Atari’s Mr. Run and Jump looks like a step in the right direction

Atari
Comments

One of the frequent criticisms I’ve offered of the company calling itself Atari these days is that they should have focused on developing new games rather than trying to launch a console. I’ve always wished them success, but have been skeptical about their strategy, and their execution on the AtariBox project left a lot to be desired.

That said, I am fair-minded, and will say when Atari does something right.

And it looks like they may have something, with their newest game, Mr. Run and Jump.

It’s a super mario style platformer, done in Atari’s “reloaded” style neon colored wireframe vector graphics. At first glance it does admittedly look a bit derivative of Mario, and a Mario clone isn’t likely to win over a lot of gamers. On the other hand Nintendo’s formula with Mario platformers has been tried and true for going on 40 years now, and Atari has been floundering for most of the past 40 years, so imitating Nintendo is hardly the worst approach they could arguably take with their game design.

The thing with Mario games is that while they’re always quality, they do rely on a bunch of traditions and conventions that are pretty established, and deviating from them can be problematic. So to truly break free of these conventions, it is a good idea to start over with new worldbuilding and introduce new characters, so that the “rules” are not in conflict with previously established “canon” that will offend purists, or just not be what people were expecting, and thus be rejected when there’s actually nothing wrong with taking a new approach. So maybe Atari can do something interesting and innovative with platformers with a new property like Mr. Run and Jump.

Does Mr. Run and Jump accomplish that? That remains to be seen. It’s difficult to do better at a run and jump platforming game than Nintendo has already done. On the other hand, if you’re going to imitate something, you might as well try to imitate the best there is.

Bottom line: it looks cool, and I’d give it a try.

Design ideas for competitive Wordle

Game Design, games
Comments

Wordle, the guess a 5 letter word in 6 tries game, is a really good game. Any good game deserves a competition.

I thought about how to design a proper competitive Wordle, and wanted to share my ideas with the world so that people could use them to organize Wordle tournaments. I have no connection to the creators of Wordle or the New York Times; these are just my ideas that I am offering as an add-on to enhance the existing Wordle experience. I offer them freely for anyone to use or modify to suit, under the Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 license.

Csanyk’s Competitive Wordle Rules

Version 1.0, Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 license.

Level Playing Field

  1. Consistency is Fairness. All participants will play the same list of solution words, presented in the same order. All players will either play in hard mode (where any revealed hints must be used in subsequent guesses) or normal mode.
  2. No cheating. Players may not have advance knowledge of the solutions at any time, and may not consult a dictionary.
  3. Players may not receive outside help to come up with the solution, in any form.
  4. Players may use scratch paper if they desire, but the sheets must be blank before the start of the competition.

Timekeeping

  1. To keep tournaments from running indefinitely, a finite time bank will be used.
  2. Each player will have their own time bank which they will be allowed to use during the period in which the competition is ongoing. Eg, the overall competition might be slated for a specific date and time window of, say, 2 hours, with each player granted a time bank of 1 hour to play their games, to be used within that 2 hour window, affording them up to an hour of break time, if they wish to use it, however they wish to use it.
  3. The amount of time given can be determined arbitrarily by the organizing body, but a suggested length of 1 hour or less would be reasonable for most tournaments. For larger tournaments, more time may be needed, or more rounds of competition, each with their own time bank. For ultra brief or high speed play, time banks of 5 or 10 minutes might be appropriate.
  4. For precise timekeeping, the clock start and stop can be coded into the Wordle program itself, but if such a feature is not present in the software being used, time may be kept externally, using a stopwatch or pauseable countdown timer.
  5. The timebank clock starts when the player submits their first guess for the current puzzle, and stops when they solve the puzzle.
  6. The player can take breaks between puzzles as often and as long as they wish, subject to any other rules governing breaks which may limit their number or duration or how often.
  7. There are no timeouts once a puzzle has been started.
  8. Players will play successive rounds of Wordle until they either fail to solve a round, or run out of time in their personal time bank.

