Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

On 8/8/2020 at 8:37 PM, IntyFanMatt said:

A non-gamer that visits a retro gaming site regularly?  That’s an interesting one. Lol. But seriously, are you saying you are a non-gamer because you haven’t played any of the newer systems and you stick with the retro ones, or do you not play games at all?  If you don’t play any games, I am curious as to why you are on this site then? Honestly wondering, not meant negatively. 

To be fair, most here (accurately) would not consider me a gamer. In the last year i’ve spent ~4 hours on Intellivision Flashback, 4 hours on X-plane, a few hours on the Switch’s Burger Time and a few hours playing various game on their on-line service and 100 hours on solitaire (this one may be understated) and probably 100’s of hours on this site since I found it. 
 

I used to play a lot more but life has gotten busy with other priorities.  With my son going off to college (we are currently driving him fro LA to Kansas), hoping to get back to gaming, and Amico is my choice console to do that with. (Bought a switch lite in may to fill the gap, once I was pretty certain Amico was going to be delayed)  

16 minutes ago, jerseystyle said:

I just really, really wish they would’ve gone for a less “flash” style. Most of the games (with the exception of Skiing, the breakout game, and Nightstalker) just look too much like mobile stuff to me. I HATED what they did to Astrosmash

And what do you think about for example the cornhole game or EWJ4? I think the graphic/art style of those games are beautiful (as well as the dice/card games shown so far). 

On 8/8/2020 at 8:43 PM, Yarzzz said:

Totally on point. 

 

I didnt want to post here cause this thread has become an echo chamber but you summoned me so.  Also im not Pat nor Ian. Theres a lot of people outside this forum with fair criticism about the Amico but obviously the people here dont want to hear that ,so i will remain silent and just post my reactions (more reactions are needed but we have what we have). Thank you.

I do not believe (from what I’ve seen) that stating an opinion of why Amico may not be for you will be met with criticism.  Stating legitimate concerns for Amico’s success will not get criticism from me, but baseless, fact-less comments interpreted to come from a place of trolling or hate...  what response should be expected in a community gathered for positive discussion on IE, the team, the system and games?  This site is for those exited for the system, plain and simple. You wont find me trolling on Amico hate threads (I don't have the time or energy). 

32 minutes ago, Starpaddler said:

To be fair, most here (accurately) would not consider me a gamer. In the last year i’ve spent ~4 hours on Intellivision Flashback, 4 hours on X-plane, a few hours on the Switch’s Burger Time and a few hours playing various game on their on-line service and 100 hours on solitaire (this one may be understated) and probably 100’s of hours on this site since I found it. 
 

I used to play a lot more but life has gotten busy with other priorities.  With my son going off to college (we are currently driving him fro LA to Kansas), hoping to get back to gaming, and Amico is my choice console to do that with. (Bought a switch lite in may to fill the gap, once I was pretty certain Amico was going to be delayed)  

I hear ya, but you will see in a subsequent post that he said he doesn't play games at all.  I just find it surprising that a complete non-gamer would take the time to create an account here and begin posting comments and opinions on a gaming site.  But if it's because the Amico got him interested, like it did with you, then that's great!  If the Amico is able to reach those non-gamers, that's a good sign that IE's messaging and marketing is working to garner interest from the target audience they're aiming for.

Here what I think they need wild factor games say I  got have a amico.  All other games just plain avg   I hope next few months we see wid factor games. Maybe kick-ass games

I'll chime in as well. I found the latest presentation really disappointing. As others have said, many of the games look like something from an old flash website like Newgrounds or Android shovelware. I was at the initial launch event at PRGE and there was much talk about this amazing, custom designed 2d chip with millions of sprites. I'm not really seeing that here. A couple of the games look decent (mostly the one that use the neon 'Jeff Minter' style graphics), but outside of that, I'm not seeing anything that gets me even remotely excited outside  Cloudy Mountain, Nightstalker and maybe Breakout.

