Independent Amico Discussion Thread

[MrBeefy]

I could see it both ways. Either the getting them out there which might get some interested in Amico, but also if not done right in the compilation it hurting them in making Intv look bad.

 

Still curious to see what they are going to do with the controller to make playing the old games easier.

[mr_me]

Easier than what?  Having the overlays automatically appear on the controller will help with some games.  Cross mapping the controllers for deadly discs, ad&d, night stalker will help.  Adding gesture input for those games will help.  For games that use up to three buttons, I'd map the primary action to the touch-pad.  Visual queus on the controller or remapping actions for a game like bowling would help make it easier.  I mentioned hacking Auto Racing so you can start a game without having to grab the second controller. There might be other hacks that make sense.

[MrBeefy]

21 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Easier than what?  Having the overlays automatically appear on the controller will help with some games.  Cross mapping the controllers for deadly discs, ad&d, night stalker will help.  Adding gesture input for those games will help.  For games that use up to three buttons, I'd map the primary action to the touch-pad.  Visual queus on the controller or remapping actions for a game like bowling would help make it easier.  I mentioned hacking Auto Racing so you can start a game without having to grab the second controller. There might be other hacks that make sense.

I was talking about the tactile aspect of it. Having the overlays is great but for games that rely heavy on it without the 'bubbles' it would be easy to hit the wrong buttons. I know it has been teased that there is something and that is what I meant by easier. That tactile feel.

 

 

[mr_me]

Did they say it would be easier?  The new Amico Baseball might be easier.  With intellivision baseball you'll have to deal with a flat keypad (other than the centre dimple).  I'd add swipe gestures for throwing to first/second/third/home.  Setting your thumb on the pitcher and relative move and press to select fielders might work  fine.  Remember a lot of people played Intellivision with the overlays in anyway.

[mr_me]

Wrong thread

Edited February 22, 2020 by mr_me

[MrBeefy]

57 minutes ago, mr_me said:

Did they say it would be easier?  The new Amico Baseball might be easier.  With intellivision baseball you'll have to deal with a flat keypad (other than the centre dimple).  I'd add swipe gestures for throwing to first/second/third/home.  Setting your thumb on the pitcher and relative move and press to select fielders might work  fine.  Remember a lot of people played Intellivision with the overlays in anyway.

Even with the overlays in you still have the tactile button feel. You don't have that on a flat screen.

 

The 'easier part' is having something to make it easier to tell where your finger is on the flat overlay. 

 

I'm not sure adding gestures to old games would be great. Some may work better than others. 

 

 

[digdugnate]

6 hours ago, mr_me said:

Do any of those nes games include those that belong to nintendo?  What differences does it make?  Their position is they rather not have their games played with thumbstick controllers.  If someone else wants to release a collection of Imagic or Activision Intellivision games there's not much stopping them.

oh, well, i stand corrected!  thank you for sharing with me your vast intellect of the truth.

[RT12 Productions]

Hello!  I've decided to get myself an INTELLIVISION AMICO (in Obsidian Black, to go with my current PC browsers' use of dark theme).  Would I still be able to preorder one, or wait until they hit the stores?!?!

Let's see some progress screens for the newly-updated Horse Racing, please and thank you.

[Tavi]

17 minutes ago, RT12 Productions said:

Hello!  I've decided to get myself an INTELLIVISION AMICO (in Obsidian Black, to go with my current PC browsers' use of dark theme).  Would I still be able to preorder one, or wait until they hit the stores?!?!

Let's see some progress screens for the newly-updated Horse Racing, please and thank you.

Hello!

The Founders Edition was only available in the woodgrain design. To purchase any of the other console designs you will I think have to wait until they hit the stores.

[+cmart604]

57 minutes ago, RT12 Productions said:

Hello!  I've decided to get myself an INTELLIVISION AMICO (in Obsidian Black, to go with my current PC browsers' use of dark theme).  Would I still be able to preorder one, or wait until they hit the stores?!?!

Let's see some progress screens for the newly-updated Horse Racing, please and thank you.

I suspect you'll have an opportunity to preorder that version (which I shall refer to as the Tron version) closer to the release date. 

[Utopia]

22 minutes ago, cmart604 said:

I suspect you'll have an opportunity to preorder that version (which I shall refer to as the Tron version) closer to the release date. 

Was tron black? I thought he was blue.

[roots.genoa]

7 hours ago, Swami said:

I used to have a positive view of Nintendo before I ran into its trolls on this forum

There are several people here (well, there were since most of them were banned) who also had a positive view of Amico before they ran into some of its most vocal fans... 😕

But I think we can all agree that it's a shame to despise a system or a company because of some of their fans.