Scoring

  1. Players score points each round, based on how many guesses were needed to solve the Wordle.
  2. A solved puzzle will score base value of 100 points. The exact number used for the Base Points is somewhat arbitrary, and doesn’t matter a whole lot. The Base Points value will be modified by multipliers, as follows:
    1. 1/6 Solve: * 1. Solving in 1 is pure luck, and shouldn’t be rewarded with a special bonus.
    2. 2/6 Solve: * 4. Solving in 2 guesses involves skill as well as some luck (to get enough clues from the first guess) so should count for more.
    3. 3/6 Solve: * 2. Solving in 3 guesses isn’t easy, so deserves a bonus.
    4. 4/6 Solve: * 1. Solving in 4 guesses is par.
    5. 5/6 Solve: * 0.5. Solving in 5 guesses is good, but just isn’t as impressive.
    6. 6/6: * 0.25. Solving in 6 guesses deserves points, just the least number of them.
    7. X/6: * 0. No points awarded if you fail to solve.
  3. The above scoring system rewards fast play, in terms of guesses used, but also rewards cautious play, since solving each puzzle unlocks future scoring opportunities without limit other than that imposed by the time bank.
  4. Players can score more points per round if they solve in fewer guesses, but they can score more points overall if they play many rounds. But players can play the most rounds if they don’t take risky strategies that are more likely to solve early but increase the risk of busting, and they can play more rounds if they solve each round quickly.

Time Bonuses

  1. Optionally, solving each Wordle may afford opportunity to gain bonus time. This is a double reward, since solving in fewer guesses typically consumes less time already. To prevent limitless time, the structure will need to be carefully considered, and calibrated to the speed of the players. It’s forseeable that future players could become faster than we can imagine at solving puzzles, so to avoid infinite play, this will need to be adjusted.
  2. Suggested values for timebank bonuses are a starting point only, and are subject to revision.
    • 1/6: + 30 seconds
    • 2/6: + 20 seconds
    • 3/6: + 10 seconds
    • 4/6: + 0 seconds
    • 5/6: + 0 seconds
    • X/6: Timebank * 0; player is busted, their remaining timebank is zero per the normal rules.
  3. Typically the bonus possible in a single round should not afford a player more bonus time than it typically takes to play a single round; it should therefore only extend the player’s time bank to allow for multiple additional rounds of possible play if they accrue bonus time over several rounds of play.

Micro Points

  1. Micro points are an optional way to increase nuance with the scoring system. This is intended to help avoid ties.
  2. Micro points scored as follows:
  3. Grey letter (Each letter used in a guess but is not found in the solution: 1 point.)
  4. Yellow letter (Letter found in word, but used in the wrong position: 2 points.)
  5. Green letter (Letter found in word, used in the correct position: 5 points.)
  6. Micro points are tallied over successive plays in the round, so if the same letter is used in multiple positions as a Yellow, each unique position in the word that the letter is used counts for score. But if the yellow letter is played in the same position in multiple guesses, only the first time that letter appeared Yellow in that position scores points. For example, if the solution contains the letter T in the 2nd position, and the player guesses a word that uses T in the 1st position and in the 3rd position, in both guesses the T will score 2 points. But if the player played a word with the letter T in the 1st position in two guesses, only the first guess that yields the clue that T is in the word, but not in the 1st position should count for points, and any subsequent guesses using T in the 1st position will not score additional points.
  7. Likewise, only the first time the green letter is discovered for each position counts for points. Thus if the solution is YEAST, and the player guesses: 1. STATE; 2.STEAK; 3. MEATS; 4. BEAST; 5. FEAST; 6. LEAST, and fails to solve, the micro point scored for the round would be:
    2+2+5+2+0 = 11
    0+0+2+2+1 = 5
    1+5+5+0+2 = 12
    1+0+0+5+5 = 11
    1+0+0+0+0 = 1
    1+0+0+0+0 = 1
    = 41 micro points.
    The micro points then are divided by 10 and added to the regular points, so in this case the 4.1 micro points would add 4.1 points to the player’s tournament score.
  8. On an X/6 solve or unsolved round where the player ran out of time but still had remaining guesses, we can optionally score the “micro points” to reward whatever progress the player made in their final round, or we can simply award 0 points for the round since it was not solved.
  9. Micro points are normally scored for every round played. This could aid in making tie situations more unlikely, while de-emphasizing the final round’s micro points.

