Independent Amico Discussion Thread

[Tavi]

8 minutes ago, m-crew said:

I never could eat Tofu, I've tried just doesn't taste right . But I have eaten in Vegan Restaurants and some of the meals and dishes are delicious.  Tavi have you eaten Tofu or had dinner in a Vegan Restaurant?  

 

 My brother gave me his PS2 and games when he upgraded to the PS3  but I always traded them away for Intellivision/Atari 2600/Coleco games.  Maybe I shold of keep them just to have.

I have a cousin who is a vegan. So I have had tofu and vegan meals while there visiting before. Not really my cup of tea, but it was not intolerable either.

I do not think I would ever willingly go to a vegan restaurant. I am sure the food is just fine, but instead of eating vegan food that has been made to look and taste like a more appealing meat-based meal I think I would just rather go right for the real thing. Absolutely nothing against vegans, but not being one myself I do not have much desire to settle for a substitute when I can just as easily have exactly what I want.

Speaking of the PS2 I have been looking at getting the 'Intellivision Lives!' collection for it. It does offer quite a few titles I do not have yet, and running them through the PS2 means no hassle setting up the console first if I feel like playing a bit. Not nearly as fun as playing on the original system, but being able to just pop in a disc and go does have its appeal as well.

[m-crew]

Just now, Tavi said:

I have a cousin who is a vegan. So I have had tofu and vegan meals while there visiting before. Not really my cup of tea, but it was not intolerable either.

I do not think I would ever willingly go to a vegan restaurant. I am sure the food is just fine, but instead of eating vegan food that has been made to look and taste like a more appealing meat-based meal I think I would just rather go right for the real thing. Absolutely nothing against vegans, but not being one myself I do not have much desire to settle for a substitute when I can just as easily have exactly what I want.

Speaking of the PS2 I have been looking at getting the 'Intellivision Lives!' collection for it. It does offer quite a few titles I do not have yet, and running them through the PS2 means no hassle setting up the console first if I feel like playing a bit. Not nearly as fun as playing on the original system, but being able to just pop in a disc and go does have its appeal as well.

Yeah, I stayed away from the look alike food but ordered the real vegetable dishes. Yeah it's not everyone's cup a of tea for sure. Not to mention prices are a little high in Vegan Restaurants. 

I'm sure if you put it out there that your looking for a Intellivision Lives ,someone in these parts of AA . Would be happy to help you in that regards. There are a lot helpful people here. 

[fiudr]

On 2/11/2020 at 4:59 PM, Swami said:

Bizarre. I’ve never heard of it before. I think bad advertising and price  were the issue for what it appeared to do, by which I mean I didn’t really get the gist of how it might work or you might compete against each other from the Amazon description or the video. For a $100 music/card game, you have to show a big wow factor for $100 or they’ll go buy Pictionary or Cheaters Monopoly for $20. 

Yeah, I agree their marketing was awful. Stores didn't know how to sell them or where to even stock them, and customers had no idea what it was. It doesn't even come with any type of manual or anything telling you how to play the games, or how the tech works. Nothing. I had to rely on the Reddit community and their very well-made guides to instruct me how to play the various games. It is a very cool and clever system. But it turned out to be very expensive after buying all the cards, even with the base game heavily discounted. I regret it now, even though it's a cool system. Thankfully it can still play - Hasbro shut down their servers at the end of last year, but Harmonix took over the servers so that it would continue to serve the music files. Once you have everything downloaded and installed on your phone/tablet, you don't even need to be online to play, but if you ever change hardware, you better have made backups of all the necessary apps and game files, or hope the servers are still running to re-download it all.

 

[+Swami]

38 minutes ago, fiudr said:

Yeah, I agree their marketing was awful. Stores didn't know how to sell them or where to even stock them, and customers had no idea what it was. It doesn't even come with any type of manual or anything telling you how to play the games, or how the tech works. Nothing. I had to rely on the Reddit community and their very well-made guides to instruct me how to play the various games. It is a very cool and clever system. But it turned out to be very expensive after buying all the cards, even with the base game heavily discounted. I regret it now, even though it's a cool system. Thankfully it can still play - Hasbro shut down their servers at the end of last year, but Harmonix took over the servers so that it would continue to serve the music files. Once you have everything downloaded and installed on your phone/tablet, you don't even need to be online to play, but if you ever change hardware, you better have made backups of all the necessary apps and game files, or hope the servers are still running to re-download it all.

 

No instructions? Wow! I'm betting the stores got a lot of returns from perplexed buyers.

[fiudr]

On 2/11/2020 at 9:41 PM, Swami said:

Here's a better graph of what you were posting. Per person it is nearly equal. Still a big market.

