Archive: 27 posts

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Ok, so.... some of you know this already, but I was a video game designer back in the 80's (a LOOOONG time ago). Was it lucrative? Nope. Seems I my "career" coincided with the crash of the video game industry at the time. Anyway, back in 1985 I built a video game called "Earth 2500", which was a BRUTAL side-scrolling shooter. It was written in assembly language using the Mac 65 macro assembler, and consisted of roughly 30,000 lines of assembly code. This was my last Atari-era game, and since the video game industry collapsed.... I decided to upload it for free to bulletin board systems at the time - and promptly started application software development. Flash forward 25 years.... So, this morning I'm browsing through a library of classic games on the internet when.... all of the sudden.... my jaw about drops to the floor... There it is! Earth 2500! Listed between E.T. and Eastern Front! I was stunned! I can't believe anyone still HAS this game, let alone took screen shots of it and listed it on the internet! And listed right beneath the worst video game of all time! Here is the link: http://ekranownia.atari8.info/galeria.php?lit=e I then did a google search for "Cuz Feeshe" (with a space in-between unlike my current PSN), and wow! There are quite a few downloads of it. I was actually able to download a copy off a ROM pirate website and play it. My vertict? It's too hard.... I also found this link with multiple screen shots: http://www.atarimania.de/detail_soft.php?MENU=8&VERSION_ID=1783 http://www.atarimania.com/8bit/screens/earth_2500.gif http://www.atarimania.com/8bit/screens/earth_2500_3.gif Pretty cool, eh?

2010-06-25 19:52:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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Looks very cool. No wonder you're such a brilliant creator, you were an awesome game developer!

2010-06-25 19:55:00 Author: talbot-trembler Posts: 1114

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That is pretty cool! Seems like nothing is truly lost in the internet... well, virtually nothing. lol. Congrats on finding it and for your bit of internet immortality

2010-06-25 20:05:00 Author: Morgana25 Posts: 5983

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Neat...looks a little like Defender...was it? (I played a lot of Defender) I like the hi-tech gradients used in the title screen...did it use color cycling as well? -B

2010-06-25 20:41:00 Author: fullofwin Posts: 1214

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No wonder you're such a brilliant creator, you were an awesome game developer! Thanks! Actually, I originally bought LBP for my son but revisiting game development got the best of me.... That is pretty cool! Seems like nothing is truly lost in the internet... well, virtually nothing. lol. Congrats on finding it and for your bit of internet immortality I think the thing that most interested me was the thought that.... the game is 25 years old! Which means it had to survive before the internet, some people had to convert it into a file that would run in emulators, and some people had to actually PLAY it and take screen shots. For a non-famous-non-commercial game to survive 25 years is pretty amazing to me. Neat...looks a little like Defender...was it? (I played a lot of Defender) I like the hi-tech gradients used in the title screen...did it use color cycling as well? It was actually a bit more like "Scramble". The original idea was to take the arcade game "Scramble" and make it much more elaborate. Scramble seemed to repeat the landscape quite a bit, and I wanted something that would take the player to totally different and unique areas throughout. As for the gradient, it was animated and moved up the screen. It was an Atari trick (we would probably use the word 'Glitch' now). The Atari could only display 4 colors at once, but we found a way to trick the system by changing the color palette during the scan process of the TV screen being updated (known as the 'vertical display interrupt). If you rotated through the color palette faster than the TV could update, you could create some pretty nifty effects.

2010-06-25 22:28:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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Wow! That's really cool! I'd be so amazed, as you were, if that had happened to me! I wish I could see what games were like way, waaay, waaaaay back when!

2010-06-25 22:38:00 Author: piggabling Posts: 2979

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Dude, that's awesome, I remember being excited to go over to my grandparents house when I was real little because they had an atari. Didn't have Earth though... but the screenshots look cool.

2010-06-25 22:41:00 Author: shebhnt Posts: 414

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OmG Wh3re ar3 teh p3rkS? U cnt hav a sh00t3r wihowt teh perKs m4n! Cool

2010-06-26 00:10:00 Author: Unknown User

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Very cool! It also reminds me of Atlantis from that same era...actually I thought it was at first. Dang! That was a long time ago.

