Alien Abduction

[Sabertooth]

Welcome to the official topic for
Alien Abduction

 

Edited November 9, 2023 by Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

Release Date: May 5, 2023

Retail: $8.99

Developer(s): John Van Ryzin

Publisher: John Van Ryzin

Synopsis :

Want a surprise?  How about a new game from the legendary creator of Activision's H.E.R.O., John Van Ryzin?  Wish granted!  Welcome Alien Abduction, a new 2600 game exclusive to the Atari VCS!    

20 Levels, 140 Play Screens, 16 Obstacle Types.

[Sabertooth]

This was an utter surprise release. A new 2600 game by John Van Ryzin released exclusively on the AtariVCS!

I have it and it's just what you'd want and expect in all of it's 16K goodness! No word yet on a physical release.

 

Edited May 6, 2023 by Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

 

[RickR]

This looks really awesome.  A spiritual successor to HERO. 

 

[Sabertooth]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

This looks really awesome.  A spiritual successor to HERO. 

 

Honestly, it plays like a sequel to H.E.R.O. with different sprites to avoid licensing issues. It's really cool to seen this kinda digital release in the modern VCS.

Well done @Davpa and team for making this happen. It's a big win!

Edited May 7, 2023 by Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

Just a note from Twitter RE a temporary locking of Alien Abduction:

There is an issue with a new encryption we had to put on the file due to piracy attack.  To make sure the games are secure we can't roll it back.  The game will be down for a short time until we can fix all this.

You can thank a jerk on YouTube for the drama. This is why we can't have nice things. 😒

 

 

Edited May 12, 2023 by Sabertooth

[RickR]

Dang!  Offer a game for $9 and it still gets pirated???  That's pretty low. 

 

[Sabertooth]

There was an update to the game and it's now fully playable again. If you value original content from these creators, please support this FANTASTIC game.  Do not download the leaked 2600 ROM.

[Smell Dawg]

Picked this up on the VCS store yesterday evening.  Having never tried HERO, I wasn't sure what I was getting into - woof, it took several tries to get the hang of, ha!  Once I was into the groove, it was a great time!  Great game mechanics in place which I haven't come across on other 2600-era titles.

[Sabertooth]

PSA:  Alien Abduction has been removed from the Atari VCS store and is no longer available for purchase.  The six month exclusivity deal for distribution expired and the developer, John Van Ryzin, requested that the game be removed from the store.  Atari is in contact with the dev to bring it back. 

Here are some facts:

1) If you purchased the game and it's currently downloaded to your VCS, you will have no trouble launching the game. (Personally confirmed by yours truly)

2) If you purchased the game and deleted it from your VCS, you will need to contact Atari Customer Support and they can push the game to your system. 

3) Folks that did not purchase the game are not able to do so at this time.

The VCS storefront is not sophisticated enough to hide a de-listed game from those who did not purchase the game while allowing those who did purchase to retain easy access for re-download.   That's not ideal, but you are still able to get the game back through Customer Support.  This is the second VCS title that this has happened to.  The first was Tailgunner, whose devs closed operations and did not have a mechanism to split ongoing royalties and so requested that the game be removed.  That game is also unavailable for purchase or re-download without connecting with Customer Support. 

This is sure to be a bummer to some folks who for whatever reason did not move to purchase the game over the last six months.  Hopefully Atari are able to bring it back for non-exclusive distribution.  However, there is another excellent H.E.R.O. homage in the store by way of A.R.T.I. that is available for purchase today, if you have to scratch that particular itch.

Edited November 4, 2023 by Sabertooth

[Sabertooth]

I wanted to share a response video that @Davpa posted on AA, which provides further context on the delisting.

 

[Smell Dawg]

That EKing/Frank/Whatever character sure stirred up as much drama as he/she could.  Props to Davpa for all the transparency on the matter!
Thank you for posting this here.

Edited November 8, 2023 by Smell Dawg

[Smell Dawg]

Davpa just posted in Discord that Alien Abduction is back on the VCS store!
No further details given.
 
Edit 11/9/2023:
"...it was a simple misunderstanding of the contract. Sadly, it went offline longer due to some email lag." -Davpa, VCS Discord

Edited November 9, 2023 by Smell Dawg

[TrekMD]

Cool.  I can buy it now.  I wasn't able to due to the zip code bug!

 

[sramirez2008]

15 hours ago, Smell Dawg said:

Davpa just posted in Discord that Alien Abduction is back on the VCS store!

Purchased! Hopeful for a cart release. I’ve purchased Berzerk Enhanced and would have purchased Save Mary.

Edited November 9, 2023 by sramirez2008

[sramirez2008]

Audacity Games is scheduled to sell a cart release of Alien Abduction, beginning June 15.

 

Edited June 2 by sramirez2008

[TrekMD]

1 minute ago, sramirez2008 said:

Audacity Games is scheduled to sell a cart release of Alien Abduction, beginning June 15.

Cool!

[CrossBow]

they are still doing the QR code thing for the high scores?! Ugh... BTW that never would work for me on my old phone since it couldn't read QR codes from the built in camera app and I had to use a dedicated bar code scanner app. But then that had the issue of the webpage not coming up right to actually work. My newer phone can see the barcode when using the camera app, but again it just pops up the link and when I click on it it doesn't come up for me or state anything has been submitted. So I gave up on trying this sometime ago.

This is also a thing on some of the Jaguar homebrews and I have the same issues there. The only high score setup that works for me is the Plus Cart+ on my 2600 since that is all wi-fi and it is able to send and submit those automatically.

 

[sramirez2008]

I'm wonder if this is an exclusive with Audacity, or if Atari or AtariAge will eventually sell the game too?

[CrossBow]

1 hour ago, sramirez2008 said:

I'm wonder if this is an exclusive with Audacity, or if Atari or AtariAge will eventually sell the game too?

