Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

6 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Just a couple of pics of the prototype menu for the Amico. I like they are keeping the interface super simple but it has little video previews, player count & rough time to play a round. You can see where they are going with it generally

 

 

I must have missed that weird not sure how that happened 

Nice summary of things, including the games mentioned, from Venture Beat:

https://venturebeat.com/2020/08/05/intellivision-delays-launch-to-april-2021-and-unveils-20-new-titles/

Some screen caps for various games: AstroSmash - I like that they mentioned you can use your shields to bounce asteroids onto your opponents in versus mode. I always appreciate a little touch of evil in a game

Armor Battle - lots of cool tanks and unique weapons going on here

5 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Some screen caps for various games: AstroSmash

BOSS MOON

10 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Some screen caps for various games: AstroSmash - I like that they mentioned you can use your shields to bounce asteroids onto your opponents in versus mode. I always appreciate a little touch of evil in a game

yeah these games are always nice for a quick game or two.  The only issue we face in 2020 is screen dimensions.  Back in the day, our screens were more square, we had more height, now our screens are much more flattened rectangles meaning things falling fall from above get on top of you much quicker if the dev dont resize the play area. Im interested to see how they deal with this issue.

ACL Cornhole - some OG Intellivision love in the available boards. The bag physics (even that sounds dirty) seems really good in the video too.

23 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Armor Battle - lots of cool tanks and unique weapons going on here

I think this game looks gorgeous, particularly this last screenshot.

One of the things I appreciate about classic games is that, out of necessity, the visuals were simple and clean.  It's now possible to create environments that are richer and more detailed, but beyond a certain point, I find that this extra visual "noise" can actually detract from the gameplay, and from the player's own imagination, if the graphic design is not carefully balanced.  Perhaps the people claiming that the Amico games "look like Flash games!" don't realize why this is a deliberate choice, but judging from these screenshots, I think that the developers have made those choices very effectively here.

36 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Just a couple of pics of the prototype menu for the Amico. I like they are keeping the interface super simple but it has little video previews, player count & rough time to play a round. You can see where they are going with it generally

 

 

Is this the first confirmation of a Bingo game?  I don't recall that being mentioned before (but I also haven't stayed as on top of all the recent videos as I had been).  Also interesting to see Flying Circus in the Favorites although we haven't seen any recent footage of that (again, correct me if I'm wrong).

16 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

NICE!!!!!!!!!!

 

Banana Pie I hope?

 

 

Close. Pistachio tort. Loved it ever since my great aunt made it for me as a wee lad. 

Intellivision (Monster) Spades: Before you skip over this one, here is our first real glimpse of how custom menus/card games will work with the Amico controllers. Everything is nice & chunky, easy to see and understand. I can't wait to see what the Taunt feature is. Also those monsters are pretty freak'n cute

New shirt in the store since I last looked yesterday...

It would of been nice to see J. Allard in the Amico event.

5 hours ago, save2600 said:

Tommy just asked which finish looked better on the Founder's Edition console... I'd probably go with a matte finish. Glossy might scratch too easily when dusting/cleaning. Don't care for glare of glossy either. Like the overall look of matte better. Hell, even for pictures you have professionally printed.  

Definitely matte finish, with the texture of a rosewood fretboard

4 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

if they allow you to set up custom tracks with timers and all sorts of cool stuff, Hot Wheels could be a very cool franchise

Add some aussie legends to the car lineup

I thought Missile Command stole the show. It had major improvements over what was shown in the co-op demo.
Earthworm Jim is looking good. Dig the hand drawn style and the scale of him on screen is going to be very much like the retro games.

I wanted to see more of the interactive lighting in action with an actual game.

