Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

16 minutes ago, RREDDWARFF said:

I don't know, I still prefer "bags" or "bean bag toss".

 

Trust me, "...tossing your bean bag" sounds worlds better than, "Hey, let's play Cornhole! Oh no, it's not what you think. It's a neat family game where you try to score points by tossing your sack into your friend's hole. Oh yeah, you also get points if you miss his hole and get it on the rim."

It's called CORNhole because the bags are filled with corn!

I'm just glad they didn't use PEAS instead!!!

😂

25 minutes ago, The Atari Creep said:

BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love this!! 

24 minutes ago, lorenzogino69 said:

Hi Tommy, I was born with Intellivision ... I will not tell you all my story ... but if now that I am 51 years old, I find myself a collection of 495 complete Intellivision boxes, regardless of the loose ones .. . Will it mean something you don't find?
My love for intellivision ... is not earthly, and being able to say it to you now ... is priceless.
I wanted to congratulate you for your AMICO ... I can't wait to have him ... and even if I won't play a lot ... he must be at my house, in my collection!
I unfortunately lost the founder ... I will definitely take the gray version vip ... it seems fantastic.
That Auto Racing ... makes me crazy how beautiful you did it ... like all the games I saw on You tube ... and I wanted to tell you this: THANK YOU!
P.S. Sorry my bad english ... I live in Italy.
Best wishes to all, for these bad events that are happening all over the world ... that will pass soon and that only a bad memory will remain.

WOW!!  Thank you so much for your story.  495!!  That's more than me!!!  (and almost 1/10th of @cmart604 & @Lathe26!!  

Please stay safe in Italy my amico!

What part of Italy are you from and/or living???

Are the games Burgertime and ToeJam and Earl currently being worked on?

6 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

It's called CORNhole because the bags are filled with corn!

I'm just glad they didn't use PEAS instead!!!

😂

Or nuts.

15 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yo!  For anyone interested, I'm doing a live Q&A at 7pm here:

This was one of the guys who talked about the whole Pat & Ian thing last night on his channel. 
 

 

 

Another good interview Tommy.  

I don't know what Pat and Ian think Amico needs to sell to be successful. Are they thinking that Tommy has to sell millions and millions of units? They seem to have painted an imaginary picture that this console needs to be god's gift to gamers or something. 

Some EPIC memes flying around today!!!!!!!!

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Hi!

 

Thank-you so much for joining the conversation and giving your thoughts!

 

I am very conscious of the things you spoke about and they are important to me.  I had a handicapped sister named Karen who unfortunately passed away about 15 years ago.  She was born on 10/10. 

Yet another secret... just revealed.

 

We don't have the kind of money for research and development that a company like Microsoft has and we have our hands full with everything we have going on to get Amico and all the games out.  But trust me when I say that when we have the time, budget and resources to do this... we will!  It's very important to me... and especially on a personal level.

 

When the time comes for us to start developing something like this I would LOVE to get your input and feedback as to what is important to you!  The great thing about most Amico games is they only have 1 or 2 buttons.. unlike most of the stuff on the PS or Xbox. 

Thank-you for sharing your story and concern.  Please keep checking in with me and stay in touch so when the time is right we can do some work together.  Would be great to hire someone like yourself to help us build something amazing.

 

Thanks!

 

Thanks for replying Tommy! As I alluded to earlier, I can't really be paid for my accessibility consultant work within the game industry. I've only really been compensated with travel in the past. I just love making and playing games, and honestly I am doing nothing at the moment. Payment in Intellivision stuff is fine by me.

Another idea I forgot to add to my original post is the Amico is THE device to have an accessible game jam on. I was so fixated on accessibility initially I forgot to ask to be a developer, but I am interested to see what I can do accessibility-wise with your already existing dev-kit. I think an Intellivision-backed game jam having to do with accessibility would result in many developers coming up with interesting ways to use the controllers and phones for accessible gaming. I participated in Train Jam a few years ago (a game jam for people on a train traveling to GDC) and fully intended on making an accessible game for AirConsole, a cloud-based gaming service that uses phones as input devices much like the Amico optionally can do. However, I forgot that I couldn't access the internet on the train, so my ideas for that game jam never came into fruition as I had to make something playable offline.

I'm really attracted to the Amico as a platform because you (and presumably everyone at Intellivision) get just how many people play games. I've had many arguments online in the past about those in nursing homes, candy crushers, disabled folks like me, etc are not real gamers. I'm surprised how many people in and out of the game industry still push the real gamer narrative. I've always held the opinion that if you play games, you're a gamer. The Amico seems all about inclusivity and the marketing conveys it well. To me, the Amico and accessibility almost have a symbiotic relationship. I believe the more accessible the Amico is, the more successful it will be. I also see the better the Amico's games and innovations are, the better it'll do at installing itself in unlikely markets. Love what you're doing, keep it up! Thanks.

