The origins of Dropzone by Archer Maclean and how it all started

In memory of Archer Maclean - 28 January 1962 - 17 December 2022.
Our second Christmas update sees a hugely important discovery from the disks of the late Archer Maclean. Before Dropzone, there were almost conversions of both Defender + Stargate for the #Atari. This video talks through the discoveries and how it all eventually built up and led to Dropzone in the end. Strange to think that had Stargate been taken on, Dropzone may never have existed! #Atari
See and play the prototypes for yourself too:
www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/...
With huge thanks to Chris Wilkins (Fusion Retro Books) - fusionretrobooks.com/
Alan Hammerton for hardware help
Mat Allen for the flippy PC drive loan
Ashley Hogg for assistance in looking at one of the prototypes
Bertrand / Atari Frog for guidance and help with tools and formats.

[@Flashback-Gamer]

Remarkable insight to one of the beat shooters on the Atari 8bit and C64. This was incredible. Thank you all for this amazing preservation of the origins of DropZone. R..I.P. Archer.

[@FusionMagazine]

Great work Frank - will show Archer's brothers this...

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thanks Chris - and thanks for allowing us to preserve Archer's work. Been amazing to go through.

[@jameslucas3161]

Dropzone was incredible back in the day! It was a fantastic demonstration of my old 800XL's abilities. RIP, Archer!

[@Cafeman_2D]

Pretty impressive demo of Defender, very smooth frame rate. Thanks for the show!

[@alanbenson1505]

Archer's games were one of the reasons I started programming 6502 on the c64.

[@JeremyRiley]

Really great showcase, analysis and history that explains just why Dropzone so heavily leveraged Jarvis' two arcade masterpieces. Thanks and RIP Archer.

[@SidneyJamesXBL]

Amazing! I have got this bookmarked to watch this evening, can't wait!

[@FREEZE64UK]

Fantastic! Great video buddy. Thank you for sharing it 😊🙏

[@Dkentflyer]

One my all time favourite Atari 8 bit games, fiendishly hard but rewarding and still play it all these years later. Thank you for showing us these demos fascinating stuff.

[@theimp67]

That was incredibly interesting. The early BASIC 'experiments' were fascinating and I'm looking forward to having a look at those in more detail on the website. Super video, I really enjoyed it.

[@boostermcblast2197]

That's huge! I've always wished a Defender with Dropzone mechanics. Would be great if we have a fully playable version soon.

[@merman1974]

A fascinating discovery, and so interesting to see those prototypes.

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thanks Andrew! :)

[@gearsofgames]

Very interesting watch! Thank you for sharing these pieces of gaming history! 😀

[@Mayhemerz]

Happy to help in some way 😊

[@GamesThatWerent]

In many ways Mat! It was crucially your PC Drive that did the backing up :)

[@Midwinter2]

An outstanding video! So sorry to hear that Archer Maclean has died. He made brilliant games. I bought Dropzone for my C64. Cost £10! My brother and I went halves. It was amazing: great graphics and animation; great sounds; blazingly fast and smooth - and the explosions were beautifully done with particles flying all over the place. Above all, it was extremely playable and great fun! RIP Archer Mclean Note: I remember Archer Maclean did a Programmer's diary as he developed the C64 version - I think it was published in ZZap 64!

[@geekconnoisseur]

Absolutely blown away by the incredible insight into one of the best shooters on the Atari 8-bit. I've shared this with our Retro Gamers Hub community on Facebook.

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thank you @geekconnoisseur - I'm really glad you liked it and it was a lot of fun doing the recovery work and then piecing the jigsaw pieces together. Thank you very much for sharing it with the Retro Gamers Hub community - much appreciated! :)

[@retrotap]

Excellent work, thanks for sharing

[@Shawnsteroz]

Very fascinating. I really like the historical side of these games and their backstories. Archer was a talented programmer, and just a tad unlucky in this instance.

[@TheLostSquadron]

Great video! I played this WAY back then on my 130xe, downloaded off some sketchy BBS. I had no idea this actually could have become Defender/Stargate on the Atari computers. Atari's own port was solid, but very easy and nowhere near as smooth as Dropzone.

[@DrewPee70]

Great video guys - many thanks. :)

[@philsan69]

Awesome find, thanks!

[@mmille10]

I enjoyed the concept of this game, really trying to capture some aspects of the arcade Defender. The animation was so smooth. I wished there was a "difficulty" setting, because I always felt like the game was too hard. It was way too easy to run into something by accident, and blow up. I recognize the technique of using Basic experiments to test ideas for use in assembly. I've done the same thing, sometimes.

