Comments on: Super Mario Bros. for Atari 2600

By: Chris Spry

Chris Spry — Sat, 25 Aug 2012 11:10:00 +0000

Here’s an updated video if you guys want to see what levels 1-2 and 1-3 look like along with bonus items such as the starman. BTW, I am considering redesigning 1-3. I made it too easy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmlghxf-Ios

By: wrybread

wrybread — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 13:01:00 +0000

Any clue how much memory his cart might have? Is the limit now much higher?

By: wrybread

wrybread — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 12:59:00 +0000

Good point.

And thank god this game didn’t exist when I had my 2600, I’d have wasted some serious time on it.

By: pjcamp

pjcamp — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 01:14:00 +0000

Does one of them have his pants down?

By: jandrese

jandrese — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 20:15:00 +0000

The big thing is that he’s on the maximum size cartridge supported by the 2600, most games of the era couldn’t afford the expense and were shoved onto much smaller 4k carts.

He’s still dealing with the incredibly limited processing power of the 2600 though, and some of the game limitations are very evident as a result (only 1 enemy on the screen at a time for instance, and very short levels with a “checkpoint” in the middle to save some bytes).

The graphics look especially good for a 2600 game. He did some fine work with the limited colors and large pixels.

By: Twink

Twink — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 19:36:00 +0000

@thefool: Sprybug’s Super Mario Bros. is playable with an Atari 2600 emulator, or potentially a modern custom cartridge. His game is 32K, allowing for more sophistication than most 2600 games released back in the day that were 4K or less. They’re pretty amazing considering the memory and programming limitations.

By the way, the book Racing the Beam provides great insight into the history of the system and the complications in creating games for it.

By: thefool

thefool — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Does the fact that this looks so much better than any original 2600 game indicate how bad (quickly produced perhaps) those games were? Or just how imaginative and ambitious in concept and design games had become by the time of the NES (and Miyamoto in particular)? (Or simply the talent of Sprybug)

By: jandrese

jandrese — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 16:33:00 +0000

Given the miniscule ROM limitations on the 2600, this is absolutely amazing.

By: John Harrison

John Harrison — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:31:00 +0000

The author claims that it only has one level right now but that he believes he’ll be able to fit 16 (worlds 1-1 to 4-4) in his target size. Still very impressive.