Atari Emulator ---> Rebound

Finally got it to work!  God bless that weird-ass Mushca site.  See, you can download individual files, and he or she... probably he... went to all the trouble to make Basic games into .xex files, or an executable version with your Atari emulator... I forget where to download that.  And so, now that the worst year in human history is almost over, time to dive into one last game for the year: J.D. Casten's probably masterpiece, Rebound.  But Biffdrop's probably a close second, if just for the name.  All the old Atari-heads out there know, but those who didn't grow up in that era won't understand.  Many moons ago, we used to have to type in games from magazines to play in the Basic computing language.  Sure, there were cartridges, but the hard way was more fun.  Fun and edja-ma-cational.  But Rebound has got it all: Activision-esque display list interrupts for vertical ribbons of color, multiple fonts, and using not one, but TWO player/missiles for one avatar.  All in the magic of the Basic-machine language hybrid.  

The multiple fonts is the real sneaky one.  This is something that may have been used in MS-DOS for text-only games in PC clones, but was definitely a part of the programming lexicon for the Atari.  See, what Casten did was use six different fonts to cycle through for movement of the bad guys.  He used a player/missile for the good guy's avatar for an "easy" way to detect collisions.  Some more enterprising programmer might have been able to get away with a text-based avatar to move through the maze... but that just wouldn't have been as fun.  Also, you have to take it easy on the poor suckers who spend the three hours re-typing these damn games in, thereby not fulfilling their English homework requirements.  Those précises don't write themselves, you know!

I also downloaded Rebound Contest, but ... let's face it, it's just not as fun.  But that's how big Casten was: industrial version of Risky Rescue, nightmare version of Biffdrop.  Alternate versions of his games!  But why take my word for it?

Biffdrop at Atarimania, J.D. Casten in general at Atarimania

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Mushca - Under Construction

Mushca - All Atari 'R' games

Atari Emulator official home

Dos... sorry, DOS Gamers link to Atari Emulator

Oops!

Just posted to the wrong blog.  Figures!  Sorry 'bout that!!  Well hey, after 15 years or so, you gotta do something like that once in a while, am I right?

MAME for 64-Bit machines...

Whelp, I'm a staunch believer in trying new things, so I went back to mamedev.org to try and get MAME for my 64-bit Windows machine... and it sort of worked!  I mean, I gotta go to a Brazilian website to get all the new MAME files for any game I might want to play.  Time Pilot 84?  No good!  Klax?  No good!  But the Silkworm files still work, oddly enough... kind of a higher-tech version of Super Cobra.  I'll get back to you if anything further happens.  I tell you one thing, though: there's been a bit of a jump in file size!  I mean, MAME used to be a 3 MB executable file.  Now it's 263 MB!  Big jump!
Tankfully... thankfully, it's about the same as before.  You've got the main folder with the MAME .exe file, and the game folders go into the "ROMS" subfolder.  The trick is to get the most current version.  Kinda tricky!  I hate to deprive the big software companies of revenue and all, but I'm broke as it is.  It wouldn't be all that much!


Mamedev.org - The official site of the MAME development team

https://www.romsformame.com/ - just got Klax!  I'm back, baby!  Note to self: the '5' key to insert coin, 'Ctrl' and 'Alt' for... triggers, I guess.  Also '1' or '2' for a 1 or 2 player game, derr... they got the instructions there!

Atari Emulator - Trial By Fire and Thrax Lair

That's right!  Mushca Disk 120.  And once again, I gotta say, Blogger... 

don't like the new format too much!  But again, I'm a slow learner, so it 

must just be me.  But you know what?  What the heck.  Let's get crazy.  

Let's just leave this like it is.  Thankfully, we still revert to Classic

Blogger for now.  As for late June, well...

Anyway, I was going to jump right into this game called Thorax Lair... Thrax Lair.

But this other one called Trial By Fire! caught my eye.  Reminiscent of the old

Clowns and Balloons game for the 2600... what was that called again?  The only difference

is there's no balloons this time, but there's still furious action.  Man, I

think I wouldn't do well as a firefighter if this game is anything close to what

it's like.  It's similar to how Atari turned the Road Runner cartoons into a 

video game.  I mean, the Coyote's not supposed to win!  I let you down, Chuck Jones

in particular, and the Tunes that are Looney in general.  Thank Goodness Flubber's

not a real thing.

But back to Anthrax Lair... Thrax Lair.  Great title like Androton or Stratos.

Took me way too long to find that one again.  It was on the tip of my brain.

And as the comment section points out, yes, it is indeed like River Raid, 

but it also reminded me of the second stage of Lunar Leeper, if only because

you can vary the speed a little bit.  And one way in which this River Raid-type

game is unique: you can hit the walls and it won't kill you!  Lots of these

spiders will, however!  The instruction manual says you get an extra life every

10,000 points.  I have yet to do that myself, but it is kind of late.  Should

probably get to bed.  A lot.  More brilliant insights tomorrow.

