25 Atari 2600 Homebrew Games!

[@dr.awkward9075]

I can imagine this conversation in 1981... Mom: Honey, what are you playing? Me: Man Goes Down. Mom: WHAT!??

[@burgerthief5333]

Man goes _downtown_

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Programming for the 2600 is certainly a mental challenge considering the extremely meager specs of the system, such as only 128 bytes, yes BYTES, of RAM and 8k of addressable storage ROM (though this can be circumvented using various bank switching techniques). Add to this the fact that there is no actual video processor (the programmer is responsible for directing the video display, which is both a huge limitation AND a huge advantage). One big difference between programming for that system now and doing so back in the late seventies and early eighties is that back then they had VERY limited development tools. They were literally using graph paper and calculators to design the graphics and figure out the EXACT number of commands they could use for a given feature. David Crane, who wrote Pitfall and Pitfall2 for the system described spending a week or two just figuring out how to add a simple "number of remining players" counter because he had already used up all the resources. [note: He originally was only going to give the player one guy and that was it, but was talked out of it and had to add that change late in the game. His solution for how he was going to squeeze over 200 screens and all the graphics and code into only 4k of storage is genius: A reversible binomial counter, with the layout of each screen represented by the bit pattern of each pseudo-randomly generated byte.]

[@CaptainJack1]

Thanks for the info! I remember watching some type of TED Talk-style presentation by David Crane about what you just described. Can't remember where I watched it though.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@CaptainJack1 There's also an excellent series you can find here on KZbin called "Stella at 20" where many of the original hardware and software guys (including David Crane) that worked at Atari back then get together and talk about it.

[@berealsupportive2744]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere That's cool to know. Do you make games? I would love to be apart of some myself if I found someone who enjoys doing them. I don't mean that I can do them, or have all the supplies and etc. My help would be the ideas, inputs and things like that. :)

[@anthonyspecf]

@5:04... Believe it or not, Atari 2600 is not only an 8bit system, but it shares the same basic CPU as the NES. Both the NES and Atari 2600 used a version of the MOS Technologies 6502 CPU. (NES was the Ricoh 2A03 with a MOS 6502 core and the 2600 was a MOS 6507 ). The huge difference is from all of the other support hardware and memory the NES has that the Atari does not.

[@CaptainJack1]

Thanks for the explanation! I remember something now that Atari was 8bit, its interesting how the same basic CPU can be utilized with more potential when given better resources.

[@StephenGutknecht]

A CPU alone is pretty much not a gaming machine. Sound and graphics make a huge difference. The TIA chip in the Atari is incredibly limited, quirky. 1977 vs. 1983 GPU design makes all the difference. PPU feature 2 kB of video RAM, 256 bytes of on-die "object attribute memory" (OAM) to store the positions, colors, and tile indices of up to 64 sprites on the screen, and 28 bytes of on-die palette RAM to allow selection of background and sprite colors.

[@customsongmaker]

Yes but Nintendo later paid to put an extra processor in every cartridge, because the NES by itself wasn't able to run even Super Mario Bros.

[@wayland7150]

The 6502 is a very simple CPU, it's all the other chips on the board that made it shine. It was also the inspiration behind the ARM processors. Acorn in Cambridge who used the 6502 decided to build the Acorn Risk Machine, ARM.

[@Freshbrood]

At least the 2600 is 60fps. That helps!

[@buffalodebill1976]

I am amazed at the creativity and skill level of all these folks who put these (mostly) amazing pieces of software for such an underpowered system together. Very nice games, indeed.

[@kramerdesign9443]

I really like the semi-off the cuff narration style! A surprisingly engaging and enjoyable watch for a person who isn't even *that* into the 2600!

[@CaptainJack1]

Thanks! Glad I could bring this often forgotten era of gaming to new people!

[@tonipepperoni3424]

I'm a zoomer gen guy and so I dont know a whole lot about retro games but recently I've been getting into it and playing on online emulator sites and for some reason I wonder if others feel similarly but for some reason, the extremely simple, pixelated and solid color graphics of the atari 2600 just kind of stands out and gives the games a pop art/ cartoonish quality that makes the 2600 give the strongest sense of nostalgia and I just kind of love the look of it, it's so basic yet so colorful and fun looking and really inspires your imagination to fill in the blanks of the simple grafix

[@JeffMcDuffie72MeridianGate]

Lol you are the pooper generation.

