|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 12, 2012 16:25:45 GMT -5
...or "Voust" or something (in regards to someone who had said something about not liking having the word "vector" in titles; heh. I forgot who that was ;D ) Then, I strongly suggest calling it V-Oust! LOL I'm sure that person will be quite pleased! ;D |
|
|
|
Post by desfeek on Jul 12, 2012 16:33:17 GMT -5
This is why the many of our community (organized by Helmut) sent out holiday greeting cards this last season.
Most Vectrex homebrews are just that: little home "craft" projects that are done by one person. Think of how annoying it would be to pursue your hobby, with people prodding you for something different, or more.
George found a way around this, by allowing the community to vote on a few ideas for games. That is why we shall see Tailgunner sometime soon.
Joust is a very touchy subject. Huge sale price, and Mayhem didn't ever get the 5 prototype overlays. Alex was right to discontinue the project, there would be no way to fight if Midway sent a C&D. Plus, he might have run into programming difficulties - though I cannot say for sure. One of those odd moments in homebrewing, I'd love it if Mayhem posted pictures of the sand-filled and red carts - or a little gameplay video? Would be awesome.
|
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 12, 2012 16:42:53 GMT -5
This is why the many of our community (organized by Helmut) sent out holiday greeting cards this last season. Most Vectrex homebrews are just that: little home "craft" projects that are done by one person. Think of how annoying it would be to pursue your hobby, with people prodding you for something different, or more. This is very true and, like I said at some point, we should just be happy that there are folks interested in developing games for these old consoles. George found a way around this, by allowing the community to vote on a few ideas for games. That is why we shall see Tailgunner sometime soon. That is a good way to do it! And glad that Tailgunner will be coming out! Joust is a very touchy subject. Huge sale price, and Mayhem didn't ever get the 5 prototype overlays. Alex was right to discontinue the project, there would be no way to fight if Midway sent a C&D. Plus, he might have run into programming difficulties - though I cannot say for sure. One of those odd moments in homebrewing, I'd love it if Mayhem posted pictures of the sand-filled and red carts - or a little gameplay video? Would be awesome. I did not know that it was so complicated with Joust. Unfortunate because it would have been a cool game to play on the Vectrex. It would indeed be great if Mayhem could post a video. That will allow us to vicariously enjoy the game!  |
|
|
|
Post by Mayhem on Jul 12, 2012 17:01:51 GMT -5
John (Macallen) still has the overlays. Somewhere. The problem being when he had to move twice in a year and ended up with piles of boxes and nowhere to unpack them. When I last saw John in person, he did promise me that when he found them, he would send them to me. The key word obviously being "when". I live in hope hah hah... some day they will turn up. I did get my promised VecVox and a bunch of free stuff on top, so he made good on everything else he owed me.
But yeah, Desfeek is correct to a degree. If I had known how everything would have turned out, would I still have bid in the auction, or let Pepijn win? Hard to say. The Starlight charity was the winner in all this, as it should be.
The game is about 30% complete. All the basic mechanics are in place, and you can jump/flap around the screen and attack the opponents. And it does all run very smoothly. But to be fair, you wouldn't get much out of a gameplay video. However, I guess it isn't going to hurt to upload a photo of the labelled cartridge just for posterity, because if we ever saw anyone using it for sales purposes, it's going to be blindingly obvious it's a fake sale.
