Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

3 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

- Maybe a Rock 'em Sock 'em robots game?

This would be awesome.  Hopefully it happens.

12 minutes ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

See i dont get this. I actually have a small core sample of high end users of our software and we do round tables with them because THEY ARE exactly the people we are looking for with ideas on how to improve the product.

 

You keep looking for some magical demographic that you may or may not ultimately be a core demographic for you, you miss the actual slam dunk demographic staring you right in the face. 

I think to some extent, the user feedback from AtariAge and elsewhere are making an impact on the system. Two examples that come to mind are the change of Armor Battle to Battle Tanks. That was a hot topic here not too long ago. If you noticed in the video, the game was introduced as "Battle Tanks" (which is the name that was the consensus here of what it should be) but in the UI demonstration, the game was listed as "Armor Battle." The other one was the change to 32gb of built in memory, as opposed to having it stay 16gb and adding a 32gb SD card.  

33 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

here was a ton of stuff mentioned by Tommy in this roundtable. I am only about halfway though typing up notes but here is the first half of what I got:

wow, thanks for the recap. Lots of good stuff. I really personally like that they are moving towards handrawn cartoon art.  its timeless and is so great to look at. I mean cupheads was hard as hell, but man you just couldnt get mad at that game and it wont age. I mean with all the tech advances in the last 50 years, with all that tech could you do anything to improve say a Chuck Jones cartoon?  nope.. Timeless art which is as good as you are ever going to get and its 50/60 years old. Amico games could become timeless classics.

Let's see how the multiplayer modes for the fox game turn out. Who knows, maybe I end up buying the game if they add a Fox Olympics mode and a Vs. fighting "Smash Bros style" mode.

57 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

There was a ton of stuff mentioned by Tommy in this roundtable. I am only about halfway though typing up notes but here is the first half of what I got:

 

 

- The announcement one day delay was driven by Earthworm Jim licensor

 

 

Ok. This makes sense. Delaying a day so that they could include EWJ was worth it. I didn't think it was because of any of the partners, but it was hard to figure it out in the video. Thought it was great seeing the team and the short little footage of the game.

26 minutes ago, vongruetz said:

Ok. This makes sense. Delaying a day so that they could include EWJ was worth it. I didn't think it was because of any of the partners, but it was hard to figure it out in the video. Thought it was great seeing the team and the short little footage of the game.

Yeah for some reason my brain was stuck on either Mattel or Sesame Street being the licensing hold up but for me the Earthworm Jim funny round table and sneak peak video was the highlight of the day so I am sooooo glad they included it. I also assumed that the clip shown was a cinematic (probably some sort of opening scene to the game) so finding out it was game engine was really exciting too. Tommy also mentioned a lot of the stuff in that little clip was hand drawn animation like Evil the Cat & Jim (and I am sure mixed with some more stock stuff like the trees). No wonder EWJ is slated for Christmas 2021 - this is going to be a ton of work if most of it is this highly detailed animation style.

4 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

What do you all want to see for the next Meet Amico video?  I'm hoping to see Lode Runner or Snafoo.  Maybe they could show an Imagic game.

I want to see people playing the games. I had high expectations for the first one, but was surprised how far behind the system is to completion (not a knock on Intellivision, just a Covid fact). I expected to see more polished games. I don't expect super graphics from the system, just graphics that look good (i.e. the skiing game, Astrosmash, Nightstalker, Cloudy Mountain). Nightstalker and Cloudy Mountain have an almost magical quality. For example, the pixelated deresolution flash of color in Night Stalker when shot. The retro sound effects are cool. The sounds/music are just right in those games and add to the theme.

I was expecting an Apple launch kind of thing for the video, which it wasn't. I now feel I was too hard in my initial post due to my own misunderstanding.

I was a colecovision kid so I missed out on intellivision exclusive games.  I really like how that D & D cloud city game looks!  Something about it just looks really fun.

I would love to see where some of the other retro remakes are at in their development. We know Asteroids and Snafu exist in some form, curious how they are looking and which others have been started. I am also curious how Tommy and his team decide which classic games to remake and who is going to develop the game. 

