Metroid for Atari 2600

2012-01-04 04:03:26 pm

So, I'm thinking of making a Metroid Pre-make for the Atari 2600. I have some experience with programming Atari games, and I love the Metroid series. It would have to have a simplified game play (Atari only has the joystick and one button), and it would probably have to be linear, rather than free-roam (maybe arcade style?). Any ideas???

Thread title:

Opium

2012-01-04 04:25:40 pm

How are you going to fire - jump - missile switch with only one button ?

J_SNAKE

2012-01-04 08:17:19 pm

Some suggestions:
You could switch weapons in ball-state by holding the action-button and navigating the stick directly to the desired weapon-option(don't make it stupid like in Super Metroid), place bomb by pressing down in ball-state, fire in stand-on-ground-state by pressing the action-button, jump by pressing up, activate speed-booster by double-tap

For a concrete set-up it all depends on what level of controls and all its interactions you want to achieve within the given scope. Then you have to look what is best feasable to achieve it.

Opium

2012-01-04 08:26:05 pm

That sounds like it would work, but it would also be terrible, no?

J_SNAKE

2012-01-04 08:34:47 pm

The best you can do on that system.

aigamerDS

2012-01-08 01:25:10 am

Quote from Opium:

How are you going to fire - jump - missile switch with only one button ?

Use two controllers!! That's what many crappy Atari games would use back in the day.

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 06:42:53 pm

good luck making something even remotely credible with 128 bytes of RAM.

Idkbutlike2

2012-01-08 06:53:57 pm

Make a BBC Micro port of it, Chewy :D

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 06:57:27 pm

haha. Funnily enough that more or less already exists. Edge magazine posthumously awarded Exile a 10/10 rating, and if you know anything about Edge you'll realise that they do that very, very, very rarely indeed.

arkarian

2012-01-08 07:23:56 pm

red chamber dream

for a second i thought you meant myst iii: exile, which is one of the rare games i'd give a 10

Idkbutlike2

2012-01-08 07:29:05 pm

Heh, that game looks kind of fun. But the jet pack controls are probably flimsy as hell by today's standards.

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 07:29:23 pm

you might be surprised

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 07:30:28 pm

meh, don't really want to subvert the OP's topic but exile was the game that metroid prime reminded me of, since I'd never played a metroid game before that one

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 07:44:32 pm

while I'm here I'll drop this:

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 07:45:32 pm

the video architecture was bonkers

arkarian

2012-01-08 07:46:12 pm

red chamber dream

damn you for always leaving interesting videos i can't help but watch

arkarian

2012-01-08 07:52:21 pm

red chamber dream

totally didn't know they used off the shelf components

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 07:57:51 pm

well they didn't really, that's kind of a lie and I don't know why he said it, the video chip was a custom device (albeit one that was prototyped using off-the-shelf logic)

arkarian

2012-01-08 07:58:30 pm

red chamber dream

ah ok, weird

arkarian

2012-01-08 08:01:01 pm

red chamber dream

didn't they make a new yar's revenge game for xbla or something

arkarian

2012-01-08 08:01:06 pm

red chamber dream

heard it was actually pretty good

DJGrenola

2012-01-08 08:01:38 pm

hadn't heard about that

arkarian

2012-01-08 08:04:22 pm

red chamber dream

ah it's a "reimagining"

J_SNAKE

2012-01-09 02:45:27 pm

Trying to make a decent game on such systems is usually resulting in a wholly different discipline, which is a hardcore game on its own called "optimization".

Porting TrapThem to C64 equals a marvel but it is going to happen because magicians do exist;) But it doesn't mean it is efficient practice to learn developing games. With more advanced hardware you can of course focus on developing the game itself rather than fighting the limitations.

Opium

2012-01-10 05:52:38 am

'Fighting the limitations' makes me think about something I once read. The morph ball idea sprang from limitations. Ninty thought that animating samus to get down on hand and knee to crawl was too difficult to do given their limitations, so the morph ball was born! I think it's funny because rolling up into a ball so you can roll around in small areas sounds like an idea that some super creative person (like miyamoto) came up with in a dream - but it's just a way to make life easier for the game makers.