|
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 12, 2012 17:09:02 GMT -5
The game is about 30% complete. All the basic mechanics are in place, and you can jump/flap around the screen and attack the opponents. And it does all run very smoothly. But to be fair, you wouldn't get much out of a gameplay video. However, I guess it isn't going to hurt to upload a photo of the labelled cartridge just for posterity, because if we ever saw anyone using it for sales purposes, it's going to be blindingly obvious it's a fake sale. That's too bad. Would have been great to see it in action but if it is only 30% done there isn't much to see, unfortunately. I like your idea of posting a picture of the cartridge so anyone can check for authenticity! |
|
|
|
Post by VectorX on Jul 12, 2012 17:25:02 GMT -5
That's too bad. Would have been great to see it in action but if it is only 30% done there isn't much to see, unfortunately. Sometimes that can still be interesting though, as seeing "what could have been" holds for the Battlezone demo (in my opinion, at least). I'd say that's probably only 5% complete, maybe 10 at most. All it has is two tanks that move around and jump up and down the playfield at you, there doesn't seem to be any way to fire or anything. |
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 12, 2012 17:30:19 GMT -5
Sometimes that can still be interesting though, as seeing "what could have been" holds for the Battlezone demo (in my opinion, at least). I'd say that's probably only 5% complete, maybe 10 at most. All it has is two tanks that move around and jump up and down the playfield at you, there doesn't seem to be any way to fire or anything. There are some animated GIFs posted on the Vectorzoa page that look very good. The picture of the game with the overlay looks great, actually. So, besides Joust, what's happened with the other projects over at VectorZoa? Is getting Spike's Circus still possible? Or is that one of those games that will show up on Ebay at a premium? |
|
|
|
Post by mooseman on Jul 13, 2012 15:10:09 GMT -5
I don't think we're bugging them - in my opinion the ROMs should have been released years ago. George Pelonis releases ROMs for most of his games a few years after the cartridges are sold out, and I'm grateful to him and all the other developers who do so - to me this is what a computer / videogame community is all about (and why I highly respect John Carmack.) The replies to this thread show that there's still a lot of interest in these games.
If the concern is about legal action, as far as I can tell, Warner Bros now own the rights to Joust but I can't ever see them making a fuss about something like this, plus Namco and Konami haven't stopped the sale of Vector Pilot and Vectrexians.
|
|
|
|
Post by fury on Jul 13, 2012 15:24:34 GMT -5
I got into the habit of releasing one game each year in ROM form, usually late November/early December as a holiday bonus to the community (last year was Continuum). I will continue to do this.
|
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 13, 2012 16:26:03 GMT -5
I got into the habit of releasing one game each year in ROM form, usually late November/early December as a holiday bonus to the community (last year was Continuum). I will continue to do this.  Thank you! |
|
|
|
Post by VectorX on Jul 13, 2012 16:28:11 GMT -5
If the concern is about legal action, as far as I can tell, Warner Bros now own the rights to Joust but I can't ever see them making a fuss about something like this, plus Namco and Konami haven't stopped the sale of Vector Pilot and Vectrexians. Plus Atari would've cleaned out Dondzila for all his Atari-like games quite a while back too. Thank God they're not into Vectrex homebrews or else his inventory would be drastically cut! (Did you hear what they did with the Vector Tanks apps? Geez...  ) |
|
|
|
Post by VectorX on Jul 17, 2012 13:58:55 GMT -5
Well that's ONE mystery solved I went ahead and contacted De Smet about VecCaves/Spike's Spree. Here's a bit of the e-mail, so he isn't intentionally snubbing us: Hi Darryl,
You are correct that it has been a really long time sense the last batch, with the primary reason being lack of time on my part. I don't know when that will change. The overlays were hand made and time intensive, so I wouldn't make any more of those. When I was selling just the carts/instruction/case, I was doing it just above cost of materials, I think about $12 at the time. |
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 17, 2012 15:40:15 GMT -5
So, it looks like it may be a while before any more copies are made and then they won't include overlays either. Sounds very time-consuming for little or no profit. Except for knowing he's shared with the community, that is.
|
|
|
|
Post by VectorX on Jul 17, 2012 15:43:01 GMT -5
Well, there might be more to it than that, as I left out parts of the e-mail. I'll respond back with something and see what he says first before posting it on here (no need for any further speculation!) |
|
|
|
Post by TrekMD on Jul 17, 2012 19:03:51 GMT -5
Well, there might be more to it than that, as I left out parts of the e-mail. I'll respond back with something and see what he says first before posting it on here (no need for any further speculation!) Well, thanks for finding out! |
|
Thank you!
)