Tournament ranking and winners

  1. At the end of the tournament, players points are tallied over all rounds of play, and then ranked in descending order. The player with the more points holds a higher rank in the standings.

Xanthiom: an Atari 2600 demake, homage to Metroid

Atari, reviews
Comments

A day ago, a video of an Atari 2600 homebrew for a Metroid de-make was posted on Reddit. I’m used to seeing these types of post and then losing track of the project as nothing happens for months or years. But this developer, MathanGames is working very quickly, it looks like in Batari Basic, and has already released a ROM.

The first two releases had a vertical jitter bug that gave the game a feeling like you were playing in a world prone to frequent earthquakes, which made jumping gaps somewhat dicey, but the 3rd build seems to have eliminated this defect, and is more playable. To hopefully avoid copyright/trademark infringement problems from the notoriously litigious Nintendo, the project has been renamed Xanthiom.

The game is not really attempting to port Metroid, exactly, but there’s a many familiar features: missiles,energy tanks, jump boots, wave beam, varia suit all make appearances. But there’s no morph ball, no bombs, no vertical shooting, no ice beam, and no screw attack. The starting world feels like Brinstar, and is joined by elevator pad to an area that seems to be Norfair, but the map layout is different, so it’s only very loosely based on Metroid, more homage than port.

Still, you’ll find doors to shoot, red doors require a missile, of course. A few of the enemies from Metroid also appear: Zoomers, Rippers, Rio,, and Skree. Even the mini-bosses, Ridley and Kraid, even a fake Ridley.. or is that a Space Pirate? Sadly, no Mother Brain, no Metroids (unless I haven’t found them yet.)

There’s no musical score, but there are sound effects for shooting and getting hit.

Controls are pretty awkward; it feels like the jump mechanics could use some polish. And some of enemies don’t collide with the backgrounds, so pass right through walls.

I love it. I’m hoping that the developer continues with this project, adding more to it, because what’s here already shows a great deal of promise, and I love playing NES de-makes on Atari 2600.

Altogether, this has a feel similar to Princess Rescue, but I think it feels better. Not terribly challenging, unless you count the rather awkward jumping, but you’ll enjoy playing through it in 20 or 30 minutes.

(more…)

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (a no spoiler review)

reviews
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I know this is going to sound weird, but Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves might be the best movie I have ever seen. It is literally perfect. Everything that it should have been, it was.

The above is not an April fools joke.

The movie didn’t set out to be the greatest movie ever made, nor is it high art, or even a “serious” film.

But they succeeded beautifully at capturing the spirit and mood of Dungeons & Dragons. The production hit every mark about as well as it could have been hit.

In terms of being everything it should be, Honor Among Thieves does it better than any other film adaptation I’ve ever watched. It aspires to be nothing more than it is, and it doesn’t need to.

It blends comedy, action, fantasy, and light drama superbly well.

The performances were all outstanding, sets and costumes spectacular, sfx and cgi weren’t the absolute best I ever saw, but I have no complaints.

It really felt as though I was watching a campaign played out by a group of friends who are having a good time and aren’t necessarily concerned about being epic at every moment, and indeed are quite comfortable being absurd, yet despite occasionally diverging into silliness it never feels like it goes off track.

There are moments when the characters say things to each other that feels almost more like “table talk” (player to player conversation rather than character to character).

And the story even had a coherent plot, without feeling contrived or like they rushed and forgot something, or threw out continuity because who cares, or anything. That’s so rare anymore.

I don’t know that it quite has the heart of a Princess Bride, but it is right up there with Pirates of the Caribbean or Guardians of the Galaxy, and I would be happy to see sequels if they could be done to the same level of quality, although I’m very content with the film as standalone.