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Oh... you should see the HATE I get from people sometimes when I say I'm vegan.

How dare I eat what I want and show compassion!

 

 

🐄🐷🐓🐣❤️

i wonder if you'll show that same level of compassion when they start rolling out the soylent green?

4 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

That being said... we will DEFINITELY have Bowling available on launch!

Yes, BOWLING!

46 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Some EPIC memes flying around today!!!!!!!!

 

i bet the person who created Puffy is pretty proud on how well he has been received 

3 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Heck yeah!  I won't give up until I get the Rocky license!

Just like Rocky.  He never gave up.  You Italians are all alike.

i was playing one of my favorite games last night Wizard Of Wor and realized just how much i've always enjoyed games that talk

especially robotic voices and things like that...hopefully there will be a lot of that in some Amico games..like in Beauty & The Beast hearing

Horrible Hank taunt you would be awesome 

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

My response to Pat is this (because he reads here constantly):

 

Hahahahhaa!!  Nice dodge!  Lets get real kid... you guys are just too lazy and unprepared to handle an interview with me.  I'd waste you and every lame attempt at trying to make your idiotic points.  As if I need your negative platform to sell Amico.  Besides, you said we couldn't sell more than 5,000 units.  Pretty funny considering we sold 2,600 in 5 hours.  How's that prediction working out for ya?  Lets face it, you and your partner just don't want to look foolish in front of the people you continue to lie to. 

Funny how a slew of YouTubers (a lot bigger than you) have chimed in as well to call you out on your laziness and biased lies.  Guess this is all par for the course with you guys.  Lying about me and the product just so you can make $10 more a week on your channel.  And you call others "shills".  Get over yourself.

Tell ya what chuckles... lets do a LIVE streamed interview on BOTH our YT channels and we'll get a bunch of other big YT's to stream it live as well... all at the same time and EVERYONE will donate ALL the monetized money to the Child's Play charity!

Gauntlet thrown fellas.  Now hurry on back to your safe space surrounded by your stuffed animals so you can sling your arrows instead of standing up for yourselves and facing me. 

 

Cowards.

Ward...you were awfully hard on the Beaver.

Hey good day Tommy and my fellow "Amico amigos".

Question for the main man, Tommy Talarico.

Is activision and intellivision on good terms?

Reason why I ask this question because, i would Love a remaster of Beamrider, River raid 1 and 2, and keystone cops.

So is there any chance of this happening?

Also are you going to get anymore licsenses from Sega? Reason why?

ZAXXON BABY!! YEAH!...(ahem) I mean, I would like you to politely ask Sega for Zaxxon for the amico. They arent doing anything with Alex Kidd either. Go for broke, ask for both. Lol

We also need Dig dug, 1982 Smurf game, and Pole position.

Thank you for your time and be safe.

On 3/28/2020 at 10:50 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

I have one in a never before opened box... until I opened it.  Just had to peek inside and see the awesomeness of it all.

 

 

I feel like now you need to start collecting the Bandai games with the Japanese manuals. I might know a guy who has some extras. 😎

42 minutes ago, ASalvaro said:

i was playing one of my favorite games last night Wizard Of Wor and realized just how much i've always enjoyed games that talk

especially robotic voices and things like that...hopefully there will be a lot of that in some Amico games..like in Beauty & The Beast hearing

Horrible Hank taunt you would be awesome 

How does copyright work on robotic voices? I had (have) an entire folder of words the Speak & Spell can say, which I intended on using for a scrapped game I was making in college that was a hybrid of Berserk and Windjammers. I was always curious if the Speak & Spell voice font was copyrighted and if so, if there was a royalty-free voice font people could use for games since I also dig the sound. I believe with Vocaloids (such as Hatsune Miku) you get a personal commercial license when you buy the software, but I could never find the legality of using older sound fonts in games. If Intellivision does own the Intellivoice and can license it out to developers (maybe by providing .ogg files of individual words it has said originally) I would totally be down to use said voices in my games. With permission, I'd also be willing to generate an Intellivoice sound bank if I knew which game sounds were free to use. Sorry for the tangent, but this is an incredibly niche topic of gamedev that has had my interest for years!  

1 hour ago, ASalvaro said:

i was playing one of my favorite games last night Wizard Of Wor and realized just how much i've always enjoyed games that talk

especially robotic voices and things like that...hopefully there will be a lot of that in some Amico games..like in Beauty & The Beast hearing

Horrible Hank taunt you would be awesome 

I loved that game !! I used to play it all the time on my Atari 5200 ! Great multiplayer fun !

