Robotron developer Eugene Jarvis interview

[@spazkong]

His own game owns him. How cool is that?! The one button flap was equally difficult. The two joystick Robotron was a mind bender. All challenging stuff from THE greatest awkward games designer in the world. Space Invader Frenzy in point pay ticket mode is AMAZING!! Nice one Eugene. Even Manic Miner had the most difficult level named after you!! Eugene's Lair. Gold standard of gaming man. Ultimate respect

[@jburnett2000]

This is my favorite interview with Eugene. My programming hero!

[@ThunderFist1978]

Watching clips like this made me want to meet Eugene so badly. He just seemed like he be so much fun to sit down and talk with. I finally got my chance to meet him and Larry DeMar in 2015, and I’m happy to say the meeting was everything I hoped it would be.

[@SoftwareAgentsTV]

Got to talk to him briefly in 2019. He's a real wild card ha ha.

[@thomaspleacher2735]

This interview is delightful to watch.

[@power2084]

"Yeah, I will give up my Robotron, one day... when they pry my cold, dead hands off it" - Eugene Jarvis

[@bottomlessinkwell]

Excellent interview, played it for the first time as an adult tonight at I/O in Madison, Wisconsin

[@anthonybradley1555]

i still watch the interviews he did as well as larry demar on games such as robotron, stargate, blaster and defender from time to time , they never get old, i play it on the midway arcade treasures compilmation, shame they aren't on midway arcade origins though.

[@lechiffre5078]

That’s funny regarding grabbing the joysticks and shaking it all around. I tore the control panel off once. Endless thanks for creating this masterpiece. I still play it today on difficulty 10 and can swear at times that there is conspiracy going on in there somewhere, especially when I get treated like dirt.

[@isaachartford1535]

This man is everything we need today. As a dev and as a gamer.

[@perfectionbox]

my hero

[@BlackAnvil47]

Use to play the game when I was first stationed overseas on the island of Guam at the Macombo club

[@blakestewart7200]

I feel like this dude just sold me a Robotron machine.

[@markstephen9808]

I played so much of this game it's part of my soul.

[@RetroGamingNook]

I get that.

[@Druffmaul]

I had some video game magazine in 1982 or so with a Eugene Jarvis interview, in the photos he had long hippy hair and a ol' big biker mustache. Pretty sure it was pre-Robotron because the pages were sprinkled with Defender graphics and that was it.

[@RetroGamingNook]

Everyone in the early 80s still looked like they were in the 70s.🤣 I'll have to try to track down that mag to read it, sounds interesting. It would be cool if he mentioned his next project.

[@BlackAnvil47]

Everyday on I played that game 1982

[@streetfootball81]

so true. favorite game of all time. 3 million my high score before it blacked out. yea!!!

[@ThunderFist1978]

Actually, Eugene starts talking about Defender with the third segment.

[@ziraprod6090]

Yes... And at 9:20 he switches back to Robotron.

[@Druffmaul]

These are all of Jarvis's segments from the Williams Arcade Classics release in 1995 where each game had a few very short interview clips attached to it. Defender and Robotron were both part of the collection, so they each had their own clips. Whoever made this video simply stitched all of the Jarvis clips together.

[@lartrak]

Just saw him talk about the new Godzilla VR game he's working on at Midwest Gaming Classic. Still a delight to hear from. I wanted to ask him if he'd ever gotten a million in Robotron but didn't get picked!

[@RetroGamingNook]

I’m glad to hear he’s still creating games. It’s pretty cool you got to see him there. This guy is a legend!

[@moiquiregardevideo]

Yvan Girouard wanted to verify if the number of lives would reset to zero if reaching 256, as my reverse engineering of the 6809 firmware indicated. We went to that grocery store with paper and pen. That machine had intermittent joysticks and bonus set to 40k. We first saw the wave number reset to 0 when reaching 256, but the game was faster despite having less objects has usual for the first 40 waves. Yvan succeeded to reach 256 lives. My patient live counting on paper predicted when this would happen within 10 counts.

[@NoelComiX]

I loved this collection on my Saturn

[@RetroGamingNook]

It’s a solid bundle far back then. I have the PC version still and it plays great when mapping to my X-Arcade stick.

[@ThunderFist1978]

Eugene says about 7 minutes in that Pac-Man and Defender were predicted at the show to bomb and that Rally-X was going to be the top game of the show. Defender I saw around when I was a kid and Pac-Man, of course, was seen everywhere, while I never heard of Rally-X until I saw Namco Museum Vol. 1 at a local rental store in the mid to late 90s.

[@TheMojazz]

Where and how do I purchase this game now? I will pay anything. I have spent paychecks playing this game.

[@FrankHerfjord]

buy or build your own MAME cabinet. Google it.

[@NoelComiX]

Have this on Sega Saturn

[@deanchristian7774]

How did I get my C O R K ....SOAKED here.....????

[@aza1479]

I was happy I got 67k only been playing or a few days and on a crappy set up

[@RetroGamingNook]

It's such a great game for it's age!

[@aza1479]

@@RetroGamingNook yep I was born in 82😉