Scott Stilphen

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-08-tempest-4000-is-real-jeff-minter-is-developing-it-and-atari-is-publishing-it
 
 
By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 08/08/2017
Surprise! Atari has announced Tempest 4000, the sequel to the classic arcade game Tempest, is coming out later in 2017 for PC and consoles.
  And get this - Tempest 4000 is being developed by Jeff Minter, creator of Tempest 2000, the 1994 remake of the Dave Theurer 1981 arcade game, Tempest.
Here's the official blurb, courtesy of Atari:
"In Tempest 4000, players are once again in control of the Claw, a powerful spacecraft equipped to destroy deadly creatures and other obstructions with rapid-fire shots on vibrant geometric prisms. With three game modes to choose from and 100 levels to conquer, players must eliminate all enemies as quickly as possible to survive and achieve that coveted spot at the top of the leaderboards."
Those three games mode are standard, pure and endurance. There's a 4K resolution and a retro soundtrack inspired by 1990s techno.
Here's a quote from current Atari boss Todd Shallbetter:
"The original Tempest is a beloved arcade classic with a unique style and intense, edge-of-your-seat gameplay.
"We're thrilled to be able to work with Jeff Minter again, someone who is a legend in the industry and has made a huge impact on the history of video games, to develop this highly-anticipated next installment of the Tempest franchise, updated with today's technology."
News that Minter is once again working with Atari comes as something of a surprise. Back in 2015 Minter said he was "beyond disgusted" with Atari after the company blocked the release of his Vita game TxK on new platforms over similarities with Tempest.
   Follow Jeff Minter  @llamasoft_ox
So yeah all the stuff we had ready or near ready will now never see the light of day.No TxK PC, PS4, Oculus, GearVR, Android. Thank "Atari". 7:34 AM - Mar 18, 2015     8080 Replies       274274 Retweets       6767 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy     TxK, which Minter called a "distantly related sequel" to Tempest 2000, launched on Vita to critical acclaim in February 2014. Martin Robinson wrote in his 9/10 review: "All you need to know right now is that TxK is Minter at his finest, and it's absolutely mint."
 
Well, it sounds like the pair have patched things up. Here's a quote from Minter from Atari's press release:
"At the end of the day, video gamers always win. I am very happy to work with Atari again to bring a long-awaited sequel of Tempest to our legion of fans and a new generation of gamers worldwide."
As for Tempest 4000 itself, Atari hasn't released any screenshots or gameplay footage, but did say the game will be at Gamescom later this month, so hopefully it won't be too long before we see some footage.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-08-08-tempest-4000-is-real-jeff-minter-is-developing-it-and-atari-is-publishing-it
 
 
By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 08/08/2017
Surprise! Atari has announced Tempest 4000, the sequel to the classic arcade game Tempest, is coming out later in 2017 for PC and consoles.
  And get this - Tempest 4000 is being developed by Jeff Minter, creator of Tempest 2000, the 1994 remake of the Dave Theurer 1981 arcade game, Tempest.
Here's the official blurb, courtesy of Atari:
"In Tempest 4000, players are once again in control of the Claw, a powerful spacecraft equipped to destroy deadly creatures and other obstructions with rapid-fire shots on vibrant geometric prisms. With three game modes to choose from and 100 levels to conquer, players must eliminate all enemies as quickly as possible to survive and achieve that coveted spot at the top of the leaderboards."
Those three games mode are standard, pure and endurance. There's a 4K resolution and a retro soundtrack inspired by 1990s techno.
Here's a quote from current Atari boss Todd Shallbetter:
"The original Tempest is a beloved arcade classic with a unique style and intense, edge-of-your-seat gameplay.
"We're thrilled to be able to work with Jeff Minter again, someone who is a legend in the industry and has made a huge impact on the history of video games, to develop this highly-anticipated next installment of the Tempest franchise, updated with today's technology."
News that Minter is once again working with Atari comes as something of a surprise. Back in 2015 Minter said he was "beyond disgusted" with Atari after the company blocked the release of his Vita game TxK on new platforms over similarities with Tempest.
   Follow Jeff Minter  @llamasoft_ox
So yeah all the stuff we had ready or near ready will now never see the light of day.No TxK PC, PS4, Oculus, GearVR, Android. Thank "Atari". 7:34 AM - Mar 18, 2015     8080 Replies       274274 Retweets       6767 likes
Twitter Ads info and privacy     TxK, which Minter called a "distantly related sequel" to Tempest 2000, launched on Vita to critical acclaim in February 2014. Martin Robinson wrote in his 9/10 review: "All you need to know right now is that TxK is Minter at his finest, and it's absolutely mint."
 