10 minutes ago, ONLYUSEmeFEET said:

How does copyright work on robotic voices? I had (have) an entire folder of words the Speak & Spell can say, which I intended on using for a scrapped game I was making in college that was a hybrid of Berserk and Windjammers. I was always curious if the Speak & Spell voice font was copyrighted and if so, if there was a royalty-free voice font people could use for games since I also dig the sound. I believe with Vocaloids (such as Hatsune Miku) you get a personal commercial license when you buy the software, but I could never find the legality of using older sound fonts in games. If Intellivision does own the Intellivoice and can license it out to developers (maybe by providing .ogg files of individual words it has said originally) I would totally be down to use said voices in my games. With permission, I'd also be willing to generate an Intellivoice sound bank if I knew which game sounds were free to use. Sorry for the tangent, but this is an incredibly niche topic of gamedev that has had my interest for years!  

interesting question...i'm sure Tommy knows 

Just now, Cranker said:

I loved that game !! I used to play it all the time on my Atari 5200 ! Great multiplayer fun !

yup i had that cart on my 5200 back in 84...loved it and now i play it on the Midway Arcade Origins on the Xbox 360

35 minutes ago, Ramey butler said:

Hey good day Tommy and my fellow "Amico amigos".

Question for the main man, Tommy Talarico.

Is activision and intellivision on good terms?

Reason why I ask this question because, i would Love a remaster of Beamrider, River raid 1 and 2, and keystone cops.

So is there any chance of this happening?

Also are you going to get anymore licsenses from Sega? Reason why?

ZAXXON BABY!! YEAH!...(ahem) I mean, I would like you to politely ask Sega for Zaxxon for the amico. They arent doing anything with Alex Kidd either. Go for broke, ask for both. Lol

 

We also need Dig dug, 1982 Smurf game, and Pole position.

Thank you for your time and be safe.

speaking of Beamrider it would be awesome if they did a remake for the Amico and David Rolfe was involved 

On 3/28/2020 at 2:29 PM, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

A lot of folks like the underdog ragtag behind the scenes style.  I'd personally rather spend $100,000 on a developer than a fancy video shoot right now.    

When our "real" marketing and advertising hit... it will be nothing like what you're seeing now.  Just some fun behind the scenes stuff.

 

 

This is a tough one to answer because well... #1 it's me. 

 

But honestly... so many people have been begging me to explain the controllers (or the haters have complained about how people can use them)... and because this was the first time we were showing them in action... it was really important to discuss everything (IMO).  But I do appreciate the feedback and are conscious that when I get going... I tend to keep going. 

 

So here's a question for you.  From the Missile Command video... could you tell me the parts that I shouldn't have discussed or that you would have liked to have seen deleted.  I'm super curious because it's important for me to understand what things that folks are or aren't interested in knowing.  So what in there did you personally not care about.  Would be helpful to know.  Thanks!

 

 

 

Totally!  I agree as well.  They all keep trying it half-assed and then drop it after a year or so.  But for us... it's ALL we are focused on and our #1 mission. 

 

Thanks again for the feedback!

 

 

Tommy, I totally understand that right now you're in the early stages and that the marketing team hasn't even begun to spin things up yet. Right now it's just you, making videos and getting online in forums, YouTube videos, and making as much noise as you can. My fear is that first impressions make lasting impressions and I don't want the view of Amico to be that it's just a console being cobbled together by some people in the backroom of an office park. You have something really special here, and I want everyone to think it's going to be as great as I think it will be.

In answer to your question, I want to preface that I am not a professional marketer.  I could be way off base here, but I have given enough presentations and briefings over the years to recognize that your excitement is blurring the focus.  Starting around the 1:20 mark of the video where things get a little crazy. You want to highlight all the amazing ways that Amico controllers work in Missile Command and why it's better than conventional controllers. This is where I can see your mind racing a million miles a minutes and you want to say ALL the reasons why it's amazing.  The big giveaway is that you start cutting yourself off mid-sentence because a new idea has just popped into your head.

For a short video in which you want to show off the controllers, you need to take the top three or four features and really make those punch. You can hold it in different orientations. You control the reticle of where you're going to fire by using the touch screen, and the disc acts as the fire button. It works with both the included controllers, but also with the mobile devices you already have. In the introduction part of the video, I would point out the three or four main points I want people to pay attention to, and then while watching the gameplay, you could highlight how Missile Command is making specific use of certain features. That's when you can say why this works better than traditional analog sticks. At that point, you can show people and not just tell them.

The analogy that comes to mind in all of this is that years ago I played golf with a guy who had just had a heart attack. He said the best thing that ever happened to his golf game was that he had that heart attack because it forced him to slow his swing down. It forced him to focus more. I think everyone's initial instinct in golf is to swing as hard as you can and knock the crap out of the ball.  But if you mindfully slow things down, you tend to hit the ball cleaner, straighter, and have more control.  

But hey, at the end of the day, this is your show and you know what you're doing.  As David Perry would say, I wouldn't bet against you.

It's the second or third time I am looking a video from this guy.

I like it and like his UK English accent. I make him a little publicity, duration 5 minutes. ( And it's positive for Amico, so why not ! )

@vongruetz Now that's what I call useful, informed and polite feedback about things that could be improved. Good job.