So, I can't play Moon Patrol on my iPhone 6 Plus. It keeps getting froze after the title screen at the cloudy sky intro with "loading" and the spinning around it.  I was able to play the first very short demo sent out months ago.

Edit: Never Mind, have to start it with classic controls or whatever it's called without tilt and then toggle to tilt.

1 hour ago, Raystorm90000 said:

I would love to see where some of the other retro remakes are at in their development. We know Asteroids and Snafu exist in some form, curious how they are looking and which others have been started. I am also curious how Tommy and his team decide which classic games to remake and who is going to develop the game. 

 

Don’t hold me to this because it has been a long time but I think Tommy said they show a list of possible games and find out which excite the team and what their ideas are for those projects they are passionate about 

Speaking of Tank Games that could be great with re-imagining: Tank Mission Homebrew by Leo Brophy for ColecoVision. Maybe just avoid people and dogs in the one section rather than shooting them...  Maybe jump the dogs and knock out soldiers, etc.

On 8/6/2020 at 8:04 AM, GrudgeQ said:

Nitro Derby: Lots of cars (14) & tracks (10), just a classic top down multiplayer racer

I’m looking forward to this game, but was it just me in that the cars looked hard to control (either that or they were showing some rookies playing). Hoping the controls are great on this game to allow for some heated racing. 
 

I used to race off-road RC’s and remember 1 race in particular where me and second place (no I didn't get 3rd 😁) were never more than 3 feet apart, mixing it up the whole race. Being able to foster that kind of competition would no doubt make this game an exceptional winner. 
 

In other news; matte, no streaming issues on my end (but was not able to watch it live), slip did not surprise me but the amount of slip did (but understand that getting it right is the important thing) and believe IE is padding things a bit for the continued uncertainty of COVID.

Mother-in-law was impressed with the mission, wife was touched by the the reasoning of the original launch date, 18 year old was not impressed with the style of graphics (he's a PC gammer), but did say he’d need to play the games to see if he liked them and for myself liked the vast majority of the event. Was good to see the developer side of things. The card game looked a little too kiddie for me & my family and it would be nice if there were an option for a more older looking skin to the game. Hoping the reticle for Missile Command does not look that large in the finished game. I know they include missile inventory, adding to the size, but for myself typically like a larger scale/volume to the game area with smaller components within, but thats a personal preference of mine and may not be shared by others.
 

8 months to go and looking forward to each and every reveal between now and the release. 

 

I also wasn't as interested in the card game, however, I like card games, and I like that that was a game that many cited as a positive. And I love the fact that Concrete is the developer making it.

One of the things that has me most excited is I got more excited for the developers and what may come next, beyond what was being shown, if that makes sense. I love the fact that the developer of the new Bomb Squad game is the same that made Heavy Burger, which could easily be turned into an Amico party game with the system's unique characters thrown in.

I'd be interested to see Concrete's PBA Bowling or what they could do with a mini-golf game.

On 8/7/2020 at 3:16 AM, theswede said:

I dont think they are running the company/project based on the feedback on AtariAge, they have done a lot of focus group testing with non gamers and “out-of-the-bubble” persons for sure, but I wouldn’t worry  so much about IE getting enough “good feedback”, if you don’t like the system maybe it’s not for you, but for  me the presentation wasn’t a disappointment at all (a part from the expected confirmation of a delayed launch date). I was happy to hear several new games in the casual/kids category, especially the “Incan gold” game, can’t wait to play that with my kids. 

"If you don't like the system maybe it's not for you" that's a terrible argument I constantly see. sometimes people don't just speak for themselves but speak for what they find others May think, that's like saying hey if you say something positive maybe it's for you but other people won't feel that way. it's also dangerous saying stuff like that cuz what if you're talking to like a big retailer or someone who promotes family products? I just think that's a phrase that needs to be dropped. I think it's actually a very negative thing to say and I thought we were supposed to be about positivity? Amico could be great but I think we need to stop alienating potential customers. I have a lot of negative things to say about some of my favourite products. Constructive criticism is valuable.

18 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

- Maybe a Rock 'em Sock 'em robots game?

It'd be really cool for that (or a boxing game) to have players use _two_ controllers -- one in each hand -- to throw punches. Too gimmicky? Dunno, but it _would_ be pretty cool!

