I hope I'm wrong.
Maybe allow him to do the design stage of a return to Populous, but then hand it over to someone else to do the development? Put him more in a kind of executive procedure role a little removed from the project? IDK, just spit balling because we love his ideas, but not his execution.
@slider1983 He's mentioned they are trying to explore Amiga as well, but clearly the focus is the original Commodore IP for now. I think that's the right move. Especially with the Mini already on the market for a while now. A new product really has to make sense. I guess going FPGA would make the most sense. But, at least in my friend group, I don't remember anyone having accessories behind a disk/hard drive. Accelerator cards wouldn't make sense; just integrate that capability into the fpga package.
Super curious what a new Amiga product would even be beyond what we have with the A500/A1200 line of thinking.
I like this more now. The price and features feels like a good balance to me. Including that Settlers port is genius. Not sure I'll pre-order it, but this could end up on the short list for Christmas.
I have no idea what games to explore outside of the usual A500 hit list. It would be fun to explore games I never played.
Hmm, was there A1200 specific tracker? After tracker music got a foothold on the PC I lost track of the community on the Amiga.
The real test will be to throw classic demoscene stuff at it and see how it handles all the code tricks. DOSBox takes tweaks to get some of the effects to work on some demos.
I still remember when Out of this World and Flashback came out. So blown away at the rotoscope technique and how well systems were able to pull it off. I kept thinking why more games didn't do this to get better animation. Well, it's more expensive to have more frames of animation, duh. Didn't realize that back as a kid. I haven't played the game in a few decades. If I remember right, the gameplay itself wasn't stellar. Story was ok. It was the graphics and animation that really sold the game. Might be worth a quick replay. Hmm, did I actually finish this game? Can't recall how it ended, so maybe I didn't.
I am blown away at that trailer. To achieve the techniques there demands total mastery of the system and its architecture. The game loop seen here is pretty good for a 2600 game. I'm just blown away at the graphics he was able to achieve. I like, want to buy it just to study how he did it all. Mad respect.
Roger Dean artwork off Pysgnosis games is probably the first time I looked up an artist. I loved his cover art. It was also the first time I ever bought an art book. It was more than just his designs for the games. It was so fascinating to get a view into how art was made. When generative AI first hit the scene to produce images, making art in his style was first thing I tried. I was kinda surprised when the output actually had some semblance of his style from the cover art.
Digital distribution - oh, I miss really great box art. It's one of the big downfalls of going pure digital distribution.
Hopefully I'm just really tired from work. The movement kinda hurts my eyes. I think it's the screen movement, not the character animation. I like the art direction. I think games like this really need to have their trailers be 60fps, unless the game only runs in 30fps. Which, in that case, pass. But, the animations are nice.
That looks like a ton of fun. Wonder where I put my old original game and box. Hope we don't have to wait soon. I agree with the comment above that it looks like static object vs characters seem to benefit more from the conversion.
I loved the arcade original. But, it cost too much for me to play enough to git gud at it. I keep wanting to pick up modern takes on the genre, but never pull the trigger. Wonder if there's some variant on the fall Steam sale?
FF was the one early game that really sold me that the SNES was able to bring the arcade experience home. The NES never really did that for me. But this game really felt like I was close to the arcade version. Didn't offer multiplayer, etc, but had enough of the enemies, stages, colors, music and sound effects to give me some of the arcade vibe.
Porting this to G/MD would be a fun ride. It's pretty well covered now on how the system could do some things better than the SNES, so I'm eager to see how this plays out. If it really is free, that would be awesome to kick around in an emulator.
I'd totally forgotten about this game. I only played it a few times, but had a blast with it. Now in the back of my mind I also remember playing like a C64 game that was similar, but the title won't come to me.
I wonder if they might do a compellation pack or two at some point. The license on that might be a nightmare though especially if they tried to mix publishers.
I kinda want this for what it is. But, I can tell just looking at the photos that it's not ergonomic at all. I prob couldn't play on it for more than 30-45min before I'd need to take a break. But, then again, for these games, that's how you're supposed to do it. Pick-up-and play for a bit and then put it back down. Price isn't unreasonable either. If they're still around close to Christmas, this might end up on the list. But, the controls better work well so best to wait a bit anyways.
@MagicSN First and foremost, thank you for working on the port. I'd love to hear anything you can share with us on how that came to be. I really would not have thought Ubisoft would have allowed someone to work on the IP like that. KUDOS!