Above all they truly nailed source material and the spirit with which gamers approach playing the game — deliberately, different characters are played with different styles, and the clash of acting styles and abilities is absolutely brilliantly suited to making a D&D film that really feels like D&D.

And so many little Easter eggs and references to the source material, if you’re looking for them.

If you have fond memories of playing the game, go see it.

40 years ago: How to Win at Video Games (Consumer Guide, 1983 edition)

Arcade
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The year was 1982-83 when I was in 3rd grade. Video games were very popular. ’83 would become known as the Year of the Crash for home gaming, but we didn’t know it yet.

Anywhere you went out in public, you were likely to see an arcade cabinet or two. At gas stations and convenience stores, at the checkout of the grocery store, at bowling alleys and at the local recreation center, and especially at dedicated arcades like Aladdin’s Castle or Chuck E. Cheese’s.

Space Invaders. Asteroids. Scramble. Donkey Kong. Pac-Man. Galaga. Dig Dug. Defender. Missile Command. Pole Position. Berzerk. Joust. Frogger. Popeye. Q*Bert. Qix. Time Pilot. Zookeeper. Legends. It was a golden age.

At 8 years old, I was now tall enough to reach the controls and see the screen. We had an Atari 2600 hooked up to the TV at home, and a growing collection that was about to explode when the Crash put games in bargain bins for pennies on the dollar.

And I occasionally had quarters and enough time to insert coin into a cabinet and get my ass handed to me in under a minute. Arcade games were beautiful — with vibrant, bright colors, booming sound, and evocative, illuminated marquee cabinet art. But they were damn difficult compared to the games we had at home. Arcade games were tough.

Sometime during that year, one of my classmates brought this book to school:

How to Win at Video Games by the editors of Consumer Guide

I was blown away by the photos of the arade graphics. So colorful. So detailed.

There were other books published about video games in this same period, but none of them had the production values of Consumer Guide. Most of them were in black and white and had few illustrations, and frequently the illustrations were actually drawings rather than screen captures or photos. Photography of CRT monitors was difficult, laborious, and expensive at this time, and printing at good enough quality for screen shots to be legible was expensive. Consumer Guide really stood out in giving this publication an outstanding treatment.

It was endlessly enjoyable to read. Each game was given a 4 page spread which briefly explained the game’s basics, and then went in depth to provide strategies for advanced play.

How much would it have retailed for back then? It must have cost a lot to publish, with its high quality printing in full bleed, full color. Consumer Guide showed the games so much respect by going high end. Justice done. I imagine today it would have run about $10. Back then, maybe $3-4? $6? I carefully peeled the price sticker off of my copy after I got it home, so it wouldn’t ruin the cover.

I don’t remember how, but I managed to get a copy of my own. I think maybe they had it at one of the scholastic book sales that they had at my school’s library, or something. Possibly it may have been on a magazine rack at the Waldenbooks at the local mall. Its format was like a glossy magazine, but the cardstock cover made it feel like it was meant to be a more permanent tome, to be held onto.

However I managed to find it, I bought a copy and immersed myself. I wanted to memorize it cover to cover. The patterns of to allow perfect play of Pac Man and Dig Dug were a bit much for me to memorize, but I still loved learning that there was some kind of order to the way the games presented their levels, that this order had a pattern, and that knowing the pattern could give you an edge to play better and get a higher score.

I also loved reading about the glitches in some of the games, like the trick in Galaga that causes the bugs to stop firing, or glitches in Robotron: 2084 that could be triggered by a skilled player with specific knowledge of them.

I spent hours and hours studying this guide, even for some of the games that I never saw in an arcade, such as Sinistar, which I only ever saw on a new TV game show, Starcade. I only saw a Sinistar cabinet in person many years later, at CLE PIN, just a few years ago.

Although short at only 96 pages, How to Win at Video Games was an encyclopedic guide to some of the best arcade games of 1982-3. I wish that they had done more of these books, in the same style, covering more of the classic pre-’84 arcade games.