[@GORF_EMPIRE]

Yes sir! The one thing today's realism lacks is imagination. It all looks and sound too real for you to need to imagine. I love having to imagine a bunch of pixels is actually a space ship.

[@popretro1]

Great vid! A nice overview of a lot of homebrews I don't own. Thanks!

[@sdamon]

So happy to see the love for Toyshop Trouble! I’m right there with you... it really may be the best game for the system.

[@CaptainJack1]

Truly a masterpiece.

[@PeBoVision]

It never ceases to amaze me how, in 2022, early consoles and home computers continue to attract the interest of young programmers (thank you all!!!!), and how they strive to continually push the limits of what we ever dreamed the hardware capable of. Add to that a constant flow of hardware enhancements, that allow the use of modern displays, disc drives and networking, that challenge the very concept of "retro" gaming. As a hobbyist, it is far more compelling to own 40 year old tech today, than it has ever been.

[@atarikid282]

Thanks for the great video, I hope you make a part 2.

[@karakenio]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/oardeImHfLGsqKs

[@ric8248]

the Atari 2600 could only address 4KB of ROM, but with bank switching, a lot of bigger official games were made

[@CaptainJack1]

Yes! I know a bit more about the system now. Apparently early games like Combat were just a mere 2KB.

[@kneel1]

love this video! kind of want to make a 2600 game now lol. Closest I ever came was programming in TI BASIC on the TI 99 4/a in the early 80s

[@d.vaughn8990]

- “Duck Attack” could’ve been great. Unfortunately, it resides in the irritating category! - “Pac-Man 4K” is fantastic - but only those, who lived through the release of the original, 2600 version, will fully appreciate it! - “Toyshop Trouble” is phenomenal!! - “Fall Down” is really good! - “StarFire” would’ve been well-received bitd. It’s fun to play once-in-a-while.

[@Alianger]

Crazy Balloon reminds me of Kuru Kuru Kururin for the GBA. Stay Frosty 2 looks great. 13:30 Maybe they used a custom sound chip like Pitfall 2 did?

[@paisefilhosretrogames2795]

Great homebrews!!!

[@perfectionbox]

It's definitely interesting what might have been if more people had been developing at a pro level for the 2600 when it was still fresh.

[@wayland7150]

Perhaps they should have produced a developer cartridge which interfaced to an Atari home computer. They actually did not want competing developers. It was the home computer which really launched the computer Gaming industry because they had keyboards and storage.

[@wayland7150]

There is a particular art to getting the most out of these very limited systems that is interesting in itself. Yeah you could get a better result from a Raspberry PI but that would not be the same at all.

[@chinabluewho]

This is what draws me to the Atari 2600 , there are many Flappy bird games out there that use little power to get an effect and it fascinates me to no end what constraining someone with imagination can bring forth.

[@nfglegos]

0:43 the amiba jump character is one object because objects can have one color in each horizontal row

[@enfieldjohn101]

Stay Frosty looks really cool! I'll have to try that one. Have you seen DrVsDaleks? It has a fantastic opening screen with K-9 driving along the bottom and a pretty good chip tune version of the Doctor Who theme. Also, when you get ready to start a level, Davros says 'You will not succeed' and it sounds just like him. It's a little weird that the Doctor is shooting Daleks, but I think it's a mod or hack of Atari's version of Robotron which is a fun game too. The Daleks look a lot like Daleks and you can kinda imagine that the Doctor looks like he does when he wears a hat like the 4th, 5th and 6th Doctors sometimes did.

[@Wasabialt]

Amazing content!

[@tacoman6697]

To be fair to Frosty 2, it's not even bigger than the biggest official 2600 game.

[@Retrogamingmaverick]

Fatal Run is a good game but the game itself looks basic but has a ton of mechanics.

[@mikecronis]

StarFire was an accurate arcade port by Exidy.

[@maddumass]

They could've used the super charger add on to improve Star fire and other games.

[@PONTOCRITICO]

Great list!

[@kevin12567]

Doodle Jump also doesn't let you fall back down, so Amoeba Jump is accurate to that game. In Oystron, for each row you fill with pearls (blue blocks), you get a bomb; your ship can hold up to six. When the bar fills up, a warp phase begins and Oystron will show up, which you use the bombs to blow up for bonus points.