I would say that based on the Circus Convoy remaining with Audacity only since it was first released, and the fact that John Van Ryzin didn't exactly get along too well with members in the AA forums... I don't see his game physically being available anywhere outside of Audacity.

 

[Mockduck]

I'm surprised Atari didn't do this one through Plaion. Hopefully it helps Audacity raise the money to release Casey's Gold finally.

[CrossBow]

2 hours ago, Mockduck said:

I'm surprised Atari didn't do this one through Plaion. Hopefully it helps Audacity raise the money to release Casey's Gold finally.

I'd seen somewhere that Atari XP actually worked with Megacat Studios on the XP release games. So I'm not sure how different the other physical carts that Atari has sold differ from the Atari XP side or if they are one and the same? 

To me I thought Plaion was just behind the hardware side of console stuff?

I do plan to purchase a standard release of the game when they do officially go on sale later in the month though as the game looks really cool from what I've seen of it.

 

[Scott Stilphen]

On 5/11/2023 at 9:34 AM, Sabertooth said:

Just a note from Twitter RE a temporary locking of Alien Abduction:

There is an issue with a new encryption we had to put on the file due to piracy attack.  To make sure the games are secure we can't roll it back.  The game will be down for a short time until we can fix all this.

You can thank a jerk on YouTube for the drama. This is why we can't have nice things. 😒

I missed out on all the drama.  So, someone created a video showing people how to back up their games... and people (including Ryzin) assumed the game was hacked/pirated?  The result being, the original 16K version is no longer available for anyone, in any form.  Personally, I want that version, which is the version Ryzin originally wanted (and I looked around and didn't see a copy of it online).  He went to Atari because Audacity wanted him to make some bloated 128K version.  He later gives the game to Audacity and Crane indeed creates the bloated 128K version he wanted.  From what I gather, the original has 20 levels and the 'enhanced' version has 80 levels, which are actually the same 20 levels repeated 4 times, with Crane's high score QR code added as a menu option.

So here's my brief recap of what's happened to date:

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/350984-alien-abduction-by-john-van-ryzin-was-in-vcs-store-removed/

Game is announced and made available May 5th, 2023

May 10th, 2023 Atari updates the VCS 800 fireware, which renders the game unplayable.  DRM is blamed due to someone posting a video on Discord/YouTube on how to back up your VCS 800 games (which is every owner is legally entitled to do btw) and the game being hacked/leaked online (even though there's no evidence this ever happened and to this day it's still not available online).

May 11th, 2023 New firmware version is available and game is again playable.

October 31st, 2024 Game is removed from Atari online store, as per Ryzin's 6-month exclusive deal with Atari.  Apparently Atari promised to sell carts afterwards, but due to them instead promoting Mr. Run and Jump, Ryzin instead gave the game to Audacity Games to release.  Due to a fault with Atari's store, those who purchased the game aren't able to download it again.  Atari promises to fix the issue.  At the same time, some people spread the rumor that Atari is removing the game from the VCS 800's hard drive, which they aren't.

November 8th, 2023.  The game is again back on Atari's site thanks to a new agreement with Ryzin.

December 20th, 2023 https://forums.atariage.com/topic/350984-alien-abduction-by-john-van-ryzin-was-in-vcs-store-removed/?do=findComment&comment=5370679 

Ryzin tells his side of things.  "I originally developed the game for Audacity.  But they wanted me to make my 16k game into a 256k Ben Hur type product.  Could not do that for health reasons.  Plus I just wanted to make a pure retro 1983 16k game, no additional hardware required."  He also still asserts his game was hacked.  Again, no proof of that happening AFAIK.

February 2024  https://forums.atariage.com/topic/360316-newish-7800-games-and-accessories-announced-by-atari-and-plaion-compatible-with-the-2600/page/13/

Ryzin questions Atari's choice of re-releasing old games in new boxes and catering to collectors while Atariage is forced to remove some homebrews that are unlicensed arcade conversions while at the same time selling a blatant knockoff of H.E.R.O. (A.R.T.I. https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1307) Not only does his last question not get answered, someone calls him a drunk and an imposter and basically trolls him.

May 31st, 2024  Audacity Games released the game at CORGSCON on June 1st, 2024 and later on their website June 15th.  David Crane made a 128K, 80 level enhanced version of the 16K, 20 level original.

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/367385-audacity-games-is-planning-an-announcement-tomorrow-at-corgscon-alien-abduction-cartridge-release-confirmed/#comment-5478987

Someone finds a rather nasty bug in the original 16K game.  John Hardie, who's one of the play testers, claims the bug has been fixed (trust me, it hasn't. The same bug is in the new 128K version).

June 8th, 2024  Atari removes the 16K game from their site, again by Ryzin's request.

July 6th, 2024  The guy who trolled Ryzin tries to claim he didn't insult him but rather making a joke about calling him drunk.  Great sense of humor there.  Ryzin is 'gone'.  What does he want, an encore? lol

https://forums.atariage.com/topic/368972-just-to-clear-the-air-here…/

Edited July 6 by Scott Stilphen

[CrossBow]

Well, one thing I can tell you is that John's concern's about the game having been leaked to the masses after it was shown how to backup the game...are not unfounded. Several of my clients I've done services for, reached out to me to try and 'share' the rom for Alien Abduction that they had gotten from another source. Although one of my clients actually tried to share their actual copy of the ROM they bought from their VCS after booting into the alternate OS mode to read the files off the VCS storage.

I declined these 'offers' as I own the game physically now along with a legit digitally signed copy of the game belonging to me now. 

But the point is, that after that video, the rom did indeed start to make the rounds so I can tell you for fact that it was being shared just based on a few PMs I received.