I'm happy to announce my new little game 'Reiko's Robot Run' for which I did the pixel graphics, music and programming. It is released on physical Atari Lynx cartridges alongside Lynx guru Karri's 'Always Winter, Never Christmas'.
www.whitelynx.fi/shop/
I hope you enjoy this little game that is a parody, or caricature if you will, of something very popular. The game is about a girl called Reiko whose story we all know too well, collecting junk every day to get her food, gazing at the stars and dreaming away.
- You control Reiko on her hover-moped.
- Watch out for Swarmtroopers.
- Collect junk B33r robots.
- Admire crashed 'Planet Pulverizer' star ship in the background
- Dig the music.
- Every 100 points the Junkyard alien Unken Prutt will give you one third of a food ration (one energy).
- He wants you to try and get 1000 junk if you can.
The gameplay it self is very simple. I set out to re-learn how to create/program a small Lynx game, and my main goal was to learn how to develop ALL the most important parts needed for creating a 'real/full' Lynx game next (because that's always been my dream).
Stuff I Learned (Successes!):
- Learning about developing the most important parts needed for a 'real/full' Lynx game
- Learning how to use cart segments (loading in new parts from cart to RAM).
- First Lynx game where I put real effort into the graphics
- First Lynx game where I put real effort into the music
- Learning more about chipper (music tracker), slowly but surely
- Learning how to have music and sfx side by side
- Re-learning how to program the Lynx palette (which can be tricky).
*the Atari Lynx is a handheld console from 1989. It was the first color display handheld and it was praised for it technical capabilities but it couldn't compete with Nintendo's Gameboy and Sega's Game Gear. Both the custom hardware and industrial design was interesting on both models of the Lynx.
It has an 8-bit 65SC02 cpu (based on MOS 6502) but with a 16-bit address space and 16-bit graphics and math co-processors. When comparing it to other consoles and micro computers of the time it's quite high-tech, I'd say the feel of it falls in between the 8-bit systems and the 16-bit systems, with a feel more towards the c64 and Amiga, which isn't a surprise since the hardware was designed by Amiga engineers. The Lynx also features pseudo 3D capabilities that surpass all consoles of the time, there's a few showcase games for that, e.g. Blue Lightning, Electrocop, Road Blasters and Stun Runner. The resolution of the Lynx is extremely small, only 160 x 102, which makes creating pixel art for it quite challenging, but very fun. Personally I love that unique look it gives the games.
Here's a couple YouTube video links with a lot of Lynx games:
Wikipedia:
Still the most fun thing about the Lynx is that the small Lynx scene is alive and well with new releases every now and then. I find it extremely exciting to develop for old systems, the limitations really help the creativity.