Those games were so hard, if you didn’t know what you were doing you’d be out a quarter in under a minute. And a book like this only gave you evened odds to last a bit longer, and if you practiced, you could get the high score.

Today it’s a time capsule and a treasure. I still have my copy on a bookshelf, and it’s in remarkably good condition considering how much I read it. I really cared about keeping it in good condition. It bears the wisdom of the ancients.

This was like a precursor to 1987’s The Official Nintendo Players Guide, a black book that was the Holy Bible for the NES before Nintendo Power existed a few months later. A much thicker volume, it covered what at the time must have been the full library of games that were available at the time, or close to it.

Pre-Nintendo Power magazine, this was it: The Official Nintendo Player’s Guide.

And for a time, in the 1990s, it became customary for popular games to receive their own strategy guides, dedicated to a single game, going far more in depth, to give readers all the secrets.

Today, books like these have been largely (if not entirely) supplanted by the web, with sites like GameFAQs, Fandom, and others, usually fan-made, sometimes official. The web is a better medium for this content, for many reasons. But I do miss these books. Not that books are completely absent, but mostly it seems these days that books being published about video games tend to be more focused on the industry history, or take a more academic interest in appreciating their design, and putting them into a cultural context, than they are at providing tips and strategy. We are rather fortunate to have so much material available to us today.

Strike Zone Bowling 2nd beta

Atari, Console Gaming
Comments

The guys developing Strike Zone Bowling accepted some of my feedback and released a 2nd Beta recently. I just played it, and these are minor improvements but polish is everything once you have the core game defined, and these definitely improve the game.

They fixed the arrows on the lane, so that they are drawn like a real bowling lane.

Corrected lane arrows for a more authentic experience.

They also added a scaling effect so that the ball shrinks slightly as it moves down the alley, adding to the faux 3D effect. I guess you’d call this a 2D perspective game, rather than a 3D game?

The visually shrinking ball really adds to the feeling of depth.

Anyway, I had only the tiniest part in these improvements, but I DID suggest them and they DID implement them, and that makes me feel fantastic. It’s already a gift that these homebrew developers are giving the Atari community new games to play 45 years on after the 2600 was new. These tiny little changes are almost like a personalized gift to me. Thanks to easmith and kevinmos3 for their excellent work on this game.

Berzerk: Bad Box Cover Art

Atari, design
Comments

This is the cover artwork for the Atari 2600 video game, Berzerk.

When I was a kid, I never understood this image.

The illustration shows the human protagonist blasting a robot, caught in mid-explosion.

I could not recognize the robot’s anatomy, due to the way it’s clipped by the frame of the image, and the weird low angle and rear point of view.

To my eye, it looked like I was looking at the head of some insect-like robot, with its mandible coming apart, showering electronic sparks and fire, and the large round feature looking to me like huge compound bug eyes.

It’s actually the robot’s arm, and that thing that looks like a visor coming out over the nose between the two eyes is just some kind of weird mechanical shoulder joint.

I don’t know why they chose this particular image for the cover art, but I always regarded it as poorly chosen — visually confusing, and not very effective as a composition.

Maybe if they had framed the image a bit less close-up, so you could see the whole robot, and have more of an idea of what it was, it could have worked. Not having the robot’s head in frame, really messes with your perception of the image, and the ambiguous shoulder joint that looks enough like a head that it can confuse you into not seeing the image correctly, is a bad choice for the cover.

It’s still not as bad as the cover for Mega Man. Although, I actually like the cover art for Mega Man, and I think Mega Man had a better composition, albeit poorer rendering.

ChatGPT: A fun dog-like language

internet
Comments

Csanyk:

Hello

ChatGPT:

Hello! How can I assist you today?

Do you know about “doggo”?

Yes, “doggo” is a slang term used to refer to a dog, typically used in a cute or affectionate way. The term “doggo” is often used on social media and in internet memes. It’s part of a larger trend of using cutesy, informal language online.