[@BrainSlugs83]

RE: "Is the Atari 4-bit?" The Atari 2600 (VCS) is an 8-bit 6502 based system (the same CPU that's in the NES). Graphics and sound are not a useful indicator of the "bitness" of the system. RE: "Normal games were about 8k in size." Most Atari games were not even close to 8k. 4k was considered huge and expensive. It wasn't until much later in the Atari's life cycle (or death cycle) that we started to see the larger 8k ROMs. The common ROM size was about 2k at launch. (Note: were taking about kibi-bytes here [kiB]; if you see kibi-bits, or kilo-bits, [kiB or kB], you need to divide those sizes by 8.)

[@cootmaster]

the gunslinger is like a better outlaw, land spaceship reminds me of skydiver

[@curlyflipper2020]

This is awesome

[@planetsynth4799]

Starfire is an arcade conversion. It didnt have Tie Fighter sounds.

[@greybush38]

Some folk are just to young to understand!

[@planetsynth4799]

@@greybush38 I'm pretty sure Exidy was cashing in on Star Wars though. I remember playing the sit-down version at a mall arcade back in the late 70s.

[@CaptainJack1]

Lol it all comes full circle then, and yeah I didn't realize the history of Star Fire when I made this video.

[@mikebell2112]

Stay Frosty 2 music sounds like some sort of sample playback is going on.

[@CaptainJack1]

Just learned that the advanced audio was made possible by extra hardware within the cart!

[@lostfan5054]

This is so cool!!

[@Asterra2]

I didn't know about the Star Fire homebrew. That was actually an arcade game, so the homebrew would be a port of said. I saw it many times in skating rinks, but was so young back then that the only reason I even remember it is because of the fact that it blatantly took inspiration from Star Wars (enough that they probably risked getting sued). I don't think it was all that successful even as an arcade game. Crazy Balloon was also an arcade game. One of those games that was probably super simplistic even when it was released, and I've wondered how it managed to be an apparent success despite its low-tech presentation. Pac-Man 4K is not the best version of Pac-Man on Atari. (It actually seems like a hack of Ms. Pac-Man.) That would be Pac-Man 8K, which, somewhat amazingly, manages to sound just like the arcade machine when you eat a power pellet. L.E.M. is clearly a homebrew of Atari's own arcade game Lunar Lander. The most technically impressive homebrew games I've seen on the 2600 are: Aardvark (homebrew of Anteater), Draconian (homebrew of Bosconian), Ladybug, and Mappy. All four of these manage to be genuinely respectable ports of their arcade counterparts. They all have perfect gameplay. Draconian has the digital voices. Ladybug even sounds extremely close to the arcade original. And Mappy? Well, it's nothing less than the most technically impressive game ever created for the 2600.

[@sprybug]

Thanks for putting my 2 homebrews in there (Zippy and Princess Rescue), and I do pretty much agree with your assessment. Princess Rescue was a passion project of mine. After that was finished I took on Zippy and advanced the engine that I had made for Princess Rescue, which also allowed for bigger and longer levels. It was a big challenge and I did the best that I could do with it. You're not going to get a true Sonic game on the 2600 and for me it was more of an experiment. After these two, I decided to make my own homebrew, which went through many changes over the years I worked on it. Even started over from scratch 3 or 4 times, trying many different methods. I'm satisfied with what's come from it, however it wasn't everything I really wanted it to be. It's called Robot Zed and is coming out this year at AtariAge. :)

[@CaptainJack1]

Wow! Princess Rescue and Zippy were both very technically impressive. I'm definitely gotta take a look at Robot Zed.

[@AngelusDlion]

I actually grew up with the guy who programmed Princess REscue...

[@sprybug]

Oh yeah? I'd ask who you are, but this being the Internet and all. Uh, maybe a hint?

[@black-galaxy]

I dated his sister for a few months.

[@roadkill_52]

5:05 atari 2600 is also 8-bit, it's weird but it is what it is

[@Hawkeye26]

2:10 Star Fire might be an homage to the game shown in the arcade from the Disney film "Midnight Madness" starring Stephen Furst and featuring Michael J. Fox in his debut role (and Paul Reubens in a rare cameo).

[@d.vaughn8990]

I never saw “Midnight Madness”. Just in case you weren’t aware (no insult intended), Starfire is an actual arcade game, made by Exidy bitd.

[@Hawkeye26]

@@d.vaughn8990 Good to know, ty.

[@PianoMan-hx3ev]

The developers grossly underestimated the Atari 2600’s power. How could they not know that?

[@generalzod7959]

Star fire was an arcade game I believe by exidy and the 2600 homebrew version does about as good a job as it can with the substantial limitations of the system.