I'm rather shocked at how bad the graphics look on many titles, and most of the games suffering from bad graphics don't seem to be demonstrating anything new or particularly revolutionary in terms of multiplayer. Astrosmash is positively embarrassingly bad.

This system has so much promise. I love the passion Tommy and the team have for this, and I genuinely think a system catering to local co op that anyone can pick up and play is an untapped market. This last presentation has me worried though. Getting unpleasant whiffs of the Ouya.

I mentioned a year ago that the Moon Patrol port was concerning, and I'm sad to see a huge number of games suffering from the same issues (bad graphics, boring gameplay). Nightstalker and Cloudy Mountain both look great, they seem to be modern updates of the originals that add new/interesting spins on the source while staying true to the source material. Breakout as well. BUt most everything else looks like something I'd get for free on the Android app store with lots of ads.

Hopefully it's just early days, and my concerns will prove unfounded. I really want this to succeed.

These game announcements got totally glossed over in the event so I wanted to do a little investigation on them. Telestrations & Blank Slate are super casual party games, Incan Gold is more of a causal adventure card game.

Telestrations (usaopoly): Like the game telephone but you switch between words & hand drawn pictures as you swap between players. The fun of the game is basically reviewing the disastrous mis-interpretations of other's drawings. Telestrations is especially a good game to adapt to the Amico because the fun of the game is looking at the pictures people made. Having, say, 6 people look at a little drawing from across the table is not going to be nearly as fun as having your picture blow up on the family TV to be seen in all it's stick figure detail along with the associated word or phase it is supposed to be.

This game's pricing on Amazon is all over the place even pre-Covid but it goes for between $15 and $30, usually around $20ish

Blank Slate (usaopoly): Similar to the TV show Match Game except you are trying to match the other players by filling in the blank to prompts such as "House _______". Like Telestrations this game really needs a local screen for each player so is a great fit for the Amico.

Pre-Covid this game went for about $22 on Amazon so will be a good value on the Amico

Incan Gold/Diamant (Gryphon Games): Kind of a simple random adventure card game.

Pre Covid this game went for about $20 on Amazon, so again a good value for the game

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/disneys-tron-3-jared-leto-director-garth-davis/

I hope @Tommy Tallarico can get that tron license  especially with a new movie coming out

Telestrations looks like it could be an absolutely hysterical game to play. Also to add to the point on pricing. . .again, these games will be mostly between $5-10. Buying a physical board game can easily set you back $20-50, depending on the game and retailer. If you buy a video game version for another system, it will still likely set you back $20-30 (for physical, although you can probably get some indies for $10 or less in online stores and clearance-priced physical for ~$15.

But essentially, they will be able to offer the best-priced and complete board games, new.

The trick for some of the more popular "name" games like Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Trivial Pursuit, is making a version that is unique and exclusive.

21 minutes ago, Nolagamer said:

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/disneys-tron-3-jared-leto-director-garth-davis/

 

I hope @Tommy Tallarico can get that tron license  especially with a new movie coming out

The fact that a new Tron movie is coming out will most likely make it more difficult and/or expensive for Tommy to secure the rights. 

If it were a forgotten property for Disney that they were not still utilizing,I imagine they would be more willing to capitalize on whatever money they could still acquire from it.

They wont. have that issue if the new movie is a success or if they have their own plans for the game licensing. 

Just my thoughts. Anyone else want to chime in?

26 minutes ago, Nolagamer said:

https://comicbook.com/movies/news/disneys-tron-3-jared-leto-director-garth-davis/

 

I hope @Tommy Tallarico can get that tron license  especially with a new movie coming out

Agreed, and hopefully it releases sometime in 2022. . .it gives them so many options for their second year. They can do a holiday bundle with EWJ4 and then if they get the Tron license, what better time than to launch their re-release of Intellivision originals to coincide with the release of Tron title/tie-in to the movie? They could do a bundle of Maze-A-Tron, Solar Sailer, and Deadly Discs. 

