Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

20 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

Hey guys, I just noticed that

 

- The Intellivision has an awesome beach volley game: Spiker! Super Pro Volleyball

 

- It was released in 1989

 

- One year earlier, in 1988, Kings of the Beach was released for MS-DOS. (This game was later ported to the C64 and the NES).

 

- Both games are very similar! So my advice is: try both if you can, or at least try one of them if you only have one of those systems available. 👍

 

I have played Kings of the Beach for MS-DOS and is great, both as a single player game and with a friend. It's amazing that the Intellivision has a very similar game (with less advanced graphics).

Heck yeah!  Gotta bring a new version of that back at some point.  Especially considering Spiker is the HOLY GRAIL of the original 125 games! 

Not sure if people were aware, but the Blue Sky Rangers group just did a re-release of the game!

20 hours ago, Blarneo said:

Duranik. I believe in Cologne, Muenster or Dusseldorf. Publisher is b-alive

If they are German based then that is GREAT!!!  We have government funds that we could dedicate immediately!!

Can someone confirm that they are in fact based in Germany? 

19 hours ago, 1001lives said:

I just wanted to let everyone know that the Amico Subreddit has increased by almost 100 subscribers in a little over one month.

 

From January 2020 to April 2020 we've seen the Subreddit go from 190 subscribers to 361 which is honestly really good without any real word of mouth outside hardcore gamer areas yet. 

 

 

 

For reference, the Atari VCS subreddit has 871 subscribers, and the "official" Atari VCS subreddit - the one started by Atari itself so they could moderate comments - is sitting at 333. 

Thanks to all you guys over there keeping it up to date.  I'm not really a Reddit guy, but the fact that you guys are over here and giving folks info over there is really great and very helpful!

Hilarious that we're already beating the official Atari reddit! 

If you guys want... I could promote it to our mailing list and social media!  I want to promote this thread as well.  What would be the link that I could share with people?

Our YouTube page has seen steady growth as well.  And like you mentioned... ZERO promotion or advertising.  Can't wait til we're all looking back on this time remembering these numbers and laughing because they will all be in the MILLIONS by next year!  

19 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

 

His name is Diego Almazan 
[email protected]

Great!  Thanks!

Will have my team reach out to him tomorrow!

16 hours ago, RetroAdvisoryBoard said:

For my own video, only 20% of the views come from any linked post in AtariAge - so that's 160 views - and if that's just ~one-third of all interested eyes from this thread, and we're watching every video on Intellivision Amico anyone makes - maaaaybe we're 480 members strong??  watching 370 videos... ~177,600 views?  That couldn't be the case though - 80 videos have fewer than 250 views, and a number of those are older.  I suspect we have less impact than that - maybe 75,000 views are from us.  The other 1,550,000 views is word getting around from elsewhere.

Did you tag Intellivision and Amico (separately) in your video?  For some reason it still isn't coming up on my YouTube search?? 

One of the factors I always find super interesting is the DISLIKE ratio compared to the total number of VIEWS.

So... a good question would be.  Out of those 1.6 million views... how many folks DISLIKED all the positive views?   For the negative videos... you could add in the LIKES of those (i.e. people who agree it sucks).

Would be interesting to see what the percentage is.  Especially considering that a lot of the people who are paying attention (all hardcores.... positive or negative) are not even our target audience!  So if our dislike ratio is super low for the hardcores... imagine how incredible it's going to be with normal type family folks!  Mom & kid influencers typically have a MUCH different type of super positive audience.  Hardcore Elitist gamers are known (and made fun of) as being negative and complaining types.  That's how a lot of them are viewed by the "outside" world.  Remember to add ELITIST and not just "hardcores".  I consider almost anyone who reads this to be hardcore in some way.  Even if you're not a hardcore gamer (i.e. play video games everyday)... but a hardcore in the sense that you are interested enough to visit here and discuss video games.  Probably not something the typical "average" person on the street would be willing to do on a daily basis.

Thoughts?

