Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

10 hours ago, インテレビジョン said:

This needs to be put in a gold frame. I think it's a sign of the times. Fake news, QAnon, conspiracy theories, denial of science. So sad to witness.

 

Actually, Tommy, I hope it's okay to ask a question not related to the Amico, but as head of IE, what assets does the company hold from the original Intellivision? Of course you have the ROM images of a number of Intellivision games and could release them with an emulator like with the Intellivision Rocks releases. But does the company have the original source code of any original Intellivision games? What about the Your Friend the EXEC produced by APh? Do you have the original versions of the box art, controller inlays or instruction manuals? Or does Mattel have all that material? Just curious. Thanks.

 

Yep!  We have and own everything!

10 hours ago, justclaws said:

I didn't realise that Intellivision was such a system for songs, but I just saw this!
 

 

You need to see the BEST video featuring that song.  Pet Shop Boys vibe.  It's hilarious!
 

11 hours ago, インテレビジョン said:

This needs to be put in a gold frame. I think it's a sign of the times. Fake news, QAnon, conspiracy theories, denial of science. So sad to witness.

 

Actually, Tommy, I hope it's okay to ask a question not related to the Amico, but as head of IE, what assets does the company hold from the original Intellivision? Of course you have the ROM images of a number of Intellivision games and could release them with an emulator like with the Intellivision Rocks releases. But does the company have the original source code of any original Intellivision games? What about the Your Friend the EXEC produced by APh? Do you have the original versions of the box art, controller inlays or instruction manuals? Or does Mattel have all that material? Just curious. Thanks.

 

Mattel sold all their videogame assets to INTV in 1984, including copyrights to Your Friend the Exec.  Mattel did a good job archiving all the source code to floppies although it was in a proprietary format.  There was about seven years between INTV closing and Intellivision Productions picking up the assets in the 1990s.  I know some unreleased game code was found with one of INTV's developers/consultants years later during a move.  It's hard to say what's been lost over that time but IE does have whatever Intellivision Productions had.

10 hours ago, justclaws said:

I didn't realise that Intellivision was such a system for songs, but I just saw this!

They had a whole music album.

https://vgmdb.net/album/5397

21 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

This is a fantastic video that I highly recommend folks watching.

Yet another unbiased person who played it with his kids and really enjoyed it.

Looking forward to thousands of these videos when we launch.

Kinda funny that it has a bunch of dislikes.  Just goes to show you that there is a certain crowd of folks out there who demand an unbiased opinion... but when they get one that doesn't match their own biased views (especially without ever playing it) they will dislike it.  They aren't looking or searching for the truth... they only want to be negative towards something they don't like or understand.

 

 

 

I liked this one because it's short, gives a quick overview and shows people playing it. Especially kids, his sons are close in age to my kid. Thanks for sharing this. 

9 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Mattel sold all their videogame assets to INTV in 1984, including copyrights to Your Friend the Exec.  Mattel did a good job archiving all the source code to floppies although it was in a proprietary format.  There was about seven years between INTV closing and Intellivision Productions picking up the assets in the 1990s.  I know some unreleased game code was found with one of INTV's developers/consultants years later during a move.  It's hard to say what's been lost over that time but IE does have whatever Intellivision Productions had.

 

Thanks for that reply mr_me. As someone who programs (but not for a living) I dream of one day being able to peruse the source code. Did the programmers bother to put comments? Were there kludges put in to make it work? What programming cliches did they use? I hope they also have the source code to the legendary Killer Tomatoes game that was used for training new programmers. I hope they've backed up the source code reliably so it will live on as part of history.

I had to look up what programming cliches meant.  I'd say that Intellivision cartridges that use the Exec might be using programming cliches to some extent.  And most cartridges produced by Mattel did use the Exec.  Today, people use disassemblers to analyse Intellivision games.  If you want to know more, ask in the Intellivision programmers section in Atariage.  It's also possible some programmers kept source code listings in their personal files.  It would be great if IE has some Intellivision game source code.

Looking forward to welcoming @Starpaddler and his wife to our Intellivision offices today so we can give them their Moon Patrol competition prize, a tour of the studio and of course... some hands on time with Amico!

