Page 21 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #6

scious decision to get out of video games because I the emulators and ROMs for free download, may not But there is a claim to immortality, one
would have to move to California to stay with it, have to worry - there's still no substitute for owning the which Harris suddenly remembers: “Wait. No,
which I couldn't afford, and I was scared by the console and the cartridge. "Killer Bees emulation still there is one place for the Odyssey 2 in the his-
negative view game work was given when I inter- had a few glitches when I tried it," Harris notes. "I tory of games. The K.C. Munchkin case. I saw
viewed outside the game industry. After N.A.P. shut don't think the emulator quite accurately emulated reference to that precedent in a recent issue of
things down and I started looking for other jobs, I collision detection. I actually didn't find War Room, so some magazine - Dr. Dobbs or Game Devel-
remember that the general attitude I seemed to run I should look for that. It ought to work fine, because I oper, one of those two. The case established
into was ‘so, you've been programming games, and wasn't trying to push the limits of the hardware with some guidelines for how close something is
now you want a real job.’ It came as a little slap in that one." [A downloadable War Room ROM does, in allowed to be to an existing, copyrighted prod-
the face, because the real-time aspects of game fact, exist for the CVEM ColecoVision emulator.] uct.” In fact, according to Harris, it established
programming were more challenging than most It has now been at least sixteen years since Bob an immediate precedent which had major rami-
other programming jobs I've had since." Harris designed a video game. In response to ques- fications for the first Odyssey game that fol-
The Odyssey 2/Probe 2000 team scattered to tions of whether or not there’s a reason for the classic lowed it: “Pick Axe Pete was originally Ham-
different jobs, though none of them remain in the game revival, Harris is frank in his assessment. “To merin' Hank. After we lost the K.C. Munchkin
video game industry. "We are be honest, I have not kept up case, there was concern that the game looked
all still programmers, for the “In games like Robotron, with video gaming that much. too much like Donkey Kong - which, after all, it
most part," Harris confesses. Two reasons: too many kick- was designed to be a copy of.”
"Rex and I were probably the Centipede, Q*Bert, Qix, Pac- boxing games in the arcades, The fact that Harris reads Game Developer
biggest game players. We were Man, Joust, Tetris, and others of too many games on the shelves is a little hint that the Odyssey programmer’s
always trying different variants at Target, and I can't tell fascination with video games hasn’t worn off
of board games." that era, the whole was more whether a game is good or bad completely. “If I get back into game design, it
But Bob Harris hasn't quite than the sum of the parts.” without buying it. So I'm not will probably be more along the lines of a board
left the building. Remember the really aware of what's popular game,” he says. “It might be on a computer
unfinished ColecoVision edition at present. I was surprised screen, but it'd still be a board game.”
of Power Lords? It turned up at when I found the emulators last For the sake of classic gamers
Classic Gaming Expo 2000 - a fact of which no one year. But here's an example of how things have cer- everywhere, here’s hoping that Bob
had made Harris aware until this interview. "That's tainly changed. One of the guys where I work is 25, Harris gets that chance.
interesting. After the other guy left, I managed to get and he talks about wanting to design video games.
the ColecoVision Power Lords passably working. What he talks about is, basically, a storyline. His
Unfortunately, right in the middle of a dog and pony story. The whole experience that he wants his player Probing For Potential Panther Prototypes?