4 minutes ago, wolfy62 said:

The fact that a new Tron movie is coming out will most likely make it more difficult and/or expensive for Tommy to secure the rights. 

If it were a forgotten property for Disney that they were not still utilizing,I imagine they would be more willing to capitalize on whatever money they could still acquire from it.

They wont. have that issue if the new movie is a success or if they have their own plans for the game licensing. 

Just my thoughts. Anyone else want to chime in?

Split the difference? With their financial struggles due to everything going on, probably easier to get. However, since it is a current property, probably a little more expensive. Keep in mind, he wants to do other Disney properties, too.

1 hour ago, Lord Thag said:

I'm rather shocked at how bad the graphics look on many titles, and most of the games suffering from bad graphics don't seem to be demonstrating anything new or particularly revolutionary in terms of multiplayer.

Which games are you referring to? Since there is now 20-30 titles that has been shown. 

I just wanted to chime in here on the disappointing state of these games.

I mean really, Pong is that even a game? How can people have *any* fun with this so called game? I am getting Ouya vibes. Look at the graphics - if you can even call them that!

Then there is this game PacMan - those 'ghosts' (you can't even really tell what they are). They are basically sprite flipping left and right - the graphics suck!

Also what about this game play - nothing original just left right, up down? These people never heard of diagonal or what?!?

Again bad graphics - notice how the Donkey Kong guy just jumps up and down while never changing and then spends the rest of the game flipping between a couple of sprites? No innovation in game play, run, jump and climb - over and over and over again, level after level. No innovation, bad graphics and boring game play. Finally OMG the sound: bleeps, bloops - who calls this music?

Hopefully it is just early days for these games because I really want them to succeed.

2 hours ago, Lord Thag said:

I'll chime in as well. I found the latest presentation really disappointing. As others have said, many of the games look like something from an old flash website like Newgrounds or Android shovelware. I was at the initial launch event at PRGE and there was much talk about this amazing, custom designed 2d chip with millions of sprites. I'm not really seeing that here. A couple of the games look decent (mostly the one that use the neon 'Jeff Minter' style graphics), but outside of that, I'm not seeing anything that gets me even remotely excited outside  Cloudy Mountain, Nightstalker and maybe Breakout.

I'm rather shocked at how bad the graphics look on many titles, and most of the games suffering from bad graphics don't seem to be demonstrating anything new or particularly revolutionary in terms of multiplayer. Astrosmash is positively embarrassingly bad.

This system has so much promise. I love the passion Tommy and the team have for this, and I genuinely think a system catering to local co op that anyone can pick up and play is an untapped market. This last presentation has me worried though. Getting unpleasant whiffs of the Ouya.

I mentioned a year ago that the Moon Patrol port was concerning, and I'm sad to see a huge number of games suffering from the same issues (bad graphics, boring gameplay). Nightstalker and Cloudy Mountain both look great, they seem to be modern updates of the originals that add new/interesting spins on the source while staying true to the source material. Breakout as well. BUt most everything else looks like something I'd get for free on the Android app store with lots of ads.

Hopefully it's just early days, and my concerns will prove unfounded. I really want this to succeed.

I agree with many of your points here, the biggest being the way that the games look. As you said, many of them look like games my younger brothers would download and play on my phone when we were younger. Also, funny comparison grudge, but I don't think comparing Amico games in 2020 to games from the 80's is a good thing haha, that's more like pointing out that the Amico games are of low quality in 2020 😅

18 minutes ago, GrudgeQ said:

I just wanted to chime in here on the disappointing state of these games.

 

I mean really, Pong is that even a game? How can people have *any* fun with this so called game? I am getting Ouya vibes. Look at the graphics - if you can even call them that!

 

Then there is this game PacMan - those 'ghosts' (you can't even really tell what they are). They are basically sprite flipping left and right - the graphics suck!

