With Retro Blaster nearly complete, I have decided to start on a new game. This one will be very simple. I plan to do a few simple games in the next few weeks to try out my bitmap animation techniques in a variety of more simple shooters.  Since I love 8 and 16 bit retro games, I decided to try out some Atari 2600, 5200, 7800, and 800 games a make a list of the ones I want to tryout.

 

One of the best places to research Atari games is Atariage.com. They don’t cover Atari 800 games, but they have a full and complete listing of all carts (and most of the roms too) released for the Atari video game systems. I would love if they would add in a section for the XE Game System and list all of the carts released under that label, but so far they do not have that information. For the most extensive listing of Atari 800/XL and XE games, there is no better resource that Atarimania.com.

 

One of the first games I played in the arcades of the 80’s was Berzerk. There were a number of versions of this game made for various Atari systems. Atari released the arcade port on the 2600, 5200, and 800/XL/XE. There was also game very similar game called K-razy Shootout released for the Atari 800. Yet another similar clone was a game called Marauder.  I will play all of these and maybe a few more clones, if I can find them,  to create a non-scrolling, screen, by screen adventure / shoot ’em up.  To keep it simple, the maze screens will be the same each game, but you will start in a different room each game.  There will be some items to collect, a few extra weapons and power ups to find, and a ‘reactor’ or similar item that will need to be destroyed before the player moves to the next level. Each level will use the same screens, maybe mixed up randomly, but will get progressively harder with more enemies to fight and fewer health and weapon power ups to collects. That seems pretty simple.. I’ll play the games emulated to get some more ideas.

 

One thing I disliked about 80’s games was the use of ‘men’ or ‘ships’ to depict lives.  This is purely personal taste, but I like the convention of health or hit points. I used that idea in Retro Blaster, and I assume I will use the same convention in this game. It helps makes all games a little more role playing-like and adds a little bit of extra strategy to the game. Also, while I love games like 1942, I hate that every time I get hit by any ordinance, my plane crashed and I had to start over. I may love retro style games, but if I can improve on older conventions and make them more fun (for me at least) I will. Now, on to the games:

 

Atari 2600 Berzerk

 

This is a pretty good version of the game. The arcade game wasn’t overly complicated, but this is still a very impressive game considering the limitations of the Atari 2600 hardware. The basic idea is to run from room to room, shooting the ‘Cylon’ like robots. If you stay too long in a room, Evil Otto will arrive and try to destroy you player. Some interesting things to note about this version:

1. You can only shoot one shot at a time.

2. The little light on the front of the ‘Cylon’ moves left to right, and is not a light, but just a rectangle that is the same color as the floor.

3. Evil Otto comes out in game variation #2 pretty quickly, and makes the game a little too difficult.

4. There is no point to the game other than surviving for as long as you can and racking up a score. There is nothing wrong with goals as un-lofty as these, especially for a retro game.

 

 

Atari 800 Berzerk

 

 

 

This version is much closer to arcade perfect than the Atari 2600 version. It adds a couple elements not in that game.  Here are my observations about this version.

1. You get a bonus for shooting every robot on the screen without dying, and you can shoot two bullets at a time. The bonus is in the 2600 version (10 points for each robot, but it doesn’t say Bonus, it just puts the extra score on the screen in place of the user score)

2. The game is still too damn difficult to play though.

3. The robot heads rotate in this one very much like the 2600 version.

4. Also, the door the player entered through will be sealed off with a different colored wall so he/she cannot go back through to safety. 

5. Oh yeah, in both 2600 and 800 versions, you will die if you touch any of the walls. Now, I don’t want to get picky about ‘realism’ in 2d game where you are being chased by robots and a bouncing happy face will kill you, but who in their right mind would build a maze in which the walls kill any who touch them?  I might add this ‘feature’ into my game, but then again, I may not,

 

2600 Marauder

 

 

This game is much like Berezek with some well defined differences.

 

1. There are only a limited number of maze screens. Each is slightly more elaborate than the screens in berserk.
2. The player’s goal is to find and destroy a power cell before a bonus gage at the bottom of the screen runs out.
3. The game is much more colorful, but ultimately uglier than Berzerk. The player and enemy characters are down right weird.  The reason for this is the added ‘realism’ in the game. First off, the characters are all view from a direct above perspective. This explains how squashed everything looks. Also, enemy robots and valuable items (well item) will be hidden or invisible from view if they are behind a wall. You,  as a player looking at a birds-eye view of the game do not have an advantage over the player on the ground. It makes the game strange to play, but it is an interesting idea.
4. The goal of the game is to destroy the shoot a power cell on one of the screens, and then do it all over again, and again and again. It is ultimately too easy.
5. The one very unique thing about this game is the ability to pick up magic amour that will protect the player for a few seconds.