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Looking forward to welcoming @Starpaddler and his wife to our Intellivision offices today so we can give them their Moon Patrol competition prize, a tour of the studio and of course... some hands on time with Amico!

 

 

 

Thanks Tommy, excited to finally be able to get down there, meet you and some of the team, play some Amico and have my wife collect her award. 
 

With all we’ve had going on here, the pandemic and the delay with is being able to get down there, I started to feel a bit like a P&I WRT not taking advantage of the IE invite. Sorry for the “lag” on our end. 
 

We’ve been really looking forward to this for a while and excited to finally be able to get down there. 
 

See you soon. 

This is the closest I'm going to get to play the Amico until (hopefully) October:

I've been living with an Amico controller for 11 years, moving the wheel to turn on the heater.

What's clearly NOT an Amico controller is this:

We'll see how the SteamDeck does, but I'm not sure if people who buy Steam games will want to play in a small screen and without a mouse.

2 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

 

We'll see how the SteamDeck does, but I'm not sure if people who buy Steam games will want to play in a small screen and without a mouse.

I see the appeal if you travel a lot etc, but for me small screen size is not a selling point, and if I can dock it to a tv, then I'm home and therefore in my office there is a pc gaming rig, comfy chair and huge monitor which I use now for steam games.  So I guess even though Iam a PC gamer and steam user, this isnt for me.

Wouldn't That Be Something?™

It looks good.  Perhaps it can be on Amico.  

This hidden PS1 gem that never left Japan looks like it would fit on the Amico (it's either 1 player or 2 players co-op):

10 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

Thanks Tommy, excited to finally be able to get down there, meet you and some of the team, play some Amico and have my wife collect her award. 
 

With all we’ve had going on here, the pandemic and the delay with is being able to get down there, I started to feel a bit like a P&I WRT not taking advantage of the IE invite. Sorry for the “lag” on our end. 
 

We’ve been really looking forward to this for a while and excited to finally be able to get down there. 
 

See you soon. 

Let us know how it went!!

Do we know what the price of the Amico bag will be yet?

A big thanks going out for Tommy, Kevin and Mike at IE.  IE awarded my wife her hard earned Moon Patrol Marquee Light Box (which is awesome BTW), signed by Tommy and the producer of the original Moon Patrol, Scott Tsumura.  Such a great award that my wife (and me 😁) will cherish and appreciate for years to come.  I’ll post some pics, once we get it hung. 

We also got to meet a few others at IE, including John Alvarado (EYHO Michael Garvey 🤢), and got a tour of their new offices. Such a great space filled with great, friendly and talented people; how could Amico not be great when it’s finally released?

We were given the royal treatment and even got a preview of an upcoming Crayola Experience video short they were editing together when we arrived. 

You all probably know I’m already sold on Amico on the concept alone, but its nice to see first hand that the execution won’t disappoint; and as my wife is not as invested as myself, I was eagerly looking forward to see what she thought about the system after getting a chance to play it.  Beyond having a great time with the tour and meeting everyone, she also really enjoyed playing the majority of the games we sampled.  We saw/played Astosmash, Dyna Blasters, Shark! Shark!, Evel Knievel, Skiing, Finnegan Fox, Pool, Emoji Charades, Moon Patrol, Bi Planes & Missile Command (think that was all of them).  We only got to really scratch the surface on these, but I thought they all looked to be really well done, and as important, really fun to play.  My wife wasn’t so much into Missile Command, but did specifically mention she’s looking forward to playing more Astrsmash, Evel Knievel, Moon Patrol and the Charades game. 
 

My wife is not much of a gamer, much less so then myself (and I rate myself as a very casual gammer), so its nice to see her be excited for Amico.  

Some of the other highlights was seeing what I assume was a late iteration of the UI, and think they’ve got some pretty smart and artful elements that people will really appreciate. We also got to see the white Amico in person, and got to say I think it gives the black one a run for its money. I believe anyone who’s ordered white will be happy with their choice when they get it. 

