Boulder Dash ® - Atari 2600

[@ScottLahteine]

Would've sold a million in 1982!

[@leandrodfcorreia2]

Indeed. Assuming that a 32 Kbytes of RAM + 16 Kbytes of RAM cartridge could be cheap in 1982. ;)

[@dave4shmups]

WHAT an incredible piece of programming!! I love the 2600, and this looks and sounds awesome! I mean, they even got the First Star Software logo in!!

[@Christianpreaching]

Theres no doubt that a lot of these homebrews that are coming out today (including this one) are way better than the original release of games. This is because when someone is left alone to take their time and create something for fun, they can be creative and do what they want. But when there just at their job doing what their stupid boss wants they cant get things done as good.

[@yandman26]

Ahh man that music sounds so good after 25 years

[@JustAFilmGuy]

I had no idea an Atari was capable of a game of this magnitude! Great job.

[@Bartheek_Wojciechowski]

One word: Wow! 😲 I didn't think it was at all possible to port this game to the Atari 2600.

[@djkokki]

Amazing, considering the limitations of 2600.

[@bernhardwall6876]

I would like to make homebrews that looks like the games that we saw during the original days of the 2600. Most of the time, they didn't look anything like the arcade games, but we enjoyed playing them.

[@SNARC15]

Just goes to show what a little dedication does to make an amazing conversion to the 2600. Did we ever see this happening back before the crash?

[@Longuncattr]

Based on the sound, it's almost certainly done by very quickly twiddling the volume of a silent "waveform" the TIA chip produces. Basically the same way sampled sounds were played on old home computers like the Commodore 64.

[@videogamechecker1568]

This grafic and this gameplay is a real masterwork for the atari 2600. I have bought it at atariage.com

[@carm3d]

Speechless. That was amazing.

[@allanmailer4427]

Great conversion, the sound effects are spot on.

[@onlysublime]

I can't believe they got this to work on a 2600! great job! *thumbs up*

[@lurkerrekrul]

I can sympathize. :) I used to draw diagrams and such on the C64 with Doodle and it was always a struggle to create small symbols using just a few pixels. It's very impressive that you were able to faithfully recreate BD on the 2600. Now you need to make a version for the Supercharger that can load levels created with the BD Construction Kit. ;)

[@MXRetroDev]

FANTASTIC VERSION! Incredible. Greetings from Brazil.

[@leandrodfcorreia2]

IIRC the Atari 2600 VCS had 128 BYTES for variables. Of course it can use extra cartridge memory (I bet this ROM has at least 16 Kbytes) and read the ROM data for each stage. But the map is constantly changing, so it'd need a lot of RAM data. The guys who programmed that are pretty good. Edit: Programmers are good. But they cheated a little. "In order for BD2600 to work, the programmers developed for a cartridge supporting 32KB of ROM and 16KB of RAM. A typical 2600 cartridge only has 2KB or 4KB of ROM (and no RAM), which is the limit of memory addressable by the cartridge slot without extra hardware. Even many homebrew carts do not have more than 4KB. The bankswitching method Boulder Dash uses (3E) can support up to 512KB of ROM and 256KB of RAM, although one can only try to imagine what kind of game playable on the 2600 would really require so much memory. " nerdlypleasures.blogspot.com.br/2016/08/boulder-dash-on-atari-2600-beginning-or.html

[@MrExasperation]

I wouldn't say it's "cheating" exactly, since commercial cartridges during the height of the VCS came with up to 32 KB of ROM and sometimes an extra 2 KB of RAM. It is more RAM than any cart during the day had though.

[@coffee115]

The Atari was built with this kind of expansion in mind. I wouldn't call it cheating.

[@RETROGAMESeurope]

Un gioco incredibile per l'atari 2600, attualmente uno dei migliori!

[@jeanuthenext]

I am liking the looks of this despite the rather minimal sound. :)

[@lurkerrekrul]

Looks very nice, although the asymmetrical diamonds look weird.

[@brucetungsten5714]

Great work!

[@Adamchevy]

I cant wait to play this! This looks like a lot of fun.

[@antdude]

Wow!

[@Meloku171]

This game defined my childhood! Now if you please make a remake of THIS instead of all the new ones that don't come even near to capture the charm of the original...

[@SendyTheEndless]

How did they get actual music from the 2600? That thing has like 2 pitches per octave right? Pretty amazing.

[@Hologhoul]

Excellent!

[@DanielIvanovDecsev]

a game ported by genius programmers and made available in 128 byte ram!

[@keoni29]

Still gotta find an eprom burner.

[@Alaska1925]

amazing!!! too bad they didn't made it in the 80's :(

[@rowboat10]

it has more memory than an NES cartridge though, so it wouldn't have been cheap

[@mstuomel]

Wow. Awesome.

[@Kafei2006]

That's quite the technical achievement, but the choppy scrolling (which might not be a scrolling at all, more like a redrawing, I expect), gives me a headache just from looking at it

[@john2001plus]

There isn't enough memory on the 2600 to do this, unless there is RAM on the cartridge.

[@Longuncattr]

Is that you, Thomas Jentzsch?

[@Longuncattr]

Haha, I see. (Splatform is awesome!)

[@x-rayed7066]

best game ever

[@lurkerrekrul]

Impressive, although not being a collector, there's no way I'm going to pay $75 for a game I've already played on other platforms.

[@keeperofthelostpipe]

any chance this will have a re-release??

[@Jones5121]

playfield graphics go brrrrr (this is excellent though)

[@Robots0verHumans]

Can I order this anywhere or all gone ? O_O

[@LifeIsGay1]

I know right! I want one

[@HasanAli-tu5rt]

Copyright MCMLXXXIV

[@eng3d]

It doesn't look viable. With 128 bytes of ram, I don't know how is it possible (without adding ram to the cartridge). Never mind, it added more ram to the cartridge.

[@KRaulfPB]

Naja, das Spielprinzip ist ja 1:1 übernommen. Der Grafik kann ich sehr wenig abgewinnen, aber geht beim Atari-2600-System wohl auch nicht besser.

[@uzi9millimetuh]

Price of $80 is ridiculous

[@10p6]

Personally I think 35 years on the game does not look or sound that great, especially compared to some other games of years gone past. Plus $81 is more Atariage extortion.