Doctor Who for the Atari 2600
If the game doesn't exist, Just make your own. There are a lot of great shows that deserved to have games but for some reason it never happened. Here is Doctor Who with a run-down of how I came up with the idea.
Cartridge Label
Screenshot
I have been playing a lot of Malagai lately. It is a really good Atari 2600 game that a lot of people don't even know about. You should give it a try. You are trapped in a maze with some really weird Aliens and the only way out is thru 3 locked gates/airlocks. Guess who has the keys?
Original Malagai Screenshot
As I play games I usually come up with a few ideas about making changes and Malagai was no different. The first thing that I wanted to change was the enemies. The original Aliens were just too similar and the game is hard enough without chasing the wrong keyholder. So I changed them all to Robots that each had a distinctive look. Next I wanted to change the player sprite. In Malagai you are a floating spaceman with a jetpack. It is a cool looking sprite but doesn't really fit the maze theme. I changed it to a running man sprite. As I was play-testing the changes I noticed that the original sprite sizes overlapped the mazes so I clipped them by a few pixels to square them between the maze walls. At this stage I already enjoyed the game more then the original.
So, That's it then. Another finished hack. Not quite. Why leave things alone when you can change them? I decided to change the three maze level colors. I prefer primary colors so the new maze colors are Blue, Red, Bright Green. Next up the Title screen. I think the name Malagai actually hurts a game like this. What does Malagai mean? Malagai is actually the name of the race of Aliens in the original game. Malagai is a good name for Aliens but a bad name for a game. Most people don't know what a Malagai is or how to pronounce it. How do you tell your friends about this great new game when you can't even say the name? So lets see, We have a game with Robots in a maze and the Robots can go into an attack mode. A few titles I came up with:
Robot War
Robot Maze
Robot Riot
They are all OK but they don't quite do it. Then I started thinking about movies with Robot type enemies:
Borg
Cylons
Daleks
Daleks?? Hmmmm. Always wanted a Doctor Who game for the Atari 2600. So Daleks it is. After a few minutes of trying to make three distinctive Daleks I decided not to use them. Wait a minute, Doctor Who also has CYBERMEN!!! That's it. And it just so happens that there was a revival of the Cybermen on the new Doctor Who show on SciFI Channel. So now I have the name of the hack, RISE of the CYBERMEN!
I use Hack-O-Matic for most of my hacks and in the description of how I made this hack I leave out a lot of the tedious trial and error of searching for code that controls graphics, colors, etc.. Sometimes the smallest detail can take the longest to add or change. I am amazed at how a few changes and a tie-in to a show I like really increases the enjoyment I have playing the game. So there you have a rough overview of how I hack a game. I usually don't have a plan other then to make a few changes and it just evolves into something. Give it a try with one of your favorites. And Yes, It does work in an actual Atari 2600 in cartridge form.
I have also made Atari 2600games for:
Death Race 2000
Westworld
Star Trek
Star Wars
Dawn of the Dead
Mad Max
Wolfenstein VCS
And many more. Check them all out at my website:
http://home.bellsouth.net/p/PWP-neotokeo2001
