Atari Emulator --> Spy's Demise and Friends

...oh good! I don't have to try and solve that cryptogram myself! Ah, that takes me back to arcade action ever so briefly available at grade school... during business hours. Then there's that one with the bouncing spider you have to try and shoot (Apple II), but the real experts at that wouldn't give anyone else a chance. What's neat about Penguin Software's "Spy's Demise" is that the action starts out easy, then gets more difficult... then gets really difficult... then gets easier again! On the other hand, the game board shrinks in size ever so slightly when you complete a level. I can't handle that kind of excitement. Naturally, clones had to be spawned, like this one from Analog Computing (1985)... spoiler alert: turns out the pizza chef on the Simpsons is actually a Van Houten! I tend to think of this one called "Highrise" as part of the same family... I forget where it's from. Probably Compute! magazine, maybe Antic.

Spy's Demise - Mushca Disk 27, home at Atarimania.com

Elevator Repairman - Mushca Disk 32, home at Atarimania.com

Highrise - Mushca Disk 141, Atarimania.com home - it WAS Compute! magazine.  Miss that thing.

Donkey Kong's Triumphant Return

Atari Emulator -> Mr. Robot

...should I go through with it?

Bounty Bob, Level 26 - The End

...this isn't actually a level, they've just decided to call the end of the game "Level 26" for some reason. As your reward for beating the game, you get taken to a special screen where you can fiddle with some of the game's variables. The main one, of course, is that you can start the game with five lives instead of four! Also, you can start at any level you choose... I'm not sure how. You need a special code, but I don't know what the codes are. Better to just use saved states, save yourself the trouble. And... that's it! One last toast to the toughest game I've ever played on the Atari... alas, played strictly with a PC emulator, no joystick. What's the second toughest, you ask? Championship Lode Runner a close second; I don't know how I ever figured out those levels. Just tenacious, I guess.  Zeppelin was a tough one too.   Can Pastfinder actually be won?  Apparently it can't.  Seems like a game is either tough or fun to play.  Bounty Bob Strikes Back! starts out fun, then gets tough.  The discussion goes on.........

Bounty Bob, Level 25 - The Floating Transporter

If you love levels where you only get one shot at doing something right, well... see how there are eight Energy Bars on this level? That's RIGHT! You've got to get all eight of those things right. So, you eat an Energy Bar, back up a little bit, then jump to the far platform. You've got to jump so that you don't land on the slide and slide right down. Piece of cake, right? Oh, and the other gimmick for which this level is named: as you might have guessed, when you teleport to Booth 2, you immediately plummet to the ground, thanks to the Gravity Lift under it! These guys thought of everything, I tells ya. Personally, I would've ended with Level 24, but that kind of decision is way way above my pay grade... I guess that's it.

Mr. Robot, Level 'V'

SPOILER ALERT: Ah, we've finally made it to the last level of Mr. Robot from Datamost (TM)(C)(R). Now, you're probably asking yourselves: Level 'V'? That's the last level, 'V'?!! Well, the last level in Boulder Dash is 'P', right? Well, 'T' if you count the four bonus levels. Plus, the last level in Boulder Dash is a little anti-climactic... even in Boulder Dash II, if memory serves! Which I think is nice, personally. Anyway, remember how I mentioned earlier that in one of the tougher Mr. Robot levels, I had to use two saved states? THREE on this one. If I remember correctly... I must've tried to block this one out... you have to get this absolutely perfectly... otherwise, you can't finish it. Good thing you've got all those extra lives, right? This one should make short work of 'em! Happy gaming! On the bright side, you get to start all the way over on Level 'A'! I think I'm going to grab that musical note next time... again, less adventurous as the years pass.

Bounty Bob, Level 24 - Mutants on the Move!

...I hate it when the levels are those dark colors like that. Well, I'm an old man now, and the older you get, the less adventurous you get. Lord, help me make it to whatever age I can start collecting Social Security checks. Anyway, for those of you who ever wondered what it would be like if the "aliens" or "mutants" in this game would have a little more equitability with Bounty Bob, and not just be trapped in their little horizontal loops, well... this level's for you! The only thing is... as you can see, there are NO powerups. So, not only do you have to deal with mutants that have a little more freedom, you don't get an opportunity to take 'em out! For me personally, this is kind of a bad level to have so close to the end, because I have no patience as a gamer, and I usually end up losing on this one. A fine investment of 40 minutes, what can I tell ya? What else... can't think of anything else right now. Happy Suffering!

Mr. Robot, Level 'U'

I should have been more careful about my recurring feature.  WILL YOU GET KILLED IF YOU JUST STAND THERE?  On this level... yes.  As you can see, our hero / avatar is standing on one of those delightful Conveyor Belt-type dealy boppers.  Incidentally, if you love those Conveyor Belt-type dealies, well... this level will cure you of that!  Alas, this level will seem like Child's Play compared to........................

Bounty Bob, Level 23 - Advanced Pulverizers

Oh, these are the moments any and all gamers should live for. That's part of the genius of the Doom series. Sure, you can figure out how to do the levels after enough tries... but what about all those bonus areas? That's the fun sh... stuff. My friend had to help me out with this one level in ... probably Doom II, where you get one of those Green Globes of Temporary Invulnerability, you run up to this ledge, fire a rocket against the wall, and that will give you enough momentum to fall into this one box. I truly hate to spoil the surprise in Level 23... I know, right? How old is this game? Almost 40 years now! Wow... I'll just say that this level can be completed, even though it might not look like it. I WILL say, however... each platform has one of those alien thingies, and you get to them from the middle, so the best piece of advice I can give you is to first do the platforms that have their "power pills" on the far side of the pulverizers. And by that, I mean you have to get past the pulverizer to get to them... does that make sense? And of course, the pulverizers in this level are far less forgiving and predictable than the ones in level... 9 of the original? Level 9! I'll be dam... darned.