Well, it sounds like the pair have patched things up. Here's a quote from Minter from Atari's press release:
"At the end of the day, video gamers always win. I am very happy to work with Atari again to bring a long-awaited sequel of Tempest to our legion of fans and a new generation of gamers worldwide."
As for Tempest 4000 itself, Atari hasn't released any screenshots or gameplay footage, but did say the game will be at Gamescom later this month, so hopefully it won't be too long before we see some footage.

John does phenomenal work.  I had the chance to interview him about 10 years ago, when he started getting into programming the VCS:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/john_champeau/interview_john_champeau.html

There's some info about Frye in the VCS FAQ:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/faq/faq.html#general25
 
Frye has contradicted himself more than once, especially when it comes to specifics. But generally, he wasn't rushed with making VCS Pac-Man (Atari signed the licensing deal for it sometime in 1978, well before the game became a huge hit) and all the design choices were his and his alone. Frye is a very good technical programmer, but not one for making games that were interesting or having a lot of replay value. The fact is, VCS Pac-Man is atrocious. Most of his VCS games were either never released (Save Mary, Shooting Arcade) or finished (Ballblazer, SwordQuest AirWorld, Xevious). Even his Atari 8-bit computer Asteroids is clunky. The one SwordQuest game he did finish and release (FireWorld) was a disaster, along with the whole contest. He actually never understood why people flipped out over the fact the tunnels in his Pac-Man were on the top and bottom, instead of the sides, as the above video shows.  And that's the essence of why his games (especially his arcade conversions) really aren't anything special. Todd wasn't a gamer, he was a programmer. To him, making games was simply a project to be completed, like making a deck. You get some boards, you put some posts up, and you nail all the boards together. Pac-Man was a maze game with dots and tunnels and 4 enemies, so he made a maze game with dots and tunnels and 4 enemies:
 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebr9caOVlaU&feature=youtu.be&t=12m25s
 
(jump to 12:25 to hear his comments about Pac-Man)
 
In his mind, it was "Mission Accomplished". Making the game look or sound even remotely close to the arcade version simply wasn't a priority of his, and yet... that was the first thing everybody noticed before they even played it. And of course once they played it, they realized it had even less in common with the arcade game. Nobody expected it to be as good as the latest homebrew version (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/229152-new-pacman-for-atari-2600/) but there's been several hacks and homebrews in the last 15+ years to prove a better version could have absolutely been done with only 4K, so there's really no excuse for why it's so bad other than he was the wrong person for the job.
 
   
Yep, Hiro's original artwork makes perfect sense since he depicted them as monsters and not ghosts

I wrote an article about this years before that book came out, where I detailed the history of when the monsters in Pac-Man became ghosts.  Here's a copy of the article:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/articles/pac-man_monsters_ghosts/pac-man_monsters_ghosts.html
 
 
The authors of that book took issue with it because it didn't jive with their pre-conceived assumptions.
 
 
 
Yes, yes they are.  But more than that, their book is full of incorrect information, which I mentioned a few examples of in my article.

Just to reiterate some of Frye's contradictions:
 
Development - has claimed:
6 weeks - as quoted in the book, Racing The Beam (pg. 67)
5 months - as quoted in the April 1998 Next Generation article
6 months - as quoted in the documentary Stella At 20 - 
(12 min in)
4K vs 8K - in the same Next Gen article, Frye mentioned 8K ROMS weren't available when he started programming it.  VCS Asteroids came out in July/August 1981 and was the first 8K VCS game released.  The bank-switching technique was developed (but not put into production) 2 years before, for Video Chess.  In this thread (http://atariage.com/forums/topic/232660-pac-man-review-from-1982/page-8), Goldberg claims to quote Tod from a Facebook conversation they had regarding the story about him being offered use of an 8K ROM for Pac-Man, which is something Rob Zdybel said happened in Once Upon Atari:
  Goldberg: Were you offered to move to 8K for Pac-Man towards the end of coding for it?   Frye: Nope. 8k wasn't even an option until after Pacman coding was complete.  I did have a meeting after Pacman came out, to assess the possibility of a quick revision with less flicker, if we used 8k as an option.   Goldberg: So where did the claim that you originally asked for 8K come from?   Frye: It came from thin air. I never considered 8k. rom was not really an issue. ram was.   Rob Zdybel, Frye's co-worker and office mate at the time, claimed as far back as the late 1990s in Howard Scott Warshaw's Once Upon Atari that Frye absolutely asked for 8K during the project.  Rob was interviewed twice by Randy Kindig of ANTIC: The Atari 8-bit Podcast.  The first one was in June 2016:  https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-184-rob-zdybel-star-trek-missile-command-bug-hunt
 