[@kismetsfursec]

The bunny jumping on bells game is almost exactly like an old Flash game! It was called "Winterbells" and you can find it in the Orisinal compilation! It's probably ported to mobile too, but it's really awesome to see someone port it to such a limited system! The lunar probw lander also seems familiar but to me, the game is lost to time...

[@TheBlindDyslexic]

A lot of companies in order to Skirt the 3 Titles only limitation, would relabel their company as something else.

[@alkohallick2901]

Star Fire is an arcade game.

[@notyetskeletal4809]

These games look really good. Too good. I just went back to realise my Atari, Starwars and other cool toys got thrown away when my mother and I snuck out of her boyfriends place. He died a year later.

[@algrundau9441]

BEST Atari 2600 3-d game EVER....."Escape From The Mind Master"...it requires the Arcadia SuperCharger, But it is amazing. Communist Mutants From Space Is another awesome game from them.....That name alone is worth the price......haha.

[@randalfox7773]

I would add. Colony 7. Doggone it! Ms Galactapus. Dragon Decent.

[@burgerthief5333]

Is there any bubble bobble homebrews on the 2600, also I'd like to see a newer take on missile command

[@Arcad3n]

Where does the music in this video come from??

[@CaptainJack1]

Pokemon Gold and SIlver - Game Corner

[@cootmaster]

that plane thing like canyon bomber

[@johnp893]

Crazy Balloon is a remake of an original arcade game.

[@biffschlaffley7847]

Yes,produced by Taito in 1981

[@random_precision_software]

What hardware did they use to develop the games?

[@nicograciano797]

El famicom/nes es POR LEJOS la consola con mas juegos pirata o homebrew

[@PaulBarraclough]

Crazy Balloon is an old arcade game. Great video though.

[@daviddavies3637]

Oh dear. You never played Exidy's Starfire in the arcades? That's what the homebrew's based on. A very simple game but it's one I remember putting plenty of money into.

[@CaptainJack1]

Didn't know at the time but it sure is based on that. Never had the chance to play it in the arcades as they basically didn't exist by the time I rolled around ː)

[@fardouxthierry9173]

Very good 👍

[@cootmaster]

gunfight like outlaw

[@marcospadis]

Warlords is one of the best Atari games.

[@markbalaam9542]

You ought to look at the 8-bit home computer homebre scene. There are hundreds of them (games, that is).

[@CaptainJack1]

Interesting. Like C64? Which would you start with?

[@Tedris4]

@@CaptainJack1 8 months late but I'd recommend the Sinclair ZX Spectrum - legendary for creating most of the bedroom programmers in the UK and Europe, with people making hundreds of games to this day. Even the unofficial mascot of the system Dizzy The Egg got a new 8th mainline game in 2020! Part of that is the low price - you could get 2 48k Spectrums for the price of a C64, with £50 to spare. 3 and change if you went with the 16k version. Another was that the bedroom coder scene was so low-budget that some games were published in local shops as the source code that you'd punch in manually, which led to a lot of people learning to code from that. Of course the games were a lot smaller and less intimidating, and channels like the BBC would air educational material that taught coding to youths back in that era. I'd watch a few Kim Justice videos on it to gain bearings, she actually grew up with the thing and has plenty of vids detailing the best and worst games, as well as some of the homebrew scene.

[@CaptainJack1]

@@Tedris4 Thanks! I'll look into it, I'll definitely have to start from the basics as in the US the NES basically dominated the 80's with no competition so I have very little experience with computers like the ZX Spectrum or the Amstrad.

[@annwatts7002]

SuperMan for the Atari 2600 is the BEST. I'd like to try to make different SuperMan games that work like SuperMan. when you go up or down out of the screen you go to different places in the 21 screen city's go back & forth you go though the city's in order. go into a phone both you go to the Subway. press the button then move the joystick to see the next screen in all 4 sides its called Xray vision. today is 3-26-22

[@pcjohn0308]

You've obviously never seen the real Star Fire game. The 2600 port is actually quite good and Star Fire came out several years before the Star Wars 3D game.

[@kurtmager1626]

Star Fire wasn't a Star Wars game. Rather it was an adaptation of the Exidy arcade game of the same name.

[@Cybercabra]

SOMEBODY GET THIS FREAKIN DUCK AWAY FROM ME 3:59

[@McLovin_2007]

Atari 2600 is an 8 bit console. Same for the 5200 and 7800.

[@chzzyg2698]

Anyone know how to get an Atari emulator to work on a Gameboy 3ds?

