Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

1 hour ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

I apologize if this comes off "cheeky", but I had to share this in this forum.  I would never post this publicly on any of my social media... but I thought the folks in here would get a kick out of it.  Console Wars 2.0!!   Hahahha! 

 

Hahaha!  That is hilarious but SO TRUE!!  If there is a console war, Atari would be losing by a landslide...it isn't even close!  You guys are crushing it at Intellivision and have a lot of people very excited for what's to come.  Keep up the great work!

The world does need another Pac Man type game with moving dots like KC Munchkin, but if he pursues that he should of course be careful on light of the legal history. 

I thought of a few types of power ups which could enhance a KC Munchkin upgrade... A magnet power up which draws the dots towards you, a power up which returns the monsters to the pen, a power up which stops the dots from moving, maybe even one which fills the whole screen with dots like Pac Man... 

Of course, if he looks to licensing games from Philips or whoever owns the rights now, KC's Crazy Chase, which is essentially Pac Man eating Centipede in a maze also including monsters and random trees, could provide some interesting ideas too... 

And Blockout/Breakdown could provide some great ideas for multi player breakout (in the O2 game player 2 rebuilt the brick walls as quickly as possible).

Maybe this is a stupid idea, but if you are really digging deep into 8 bit history for the most simple, fun gameplay, perhaps an update of Channel F Dodge It? Nothing more simple than just not getting hit by stuff, and I loved how the Channel F kept changing the arena size and enemy sizes and speeds randomly... 

57 minutes ago, IntyFanMatt said:

Hahaha!  That is hilarious but SO TRUE!!  If there is a console war, Atari would be losing by a landslide...it isn't even close!  You guys are crushing it at Intellivision and have a lot of people very excited for what's to come.  Keep up the great work!

I never wish ill upon anyone trying something difficult (and launching a new console is hella difficult) but Atari SA has managed to pretty much snatch defeat (due to lack of direction, effort & communication) from the jaws of victory (mostly due to their massive name recognition). I really hope they make a compelling system - mostly for the benefit of their thousands of backers - but I think the VCS is going to be mostly used to run alternate OSes rather than rely on Atari's ecosystem (due credit for the current design team for baking in this functionality as a safety net for purchasers). It is more than a bit worrisome that one of the biggest selling features of this "ship" is "easy access to the life boats".

43 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

I never wish ill upon anyone trying something difficult (and launching a new console is hella difficult) but Atari SA has managed to pretty much snatch defeat (due to lack of direction, effort & communication) from the jaws of victory (mostly due to their massive name recognition). I really hope they make a compelling system - mostly for the benefit of their thousands of backers - but I think the VCS is going to be mostly used to run alternate OSes rather than rely on Atari's ecosystem (due credit for the current design team for baking in this functionality as a safety net for purchasers). It is more than a bit worrisome that one of the biggest selling features of this "ship" is "easy access to the life boats".

I agree...I hope they are successful too, it would make the marketplace much more fun and interesting.  But to launch something like that in this day and age takes incredible talent, leadership, effort, and amazing marketing to generate interest...like Tommy is doing.  Atari already has one foot in the grave unfortunately, and is in an even bigger hole when they send out clueless tweets like that and still haven't shown any gameplay footage.  We'll see if they turn it around, but their outlook is very grim when compared to what Intellivision is doing.

3 hours ago, Papy said:

UFO and K.C. Munchkin were my two favorite games for the O2 (in my case, Videopac). However, both need a serious upgrade in the gameplay too. Contrarily to a game like Moon Patrol, simply changing the graphics won't be enough.

It would be great to see UFO, K.C. Munchkin, and Killer Bee's update! Those games are so much fun to play. However as they are, they are just single player games. The OD2 game "Smithereens" on the other hand is a great two player game. To be honest I doubt any OD2 games would get a facelift release for the Amico (but it's fun to think about)

@Tommy and team, awesome video. I never had Intellivision as a kid (had OD2). I'm not passing it up this time around (count me in). It looks great!

All you Killer Bees fans who want an Intellivision version right now there is one here on the programming forum

There's also a version of Killer Bees out for Commodore 64....

https://csdb.dk/release/?id=173107

ROTFLMAO. Good one!

The new video looks great. Congratulations! One thing that is clearly missing, though, is swag. There are Xbox One cups, Playstation mugs, Minecraft mugs, all kinds of stuff. Where is the Intellivision/Amico swag? The world needs it!  

15 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Auto Racing is up to 8 players.  Human or Computer.
Touch screen is amazing to control Breakout, PONG, Missile Command, etc.
Armor Battle but I combined some ideas from games like Armor Attack. 

 

Auto Racing seemed to be a little like Rush Rush Rally Racing on the Dreamcast. A good thing!

1 hour ago, First Spear said:

The new video looks great. Congratulations! One thing that is clearly missing, though, is swag. There are Xbox One cups, Playstation mugs, Minecraft mugs, all kinds of stuff. Where is the Intellivision/Amico swag? The world needs it!  

I agree.  I came across some cool mini Atari keychains by Numskull in Target. 

Like to see Intellivision versions of the same quality, as well as mugs..  etc.

i know some gamers are cautious about the controllers but i'm really looking forward to these..the Intellivision disc in my opinion were one of the best and easiest controllers to use..when done right like with Burger Time they were amazing

6 hours ago, doug0909 said:

The world does need another Pac Man type game with moving dots like KC Munchkin, but if he pursues that he should of course be careful on light of the legal history. 

 

I thought of a few types of power ups which could enhance a KC Munchkin upgrade... A magnet power up which draws the dots towards you, a power up which returns the monsters to the pen, a power up which stops the dots from moving, maybe even one which fills the whole screen with dots like Pac Man... 