Bounty Bob, Level 22 - Advanced Cannon

One last easy one before we get into the real hard levels! It took me a while to get the rhythm of this one, but once I got it down... piece o'cake. Then again, it is quite a bit like Level 10 of Miner 2049'er. The explosives are in the same place, the CANNON is in the same place... See, if I was real good, I would've already made a screen grab of that one, but I'll steal one off the web instead.

See what I mean?  Clearly, in the original game, they were going for simplicity.

Fun Web Game ---> The Huffington Post's "Pyramid Scheme"

For those of you who've been the victim of a pyramid scheme, The Huffington Post has got a game for you!  It's like one of those crosswords... no, that's not it.  Jumble?  You know, one of those games where you have to look for a word in the midst of a matrix of seemingly random letters... Word Search!  Apparently that's what it's called... really?  Word Search?  Seems kinda plain somehow.  It's like if someone tells you their name is John Smith.  Really?  Not a pseudonym, not an alias, not a joke name, it's actually John Smith.  Okay, if you say so!  Well, one thing I do like about the HuffPost's variation on... Word Search... is that they're pretty strict about what the right answer is.  Sure, there might be OTHER correct words in there, but it's not the right one.  Sometimes it's possible to screw up on a Word Search and circle the wrong word, but they're pretty careful about it.

Ooh!  Before I forget, as long as we're talking about HuffPo, I've got a terrific new slogan for the Huff Post.  Here goes... Huff Post!  Newsmakers huff, and we post... no good?  Too wordy?  Don't give up the day job?  Okay, fine.

Mr. Robot, Level 'T'

Ah yes, finally we come to what I was alluding to in previous posts. And yes... I am that fool that needs to be pitied. If you're like me, you use 'saved states' to play games on that awesome Atari emulator... a feature missing on my 2600 Emulator, sadly! Oh well, I wasn't planning on playing Ms. Pac-Man for the 2600 for too long anyway. AND SO... those stupid white downspouts make their triumphant return again, and yup!  You guessed it... Slip up once, and you're finished.  At least it's a quiet death.  I do kinda like the one where the bomb blows you skyward.  Kinda feels like you're getting something done, don't it?  No?  Just me?  Okay, never mind... oh, right.  So I use 'saved states' to play this game.  Usually, I only need one per level.  On this level, however, I needed TWO!!!  Getting to the middle of the board is just that much of a pain in the........................................

Mr. Robot, Level 'S'

Good Lourdes! Are we EVER going to get through this damn alphabet? Guess we're just lucky they're not using the Chinese or Japanese alphabet... am I right?  According to Wikipedia, there's 50,000 Chinese characters in the language... but that's since antiquity.  Only 10,000 are in use today, 3,000 of which are frequently used, especially in their media.  Keep fighting, guys.  Meanwhile, there's just a few thousand letters in the Japanese alphabet.  Therefore, probably not a good way to label your levels in a video game.  Who's got time to play a few thousand levels?  You gotta do like Doom II, and just have a few really good levels... man, I miss that thing.  ENNY WEIGH, as you can see from the attached pic, Level 'D' strikes again, with a twist... is this a first?  Maybe not.  I'm too beleaguered to check.  I think this is the first time that those bombs are used as a downward staircase.  I should probably put a bunch of arrows on this thing!  Give myself a map for when I try to flip this game's score.  I wouldn't have been able to do it if I was playing this on an actual Atari machine.  I had other games to play, besides.  I mucked around with that Racing Destruction Set way too much, that's for sure.  It's like Marble Madness, but with cars!

(the next afternoon) Level 'L', you idiot!  It's like Level 'L'!  Also, the theme song!  That's why I mucked around so much

Mr. Robot, Level 'R'

Ah yes, the triumphant return of Level 'N', but with a twist... I forget what it is. Oh! I think I know what it is: watch out for dead ends! And, some of the live ones too, for that matter, especially if they've got fireballs in them.

Mr. Robot, Level 'Q'

Ah yes, the triumphant return of Level 'D', only a little tougher, and even though there are no new gimmicks, icons, features, characters, what have you... there is a slightly new way of looking at things. And a new philosophical question to ask yourself: can you climb down a ladder if it's blocked by one of those bomb things?

Will you get Killed if you Just Stand There? Oh, very much so... go quickly now!

Mr. Robot, Level 'P'

All right! The triumphant return of those... white downspout things. I think this was one of the first times when I worried I wouldn't finish in time. If not the first, definitely my favorite. SPOILER ALERT: believe me, the worst is yet to come!

Mr. Robot, Level 'O'

And again, there are no new features to deal with... hmm! What are they, technically? I mean, the girders, the power puffs... pills, the fireballs? Features? Axioms? Icons? Gimmicks? Gizmos? Whatever they are, there's no new ones to learn. But if you take a first and or second glance at it... seems impossible, right? You gotta think outside the box a little bit, so to speak... although, when you do finally figure it out, that's probably not the right phrase. At all. It's not one I'm sick of yet, actually. I'll know it when I hear it, though. Epic! Iconic! Game Changing! Kony 2023

Mr. Robot, Level 'N'