 

Atari 800 Marauder

 

The graphics in this version are much higher resolution than the Atari 2600 version. Unfortunately it was based on a Apple II game and uses a black and white or only dithered color mode of the 6502. The 2600 version comes out looking slight better because of this.  This version plays and sounds much better than the 2600 version though.  It contains  many more screen variations and a very satisfying explosion when the player shoots the power cell. I can’t find any instructions for the game. Atarimania.com does have a review and some good comments on the game, but without the docs, I have no idea if there is a set of magic armor in this game.  Special note, this is actually stage 2 of a 2 stage game. Stratos is the first stage. It is a completely different game. It is more of a Missile Command / Space Invaders style game with more colors on the screen.

 

K-RAZY Shootout

 

 

K byte software made quite a few arcade game clones for the 800. KRAZY Shootout was one of the first games I ever played on my 800 on Christmas morning in 1982.  I remember being amazed at the detail in the images and explosions. There are many nice features and touches in this game.

 

1. When the player leaves a screen, it animates out in a unique way, flattening down like a pancake.  Also between screens there is a bonus counting screen. Bonus is awarded based on how much time it takes the player to finish a screen.  There are three bars at the top of the screen: green, yellow and red. The player receives bonus if he/she can clear a screen while in the green or yellow zone. If you don’t shoot all of the enemy robots before the end of the red zone, you have to start the zone over again.
2. The maze screens are created at random.
3. Beside enemy robots that are on the screen when the maze appears, more will generate in as the player destroys robots. Also, there is radioactive debris lying around the screens that must be avoided.
4.  The control in the game is very well done. Your player cannot run and shoot, if the action button is pressed down, the player will stop. The gun can then be aimed in any of 8 directions and fired.

 

My Retro Gone Berserk game.

 

I imagine that I will make a game that is more a combo of K-RAZY Shootout and Marauder than just plain Berkerk. For a ‘quicky’ game, I still need to add enough elements to keep it fun. It needs some of the game play sensibilities that the NES and Sega Master System brought to gaming in the late 80’s.  Those would be extra weapons and maybe a secret room.  Here is a basic outline for the game I will create in Flash.

 

1. The game will be in a maze of rooms in a 5×5 grid. That will be 25 rooms. All rooms will have doors at the top, bottom, left and right.  For each game and each level, the rooms will be the same structure, but they will be randomly placed in the 5×5 grid.
2. The start room will always be on the edge of the grid. The goal will be to destroy the power cell, and exit back through where you came.
3. All of the outside doors, the door that would lead to no where if on the edge of the grid will take the user to the opposite side of the grid.  That will be the case in every room BUT the start room. In the start room, the outer door will be marked ‘Exit’ and exiting through it will trigger the end of level sequence.
4. There will be a timer like in KRazy Shootout.  It will look like a colored bar and start at green. It will slowly change from green to yellow to red. The player will get more bonus points if he/she finishes the level in the green or yellow portion of the timer.
5. The player will have attributes much like in a role playing game. There will only be a select number of these attributes. Hit Points will act like a life meter. When Hit Points reaches 0, the game is over. Shield will represent how many hits the player can take before Hit Points will be deducted. Shield and Hit Point upgrades can be found in chests.  Fire Power will represent how powerful the player weapon is. It will start relatively low, but will increase as the player picks up Gun upgrades from chests. The gun upgrades will add to the number of bullets on the screen at one time, the number of barrels the gun contains, and the size of the guns bullets. There will be some nasty fire power at 100% gun power.
6. The power cell will explode, injuring the player if not destroyed by before the time runs out.
7. The enemy will be robots. There will be a couple types of robots. The basic drones will just fire and move randomly. The chasers will come right at the player and try to hit him. The Black Knights will be the hardest. They will shoot directly at the player and become much more difficult to destroy in later levels.
8. The walls will be radioactive and the player’s shield or hit points will be drained in he/she touches a wall.
9. I want to attempt to use a mouse/keyboard control scheme. The player will move up, down, left and right with the WSAD keys, but will move his gun arm 360 degrees with the mouse and shoot with the mouse button.

 

Next up: My first milestone in creating this game will be to demo a maze and movement noted above. The next blog entry will be a discussion of and a playable version of this demo.