Intellivision Amico - Tommy Tallarico introduction + Q&A

41 minutes ago, supahwally said:

Since we are talking about games, I had the first video game idea in my life last week.  I build engines and tend to think in nuts, bolts, and mechanical motion, but standing in my kitchen watching all the birds at my feeders one morning gave me an idea.

 

I have a couple poles with flat and hanging feeders in a small yard with a line of trees at the back, and the birds like flitting back and forth between the feeders and the trees.  All different size birds show up, and there is a certain order to their behavior-generally the bigger birds get the seeds they want and the little ones wait until there is an opportunity.  It's all fun and games until a hawk comes flying through the yard like a missile and steals off with one of the feeding birds...the cycle of life, if you will.  

 

Then it clicked:  What about a Shark, Shark! style game, but with birds, trees, birdfeeders, and hawks?  You start as a tiny bird.  You get points for eating food out of feeders, but if you bump a bigger bird, you get pushed out and lose points.  Get enough food, you become a bigger bird with more access to the feeders.   All of this happens under the constant and random threat of the hawk flying in, snatching you up, and taking you away.  Variables could include trees/landforms, feeder types and styles, food types and styles (some worth more 'energy/points' than others), and various birds of 'prey', with size, accuracy, and skill increasing as your bird gets bigger.  Maybe even introduce the need to 'fly' with button presses, like it works in 'Joust'.

 

The obvious title?  'Hawk, Hawk!'  Which, as I just discovered, is very awkward to say out loud.

 

Hey, we all gotta start somewhere.  

LOVE IT!

Especially the name!!

19 minutes ago, supahwally said:

I don't social media.  It's nice.

Atari Age (this thread, actually) is as social as I get on media. Too much toxicity, too much of a time suck, but will admit - I like it here   

1 minute ago, Nolagamer said:

Have you played the gamecube remake of dragons lair dragons lair 3d?  Id love to see that on amico in hd with better controls  and more rol.s and multiplayer.  The game was great and i felt the 3d cam wast so needed as much even though its"3d"  it was dragons lair in real time. Not video with quick time events. 

Yeah.  I did a whole story on that game back on my TV show.  I'm good friends with Gary Goldman & Don Bluth.  They attend all my Video Games Live show whenever I'm in the Phoenix area (where they are located).  In fact, I put the interview we did about them and that game on my VGL PBS Special DVD & Blu-Ray as an extra!

Definitely would love to get that game on Amico.  I know the Digital Leisure guys really well also.  In fact, me & Hans were JUST talking about this exact thing earlier this week!

I have a few of the original cells from Dragon's Lair (signed by them both) as well as the original Dragon's Lair movie poster which I had them sign.

FUN FACT!  The very first video game to ever use live music and a live orchestra was Dragon's Lair!  LaserDisc FTW!!

5 minutes ago, nightmonkeyii said:

Nothin like a good hit of LSD-25. Thats how Steve jobs products came to him.

 

How did that work out for him in the long run?

😇

4 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

FUN FACT!  The very first video game to ever use live music and a live orchestra was Dragon's Lair!  LaserDisc FTW!!

Well if we ever get Dragon's Lair on Amico, the physical media could be a LaserDisc collectible.   

9 minutes ago, Starpaddler said:

Atari Age (this thread, actually) is as social as I get on media. Too much toxicity, too much of a time suck, but will admit - I like it here   

I totally agree.  If it wasn't for Tommy & the Amico, I wouldn't even be on here as much.  Lol.  So, I thank you Tommy for this Q&A thread.  I didn't think I would ever be this involved with a video game console.  Especially with the behind the scenes stuff that you show & tell us.  It's a fun ride, I hope it never ends.

9 minutes ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

 

How did that work out for him in the long run?

 

😇

He died, he died!

jokes tommy, was having a mild stab. I don't know anyone who is teetotal. Your the first. I respect your decisions in life

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

We've had about 100 cancellations so far.  Pretty good considering the tens of thousands we've pre-sold AND the world situation of 2020!

100? Man this is starting to get costly for me to pick up the slack. Yeesh. 😂

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yep.  Dragon's Lair is so damn cool!!   So amazing!!  I thought my sound/speakers were broken before I realized that you had to go into the menu and turn on the internal speakers (because it was defaulted to the HDMI out).  I thought that was strange.  Was yours like that?

The GREATEST part of it though is that you can set lives to INFINITE!  As you mentioned, the game is still very tough.  But once you memorize everything it becomes easy.  I beat it in about an hour... but was super fun and love displaying it!!

 

no my sound was fine, I didnt know about the infinite lives though, that's gonna help, ive just been doing the 5 and done.  OK, if I cant beat it with infinite lives I guess I have to change hobbies to knitting or something    

as far the pinball games, I love Zen pinball, its been my go to traveling game for years. Zen pinball and my tablet makes airplanes almost tolerable.  I'm gonna put my Deadpool head right next to my Marvel pinball, they were made for each other.  I can make Deadpool talk smack while others play.

just in case you havent seen the Deadpool head, see below, but Im guessing you may have one already 

Those charging contacts on top of the Amico...can they be used for data transfer or other forms of expansion? Or just for transferring power to the controller batteries?

