From: runehy@dhhalden.no (RUNE HYLDMO)
Subject: Re: lets face it. NEW ONE
Organization: Ostfold College
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 08:40:39 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.213751.1717@ntg.com> slandrum@ntg.com (Stephen H. Landrum) writes:
>From: slandrum@ntg.com (Stephen H. Landrum)
>Subject: Re: lets face it
>Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 21:37:51 GMT
>In article <93019.103913SML108@psuvm.psu.edu> <SML108@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>>I have the $5000 to invest.  However, after hearing Stephen Landrum's
>>stories of being financially screwed over by Atari I think I'll pass
>>and use the money to buy a computer and develop on it instead...
>
>Other people may have posted to say that they have been screwed, but I
>have not.
>
>While I have never liked Atari Corp. as run by the Tramiel's, I have
>not worked directly for them, and they have never screwed me personally.
>
>Atari did stop paying Epyx for a long time, and even tried to sue Epyx
>for breach of contract after stopping payment.  The lawsuit has been
>settled by the way, and Atari will have to pay Epyx what it owes them,
>and Epyx' connection to the Lynx will be finally severed.
>
>Many people that I know that have worked for Atari have disliked it
>immensely, but a couple people that I know did OK by them.  The main
>rule for dealing with Atari is to always have one more thing that they
>need from you so you can withhold it until they pay you for everything
>else you have done for them.  If you don't mind operating at that level,
>go for it.
>
>BTW, although Atari may pay something like a 15% royalty for a game,
>that will amount to less than $1/cart.  The 15% is not from retail
>price, but most likely from Atari's net profit, however that is figured.
>Also consider that most games take 2 to 3 man-years of development time
>when you include all of the programming, sound and art time.  Some
>games like Ms. PacMan and Shanghai of course take considerably less
>time.
>-- 
>Stephen H. Landrum                                        VOICE: (415) 813-8909
>        Domain: slandrum@ntg.com           UUCP: ...netcomsv!ntg!slandrum
> USNAIL: New Technologies Group Inc. 2470 Embarcardero Way, Palo Alto CA 94303

I can't imagine that a lynx game should take as much as 2-3 mans years to 
develop, the hardware is to good and the current games too lousey.

Lets see... Hardware: zoom, rotate, horisontal and vertical scrolling, 
flipping of animation, 99 hardware sprites, endless bitmapping etc. There is 
so much hardware in the Lynx that the programming should be easy plus the 
fact that the prosessor is the same type as the one in the Atari XL-XE. 
F ex. the sprites are defined by simply drawing a picture on a backgrond and 
tell the machine its a sprite. Woila, the machine cuts the picture 
from the background and its a sprite. I have not programmed the Lynx 
myself, but have understood it to be this way.

Altough Batman Returns isn't to good it 
only took 5-6 months to develop. The problem is that the people who have 
programmed games for the Lynx so far have not used half the machines 
possibilities. I haven't seen many games that use zoom and rotate effects or 
the sound capabilities. Klax has digitised sound. That's the only one I have 
seen/heard. To all the Lynx-programmers out there I would like to say...

Use the F*#@ING HARDWARE when you got such a good machine, plus give me a 
dev.set for free!!!!

Party on dudes...

Greetings from 

Rune Hyldmo

By the way I have heard from pretty reliable souces that the SNES- 
development registration costs around $ 35 000 plus the hardware you need. 
Magicom board and a PC. 
Newsgroups: alt.games.lynx