...guess how you do THIS one??!!! Incidentally, this is a lot like Spelunker where... SPOILER ALERT... you play the most rotund cave explorer of all time. Still quite lithe and agile, however! And when the game makers want to make sure you can't go back to the areas you already explored... and taken all of the treasures and energy / oxygen, so what would be the point, really? Anyway, you do about five or six of these big jumps where you fall just short of the distance that will kill you. Same thing in Level 'N' of Mr. Robot, but I gotta tell ya... at my age, I climb over one fence that's the same height as me, and I'm done for the day! Just sayin'... #justsayin #videogamelife #zxkuqyb #stopthesehashtagsiwanttogetoff

Mr. Robot, Level 'M'

Okay, Smart Guy... whaddaya got to say about this one?  Whelp, thank God... in this case, Ron Rosen... for the occasional easy level.  An epic game like this definitely needs one or two... just the one?  Okay, fine.  Sorry... SPOILER ALERT.  Now, you're probably asking yourself, why is it spelled "Bonus Rouhd"?  Well, I think that "h"-looking thing is supposed to be an 'n.'  For whatever reason, it doesn't look like the 'n' in 'Bouns'... bonus.  Bonuses abound, my friends!  Not so much in nature anymore, of course... Well, these guys were under tremendous pressure to get their games to market.  Administrative errors were bound to occur in tiny quantities.  For example, I probably already told you a thousand times about the glitch in the emulator version of "Preppie! II", and thank God... in that case, Russ Wetmore... for it.  That particular sequel is just not as good as Original Recipe.  As for bonus rounds in general, well... Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man don't have any at all!  They just figured the rousing game play would be enough, and perhaps they were right.  SUPER Pac-Man, on the other hand... they figured they needed a little something.  In the (instant) case of Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, I think this is the longest one goes to get to a bonus round!  SPOILER ALERT - And, as we find out later, we can flip the score and the levels, so you end up going 22 levels to get to the next one!  Pretty long slog.

Mr. Robot, Level 'L'

Okay! Back to it. I'm getting a little déja vu, I'll admit. So this one's a little bit like Level 'D'... just a little less fun.  I mean, sure, I like a challenge and all... I just don't want to have to write out step-by-step instructions for all the damn levels!!!  Incidentally, that's usually a good maze-making strategy for your game.  If you design a level that turns out to be really good... use it again, but make it tougher.  Not too tough!  Not MechWarrior 4 tough...

Mr. Robot, Level 'K'

FINALLY! A chance to relax. No new features on this one... you just have to be careful what you do first. This is another one of those Everything levels. Everything... except trampolines. The Fun Police are on patrol again! I gotta say, I don't care for those 'Everything' bagels too much; the least they can do is give you a pair of gloves or something for handling the sticky bastards. Well, I'm just being downright picky tonight. Also, avocados are fun... slicing avocados, not so much.  That also can get quite messy.  The one nice thing about it is you can slice your way around the non-ripe parts and just throw those out.  Life's too short.

Mr. Robot, Level 'J'

...oops! Looks like I took the screen capture a little bit late. Gonna lose some followers on that one! Anyway, whew! I'm pooped. And we still got more new features to get adjusted to! We got all the usual suspects: power pills, extra men, the ubiquitous dots... but what is this? Are those magnets? Yes they are! Now, you will notice that there are actually two magnets: a small one, and a large one.  Need I go on?  I could... but I won't.  Pass on the suffering, that's my motto to the gamers.  Sure, there's probably a web site or two out there with explicit instructions... there's probably a YouTube (TM)(C)(R) video or two.  Let me check... my work is done here. (sniffs, wipes away tear)  ...or is it?  After all, look at all the platforms they have "walkthroughs" of!  Apple II, Commodore 64... this NES version of Spelunker is what's wrong with video games... if only for me.  The avatar's cuter, the game play's way less dangerous.  Lode Runner and Sokoban all got the Gameboy (TM)(C)(R) Cute-ification treatment.  Now, THIS is what I'm talkin' about!  This was before Broderbund (TM)(R)(C) bought it from Tim Martin and Micro GraphicImage.  Broderbund did, however, fix it.  The one main bug was that if you get two of the more points-laden artifacts in a row, you don't get the full point value.  Micro GraphicImage only used one byte as a point counter.  Broderbund used two... okay, maybe just nine bits, but STILL!  Anyway, this all brings me to my next point: magnets.  I hate to sound like a rich record executive... but I did just watch the Clive Davis documentary on Netflix (TM)(C)(R)... okay, I listened to most of it from the next room, but I think I got the gist of it.  Anyway, games like Spelunker, Lode Runner, Sokoban, Boulder Dash... no magnets!  Robbo?  Yes magnets, but deadly!  All you can do is block them with the Sokoban-like blocks you push around.  Doom, Doom II, Quake?  No magnets.  Microman?  Magnets, but they're bad.  Fortunately, you can shoot at them!  You need to fire about a thousand bullets or so, but... totally worth it!  Okay, I'll give you one insider tip: when you're under the influence of the magnets, and you're climbing a ladder... keep climbing!  Because the magnet will pull your ass off.  And second... nice job on the multi-tasking!  Keep up the good work!!

Mr. Robot, Level 'I'

...is it just me, or are these levels getting less and less fun?  Just kidding... they just keep getting better and better.  As you may have guessed from the attached picture, there's a new gadget in the robot factory, which means a new opportunity for high quality maze making.  If you actually play the game on one emulator or sorts, you'll see that these slim white ladder-looking things are moving down, which is what they'll make you do: gently slide down.  Thereby adding more time to your game play.  And for those of you planning ahead... will these down chutes be used for an increasingly harder level?  Well yes, but I dare not spoil the surprise...