I didn't mean any offense in my comments. I think i didn't communicate my intent well. I wasn't talking as much about the A500 spec, but more about what the longer road would have been had the system lived on and the ideas behind the tech. Amiga with its dedicated chips, etc vs what the PC was and it's component design.
Do you receive royalties from sales through link in the article? I'll gladly buy a copy to support your work.
In Dallas, TX USA there are a number of these retro arcades. We even have a few of them as local chains. My favorite is Free Play. https://freeplayinc.com/
They have a pretty good formula for how to make this work. He's got a balance of real classic hardware, some newer machines, good food (won a few award for the paninis) and a mix of can and tap beers. But, even he's had some struggles. One location didn't work out and he had to recently relaunch it as a Japanese focused arcade called Tokyo Station. Each location does a lot to build community with various tournaments on pinball and some of the competitive games, etc. He's even had some game devs visit the locations like John Newcomer, develop of Joust, for one tournament.
He also throws a lot of shade at other business that over rely on emulation and garbage food/drink. But, I get that given he's been able to get a lot of recognition for doing those things so well. So far Free Play has been around for several years and most locations are doing well. Unlimited play on some of the newer Stern Pinball tables? YES, PLEASE!
The distribution/port strategy is becoming odd given how much all the consoles are basically becoming PCs. I wonder if it's how the platforms treat the publishing, or maybe a hangup about Gamepass. There's been a lot more being said from devs about GP and it's not all good. Hopefully MS can keep working out the issues so the model is sustainable. It's a great value for gamers. Maybe not as much for publishers and devs right now.
The library of TG16/PCE CD RPGs always made me cry a little that never did get my hands on a system and player. I also missed out on the mini from a few years ago. I don't really have the time now to get into those old title, but this is neat that some of those title I always hoped I would get to play might be available.
AI translation should make it a no-brainer to do translation for titles like these. I've been watching Crunchyroll use AI translation more and more. It does ok. As long as you stop to load some token for the character names so it doesn't change the spelling on every occurrence, it's not so bad. Too bad it doesn't look like CR does that. Still has a ways to go to match a human translation and proofing. I expect AI will get there in a year or two with enough training.
@gingerbeardman That's about what I would expect at the price point. If you figure early Samsung phones with their AMOLED screens had that rez for a while, I always thought they were pretty good. It was hard to see the pixels. The base screen tech combined with image processing should make this mostly a non-issue.
@montrayjak Yup. DPI is going to be a key stat, but there are also image processing tricks that could be used to help boost the visual to appear sharper; edge enhancement and all the usual tricks. But, hopefully a real high rez screen is going to be used. Although, with the prices mentioned here, I kinda doubt it. Unless they are just being really generous on the Kickstarter pricing, that seems a little too cheap for a seriously nice screen to do super clean pseudo vectors. But, "good enough" with visual tricks should be fine. Problem is, it'll be hard to really show that in a video unless they record the screen itself instead of doing the normal screen capture.
I know exactly what you mean. This game was such an experience when it came out. The music, the art/graphics, level design with the mode 7 stuff and variations on gameplay due to more system power, etc. It all just hit perfectly. But really, the music especially was HUGE for the time. I still fire up Simon's Theme extended on YT from time to time. The music on the SNES was such a leap forward and it really made an impression on me. For me, the music and audio really set the mood for so many excellent SNES games, and Super Castlevania is right at the top of that list. So many memories. I didn't stay tuned into the IP though. I keep thinking about checking out newer titles. There are certainly several that standout that I should probably look at. But, there's just magic of the time and era that probably helped the SNES version just hit perfectly for younger me.
An R-Type tactics game? I'm super intrigued by this concept. Though, I can't imagine the game play being overly satisfying for either genre fans. Will certainly keep an eye out for this, but will totally wait for a review and hopefully a demo.
I need to get one thing off my chest though. The music in Super R-Type on the SNES is far superior to any of the recent remakes. I get that it's probably the nostalgia talking, but it just hits so right compared to like R-Type Dimension EX. The game play is fine in that one, but the music just doesn't hold up in to my rose colored glasses. I want better music.
