Looks like Atari has been busy this year.
About a year ago, Atari announced that they had acquired the IP rights to Intellivision, as a result of the collapse of the Amico project. Last week, Atari announced the Intellivision Sprint, a “mini console” similar in concept to the 2600+ and 7800+ mini consoles. It is available for $149, and includes built-in games, but no cartridge slot, although it should be capable of side-loading ROMs through USB. It has wireless controllers that mimic the disc-and-10key pad controllers of the original Intellivision, which should mean that it’ll play very much like the 1979 Intellivision console it is based on.
Atari Age announced another batch of homebrew games for the 2600 and 7800, releasing in coordination with the Portland Retro Gaming Expo. Just about a month after launching some fifteen new titles near the end of summer. The PRGE batch includes:
Axercise
Bernie and the Tower of Doom
Minigun Miner
Mouse Trap
Oh Shoot!
Plan B: Escape Earth
Robo Tito
Strike Zone Bowling
Realm of Riesig
Tunnels of Hyperion
I playtested Strike Zone Bowling extensively when it was under development, and logged the first 300 game on the Atari Age forums a couple years ago. It’s a remarkably good bowling game, and far exceeds the 1978 Atari Bowling graphically.
Realm of Riesig looks like another adventure/quest game, which intrigues me. I haven’t looked much at the others yet.
Mouse Trap is a port of the 80s arcade classic from Exidy, which signifies that maybe Atari Age can release IP-encumbered ports, remakes, and demakes through leveraging the IP owned by the parent Atari SA corporation, who have been buying up as much classic video game IP as they can in recent years.