David Cranes 2600 Magic - Iphone App

[GameGavel]

Someone on Digital press wrote about this so I figured I would post it overhere. Checking it out now.

http://www.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=9017908

[GameGavel]

David Crane/Gary Kitchen form new Iphone Developer house:

http://www.appstargames.com/Home.html

[BydoEmpire73]

I picked up 2600 Magic and went through it over the weekend. It's basically an interactive Powerpoint presentation - an overview of doing graphics on the 2600. It talks in very general terms how the TIA and CPU worked together to do graphics, and how the 2600 compares to modern consoles. The app covers the sprites (P/M graphics) and the playfield, and the interactive parts let you tweak the simulated display by touching bits on and off, or moving a scanline down the display to see individual rows being drawn. Kind of neat!

I did learn a few things about 2600 graphics (like how the playfield registers worked), but not as much as I had hoped. For complete non-programmers, it does assume you know basic things like what registers and bits are. For programmers who only use Java, C# or other very high level languages, some of this might go over your head. For assembler or even C programmers, it's pretty basic stuff, so it's a little tough for this app to really satisfy anyone. I wished he had gone into some detail - maybe some code examples to show exactly how a scanline was drawn for some sample game. I know this wasn't intended as a "how to program the 2600" app, but it seemed a little light in the details.

For $2, it was an entertaining half an hour, and worth the money for those interested in the 2600. You may or may not learn anything, but for 2600 fans it's still fun.

By the way, in the "info" box, it says "Volume 2: Dragster" and "Volume 3: Pitfall!" So don't worry, Pitfall fans, your game is coming.