Thrax Lair at Atarimania

Trial by Fire at Atarimania - ANALOG type-in magazine strikes again!

Atari Emulator -> The Electroids

Mushca Disk 123 - The Electroids... you have to look under 'T' alphabetically, BTW

The Electroids at Atarimania


Another ANALOG type-in game.  I guess that makes sense.  Again, a six-digit score.  That's confidence, innit?  Well, I'm an old man now and probably couldn't flip the score like I could at 13.  But this is the closest I'll ever get to playing an Atari game that features a poop emoji.  So basically... this is like a game of Pong?  You are Nerdstrom, green manager of the one room girder factory.  Your job is to keep the poop emojis away from the portals.  Not easy, because they seem to want to go.  If you do manage to lose one... and don't worry, because you will... you will lose five energy points.  Hmm!  This is strangely similar to Pack Man, another game of energy points.  But at least "The Electroids" is a little bit more lively.
There are many girders in the one room girder factory, and you start just south of the middle, but you quickly find your way to the bottom, with little to no chance for advancement.  At least, none that I can divine with my limited game vocabulary.  And there seems to be no manual to help me.  You can try to jump by pushing the up button, but no dice.  You're too overweight for that.  If you're used to playing Joust, well... I mean, you're just going to find this downright frustrating, there's no two ways about it.
Now, you keep the poop emojis afloat by having them bounce off your head.  If they bump into you left to right, you quickly lose lots of energy points, as any advocate of Atari player/missiles can tell you.  About 60 per second, so try to keep those meetings short.  There's advancement to other "levels," even though I hardly see the point of that.  I mean, God bless James Hague and all that, but I think this one is his Daikatana.  Yeah, that's right... I went there.

Atari Emulator ---> Collapse

Ah, God bless the new lack of functionality of Blogger!  They're trying to make it simpler, I guess.  More sleek, less "text"y... or is that more sexy, less text-y?  Everything's a button now.  Trouble is, I don't know what Hieroglyph to use for things like "Publish" and "Save."  Probably a floppy disk for that one... gather 'round, grandchildren and let me tell you why floppy disks are still used for icons instead of the old thumb drives we all use now.  Tradition!
...where was I?  Oh, right.  Whelp, because you can't just play Rainbow Walker and Pharaoh's Curse all the time, I ventured out into that great big virtual world to play "Collapse" on Mushca Disk 10... ugh.  Okay, a little Pitfall 1 first.  Boy, those were the days.  Three treasures, and I'll stop. 
Okay, back to Collapse.  Unfortunately, I couldn't figure it out.  A lot.  So it was time for that dreaded Plan B: actually reading the manual.  See, the game is ... well, since it's so late, the closest thing I can think of is Quadromania XL, except that here, in Collapse, you're bound by gravity, much like Mario in the original Donkey Kong.  However, falling from the greatest of heights is allowed here, as it is in all the truly great video games.  So, you're supposed to navigate your way around this puzzle, change the color of all the walls, and then activate the walls, as the manual informs us.  But beware!  There's two baddies who haunt your every waking moment.  But you do have a secret weapon: magic pixie dust that acts like a net to catch them.  All you have to do is hit the "trigger" ('0' key on the numpad for me... does anyone else miss joysticks?) and you turn red.  Then, you push down on the joystick, or '2' on the numpad, and boom!  Cloud of pixie dust.  The baddies get stuck in it, you touch them, and boom.  Gone, and bonus points.  Alas, they rather instantly re-appear in one of the upper hand corners.
And so the mighty struggle continues, as you try to adapt to these strange laws of the land.  You try to re-color the walls, and then try to pick the right one so that they "collapse" like a weird set of dominoes, if dominoes could topple over upside down and what not... hmm!  Didn't I see that once?  Didn't someone build a track of dominoes, with the dominoes attached to the track with little pins?  In any event, a more enterprising soul than I can have that idea for free.  Go and do something viral with that.  Anyway, I did feel a sense of accomplishment after passing the first few levels.  The sounds are kind of like that Atari version of "Porky's" and the graphics strangely reminiscent of "Chuckie Egg."  Must be the weird-ass numerals.  So, all in all, I would say that "Collapse" is good... just, maybe not all 96 levels good.  Also, you might not want to try and flip the score, seeing as how it's got EIGHT digits instead of the usual six.  The game's okay, just not eight-digit-score okay.

Collapse - Mushca Disk 10

Collapse at Atarimania

Firebird in general at Atarimania ... don't laugh!  They were once a wing of Activision.  Heard of them lately?

