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Post by Papa Smurf on Dec 1, 2004 22:45:22 GMT -5
Why wasn't California Games included "as-is"? I know Eagle Soft cracked the game (I had both the legal Epyx copy and the Eagle Soft one). The Eagle Soft version fit onto three disk sides (not two like the copy-protected one) so I would assume the ES version is somewhat "dumpable" - why not include the whole game on the DTV, instead of chopping it up? Papa Smurf www.bluebuddies.com
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Post by Jeff Ledger on Dec 5, 2004 17:55:58 GMT -5
For the record....
From "WOC" -- Paraphrased From the designer's lips....
(The DTV originally had breakouts of the "games" series for many of it's games. While this would have satisfied the people who are selling the unit, the designers, (plural) were unhappy with this, and set out on a massive overhaul of the system. (Many long hours in a short time because of intense deadlines and demands.) They in fact got many of the games we now see in the menu within the last weeks before releasing it to M.T.) It appears that they left many of the original games in the disk, while presenting a better product to all.
To those of you who are complaining about the DTV: If you knew the full story about the production of the DTV, the endless road blocks, and reworks due to enginneers in china who only think about saving a penny. You would understand that the efforts involved DO NOT deserve your criticism. period.
Sorry if I'm a little strong here, but I'm one of a few who have taken the time, and effort to find out the whole story. (Including driving 12 hours)
Jeff
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Post by BlueBuddies.com on Dec 6, 2004 2:25:27 GMT -5
(The DTV originally had breakouts of the "games" series for many of it's games. While this would have satisfied the people who are selling the unit, the designers, (plural) were unhappy with this, and set out on a massive overhaul of the system. (Many long hours in a short time because of intense deadlines and demands.) They in fact got many of the games we now see in the menu within the last weeks before releasing it to M.T.) It appears that they left many of the original games in the disk, while presenting a better product to all. Hi Jeff, Thanks for the response. I'm not completely clear on all of it though. What exactly are "breakouts" of the games series? Are they the "standalone" events removed from California Games, Winter Games, et al? Did Commodore (not the design team) simply want these hacked-up standalone events to make up the majority of the programs on the DTV? So I am going to guess that the design team was unhappy at a "standalone events"-only DTV and then decided to include more games to improve the overall product. So why then was Commodore so set on cutting-up (what most people remember) as a single product? I, for one, remember California Games as a "single entity". It seems to be so illogical. What was the rationale of Commodore? The reason I am so interested is because I work in both the marketing and technical industry - my experience with management decisions tells me that Commodore would simply ask for "California Games", and that the "programming/development" team would be the ones responsible for explaining that C.G. could be/must be cut-up into different parts. If the development team told Commodore that California Games could not be split apart, I firmly believe they would have accepted that. Because the development team controls the technical information, they ultimately can control the direction of the product (by saying something is "impossible" or "possible"). Then, either the whole "California Games" program would have been included on the DTV, or not. Wouldn't that have been a better idea in the end? Or are people happy with the "standalone events"? Some actual details from the actual people involved would make me such a happy Smurf... Thanks, Papa Smurf bluebuddies.com
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Post by NetSamurai on Dec 6, 2004 5:32:06 GMT -5
You could also look at it this way: There is only 2MB of storage total. Some of which is probably taken up by the firmware and most definitely the menu system, the keyboard driver, etc.. Remember each floppy worth is 180KB, which means about 11-12 floppies.
If that 2MB was the technical/economical limit, the team had to cram as much in there as they could, which would mean that they probably HAD to exclude certian events to be able to allow for a more variety of games.
Not in the development loops, so I am just guessing.
Scott McDonnell
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Post by MagerValp on Dec 6, 2004 7:26:37 GMT -5
Considering how many easter eggs we managed to fit in there, it's safe to assume that the ROM isn't full. What we really lacked was time. Me and Mark were brought in the last week to bring the game count up to 30, since there was no way Robin and Adrian would have be able to do it on their own.
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Post by Robin Harbron on Dec 6, 2004 10:55:37 GMT -5
There is a sad precedent in other "tv game" units to count seperate levels as individual games. The very first one I bought, which was about 5 years ago (and NES based) had levels 1, 2 and 3 of a racing game broken out with seperate titles - there wasn't even really any variety between them The Atari 2600 marketing team was even guilty of this sometimes - 112 games on on Space Invaders cartridge! Later they got called on this, and called them "variations". Anyway, time was the biggest factor - though the ROM is nearly full, and to put all of California Games on there would probably require something else being dropped now.
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Post by BlueBuddies.com on Dec 7, 2004 23:47:20 GMT -5
Me and Mark were brought in the last week to bring the game count up to 30, since there was no way Robin and Adrian would have be able to do it on their own. Thanks for responding guys. MagerValp, if you don't mind, can you tell us what games you added? What games were present when you arrived on the project? Was there any discussion of splitting-up California Games (ie, why it was done). Any elucidation at all will help! Thanks. Papa Smurf bluebuddies.com/
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Post by MagerValp on Dec 8, 2004 3:12:56 GMT -5
I worked on Championship Wrestling, Eliminator, Firelord, Head the Ball, Pitstop, Rana Rama, Silicon Warrior, World Karate Championship, and Zynaps. As you can see, not all games made it.
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