Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

54 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Hate to be a tease... but...

 

LIKE THIS!

 

 

 

I knew you would show this to us again !!!  lol  🤣

7 minutes ago, mr_me said:

So the question is, will amico biplanes be disc up nose up like intellivision biplanes, or will it be disc down nose up?

If Tempest could be controlled with the touchscreen, I wonder if biplanes will be controlled with the disc ?  You have a good question here.

3 hours ago, vongruetz said:

Out of curiosity, is there anyone in this thread that doesn't like TRON?

I am fine with TRON, but never loved it like many folks here do.  That's mainly because I never saw it in the theater when it came out, even though I was the perfect age back then.  I only saw the original movie for the first time a few years ago just before the sequel came out.  Also, no one I knew with a game console happened to own a home game of TRON (Intellivision or otherwise).  Lastly, no one I knew owned any TRON toys (that I recall).  Thus, I missed out on forming childhood nostalgia for TRON, even though I likely would have if given the opportunity.

There is one exception.  My uncle owned a video arcade.  I loved playing the upright TRON video game, especially with its unique input of joystick and separate rotary knob for aiming.

Edit: I do see why folks love this movie.  I am just saying I mostly missed out.

Shout out to Tommy And Everyone at Intellivision. Thanks for this.  And I guess this makes me one of the top shrills now lol. I'll wear the badge and pin with shrill pride lol. P.s. thank you EZ g😘

15 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah.... definitely the type of game that we want on Amico for sure.  Especially with the motion controls and co-op.  It's on the list.

 

Question:  Does anyone know if there is already a Disc Golf game out there?  Steam?  Switch?  Mobile?  If so (and it's a good game), I could have our folks reach out to them and maybe accelerate the process.

 

 

I remember there being one in the old PS3 bundle that came with the PS3: Move, their Wiimote attempt. It wasn't too bad but i played it when we first hooked it up and it was very jerky...but the Move didn't have great tracking...lots of calibrations and re-calibrations required on that one.

Cheers  

@Tommy Tallarico, @RxScram (& IE)

Do you know how the time lines differ for the development cycles between the original Master Component and Amico, from start of concept to product release, pandemic aside?  

How much do the differences in the types of technology developed affect the differences?  

Are the team sizes significantly different and has that affected differences in the time lines?

What other factors have contributed to differences, if any (i.e., IE having to secure capital whereas Mattel more simply assigned a budget, available tools/technology, Amount of QE/QA, software development loads, etc.)?

Anything else stand out as extreme similarities or differences?

Thanks!

According to the last rumors, Sega's announcement will NOT be a game: it will be related to a new platform (perhaps not physical, perhaps not home-based).

14 hours ago, NTV said:

Tommy

 

One of the things I have learned by hanging out here is I was not as good at the old Intellivision games as I thought I was. Some of the high scores I have seen posted are crazy and I have leaned about some of the features within games I have never seen due to the fact I never was able to get to some of the later levels.

 

That being said, it made me question how you find the play testers who have the capabilities to test these games consistently at these elite levels. Are the developers that good at playing games or do you farm play testing out to super nerds? If you do farm the play testing out, how do you find them?

The types of games we're making don't really need "elite level" testing like games such as Call of Duty or World of Warcraft do.  Some of those projects literally have hundreds of people testing them.  It's a combo of the developers (they know everything about the game inside and out and know what to potentially look for as being problems) and Intellivision.  We probably test the most.  But not really just for bugs.  It's quality control over everything.  Our programmers play, art dept. plays, our producers, myself, etc.  It's a true partnership between us and the developers.

But the other interesting thing to note that I haven't seen other hardware or publishers do... is that we internally hire folks that are NOT necessarily gamers to play our games.  I'm not just talking about focus group testing... yeah... we do a lot of that as well.  But we hire all sorts of different ages, backgrounds, and level of gamers... from the hardcore to the folks who don't even play video games.  This is important because of the type of product we're making.  What might seem obvious to all of us on a menu screen... might be completely confusing to someone whose never played.  We're creating something for both gamers and non-gamers/casuals so we need to get the exact right balance. 