[spoonman]

On 2/21/2020 at 8:52 AM, mr_me said:

Breakout had a rotary controller.  Other ball and paddle games had levers.  I had a pong game that had slide controllers not unlike the touchpad action.  For me rotary controllers work best but a touchpad is better than a thumbstick or dpad.

 

In those days some laptop manufacturers had trackballs where the trackpad is now.  I was disappointed that went way but they said they got dirty, weren't reliable.  No doubt the touchpad is superior to the ibm thinkpad nub/stick but most people insist on having a mouse.

The PS4 version of the Atari Flashback Classics actually allows you to use the DualShock 4's touchpad as a trackball for several games such as Missile Command, Centipede, Millipede, and also emulates the spinner controller for games such as Tempest, Breakout, and PONG. I'd like to say that the touchpad works as well as a physical trackball or spinner, but sadly it does not. I found the Analog stick to be far more accurate.

 

 

If the Amico had some of rotory spinner accessory like Taito made for the DS I'd be more interested in buying one. 

It makes playing brick breakers so much more fun than using touch screen.

 

Of course Taito also made the wonderful VAUS spinner controller for the NES as well. It went from feeling like a port of Arkanoid to feeling just like the arcade. It's hard to explain, but once you play these games with a rotary spinner it just feels right. 

 

 

On 2/21/2020 at 9:41 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

We have a B-17 Bomber remake also now confirmed to be in development and it might be shown at E3. ToeJam & Earl is also being worked on and will hopefully be ready by launch.

Is it going to be made by Greg Johnson's company, HumaNature, and is it a port of TJ&E Back In the Groove? Awesome game, but I would definitely want online co-op with it. My childhood friend and I used to play it back when it first came out on the Genesis. It was an absolute blast being able to play it with him again across the country. It worked like a charm. 

 

It goes without saying that I am a huge TJ&E fan. I actually didn't know it was announced for the Amico.. Will I be adding it to my TJ&E collection?...

Maybe?

[+Swami]

1 hour ago, roots.genoa said:

There are several people here (well, there were since most of them were banned) who also had a positive view of Amico before they ran into some of its most vocal fans... 😕

But I think we can all agree that it's a shame to despise a system or a company because of some of their fans.

I don’t despise the systems. I still play my Wii and sometimes my nes and snes. It just gives me the creeps when Nintendo fans talk about it. 

 

I also think if I went into the Switch forum, or the ps4 forum for that matter, and started griping about everything I didn’t like about it I would expect to get a lot of flack, as well. 

[roots.genoa]

43 minutes ago, Swami said:

It just gives me the creeps when Nintendo fans talk about it.

Well, I perfectly get your point but you have to understand that some Amico fans (not necessarily you) sound quite creepy sometimes as well.

I mean there's a huge difference between Amico fans and Switch (or Xbox One/PS4) fans; the latters are at least defending something they actually own. I really hope Amico turns out as good as we think it will, but that's why I'm always cautiously optimistic (for everything); I prefer to be pleasantly surprised than strongly disappointed.

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, spoonman said:

Is it going to be made by Greg Johnson's company, HumaNature, and is it a port of TJ&E Back In the Groove? Awesome game, but I would definitely want online co-op with it. My childhood friend and I used to play it back when it first came out on the Genesis. It was an absolute blast being able to play it with him again across the country. It worked like a charm. 

 

It goes without saying that I am a huge TJ&E fan. I actually didn't know it was announced for the Amico.. Will I be adding it to my TJ&E collection?...

Maybe?

I actually asked Tommy about this game. Here you go:

 

 

[mr_me]

3 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Well, I perfectly get your point but you have to understand that some Amico fans (not necessarily you) sound quite creepy sometimes as well.

I mean there's a huge difference between Amico fans and Switch (or Xbox One/PS4) fans; the latters are at least defending something they actually own. I really hope Amico turns out as good as we think it will, but that's why I'm always cautiously optimistic (for everything); I prefer to be pleasantly surprised than strongly disappointed.

Are they defending what they own or needlessly bashing others?  That bashing can be creepy the way some conduct themselves.

 

I know what you mean about some extra enthusiastic fans but I might describe it as strange rather than creepy.  Some fans develop an unrealistic view of what they are a fan.  It sometimes makes it difficult to have a discussion.  In Amico's case it's more about what they want it to be than what it is. 

Edited February 23, 2020 by mr_me

[mr_me]

5 hours ago, spoonman said:

The PS4 version of the Atari Flashback Classics actually allows you to use the DualShock 4's touchpad as a trackball for several games such as Missile Command, Centipede, Millipede, and also emulates the spinner controller for games such as Tempest, Breakout, and PONG. I'd like to say that the touchpad works as well as a physical trackball or spinner, but sadly it does not. I found the Analog stick to be far more accurate.