I thought the controllers were really, really well done and I’d put them about the weight of my cell phone but a little bulkier.  l thought they would be a little heavier, but I liked feel. The best way I can describe the disc is that it is silky smooth. Best example of the precision of the disc that we saw was in Shark! Shark!, as you use all 360 deg in the game and it really shows off the capability of the disc system. I also thought the disc was perfectly sized, balancing speed (smaller = faster) and precision (bigger = more precise).  

Sound was great (really great) across the board, but what else would you expect from a company run by an audio guy.  Some of the things that really stuck with me and took me a bit by surprise was the colorfulness and art style of Shark! Shark! that really just sucks you in; the complex and realistic stall mechanics in Bi Planes (Tommy kicked my butt in this one, and considering I was an ace in Triple action, it goes to show that while the versions are similarly based, there’s enough of a difference to require a learning curve - for one, there is a lot more going on on the screen then the original); Evel Knievel is now a must-get for myself (before I played it I was only luke warm to it - and if it wasn’t now on my list, its on my wife’s); for those who’ve played the Moon Patrol demo, there are many new elements in later levels that you’ll get to experience; pool has a very well done interface/shot/aim mechanic that really takes the game up a level (and the sound effects are spot on!).  

Missile Command aiming will take me a while to get down.  I believe the screen-as-a-track pad type input is a huge improvement over any of the non-playable D-pad controlled versions, but the screen input is so fast on Amico (thats right, the control is almost too fast here) that it is harder to control with precision until you get some practice under your belt. You can literally cross the screen in a 1/10th of a second, and what size was that TV Tommy, guessing 85”?

Was a great day, saw and did some great things, but most importantly we met some really great people!

Looking forward to playing this in our own home and being able to dig in a bit deeper into the system and the games. 

A special shout out to my wife for making this all a possibility for me; and not only did I teach her to play Moon Patrol, but the student became the master, and I’m her biggest fan!

I just found another hidden PS1 gem. This one was released in all regions, but nobody knew anything about it (and you know it). I wonder how the Amico controls would work with this one:

6 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

A big thanks going out for Tommy, Kevin and Mike at IE.  IE awarded my wife her hard earned Moon Patrol Marquee Light Box (which is awesome BTW), signed by Tommy and the producer of the original Moon Patrol, Scott Tsumura.  Such a great award that my wife (and me 😁) will cherish and appreciate for years to come.  I’ll post some pics, once we get it hung. 

 

We also got to meet a few others at IE, including John Alvarado (EYHO Michael Garvey 🤢), and got a tour of their new offices. Such a great space filled with great, friendly and talented people; how could Amico not be great when it’s finally released?

 

We were given the royal treatment and even got a preview of an upcoming Crayola Experience video short they were editing together when we arrived. 

 

You all probably know I’m already sold on Amico on the concept alone, but its nice to see first hand that the execution won’t disappoint; and as my wife is not as invested as myself, I was eagerly looking forward to see what she thought about the system after getting a chance to play it.  Beyond having a great time with the tour and meeting everyone, she also really enjoyed playing the majority of the games we sampled.  We saw/played Astosmash, Dyna Blasters, Shark! Shark!, Evel Knievel, Skiing, Finnegan Fox, Pool, Emoji Charades, Moon Patrol, Bi Planes & Missile Command (think that was all of them).  We only got to really scratch the surface on these, but I thought they all looked to be really well done, and as important, really fun to play.  My wife wasn’t so much into Missile Command, but did specifically mention she’s looking forward to playing more Astrsmash, Evel Knievel, Moon Patrol and the Charades game. 
 

My wife is not much of a gamer, much less so then myself (and I rate myself as a very casual gammer), so its nice to see her be excited for Amico.  

 

Some of the other highlights was seeing what I assume was a late iteration of the UI, and think they’ve got some pretty smart and artful elements that people will really appreciate. We also got to see the white Amico in person, and got to say I think it gives the black one a run for its money. I believe anyone who’s ordered white will be happy with their choice when they get it. 

 

I thought the controllers were really, really well done and I’d put them about the weight of my cell phone but a little bulkier.  l thought they would be a little heavier, but I liked feel. The best way I can describe the disc is that it is silky smooth. Best example of the precision of the disc that we saw was in Shark! Shark!, as you use all 360 deg in the game and it really shows off the capability of the disc system. I also thought the disc was perfectly sized, balancing speed (smaller = faster) and precision (bigger = more precise).  