At 1 hour and 5 minutes in, he briefly talks about Tod Frye and mentions, "Tod's changed a lot over the years.  Tod's now denying stories that, I don't know, man... he's saying he never asked for more than 4K for Pac-Man.  I was there when you did", to which Frye apparently replied, "That's okay, maybe I don't remember that one."   Popularity - Frye also stated, "Pac-Man wasn't a particularly big game.  'Pac-Man fever' hit between the start and the finish of the project."   PuckMan was released in Japan in May 1980 and the Midway Pac-Man version in October 1980.  Working backwards, VCS Pac-Man came out late March 1982, and production took a good 10 weeks (2.5 months, so Tod likely finished it no later than December 1981 (since the game's copyright date is 1981 which reflects when programming was completed).  Go back 5 months at most for programming, so let's say he started no later than July 1981.  So since October 1980, Pac-Man wasn't a huge hit by the following summer?  A friend of mine remembers the Tomy and Entex handhelds coming out almost immediately together and Coleco's arriving quite a bit later (all in 1981).  The earliest ad for Odyssey2 K.C. Munchkin I could find from my area was December 21st, 1981 (attached); it was reviewed in the March 1982 issue of Electronic Games.  Also, Buckner and Garcia's song was released December 1981 (and the album in January 1982). 
 
Colored background - In a keynote from the 2015 Portland Retro Gaming Expo, Frye states he wish he had made a black background with a blue maze, but claims Atari had a rule against black backgrounds because it would have burned the maze into the CRT (apparently this rule didn't apply to space games...).  This makes no sense since Atari touted the anti-burn-in effects of the VCS from day one, plus Tod included the color cycling code routine in his Pac-Man game!  And I've never heard any other Atari VCS programmer state such a requirement, either.  The story I heard back then was that Pac-Man had a colored background and muted colors, to help make the flickering monsters less noticeable (and they were relabeled as ghosts because of their flickering, which was more logical to accept than having flickering monsters).
 

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-06-28-wonder-raises-USD14-million-for-smartphone-console-hybrid
 
Wonder raises $14 million for smartphone-console hybrid Former Zynga GM, Scopely exec's community-focused start-up draws investment from Nolan Bushnell, Shakira, Neymar Jr, and more 
Nintendo's Switch has shown the audience exists for a console-handheld hybrid, but new start-up outfit Wonder wonders if there's a similar audience for another kind of mixed-market offering. The company today announced that it has raised $14 million in Series A financing for "a new type of portable hardware device that might be considered a hybrid between a powerful smartphone and a gaming console."
While Nintendo may aim for a broad audience with its products, Wonder is targeting an enthusiast crowd that considers gaming a strong part of their identity. Leading the effort is Wonder CEO and founder Andy Kleinman, whose previous experience in the industry included stints as Scopely's chief business officer, GM at Zynga, GM at The Walt Disney Company, and president of Vostu.
"We are building a company where everything we do revolves around our community," Kleinman said. "Most companies focus on the product first, but our focus has been on understanding our core potential audience and what they care about most. Once you can truly understand your audience, you can innovate and build products and services that are focused on making them happy for a long time. We all consider ourselves our core audience, so the approach is very real and authentic."
The lead investors are Grishin Robotics (investment firm of Mail.ru Group co-founder Dmitry Grishin) and Chinese telecom TCL Communications, but Wonder has also attracted smaller contributions from a number of notable names. The games industry is well represented in Wonder's investment base with the participation of Atari founder Nolan Bushnell, former Sega CEO Hayao Nakayama, ex-Disney Interactive president John Pleasants, and former Zynga/Facebook/MySpace exec Owen Van Natta. Outside of games, the company has attracted investment from football superstars Gerard Pique and Neymar Jr, Shakira, and former Coca-Cola marketing exec Emmanuel Seuge.
"There is strong potential for a gaming platform that would go beyond the software realm and expand its capabilities through innovative, cutting-edge hardware," Grishin said. "Grishin Robotics has an understanding of both - and we believe in investing in companies that not only have tremendous potential, but where our areas of expertise and experience can help our entrepreneurs in a meaningful way."
The company has said it will release details of its actual product soon.