 

http://www.rakutenintelligence.com/blog/2016/hardly-pocket-change-mobile-gamers-spend-an-average-of-87-dollars-on-in-app-purchases

 

It mentions, "Slice Intelligence just revealed that people who bought products in mobile video games last year spent an average of $87 dollars on their “free-to-play” games."

 

So those who do spend money on in-app purchases spend on average $87. Okay, but what percentage of phone gamers make in-app purchases compared to those that don't? I'm betting most people don't spend any money. Those that do spend $87 a year.

 

[fiudr]

On 2/11/2020 at 11:52 PM, Tavi said:

The big problem is the controllers are proprietary to the Amico.

It is not like a Nintendo or PlayStation where if they give you a cheap controller, you can just get one you like better and use it instead.

Tommy had mentioned many times the controllers are unique, and Amico games are going to be specifically designed for them. While you can use a cellphone or alternate controller, and I believe mention at one time was made Bluetooth controllers can link to the console, you will not be getting the full experience.

In short, the console at launch is going to sink or swim in no small part by how the controllers work. The Amico can have the best games ever made, but if the controllers are poor and there is no real alternative to using them, the system is going to rapidly get bad reviews and for a smaller company looking to get themselves (re)established that kind of talk can hurt their sales badly.

I would think that the consoles controllers are one place they absolutely cannot cheap out on.

I absolutely agree with this. I'm glad to hear they're putting extra attention on the quality of the controllers. Better to have the price of the system increase by $30 to give a far better controller experience, and gather great reviews to help sell more systems, than aim for a $199 price point and have to offer cheaper controllers that will frustrate people and get bad reviews. The controllers are going to be a critical part of every review we see for this system this year and next.

 

 

[fiudr]

14 hours ago, 1001lives said:

Didn't see this - 

 

Tommy already tweeted about this. It's getting a physical release, launching in 2021. We don't know what the media format is. Most likely something that interacts with USB. Hopefully a cool looking Intellivision flash drive that stores the game. 

Flash drives tend to be unreliable for long-term storage. Most tech geeks will tell you flash drives should only be trusted for data transfer or temp storage. Flash drives tend to fail with zero warning causing full data loss. I've had USB drives fail for seemingly no reason - it worked, then it didn't. It would be scary to store all your games on a flash drive if that's the only method of storage. This is often discussed on blu-ray forums, as people wonder why they aren't selling movies on flash drives these days instead of discs. One of the big reasons is that pressed manufactured discs lasts decades, whereas flash drives last nowhere close to that. Nobody would want to build a movie collection that suddenly disappears on you overnight (wait, didn't I just describe streaming media?). Same for games.

 

 

 

 

[+Swami]

46 minutes ago, fiudr said:

It mentions, "Slice Intelligence just revealed that people who bought products in mobile video games last year spent an average of $87 dollars on their “free-to-play” games."

 

So those who do spend money on in-app purchases spend on average $87. Okay, but what percentage of phone gamers make in-app purchases compared to those that don't? I'm betting most people don't spend any money. Those that do spend $87 a year.

 

From Mr. Beefy's post, the average for all mobile gamers is $78 per person.

[fiudr]

46 minutes ago, Swami said:

No instructions? Wow! I'm betting the stores got a lot of returns from perplexed buyers.

They directed you to a quick video guide to the games on Youtube but they just left you mostly confused. No explanations of the different card icons, what they meant, how to win.

 

They didn't even include a power button on the system! You had to remove the batteries when you were done playing! It would auto-shut off after a few minutes of not playing, but it would randomly wake-up and start the light display again so you really had to remove the batteries when done playing. It was pretty ridiculous that they didn't think to include a power switch.

[+Swami]

19 hours ago, fiudr said:

It mentions, "Slice Intelligence just revealed that people who bought products in mobile video games last year spent an average of $87 dollars on their “free-to-play” games."

 

So those who do spend money on in-app purchases spend on average $87. Okay, but what percentage of phone gamers make in-app purchases compared to those that don't? I'm betting most people don't spend any money. Those that do spend $87 a year.

 

Actually, I just got around to taking a good look at Mr. Beefy's article which states $78 per person and that is "per Capita" which means every man, woman and child in the USA. I think only around 64% of the population play mobile games (https://www.statista.com/topics/1906/mobile-gaming/), so $78 divided by 0.64 gives you $122 per mobile gamer, in the USA. 64% is 210 million gamers divided by 327 million Americans in 2018.

 

[SegaSnatcher]

If I read this correctly Tommy said "Don't assume EWJ will be a 2D Action Platformer using the Disc Pad."    

