Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

12 minutes ago, AtariSociety said:

Hoping there will be a "Holiday" themed game one day for Amico.. one that we all can crack out and play during the holidays.

We of course will have some winter games that I suppose can be enjoyed too but would like to see some Christmas Sparkle too!

Say during the month of December, snowmen pop up on the slopes in Skiing and throw snowballs at you.. or throw their own arms made of sticks or their noses of carrots if they want. haha.

I mean getting killed off by a carrot... priceless!

Stuff like that. Add some holiday sparkle in some games.

TJ  ☃️

I hope so too.  I mentioned about having holiday themed mini games on Amico.  But a full holiday game is great also.

The Amico boot up screen can say Wouldn't that be something?  Then it shows Intellivision Amico name.  Also when the controller batteries die and need charging, you hear OOF.  Lol.

I was looking "The Game Awards" tonight !

Then, I visualize myself next year, in december 2021.

There is one game from Amico that could steal the show !

World Premiere : Eartworm Jim ! Only for Amico !

After the footage, Tommy with a two minutes explaining what's Amico.

Then, the next day, a lots of hardcore gamers buying an Amico, because Eartworm Jim is coming the following week !

Wouldn't that be something ? 😃

On 12/4/2020 at 9:22 AM, bigdaddygamestudio said:

always nice with fun memories pop back into your brain. Just one of the things that makes Intellivision special.

 

Oh and one more thing, late next week be on the lookout for a PM from me, my new game Outta Sight is finished and besides a few playtesters, you'll be the first to check it out.

Looking forward to it!

On 12/4/2020 at 9:45 AM, IMBerzerk said:

Here's a quick view of my short stack collection.  I'm not an avid collector, I just like what I like and try to get stuff that looks good.  I don't have boxes for all.my units, as I don't have space for them, nor is anything displayed.

 

So to cover it....

 

The two Sears units that are i. Front of boxes.  The left unit is my oldest one and was frankensteined out of a few non-working units.  It was my Retropie console until.i found a better one.  To my surprise, I have the two Sears box variants as well.  The Sears unit sitting in front of the beat-up box is a correct numbers matching box and unit.  I bought it because the unit was in fantastic shape and is my best looking, original Sears unit.  Unfortunately the box looks like crap.  

 

The third Sears unit in front is my oldest Sears unit with a J102 sequence serial number and Mattel  HK 1979 manufacturers date on it. 

 

To it's left is the Radio Shack Tandyvision One.  Serial #P2 001062, Mattel HK 1979 manufacturer date.  Its all original, as you see it is as I got it.  The only difference between the Mattel Intellivision and the Tandy One is not only the wood, but the notches cut into the upper housing for the game controller side buttons.  So it leads me to believe that Radio Shack didn't just buy the rights to sell them, but may have had them specific designed for them, much like Sears did.  

 

The Sylvania unit is original as well. Ser# 1899033 Mattel USA manufacturer date 1979.  The only issue I had with this one is that the serial number label fell off, so I had to glue it back on.  It is not the same color "metal" as the Mattel version.  It's more of a pewter color.  I like it, it's toned down and looks more industrial than the Mattel built 2609.

Behind the Sylvania is my SSVA Retropie unit.  It's a prestine Sears unit that is now running Retropie on a Raspberry Pi3b+.  I can always swap the top as all the cutting and modding was done to the base. It's sitting on the proper Tele-Games case/cover that would have been sold around the same time.  We had the case with my SSVA back in the 80s...so it made sense to me to match it up.

 

Next to that is my Sears Tele-Games Heavy Sixer with matching wood grain to the SSVA. You might notice I like the Sears units.  Lol.  I do.  We had a Sears charge card, so my parents bought everything Sears back then.  If you're going to collect Atari units...don't forget this one...and get the Heavy Sixer version if you buy Atari. It's often over-looked but it's the original 2600.   This one was a mess and needed a complete teardown and rebuild.  It's complete and restored back to working condition 

 

Lastly are the two Mattel units.  The difference between these I hope can be seen in the picture.  The color on the forward unit is far more gold then the rear most unit with the disticks.  I had asked on the forum years ago if there was some sort of reason for this, but it seems to be just a variation in the production of the gold trim between years.  

 

And of course .. the three covers.  They are all originals.  The brown vinyl was a nice score.  It's in very nice shape, while the 2 canvas covers look great, buy still have a smoke smell to them from whatever household they came from.  

 

The Flashback unit is now a Retropie unit heavily modified to include and internal power supply and room for 4 controllers. Two USB in the front under the lip of the 2 front inputs.  I hope to do a complete write-up on how I did all that soon.  

 

I hope you enjoyed this ..I've never shown anyone my collection as I never had anyone ask.  Lol.  

 

I do think we should have a pinned thread for all this.  It would be cool to see all the differences and variations.  

 

One last little fun note.  My Tele-Games game case actually has the gold sticker on the top part, which is very rare to see.  Took me several purchases to get one, on a good plastic cover.  

 

 

Awesome!!  Your Sears units are super clean!  Hard to find in that white color these days... mostly off-white/yellowish now.

Great collection!!  Thanks for sharing.

On 12/4/2020 at 11:04 AM, mr_me said:

That's not a manufacturing date.  That's the year the mould was designed.  The chips inside will have manufacturing dates.

 

The tank game would be Armor Battle.  Intellivisions were pretty rare in 1979.  What city were you in?

You know way too much about this stuff!

You're pretty amazing!

🏆

On 12/4/2020 at 4:56 PM, IMBerzerk said:

Did you get yours?  How's the quality and how big is it?  I was looking at the Baseball one, but I like that football as well.

The desktop ones (Baseball, Utopia, Shark! Shark!, etc.) are 6 inches wide.