(Who's been writing too much markdown recently? Yeah. This guy. )

Was cruising through Facebook on Tuesday and someone posted that they felt the *24 hour* delay in the presentation was an indication that the Amico was a scam. So I decided to create a little graphic & text just to cut-n-paste when I needed it - feel free to use this in similar situations if you like:

Major Licenses: Major League Baseball, Sesame Street, Hot Wheels (Mattel), American Cornhole League, Evel Knievel, Atari, Imagic, Earthworm Jim

Retailers: Walmart, Walmart.ca, Amazon, Amazon.ca, Amazon Europe, GameStop, Best Buy Canada, Electronics Boutique, Koch Media, Media Markt, Saturn

Key Staff: Tommy Tallarico (award winning video game composer & 30+ year industry vet), Hans Ippisch (former CEO Computec Media Group, 30+ years in the gaming industry), J Allard (former Microsoft CTO & Xbox co-creator), Phil Adams (founder Spectrum HoloByte), Janson Enos (formerly of Sega, Konami & Bandai), Cara Acker (Mattel Marketing Manager for Tangled, Frozen & Disney Princess toy line), David Perry (CEO Shiny Entertainment & Gaikai – now Playstation Now)

Offices: Irvine CA, Salt Lake City Utah, San Francisco CA, Dubai, Nuremberg Germany

17 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

wow, thanks for the recap. Lots of good stuff. I really personally like that they are moving towards handrawn cartoon art.  its timeless and is so great to look at. I mean cupheads was hard as hell, but man you just couldnt get mad at that game and it wont age. I mean with all the tech advances in the last 50 years, with all that tech could you do anything to improve say a Chuck Jones cartoon?  nope.. Timeless art which is as good as you are ever going to get and its 50/60 years old. Amico games could become timeless classics.

Cartoon art style is cool, but the art style should fit the game. Art style for the games on the system should be as varied as the library. If there is a similar art style for 80% of the games, Amico may alienate (maybe not the right word) a portion of their intended demographic.  Taking Astrosmash as an example, looks highly stylized and may appeal to different folks if it was a simpler style. 
 

What will make Amico the most successful will be to have games in their library that appeal to all (i.e, cartoon games, pixel art games, classic games, clinical looking games, cute games, etc.).  I’ve seen games I am interested in, and games not as much. Do I not buy the system because there are games I don't think I would like, or do buy it for those I think I will?  For me the answer is easy, but if the majority of games trend toward one or two art styles, I think IE would be leaving some potential adopters on the table. 
 

From what I’ve seen to date, think IE and the developers are generally taking a good direction, but like everything else, there is always room for improvements.  

I am more excited about this system after the live event mostly because I showed my grandma some of the game play videos they showed such as Intellivision Spades, Cornhole and also explained the games that the system is coming with and how they worked and is excited to play 4 games we know are coming and she hasn’t played a video game since Tetris on NES

2 hours ago, Juice said:

"If you don't like the system maybe it's not for you" that's a terrible argument I constantly see. sometimes people don't just speak for themselves but speak for what they find others May think, that's like saying hey if you say something positive maybe it's for you but other people won't feel that way. it's also dangerous saying stuff like that cuz what if you're talking to like a big retailer or someone who promotes family products? I just think that's a phrase that needs to be dropped. I think it's actually a very negative thing to say and I thought we were supposed to be about positivity? Amico could be great but I think we need to stop alienating potential customers. I have a lot of negative things to say about some of my favourite products. Constructive criticism is valuable.

I am all for positivity and if the answer to everyone’s concerns are “maybe this system is not for you”, then that’s not a good response.  But let’s be clear here, if a dude or dudette only plays FPS games and has no love for any other genre, then ... maybe the system ISN’T for them.  It’s not wrong to say so.

Let’s remember that the Amico is specifically targeting that 80% (or whatever that number is) of people who believe the Switch/PS4/XBOX1X are systems that are not for them.  Where we have it so good is that although that’s a huge target for Intellivision Entertainment and its developers, some of their games cross over into the genres we do like (such a retro-imagined games).