show for some magazine folks in New York City, the to have, he is mapping out. And that seems to match
screen went from an interplanetary scene to all let- what I see in the games he plays at lunch. They are Only one Probe 2000 game was released,
ters. Pretty embarrassing. That game was pretty graphically impressive. Yet everything that is there for and two others surfaced at CGE 2000 as pro-
lousy. I guess the rarity would be the attraction." him to discover has been put there by the designers.” totypes. Just how many more Probe 2000
Another aborted Probe 2000 title for the Cole- “Contrast this to many of the older games,” Harris games are still lurking out there, waiting to be
coVision, Lord Of The Dungeon (by fellow Odyssey continues. “Take, for example, Robotron. The game discovered? Not too many, apparently. Ac-
alumnus Rex Battenberg), also resurfaced in proto- has no story line. The designers put a bunch of differ- cording to Bob Harris, the following games
type form at CGE 2000, revealing a first - a feature ent elements in the game; in this case, it was oppo- were on Probe 2000’s development slate in
that would allow a player's game to be saved on nents with different capabilities. The elements are late 1983:
battery-powered RAM embedded into the cartridge literally scattered randomly about the playfield; there's
itself. "Lord Of The Dungeon was a good game. no design here. As a player, you have a problem to • Pink Panther
The reason this didn't get to market had to do with solve. And the problem is not just simply one the de- (Atari 2600, ColecoVision – not finished)
the battery backed-up RAM. Our hardware folks signer made up. The solution to the problem - the
could never get it working reliably." strategy of playing the game - was not known to the • Power Lords
All of these prototypes, to say nothing of the fact designer until he or she got the game running and (Atari 2600, ColecoVision - CGE2K pro-
that one can download Harris' classic games to play started playing it. Like chess, the strategies are not totype, Odyssey 2 - released, Odyssey 3)
on various Odyssey 2 and ColecoVision emulators designed into the game; they are a result of the game.
from the internet, begged the I'm sure the Pac-Man designers • Lord of the Dungeon
question of what he thought of never expected people to memo- (ColecoVision – CGE2K prototype)
the emulator scene. "I stumbled rize patterns to play the game.
across the emulators last year. They probably didn't even know • War Room
I think flattery is the first feeling the game had those patterns.” (ColecoVision - released)
that came to me - flattered that Harris sums up his philosophy
the games could still be interest- of what made the classic games
ing nearly 20 years later," Harris classic: “In games like Robotron, • “Another Atari game, which I
says. Centipede, Q*bert, Qix, Pac-Man, forget.” (??)
But what about the issue of Joust, Tetris, and others of that
intellectual property? The Inter- era, the whole was more than the Some collecting resources list a version of
active Digital Software Associa- sum of the parts.” Pink Panther for the Odyssey 2, which is usu-
tion and its members have ex- And on the subject of a certain ally listed as UR or a prototype, though there
pended much effort in the area classic console for which he once don’t seem to be any reports of anyone having
of quashing emulator and ROM designed new games, Harris has located the Odyssey version of the game.
downloads. "There's a little this to say about the Odyssey 2’s When asked to verify or deny the existence of
feeling of intellectual property place in history. “Call it an evolu- the Odyssey version of Pink Panther, Harris
theft. However, I quickly real- tionary cul-de-sac, a term bor- replied, “I know we planned to do one. But I'm
ized that I have no rights to the rowed from an Arthur C. Clarke trying to think who was supposed to program
games; they belong to N.A.P. book. There were some innova- it. Seems like it must have been Ed Averett,
the freelance guy. I don't think it would have
And as I found out back in the tions - the keyboard and the
80's, N.A.P. can do whatever voice module. Yet these died been released, because NAP would have paid
they want with them - such as out; you never saw them in other license bucks to release it. Then again, we
sell them in Europe without pay- Pink Panther photo courtesy Marty game systems. If you want to may have had to pay for the license even
ing me. And N.A.P. was not Goldberg at www.classicgaming.com/ stretch things, you could say the without releasing it for any game systems. So
smart enough even in 1984 to gamingmuseum keyboard made this a precursor I guess I can't clear that one up. I don't recall
realize, in the case of War to the home computer, but there ever seeing the game on screen.”
Room, that they had a property were already commercial home And, just for the record, did Probe 2000
that they could sell," Harris says. "So I don't have a computers before the Odyssey 2 came out. We had ever enter the fray of computer games? “We
real problem with it. But I wouldn't be surprised to an experiment to merge board and video games - didn't consider home computers at that time,
see N.A.P.'s lawyers swoop in. Perhaps there's don't see much of that around, though. I'm racking my though I'm not sure why. I don't recall there
some time limit to the copyright on the box, though." brains, but I really can't think of one thing special being a big market for real-time action
games on personal computers in '83.”
But the emulator authors, and the sites who offer about the Odyssey 2.”
Classic Gamer Magazine Spring 2001 21