by
Evan Norris
, posted 9 hours in the past / 689 Views
Final weekend at PAX East, I spent about seven hours on the ground of the Boston Conference and Exhibition Middle. And whereas there have been lots of of issues to see and expertise, I discovered myself spending extra time on the Atari sales space than some other station. That was due, partially, to the numerous fascinating video games that they had out there to strive, together with one I simply reviewed: Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story. It was additionally because of the crew staffing the sales space, and the numerous fascinating issues they needed to say.
From what I’ve noticed over the previous few years, and from what the Atari representatives articulated final Saturday in Boston, the corporate is at an interesting, pivotal level in its historical past. As soon as the king of the American arcade scene, and a serious participant within the residence laptop and console markets, Atari fell off the radar in an enormous approach beginning within the mid Nineties. Seen within the subsequent years extra because the proprietor of traditional IPs and purveyor of plug-and-play retro consoles and fewer as an innovator & contributor to the online game scene, the corporate has begun to reinvent itself over the past half decade.
“We now have quite a lot of floor to cowl on reestablishing our relationship with the gaming group,” stated Ethan Stearns, VP of Video games at Atari. “I assume, as a model, individuals very a lot know who we’re. And within the retro group, individuals love the video games from the 80s and issues that we made. So, what we’re doing proper now’s doing quite a lot of rebuilding of these relationships with new players, individuals who know what Atari is, however do not actually know what we’re as much as.”
Based mostly on latest releases and every little thing on supply at PAX East, it is beginning to come into focus precisely what Atari is as much as. From my vantage level, the corporate has a three-pronged strategy: preserving, enhancing, and celebrating the classics; making trendy video games with established mental properties; and branching out with fully new experiences. The primary class is represented by collections like Atari 50: The Anniversary Collection and the aforementioned Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Assortment, plus unreleased video games like Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord. The second class covers upcoming video games like NeoSprint and Lunar Lander Past. And the ultimate class encompasses titles like qomp2.
“We predict it is also necessary to do video games like qomp2, the place they are not from our IP catalog, however they’re video games that we really feel signify the expertise that individuals affiliate with Atari, however in a contemporary wrapper,” stated Stearns. “So, it is a trendy sport for a contemporary indie sport market.”
A puzzle-adventure sport that is a religious sequel to the unique Pong and an precise sequel to the 2021 puzzler qomp, qomp2 turns the entire concept of the seminal Atari paddle sport on its facet. You do not management the paddles, however fairly the ball. “You’re on this journey to freedom, attempting to navigate by means of three totally different ranges, attempting to get to the top of every, navigating by means of totally different hazards, puzzles, traps, issues like that,” stated Senior Producer Mark Perloff.
Born of an alliance between Atari and St. Louis-based improvement studio Graphite Lab, which additionally labored on Mr. Run and Soar, qomp2 speaks to a different piece of the trendy Atari playbook: forming strategic partnerships with complementary creators and studios. As of late, the writer has achieved outstanding issues at the side of Digital Eclipse, Jeff Minter, Graphite Labs, and others. And also you would possibly quickly be capable of add to that record Desires Uncorporated.
The developer of Lunar Lander Past, which launches subsequent month, Desires Uncorporated is the newest studio to place a brand new spin on an iconic Atari IP. “For them it was a enjoyable problem,” stated David Lowey, Atari’s Senior Director of Gross sales and Advertising. “It was a sport they liked, so that they constructed this superb sport. So it is nonetheless a gravity flyer, and but there are characters, a story within the entrance, and this thriller that evolves within the again. It is a very cool sport, and it permits them to essentially use all of their tips and instruments.”
Having performed it for an excellent 10 minutes, I can verify Lunar Lander Past is certainly a really cool sport — one which channels the spirit of the unique and elevates it with new mechanics and fetching artwork. Probably the greatest new options is the “stabilizer”, an emergency brake of kinds that freezes your ship in mid-air, thus eradicating among the frantic issue of the premier Lunar Lander sport. Now you can pause and catch your breath. “They added the stabilizer as a way to scale back the affect of the problem of the sport,” stated Producer Jason Polansky. “They stated, all proper, we do not need individuals to simply wrestle with the controls, and we’re not attempting to steal your quarters.”
Along with the stabilizer, the brand new sport presents a number of pilots, every with distinctive traits that have an effect on steering, gas utilization, expertise gained, and so on. There are additionally a number of totally different ships. The usual car, the Beetle, is what you’d count on from a Lunar Lander sport. The Dragonfly, conversely, is sort of the oddball. You do not use the correct set off to provoke thrust; fairly you merely steer the vessel with the analog stick, and watch because it flutters like a dandelion seed.
Then there’s the artwork route. The sport is an actual stunner, due to hand-drawn belongings that evoke a futuristic, alien sci-fi panorama. “The artwork – that is what Desires Uncorporated does finest,” stated Polansky. “They’ve phenomenal artwork outlets, and so they constructed the entire world out in numerous areas. It is not simply the moon. There is a cause why it is known as Past — as a result of it goes to varied different planets and moons all through the galaxy.”
“Past” is a becoming phrase not just for the brand new Lunar Lander sport, but additionally for Atari basically. By preserving its arcade roots, repurposing traditional IPs for contemporary audiences, and forging strategic partnerships with programmers and studios with comparable design philosophies, the corporate is wanting backward, ahead, and past. Stated Stearns, “Oftentimes I say now we have elements of the corporate the place we’re reaching again to help that group that loves and appreciates what we did up to now. We’re additionally attempting to achieve ahead into the longer term and do issues which might be serving to develop what Atari will proceed to change into.”
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