I can tell you that all signs point to us hitting a big home run in this department!  We still have a lot of work for the UI stuff and making it more uniform across all our games.  This is something that J Allard is passionate about and the main thing he is working on.  It's the "S" in our SAFE acronym.  SIMPLE!!

Getting back to the internal Intellivision team.  Some of you may find these interesting.  Here are just a few older feedback notes that our Art Dept. put together.  We do hundreds of these... but here are just a few from Shark! Shark!...

12 hours ago, Lathe26 said:

 Also, no one I knew with a game console happened to own a home game of TRON (Intellivision or otherwise). 

Woooot, no Deadly Discs? I played the heck out of this game back in the 80s.

I didn't seen the movie in the theater either. But I had the book to the movie and read it before I ever seen the movie.

And got the first VHS release still in the 80s to watch it at home.

14 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

 

Will some digital games in the Amico shop get removed after a while so that new games can be added?  Also, is there a time limit for how long a game is available in the Amico shop before you can no longer buy it?

No.

The only reason I could ever see this happening is if we sign some kind of big licensing deal that is restricted for a number of years.  But having a restrictive limit would do no one good, so I don't really see that scenario happening.

14 hours ago, Jake67 said:

I’m admittedly indifferent to the movie, but as a Journey fan, I loved (and still do) the soundtrack song, Only Solutions.

 

That reminds me... Journey had a game on the 2600. It sucked. 

 

Still, I live in (unrealistic) hope for an Amico reimagining. The arcade game (totally different to the Atari game) had its moments, so I’d take that, too.

 

The arcade version was MUCH better... and lets just say... your idea isn't as unrealistic and crazy as you think.

13 hours ago, LePionnier said:

Do we know who they are ?

We know Night Stalker it's Mike Mika and his team, but I don't know who is doing Moon Patrol ? I always thought it was you Tommy !  lol

Thank you.

Wasted Studios out of Germany.  They are amazing.

1 minute ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

No.

 

The only reason I could ever see this happening is if we sign some kind of big licensing deal that is restricted for a number of years.  But having a restrictive limit would do no one good, so I don't really see that scenario happening.

 

Good to know.  I'm glad to hear this.  

13 hours ago, mr_me said:

The attention to detail is second to none.  It's very much appreciated.  You know, intellivision biplanes control is disc up to pull the plane up.  Even though I played it a lot back in the 1980s, today it's counterintuitive and I immediately do a nose dive.  I actually now hold the controller upsides down.  So the question is, will amico biplanes be disc up nose up like intellivision biplanes, or will it be disc down nose up?

 

Edit:

I think the developer of amico moon patrol and biplanes is WastedStudios.

As with most modern games that that have these types of controls (flight)... folks will have the option to pick.

13 hours ago, LePionnier said:

If Tempest could be controlled with the touchscreen, I wonder if biplanes will be controlled with the disc ?  You have a good question here.

It will be controlled with the disc.  Like the original.

8 hours ago, Starpaddler said:

@Tommy Tallarico, @RxScram (& IE)

Do you know how the time lines differ for the development cycles between the original Master Component and Amico, from start of concept to product release, pandemic aside?  

 

How much do the differences in the types of technology developed affect the differences?  

 

Are the team sizes significantly different and has that affected differences in the time lines?

 

What other factors have contributed to differences, if any (i.e., IE having to secure capital whereas Mattel more simply assigned a budget, available tools/technology, Amount of QE/QA, software development loads, etc.)?

 

Anything else stand out as extreme similarities or differences?

 

 

Thanks!

I don't know the answers to any of those as I wasn't around back then. 

