Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

Anyone plug in some quality headphones, or buds yet?  WOW!!!

The music and sounds are fantastic!

How does anybody make money on the Google Play store with 3 trillion junk games to have to wade through..there's this 1st person racing game that the engine must have been duplicated 500 times with different titles like "fast race car" "speed racing"

I can't wait for the uncluttered Amico store 

Same with all the crossing road games and pixel dungeon games... I gave up years ago.  Nothing better than Retro Gaming.... and our future new favorite system.  LOL!

38 minutes ago, ASalvaro said:

How does anybody make money on the Google Play store with 3 trillion junk games to have to wade through..there's this 1st person racing game that the engine must have been duplicated 500 times with different titles like "fast race car" "speed racing"

I can't wait for the uncluttered Amico store 

I can answer that - they don't. I gave up on mobile. Yeah, okay it was partly my fault every one of my games failed as I REFUSED to do whe whole freemium thing (apparently people are happy to spends hundreds on IAP if a game is free but they can't bring themselves to spend $1-2 for an entire game). Sure, my games weren't groundbreaking or amazing, but they were solid, bug-free, well tested fun little original titles that were very well recieved by the few who played them - it's just nigh on impossible to get noticed in the swathes of shovelware. Same deal with Steam, Nintendo and to a lesser extent, Xbox stores (I don't have a PS4) these days. 

Oh, one of my most successful games was quickly ripped off by an utter c#%t who made a "template" of my game to sell on an asset store. So not only did he steal my exact idea, he sold it on to anyone who wanted to make the same game. As a result there were tons of these ripoffs on Google Play and Apple stores - so many I had to give up on trying to get them pulled. The #[email protected]^knuckle who made said "template" also bragged about how he made so much money off it. 

So yeah, I'm amped for Amico too and hoping to heck the team deems me worthy of developing for it. If not, I'm still amped for a clutter free device as a customer. I'm legitimately way more excited about the Amico than PS5 or whatever the next Xbox will be called - and this is coming from someone who thought it looked and sounded like a silly idea initially (I think the Coleco Chameleon debacle kinda made me wary). Only other thing I'm really amped for is the PolyMega but it's looking like that thing will never come out

 
 
So yeah, I'm amped for Amico too and hoping to heck the team deems me worthy of developing for it. If not, I'm still amped for a clutter free device as a customer. I'm legitimately way more excited about the Amico than PS5 or whatever the next Xbox will be called - and this is coming from someone who thought it looked and sounded like a silly idea initially (I think the Coleco Chameleon debacle kinda made me wary). Only other thing I'm really amped for is the PolyMega but it's looking like that thing will never come out

Just now, nurmix said:

 

I saw your email come through. I’ll be in touch soon, MantaNZ.



•Sent from my Intellivision keypad phone

 

Woohoooooo!

Thanks!

10 hours ago, intvsteve said:

A cute thing I observed... let the buggy get blasted just at the entry to the cave. Left the controls alone. The busted buggy slowly continued to slide down into the cave. A minute later, a wheel fell off and rolled away. Nice touch. I was hoping the camera would continue to follow the parts sliding into the cave to see what came next. 
 

Certainly made the wait at the DMV a lot more fun. 

I have had several similar experiences when blown up with wheels eventually rolling back to the buggy, one time a wheel hit it and the buggy collapsed further to the lunar surface. The longest sequence had 4 wheels eventually roll back and then 3 of them rolled away again down the hill.

I guess because the game play is so short I have the time to watch this stuff!

edit- another time I got blown up I landed upside down on a rock and eventually a alien blew up the rock from under me and the buggy fell back to the lunar surface in a puff of dust.

Fantastic game dynamics.

14 hours ago, MantaNZ said:

Players take turns being the buggy and when they're not the buggy they're the enemies

So it's always simultaneous multiplayer action. Different colours for different players, eg player 1's controller might light up blue so they're the blue buggy - player 2 and 3 are red and yellow controllers/enemies etc. Then when P2 is the buggy the buggy is red, so it cycles around.

That's what Tommy says in a video someone posted earlier so I assume the game mechanics are still the same.

Yes.  Exactly!  It's like a Round Robin to see which player can make it the farthest!  That's the "versus" mode... but we also have a super cool "co-op" mode as well where multiple players (up to 3) all control something on the one vehicle.  One player shoots, another jumps, and another is in charge of the speed.  The concept works surprisingly well because of the type of game that Moon Patrol is (do I shoot or do I jump over the rock?).

We even have a 2 player "race to the finish" planned... but will probably wait til the next version to implement.  Yes... that's right... you heard me correctly!  Notice how the name of this particular game is called Moon Patrol:  The Milky Way Chronicles.  This journey will start in our solor system for this first game... but at the end of it... something epic happens and will set up many more games to come!     So this is merely the first one in the new series. 

