Megaoids - Work In Progress for Atari 7800

[peteym5]

Megaoids Under Construction for the Atari 7800. This will be a game released on cartridge from Video 61. It is one of several games I am currently developing for the Atari 7800. This is another port over from the Atari 8-bit and 5200 version. It will be similar, using a shield that you need to recharge by collecting power. Get power ups. After all the asteroids are destroyed, you must go through the galactic gate to go to the next level. 7800 Special features are the rotating animated asteroids and an animated galactic gate.

 

[peteym5]

Megaoids Atari 7800 Work in Progress for June 29, 2023. Changes were made to indicate how much you have for shields in the upper right corner. Now, a bar represents your shield strength that will flash red when shields get low. We hope to make Megaoids available for the Atari 7800 soon.

I am aware of what is going on with the Atari community. I have seen the announcement, reading posts, and seen the YouTube video. People believing something is happening with copyright infringement. Myself, and Video61 had made efforts to ensure what we are now doing is original and different enough from someone else's work to be called our own. There has not been any real indication that anyone is coming to crack down on those who ported unlicensed games and duplicated intellectual properties within the retro community. I know we are also guilty of making some games and using titles. I was once working with someone that did music for Tempest and Venture. Believed ports make more money. Even made unconfirmed claims that he did talk to the copyright holders and got permission. Found out later, it was a lie. He was demanding and wanted things done his way. So far, no one has anything to us. Even during development of Venture, I was looking at the programming I had already did for these games, and started experimenting to see if I can come up with something original. It did not take much to turn the Venture source into an RPG top down adventure game that eventually became Secretum Labyrinth. I also applied some programming to improve my Jungle Quest project. I hope to release the most recent form of Megaoids available for the 7800 without further delays.

Edit: there is now an update for June 29, 2023.  I decided to apply the new spaceship shape design I have been working on for the last few days, and make it part of the official 7800 version. 

 

Edited June 29, 2023 by peteym5

[7800 Pro Gamer]

This looks like an interesting take on asteroids type gameplay.  So your shield is essentially your lifebar?  It looks like it could be fun. Hope to see it for sale soon!

[peteym5]

Megaoids Atari 7800 Work in Progress for Octoboer 16, 2023. Changes were made with the routines that plot the asteroids and other sprites on the screen. This is intended to reduce the sprites flickering and slow downs when many sprites are on the screen at one time.

We were hoping to have Megaoids 7800 released sometime during the fall months of 2023. However, there were things that happened during the summer caused concerns about intellectual properties from my team and from others. Particularly, the discontinuing unlicensed ports being sold from a website, then later being sold to Atari. Therefor, some of our game designs needed to be altered. I also wanted to have the game perform better. We have been hard at work improving our unreleased games. I was concerned about releasing Megaoids for the 7800 with the way the Asteroids were flickering, as it may cause concerns and negative postings. Myself, Video61, and now others working tp bring the best games we could to market.

 

[TrekMD]

Looks good!