Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

Any progress on R-Type? R-Type Final 2 releases in 2 days, so I'm kind of curious about Amico R-Type.

8 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

10 courses total.  No easy/medium/hard.

Ok, thanks Tommy 😀👍

This is pretty cool !!

@Tommy Tallarico on amico all access you mentioned baseball would be available at launch.  Any chance we get a video of the game play in the next few months?  The game must be moving along nicely if it's scheduled for October!

Tommy,

An Amico game idea that I think would be great is a game based on video game history. I was thinking if there was a way to play through the history of games such as starting with pong and as the game progressed graphics and sounds would improve as the “years” went by. I could see this working for the sports games, space games and the other “networks.”

Another idea I would like to see is a reimagining of the Koei game “Liberty or Death” that was on the Sega Genesis and PC (DOS). There was also a game for Sega Genesis that I own called    Goofy's Hysterical History Tour That was a platformer and I believe that it could work well. As you can probably tell, I am a history buff. 

CurlyQ,

I like the Shark! Shark! shirt that you recently showed.  It would be nice to also have a shirt with just Puffy on it.  Then have his name under the picture.

Finally!!!!  After almost 2 months of playing catch-up, I just finished reading all the posts.  This thread grows faster than I have time to read.  I'm excited for the Amico and my kids (2, 7, and 9) LOVE to wear thier Amico T-shirts to school now that they go in person.

My 7 year old boy was playing the original Utopia quite a lot last year.  Now he is playing the original Civilization on my old B&W Macintosh.  He also plays the old Maxis Sim games alot.  I never thought a child that young would be into these more "complicated" strategy games, but he keeps leaning toward these world/nation building style games.  He also loves Risk.  I guess these are somewhat similar to his all-time favorite (and most kids' favorite) game, Minecraft.  In all of these, the player becomes the creator of the game.

I know Utopia is being reimagined, but what other games are in the pipeline that would really allow the player to build, create, strategize, and control the environment?

I use video games with my kids as learning tools because I realized how much I learned from video games myself.  Much of my troubleshooting skills, multitasking abilities, prioritizing methods, and man-hour time management of my work crews come naturally to me because I developed the skills as a kid playing video games.  Solving puzzle rooms in Zelda, juggling multiple tasks in Lemmings, and and sending off hordes of armies in Starcraft all trained my brain to be efficient and effecting in complete tasks and achieving goals.

I don't want only boring ABC/123 "learning" games, because I never wanted to play them as a kid.  Those were created to appease parents in a time when the media was blaming video games for everything bad in the world.  They were definitely NOT created for the childhood version of me.

I want games that are simply fun, but challenging in ways that teach my kids skills without them knowing it.  Similar to how Sim City teaches kids about taxes, money management, and government without being marketed to the child as an "educational" game.

I also WANT the games to be somewhat addictive for my kids, as long as the game helps them develop skills.  How great would it be for my kids to voluntarily spend thier free time in something good?  I would absolutely love to come home and see my two older kids playing a game of Monopoly together on the kitchen table.  I would feel the same if I came home to them playing Utopia or some sort of reimagined multiplayer Sim City Amico game.  This is all asuming that Amico is able to deliver the same quality of game as Monopoly.

None of these scenarios will ever happen unless the game is so fun for my kids that they are begging to play it.  I would rather have to deal with my kids being somewhat "addicted" to a problem-solving game than have to try to convince them to play an "educational" game.

Any way, I'm just rambling on with multiple thoughts because it will probably be another 2 months before I catch up with reading this thread again.  I might as well get it all out while I'm here.  Thanks everyone and hopefully the people at Intellivision can incorporate my parental thoughts into the vast majority of thier games.  And also add more world-building, strategy, and Sim-City style games.

On 4/27/2021 at 9:47 AM, Cranker said:

This is pretty cool !!

If you get this... buy a massive sheet of Lexan (you can cut it like wood) and cut it to fit it to the circle and all the required holes.  The buttons should be long enough to go through it. Sand down the edge and you will have a great table protector

The longevity of the graphics on the Arcade1 cabinets is very questionable unless you protect it.  I wouldn't trust the "spray coating" he mentions. 

But it certainly looks really cool and very good choice of games from 2 different styles (vertical and horizontal)

The funny thing is with these... the electronics are pretty good (screen included) but the build quality and graphics are questionable.  They build them with 3/8" MDF or at most 1/2.  True arcade machines are all 3/4" Plywood or a mix of MDF and Plywood.  So they have a bad habit of breaking easy of your a little rough with them.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled Wednesday programming to interrupt.. umm, regularly scheduled Wednesday programming..

Due to a work conflict, there’s no Amico After Dark tonight.  We’ll be back next Wednesday at 9p Eastern.  Apologies for the late announcement!

Darth Vader doesn't go anywhere without his Amico.

26 minutes ago, CurlyQ said:

Great stuff.  Keep up the good work CurlyQ. 

4 hours ago, CurlyQ said:

Darth Vader doesn't go anywhere without his Amico.

 

You don't know the power of the Amico-Side....

Or Simply: Impressive... Most Impressive.

You choose.