[@CaptainJack1]

You may have to jailbreak it first

[@LunaticEdit]

Atari 2600 had almost the exactly same CPU has the NES, the 8-bit 6502 CPU. Same CPU that powered the Apple][ and half of the early 80s computers.

[@CaptainJack1]

Thanks for the feedback! A few weeks ago I looked into it and understand now that the 6507 used in the Atari wasn't that different that the NES's CPU, the difference in graphical quality came down to the NES having a dedicated graphic chip (PPU) and the fact that the NES actually had Video RAM (2k) and had 16 times the RAM of the 2600.

[@LunaticEdit]

@@CaptainJack1 Yeah the biggest issue with the Atari is that you literally had to 'race the beam'. You could theoretically damage your TV set if your code was wrong enough!

[@CaptainJack1]

That's interesting.... And yeah it appears you read that same book lol.

[@missteachbytouch8623]

Space Rocks

[@CaptainJack1]

I suppose It does

[@anthonycaban738]

What's the name of the Amoeba Jump style game with the Bunny?

[@CaptainJack1]

I said "Doodle Jump clone" because Doodle Jump is the most popular game in that microgenre.

[@CaptainJack1]

Misunderstood the question, its Bell Hopper.

[@anthonycaban738]

Thank you!

[@PatRollins]

where can I download those games from

[@CaptainJack1]

Various romsets have these (Cylum's set has them) a list of homebrew for the Atari can be found at atariage.com

[@joshuaharper4439]

Where can I find these games for the Atari 2600 thanks for any info

[@CaptainJack1]

If you just want the .bin files you could search at atariage.com Also Cylum's romsets usually have older homebrew in them (most the homebrew here in this video is older).

[@logipilot]

How do i get these games?

[@avabethmcghee3048]

Didn't have a computer growing up, huh? MS-DOS was lousy with Rush Hour clones.

[@CaptainJack1]

I did, but played mostly Zoo Tycoon 2, Star Wars Battlefront... I may be younger than you realize.

[@avabethmcghee3048]

@@CaptainJack1 My first console was the Coleco Gemini.. basically an Atari 2600 clone sold by Sears-Roebuck. Got it in 1985. I was six. I tend to assume that anyone who loves Atari is from my age group.

[@CaptainJack1]

@@avabethmcghee3048 Nice! Yeah, I may be a bit of an outlier.

[@theironfox2756]

Computers, including consoles, start at 8 bit.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

That crap is really hard to program. You have to call and redraw every line one by one.

[@fastfams]

Oystron is kind of a Fortnite for Atari 2600!

[@Boswd]

Interesting. No pac man. 4K or 8k on the list.

[@CaptainJack1]

lol kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4anZ6l6iL6ai7s

[@Boswd]

@@CaptainJack1 that's funny the irony is the one you just linked was getting ready to auto play . Should have been a bit more patient.

[@GORF_EMPIRE]

The 2600 is and always will be the greatest video game machine of all time.... NVIDIA GPU's? meh

[@plisskensghost2951]

I'm an Amstrad man and even i know the C64 homebrew scene beats this hands down.

[@CaptainJack1]

I'll have to look into it, most of these systems are much older than me so I am retroactively discovering them lol.

[@davidmacphee8348]

THe Original controllers were SO FUN! What's up with all this Homebrew Atari stuff? I wrote hundreds of great Atari games. The only way to share them back then was buying cases of beer or letting my kids check them out. A lot of my best stuff, nobody saw. The whole shebang got left behind in a move. There was no damn internet and the computer stuff cost a fortune/ You mean I could be rich now, if we kept it all? Damn!

[@michaelmclaughlin4889]

Atari is 8-bit it’s just very low powered 8-bit

[@po1sonseede9001]

1984

[@greybush38]

If you posted this 1 month ago, your slow bro. There are so many better homebrew games then the ones on your video! Two words bro, Atari age.

[@CaptainJack1]

I have a sequel to this video in the works and most if not all the games in that one are less than 3 years old.

[@po1sonseede9001]

WHY CANT I COMMENT ON ANYTHING WHAT

[@hanselmanryanjames]

I would estimate there is about 1000 clones of that car sliding around game on the Google play store. Idk if you just don't play mobile games or what? But that game has been copied so many times its disgusting.

[@CaptainJack1]

Lol, I guess I don't keep up on mobile games. It does seem like the type of game to be fodder for cheap mobile crap.