2010-06-26 00:16:00 Author: TheCountessZ Posts: 537

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How cool is that? I bet that put a smile on your face

2010-06-26 00:49:00 Author: OneEyedBanshee Posts: 1370

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haha this is actually pretty awesome

2010-06-26 02:55:00 Author: ryryryan Posts: 3767

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Thanks, guys! Yes, this thread is a tad self-serving.... but I figured, what the heck! I was actually considering re-making Earth 2500 when LittleBigPlanet 2 comes out. It also reminds me of Atlantis from that same era Atlantis was a great game.... but it was more of a top-down shooter where things would fly across the top and you would shoot them. This was a side-scroller - you actually fly across mountains, above a city, through caverns, and destroy a boss.

2010-06-26 03:18:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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You sir, have won an internet.

2010-06-26 03:47:00 Author: Testudini Posts: 3262

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i really like the title page of it, it looks really cool. so it was like Galaga but your side scrolling?

2010-06-26 06:21:00 Author: Snrm Posts: 6419

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25 years, that is quite amazing. Looks like a pretty good game for the time as well much better than the Egg Catcher and Electric Starfish games I saw on the same page.

2010-06-26 08:08:00 Author: SR20DETDOG Posts: 2431

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Interesting, though I'll admit I'm more interested in that exciting looking Erosion game!

2010-06-26 08:23:00 Author: qrtda235566 Posts: 3664

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That's awesome! i so want to play it now...

2010-06-26 08:53:00 Author: springs86 Posts: 785

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Great CC! I'm happy for you! It's a cool accomplishment.

2010-06-26 09:01:00 Author: OmegaSlayer Posts: 5112

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Boo, I came here to make a sarcastic comment, but no this actually cool. What a disappointment. It's too hard.... Well, I'm shocked and surprised to hear that. ^.^

2010-06-26 09:39:00 Author: Syroc Posts: 3193

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so it was like Galaga but your side scrolling? It was actually more like Scramble or Super Cobra. Rockets would fire up at you when you got near them, tanks would fire at you, and you had to drop bombs on oil tanks to get fuel. My LBP "Sea Dragon" game is a bit more similar than Galaga. That's awesome! i so want to play it now... Actually, you can. If you get an Atari 800 emulator, and download the ROM files off a site that has it (I found a bunch), you can actually PLAY it. I did yesterday. When I originally designed it, I could beat it easily. Now I'm TERRIBLE at it. I can hardly get past the first 2 areas.

2010-06-26 11:50:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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Wow, 25 years, the game looks like a lot of fun!

2010-06-26 11:59:00 Author: Alec Posts: 3871

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Proving the internet finds all that is epic

2010-06-26 13:17:00 Author: 767 Posts: 123

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Awesome game CC! This definately has to go on LittleBigPlanet2! Relive the classic man! EDIT: I left a comment on the screenshots website for fun.

2010-06-26 22:21:00 Author: CyberSora Posts: 5551

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I left a comment on the screenshots website for fun. Heh..... pretty funny. Although, you may not want to pay for it after playing it.... I tried playing it for a bit and really - it's too hard! Although it could be that it's more difficult to play with a keyboard on the PC than it used to be on the actual Atari.

2010-06-26 23:53:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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That is quite cool. I'd love to see it remade in LBP2! Would you tone down the difficulty or keep it tough and take the (very unfair) possibility of lower ratings on the chin?

2010-06-27 00:53:00 Author: Killian Posts: 2575

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I would PROBABLY make it much easier. I spent about an hour earlier trying to play it myself, and I can only make it about half way through the second area. There are 7.... . If I could stick a "frustrating" tag on it right now, I probably would.

2010-06-27 00:58:00 Author: CCubbage Posts: 4430

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Man, I thought I was old. I remember getting the original Atari for Christmas, but you were actually making games for it. Dude, that is totally righteous! (As we used to say in the 80s) Hey, I remember the E.T. game. My friend had it, and I remember it was probably the worst game I'd ever played. So I had to laugh when I saw it next to your game. Hope yours was better. Of course that wouldn't really be much of a stretch.

2010-06-27 05:10:00 Author: thanatos989 Posts: 248

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