2 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

Yeah.  I did a whole story on that game back on my TV show.  I'm good friends with Gary Goldman & Don Bluth.  They attend all my Video Games Live show whenever I'm in the Phoenix area (where they are located).  In fact, I put the interview we did about them and that game on my VGL PBS Special DVD & Blu-Ray as an extra!

Definitely would love to get that game on Amico.  I know the Digital Leisure guys really well also.  In fact, me & Hans were JUST talking about this exact thing earlier this week!

I have a few of the original cells from Dragon's Lair (signed by them both) as well as the original Dragon's Lair movie poster which I had them sign.

 

FUN FACT!  The very first video game to ever use live music and a live orchestra was Dragon's Lair!  LaserDisc FTW!!

 

 

 I was amazed by the remake bought it for ganecube not long ago since i ran avross it and was like wow not a laserdisc game but real time.   The game  has a few issues but nothing major which could totally be fixed.   But i could see this on amico with multiplayer and maybe a role reversal in single player which could be a different  experience.

5 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

I know it's not Amico related but had to share.  This looks cool.  Now all we need is a giant Intellivision & Colecovision controller.  

 

Pretty cool! Atari and Micro Center have been hitting it out of the ballpark lately.

3 hours ago, Tommy Tallarico said:

LOVE IT!

 

Especially the name!!

 

Thanks!  Credit to Ms. K for the name.  I told her about the idea but called it 'Birdfeeder', which is horrible.  As soon as I told her it was based on Shark Shark she laughed and thought Hawk Hawk was an obvious choice.  Uh, duh, yeah!

Tommy,

An idea for another edutainment game, Winnie-the-Pooh.  I think Disney owns the rights.  If possible, it could be a nice addition to the Amico library.

1 hour ago, Battlefish said:

Pretty cool! Atari and Micro Center have been hitting it out of the ballpark lately.

Available and didn't require a crowdfunding, already more impressive to me than the upcoming AtariVCS imho 😜😆

This looks cool.  It would be neat to get a re-imagined version on Amico.

10 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

This looks cool.  It would be neat to get a re-imagined version on Amico.

 

I wonder what happens if he accidently squishes the "woman" chasing her!

The moment a hater realizes that, if you want to be honest, you should apply the same obsessive arguments against the console you hate with all the other consoles you don't hate (and his head explodes):

Source: One of the last comments on the video I mentioned 2 pages ago.

19 hours ago, nightmonkeyii said:

He died, he died!

jokes tommy, was having a mild stab. I don't know anyone who is teetotal. Your the first. I respect your decisions in life

Yep... I know.  That's how I read it.  I got it.  Was just mildly stabbing back.

😇🥰

17 hours ago, bigdaddygamestudio said:

no my sound was fine, I didnt know about the infinite lives though, that's gonna help, ive just been doing the 5 and done.  OK, if I cant beat it with infinite lives I guess I have to change hobbies to knitting or something    

 

as far the pinball games, I love Zen pinball, its been my go to traveling game for years. Zen pinball and my tablet makes airplanes almost tolerable.  I'm gonna put my Deadpool head right next to my Marvel pinball, they were made for each other.  I can make Deadpool talk smack while others play.

 

just in case you havent seen the Deadpool head, see below, but Im guessing you may have one already 

 

 

 

Yeah... Infinite lives is gonna DEFINITELY help!!  

You need to press the right coin slot to bring up the menu.  Lots of fun things to play with in there.

WHAT THE HELL!?!?!?   NO!  I didn't know about the Deadpool head.  NICE!!!

Thanks for sharing... and I can already say this now... my wife now hates you.

🤣

17 hours ago, Battlefish said:

Those charging contacts on top of the Amico...can they be used for data transfer or other forms of expansion? Or just for transferring power to the controller batteries?

Just power charging.

Data transfer happens through bluetooth. 

17 hours ago, Nolagamer said:

 I was amazed by the remake bought it for ganecube not long ago since i ran avross it and was like wow not a laserdisc game but real time.   The game  has a few issues but nothing major which could totally be fixed.   But i could see this on amico with multiplayer and maybe a role reversal in single player which could be a different  experience.

Such an AMAZING game that never sold as well as it should have.  There were a few control issues, but nothing major.  Was a really great game.

I think the timing of when it came out was just bad.  I think this would do amazingly well on Amico.  Will need to reach out to Digital Leisure to see if they own the rights (as it could be UbiSoft).

17 hours ago, Battlefish said:

Pretty cool! Atari and Micro Center have been hitting it out of the ballpark lately.

Portable!

Seriously though... that's awesome for folks who don't have a MAME cab setup, or want to play older stuff on their big screen.  Very cool.

16 hours ago, supahwally said:

Thanks!  Credit to Ms. K for the name.  I told her about the idea but called it 'Birdfeeder', which is horrible.  As soon as I told her it was based on Shark Shark she laughed and thought Hawk Hawk was an obvious choice.  Uh, duh, yeah!

Kudos to Mrs. Supahwally!

16 hours ago, Intellivision Master said:

Tommy,

 

An idea for another edutainment game, Winnie-the-Pooh.  I think Disney owns the rights.  If possible, it could be a nice addition to the Amico library.

Disney owns the version of Winnie-the-Pooh from the movies (that we all grew up on).  But not the books, etc. 

That would be a good licenses though.  I'll need to have the team look into that one!