And one last "nugget"...  If we're going to various moon's throughout the solor system... how does the vehicle get from moon to moon?  Mini-game anyone?  

13 hours ago, intvsteve said:

This was post 3330. Tommy, you win a free Intellivoice module!

Hahahhaa!!!   Nice!

8 hours ago, IMBerzerk said:

Anyone plug in some quality headphones, or buds yet?  WOW!!!

 

The music and sounds are fantastic!

Thanks!  I spent a lot of time coming up with custom sounds that felt right for the gameplay, but also tipped a hat to retro.

Honestly though... the sound in that demo is only about 50% completed.  I didn't have time to mess with the volumes (the engine sound should be louder as well as the "land" sound)... and we have some really cool and dynamic rock explosion stuff that didn't quite make it in the demo.  The vehicle exploding is also just a placeholder for now.  We had it tuned prettty good for our E3 demo... but the game has changed a lot since then.  But we all still love playing the full level that was created for E3.  Can't wait for everyone to see the stuff we're doing inside the caves!  So frickin' cool!!!!!!!!

6 hours ago, MantaNZ said:

I can answer that - they don't. I gave up on mobile. Yeah, okay it was partly my fault every one of my games failed as I REFUSED to do whe whole freemium thing (apparently people are happy to spends hundreds on IAP if a game is free but they can't bring themselves to spend $1-2 for an entire game). Sure, my games weren't groundbreaking or amazing, but they were solid, bug-free, well tested fun little original titles that were very well recieved by the few who played them - it's just nigh on impossible to get noticed in the swathes of shovelware. Same deal with Steam, Nintendo and to a lesser extent, Xbox stores (I don't have a PS4) these days. 

 

Oh, one of my most successful games was quickly ripped off by an utter c#%t who made a "template" of my game to sell on an asset store. So not only did he steal my exact idea, he sold it on to anyone who wanted to make the same game. As a result there were tons of these ripoffs on Google Play and Apple stores - so many I had to give up on trying to get them pulled. The #[email protected]^knuckle who made said "template" also bragged about how he made so much money off it. 

 

So yeah, I'm amped for Amico too and hoping to heck the team deems me worthy of developing for it. If not, I'm still amped for a clutter free device as a customer. I'm legitimately way more excited about the Amico than PS5 or whatever the next Xbox will be called - and this is coming from someone who thought it looked and sounded like a silly idea initially (I think the Coleco Chameleon debacle kinda made me wary). Only other thing I'm really amped for is the PolyMega but it's looking like that thing will never come out

Yes... we are HUGELY aware of this problem.  This is why it cracks me up when some of these know nothing industy inexperienced numbskull YouTubers or snarky moronic message board posters are so quick to say... "No one is going to make games for this because Intellivision wants exclusivity!".  Hmm... lets review... if you're a small indie developer... what scenario would you rather have? 

1.  Bootstrap everything yourself for zero money and then release on platforms that give away everything for free, have thousands of new games a month and no recourse for rip-offs

or...

2.  Get paid up front to fund your dream the right way, get marketing, audio, optimization/programing and art help from some of the most experienced people in the industry.  Have Intellivision go get the rights and pay for big licenses if needed. Then have your product be the ONLY one released during a certain window so that EVERYONE who owns a machine will see it front and center.  Hmmm... tough choice eh?

The "exclusivity will never work" arguement is almost as priceless as the "Who is this for??  No one wants this thing!"
 

And people call me the "stupid" one who is going to fail for saying all of our games are going to be exclusive and that there is a vast underserved market out there.

13 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

And of course it's not compatible with my phone. T_T

That blows. 

Question... are you on an older Android device?  If so... did you download our version 1.2?  We backed in older phone devices (even though the AR component won't be compatible).  But if you have an older phone... once you launch the app... it will just play the logo animation and go directly into the game at full screen.

What phone and version of Android are you (you can find this info in your System Settings).  Ver 1.1 was for Android 9 or higher (the only devices that could handle the AR aspect of what we were doing)... then in version 1..2 we back it down to Android 5 (without the AR component).

Please let me know.

Thanks!

Anyone have a chance to check out this video on YouTube?

Another initial hater bites the dust and becomes an Amico cheerleader. 


 

54 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Question... are you on an older Android device?  If so... did you download our version 1.2?  We backed in older phone devices (even though the AR component won't be compatible).  But if you have an older phone... once you launch the app... it will just play the logo animation and go directly into the game at full screen.

 

What phone and version of Android are you (you can find this info in your System Settings).  Ver 1.1 was for Android 9 or higher (the only devices that could handle the AR aspect of what we were doing)... then in version 1..2 we back it down to Android 5 (without the AR component).

Please let me know.

 

Thanks!