I wish I had the money for this. Can you imagine what the demoscene could do with this thing, AND the lights on top of that? I hope he's able to keep the energy up, but I'm wiling to bet his channel is probably going to suffer if he isn't able to get help pretty soon. I'm sure his CEO duties will consume the majority of his time. Plus, he has a toddler and a wife - maybe even baby fractic 2 before too long (?). Anyways, def following this thing pretty closely. Wish I had some spare funds to mess with it. Maybe one of these future products. Would an Amiga one push me over? not sure.
I'm going to side step the topic of physical for now. I like the question about what used to make games fun. It's something my friend and I have talked about multiple times. We're just not having as much with newer games like we used to. One thing we feel is a factor is that newer games have way too many systems. And that's kind of a two fold problem as we see it. One, it just takes too much time investment to get into a game. This is a combination of ageism as we're both parents now and are established in our careers, etc, and a shift far away from the more pick-up-and-play mentality of earlier gaming. Which is exactly what Atari has been focusing on more; with mixed success. We like the deeper story stuff than early gaming. We enjoy the tech and new mechanics, etc. It's just there's too much fluff and added detractors like DLC/IAP, etc. that get in the way of the core of the gameplay.
So, if this guy thinks he make games that gets back to the core, then I'm all for wishing him well. I guess a retro console is probably a good place to start so that technical limitations will force you to keep ideas and scale in check. The near limitless resources of modern systems means you can easily make a game too big and degrade a good idea so easily. I won't back their kickstarter, but I will follow to see the ideas turn out.
@Razieluigi My thoughts as well. And, their IP titles were often pretty weak. Rushed cash grabs if I remember correctly.
If they want to be a publisher and work with Indie, this goes back to my question about what does it mean to be Indie? I keep wondering if what we're really talking about is non-AAA games. A A A would imply there are A and AA games, but the media and trade press never uses those labels.
Personally, I'm not expecting anything impressive. Unless they have at least two key IPs they were able to secure, it probably wasn't worth reviving the brand name just to work with Indie developers. Better uses for that money I would expect.
@littlemisskittn The idea behind the X16 is most certainly niche. Its audience is going to be a mix of developers who enjoy the challenge of the spec limits to develop a project around, or enthusiasts that want to try to capture some of the spirit of the era. I want to be in the former group - I think I would enjoy that challenge, but I'm not. And, when I try to revisit older games, it's for 20min and I'm done. I like the idea of the X16, and I support the concept for those that would, but I passed on it.
There are a number of title I'm a little surprised are not listed. A few may bring up the question of what is considered Indie. But, I will say I am very glad to see That Dragon, Cancer. It a whole different thing all together. I could never play it. It's too powerful pulling on my heart strings. That said, I'd say most of these titles deserve to be included.
Comments 276
Re: Battle for Asciion Is A New Gradius & R-Type-Style Shooter, Created Entirely Out Of ASCII Text
Serious LOL
Battle for Asciion is so text-based that it includes a unique feature we call Textshot™.
Instead of saving screenshots as images, Textshot™ captures the current frame and saves it as a plain .TXT file containing the actual ASCII characters displayed on screen.
That's just awesome on a fresh level. I wonder if this is a standard 80 column screen, which would mean 25 lines tall. Being pure text screams to be ported to some retro systems. But, I don't think most of them could handle 80x25 text modes. Although this appears to be fully mono color. The C128 for sure. I think I remember the c64 being able to do 80 with some tricks, but not native. This would be a perfect game for the Commander X16. Someone tag The 8-Bit Guy.
Eh, on second thought, looking at Relevo's other games, I'll wait until some reviews circulate first. Their MO seems to be fun ideas with weak execution.
Re: "It Was Exciting & Terrifying" — The Ultima Legend Who Taught Computers To Sing
Love content like this from Time Extension. What a great read. I have found memories of the Exodus soundtrack. I still listen to the C64 version randomly. It's just so good.
Re: Almost 37 Years Later, Toaplan's Classic Shoot 'Em Up 'Zero Wing' Is Getting An Unofficial Port To The Neo Geo
He needs to include the meme video for great justice.
Re: Japan Dreamcast Exclusive 'Macross M3' Gets An English Translation
I'm glad you said the quiet part out loud. If it wasn't for the IP, most of these games are just barely meh. Some don't/aren't able to use much of the IP designs to even really make it feel like the game is connected to the story. Looked up some gameplay video for M3, and ya that's not great. If they designed this game after the actually decent Ironman game, that might be worth checking out. But, not this, which is sad.
