Re: [stella] lots of things added to rescue.bin

Subject: Re: [stella] lots of things added to rescue.bin
From: Robin Harbron <robinh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 16:32:21 -0400
Greg Troutman wrote:

> > The asteroids seem to be slower when the lander sits on one of the platforms.
> >
> > The Asteroid formation seems to be the same in the beginning of every new
> > game. Is this intentional?
> 
> Both the above are intentional.  That's how the original arcade game
> worked.

This brings up an interesting dilema:  When reprogramming, or porting
a game from one platform to another, what stays, and what goes?  Is
the playability the most important thing to reproduce?  What do we
do with people's suggestions, when they're not familiar with the
original?

I recently made Frogs and Flies for the C64 - the 2600 version being
a favourite that my wife and I play.  I am quite happy with my
conversion... I changed a two things (besides the graphics, of course):
Flies were worth 2 points each, but I thought that was silly, as
there was no way to earn 1 point or 3 points at a time.  I changed
it to 1 point per fly.  Also, I always thought that when the frogs
fell in the water, they swam back out too quickly - there was very
little penalty to missing the lily pads.  So I made them swim
slower.

What do you folks think about these issues?  Now, I'm starting to
port a C64 game of mine to the 2600, and I'm interested in people's
design philosophies - what's the most important part of a game?

Robin Harbron

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