Tommy I know its a long ways off any info as to if there will be a future Amico with a EWJ 4 edition? Like,

Custom box art

Custom console colors and controllers

Is yes is all we get cool any other hints would be cool too

9 minutes ago, Relicgamer said:

Tommy I know its a long ways off any info as to if there will be a future Amico with a EWJ 4 edition? Like,

Custom box art

Custom console colors and controllers

Is yes is all we get cool any other hints would be cool too

I have a suspicion there will be. He made a comment about it in one of the videos and then pretended like he spilled a big secret. If true, I think it would be really cool, but at this point I have to ask myself how many Amicos do I need?

3 hours ago, Juice said:

"If you don't like the system maybe it's not for you" that's a terrible argument I constantly see. sometimes people don't just speak for themselves but speak for what they find others May think, that's like saying hey if you say something positive maybe it's for you but other people won't feel that way. it's also dangerous saying stuff like that cuz what if you're talking to like a big retailer or someone who promotes family products? I just think that's a phrase that needs to be dropped. I think it's actually a very negative thing to say and I thought we were supposed to be about positivity? Amico could be great but I think we need to stop alienating potential customers. I have a lot of negative things to say about some of my favourite products. Constructive criticism is valuable.

That’s exactly what I’m saying, if a product hits all the marks for me/my family, I really don’t care/worry about what other people thinks , that’s for Tommy and the good folks at IE to worry about, and try to balance their features and game choices to reach a wider customer base and or financial success for the company. But I don’t think I’m so lucky that I got this perfectly tailored around my unique taste/likes, so I just assume there is a few million other people that will be just as happy with the choices made so far 😄

2 hours ago, vongruetz said:

I have a suspicion there will be. He made a comment about it in one of the videos and then pretended like he spilled a big secret. If true, I think it would be really cool, but at this point I have to ask myself how many Amicos do I need?

1 FE

1 galaxy purple 

1 Gto red 

1 EWJ4 4 

= 8 controllers lol

And no one needs any video games lol 

They want them. 

As far as my posts go, the "maybe this system is not for you" comment was made by someone to one of my previous posts where I said that I didn't see any Amico games of the type - family games - that would draw my kids' attention away from other game playing options that my kids already like. Maybe it was said about other people's posts as well.

I felt that the comment "maybe this system is not for you" was really saying to me "shut up, if you are not going to say only positive things about Amico, you're not welcome here".

I've pre-ordered an Amico. I want it to be successful. And I hope Amico will have the all-ages family game playing experience that Tommy talks about. I really want to see all-age family games.

Games like Minecraft, Just Dance, Mario Party, and Mario Kart... don't require cutting edge systems and you can play them while sitting on the couch without internet. I mentioned Fortnite in a previous post, and that maybe requires a bit more power, but the truth is... if you're competing for kids attention through fun coop play, Amico will have to compete with titles like Fortnite.

I realize that a lot of very hard work goes into making video games. Even the most basic of video games takes people with real artistic skill to make the graphics, real audio and composing skills to make the music and sound effects, real coding skills to deliver a non-buggy smooth playing experience, and real creativity to design an engaging play experience.

I have tried this myself and failed on a scale and debt level that I won't describe here, so my criticism isn't of the effort behind the games shown so far or the performance of Amico hardware.

My point is, people can't bury their heads in the sand and pretend the games shown so far are going to capture the attention of families when they have other family-friendly options, not only video game options, but those including physical board games and card games as well.

Sales to console-less families headed by Karens, and well-meaning grandparents is a fictional market. And relying on nostalgia will only go so far.

Back in the day my grandpa bought us a 5200 to play when we visited his house, AFTER the NES had been released. We appreciated him thinking of us, and we thought he was cool for having the idea. It was better than having to watch Lawrence Welk, but it wasn't like what we were used to playing. And he never really invested a lot in it. It only ever had 3 games... Pacman, Popeye, and Joust.

Don't count on the Karen/grandparent market to drive sales.

Getting nostalgic 50yo guys like me to buy an Amico will be no problem. Getting guys like me to spend money on classic Inty games and Earthworm Jim for play on Amico, will be no problem.

Getting the rest of my family to sit on the couch and play Amico on the regular when there are other family-friendly options will be difficult, unless there are game titles that my kids want to play. These games don't have to be cutting edge, they just need gameplay that can compete with the other options that my kids care about.