Re: Reports Suggest Arcade1Up Has Been Purchased By Basic Fun
This make more sense now. But, is no better outcome. I think the era of home replica of these machine is over. It really scratched the itch, but prices have climbed and floor space is limited. I think the market is saturated with their current approach.
The only way forward is compilations, which is less attractive to license holders; less money for them. I think this is going to end up a multi-year fad and its time is over.
Re: "One Of A Kind" - The Largest Game Of Tetris Has Just Been Played With The Help Of Over 2000 Synchronized Drones
@The_Nintendo_Expat
"in the sky"
ya, that might qualify with that narrowing.
Re: "One Of A Kind" - The Largest Game Of Tetris Has Just Been Played With The Help Of Over 2000 Synchronized Drones
Are we sure it was technically the biggest? Those ones done with building lights are pretty big. Just because they used 2000 drones, doesn't automatically equate to biggest.
I'm waiting for someone to hack an entire city's grid and program it to be played from the ISS. THAT would be the biggest.
Re: Reports Suggest Arcade1Up Is Shutting Down
Surprised more hasn't been said about this. It's been covered in some blogs. John Diamonon was the former Senior Vice President of Licensing and Business Development. He was the guy that setup most of the key license deals. He left in 2023. That's why we haven't seen anything exciting from them in years. Without new exciting products, everyone just stopped caring. But, the other real truth is that you can only sell so many of these cabinets to the same market so many times. Unless you have a large unused space, most people don't have room for more than one or two of these things. How do you choose which one to take up precious living room space with?
Also, after awhile, you kinda get tired of playing the same game. A week, a month, a few months, we all eventually get bored with a game. Then you have the thing sitting there taking up floorspace. Most people can't keep buying new ones due to limited space.
I always thought they would have done better as an interchangeable platform. You invest in the cabinet and controls, which maybe the controls can be swapped out, and you buy or sub licenses for the games. I'm not sure how the business model would work so it doesn't suck for either side. Key point is that customers need rotating selection, and the business has to be able to make enough money per title to obtain new licenses. That business development would have to involve a combination of initial payment plus royalties. You'd need operating capital for that initial payment and structure to maintain the mess of royalties across multiple titles and publishers.
Re: The Company Behind Arcade Archives Is Teasing Something Big For Its 500th Release
I was going to say something to tie-in with Christmas, which would be Christmas Lemmings. LOL. But, y'all have made some really good comments about how Japanese developer focus the whole series has been. So, that's not a solid guess. If they're going to keep to Japan based developers, digging in with chatgpt, I was directed to Universal Entertainment being the odd man out. So, Mr. Do! it is.
The other one was Technōs Japan for Double Dragon. But, seeing how they are actively releasing DD games this probably isn't it.
Re: Commodore International Says Commodore Industries Trademarks Are "Invalid"
I think there is significant business challenge in the retro market. No one really knows how long the market will last. Will Millennials want 70/80s retro, move on to their own era or retro, or not care about real hardware and be totally find with pure emulation?
I've written my opinion on this situation before. If that Italian company was making more than random accessories with the brand name, I'd be more considerate of their situation. But, they're producing garbage products that have little to do with the core brand identity. Legally, that's probably not a valid argument against. But, we're talking public opinion here; which appears to be against them.
Hopefully things get resolved while we're alive and care. I'm sure we'd all love to see the Amiga get a real hardware product like this. I kinda miss being able to slap a 3.5" in and just boot to a game bypassing workbench completely.
Re: This New NES Game Mixes Arkanoid With Castlevania To Create A Genre We Didn't Know We Needed
"A Genre We Didn't Know We Needed" - huh, ya, I kinda agree. $10 CAD. Not a terrible price either.
Re: This New Robin Hood Game For The Commodore 64 Looks Seriously Impressive
Saw the trailer earlier this week. Looks really good. I might just need to pick this up if only to support the developer and the community at large.
Re: "Her Last, Now Forever Unfinished Project" - The Late Rebecca Heineman Was Working On A Dragon Wars Remaster
Great to learn she was keeping busy. I really like the character design seen here.
I keep hoping we'll find a cure or preventative for cancer in my lifetime.
Re: Review: Retro Fighters Hunter 360 - The Perfect Replacement For Your Battered Original
@hste Oh ya the play and charge kit was garbage. I had several so my friends and I could play multiplayer Halo together. They didn't last a year, or about a year. I went back to batteries and then to rechargeable ones.