I can tell you what J Allard has told us in regards to Xbox.  The Xbox hardware team only had a few more people than we do and yes... it was a LOT easier to do things because they had unlimited resources and a chunk of their time wasn't about raising money.

I was surprised (and somewhat relieved) to hear that Microsoft didn't have 50 or 100 folks working on the hardware.  It was under 20!  Around the same as us.

3 hours ago, IntelliMission said:

According to the last rumors, Sega's announcement will NOT be a game: it will be related to a new platform (perhaps not physical, perhaps not home-based).

The way the "leak" happened and the wording used (and the fact that its being done in a magazine and not a big press conference or video) seems strange to me.  So I think the rumors are being blown way out of proportion.  But I could be totally wrong.  It's just the "vibe" I'm currently getting.

Microsoft has never done well in Japan... maybe Sega will be putting its name on the Xbox Series X in Japan?  Kinda like Bandai did for the original Intellivision back in the day.

It's kinda fun and funny reading some of the rumor stuff though.  Some folks are declaring that Sony has bought Sega... others that Microsoft bought Sega. 

Again... there has been a Microsoft Sega rumor since early April and there was going to be a big reveal at E3 in a few weeks.  So I'm not sure why anyone would think it's Sony.

This was the screen that leaked back in April...

I think either Microsoft has paid for exclusivity moving forward with Sega... or they bought them... or maybe Sega will be branding the new Xbox across Asia.

Those are my guesses.  Will be interesting to see how close I get.

Tommy,

Any chance of seeing this game on Amico?

2 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

I think either Microsoft has paid for exclusivity moving forward with Sega... or they bought them... or maybe Sega will be branding the new Xbox across Asia.

 

Those are my guesses.  Will be interesting to see how close I get.

Wouldn't that be something?

So, after all our TRON talk yesterday, I decided to watch TRON Legacy again last night.  Hadn't seen it in a few years and never saw the 3D version with my new projector. 

Check out one of the early scenes when Alan gives him the keys to the arcade!!

I LOL'd my ass off!!!!!!!

🤣🤣🤣

5 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

Any chance of seeing this game on Amico?

 

Never heard of that one.

Rip-off Defender sounds much?

22 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Yep!  We have a Decathlon game in the works for 2021 and been talking to some "folks" about the EPYX stuff.

 

 

 

Speaking of EPYX, going to plant the Crush, Crumble, and Chomp! bug in your ear once again

Yes, this was a slow paced single player game, but I think there could be a lot of fun turning this overhead monster rampage game into a multiplayer experience. Players could each, in turn,  control their monster to destroy the city while the other players deploy humans to stop them. There could be hidden objectives, power ups, and an eventual monster showdown.   

EPYX really knew how to capture imagination. Despite the crudeness of the graphics, the customization in game and randomness of each scenario were fun, and game manual was especially great. Color cardstock player aids for each of the monsters, detailed city maps, cool artwork, and humorous 'stories' for each monster sprinkled throughout. This gave players something to study and time to plan your build while waiting 6 minutes to load the game on tape! 

4 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

Never heard of that one.

 

Rip-off Defender sounds much?

 

 

 

I asked you about the game before and you said you were going to check it out.  By the way Juno First is coming to Vectrex.

46 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

So, after all our TRON talk yesterday, I decided to watch TRON Legacy again last night.  Hadn't seen it in a few years and never saw the 3D version with my new projector. 

 

Check out one of the early scenes when Alan gives him the keys to the arcade!!

 

I LOL'd my ass off!!!!!!!

 

 

🤣🤣🤣

 

 

 

Unfortunately my LG 3d TV recently died and no one appears to be making 3d TVs anymore. What 3d Projector do you have?

Now you have to hook up a PS3 to that 3d projector and play Tron in 3d:

49 minutes ago, Intellivision Master said:

I asked you about the game before and you said you were going to check it out.  By the way Juno First is coming to Vectrex.

Wow do you know more about it for the vectrex?  Is it a limited production?  And release date?  Looks really good