 

 

If the Amico had some of rotory spinner accessory like Taito made for the DS I'd be more interested in buying one. 

It makes playing brick breakers so much more fun than using touch screen.

 

Of course Taito also made the wonderful VAUS spinner controller for the NES as well. It went from feeling like a port of Arkanoid to feeling just like the arcade. It's hard to explain, but once you play these games with a rotary spinner it just feels right. 

Is the thumbstick a 1:1 relation to the paddle position i.e. does the paddle return to centre when the thumbstick is released?  I agree rotary controls are best for ball and paddle games and the Amico disc does rotate.  Programmers are going to fine tune the games to control the best they possibly can as a opposed to trying to emulate a foreign controller.  We'll see if the disc is programmed as an optional paddle control.  Pong and breakout aren't going to make or break the Amico anyway.

 

I can't say I've played missile command with a ps4 touchpad but my computer has a touchpad and while it's okay I find a mouse works best.  I can't stand playing missile command with a thumbstick.  Even though the Amico disc duplicates the function of a thumbstick I find the thumbstick form to be imprecise.  It's why those controllers still have dpads.  The ps4 touchpad looks to be in an awkward spot for a primary control.  Compare it with the steam controller touchpad location.

Edited February 23, 2020 by mr_me

[MrBeefy]

4 hours ago, spoonman said:

 

If the Amico had some of rotory spinner accessory like Taito made for the DS I'd be more interested in buying one. 

It makes playing brick breakers so much more fun than using touch screen.

 

That rotary was great and I wish there was more than the 3 games that used it.

 

Disc/touch on the Amico may work better than you think. 

[mr_me]

That's always the problem with optional controllers and perpherals.  They often get poor support from publishers and developers.  Paddle controllers were great for the Atari 2600 because everybody had them; so publishers were happy to use them without jeopardising sales.  But nobody wanted to develop cartridges for the driving controller.

 

We really have to try these Amico games before we can comment on how they control.  They do have the advantage that they are not trying to emulate other controllers for ported games.  Everything is being programmed specifically for the Amico controller.

Edited February 23, 2020 by mr_me

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, MrBeefy said:

That rotary was great and I wish there was more than the 3 games that used it.

(Funny?) anecdote: I've always prefered handheld gaming but I rarely play outside home. The 3DS is the only handheld I regularly bring with me outside because of StreetPass (I miss this thing 😕). Anyway, for some reason, I made an exception to this personal rule to play Arkanoid DS with this rotary controller on the train for a few weeks! I loved it but unfortunately it didn't work so well after a while...

[Papy]

2 hours ago, mr_me said:

Programmers are going to fine tune the games to control the best they possibly can as a opposed to trying to emulate a foreign controller.

They will, but despite their best efforts, I'm sure there will be many games on Amico which would play better with a more specialized controller. For example, Super Hexagon was certainly fine-tuned to work well with pressing on the right or left part of a touch screen. It doesn't change that a spinner would be a much better way to control this game.

 

Having said this, I view the limitations due to having only one controller as mostly unimportant. I don't imagine the Intellivision Amico as a hard-core gaming system. The thing that matters to me is that people can have fun playing video games together, not that people can achieve the best performance using an ideal controller.

[JeffVav]

3 hours ago, mr_me said:

Is the thumbstick a 1:1 relation to the paddle position i.e. does the paddle return to centre when the thumbstick is released?

It's whatever you want it to be.  We've always put it under user control because there are different opinions on what's best. So there's a relative/absolute setting and a sensitivity adjustment. 

[+Swami]

9 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Well, I perfectly get your point but you have to understand that some Amico fans (not necessarily you) sound quite creepy sometimes as well.

I mean there's a huge difference between Amico fans and Switch (or Xbox One/PS4) fans; the latters are at least defending something they actually own. 

It's not really what my post was about. I'm talking about a pattern of behavior over several forums rather than blowback in a console's own forum.

However, I do think it's stranger to be negative about something has been mostly not revealed rather than something you actually know a lot about because it exists, but I would still expect a lot of flack going into a some console's forum and comparing it negatively to consoles you are a fan of.

[mr_me]

2 hours ago, Papy said:

They will, but despite their best efforts, I'm sure there will be many games on Amico which would play better with a more specialized controller. For example, Super Hexagon was certainly fine-tuned to work well with pressing on the right or left part of a touch screen. It doesn't change that a spinner would be a much better way to control this game.

 

Having said this, I view the limitations due to having only one controller as mostly unimportant. I don't imagine the Intellivision Amico as a hard-core gaming system. The thing that matters to me is that people can have fun playing video games together, not that people can achieve the best performance using an ideal controller.

I've never played super hexagon but I really like controlling Tempest with buttons.