[@ScottithGames]

Excellent job, Frank. These newly archived prototypes truly underscore what a loss it was to gamers that Atari didn't have Archer do both Defender and Stargate. While Steve Baker's Defender looks and sounds great, it's stuck in 1st gear as far as the speed it runs (and his existing Stargate prototype is even worse).

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thanks @ScottithGames - it's staggering what Archer achieved so early on in his Atari days, no wonder Atari USA were trying to sign him up. As others have suggested, I agree that in a way that it's good that it didn't happen - as otherwise we wouldn't have had Dropzone, maybe even IK and IK+ and more as well had Archer gone to the US.

[@sarkycutt9611]

Very good ❤️

[@IntoTheVerticalBlank]

This is an amazing find, and a very well done examination! You guys are rock stars!

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thank you, that's very kind and glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Mind absolutely blown, will be viewing in full later today, sharing link as and where I can.

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thank very much! :)

[@StooCambridgeArtist]

Staggeringly good video! Well done to all associated with making this possible. Top stuff!

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thanks Stoo! :)

[@bradroberts4202]

Id love to see prototype stuff for ik 1 & 2 😎✅

[@GamesThatWerent]

Here's one we did for some C64 IK 1 and 2 materials: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lXLRq4Vufbh2a7s

[@mattsephton]

Awesome

[@daniellomblock6216]

Amazing find and history behind the game! Great video!

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thank you! Very kind of you :)

[@david8720]

Great video. I had both Defender and Dropzone on my Atari, but played Dropzone more as it was so smooth. A much higher level technical achievement. What's going to happen to Archer's source code? Is it ever going to be made available? I'm sure there are retro Atari programmers who would love to see how such a complete and polished game is put together.

[@GamesThatWerent]

No problem and glad you enjoyed it. Regarding source code - eventually it will go into a non-public digital archive for posterity (with whom, not yet decided). Releasing the source code publicly is tricky due to the copyrights involved - it's probably not going to be allowed to be fair, though once everything is preserved then there will be discussions on where things will live. Focus for now is just on getting all the old media backed up and the data safe.

[@david8720]

@@GamesThatWerent Totally understandable. Thanks for putting this together, it was a great watch - can't wait to try the executables.

[@whatamalike]

This is a very good demonstration of the difference between basic and assembly. As the name implies, assembly is where you ASSEMBLE the game and his assets/mechanics together. Basic being the perfect testbed for individual design elements.

[@boostermcblast2197]

Can sombody please estimate how hard it is to make a fully playable Defender out of the existing puzzle pieces? Will it happen?

[@sulrich70]

It was good luck they rejected it - or we would never have drop one, far superior in every way

[@GamesThatWerent]

Completely agree - in many ways it was lucky that Atari didn't take either on. History could have been very different indeed.

[@boostermcblast2197]

Sorry, I cannot agree. Arcade Defender is such a great game and I alway dreamed of an Atari version with Dropzone mechanics. Dropzone is good but I never liked the hero sprite and the graphics are...kind of too much. Defender still is the real thing. An abstract masterpiece of firework.@@GamesThatWerent

[@kodiak64]

Such an interesting video, but the volume is agonisingly low. I had to use the auto generated subtitles to follow it.

[@GamesThatWerent]

Thanks @Kodiak64 and will note that for next time. I need to invest in a proper audio mic at some point.

[@kodiak64]

@@GamesThatWerent It was a truly amazing video, though. Shame he never made the Dropzone 2 he mentioned elsewhere.

[@Foebane72]

I don't get why Archer Maclean was trying to get Defender on Atari 8-Bit when there was ALREADY A GREAT PORT OF DEFENDER on it already! I much prefer that port to Dropzone, believe you me!

[@christo930]

I'd like to know whatever possessed him to put that big dumb astronaut in the game and not some kind of ship.

[@zachary5683]

💐 Promo`SM

[@chris101gray3]

This game was nothing more than a complete knock off of Williams Defender. Digital Plaigarism.

[@thefurthestmanfromhome1148]

Many people did Defender inspired games, Jeff Minter most notably, but then you've likes of Anarchy, StarRay on the ST and Amiga. Coding teams like Thalion, Core Design, Bitmap Bros producing games heavily inspired by their favourite Arcade games.

[@mikewest6569]

Defender was much better than Drop zone. The character was too large for the screen, completely overrated.

[@jameslucas3161]

Rubbish

[@mikewest6569]

@@jameslucas3161 garbage