My Original Atari 2600
Games -
These are all original Atari 2600 games that I wrote
using batariBasic along with a little bit of assembly
language. Check out
www.bataribasic.com
for the latest info, it's a great beginner's tool to
start making your own original 2600 games. The
source code and binary files are available for all of my
games.
The object of the game is to put out
as much of the fire as you can and safely escape the
burning building.
You'll start off on a screen with a
burning building, 14 stories tall. Move your fireman to
the right to enter the building. Each of the 14 levels
has a timer, you have approximately 30 seconds to put
out as much of the fire as you can and safely exit the
room at the top. When the timer gets down to about 5
seconds, the score will start to flash and an alarm will
sound to let you know that time is about to expire. Each
level of the building has it's own unique floor plan,
some are more challenging to get through than others.
You'll score 10 points for each fire that you put out.
Once you've made it to the exit, you've cleared that
level of the building and can move on to the next. Each
time you clear a room, you'll go back to the building
screen and you'll see one level of fire disappear. Enter
the building again to move on to the next level. The
goal of the game is to clear as much fire from each room
as you can (racking up as many points as possible) and
safely exit the building. You can win the game without
putting out all of the flames.
There are three levels of difficulty which are
selectable at the title screen. Push up and down on the
joystick to select the level, then press fire to start
the game. The fire moves progressively more quickly in
each level, and in level three you begin with only 3
fireman rather than 6.
Bombs Away is a fast paced action game inspired by
Activision's Kaboom.
Gameplay:
The object of the game is to zap the
falling bombs before they reach the city below. You have
a powerful laser beam that can be moved back and forth
to take out the bombs. The city also has a set of shield
defenses which will stop the bombs, but you won't score
any points for their desctruction. You also have one
super powerful laser blast that you can deploy at any
point during the game. It will destroy all of the
falling bombs on the screen. To activate the super
laser, push up on the joystick. You will receive 10
points for every bomb you destory, and as mentioned
before, no points for bombs destroyed by the city
shields.
The game is divided up into 12 levels, and with each
passing level you'll face a faster bombing raid on your
city. Once you reach level 12, it's a test of endurance
- there will be no more pauses in the action until you
reach the inevitable destruction of your city. You'll
see your city blow up when six bombs have hit. When the
game pauses at each level, press fire on the joystick
when you're ready to continue. There is a brief pause
built in so you don't accidently move past the level
change screen, the fire button won't work for a few
seconds.
The city can survive six direct bomb hits before it's
destroyed. Your six hits are indicated with the level
counter at the bottom of the screen. If you reach the
end of a level and you've taken at least one hit you
will gain one life back. Once you reach level 12, there
are no more opportunities to gain extra lives.
The game also includes options screen to customize the
difficulty level. You can select which level you want to
start on and whether or not you want the shields to be
activated. To select whether or not you want shields,
push left/right on the joystick. To select your level,
push up/down on the joystick. The default option is to
start on level 1 with the shields on. After you've made
your selections, press fire to start the game.
This game includes the option of having a second player
control the city's shields using the right joystick. If
no one is using the right joystick, the shields will
hover back and forth automatically.
Cave In is a large adventure game, inspired by the
original Atari Adventure and the 2600 version of Raiders
of the lost ark. Cave In has it's own dedicated
page, please visit it
here.
This is a demo, it is in no way a complete game yet!
It's still fun to play around with though, and I may
eventually finish it. You can follow it's
development in the
AA Forum
Thread.
Grand Theft Atari is a multi screen adventure (similar
to Cave In) that incorporates batari's Indy500 code, so
you're driving a car around rather than walking around.
I included 254 individual road screens for you to drive
around on. The goal I was thinking of was that you'd
have to burglarize the 50 houses that I spread out
around the map. You can currently enter all 50
multi-room houses, but there's not really anything to do
inside them yet.
I included the ability to pull up a road map screen that
shows you your exact location on the map. Activate the
map screen by toggling the color/bw switch. When you're
on the map screen, move left and right to see both parts
of the map. In order to enter houses, you'll have to
exit your car and walk into the "door" of the house.
Enter/exit your car by toggling the left A/B difficulty
switch. When you exit your car, you won't be able to
leave the screen you're on, but you'll be able to walk
into the houses. Houses you can enter have a different
colored door, if there's no door, you can't enter that
house. Also, to change the top speed of your car
(fast/slow), toggle the right difficulty switch.
When you're outside of your car, you can shoot the
pedestrians. When you're in your car, you can run
them over.
I'm still pretty early in the development process. All
of the graphics in the game will likely be changed
before I call this complete, some of the screens are
just placeholders. I'm not sure exactly where I'm going
to go with this yet, but it's been a lot of fun to make
it so far. I love driving games, and I especially love
Grand Theft Auto. There are likely still some bugs and
issues here and there, I've still got lots of work to
do!
Turbo is a 3D racing game. The object is go race
as far as you can and get as many points as you can
without destroying your car or running out of gas.
Gameplay:
When you start the game, it's night and you have a full
tank of gas. There is a pitstop/gas station that you can
enter to refill your gas tank and repair damage to your
car. The gas station will appear when you are getting
low on gas. To enter the gas station, run into the
"sign" on the right side of the road as it passes by.
The gas gauge will also flash with the gas pump road
sign when you're low on gas.
Once you're in the gas station, you'll see a top down
view of your car with a workbench to your left and a gas
pump to your right. Drive your car over the gas pump to
refill your tank, and drive your car over to the
workbench to repair your car. The workbench will have a
closed sign if your car has very minor damage, and may
appear closed if you have the difficulty set to a higher
level, which is explained later. When you're done, drive
off the top of the screen to re-enter the roadway.