Astrosmash still looks a bit flat. I hope they will add more animations when moving the player ships around and shooting. Needs a bit more Metal Slug added to its art style.
No J.Allard

3 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

Well, I think it's important to remember that we (meaning the people who frequent AtariAge and other similar communities) are not the primary audience for presentations like this, just as we've long acknowledged that we're not the primary audience for the console itself; our community is simply too small for that.  Any last-minute developments which prompted the delay might not seem that important to us, but it was decided that they were important enough to the primary audience to justify waiting the extra day; if that weren't the case, I doubt that the team would have waited.  Personally, I don't think the one-day delay was all that big of a deal, and that it will be quickly forgotten.  As I understand it, the "extra" countdown at the beginning was a YouTube livestream thing; the people watching it on replay (which will probably be most of them) won't ever see it.

 

For whatever it's worth, I was impressed by the presentation.  The Amico team have clearly made significant progress under difficult circumstances, they showed a good mix of different games, and the games that were shown all appeared to be well-executed for the kinds of games that they are.  Whether the art style appeals or not is up to the individual players' tastes, but I didn't have any problem with what I saw.  To me, the platform—particularly the controllers—will be what sets apart the overall experience of playing these games from the smartphone games and flash games that they're often compared to.  With most smartphone games, you don't usually have the ability to play together in front of a shared TV, or with physical controllers, or with multiple screens.  It may be possible to cobble together expansions and add-ons (at extra cost and complexity!) which would give you most of that, but then you're not really comparing the Amico to a typical smartphone gaming experience anymore, nor would that experience be available for all games, or as seamless or as consistent as what you can have with a platform inherently designed for local multiplayer.  Flash games, too, had limits that the Amico won't have: most of them had to be played on a PC, with a mouse, on a single (relatively low-resolution) monitor screen, and usually within a Web browser.  Again, not an apples-to-apples comparison with gaming on a modern console.

 

I also liked that the presentation took the time to introduce the teams behind the Amico and its library of games.  It was very nice to get to "meet" them, particularly the international development teams, and I'm looking forward to the different styles and sensibilities that they will bring to the Amico.  It was good to see them for another reason ... one of the things about the tiresome trolls we've all had to deal with is that they're largely disconnected from the consequences of their behavior.  They operate as if they're impersonally racking up achievements in a video game, usually without ever having to reveal their own identities, which is really dangerous.  It's useful to be reminded that there are real people on the receiving end of such behavior, people who do have to live with those consequences, long after the trolls have moved on to their next targets in search of their next dopamine high.

 

Looking on the bright side, I hope that the delayed release, as unavoidable as it is given the circumstances, will at least give them the time that they need to develop an even deeper launch catalog.  That will become especially important once the first Amico players begin to look beyond the pack-ins.

I get what you are saying. Maybe I was too hard on the fox game (it is a work in progress).  I know Covid is slowing things down, but I still don't think the video should have been delayed. The optics are horrible with the addition of a 6 month delay of the console. I think missing Christmas is a mistake too. Just my humble opinion, but I do have a business degree (granted I do not have all the facts). I hope I am wrong, as I wish only the best for Intellivision.

In short, I was wowed by Nightstalker and Cloudy Mountain and was expecting a similar experience.

I did not get any "dopamine" from my post, in fact the opposite.  I hesitated to post anything negative, but decided to give an honest opinion out of respect for the proprietors. They are putting real time and money into this and deserve to hear earnest critique.

That being said, most people don't even know about the video or extended release. If not for quarantine, I would not either and would not be posting here. I would be at the beach!

p.s. I did not notice any audio sync issues.

Key Intellivision staffers shown off in the announcement:

2 hours ago, jaybird3rd said:

I didn't experience any lag, either.  (Then again, I wasn't watching on a wireless device with a slow connection, which might have been a factor for some.)

Mine was also good. There were many people watching at once, bandwidth may have been allocated to the quicker connections maybe?

2 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

i'm glad to hear some people didnt experience the lag, thats good to know. Unfortunately a lot of people did and I assure you with my 1 gb a sec connection, the problem isnt on my end. Its likely a youtube issue as many lately have run into issues it seems with video/audio syncs on the uploaded videos

Yeah 1gig a second is plenty, shouldnt have struggled at all

2 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

Key Intellivision staffers shown off in the announcement:

There's Puffy.  I was hoping we got the mascot reveal during the event.  

Good podcast tonight Pete.  Tommy stopping by was a nice surprise.