Also what about this game play - nothing original just left right, up down? These people never heard of diagonal or what?!?

 

Again bad graphics - notice how the Donkey Kong guy just jumps up and down while never changing and then spends the rest of the game flipping between a couple of sprites? No innovation in game play, run, jump and climb - over and over and over again, level after level. No innovation, bad graphics and boring game play. Finally OMG the sound: bleeps, bloops - who calls this music?

 

Hopefully it is just early days for these games because I really want them to succeed.

Much better response than I was planning.

I look at the new Moon Patrol and wonder what COULD be done differently. Not much. I haven't played the updated level yet but from the video it looks like it becomes a frenetic challenge. Looks to be accomplishing it's mission to me.

But maybe it is missing something. Maybe it needs to be in an 3D open world where you have to go from site to site to talk to NPCs to get your missions to shoot the aliens (and as we play through the storyline we later find that the aliens are misunderstood, and it is actually the humans who are evil). Your friends can be those NPCs and decide how many aliens you have to kill to move on to the next mission. After a few missions, one on the NPCs can unlock the 'fill in the crater missions'. And don't forget the whole reason for driving on all of these moons and shit; you've got to deliver a letter from one NPC to another to unlock a new dialogue tree for new missions and continue the storyline. And speaking of trees, don't forget the tech tree to upgrade your buggy. Because we all know that games can't keep kid's attention spans unless they are constantly rewarded with permanent powerups--no, those temporary powerups won't do at all. And wouldn't it be cool if you play through the Alphabet checkpoints to get to the end, and then jump in a turret to blast a whole mess of asteroids shooting at you for five minutes like in Dead Space. Then you can run around inside the base and rescue the people from the aliens like Doom or Quake. Wouldn't that make this game awesome? I bet we can think of a whole mess of things that Moon Patrol is missing, things that would make it you know, not boring.

2 hours ago, wolfy62 said:

The fact that a new Tron movie is coming out will most likely make it more difficult and/or expensive for Tommy to secure the rights. 

If it were a forgotten property for Disney that they were not still utilizing,I imagine they would be more willing to capitalize on whatever money they could still acquire from it.

They wont. have that issue if the new movie is a success or if they have their own plans for the game licensing. 

Just my thoughts. Anyone else want to chime in?

Based on Keith's experiences trying to get TRON rights around the time Legacy came out, it might be easier. For Intellivision Productions, it cost more for Disney legal to answer the phone to talk to us than we could afford to pay for the rights, so it really was a non-starter. When Legacy was in development, getting the old TRON games out was attractive as a cross-promotion, and it almost happened. I think one of the people interested in making it happen got transferred to another project or something, so that is the other piece that is needed.

In Tommy's case, he has more contacts than Keith did, so might have a better chance (but is also talking about new implementations, which could complicate it).

9 hours ago, RREDDWARFF said:

I think we're already playing this game. It's called, "Survive 2020".

Yeah I dont think so. Unless your in Beirut that probably the closest thing. No I'm talking about a natural disaster. earthquakes,  tsunamis, building falling.  With puzzles you have to complete to get through debris that block your path. Using materials you find to make tools to drop or climb your way out of the situation.  Pretty sure people going to Walmart with a face mask to get little debbie cakes might seem like an adventure for some but I hardly put 2020 in the same level of disaster.  

45 minutes ago, JasperAK said:

Much better response than I was planning.

 

I look at the new Moon Patrol and wonder what COULD be done differently. Not much. I haven't played the updated level yet but from the video it looks like it becomes a frenetic challenge. Looks to be accomplishing it's mission to me.