15 hours ago, speedy-a said:

The Original Sturmwind Shmup was made by Durnik: http://duranik.com/

 

Will there be Shoot em Ups like R-Type (there is a new one in Japan in development for Switch, Steam & PS4/5) https://youtu.be/zB5jLux2Zuw

or Gradius / Parodius (Still love the SNES Game / Salamander / Twin Bee (Still love the great SNES Game) from Konami cause seems they are not interested into this ones or? If we see what happend to Contra maybe its better when they don`t make such games....

or Thunderforce from Sega (also seems no interest from Sega any longer). Last good one was the Saturn Game from Technosoft. Devil Engine from Proculture Games (Indie) was a great Thunderforce like Experience but they have trouble with Dangen their publisher?

 

Think there is a good Shump Scene Worldwide manly on PC, Switch and PS4. I also love the Sega Ages Ports on the Switch. Awesome work from M2. Play Thunderforce IV still very very often and Fantasy Zone also on my Switch.

 

Yeah.  We are looking for some different types of side scrolling shooters.  Especially couch co-op ones!

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Very much surpassed within the first few hours on March 31st! 

We sold around 1,000 units in about 10 - 15 minutes!

 

 

 

Good!

It seems that reservations have now ended. Hopefully production for everything made in China gets back to where it is supposed to be soon. I'm wondering about the availability of parts for stuff. Apparently people are now getting their TurboGrafx minis and CoreGrafx minis, but I'm not sure of the exact status of things and hopefully you guys won't encounter too many (or preferably any) delays in production. Still, parts for electronics are probably still expensive and rare now.

The Switch is in limbo here right now. First they announce it's available for preorders, then it's suddenly cancelled again or something. I don't even know what's going on anymore and it's all very confusing. Glad I bought mine 2.5 years ago.

I should add that I still do NOT have my PC Engine mini turbo controller. I tried to make one by gutting a real PC Engine controller and putting the PC Engine mini controller's PCB in there, but everything works EXCEPT the turbo switches! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

If they are German based then that is GREAT!!!  We have government funds that we could dedicate immediately!!

Can someone confirm that they are in fact based in Germany? 

I checked my Dreamcast copy, but all it has is their website info, which the new guy (speedy-a) already provided here. The manual has no address either.

12 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

TOMMY dude just ordered global gladiators and earthworm jim 2 cib. To add to my collection.  Man its been a while so I had to look them up to see them in action.  Your a master of audio. Those games are amazing 

Thanks!!  Was really happy with the way the audio came out on both those games.  Everything right IN YOUR FACE!!  No "background" music and sfx in those.  

Let me know your thoughts after you had a chance to replay them.

11 hours ago, GrumpyOl'Guy said:

I've seen/heard card games being of a fairly significant priority, specifically Texas Hold'em. Takes me back to school days, to be certain.

Honestly, I'm planning on starting up a card night every so often here, once it's prudent to do so again. Using Cornhole as an example, could we expect variant styles from a Poker title? For instance, a wooden table backdrop and some weathered looking cards for a western saloon feel, a casino look with machines happily ringing away in the background, maybe even a Poker event style, where you can hear faint crowd noise from the controller on a raise?

Asking because I thought it might be fun to be able to 'theme' the card nights to the background, and (to a slightly lesser extent) I personally dread the thought of climbing up to my attic to see if I can figure out where I'd put the poker chips when we cleared the room I'd previously had them in to make way for my son.

 

Yeah!  For sure!

11 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

 

I hope he does SideSwipers next!

2 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

I checked my Dreamcast copy, but all it has is their website info, which the new guy (speedy-a) already provided here. The manual has no address either.

http://duranik.com/info.html

Looks like Germany to me.

11 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

Anyone else have their IE order come over different days, with one shipping notice?

 

Got my hat yesterday, which I was surprised to get as I figured they were shut down, but my other 3 items are acting like chameleon’s/vapor “wear”.

Yeah... different items ship from different parts of the U.S. as they are all "made to order".

9 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

 

That was a good interview you did with Linda a.k.a. The Gamer Girl.

Yeah!  She was great!   So cool to see female YouTubers interested in this stuff!  Wish there were more.

Looking forward to doing a ton of interviews with the "Mom" influencers as I'm sure they'll have lots of questions I'm not normally asked by the "gaming" crowd.

9 hours ago, wolfy62 said:

 

That's the game I was thinking about yesterday,You Dont know Jack that was so much fun for my Wife and friends 20 years ago.

That would be an amazing addition for the Amico for sure. I know my Wife would play that for  and we still have the same friends to play with. My kids are grown now too,more players!😃

If that game was mentioned here previously I somehow missed that conversation.