Mr. Robot, Level 'H'

Oh boy!  Here's another fun one.  In level 'H', you... hmm!  Usually levels are numbered, not lettered.  Of course, there's "Boulder Dash," and you probably know how I feel about that one.  The original Donkey Kong (TM)(C)(R) was trying to be enigmatic like tennis.  I mean, 25 meters?  I'm assuming that's what the "M" stood for.  Oh... must be how tall Donkey Kong (R)(C)(TM) is.  And look!  If you stand six of them on top of one another, 150 meters!  WOW!  It's like some kind of a Donkey Kong (C)(TM)(R) Totem pole!  Or something!  Then there's the space games: Buck Rogers (TM)(C)(R) and Star Trek (C)(R)(TM) for Atari feature decimal point levels... just out to a tenth of a digit, thankfully.  Of course, the higher-end games give their levels actual names, like Jumpman (C)(TM)(R), Jumpman Junior (R)(C)(TM) or Championship Lode Runner (R)(TM)(C)... did I go through all six permutations yet?  Plus I gotta go back and do all the hyperlinks.  What damn good is a blog posting without accompanying hyperlinks?  And of course, bringing it full circle more or less, there's Pac-Man (TM)(R)(C) or Ms. Pac-Man (TM)(C)(R) whose levels are basically emojis.  We should probably call the last five years or so The Emoji Age.  Give the Japanese their due, for once!  We got an emoji movie, after all!  Why not an Emoji Age?  You know, if you would've told me 30 years ago that people would eventually be communicating with tiny pictures, I wouldn't of believed it... have believed it.  And if you told me about NFTs or Crypto-Currency, I would've needed a second or third explanation at least.  And if you told me that in 30 years we'd have Mexican White Supremacists, well... if I was a bartender, I'd probably tell you it was time to leave.  And the bouncer would back me up on that, but hey, that's just me.  Pepe the Frog, Mexican White Supremacists... I just love this Insane New World we live in.  Can't get enough of it.  Aldous Huxley was close... or maybe he was being ironic.  I mean, it's like that new Billie Eilish thing... it's from TWO YEARS AGO????  Well, FORGET IT, THEN!!!!  And don't even get me started on that Lana del Rey album, "Born to Die."  Well, that's a little negative, isn't it?  I mean, you can get some absolutely lovely plastic surgery before then!  I'll bet that's not even her real name... Micklewhite?  I mean, Elizabeth Woolridge Grant?  Well, before you die, you can try and raise the profile of your great-great... great Grandpappy Ulysses.  I'll even help you out: he was actually pretty hard-working in his youth before he became one of our drunkest Presidents ever.  And he was on the right side of the Civil War!  If that doesn't entitle him to some booze, well... what gives?  I mean, what does?

Oopsie!  Think I got sidetracked by yet another tangent.  ANYWAY, if you love trampolines... and you should... well, you're probably going to absolutely love this lev... el.  Alas, there's no new gadgets or gizmos in this one.  Wait a second!... what's that eyeball-looking thing under the left-most fireball?  Check it out...

Mr. Robot, Level 'G'

Oh boy!  NOW we're getting into the fun stuff.  This slightly reminds me of that old 3 light bulbs and 3 light switches logic puzzle which I first learned about many moons ago in a Windows (TM)(C)(R) Network Administration 101 class... actually, Mr. Robot's level 'G' is probably a little less sophisticated.  No new features this time, so now it's time for some ingenuity in level design.  So what parts to do first?  And what parts to do last?  Well, you should be able to figure out what part to do last.  I mean, you can't just fall onto the trampoline from there, and you most assuredly can't jump, so.... wait, actually there is a new feature!  See those white lines on the left that go from the teeny platform to the longer platforms?  ...well, I've probably spoiled the surprise enough as it is.  Also, this level is mean because it features no fireball-subduing power pills.  Incidentally, isn't the vertical rainbow of color that permeates each level just the best?  It's pretty high-tech if you don't know how to program it.  For the sophisticated Atari programmer, it meant tinkering with something called "display list interrupts."  Activision (TM)(C)(R) was probably the unparalleled champion of such gimmicks.  They would do it with player/missiles mostly.  Pastfinder of course had way way too many, pushing that poor overworked 6502 to its absolute limits... I think that's about it.  Have I not talked about Level 'G' enough yet?  No one was ever able to make a decent arcade game out of those 16-color Atari modes; the pixels were too wide, alas.  No attempts at a topographical maze or anything! :(

Mr. Robot, Level 'F'

Oh boy!  Time for yet another new feature!  Those funny short girders?  Just stand in the middle of them... on the middle of them, press the 'fire' button... that's how you do it, right?  I forget myself.  God bless Instant Amnesia!  Press the button, and you will semi-instantly be transported to a random girder not of your choice... or maybe they're chosen in a cycle, I forget that too.  You know, it's strange... transporters like this are great and all, but they don't seem to be the stuff of truly great and classic game play!  Now you'll say, what about Pac-Man?  Well, that's a little different.  In the original Pac-Man, there's one exit that takes you to the other vertical side of the maze.  There's magic there, sure... especially when the ghosts trap you on both sides, and they can catch you when you're completely disappeared!  For some, it just means that the Pac-Man maze is an example of a torus.  Most of the mazes in Ms. Pac-Man feature two exits, but it's not that kind of magic.  Boulder Dash (TM)(C)(R) only has exits to take you to the next level, and that's one of the greatest arcade-style games of all time!  Quasimodo (TM) of Synapse fame has portals to take you from the bells of the church tower to the three levels of game play.  Frogger?  No transports.  Donkey Kong?  No transports.  Asteroids?  No transports.  Tempest?  Transports only to the next levels.  Crystal Castles?  Secret transports you earn after repeated game play, only to other levels.  Which I certainly like; something about playing two "Tree Wave"s in a row is very depressing.  Pooyan?  NO transports.  No, the only way out of that one is to just stop playing.  Pengo?  No transports.  Shamus?  No transports.  Now, you take something like Doom or Doom II.  They have a few transports used judiciously.  Certainly nothing as diabolical as what we have here, where it's a bit of a crapshoot as to where you're going to end up.  In Doom or Quake, the transport always takes you to the same place, or back from the same place.  Now, in Star Trek, it's all about beaming.  They're always at war with the Vulcans or the Kardashians (TM)(C)(R), but they've all got transports on their ships!  They're not animals, for God's sake!  I don't know what kind of technological revolution it's going to take to give us beaming technology, but it seems to be like clean, abundant nuclear fusion: 40 years off.  Personally, I don't think beaming is ever going to happen, despite its wonderful contribution to science fiction.  Perhaps someday it'll become a neat, high-tech way of losing someone's luggage in the air between ports.