If true I feel this is going to really dissapoint a lot of EWJ fans.  I think EWJ fans just want a great modern 2D action platformer.  And if you don't control using the disc pad, what will you be using, the touchscreen?  I don't think that will go down well with EWJ fans. It almost sounds like you aren't designing an EWJ game for EWJ fans, but perhaps something more suited for the casuals you are going after. This might alienate a lot of old school fans, but maybe it won't matter if a ton of casuals are into it, pretty risky.

 

Edited February 13, 2020 by SegaSnatcher

[m-crew]

1 hour ago, SegaSnatcher said:

If I read this correctly Tommy said "Don't assume EWJ will be a 2D Action Platformer using the Disc Pad."    

 but perhaps something more suited for the casuals you are going after. This might alienate a lot of old school fans, but maybe it won't matter if a ton of casuals are into it, .

 

This is exactly what the Amico is going for and EWJ release on the system. They are not really targeting retro and hardcor gamers (As Tommy has mention over and over), and compare numbers of retro/hardcore gamers to casuals as Tommy has be mentioning over and over doesnt even come close. So I think it wont even matter what die hard EWJ fans think or even if they buy this game or Amico.  I know I'm stoked about this game and think it's going to be at another level because of the way Tommy is throwing out hints of what it will be like.. Hurry 2021 we need A modern updated EWJ on the Amico. 

[SegaSnatcher]

52 minutes ago, m-crew said:

This is exactly what the Amico is going for and EWJ release on the system. They are not really targeting retro and hardcor gamers (As Tommy has mention over and over), and compare numbers of retro/hardcore gamers to casuals as Tommy has be mentioning over and over doesnt even come close. So I think it wont even matter what die hard EWJ fans think or even if they buy this game or Amico.  I know I'm stoked about this game and think it's going to be at another level because of the way Tommy is throwing out hints of what it will be like.. Hurry 2021 we need A modern updated EWJ on the Amico. 

But you would agree that its the retro gamers that still care about EWJ.  Casuals have never heard of that IP before. It just seems like a strange choice to intentionally ignore the original EWJ fanbase when designing this new EWJ game. It reminds me of when Nintendo announced Metroid Federation Force, that didn't go down very well with Metroid fans.  Look at that like to dislike ratio.  
 

 

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, SegaSnatcher said:

If I read this correctly Tommy said "Don't assume EWJ will be a 2D Action Platformer using the Disc Pad."    

If true I feel this is going to really dissapoint a lot of EWJ fans.  I think EWJ fans just want a great modern 2D action platformer.  And if you don't control using the disc pad, what will you be using, the touchscreen?  I don't think that will go down well with EWJ fans. It almost sounds like you aren't designing an EWJ game for EWJ fans, but perhaps something more suited for the casuals you are going after. This might alienate a lot of old school fans, but maybe it won't matter if a ton of casuals are into it, pretty risky.

 

You're not reading it correctly.  That doesn't mean the disc won't be used to move jim.  How can you say earth worm jim fans won't like a game that hasn't been created yet.

 

The first two earthworm jim games aren't complicated.  They can be played by anyone.

[SegaSnatcher]

33 minutes ago, mr_me said:

You're not reading it correctly.  That doesn't mean the disc won't be used to move jim.  How can you say earth worm jim fans won't like a game that hasn't been created yet.

 

The first two earthworm jim games aren't complicated.  They can be played by anyone.

I'm saying EWJ fans won't be happy if you can't use the disc pad.  

This is exactly what Tommy said, to me this looks like you won't be using the disc pad.

"I think you may be wrongly assuming that Earthworm Jim is going to be a 2D side scrolling platform game using our 64 position d-pad."  - Tommy Tallarico 

Why specifically bring up the d-pad in that sentence?  If its just not going to be a 2d side scrolling platform game then you wouldn't need to add the d-pad part.  You would just say "I think you may be wrongly assuming that Earthword Jim is going to be a 2D side scrolling platform game."  

I'm not a super hardcore EWJ fan, but I do enjoy those games and I and assuming majority of others were hoping it would be a modern reboot to those original games we grew up with, if its going to be something else entirely that would really be unfortunate.  Hopefully when it gets officially announced my fears will be eased.

Edited February 13, 2020 by SegaSnatcher

[1001lives]

25 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

I'm saying EWJ fans won't be happy if you can't use the disc pad.  

This is exactly what Tommy said, to me this looks like you won't be using the disc pad.

"I think you may be wrongly assuming that Earthworm Jim is going to be a 2D side scrolling platform game using our 64 position d-pad."  - Tommy Tallarico 

Why specifically bring up the d-pad in that sentence?  If its just not going to be a 2d side scrolling platform game then you wouldn't need to add the d-pad part.  You would just say "I think you may be wrongly assuming that Earthword Jim is going to be a 2D side scrolling platform game."  

