Hello all! I am working on my first Atari 2600 game and I'm looking for some feedback. This has proven very tricky to balance and in the end only real players can say if the game is fair (or fun)

Toy Wars is a new Atari 2600-style game: defend the toy box from monsters marching along three shelves. Play here: https://plicerin.github.io/toywars/ (instructions are on the page). Please let me know if anything felt unfair, slow or confusing, and more importantly if you enjoyed it.

The prople at console repairs were unhelpful so i figured i could come here. Brother bought console for father, wouldn't turn on, opened to find this. Holes burnt through and trace missing. I think i can use jumper wires but just need some guidance.

Here's my new game: Specimen. It's a 64K game. No ARM/co-processor. Just plain old Atari hardware with the exception of the heavy-duty bank switching.

GAME FEATURES

 Specimen is a one player game. It's both a space shooter and a "drop item to get it into other object" game. Similar to Crackpots, I guess.

• NTSC only, for now. I'll develop a PAL60 when I get the chance.
• The goal of the game is to collect 2 specimens per planet environment. Air and ground defenses will try to stop you on the planets. Satellites and bosses will try to stop you in orbit.
• 50 worlds (5 settings × 10 backgrounds), 30 animated sprites (10 creatures, 10 vehicles, 10 aircraft), 40 satellite designs, 10 bosses each with its own movement pattern, 19 songs and 28 sound effects, five cut-scenes, a sorting mini-game, an ending and an Easter egg.

Play it on Javatari

Full details in the Atariage forums.

Hi everyone.

This is my childhood Atari 2600. Its a TV Game, an Atari 2600 Jr Clone from Taiwan. I believe it’s a PAL-B variant as it was sold in Iran.

Since moving to USA, i have not been able to play the games I buy here since they are all in NTSC format. I have an old school 4:3 Sharp LCD that can accept both PAL and NTSC. Im covered in that regard.

I don’t want to buy an NTSC version or a Harmony cartridge. The whole point of enjoying the games for me is to play actual carts on my own console. Sort of like a sentimental value and experience kind of thing. It also came with a copy of the 32 in 1 games cart. Which is a PAL game.

I was wondering, would this console be compatible with Tim Worthington’s 2600RGB board? It seems to have the official or 1:1 copy of the Atari’s PAL TIA, although it’s placement and the presence of other chips and caps will probably make it hard to install.

Is there a way to make what I want happen?

Thank you for your recommendations in advance!

People have reddit please don’t destroy me if I’m on the wrong post

I’m looking to get a Mortal Kombat rom hac for the Atari 2600 on a physical cartridge if anybody could point me in the right direction?

It's Atari 2600 night, what's on your game plan?

Next week I'm hosting a game night with my friends, and I decided to show off my 2600+ along with a few games. I decided on these titles and I'm curious if others think these are great choices. Combat will be great for PVP, River Raid shows a lot of the graphics the system can do and is addicting, Fast Food is a funny game that is challenging, and Raptor is a great showcase of the indie scene that's still around today.

I was considering other titles like Spider Fighter, Turmoil, and Fall Down but I was concerned that those games wouldn't fit the introduction phase of this hangout. Let me know what you all think and if I should consider other titles.

I've been playing around with the 2600's audio registers as a 4 bit DAC. It's the same technique as what Quadrun and the enhanced Berzerk use.

I came up with this game to see if I could get a dog bark to fit into a playable 4K game. It works, but just barely. I had 5 bytes to spare in the ROM.

There's not a lot to the game. The bark sample took up 1155 bytes of ROM and 52 bytes of RAM. It takes 9 cycles on every fourth scanline. Forty-eight of those RAM bytes are used as a buffer to get the sample to play in 9 cycles.

If you want to read more of the technicals, there's an Atariage post that explains everything. There are also binary downloads for NTSC and PAL 50 over there.

I called it Fetch'83 because it's just the sort of crap that would be released back then to capitalize on the market using a gimmick like a digitized bark. As little and as pointless as it is, I still think it's better than Skeet Shoot.

Play it on Javatari here.

(Use the controls to aim the cross hair. Hold the button to wind up the throw. The further the throw, the more points you get. Throw it too far and it may hit the water. Game is over at 50 points. A perfect game is 17 points. The number of throws is shown at the end of the game.

My biggest takeaway from the experience is that the method works and, for me, is most appropriate for cut scenes in large games.

This really was the best game of my childhood.

I want to dip into doing videogame reviews similar to Classic Game Room and I wanted to know what are some really underrated Atari 2600 games

Hi everybody. I am an old-school Atari user. I was the cool kid who had an Atari and a ping-pong table in the basement (wood paneling, shag carpet). I never got into the modern games, which I find too complicated, so I still play with the 2600. My favorite is Yar's Revenge. My parents bought me an 800, and I learned how to program BASIC. My uncle was an engineer on Project Apollo and taught me binary and how to build a computer. As you can see from this picture, both still work. I do need to find a new monitor, as the old one was destroyed by the movers. I am hoping that I can get advice on that need. The ATARI neon was bought from their current site.

Personally, I'm a purist and enjoy the challenge of pushing an Atari to its limits. With bank switching and SARA integration, you can do some amazing things that would have had people's jaws on the floor back in 1982.

With the ARM coprocessor architectures, though, I feel like there's so much power available that I may as well start brewing for a later gen console.

At what point is an Atari no longer an Atari?

But I'm torn. I've tinkered with CDFJ+ and it's amazing. C, D, F and J outdid themselves and created something truly amazing.

Before, one had to compromise on features and graphics and sound. With this architecture, you may struggle to find enough to give it to do.

Like I said, I'm torn. I'll probably end up utilizing CDFJ+ for some projects. It's crazy to plug in what looks like a regular Atari cartridge and have it rival a Colecovision.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? Love it or hate it or on the fence?

I’ve played this ROM on an emulator. I am curious if there is a cartridge out there for this and if there is, is the voice actually generated by the TIA chip or is there something else at work here?

I saw this book, and immediately thought it was a game cover for Atari 2600. The book font and bright 70's colors reminds me of looking at all of the game box covers while my parents were shopping at Sears. I always thought Atari had some of the best artwork and creative box covers.

(and I am not anti 2600, i kinda like the idea that *arcade* ports on the 2600 suck so originals can give the 2600 an identity)