Are you able to speak in the doggo language?

As an AI language model, I can generate text in various styles and tones, including informal or colloquial language like “doggo language.” However, since “doggo language” is not a real language and is instead just a playful way of referring to dogs, there is no specific grammar or vocabulary associated with it. So, while I can generate text that mimics this style, it’s not a real language and is just for fun.

Cool. Do you know the lyrics to the song “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys?

Yes, I can provide you with the lyrics to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys! Here they are:

[provides lyrics]

Can you translate the lyrics to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys into Doggo language?

Sure, I can try to translate the lyrics to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys into a Doggo language style. Here’s my attempt:

Woof woof, I can’t stand it,
I know you planned it
Gonna set it straight, this Watergate
Can’t stand rockin’ when I’m in here
‘Cause your crystal ball ain’t so crystal clear
So while you sit back and wonder why I got this dang thorn in my side
Oh my dog, it’s a mirage I’m tellin’ y’all, it’s sabotage

So listen up ’cause you can’t say nothin’
You’ll shut me down with a push of your button?
But woof, I’m out and I’m gone
I’ll tell you now, I keep it on and on
‘Cause what you see, you might not get
And we can bet so don’t you get souped yet
Schemin’ on a thing, that’s a mirage
I’m tryin’ to tell you now, it’s sabotage
Woof woof, our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage

I can’t stand it, I know you planned it
But I’m gonna set it straight, this Watergate
But I can’t stand rockin’ when I’m in this place
Because I feel disgrace
because you’re all in my face
But make no mistakes and switch up my channel
I’m buddy rich when I fly off the handle
What could it be, it’s a mirage
You’re schemin’ on a thing, that’s sabotage
Woof woof, our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage

Can’t stand it, I know you planned it
I’m gonna set it straight this Watergate
But I can’t stand rockin’ when I’m in this place
Because I feel disgrace because you’re all in my face
But make no mistakes and switch up my channel
I’m buddy rich when I fly off the handle
What could it be, it’s a mirage
You’re schemin’ on a thing, that’s sabotage

Woof woof, our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage

I can’t stand rockin’, rollin’
Stop the debatin’, make no mistake
Back in the saddle, you’re up on the stage It’s a sabotage

Hey woof, it’s a sabotage
Hey woof, it’s a sabotage
Hey woof, it’s a sabotage
Hey woof, it’s a sabotage

Woof woof, our backs are now against the wall

Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage
Listen all of y’all, it’s a sabotage

I hope that gives you a sense of how the lyrics might sound in a playful, dog-like language!

ChatGPT Feb 13 Version. Free Research Preview. Our goal is to make AI systems more natural and safe to interact with. Your feedback will help us improve.

Take 2

I didn't think that was as Doggo as it could have been, so I asked ChatGPT if it could do it a do again, and be extra heckin doggo this time.

Hello. Can you speak to me in Doggo language?

Hello fren! Me am Doggo ChatGPT. Woof woof! How can me helps you today?

Give me the lyrics to “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys, translated into Doggo language. Make it very heckin doggo, fren.

Okay, here’s the Doggo translation of “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys:

Bork! Bork! Bork!
Bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!

They be stealin’ dog treats, woof woof!
Tryin’ to steal my chew toys, grrr grrr!
I’ll catch ’em in the act, arf arf!
Won’t let ’em get away, ruff ruff!

Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!

I’m a watchdog, yip yip!
Gonna sniff ’em out, snort snort!
Chase ’em ’round the yard, run run!
Barkin’ up a storm, woof woof!

Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!

They can try to run, but they can’t hide, growl growl!
I’m on their tails, pant pant!
Gonna catch ’em soon, wag wag!
Won’t let ’em sabotage, bark bark bark!

Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!
Bork bork bork,
bark bark bark!

Bark bark bark,
woof woof woof!
Bark bark bark,
woof woof woof!
Bark bark bark,
woof woof woof!
Bark bark bark,
woof woof woof!

OMG fren. Good boi.