I'm still death gripping an OG wired 360 controller on my PC. I'm actively looking for a backup wired controller. Clicky dpads are no-go for me.
Re: "Games Were Pretty Hostile" - Duke Nukem Co-Creator Reveals How The Bitmap Brothers Turned Him On To Cheat Codes
Yeah, only way I finished Xenon/2 was with a trainer. I tried to play w/o, really did. But, if you really wanted to get to the end it was the only way to do it.
Re: Commodore Industries Is Trying To Prevent The Revived Commodore International From Using The Iconic Name
If I'm following along accurately, this only affects the European market. It certainly does not affect the US. Not sure about other territories.
My opinion, but I don't have must respect for these guys if they're okay with slapping the name on just about any random thing. I assume they've had zero involvement in the community, and I haven't read they had any interest in obtaining the actual IP. So, it's just a name to them that they're willing to slap on random accessories for no real reason other than a license fee.
Unfortunately, I assume none of this would matter in court about trying to pull the license from them. Hopefully they can avoid a nasty court battle, but maybe they have some creative ideas about how to skirt the territory license thing.
Re: The Battle Arena Toshinden Trilogy Is Coming To Modern Platforms
I loved the original game. I know the combat was shallower than other fighters, but I enjoyed the characters and the environments. It was a lot of fun as a system launch title. I think I played BAT2. Kinda fuzzy on that. I never did play BAT3.
I'd probably pick this up just to remember the old game. I doubt I remember any of the move or strategies at all.
Fiscal 2026 release? ugh, I'm going to forget about this before then.
Re: Random: GameStop Drops A Clanger After Declaring The Console Wars "Over"
I'd think the first real war might be Atari, Intellivision and Colecovision. AT least, I remember having those kinds of debates at school. Wasn't much of a heated war like what started later by Nintendo and Sega. I'd say that was the first major console war.
Re: Peter Molyneux Thinks It Could Be "Wonderful" To Revisit One Of His Most Infamous Projects With Today's Tech
The issue is that it feels like he never learned, or matured as the result of these misses. It makes me not want to trust that he will deliver on his promises. Full credit for what he's done in the past. Yes, the industry really needs minds like him. But, we need the mind to mature. Or, at least pair him with someone to help guide the project.
I'd be eager to see what his next idea is, but I have little faith that it'll be something I'll want to play. I hope I'm wrong.
Maybe allow him to do the design stage of a return to Populous, but then hand it over to someone else to do the development? Put him more in a kind of executive procedure role a little removed from the project? IDK, just spit balling because we love his ideas, but not his execution.
Re: Pricing And Release Date Revealed For Full-Size Amiga Replica 'THE A1200'
@slider1983 He's mentioned they are trying to explore Amiga as well, but clearly the focus is the original Commodore IP for now. I think that's the right move. Especially with the Mini already on the market for a while now. A new product really has to make sense. I guess going FPGA would make the most sense. But, at least in my friend group, I don't remember anyone having accessories behind a disk/hard drive. Accelerator cards wouldn't make sense; just integrate that capability into the fpga package.
Super curious what a new Amiga product would even be beyond what we have with the A500/A1200 line of thinking.
Re: Pricing And Release Date Revealed For Full-Size Amiga Replica 'THE A1200'
I like this more now. The price and features feels like a good balance to me. Including that Settlers port is genius. Not sure I'll pre-order it, but this could end up on the short list for Christmas.
I have no idea what games to explore outside of the usual A500 hit list. It would be fun to explore games I never played.
Hmm, was there A1200 specific tracker? After tracker music got a foothold on the PC I lost track of the community on the Amiga.
Re: DOSBox Pure "Unleashed" As A Free Standalone App Available Outside Of RetroArch
3dfx Voodoo? You have my attention.
The real test will be to throw classic demoscene stuff at it and see how it handles all the code tricks. DOSBox takes tweaks to get some of the effects to work on some demos.
Re: '90s Classic Flashback Gets (Unofficially) Ported To Sega Saturn
I still remember when Out of this World and Flashback came out. So blown away at the rotoscope technique and how well systems were able to pull it off. I kept thinking why more games didn't do this to get better animation. Well, it's more expensive to have more frames of animation, duh. Didn't realize that back as a kid. I haven't played the game in a few decades. If I remember right, the gameplay itself wasn't stellar. Story was ok. It was the graphics and animation that really sold the game. Might be worth a quick replay. Hmm, did I actually finish this game? Can't recall how it ended, so maybe I didn't.