Another CurlyQ masterpiece.

7 hours ago, CurlyQ said:

Darth Vader doesn't go anywhere without his Amico.

 

Yes, but Vader has an unfair advantage. He uses "mind" controls. 

@LinemanDoc It's great to know different points of view and yours is surely original. However:

1) I think you disregard educational games too quickly. You say "no kid wants to play those". I confess I never played one, but these games exist for a reason. They are aimed at very small children. The educational part of them is not about future, potential working skills (to young for that?), but about having human values. Also, it's not about what they want, it's about what their parents want at those ages.

2) To counter your point of view about strategy games: they were too complex for me at 12, and they're still too complex for me at 41. And since Amico is about simple gaming that you can enjoy with non gamers, I don't think we will see too many strategy games released for it except for Utopia.

Amico Archon is a strategy game, I expect there to be some table top strategy games on Amico as well.  Strategy games don't need to be complicated, hopefully we see a few more strategy games on amico.

And I agree with what Linemandoc said about educational games, the best ones don't look like educational games.  Building games are great for kids, I'd like to something like railroad tycoon.

The only reason Archon and Utopia are on the list is beacuse they are 1) reimagined classics and 2) very simple strategy games. Don't expect traditional strategy games in this console.

There's a reason why the kids at the museum were playing Shark! Shark! and not Age of Empires.

Regarding the educational games, I think it's pretty clear that they will be simple games that teach values, not "hey 5 year old kid, learn how to be an investor! This will be useful for you 20 years later!" type games.

2 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

2) To counter your point of view about strategy games: they were too complex for me at 12, and they're still too complex for me at 41. And since Amico is about simple gaming that you can enjoy with non gamers, I don't think we will see too many strategy games released for it except for Utopia.

I agree it is likely there won't be too many strategy games but don't forget about announced titles like Incan Gold (Diamant), which are basically board games but with a strategy element. I also wouldn't mind seeing other simple strategy games like Risk, Catan Jr, Ticket to Ride etc. make the jump from board to Amico. I think you are right we won't (and shouldn't) see complex strategy games but simple & popular board strategy games I think we will see several of.

22 minutes ago, CurlyQ said:

I would LOVE to see Frogger for the Amico! If nothing else to make up for that rather lack luster port onto the OG Intellivision. The Inty with worse graphics than the VCS version, shameful.

7 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

I would LOVE to see Frogger for the Amico!

Frogger is coming to Amico.  Looking forward to seeing it re-imagined.

35 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

Frogger is coming to Amico.  Looking forward to seeing it re-imagined.

Me too, I want to see how they handle multiplayer and if they are going to extend the game with any unique Amico features. Since we haven't seen anything on it, it will probably be 2022 or even later but it is such a classic and, like I said before, the Intellivision version needs a bit of redemption. Maybe do something like powerups you can see on your controller screen to aid/sabotage other players for coop or vs modes. A great opportunity for an 'even better on the Amico' game.

1 hour ago, GrudgeQ said:

I agree it is likely there won't be too many strategy games but don't forget about announced titles like Incan Gold (Diamant), which are basically board games but with a strategy element. I also wouldn't mind seeing other simple strategy games like Risk, Catan Jr, Ticket to Ride etc. make the jump from board to Amico. I think you are right we won't (and shouldn't) see complex strategy games but simple & popular board strategy games I think we will see several of.

Agreed. There are degrees of strategy games. I was playing Lemonade Stand, SimCity and Oregon Trail probably around grades 2-4 (8-10 years of age). There's a pretty wide range of acceptable titles that would fall into the strategy category, like a Zoo or amusement park building or restaurant-building game. City and world building games would work, too. Gazillionnaire is a fun, simple old DOS game where you have to build a business and go planet hopping to buy wares low and sell them high. Something like that would also work.

So here is an odd idea:

Since Intellivision is releasing certain classics on Evercade, would you be interested in doing the same on certain other platforms?

NES and Game Boy are still very popular collector's markets, even to this day. Apparently, someone has made an Intellivision emulator for both, in fact:

And then there are those NES ports that Intellivision commissioned for the 2003 plug-and-plays...  Do you think retro gamers might be interested in NES or GBC repro carts, featuring a compilation of classic Intellivision titles?  (Just as a side venture; maybe partner with Retro-Bit or Limited Run Games?)

4 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

@LinemanDoc It's great to know different points of view and yours is surely original. However:

 

1) I think you disregard educational games too quickly. You say "no kid wants to play those". I confess I never played one, but these games exist for a reason. They are aimed at very small children. The educational part of them is not about future, potential working skills (to young for that?), but about having human values. Also, it's not about what they want, it's about what their parents want at those ages.

 

2) To counter your point of view about strategy games: they were too complex for me at 12, and they're still too complex for me at 41. And since Amico is about simple gaming that you can enjoy with non gamers, I don't think we will see too many strategy games released for it except for Utopia.

Also I would add to the first point that it also gets younger kids familiar with using technology as well some gross motor skills. I will also say that games like Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego were really good ways of getting kids familiar with computers and a sneaky and fun way to get them engaged and learning about history and geography.