Mr. Robot, Level 'E'

FINALLY! A level without those cursed fireballs. But... maybe it's a bad trade-off? NEXT new feature: trampolines. Sure, they're fun and all, but... probably something you wouldn't want to have in a factory, let alone a robot factory. That's just me, though. And unlike OTHER video game blogs would, I'm not going to give you a detailed map on how to complete this one. I say, suffer in solitude like a real gamer should.  One of the reasons I don't get that much traffic... :(

Mr. Robot, Level 'D'

Oh, this is my favorite level so far.  As you might be able to guess, you've got your permanent platforms with the dots in 'em, and then there's these series of one-use platforms!  You have about four seconds to use them, and then you better jump quick!  The only question is: what do the fireballs do?  I mean, if you use the platform, and manage to avoid the fireball, do they just hang there in the air?  Let me double-check that... strange!  They might get blown up by the activated bomb platforms, but they definitely follow their (new) given restrictions!  Also, this was the first level where I discovered that you make a different sound when going down a ladder!  Man, the things you can do with 8 to 16K... maybe 32.

Mr. Robot, Level 'C'

...why am I thinking of BurgerTime all of a sudden? Must be hungry. Anyway, on to the next level of this sprawling epic called Mr. Robot. And... SPOILER ALERT. These series of horizontal white lines are "up" escalators. More Video Game Showmanship 102 at work here. Introduce your new features in the early levels, and B) when you do, try to make the whole level just about them. You don't want a lot of needless clutter in your levels, even though any gamer worth his weight in salt and fat can handle the clutter... frankly, the clutter's a hell of a lot more fun! Ah, but there's a down side to this level. You'll never guess what it is in a million years... that's right! You have to be careful which girders to visit first! Visit the highest ones first, and you're trapped! You must rely on your falling abilities to survive this one, Mr. Robot. Because, as a robot, you can fall all you want... provided it's within your narrow height restrictions. Much like Bounty Bob. Sorry... I know, I keep going back to that one far too much. Well, for me, he's a video game touchstone, what can I tell ya. Mario of the original Donkey Kong fame is far more sensitive. That Mario can't fall at all, but can jump down to a slightly lower girder if need be... ooh! I just remembered. The rotund fella from Spelunker is a little different. He also can handle falls of a specific height, which many parts of the maze are predicated upon (an easy way of saying "You can't go back after this!"), but anything beyond that, and BOOM! Dies in mid-air! Which makes sense in a way; we can't have the guy falling down a mine shaft and spoiling too much of the level in advance, now can we? The hero of H.E.R.O. solves many of these concerns with his powerful heli-pack. On the other hand, Jack of Jet Boot Jack is also quite sensitive and can't handle the slightest fall over a precipice. Can't hit his head, can't ever run out of fuel... despite these extreme sensitivities, the game play on that one is still worth it!

Mr. Robot, Screen 'B'

...wasn't that the name of that show with those guys? Oh, yeah! Haven't seen the entire series yet on sale at Fred Meyer (TM), for example. Well, it's the new way they do things in Hollywood. ANYWAY, back to this humble game. I still don't get it... you can walk through layers of these platforms, but you have to jump up to get to the next higher one. We're going to ignore the third dimension here, even though it stands to reason that a robot factory would be in three dimensions. That's one of the reasons why Lode Runner is such a beloved classic. The action takes place in an ant farm, and they don't try to pretend otherwise. Anyway, back to the principle of showmanship in video games. With a game like this, pushing its 16K to the absolute limit, you invariably have to introduce your new features as early on as possible. This time: moving walkways, for lack of a better term. Thankfully, they don't go too fast, so you can walk against them... and you have to. Sorry, SPOILER ALERT. This isn't Level 3 of Hard Hat Mack, after all! Love that game. Why can't I be instead... oops! Sorry. I mean, its three levels are fun and all, but... how are you supposed to keep a gamer on the farm with just three levels? I mean, that's confidence. Okay, I'll spare your curiosity a little... yes, you can fall if you go right instead of left when you're on that little "escalator" staircase near the tippy top of the screen. Not so bad, really! In this game, you die a noiseless, colorful death when you make a stupid mistake like that. Almost worth it! No stupid questions in video games, just stupid deaths.