Re: Creator Of Pitfall! Returns To The Atari 2600 With Rescue From Poseidon's Gate
I am blown away at that trailer. To achieve the techniques there demands total mastery of the system and its architecture. The game loop seen here is pretty good for a 2600 game. I'm just blown away at the graphics he was able to achieve. I like, want to buy it just to study how he did it all. Mad respect.
Re: "They Were Very Clear About What They Wanted" - Roger Dean On The Creation Of One Of Video Gaming's Greatest Logos
Roger Dean artwork off Pysgnosis games is probably the first time I looked up an artist. I loved his cover art. It was also the first time I ever bought an art book. It was more than just his designs for the games. It was so fascinating to get a view into how art was made. When generative AI first hit the scene to produce images, making art in his style was first thing I tried. I was kinda surprised when the output actually had some semblance of his style from the cover art.
Digital distribution - oh, I miss really great box art. It's one of the big downfalls of going pure digital distribution.
Re: "The Hunt Has Begun" - Vampire's Veil Is A New Castlevania-Inspired Indie, With Some Seriously Slick Animations
Hopefully I'm just really tired from work. The movement kinda hurts my eyes. I think it's the screen movement, not the character animation. I like the art direction. I think games like this really need to have their trailers be 60fps, unless the game only runs in 30fps. Which, in that case, pass. But, the animations are nice.
Re: Ghost In The Shell On PS1 Happened Because Masamune Shirow Loved Jumping Flash
No clue how I missed this game. I loved Jumping Flash. Shooting Flash? I woulda loved that.
Re: This 'In The Hunt' Tech Demo "Shows Us What The 16-bit Generation Lost" When NEC's SuperGrafx Bombed
I wonder if with some scanline timing tricks if you could do Shadow of the Beast level parallax. Those are some really nice detailed backgrounds.
Re: Duke Nukem 3D Is About To Get An Ambitious New Mod That Replaces Its 2D Sprites With "Nearly A Thousand Voxels"
That looks like a ton of fun. Wonder where I put my old original game and box. Hope we don't have to wait soon. I agree with the comment above that it looks like static object vs characters seem to benefit more from the conversion.
Re: PS3 Virtual On: Cyber Troopers Gets An English Fan Translation
I loved the arcade original. But, it cost too much for me to play enough to git gud at it. I keep wanting to pick up modern takes on the genre, but never pull the trigger. Wonder if there's some variant on the fall Steam sale?
Re: 40 Years After It Launched, This Fan-Made Remake Has Given Us The Ultimate Way To Play Super Mario Bros.
HAHAHA I about fell out of my chair at the Crab Rave level with music.
Re: Fan-Made Genesis Port Of Final Fight Might Get Support For Three Players
FF was the one early game that really sold me that the SNES was able to bring the arcade experience home. The NES never really did that for me. But this game really felt like I was close to the arcade version. Didn't offer multiplayer, etc, but had enough of the enemies, stages, colors, music and sound effects to give me some of the arcade vibe.
Porting this to G/MD would be a fun ride. It's pretty well covered now on how the system could do some things better than the SNES, so I'm eager to see how this plays out. If it really is free, that would be awesome to kick around in an emulator.
Re: This Week's Arcade Archives Title Is The Early Arcade Pool Game That Inspired Konami's Time Pilot
I'd totally forgotten about this game. I only played it a few times, but had a blast with it. Now in the back of my mind I also remember playing like a C64 game that was similar, but the title won't come to me.
I wonder if they might do a compellation pack or two at some point. The license on that might be a nightmare though especially if they tried to mix publishers.
Re: The Atari Gamestation Go Launches Next Month, Costs $180 - And You Can Pre-Order It Now
I kinda want this for what it is. But, I can tell just looking at the photos that it's not ergonomic at all. I prob couldn't play on it for more than 30-45min before I'd need to take a break. But, then again, for these games, that's how you're supposed to do it. Pick-up-and play for a bit and then put it back down. Price isn't unreasonable either. If they're still around close to Christmas, this might end up on the list. But, the controls better work well so best to wait a bit anyways.
Re: Beloved City Builder Getting Amiga Release, Almost 30 Years After Skipping The Platform
@MagicSN First and foremost, thank you for working on the port. I'd love to hear anything you can share with us on how that came to be. I really would not have thought Ubisoft would have allowed someone to work on the IP like that. KUDOS!
