Denial

Anyone ever notice how much harder swarm is than nightcrawler? Interesting.

I have to go back and play both of these games now. Welcome back, Rick. You're a legend and a hero in this community. It's funny that you've posted 6 times in the last 5 years. haha

Hi Jeff,

I'm just pathetic, I know. I'm so far behind everyone else on this board. My Mega-Card is still on order. Only tonight I downloaded and explored Gamebase20. That is how far behind I am! Everyone has contributed so much over the years and it is so impressive. The new software and hardware development -- wow! A GUI for the VIC-20 and stuff we never dreamed of back in the day. It is very, very humbling.

I just recently got back into the hardware and am having a little fun. I got a two-prong VIC and removed all the heat trapping junk, put a fan in it, heat sinks on the VIC and 6502, added a reset switch, CB2 sound and a white LED. This is stuff I never would have dreamed to do at age 15, after investing all my hard-earned paper route money into my VIC-20 and C2N cassette.

I've also got an RS232 port on it and am using my CD player to hook up to the Cassadapt interface. I've converted some TAPs to WAVs for the CD. Until I get my Mega-Cart, everything I'm exploring is "unexpanded" VIC only.

I've found a little known game called Alien Soccer from Rabbit Software. It was written by Jeff Shyshka in 1982. It is interesting in that he has interfaces for Paddles, Joystick and Keyboard. It is a fun little "pong" knockoff that captures a lot of the essence of classic VIC-20 gaming.

It made me wonder what other "sleepers" there are out there. By sleepers I mean lesser known software jems. Is there a thread for that on this board?

Pinball is also another interesting one I've only just discovered. It is as least as good as Atari 2600 pinball, but only 3.5k. What is impressive to me is how smooth the ball movement is.

Finally, Invaders, is also quite good too I think. It attempts to be true to the original Space Invaders color scheme and I probably like it as much as Avenger. Again, only 3.5k and very challenging.

None of these are in Gamebase20, though Invaders has a screenshot. Look for the TAP files if you are not familiar with these jems. I'm still exploring and discovering new things, but it has nearly been 30 years of Omega Race, Matrix, Swarm!, etc. Hard to believe it is all still so fun.

Hope you are doing well...
Rick

I had my Gamebase20 view set wrong, Alien Soccer is in there. Pinball Wizard is in there with screenshot only.

You haven't set up your EXTRAS properly then perhaps... Pinball Wizard (by Terminal I'm assuming) is on TAP only and that's through the EXTRAS button, not the PLAY GAME button. Invaders is probably the Livewire version and that's TAP only too.

I'm an idiot; I see that now. Thanks!