On 12/4/2020 at 5:04 PM, Intellivision Master said:

No, I didn't buy one.  If I did, I'd get the Vectrex one.  They all look neat.  The shadow box versions cost the most.  The desktop versions are cheaper.

The shadow boxes are much bigger and SUPER COOL!!!  We have a few of them in the office.

On 12/4/2020 at 11:45 PM, GD Mof said:

Yeah, seems that way. Maybe I can still get a VIP pre-order...

We will be selling the Woodgrain direct from our website before launch.

On 12/5/2020 at 3:32 AM, mr_me said:

If most people are like me they go to youtube to watch videos not read comments.  And in general social media is not representative of any community.  There's usually a very small fraction of people that post the overwelming majority of comments.

Complete fact.  Folks who talk on the internet are the vast minority. 

Including all of us here.

On 12/5/2020 at 3:46 AM, nightmonkeyii said:

Two words,

 

Sensible Soccer!

EXACTLY!!

Great game!!!

In our Soccer design meetings it's basically....

Intellivision Soccer meets Sensible Soccer!

Gonna be a good one!

On 12/5/2020 at 9:01 AM, atarifan88 said:

Personally, I think Amico should steer clear of having player names in their game so there is no obligation to keep putting out the same game year after year.  Using the team names is fine and keeping the gameplay similar to the Intellivision would be great.  I do feel that the AI in their sports games needed ramped up though.  World Cup Soccer for the original Intellivision was on the right track minus the goalie AI.  Here's to keeping some of the legacy of the original sports games as a part of their future games.

Yep!  That is our strategy.  Not doing roster stuff.  Not our style.

On 12/5/2020 at 10:30 AM, mr_me said:

EA doesn't have to come out with a new game every year.  They can sell roster updates for a small fee if they want.  They do it the way they do because they can.

 

I think player rosters, even if fictitious, just adds a layer of complexity to the games that's not fun (some people find it fun).  Didn't care for it in Intellivision Slam Dunk Basketball.

I agree.

On 12/5/2020 at 10:57 AM, AmicoBoise said:

Sociable Soccer looks interesting.

 

Ours actually looks somewhat similar to this... except HORIZONTAL... not vertical. 

30 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

You know way too much about this stuff!

 

You're pretty amazing!

 

🏆

 

 

I gotta say, he's taught me almost all I know about emulation and Intellivision, as well as a hundred other things like how Ping Pong and Pong are protected trademarks for Table Tennis and not just public domain Onomatopoeia. . 

On 12/5/2020 at 12:11 PM, mr_me said:

An Apple Arcade exclusive.  It's 3D but the controls are suppose to be simple; inspired by Sensible Soccer.  I hope Amico Soccer uses a horizontal orientation.

Your wish is my command!

On 12/5/2020 at 10:39 PM, AmicoBoise said:

 It would be nice to get a simple, fun soccer game again, though.

Count on it!

On 12/6/2020 at 3:28 AM, GD Mof said:

Sorry to be a pain, but when you say showing a demo running on Android, do you mean a video or a build? And if you mean a build, would it be tested on an Amico dev kit and therefore support physical controls via stuff like Input.GetAxis("Horizontal") and Input.GetButton("Fire1") or would I have to write touch controls, when I'm mostly planning on using physical controls (and maybe use the touch screen for stuff like switching weapons)? If you mean a video then I'd have to write touch controls to show how the game plays of course (unless I recorded my inputs from the PC version and then played them back on the Android version).

 

I was hoping Unity might automatically convert stuff like Input.GetAxis("Horizontal") into touch controls on Android (since stuff like that works across most physical inputs/game systems), but it appears that's not the case.

Either or.  Please make sure to keep controls as simple as possible.  Try to avoid more than 2 buttons if possible.  

On 12/6/2020 at 3:45 AM, IntelliMission said:

I think the perfect soccer game for the Amico would be Haxball, an online free game that you can play 1 vs 1 up to 4 vs 4:

 

 

Only one action button, each player controls only one player on the screen, ball bounces off walls, all players are visible at all times, different playing field sizes to choose from...

 

However, I can't think of how the controller could be used in an unique way here.

Swipe the screen in the direction you want the ball to go.

Wouldn't That Be Something?™

On 12/6/2020 at 5:54 AM, Intellivision Master said:

This is the last Amico podcast for 2020.  But it'll return next month.

I was able to convince him to do one more this weekend as I missed that last couple of ones.

On 12/6/2020 at 6:15 AM, Bixler said:

I mentioned to my parents that I thought I had some old video games stored away at their place, and sure enough...! (My father took some pics and sent them to me).

 

No system to play them on, alas. But this is exciting!

That was EPIC!

Thanks for sharing!!

A lot of GREAT memories right there!!

On 12/6/2020 at 7:02 AM, Intellivision Master said:

The physical media for the retro-reimagined is supposed to happen this month.  I can't wait to see what it looks like.  Also, I know we're all still waiting for the UI video.  Maybe Tommy can show us in January.  It would be a nice way to begin the new year.

UI video before the physical media. 

On 12/6/2020 at 9:09 AM, Intellivision Master said:

This is a Scramble clone.  It would be neat to have on Amico.

 

Scramble would be even better.

On 12/7/2020 at 5:44 AM, atarifan88 said:

Don't forget 4th and inches for the C64!  BTW, I loved MicroLeague Baseball.  Super Bowl Sunday for C64 was a good coaching football game where you could play old teams against each other.  I also enjoyed Super Star Ice Hockey for C64.  These games gave another dimension the Intellivision was lacking, but both systems were great in their own way...

Micro League Baseball was GREAT!!!!!!!!   Played it to death on my Apple IIc!!!

On 12/7/2020 at 5:57 AM, Intellivision Master said:

 

Mr. Plimpton was right!

That Atari baseball really SUCKED.