The 3D effect is accomplished via color palette cycling, a very old and common trick. It’s responsible for the famous 3D bouncing ball demo on the Amiga and the old Windows ‘star field’ screen saver. Basically, you have a line of incremental colors, and swap the palette that define those colors to one in which they are shifted. The result is the illusion of movement.
While a lot of great graphical tricks can be done by predrawing graphics and then changing the palette, none of them are possible on the Atari 2600 because it has neither a framebuffer to store the predrawn graphics, nor a multiple-entry palette to change. The underlying code may be using a similar concept in software to calculate the graphics, but it's absolutely redrawing the full screen every frame, because there's literally no other option on the 2600.
@@redleader7988The 2600 has 4 colour registers, each hardwired to one of the player 0 sprite/missile, the player 0 sprite/missile, the playfield/ball, and the background. This is not an arrangement that allows for placing arbitrary pixels in arbitrary palette colours and then creating the illusion of animation by cycling that palette.
@@Nezuji Two sprites overlaying playfield pixels would give you 8 pixels of 3 colors in any combination to cycle. Then, you could copy these and change the shape and color several times per line for some interesting combinations. Interlacing adds more color possibilities in NTSC as well.
Still waiting for someone to port Gold Miner to the 2600, used to play that game for hours on Kongregate, there are literally hundreds of simple 4 star games on Kong that could be ported to the 2600.
I stopped looking at homebrew games for the Atari era systems long ago. Not that I think they're bad, but because to be perfectly honest, I'm never going to buy a physical cartridge of them. And for approximately 99% of the games, the only version you can download to play in emulators is either a limited demo version, or the work in progress versions. The full, final version gets burned to a ROM, released as a cartridge and is almost never available on the net as a ROM file. Not even after the cartridge sells out and a decade passes. I don't begrudge anyone the right to make money off their creation, but when you can't even buy a cartridge any more, why is the community still so fiercely protective of the ROM file? And where have all the ROM dumpers disappeared to? Modern games get pirated while they're still in the store, but nobody will dump Atari homebrew games from years ago?
CAPTAIN JACK BANGER ALERT CAPTAIN JACK BANGER ALERT CAPTAIN JACK BANGER ALERT
The last game is basically Yoomp! (Atari 800).
Thank you for making these videos. Exciting that the Atariage scene is publicised this way.
The 3D effect is accomplished via color palette cycling, a very old and common trick. It’s responsible for the famous 3D bouncing ball demo on the Amiga and the old Windows ‘star field’ screen saver.
Basically, you have a line of incremental colors, and swap the palette that define those colors to one in which they are shifted. The result is the illusion of movement.
While a lot of great graphical tricks can be done by predrawing graphics and then changing the palette, none of them are possible on the Atari 2600 because it has neither a framebuffer to store the predrawn graphics, nor a multiple-entry palette to change. The underlying code may be using a similar concept in software to calculate the graphics, but it's absolutely redrawing the full screen every frame, because there's literally no other option on the 2600.
@@Nezuji it’s not predrawing anything.
@@Nezuji The Atari has color registers that can be changed at-wlll, and mid-line color changes for all pixels. No framebuffer needed.
@@redleader7988The 2600 has 4 colour registers, each hardwired to one of the player 0 sprite/missile, the player 0 sprite/missile, the playfield/ball, and the background. This is not an arrangement that allows for placing arbitrary pixels in arbitrary palette colours and then creating the illusion of animation by cycling that palette.
@@Nezuji Two sprites overlaying playfield pixels would give you 8 pixels of 3 colors in any combination to cycle. Then, you could copy these and change the shape and color several times per line for some interesting combinations. Interlacing adds more color possibilities in NTSC as well.
Wow, some truly impressive stuff still happening on the Atari 2600! Great video, and I've got to try some of these out ASAP!
Woah, that track on the last game is crunchy and banging!
cool video. I know all of these games. Would buy several. The last one is very impressive.
Ahoy boys, rejoice, the captain bring us a fruitful loot
Lol, always with the seafaring puns
I love the last one. I was a fan of Kula world for PlayStation as well.
This was a cool list, fun to watch.
Nice, now i got more homebrews to add to either my physical cart collection or to my SD cart
Great video 👍
Nice montage of Pollock paintings. Oh, that was myst.
LOL
myst and zelda on the 2600 is insanity 🤯
next up, call of duty
Wow. These are awesome!
"As far as nosehair games go, this is near the top of the list."
Yeah, WarioWare Touched is hard to beat.
Lol
Zeep! looks like Jump! on the Amiga .
Does the bowling guy moonlight as a plumber?
Wait a second....hm..
That Myst game , they should have used the 32.
Myst is absolutely crazy, where can I buy it or download it?
See description
Still waiting for someone to port Gold Miner to the 2600, used to play that game for hours on Kongregate, there are literally hundreds of simple 4 star games on Kong that could be ported to the 2600.
bro thx so much!!! can u make best horror roms?
I've played the original bowling so that is impressive.
Also its a few years old now but I would check out the super mario bros. port
Have you?
@@alkohallick2901 many moons ago yes
Stay Frosty, Space Rocks and Galagon are all great but my favorite homebrew so far is Toy Shop Trouble. Perfect way to end the video btw. ;)
Toy Shop Trouble is a good choice for a favorite. Stay Frosty 2 might beat it for me.
I wonder why no one has ported FTL to the 2600 ?
I stopped looking at homebrew games for the Atari era systems long ago. Not that I think they're bad, but because to be perfectly honest, I'm never going to buy a physical cartridge of them. And for approximately 99% of the games, the only version you can download to play in emulators is either a limited demo version, or the work in progress versions. The full, final version gets burned to a ROM, released as a cartridge and is almost never available on the net as a ROM file. Not even after the cartridge sells out and a decade passes.
I don't begrudge anyone the right to make money off their creation, but when you can't even buy a cartridge any more, why is the community still so fiercely protective of the ROM file? And where have all the ROM dumpers disappeared to? Modern games get pirated while they're still in the store, but nobody will dump Atari homebrew games from years ago?
First
let me hop
No hopping.
Great video! Appreciate the links!