Thank you, fren! Me am always happy to be of service in doggo language. Woof woof!

I thought the first "translation" as too incomplete, not enough Doggo language and too much original words. And I thought that the second one was wildly exuberant, but lacked the directness of translation that I was hoping to see, and still didn't really feel authentically "doggo" to me. So I decided to do it a try myself.

Heckin Sab Lyrics by a Hooman Intelligence fluent in Doggo Language:

Ams can’t do it a stand, Ams know you did it a plan
Ams will do it a straighten, this Heckergate
Am no can stand doin a rock when Am in here
‘Cause your crystal ball not so heckin clear
While hooman do a sit back and do a wonder why
Ams got this heckin thorn in my paw
OMG fren, is bamboozle
Am doin you a tell, it is sab

So, so, so, so listen pup ’cause you can’t do a bork
Do me a settle down boy with a push of your button?
But heck you, Am out and do a go
Am do you a tell now, Am doin a heckin zoom

‘Cause you see a treat, you might not get
Can do a bet, don’t do excite yet
You scheming on a heckin bamboozle
Am trying do you a tell, it is sab

Woof

Our backs are now against the wall?

Bork bork, y’all, it is sab
Bork bork, y’all, it is sab
Bork bork, y’all, it is sab
Bork bork, y’all, it is sab

Ams can’t do it a stand, Ams know you did it a plan
Ams will do a straighten, this Heckergate
Hooman, Am can’t stand doin a rock when am in side
Because Am feel disgrace cuz all doin me a heck
Don’t do a mistake and do my channel a switch up
Am heckin angery when I do the handle off a fly
What is? Heckin bamboozle
You’re doin a scheme, is heckin sab.

My Perfect Console podcast interviews Phil Fish (Fez)

games, Indie Gaming
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Becoming successful as an unknown indie game developer is insanely difficult. It is nearly impossible. The amount of dedication and sacrifice required to even have a chance at getting established in the world of game design, and having a financially successful game, is so great that it can break a young, healthy person’s mental and physical health.

I have some inkling of this from my own experiences with attempting to create games. It’s certainly possible for just about anyone who wants to to create small, simple games as a hobby, and if this is what you aspire to, it can be rewarding. But the degree of effort required, and difficulty between doing game development at this level, and becoming a successful professional indie developer is probably more than you could imagine.

I got a little bit of validation about that from listening to this interview with Phil Fish, creator of Fez and one of the featured “stars” of Indie Game: The Movie.

Fish is remembered for creating the incredibly well-received Fez, and then canceling the planned sequel in dramatic fashion, and deleting his social media accounts, and exiting from the public eye. In the My Perfect Console interview, he talks about what he went through and what led him to make that decision, how he feels about that looking back, and what he’s been up to since then.

When I watched Indie Game: The Movie, the impression I had of Fish was that he was under tremendous stress, high strung, and prone to letting his emotions get the better of him, and also very intelligent and highly skilled.

In this interview, he talks about how what he went through to create Fez isn’t repeatable, and not something he would recommend to other aspiring game designers.

I could see that, watching the film 10 years ago, it didn’t surprise me to hear Fish confirm that my reading at the time of what was going on was essentially correct, but it felt good. It’s also good to hear Fish in the interview, sounding more relaxed, less intense, wiser for his experience, and opening up about what the experience was like, with the benefit of hindsight. Fish was pretty tight-lipped when it came to details on what he’s been up to, so it remains to be seen whether he’ll be working on any new games. But whatever he’s doing with himself, it’s good to know that he’s in a better place mentally and emotionally these days.

Remembering Kool-Aid Man (Atari 2600)

Atari, Console Gaming
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Kool-Aid Man was one of those games that was an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the Atari 2600. Released in 1983, the year of the Crash. As an 8 year old kid, the Crash didn’t mean much to me, other than that games got insanely cheap that year, as a glut of unwanted video games were liquidated by retailers for pennies on the dollar.