Mr. Robot, Screen 'A'

...oh, right! My new series; almost forgot. Well, what can you say about the first level of any game? Keep it nice and easy. Don't wanna scare people off! Hmmm... the guy looks like a much larger version of the guy who pilots the ship in Astro Chase, n'est ce pas? Nice, straightforward level; only one path to take... oops. Well, it comes up a lot later on. Sorry to ruin the surprise. SPOILER ALERT. So we got the fireballs from Donkey Kong (TM), the power pills from Pac-Man, the falling onto lower platforms from... Miner 2049er, Bounty Bob Strikes Back and countless others. Yessir, off on a great, rousing adventure! (...I hope)

Atari Emulator -> Ron Rosen's "Mr. Robot (and his Robot Factory)"

Boy, you'd think that a robot factory would be naught but a Capitalist's paradise... just keep the raw materials flowing in, and nothing but hassle-free electric workers coming out! But the fireballs seem to have free reign of the place. Thank goodness for all the power pills that can temporarily empower Mr. Robot to permanently dispatch with them. Alas, the robot factory has many rooms and, barring the presence of a qualified OSHA representative, Mr. Robot has to look over every last centimeter of each of the factory's twenty-six rooms. Fortunately, there are Pac-Man-ish dots on each precarious platform that needs to be traversed. These white dots are eager for the attention; I don't remember another game where you can jump and "eat" a dot just before your jump is completed! Unfortunately, the creation of new robots isn't simple, and each room in the factory has a new feature that needs to be negotiated... hmm! This would make a great video game, wouldn't it? Of course, this was 1982, so the art of Atari (TM)(C)(R) video games was still in its proverbial infancy. Go figure.  And the art of the video game theme song even greater into an infancy; why, the theme music of this one literally sounds like that old classic song, Baby Face!  But these programmers were quick learners, and by the time we get to 1984 and 1985, we get true classics like Boulder Dash (C)(R)(TM) and... Pastfinder(R)(TM)(C)? What year was that again? According to Atarimania, 1984. Jet Boot Jack (R)(C)(TM) was 1983, but it's got some slick game play to it, which can kind of be a lot to ask for, if you're playing on a non-Alienware PC like myself. You know... some might say (cynical types, mostly) that this is just a cheap ploy to have a lot of posts, and I'm better than that... NO I'M NOT.

For more information on classic game programmers, go to this here web site called "The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers," apparently compiled by James Hague, a proud member of said list!

Advert --> Most Realistic Game (of 2023)

..............am I the only one who sees the irony here?

Bounty Bob, Level 21 - Rest Stop #2

Once again... not always the best colors. Well, the first thing you're going to want to do is use the transporters right away, and beam yourself to the Number 2 booth, because... yup, you guessed it, if you just stand there, a mutant will gitcha. Takes about five seconds, but you can count on it. This one's not as fun as level 17... nor should they be. It's like how you get stuck at level 'Z' on Dandy. Nice at first, but soon you realize there were other things you wanted to do with this finite life of yours. I don't want to spoil things for you with this 36-year-old video game on a relatively ancient platform... well, okay, one thing. See that noose-looking thing? Sure, it's worth a lot of points, but it ends up killing you, so don't go for it. Also, notice on the left side of the screen the slide. What's the deal? It's got a platform in it! Well, how are you supposed to get to the one that's sticking out? Sorry, you're just gonna have to find out for yourself. Don't worry so much!

Bounty Bob, Level 20 - Mobile Suction Unit

The colors of these mazes isn't always the best. To keep the game play fresh, the colors are selected randomly. Sometimes the color of the top of the platform closely matches the color of Bounty Bob's feet, so if you're trying to do Level 9 and you think you're standing on the edge of the platform, well... look out. As for this level, it's a completely silly gimmick that, sadly, only has the one level. For some reason, it put me in mind of this. But that's just me. And once again, the whole affair's really taxing the Atari's computational power. Hard to imagine playing this one on a 1200XL. And even though this level seems easy, there's enough tight jumps and a few tighter corners to insure that you're going to lose the first few times you try it. Don't you hate it when you realize, oh... I should've done that the first time! Or you figure out what part of the level to do last a little too late. Just remember what Michael Abrash said about ... something about hard-fought knowledge. For instance, one of my actual goals is to learn either Blender (TM) or maybe jMonkeyEngine (C). Both 3D modeling programs... both incredibly hard. Where's an unpaid intern when you need one? Otherwise, a pretty ordinary level, but that's a fair trade-off: an ordinary level with one extraordinary gimmick.

Bounty Bob, Level 19: The Sliding Candelabra

The title's a little misleading; that's all I'll say about it. A bit of a throwback to Miner 2049er's Level 5, if memory serves. Also, the grain elevator from Bounty Bob level 6 makes a triumphant return, thank God!  So far, I haven't lost as many lives with the grain elevator on this level than I have on Level 6.  Apparently, Bounty Bob can't jump up as quickly as the grain elevator moves, so you trip over it, and fall off the edge to your doom.  This one's a lot like 14, as there are a lot of little jumps to be made.  It might lull you into a false sense of security, so BE CAREFUL!!!!!

Will a mutant kill you if you just stand there?  Yes, but only if you stand there for about 28 seconds.

Bounty Bob, Level 18: Super Energy Food Bars

That's right, back to this thing.  I had a bad realization one or two soirée ago: I'm just not that good of a gamer.  And Bounty Bob Strikes Back! has certainly put my  (gaming) patience to the test.  My original plan was to not use any shortcuts to beat this game.  I think I did pretty good, though!  I didn't use any "saved states," but I did rely on a few of the game's seven short cuts.  I mean, even with a level like this one that seems to be pretty easy and simple... well, it seems like I need to play it about a dozen times to really understand the rhythm of the level, or find a strategy I can really get comfortable with... have I mentioned how much I miss Doom / Doom II lately?  I'm also quite conservative as a gamer: once I get a strategy for a level, I don't like to drift too far from it.  And seeing as how each time I play the game it takes about 30-40 minutes, well... I suddenly realized I had other things I wanted to do with my life.  Sleeping, for one thing!  Can't stay up all night and take naps in High School English class anymore, after all.  Now, some of you out there might think that fourteen energy bars is too many... no?  Just me?  Okay, I wasn't sure.  Boy, the team who programmed this sequel to Miner 2049'er really thought of everything!  Whether it was the slightly clumsy way of making your jumps less than a full jump, or realizing that Level 10 of Miner 2049'er is really impossible because of all the short jumps you have to make... see, in Level 10... or is it Zone 10?  Are the different levels 'zones' or 'levels'?  I forget.  ANYWAY, in levels 1 to 9 you go slow, but in Level 10 you run twice as fast, and your jumps are also longer.  Oh, and there's a nasty, fatal surprise in the lower right-hand corner of the level if you dare to venture all the way over there.  Real mean!  You'll see if you try it.