 

Sound was great (really great) across the board, but what else would you expect from a company run by an audio guy.  Some of the things that really stuck with me and took me a bit by surprise was the colorfulness and art style of Shark! Shark! that really just sucks you in; the complex and realistic stall mechanics in Bi Planes (Tommy kicked my butt in this one, and considering I was an ace in Triple action, it goes to show that while the versions are similarly based, there’s enough of a difference to require a learning curve - for one, there is a lot more going on on the screen then the original); Evel Knievel is now a must-get for myself (before I played it I was only luke warm to it - and if it wasn’t now on my list, its on my wife’s); for those who’ve played the Moon Patrol demo, there are many new elements in later levels that you’ll get to experience; pool has a very well done interface/shot/aim mechanic that really takes the game up a level (and the sound effects are spot on!).  

 

Missile Command aiming will take me a while to get down.  I believe the screen-as-a-track pad type input is a huge improvement over any of the non-playable D-pad controlled versions, but the screen input is so fast on Amico (thats right, the control is almost too fast here) that it is harder to control with precision until you get some practice under your belt. You can literally cross the screen in a 1/10th of a second, and what size was that TV Tommy, guessing 85”?

 

Was a great day, saw and did some great things, but most importantly we met some really great people!

 

Looking forward to playing this in our own home and being able to dig in a bit deeper into the system and the games. 

 

A special shout out to my wife for making this all a possibility for me; and not only did I teach her to play Moon Patrol, but the student became the master, and I’m her biggest fan!

Thank you for sharing your impressions with us, obviously you had a fantastic day. 👍🏻

Did you manage to play skiing in multiplayer mode? How did you and your wife like dynablasters?

1 hour ago, Talerian said:

Thank you for sharing your impressions with us, obviously you had a fantastic day. 👍🏻

 

Did you manage to play skiing in multiplayer mode? How did you and your wife like dynablasters?

We didn’t get to the vs skiing.  There was discussion in that Tommy was wanting to show it to us, but after a few single rounds we were off to the next game and missed that one. 
 

Dynablasters was more fun then I had originally envisioned and my wife liked it as well. My particular character was fitted with some big head ware which made it look/feel like they they would have a hard time navigating the intersections (it didn’t) but don't think I’ll personally be outfitting my character this way.  On the flip side, it’s cool you can customize to that degree and with my eye’s, I might find in the end that bigger is better. 

19 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

I see the appeal if you travel a lot etc, but for me small screen size is not a selling point, and if I can dock it to a tv, then I'm home and therefore in my office there is a pc gaming rig, comfy chair and huge monitor which I use now for steam games.  So I guess even though Iam a PC gamer and steam user, this isnt for me.

Or my pc hooked up to my tv or projector and me sitting  on comfy sofa

1 hour ago, Starpaddler said:

We didn’t get to the vs skiing.  There was discussion in that Tommy was wanting to show it to us, but after a few single rounds we were off to the next game and missed that one. 
 

Dynablasters was more fun then I had originally envisioned and my wife liked it as well. My particular character was fitted with some big head ware which made it look/feel like they they would have a hard time navigating the intersections (it didn’t) but don't think I’ll personally be outfitting my character this way.  On the flip side, it’s cool you can customize to that degree and with my eye’s, I might find in the end that bigger is better. 

Thank you very much for your answers!

1 hour ago, Starpaddler said:

We didn’t get to the vs skiing.  There was discussion in that Tommy was wanting to show it to us, but after a few single rounds we were off to the next game and missed that one. 
 

Dynablasters was more fun then I had originally envisioned and my wife liked it as well. My particular character was fitted with some big head ware which made it look/feel like they they would have a hard time navigating the intersections (it didn’t) but don't think I’ll personally be outfitting my character this way.  On the flip side, it’s cool you can customize to that degree and with my eye’s, I might find in the end that bigger is better. 

Hahaha!  Yeah, I totally get that.  That was the final custom hat that you get when you unlock EVERYTHING in the game.  I was testing it earlier in the day and should have probably taken that off for you considering it's so big.  😀