 

But maybe it is missing something. Maybe it needs to be in an 3D open world where you have to go from site to site to talk to NPCs to get your missions to shoot the aliens (and as we play through the storyline we later find that the aliens are misunderstood, and it is actually the humans who are evil). Your friends can be those NPCs and decide how many aliens you have to kill to move on to the next mission. After a few missions, one on the NPCs can unlock the 'fill in the crater missions'. And don't forget the whole reason for driving on all of these moons and shit; you've got to deliver a letter from one NPC to another to unlock a new dialogue tree for new missions and continue the storyline. And speaking of trees, don't forget the tech tree to upgrade your buggy. Because we all know that games can't keep kid's attention spans unless they are constantly rewarded with permanent powerups--no, those temporary powerups won't do at all. And wouldn't it be cool if you play through the Alphabet checkpoints to get to the end, and then jump in a turret to blast a whole mess of asteroids shooting at you for five minutes like in Dead Space. Then you can run around inside the base and rescue the people from the aliens like Doom or Quake. Wouldn't that make this game awesome? I bet we can think of a whole mess of things that Moon Patrol is missing, things that would make it you know, not boring.

Finally someone understands good game design!  What I would add though is if there was a way we could just pay extra money to get coins to buy powerups instead of having to earn them. Or use those coins to skip missions we don't want to do. Regardless, money for coins! It's my favorite part of games. You could also give it added content that drops every month and completely changes the way the game is played. I think that would keep things fresh and prevent people from getting bored.

1 hour ago, Juicero said:

I agree with many of your points here, the biggest being the way that the games look. As you said, many of them look like games my younger brothers would download and play on my phone when we were younger. Also, funny comparison grudge, but I don't think comparing Amico games in 2020 to games from the 80's is a good thing haha, that's more like pointing out that the Amico games are of low quality in 2020 😅

Haha, that comparison really flew over your head 😆
 

But seriously, what would you say about the graphics of games like Minecraft or Pokémon Go?

2 hours ago, GrudgeQ said:

I just wanted to chime in here on the disappointing state of these games.

 

I mean really, Pong is that even a game? How can people have *any* fun with this so called game? I am getting Ouya vibes. Look at the graphics - if you can even call them that!

 

Then there is this game PacMan - those 'ghosts' (you can't even really tell what they are). They are basically sprite flipping left and right - the graphics suck!

Also what about this game play - nothing original just left right, up down? These people never heard of diagonal or what?!?

 

Again bad graphics - notice how the Donkey Kong guy just jumps up and down while never changing and then spends the rest of the game flipping between a couple of sprites? No innovation in game play, run, jump and climb - over and over and over again, level after level. No innovation, bad graphics and boring game play. Finally OMG the sound: bleeps, bloops - who calls this music?

 

Hopefully it is just early days for these games because I really want them to succeed.

Yeah whos going to pay money to play pong Geez........... Oh whats this? Nice coffee table you have there. What does it do? 

Plays pong you say.....$3000 interesting tell me more...........😂🤣😂🤣😂

5 hours ago, theswede said:

And what do you think about for example the cornhole game or EWJ4? I think the graphic/art style of those games are beautiful (as well as the dice/card games shown so far). 

I just checked out Cornhole and I liked the look of that one. EWJ looks good, too (reminds me of the a Monster Land remakes) so the system can obviously do great sprite work. I just wish they’d do more. I was picturing they’d be really hitting the pixel art hard,  Stardew Valley, or Owlboy.  I know I mentioned them before but that type of art would be a winner for me. Nighstalker is a good example of what I expected from the system.  I don’t think showing Astrosmash or Shark Shark is playing to their strengths. Hell, I think Skiing is a perfect update- those dudes should’ve made all the games, haha.

27 minutes ago, theswede said:

Haha, that comparison really flew over your head 😆
 

But seriously, what would you say about the graphics of games like Minecraft or Pokémon Go?

I think my point flew over yours 😳

I'd say the graphics of those games look awful, but the gameplay makes up for it. Endless creativity in Minecraft, Pokemon GO is really only interesting because of what it's based on. Without Pokemon, go would be crap. The difference here is that Amico games gameplay is so simplistic, to the point that they seem like they'd be featured on tablets geared towards children 4-7.