It's now part of the Jackbox franchise.

Imagine a family friendly version of Jackbox games!?!?

Wouldn't That Be Something™?

8 hours ago, IntellivisionDude said:

Just a heads up. My friends podcast just did an interview with Tommy and i was a special guest about halfway in. It may be up this weekend but they didn't say for sure.  

Here is a link to their channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClKgQBb55xSZ2wmNwS5VXxg I'll post a link when it's up if someone doesn't beat me to it. 

 

Special surprise guest!!  Was very cool to see you pop up and ask some great original Intellivision related questions!!

8 hours ago, IntellivisionDude said:

There was quite a few You Don't Know Jack games over the years. All of them were good. Some better than others. Even 2 on the PS1. The original Jackbox Games had it as well. The company who made YDKJ makes the Jackbox series and those are extremely popular especially with Twitch and Youtube streamers. I have had fun with those myself. 

I bet that may continue in the future. 

7 hours ago, Pathfinder said:

I have been looking at old retro games, and one that took my interest was Warlords first published by Atari in 1980 (since then I believe there have been several remakes since).  According to a game description - the game is a combination of breakout and Quadrapong.

 

It is a 1-4 player game where each player has to protect their fort (in each corner of the screen) whist attacking the other players fort.

 

Are there any plans to re-update this game or make one in a similar style, as I thought it might be a good choice for the Amico.

 

I have not included any links as I did not want to inadvertently break any forum rules with regards to advertising. 

Wouldn't That Be Something™?

6 hours ago, gogamego said:

Tommy,
I sent you a message on Twitter awhile back about Space Team on mobile and I heard you briefly mention the game during this interview. Any chance of this game coming to Amico? A multiplayer couch co-op mobile game. Fun as hell. It would be perfect and even better on Amico!

Sent from my PH-1 using Tapatalk
 

Yeah!  It sure would!!

We'll be reaching out soon.

6 hours ago, Relicgamer said:

Its probably my favorite 2600 game.  Definitely love to see it on Amico 

31 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Good!

 

It seems that reservations have now ended. Hopefully production for everything made in China gets back to where it is supposed to be soon. I'm wondering about the availability of parts for stuff. Apparently people are now getting their TurboGrafx minis and CoreGrafx minis, but I'm not sure of the exact status of things and hopefully you guys won't encounter too many (or preferably any) delays in production. Still, parts for electronics are probably still expensive and rare now.

 

The Switch is in limbo here right now. First they announce it's available for preorders, then it's suddenly cancelled again or something. I don't even know what's going on anymore and it's all very confusing. Glad I bought mine 2.5 years ago.

 

I should add that I still do NOT have my PC Engine mini turbo controller. I tried to make one by gutting a real PC Engine controller and putting the PC Engine mini controller's PCB in there, but everything works EXCEPT the turbo switches! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Yeah... we're still about a month away from knowing the true impact and costs.  Not only in China... but HERE in the U.S. as well!  Going to be a big recovery period still to come.  Hoping this is all over by the end of the month.

🤞

27 minutes ago, Blarneo said:

I checked my Dreamcast copy, but all it has is their website info, which the new guy (speedy-a) already provided here. The manual has no address either.

We're on it!

Hans already reached out to them about an hour ago.

Just now, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah... we're still about a month away from knowing the true impact and costs.  Not only in China... but HERE in the U.S. as well!  Going to be a big recovery period still to come.  Hoping this is all over by the end of the month.

 

🤞

End of the month... you know more about the manufacturing situation than I do, so this makes me happy. Of course, we'll see. There is nothing we can do except wait.

38 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

It's now part of the Jackbox franchise.

Imagine a family friendly version of Jackbox games!?!?

 

Wouldn't That Be Something™?

 

 

 

Any chance of some jackbox games at launch ? You mentioned that they might be sold separately as opposed to in packs as they are now which makes sense given the pricing of games for the Amico. 

Yes it is a german developer from south germany.   https://de-de.facebook.com/pg/Duranik/about/

Think Shmups in the funny way as Fantasy Zone, Parodius, Twin Bee would be great for the Amico

Another small developer from Holland/the Netherlands also makes great small indie games. I have the game Rush Rush Rally on my Wii (was avaible on the Wii Shop). Funny Racing title.

https://www.senileteam.com/