It's going to use everything on the controller. Tommy is saying it's not just a 2D side scroller with d-pad. 

[SegaSnatcher]

2 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

It's going to use everything on the controller. Tommy is saying it's not just a 2D side scroller with d-pad. 

Very interesting.  Sounds like it could be like an EWJ party game or something.  Mario Party is pretty legit.

[1001lives]

37 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Very interesting.  Sounds like it could be like an EWJ party game or something.  Mario Party is pretty legit.

It's not a party game or Mario party. Not sure why what made you draw that conclusion so definitively lol. 

[SegaSnatcher]

20 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

It's not a party game or Mario party. Not sure why what made you draw that conclusion so definitively lol. 

Did Tommy confirm what it is?  Sorry, I can't read his Q&A thread so I'm not up to date on that info.

Edit: Just saw this quote from Tommy.

"That being said...  has anyone ever heard me say that ANY bluetooth controller couldn't work?  "  

This is huge if true.  I know games will take advantage of the Amico screen and such, but if he's legit allowing people to just use whatever BT controller they want as well consider me more interested now.

Edited February 13, 2020 by SegaSnatcher

[1001lives]

48 minutes ago, SegaSnatcher said:

Did Tommy confirm what it is?  Sorry, I can't read his Q&A thread so I'm not up to date on that info.

Edit: Just saw this quote from Tommy.

"That being said...  has anyone ever heard me say that ANY bluetooth controller couldn't work?  "  

This is huge if true.  I know games will take advantage of the Amico screen and such, but if he's legit allowing people to just use whatever BT controller they want as well consider me more interested now.

Tommy has not confirmed one way or the other. He's basically told us it's not just a traditional sidescroller. There are elements that require the microphone, touch screen, motion controls, etc. But he's never said party game, and I don't think they are making Earthworm Jim into a party game or Mario Party game.

 

He's confirmed any controller will work - but that you wouldn't want to play many of their games that way, because most of the games use the touch screen and motion controls. You could map those functions to buttons but they may not come out right or even play right that way.

 

He'll probably come into this thread later to answer questions but he wants to keep a lot of that in the Q+A thread.

Edited February 13, 2020 by 1001lives

[SegaSnatcher]

9 minutes ago, 1001lives said:

Tommy has not confirmed one way or the other. He's basically told us it's not just a traditional sidescroller. There are elements that require the microphone, touch screen, motion controls, etc. But he's never said party game, and I don't think they are making Earthworm Jim into a party game or Mario Party game.

 

He's confirmed any controller will work - but that you wouldn't want to play many of their games that way, because most of the games use the touch screen and motion controls. You could map those functions to buttons but they may not come out right or even play right that way.

 

He'll probably come into this thread later to answer questions but he wants to keep a lot of that in the Q+A thread.

Thanks for the info.   Yeah some games might not translate over well to a traditional controller, but I know I'll definitely opt for a standard controller for any games that do.

[woobman]

9 hours ago, 1001lives said:

It's going to use everything on the controller. Tommy is saying it's not just a 2D side scroller with d-pad. 

Interesting... Wiggle the controller to Tip the cow or to lift yourself up while scooting across a chain. Whip the controller when you whip your head. Use the screen to solve puzzles using the controller as a 2nd screen.  Some fun possibilities. Reconfigure Ash (Evil Dead) as EJs Groovy voice... Looking forward to actually being able to pre-order the next version of the Amico.  I missed out as life kept me away from the forum or email. - insert sad face-

[m-crew]

12 minutes ago, woobman said:

Interesting... Wiggle the controller to Tip the cow or to lift yourself up while scooting across a chain. Whip the controller when you whip your head. Use the screen to solve puzzles using the controller as a 2nd screen.  Some fun possibilities. Reconfigure Ash (Evil Dead) as EJs Groovy voice... Looking forward to actually being able to pre-order the next version of the Amico.  I missed out as life kept me away from the forum or email. - insert sad face-

Lot's of possibilities and potential with the new Amico controller that's for sure. I was lucky enough to get through and purchase one of the FE. Hopefully you get the chance if there is another chance on a per-order.  If not 10/20/20 will be here before you know it... That sad face will have a chance to turn to a happy face in the near future...

 

Cheers 

[TandyVision]

Sorry everyone, you can yell at me because it was probably answered but I'm late to the party. Will this play all of the original games? Burgertime?

[m-crew]

1 hour ago, TandyVision said:

Sorry everyone, you can yell at me because it was probably answered but I'm late to the party. Will this play all of the original games? Burgertime?

They will be releasing original games sold in packs, after the Amico  establishes itself in the market.  Timeline mentioned is around 2022.

Edited February 14, 2020 by m-crew
opps meant to say 2022