Impressive homebrew games on the Atari 7800

[AlexKidd5000]

So the Atari 7800 is a console that I never really thought about, at least not nearly as much as the NES, or the Master System. But I saw some homebrew games made for it, and they peaked my interest in the console. If you look at most of the original games made for the 7800, they look unimpressive, and ugly. Gave me the impression that the 7800 was by far the least powerful console of the 3. But these homebrew games have me reconsidering that. Some experimental work I saw made my jaw drop. Some arcade games like Mario Bros are being remade for the 7800, and even Bubble Bobble is being brought to the 7800. And a 4 player light gun game called Ducks Away. So a lot has been going on with the 7800 homebrew scene, and I think its really cool stuff!

The 7800 was sadly a victim of low budget game development.

Original release of Mario Bros

Remake of Mario Bros


Ducks Away, 4 player light gun game

 

[AlexKidd5000]

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Atari really screwed up cheaping out and putting the 2600 sound chip in the 7800. Your game would look like it was from 1988 but sound like it was from 1978. Though they were probably dead in the water anyways after cheaping out on the 5200 joystick.

 

[AlexKidd5000]

True, GCC wasn't given a big enough budget when designing the 7800, they went over the budget with the video chip from what I heard, and as a last ditch, made the cartridge port able to provide expanded audio.

If you keep an eye out for more 7800 Game Drive stock at RetroHQ, that flash cart has multiple option of external audio, the new BupChip, dual POKEY chips, and the YM2151 sound chip. So that at least new homebrew games can have better sound.

 

[AlexKidd5000]

I bought a physical copy of Bentley Bear's Crystal Quest off Atari Age, an awesome game! And a side scrolling platformer inspired by Wonder Boy/Adventure Island. Atari Age and Songbird Productions have a lot of Atari homebrews for sale. Also want to point out that BBCQ runs at 60FPS.

 

[AlexKidd5000]

So this is really interesting, guys over on the Atari Age forum like to do experiments with NES games on the 7800. Below, you'll see someone experimenting with the 7800 high resolution mode. The 7800 has a max resolution of 320 x 240 with a maximum of 9 on screen colors, which is just barely enough to allow a perfect port of Mario 3, the only problem with that mode is pixel placement, which can only be done in pairs, and both either must be the same color, or one has to borrow a color from the background, which really messes with how the sprites look as seen below, it makes mario look like he is full of holes, this mode is called 320C. Another interesting thing is that the 7800 can do 320 x 192 which is wide screen.

320B mode320C mode

 

[AlexKidd5000]

Looks like the 7800 could even do a decent job at Zelda: Link to the past!

 

[AlexKidd5000]

This is Dreadnought Assault for the 7800, looks damn good!

 

[NTMBK]

View attachment 93625

Looks like the 7800 could even do a decent job at Zelda: Link to the past!

That's pretty impressive! How well does the 7800 handle scrolling on both axes?

 

[AlexKidd5000]

That's pretty impressive! How well does the 7800 handle scrolling on both axes?

It handles it very well, there have been examples in some unfinished homebrew games like ReZolve, and official games like Dark Chambers.