Important! You'll want to refill and repair your car as
quickly as you can while you're at the gas station, as
your score continuously decreases for as long as your
remain in the gas station.
On the main screen, there is a gas gauge at the top left
of the screen. As the fuel bar decreases, it will change
from green to yellow to red... if you run out of fuel,
the game ends and "empty" will appear on the screen.
Press down on the joystick to return to the title
screen. If your car is destroyed, the car sprite will
change to a damaged car and the game ends. Press down on
the joystick to return to the title screen.
Weather will also affect the game. At night, it may
start to rain, which makes your car slide back and forth
a little bit as you drive. Oncoming traffic is also much
more difficult to see, as for they don't have
headlights. When the sun has fully risen, the screen is
a glaring white. Oncoming traffic is also more difficult
to see when the sun is in your eyes.
In the normal game mode, with the difficulty switches
set to B/B and the Color/BW switch set to color, the
game is farily easy. In order to make the game a little
more challenging, you can increase the difficulty in the
following ways:
B/W switch
- color mode - oncoming traffic moves at normal speed
- b/w mode - oncoming traffic will move twice as fast
Left Difficulty switch
- B - normal damage
- A - your car takes 3 times as much damage with each
hit.
Right Difficulty switch
- B - Normal Workbench operation
- A - Workbench will only be open when you are VERY low
on gasoline. You'll have to time it just right.
Hint: time how long it takes for you to run out of gas
when you get down to one bar left. When there is one bar
on the screen, you'll have to wait about 1/2 the time it
takes before you run out. This definitely adds a level
of challenge - timing is everything!
Drag Race is a 3D drag racing game with gameplay similar
to Activision's dragster.
Gameplay:
To start the game, hit the fire button on the title
screen. You will then start off in the staging area,
with a traffic light on each side of you. Wait for the
light to go from red to yellow to green, and smash the
throttle. Hit the throttle too early, and you'll get a
false start and have to begin again. It's a manual
transmission, so don't forget to shift by pushing the
joystick left - if you bury the tachometer in the red
you'll blow your engine. Just like Dragster, keep
pushing left to switch gears, there are 5 in all. The
gear you are currently in is displayed on the top of the
screen, along with your current elapsed time. Try to
keep the revs as close to or just barely into the red
zone of the tachomter to get the best times. Once you've
finished the race, push down on the joystick to start
over and re-enter the staging area. If you do nothing,
you'll reach the end of the drag strip in 15.99 seconds,
and the race will end. If you have a false start or blow
your engine, push down on the joystick to start over.
Primate Plunge is based on a freeware game of the same
name. I created a somewhat simplified version of
the game for the 2600. You control a monkey
falling through the jungle, grabbing trees along the
way. The more branches you can grab before you
fall to the bottom, the higher your score.
Gameplay:
To start the game, hit the fire button on the title
screen. You'll immediately start falling. In
addition to the tree branches that you can grab during
your fall, there is also a tiny trampoline that will
bounce you up a little higher, and maybe help you grab
that next branch. There is a parachute pack
powerup that falls from the top of the screen on
occasion, grab it and you'll float in the air for 3 or 4
seconds, earning double points as long as you're holding
on to your chute. The game ends when you fall to
the very bottom of the screen. The game increases
in speed as you get farther in.
RoadBlaster is a driving game loosely
based on the old Atari Arcade game called 'RoadBlasters'.
The Goal in the game is to survive as long as possible
on the road, and of course, score as many points as
possible.
You have a missile equipped car, and can shoot oncoming
cars for points. Shooting cars will
sometimes make powerups appear, which will increase the
health of your car. Roadblocks randomly appear in
the roadway -- watch out, they may push you into
oncoming traffic! Your car sustains damage every
time you are hit by an oncoming car or are hit by an
enemy missile. Your car will change colors as you
take damage -- when it turns red, your car is in it's
final stage of destruction. You will gain points
for every second you are able to stay alive on the road.
The enemy cars will be more aggressive as the game progresses,
driving faster and more erratically to make it more
difficult for you to shoot & avoid them.
Other Features: Roadblaster has
audio routines -- there is a constant engine rumble,
which revs faster when you speed up and slower when you
slow down. There are also sounds when missiles are
fired. The game also pauses when it's over to
display your score -- I know you'll be recording it in
your official Atari High Score log book, right? :)
There is no cartridge release planned
for this game, however carts can be custom made at
AtariAge.Com.
I do plan on making a label for this game, which will be
posted here when it's complete.
Updated 6/5/2006 - A new
version of this game was created for the Midwest Gaming
Classic, with an improved title screen, death animation,
and bug fixes (it will now run on real hardware).
Jumper started out as an idea to clone
the old Epyx Jumpman game from the Commodore 64.
Due to the limitations of the programming environment, I
wasn't able to replicate it perfectly, but I think the
end result is a pretty fun to play game.
The object is to run and jump to the
top of the screen and collect the four treasures.
The next treasure appears after you've collected one,
they don't all show up at the same time. After
you've collected four, you'll move on to the next, more
challenging level. There are 12 levels of
increasing difficulty. Missiles fire at you as you
ascend to the top, and will change direction and shoot
when you cross their path.
Updated 6/5/2006 - The latest
version is now 16k, and includes many new features.
There is a level & treasure counter on the title screen,
12 unique levels, four of which feature dynamically
changing playfields. Jump to the AA Thread for all
of the latest info on this game (link below).
Updated 5/24/2007 - I won't be
developing on this game any further, consider .99 to be
the final version. There are no major bugs in the
game, there were just some gameplay tweaks that I was
planning on making that don't seem possible now using
the bB programming environment.
x