Will a mutant kill you if you just stand there?  Very much so!  In fact, if you don't move in two seconds or so, it'll happen!

Atari Emulator -> Synapse Software's "Survivor" by Richard Carr

As opposed to the popular '80s band, or the popular reality show.  This is one I didn't have in the glory days, when I had an actual Atari computer... of course, the real Atari purists would probably question whether or not the 1200XL counts.  Well, at some point, you want something more powerful than the 400 (love that keyboard!).  WAY more powerful than the Vic 20.  Why not just get an Altair 8800 while you're at it?

...sorry, got off track again.  Well, what can you say about Richard Carr's "Survivor"?  Part Bosconian, part Astro Chase... familiar, yet something completely unique.  So far, I couldn't get past Level 3.  It's kind of a shame to destroy all the guns of these enemy fortifications, seeing as how they can also destroy the endless army of free-floating player/missile ships that come after you!  No, this is more of a young man's game; the older I get, the less my frail heart can take the ceaseless throbbing of those aforementioned free-floating ships.  I hate to see what Level 7 is like!  See, this is why I'm not a true gamer.  True gamers would beat Level 7 of this game, the Expert level of Shamus, Level 6 of Protector II, what have you.  I was able to beat Level 1!  Well worth it, too.  For my money, though, Carr's other Synapse game, Air Support, is the real classic.  I played that one a lot on the 1200XL for some reason.  And yet, joining the Army was never a priority for me.  I'm full of contradictions that way.

Atarimania home of Survivor

Mushca Disk 82

Atari Emulator -> Anthony Ku's Mr. M

Coulda sworn I did this one already! Guess not. Of course, it is kind of tricky to do a text search for a phrase like "Mr. M." Spoiler Alert: we never do find out what the "M" in "Mr. M" stands for, but judging from the "plot description" of the game... mastication? Munch? Munchies? Massive appetite? A brief search at thesaurus.com (bet THAT site name cost someone a pretty penny!) quickly reveals that a single word starting with "m" is just not enough to convey the madness behind this slight twist on that old gaming trope, Pac-Man. Things were so much simpler back then, until it briefly tried to join forces with pinball. But Mr. Ku's variation adds some fine complications to the Pac-Man legend. For instance: what if the game board isn't strictly a maze that fills each corner of the board? And what if it's not completely full of dots? Alas, there's no goodies to eat here, like cherries and metal keys. And why does Pac-Man never have to stop and... you know, take a shi... I mean, a Number Two? You would think... and why is there no facility where Pac-Man has to run to as fast as he can before making a mess in his pants? And why does Pac-Man not wear pants to begin with? ...what else? I must be forgetting something. Oh, right. Unlike most Atari games, Mr. M features a nice summary of your goal in the game on the title screen. There are no fancy options: no second player, no progressive levels of difficulty, just jump right into the deep end of this pool and get cracking. Also, Pac-Man doesn't have a "hunger" deadline to meet when getting those last few dots in the corner that you should've gotten a while ago. The programmers figured, and figured rightly, that struggling with the four ghosts would be challenge enough.
Speaking of which, on the plus side, you don't have four ghosts constantly following you(r ass) in "Mr. M." No, you get enemies that come flying in from the left and right sidelines. If you're lucky, and NOT FULL, having to make a beeline for the game's many toilets... sometimes you can even eat the bad guys that fly at you. But be careful! You have to line yourself up just right; if you've got baddies flying in from the left at your head, you'll soon have baddies flying in from the right at your feet, and they'll getcha! And like all of the great games, with each new level comes a new responsibility. Level 2, well... you have to learn to duck and walk at the same time. Alas, you can't do three things at once, so you have to unduck yourself to get at the food in a tight corner. Level 3 features one-way ramps and warps that take you from the right side of the screen to the left... I'll let you struggle with that one. Level 4 features radioactive walls; love those. Level 5 is kind of a bonus round, which is good, because Level 6 is pretty wicked in its design. I forgot how tough it was! Had to use Saved States to finally solve it, and just barely at that. Basically, Level 6 requires you to do some critical thinking and planning, timing your rapid hunger just right so that you don't starve so quickly to death. And like all the greats... the only other one I can think of off the top is Dark Star... you leave the fans hungering for more. In this case, we only get a brief glimpse of Level 7, and then it's right back to Level 1. It's an okay game; its strength is in its playability, but... I wouldn't try to flip the score on this one. What can I say?