 

Of course, if he looks to licensing games from Philips or whoever owns the rights now, KC's Crazy Chase, which is essentially Pac Man eating Centipede in a maze also including monsters and random trees, could provide some interesting ideas too... 

 

And Blockout/Breakdown could provide some great ideas for multi player breakout (in the O2 game player 2 rebuilt the brick walls as quickly as possible).

Ed Averett owns KC Munchkin as well as several other O2 games he made.

https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,267882/

8 minutes ago, CMR said:

Ed Averett owns KC Munchkin as well as several other O2 games he made.

So the owner of the copyright is the programmer himself instead of some fishy lawyer firm? Now THAT'S interesting. I don't know how old he is, but maybe he could be interested in making an updated version of his game for the Intellivision Amico. Can "someone" make a phone call or something? 😉

1 hour ago, ASalvaro said:

i know some gamers are cautious about the controllers but i'm really looking forward to these..the Intellivision disc in my opinion were one of the best and easiest controllers to use..when done right like with Burger Time they were amazing

Back in the day I replaced mine with sticks and found it to be even better.  Even Auto Racing was easier to control.

It was simply a well made, well designed durable controller from day 1.

On 8/19/2019 at 11:02 AM, Tommy Tallarico said:

HERE IT IS!!!

Let me know your thoughts. Please help us by sharing this video! The world needs to know that Intellivision is back and available on 10.10 2020.

 

Looking  forward to sharing more details and gameplay footage over the next 14 months.
 

https://youtu.be/TzE386pQOy4

Just watched this video, looks great!  I'm actually excited to get this console, really the first time in a while I've been able to say that.  Love the brief gameplay footage at the end, I can see myself enjoying many of those! 

 ..Al

23 minutes ago, IMBerzerk said:

Back in the day I replaced mine with sticks and found it to be even better.  Even Auto Racing was easier to control.

 

It was simply a well made, well designed durable controller from day 1.

I can see the Am-Sticklers already😆

Are we still going to get a list of the current developers? This was promised to be in the next teaser back in July.

1 hour ago, CMR said:

Ed Averett owns KC Munchkin as well as several other O2 games he made.

 

https://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,267882/

Interesting. Well Tommy should definitely take a look at Attack of the Timelord if Averett is interested. It's a shooter, but in terms of speed and pacing, I think it's still unmatched for frenetic gameplay among verticle, single screen shmups. Something to do with the snake like movement of the connected enemy ships (which you can disrupt by hitting the lead ship), and focus (for points and survival) on hitting the weapons they drop instead of the ships themselves. And you could definitely expand on the game with new and surprising weapons being dropped... 

The page says Averett also owns Pick Axe Pete, which was also unique and one of the best O2 games... but it required really precise 8 direction control, and I still can't imagine that working with an Inty controller... 

Spent a chunk of the day looking at reaction videos for Amico and I have to say, it looks like people are really getting juiced up as we are here!

People are talking and in my opinion are now just starting to "get it" and how it can fit into their gaming and family life.

I have to say Tommy you sparked something very interesting in me.. I really do want to see so many of our old games re-imagined in a creative way to this new format. I realize some people shudder when they hear about rebooted classics, ugh I think of the reboots of Pong, Missile Command, Space Invaders, Defender that were around in the PS1 era.  I don't me any disrespect if anyone here likes those versions, but most people feel they missed the point in their updates.  Re-imagining games is really an art, keeping the elements that are iconic and tight game play while adding flavor and variety is a tough balancing act.

I just bet you guys have so many ideas on the docket of "what could be"..

Looking forward to whatever info you leak out now that we have games to talk about!

22 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Still officially only a rumor.  We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of an EXCLUSIVE dolphin game on Amico by the original Ecco team including musician Spencer Nielsen.   

But if it was true... that would be pretty AMAZING... wouldn't it.  

 

Reverberation the Porpoise. Not a bad game idea but I would work on the name some more...

12 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

Wow nice job on baking in the CRT look for Breakout - fooled me. Also love the layout switching and adding another layer of goals to a pretty simple game - talk about "competing on ideas" - nice stuff. Quite frankly probably the best word to describe the Amico extended team is "passionate" - I can tell by the social media responses to the new trailer that the passion is spreading too. Troll droppings are getting far & few between and pundits have gone from "DOA" to at minimum "Looks Interesting" & "Worth Watching".

I saw that 'baked in' look too. It honestly made me wonder if that footage was taken off of the handheld controller. It probably isn't but that's what I first thought.

3 hours ago, ASalvaro said:

i know some gamers are cautious about the controllers but i'm really looking forward to these..the Intellivision disc in my opinion were one of the best and easiest controllers to use..when done right like with Burger Time they were amazing

Totally agree with you. I never understood the hate for the controllers. They worked great, the disc was brilliant, and the keypad was necessary for the more complex games the system had. I have always loved the Intellivision controllers, and I’m looking forward to the ones on Amico. 

45 minutes ago, IntyFanMatt said:

Totally agree with you. I never understood the hate for the controllers. They worked great, the disc was brilliant, and the keypad was necessary for the more complex games the system had. I have always loved the Intellivision controllers, and I’m looking forward to the ones on Amico. 

I would say I am a Intv noob still. When I got my system I was originally at a loss with the disc. It wasn't until this fine forum told me to roll it. I was so train with a d-pad it was messing me up. I can understand the initial aversion to the disc. After that advice it made so much more sense and I actually liked it.

All controllers demand adaptation. Personally, by the time third generation consoles entered the market, I had already switched to computers. I never got used to Nintendo style d-pad and I still find them awkward. People who play games on consoles like the current gamepad design simply because they are used to it.

I believe the best controller will always be the one designed specifically for a particular game... and the corollary is that if a game is designed to be played with a particular controller, then people will view the controller as good.