See Why Everyone's Obsessed With This Game

I'm just going by the picture here... the tits?

Facebook Game

...pervert.

Atari Emulator -> Len Dorfman's "Karmic Caverns"

Muscha Disk 42 - Interesting that this finds itself on the same disc as the classic "Bruce Lee" Atari game, as it has a similar running pace to it.  Whelp, I need a little break from my usual routine of crushing virtual candies, so why not another Len Dorfman classic?  There aren't that many left!  Well, like the magical disappearing "Erg," this is another exercise in frustrating game play.  Erg.  More like Arrrgh!  Hah!  See how I did that?
Oh, never mind.  ANYWAY... I think there's only one way to do this.  Clearly, I must take the text from the original packaging, which I will put in italics, and then add my snarky, smart-ass comments in between in regular font.  Here goes!  Hoh boy!!!...

KARMIC CAVERNS, by Len Dorfman, is a 100% machine language arcade-style game that will entertain you hour after hour!  

I should probably explain.  See, there are games like my beloved Vorrak / Zardon, which are half BASIC, half machine language.  Floyd of The Jungle's another one.  Why can't I be playing THAT one right now?

You must find your way through the maze-like caverns avoiding the deadly plasmatic guards (not to mention the electrified walls) and acquire as many energy pods as you can.  

I assume the plasmatic guards are the flower-looking things.  The electrified walls are the ones that are purple.  Also, the left side of the screen is deadly too.  If you touch either one, you die by getting a full body scan four times.  Strangely enough, the flying bullets from "Jumpman" are worth 100 points!  Oops.... SPOILER ALERT.

You must climb ever upwards [comma] striving to acquire enough energy points to reach the next level before time runs out for you.  

Not to worry: you'll run out of lives before time runs out for you.  By the way, another Spoiler Alert.  By "climb ever upwards," they also mean that you should keep running left to right as well, because even though you have a basically rail-thin avatar, you nevertheless keep sinking at the rate of about four or five pixels per second.  The gravitational pull must be stronger down in the Karmic Caverns.  And not only that, your aim must be true when you climb up a ladder, especially on the ground level.  If you're unable to start your climb in time, you will sink through and hit the timer and die.  Or worse, you sink through and keep falling forever!  No wrap-around here, folks.  No hitting a vertical 255 and appearing back up at the top.  Len Dorfman planned for that.  Instead, it's a forever fall, forcing you to reboot.  Don't worry, you won't have to reload Karmic Caverns.  The Atari will do it for you!

KARMIC CAVERNS utilizes the full sound and graphics capabilities of the Atari computer!  

No, something like Ultima III utilized the full sound capabilities of the Atari, and a LucasArts game the full graphics capabilities.

Fun for all ages.  

I am curious about the title.  Guess they just needed a different one.  The only way I can think of the concept of karma applying to this game is that it provides balance to the more entertaining games that you choose to play instead.  Life isn't all power pills and the bashing of barrels, folks.

Requires 48K RAM and one disk drive. 

Funny, seems more like a 12K game to me.  After all, only ONE MAZE!!!

$34.95

For $34.95, you BETTER be entertained hour upon hour!  Okay, I've been mean enough to this one.

This Just In: The Time Clock DOES reset when you reach 5,000 points!  Nice game and all; I just wish there was a little more certainty on those few points where being able to climb a ladder is the difference between life and death.  Must be part of the fun of the game or something.


Mushca Disk 42 ... I didn't stray too far, did I?  Also featuring Midas Maze!!  The previous one I profiled!!

Len Dorfman's Karmic Caverns at Atarimania, featuring screenshots of the original packaging!

Len Dorfman in general at Atarimania

Atari Emulator -> Analog Computing's Midas Maze

Kewl!  My 2020 list of New Year's resolutions is already complete!  Alas, Atarimania's categorization lumps anything from Analog Computing into one category.  Not that I don't love Antic's stuff, mind you, and typing it in from a magazine, but Midas Maze seemed a little more like a complete game... okay, sure, it's no Boulder Dash, but what it lacks in bells and whistles it makes up for in pure adrenaline arcade action.  Maybe a little too fast, actually, but what the heck.  Heck!!  Boy, I really am an old man now.  Anyway, Midas Maze is somewhere between Rally-X and Super Pac-Man.  You've got the key system of Super Pac-Man, but instead of a giant yellow dot plagued by ghosts, it's a race car plagued by other race cars.  Sure, it's hard flipping an eight-digit score, but a journey of 100 million steps has to start at one!  Had a hell of a time trying to remember where this was.  See, I downloaded most of Mushca's stuff a long time ago, and I could've SWORN it was somewhere in the hundreds, so I started at 100........

Atarimania's home for Midas Maze
Mushca's home for Midas Maze: Disk 42