I didn't mean any offense in my comments. I think i didn't communicate my intent well. I wasn't talking as much about the A500 spec, but more about what the longer road would have been had the system lived on and the ideas behind the tech. Amiga with its dedicated chips, etc vs what the PC was and it's component design.
Do you receive royalties from sales through link in the article? I'll gladly buy a copy to support your work.
Re: Time Extension Reader Survey 2025
I tried to submit answers but it never took.
Re: "It Just Hasn't Worked" - Arcade That Raised £3,000 In Two Days Will Close This Month
In Dallas, TX USA there are a number of these retro arcades. We even have a few of them as local chains. My favorite is Free Play.
https://freeplayinc.com/
They have a pretty good formula for how to make this work. He's got a balance of real classic hardware, some newer machines, good food (won a few award for the paninis) and a mix of can and tap beers. But, even he's had some struggles. One location didn't work out and he had to recently relaunch it as a Japanese focused arcade called Tokyo Station. Each location does a lot to build community with various tournaments on pinball and some of the competitive games, etc. He's even had some game devs visit the locations like John Newcomer, develop of Joust, for one tournament.
He also throws a lot of shade at other business that over rely on emulation and garbage food/drink. But, I get that given he's been able to get a lot of recognition for doing those things so well. So far Free Play has been around for several years and most locations are doing well. Unlimited play on some of the newer Stern Pinball tables? YES, PLEASE!
Re: 'Chasm' Creator's World War II Metroidvania 'Wolfhound' Looks Better Than Ever In This New Footage
That actually look pretty good.
The distribution/port strategy is becoming odd given how much all the consoles are basically becoming PCs. I wonder if it's how the platforms treat the publishing, or maybe a hangup about Gamepass. There's been a lot more being said from devs about GP and it's not all good. Hopefully MS can keep working out the issues so the model is sustainable. It's a great value for gamers. Maybe not as much for publishers and devs right now.
Re: Falcom's PC Engine CD RPGs, Including 'Ys' And 'Legend Of Heroes', Are Getting Re-Releases On Modern Systems
The library of TG16/PCE CD RPGs always made me cry a little that never did get my hands on a system and player. I also missed out on the mini from a few years ago. I don't really have the time now to get into those old title, but this is neat that some of those title I always hoped I would get to play might be available.
AI translation should make it a no-brainer to do translation for titles like these. I've been watching Crunchyroll use AI translation more and more. It does ok. As long as you stop to load some token for the character names so it doesn't change the spelling on every occurrence, it's not so bad. Too bad it doesn't look like CR does that. Still has a ways to go to match a human translation and proofing. I expect AI will get there in a year or two with enough training.
Re: This White Limited Edition Vectrex Mini Will Cost $250, Standard Model Starts At $115
@gingerbeardman That's about what I would expect at the price point. If you figure early Samsung phones with their AMOLED screens had that rez for a while, I always thought they were pretty good. It was hard to see the pixels. The base screen tech combined with image processing should make this mostly a non-issue.
Re: This White Limited Edition Vectrex Mini Will Cost $250, Standard Model Starts At $115
@montrayjak Yup. DPI is going to be a key stat, but there are also image processing tricks that could be used to help boost the visual to appear sharper; edge enhancement and all the usual tricks. But, hopefully a real high rez screen is going to be used. Although, with the prices mentioned here, I kinda doubt it. Unless they are just being really generous on the Kickstarter pricing, that seems a little too cheap for a seriously nice screen to do super clean pseudo vectors. But, "good enough" with visual tricks should be fine. Problem is, it'll be hard to really show that in a video unless they record the screen itself instead of doing the normal screen capture.
Re: This Collection Brings Over A Dozen Old Games For '80s Home Computers Straight To Your Xbox & PC
I never played any of these, but I love the idea behind preserving some of the older early games like this.
Re: Game Changer: Super Castlevania IV - Why Simon Belmont's 16-bit Debut Is A Stone-Cold Classic
I know exactly what you mean. This game was such an experience when it came out. The music, the art/graphics, level design with the mode 7 stuff and variations on gameplay due to more system power, etc. It all just hit perfectly. But really, the music especially was HUGE for the time. I still fire up Simon's Theme extended on YT from time to time. The music on the SNES was such a leap forward and it really made an impression on me. For me, the music and audio really set the mood for so many excellent SNES games, and Super Castlevania is right at the top of that list. So many memories. I didn't stay tuned into the IP though. I keep thinking about checking out newer titles. There are certainly several that standout that I should probably look at. But, there's just magic of the time and era that probably helped the SNES version just hit perfectly for younger me.