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

I recently archived this from programmer Todd Marshall.  The prototype only shows a static screen with no sound or animation.  It's possible this matches up to one of his source code listings that I archived, which are available in my interview with him:
 
http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/todd_marshall/interview_todd_marshall.html

QBERTS_QUBES demo.Bin

Looking forward to your next podcast regarding the Paperboy lawsuit.

Nice work, Rom

Nice work, Rom

Nice work, Rom

Old newsgroup post of mine from 10 years ago:
 
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.games.video.atari/Ipchr6TACGc/PgfFzHiBxCsJ
 
There's a clip Van Halen's "You Really Got Me" on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRQ9Csb_Er0
There's also a few threads over in comp.sys.atari.8bit (just do a
search for "van halen").  I remember getting a copy of this back in
the day from a software catalog ("Marrs" or something like that),
which is long gone, and I don't have a copy on my PC (if anyone has
it, can they send me a copy?).  It might have also been available from
Antic's catalog at some point.  I know there were at least a dozen or 2
digitized song samples at the same time the Van Halen clip appeared.

An article on Wired completely screwed up the facts:
 
https://www.wired.com/story/mircosoft-ai-ms-pac-man/
 
The VCS version wasn't released until February 1983, nearly a full year after the arcade version was released (March 1982).  
 
I rolled the score on this over 20 years ago, using a trick I discovered:
http://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/vcs/26mspacman.html
 
Twin Galaxies shows a high score of over 2 million from Ron Corcoran, but most - if not all - of Corcoran's VCS scores are bogus since he entered all his own scores in Twin Galaxies database while acting as a TG referee, meaning there's no proof (video/photos/witnesses) to back up this or any other score of his.

The game was released last March but the game was never completed.
 
https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/15/cancelled-90s-arcade-fighter-primal-rage-ii-released-online/

This is something I just heard about.  Someone on KLOV posted photos of it:
 
https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=406928
 
When you're hit (and you're carrying hostages), keep pressing the rotate button to make some (up to 4) jump out and parachute to the ground!  Any hostages that parachute out won't be saved (even if you're over your base!) but they won't die.  I don't know if this feature is mentioned in the instructions on the machine but there's no mention of it in the manual or flyer.  Has anyone seen or heard of this before?
 
I also found a similar feature on the Sega Master System port!
 
http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/3313-

This is something I just heard about.  Someone on KLOV posted photos of it:
 
https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=406928
 
When you're hit (and you're carrying hostages), keep pressing the rotate button to make some (up to 4) jump out and parachute to the ground!  Any hostages that parachute out won't be saved (even if you're over your base!) but they won't die.  I don't know if this feature is mentioned in the instructions on the machine but there's no mention of it in the manual or flyer.  Has anyone seen or heard of this before?
 
I also found a similar feature on the Sega Master System port!
 
http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/3313-

There's no parachuting hostages if you get hit (like the arcade version), but you can eject someone! It's not mentioned in the manual, but if you keep pressing FIRE (Button 1), any hostages you're carrying (up to 2) are ejected in what looks like jetpacks as you're crashing (and they'll fly to the base and be saved!).  This was mentioned on another site (http://www.ign.com/wikis/arcade-chea...fter%21_Cheats) but the description of how to do it is wrong.

This is something I just heard about.  Someone on KLOV posted photos of it:
 
https://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=406928
 
When you're hit (and you're carrying hostages), keep pressing the rotate button to make some (up to 4) jump out and parachute to the ground!  Any hostages that parachute out won't be saved (even if you're over your base!) but they won't die.  I don't know if this feature is mentioned in the instructions on the machine but there's no mention of it in the manual or flyer.  Has anyone seen or heard of this before?
 
I also found a similar feature on the Sega Master System port!
 
http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/3313-

There's no parachuting hostages if you get hit (like the arcade version), but you can eject someone! It's not mentioned in the manual, but if you keep pressing FIRE (Button 1), any hostages you're carrying (up to 2) are ejected in what looks like jetpacks as you're crashing (and they'll fly to the base and be saved!).  This was mentioned on another site (http://www.ign.com/wikis/arcade-chea...fter%21_Cheats) but the description of how to do it is wrong.