TuesDog

Space Chase!

I love PICO-8! It has been a huge help for me as an educational tool while learning to program and continues to inspire creativity in me when I see how people are pushing the virtual console to the limits! I also love retro video games. Things like the Atari 2600 games, Sega Megadrive, NES and SNES, Gameboy, oldschool PC games on early Windows machines, etc… PICO-8 scratches that itch perfectly! No need for owning oldschool hardware (although that would be sick!) and no need for writing games in oldschool languages like BASIC, or more terrifying, Machine Code! 😨

I have had the idea of making an Atari style game for PICO-8 for a while now, I just wasn’t sure which game to try and clone, or what sort of original game to try and build. One night I was playing a bunch of Atari 2600 games and stumbled across Space Chase by Apollo. It’s basically a Space Invaders or Galaga style shooter, but it has some really cool scrolling terrain and a bunch of game modes that sort of make sense (a lot of Atari games have 40 game modes, but half of them are just 2 player and the rest are garbage or make no sense…).

After seeing these wicked scrolling backgrounds I wanted to make the game in PICO-8. Mainly to see the background effect… BUT I ended up sticking with the idea and tried to make an exact clone/port of the game. The stiff movement mechanics, the strange colour glitches from the limited Atari palette, the crunchy sound effects, and even the strange black lines on the left side of the screen that a lot of Atari games have was carefully built in PICO-8. I was amazed at how close I feel I got to the original version in my demake(?)!

While on this programming adventure I researched about the game and the studio that created it. I managed to find some amazing videos and artwork from back in the day that had lovingly been archived online! It was very interesting seeing what peoples attitude toward gaming and game development was back then! In the video all the devs are running Atari (or similar) computers into these gigantic CRT TVs and sitting them on top of huge desks. Nowadays, developers use multiple flat monitors, mechanical keyboards, and huge, powerful PCs filled with RGB LEDs. What a contrast! I remember seeing Playstation 2 graphics for the first time and thinking that this is as realistic as things could ever get! Games looked REAL… Boy, have things changed since then!

Here’s a link to play my PICO-8 Space Chase clone!

Here’s where you can play the original Space Chase online.

and here’s a link to the great archived information I found about the game. Definitely an interesting read/watch.

I started working on another game, Chase the Chuck Wagon, because it has a doggie as the main character! But the mazes don’t quite work when translated to a square display instead of a rectangular one from the original. I might come back to it sometime and create my own mazes or something, but it changes a lot of the mechanics and pacing of the game. Maybe a different game, or an original game in the Atari style would be a better next project.

Anyways, I enjoyed making this a loooot! And I managed to pace myself and complete a personal project without getting bored or burning out before I finished! That is an ADHD hurdle that I managed to conquer and I am going to celebrate it! 😁

Speak later! 👉😎👉