Atarimania's home for Mr. M
Mushca (AKA Homesoft) Disk 30

Atari Emulator -> Astro Invaders

Oh boy. Another fine opportunity for me to put on my Professor Blogger cap, and pose for you the following hypothetical: have you ever wondered what it would be like if someone went and combined Space Invaders with Asteroids? Well, some brave soul went ahead without the big video game corporations' permissions and did that very thing. Look no further than Mushca Disk 466 for the following title: Astro Invaders... personally, I would've gone with Invader-oids, but whatever. That's why my day job isn't marketing! This Graphics 15 masterpiece isn't available at the slicker Atarimania.com, alas, so we may never know who did the hard work of programming this thing. They didn't skimp on details! The aliens look exactly... and I mean, exactly like the aliens in the official Atari (computer, not 2600) cartridge version of said Space Invaders. A different style from your, say, classical 2600 Space Invaders; the Atari 8-bit ones are more... octopus-ish, if you will.
So we've covered the Space Invader half of the affair. But what about the Asteroids part? Whelp, you've got a ship that spins 360 degrees... it goes all the way around, maybe misses more than a few of all the 360 degrees, and you fire slow pixel-sized bullets... that's another part of the problem. Somehow, the official Atari 8-bit translation of Atari (C) corporation's own Asteroids game leaves more than a little something to be desired. Perhaps this was an in-house job; you know, the guy or gal who worked on the Asteroids translation was feeling a little goofy, had some time on their hands, stripped down the Asteroids code, added just enough Space Invaders code to cobble together this semi-monstrous hybrid. Incidentally, both games feature the occasional managerial spaceship that comes floating by. Here, they cancelled each other out and there's nothing! No extra targets to attach... attack. So what's the verdict? Is it worth trying to flip the score? Probably not. No, I think we have to go back to that old, old quote from the Bhagavadgita... ah, just messing with you. No, I'll go with that old "Da Bears" sketch on Saturday Night Live... us old timers used to not abbreviate the name. It was a "Da Bears" game show, much like Jeopardy! The final question was "Bears vs. Bulls." For those of you who remember the correct answer, you can skip this part. Let's see if I remember it verbatim... damn. I don't. It was something like "Pitting these two forces of nature against each other would be a tragedy; not only for the teams involved... (flips over card) but for our planet. All nations must band together to ensure such a conflagration never takes place." Thankfully, the damage from this failed experiment has heretofore gone relatively contained......................

Mushca Disk 466 - the only home I know of for "Astro Invaders"

Atari Emulator -> Ozzy's Orchard

Well, HERE'S one I know I definitely haven't profiled yet... and I already know what you're thinking. No, there are no bats to de-head, and certainly no music that would even be considered light metal. In fact, demerits to the non-musical programmer who did do the music!  Worse than The Tail of Beta Lyrae.  That second melody that comes in later just has no pizazz to it.

As for the game play itself, well... there's just something to it, you know?  It's quite similar to Crossfire, if only for the game board.  Not quite as violent.  But as the game title suggests, there's a more long-term goal than just trying to flip the score... and you really shouldn't try to here.  Spoiler Alert: there are four rounds for each... unnatural-colored fruit you're supposed to harvest.  You are Ozzy, gentleman farmer extraordinaire, forever trapped in your beekeeper / Hazmat garb.  You must protect your evenly-spaced grid of trees from the man-sized bugs that are constantly lining up to plague you and your crop.  There are two colors of man-sized bugs: brown and white.  The brown ones are relatively harmless; you can walk through them.  Your only weapon: a 'gun' that shoots slow, brown bullets that will knock the bugs out.  The white bugs?  A little deadlier!  I already forget if you can walk through them... I don't think you can.  Hey, where's your sense of adventure?  Don't you like just jumping into the deep end of the pool on these things?  Figuring it out on your damn own for a change?  To make matters worse, the white bugs shoot their own bullets at you; mostly just to show off, but I tend to run into these things anyway.  And so, if you can survive three levels of this bedlam in paradise, the fourth level is the big payoff.  As you may notice, the levels... rather, the four rounds that constitute a level, correspond to a given season.  The fourth level is the fall, when the trees start giving forth their bounty of fruits!  But you gotta pick 'em up quick, because the giant bugs like 'em too!  They're not worth a whole lot of points, so I more or less just keep shooting at the bugs, and hope to run across one fruit or two in my travels and travails.

Yes, Ozzy is but a mere pawn in the game of the Agro-Industrial complex.  All hail the giant ruthless seed company whose Name Need Not Be Written Or Spoken!  And the game company responsible for this minor masterpiece is called TG Software.  I do like that logo!  I'm just a sucker for a great logo.  Also like that ZiMAG one.  If I had to pick one... and it seems like I do... I'm going to have to go with Abracadabra! as TG's best title.  A fast-paced orgy of magic and moving maze walls you'd be hard pressed to find; on the other side of that spectrum, you have Brøderbund's Labyrinth, where the maze walls move too slowly, and usually not in your favor, either.  So, to recap: slow maze walls, not enough magic.  Night Strike! is pretty good too.  (AKA Der Blitz!)  It doesn't lend itself well to hour upon hour of game play, but that's all right now; if you had to spend $34.95 for a diskette to play it, that's another story.  As for Droids, well... the '20s style font and the theme song are probably the best parts of this sleeping pill of a game.  It makes the similar game play of, well, Ozzy's Orchard, seem suave and sophisticated in comparison!  A shame that no forward-thinking game developer ever thought to get those proverbial country and city mice together in the same game.

Ozzy's Orchard's home in particular at Atarimania.com

TG Software's home in general at Atarimania.com

Mushca Disk 83

Atari Emulator -> Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Most likely for the best. Didn't I want to do something else with my life? I almost finished this game some 35 years ago on my Atari 1200XL, but this was before you could go online and look up cheat codes... I mean, helpful advice. You start out with only one player. You don't have enough gold or enough torches for the dungeons. I keep "barely wounding" orcs and rogues with my pitiful weaponry... hmm! Nah, I should try to get some sleep right now. Okay, what the hell. Get busy gaming, or get busy dying. 

(a few minutes later) Nope. Still not working.

 
Atarimania home of Ultima IV