The Koo-Aid Man video game was initially a special offer only game. To get a copy, you had to send in proof-of-purchases for Kool-Aid, and wait several weeks for the cartridge to arrive by mail. I don’t remember how many points you had to send in, but we drank a ton of kool-aid in my house, and one day our copy arrived.

125 points? That doesn’t seem like all that much.

I found this scanned image of a print ad from some comic book on the web, and it says you could send in either 125 Kool-Aid Proof of Purchase points, or 30 points + $10. I think each packet of Kool Aid drink mix powder was worth a single point, and mixed like a gallon of Kool Aid. So it really was a TON of Kool Aid we had to drink to earn this game.

People will tell you this game sucked, but I liked it. The game was fun, if simple game. The premise of the game is that there’s this swimming pool full of water, that you, Kool-Aid Man, have to protect from these creatures called Thirsties. Thirsties are… well, they’re thirsty, and they want to drink up all the water in the swimming pool. If that happens, the swimming pool won’t be fun anymore, and everyone’s day will be ruined. But you’re Kool-Aid Man, your job is to quench people’s thirst. So you can save the day by quenching the Thirsties’ thirst, thereby saving the swimming pool for the swimmers. Now, if only someone could fix that huge hole in the wall…

The people saying this game sucks might have been speaking literally.

The game consists in rounds lasting 60 seconds, and if you can clear all the Thirsties in the level before this time elapses, you’ll get bonus points for the remaining time, and then start a new level with higher difficulty provided by the Thirsties moving faster than before.

You spend most of your time dodging moving Thirsties. When a Thirsty drinks it stops to extend a long straw to the water in the pool. This is when it is vulnerable. Hitting Thirsties when they are drinking eliminates the Thirsty, and gives you some points. Colliding with a free-roaming Thirsty, or into one of the edges of the screen, will cause you to bounce out of control, giving the Thirsties time to drink more pool water.

You can buy yourself a few seconds of invincibility by grabbing ingredients of Kool-Aid: Water, Sugar, and Kool-Aid Mix. Grabbing these changes you into a bigger pitcher of Kool-Aid and makes you invulnerable while a tune plays, and also adds some water back to the pool. Mercifully, you can still knock out a drinking Thirsty if you careen into it while out of control, and if you luck into a power-up it renders you invulnerable, instantly returning control back to you. The fire button does nothing in this game, which is a rare thing.

If you play the game enough, you may notice that the Thirsties behavior is not random — the Thirsties always stop to drink at the same time, in the same order. By learning the pattern, you can gain an advantage over the game and get a better score, which makes the game somehow both more and less re-playable. More because learning the pattern could lead to developing strategies to get through the level while losing less of the water, less because if the game is always the same every time you play it, that can get boring. I only noticed this when I went back to re-play the game to write this review, when I was a kid it seemed like each new game was random, and I never caught on to the pattern.

Unlike most Atari 2600 games, Kool-Aid Man starts a new game immediately upon turning the console on. To give you a second or two to get ready, there’s a sweet intro screen, which features a full-screen animation of Kool-Aid Man crashing through a wall around a typical suburban backyard. The invincibility tune plays, and then the game starts without any delay.

Check out that cinematic cutscene! Oh yeah!

It seemed to me that the game programmers were a little sloppy by making the game work like this. It always made me anxious to know that I had to start playing the game immediately upon turning on the console.

When the game ends, the screen background goes dark, and you lose control over Kool-Aid Man, and the score stops increasing. But the Thirsties continue to fly around, and every time they crash into Kool-Aid Man, he’s sent careening around, bonking off of the walls and other Thirsties, forever.

Even in death, the power-ups make you invincible.

And while it was funny to watch the defeated Kool-Aid Man bouncing around forever, the noise from this going on non-stop was pretty annoying, and tended to make you want to turn the game off as soon as your game was over unless you were going to immediately start a new game.

Overall, the game was a good test of skill and reflexes, had tight controls, decent balance, and a tough challenge curve. On the other hand, it got old fast, because there was nothing new after the first screen, the game immediately presented everything it had to offer.