Android v4.4.2... 😅 So yes, it's an "old" phone (well, from 2013 like the PS4 😑) and I'm used to not being able to download games, even though Nintendo ones are all compatible for instance - Super Mario Run doesn't run very smoothly, however.

It's Google's fault anyway, since the firmware of my phone has not been updated for several years, and I really doubt it couldn't handle at least v5.0. 😠 #plannedobsolescence

On 12/5/2019 at 12:38 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

The good news is that because of the slight delay... I'm going to be releasing something else super cool that we weren't originally planning on showing!

News will be coming at the end of today or early tomorrow.  Exciting stuff that a lot of people here are going to love.

 

 

I do not want to be a pain in the ass, but when something is said, I like it to be true.😄

That's why I come back with this quote, because I wonder if I missed the news, because I want to know as much as possible about Amico!

VIVA AMICO !

14 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Android v4.4.2... 😅 So yes, it's an "old" phone (well, from 2013 like the PS4 😑) and I'm used to not being able to download games, even though Nintendo ones are all compatible for instance - Super Mario Run doesn't run very smoothly, however.

 

It's Google's fault anyway, since the firmware of my phone has not been updated for several years, and I really doubt it couldn't handle at least v5.0. 😠 #plannedobsolescence

I was surprised to read that in 2019 about 10% of android devices are on android 4.4 or older.  I'm also on android 4.4.  My phone officially supports v5 but unofficially at least v7.  The way the google store works is that incompatible  apps don't even show up in searches so you don't even know what's availalable. People that are waiting this long to upgrade their phone can probably wait until the Amico is released.

8 hours ago, MantaNZ said:

Oh, one of my most successful games was quickly ripped off by an utter c#%t who made a "template" of my game to sell on an asset store. So not only did he steal my exact idea, he sold it on to anyone who wanted to make the same game. As a result there were tons of these ripoffs on Google Play and Apple stores - so many I had to give up on trying to get them pulled. The #[email protected]^knuckle who made said "template" also bragged about how he made so much money off it. 

 

Can you sue the guy? Is he in another country, so it complicates copyright law?

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

That blows. 

 

Question... are you on an older Android device?  If so... did you download our version 1.2?  We backed in older phone devices (even though the AR component won't be compatible).  But if you have an older phone... once you launch the app... it will just play the logo animation and go directly into the game at full screen.

 

What phone and version of Android are you (you can find this info in your System Settings).  Ver 1.1 was for Android 9 or higher (the only devices that could handle the AR aspect of what we were doing)... then in version 1..2 we back it down to Android 5 (without the AR component).

Please let me know.

 

Thanks!

Interesting.  My phone is Android 9 and I downloaded the first version.  It worked, but never went into "AR mode" and went straight to the game.  Not sure if this was supposed to happen, but who am I to question being able to play one of my all-time favorite games for free!  Bring on the Amico! 😎

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

And one last "nugget"...  If we're going to various moon's throughout the solor system... how does the vehicle get from moon to moon?  Mini-game anyone?  

 

1 hour ago, atarifan88 said:

It worked, but never went into "AR mode" and went straight to the game.  

The logo didn't animate when you pointed the camera at it?

33 minutes ago, PlaysWithWolves said:

 

The logo didn't animate when you pointed the camera at it?

My junky Amazon tablet with with Android Lollipop does what I think he is referring to: It detects AR mode isn’t supported so it just plays the logo animation and then launches the game. I other words you don’t get the camera view at all it just launches like a regular app with title screen and game.

3 hours ago, LePionnier said:

I do not want to be a pain in the ass, but when something is said, I like it to be true.😄

That's why I come back with this quote, because I wonder if I missed the news, because I want to know as much as possible about Amico!

VIVA AMICO !

We decided to wait til Monday.  Needed to make sure the Moon Patrol stuff got out first and that we weren't confusing people with multiple e-mails.

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We decided to wait til Monday.  Needed to make sure the Moon Patrol stuff got out first and that we weren't confusing people with multiple e-mails.

 

 

Thanks Tommy now Tomorrow from Annie is stuck in my head haha. Looking forward to the information coming tomorrow 

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

My junky Amazon tablet with with Android Lollipop does what I think he is referring to: It detects AR mode isn’t supported so it just plays the logo animation and then launches the game. I other words you don’t get the camera view at all it just launches like a regular app with title screen and game.

IMO that indicates quality work from a long-time software engineer. I.e. "error handling is hard" and too many programs are slapdash with it.

7 minutes ago, intvsteve said:

IMO that indicates quality work from a long-time software engineer. I.e. "error handling is hard" and too many programs are slapdash with it.

Yes although actually that is a pretty good response - just ignore the AR part and work anyway. However I totally agree, also a long time software engineer and there has been more than one occasion that I got a cryptic error message back from a client, cursed the idiot programmer and the idiot programmer was me.