Re: The Long Wait For 'R-Type Tactics I • II Cosmos' Could Soon Be Over
An R-Type tactics game? I'm super intrigued by this concept. Though, I can't imagine the game play being overly satisfying for either genre fans. Will certainly keep an eye out for this, but will totally wait for a review and hopefully a demo.
I need to get one thing off my chest though. The music in Super R-Type on the SNES is far superior to any of the recent remakes. I get that it's probably the nostalgia talking, but it just hits so right compared to like R-Type Dimension EX. The game play is fine in that one, but the music just doesn't hold up in to my rose colored glasses. I want better music.
Re: "Commodore Now Has Money In The Bank" - C64 Ultimate Brings In Over $2 Million
I wish I had the money for this. Can you imagine what the demoscene could do with this thing, AND the lights on top of that? I hope he's able to keep the energy up, but I'm wiling to bet his channel is probably going to suffer if he isn't able to get help pretty soon. I'm sure his CEO duties will consume the majority of his time. Plus, he has a toddler and a wife - maybe even baby fractic 2 before too long (?). Anyways, def following this thing pretty closely. Wish I had some spare funds to mess with it. Maybe one of these future products. Would an Amiga one push me over? not sure.
Re: "I Think A Lot Of AAA Titles Miss The Mark On What Makes A Game Fun" - Retro YouTuber Launches New Nostalgia-Focused Game Studio
I'm going to side step the topic of physical for now. I like the question about what used to make games fun. It's something my friend and I have talked about multiple times. We're just not having as much with newer games like we used to. One thing we feel is a factor is that newer games have way too many systems. And that's kind of a two fold problem as we see it. One, it just takes too much time investment to get into a game. This is a combination of ageism as we're both parents now and are established in our careers, etc, and a shift far away from the more pick-up-and-play mentality of earlier gaming. Which is exactly what Atari has been focusing on more; with mixed success. We like the deeper story stuff than early gaming. We enjoy the tech and new mechanics, etc. It's just there's too much fluff and added detractors like DLC/IAP, etc. that get in the way of the core of the gameplay.
So, if this guy thinks he make games that gets back to the core, then I'm all for wishing him well. I guess a retro console is probably a good place to start so that technical limitations will force you to keep ideas and scale in check. The near limitless resources of modern systems means you can easily make a game too big and degrade a good idea so easily. I won't back their kickstarter, but I will follow to see the ideas turn out.
Re: Revived Game Publisher Acclaim Is Teasing A "Big" Announcement For Next Week
@Razieluigi My thoughts as well. And, their IP titles were often pretty weak. Rushed cash grabs if I remember correctly.
If they want to be a publisher and work with Indie, this goes back to my question about what does it mean to be Indie? I keep wondering if what we're really talking about is non-AAA games. A A A would imply there are A and AA games, but the media and trade press never uses those labels.
Personally, I'm not expecting anything impressive. Unless they have at least two key IPs they were able to secure, it probably wasn't worth reviving the brand name just to work with Indie developers. Better uses for that money I would expect.
Re: "As CEO, My Mission Is Clear: Ensure Commodore Never Falls Again"
@littlemisskittn The idea behind the X16 is most certainly niche. Its audience is going to be a mix of developers who enjoy the challenge of the spec limits to develop a project around, or enthusiasts that want to try to capture some of the spirit of the era. I want to be in the former group - I think I would enjoy that challenge, but I'm not. And, when I try to revisit older games, it's for 20min and I'm done. I like the idea of the X16, and I support the concept for those that would, but I passed on it.
Re: Vectrex Mini Is The Next Micro Console You'll Need To Own
@SlangWon That's a good point I hadn't considered.
Re: '50 Indie Games That Changed The World' Explores How Indies Altered The Industry Forever
There are a number of title I'm a little surprised are not listed. A few may bring up the question of what is considered Indie. But, I will say I am very glad to see That Dragon, Cancer. It a whole different thing all together. I could never play it. It's too powerful pulling on my heart strings. That said, I'd say most of these titles deserve to be included.