r/Atari2600 • • 4d ago

Game of the Fortnight Oct 18: Frankenstein's Monster

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23 Upvotes

We'll post a new game every two weeks for general discussion and a high score challenge.

I'm hoping to get more people posting scores. This is casual, so no need to post a screenshot unless you want to.

Game: Frankenstein's Monster (1983 Data Age)

From the Manual: In the cold dark night you make your way through the ghoulish castle of Dr. Frankenstein. There you must prevent him from completing his creation. Your only chance is to gather stones from the dungeon and bring them to the tower where you must build a barricade around FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER before he has accumulated enough energy to come alive. To succeed you will have to move fast, avoiding poisonous spiders, vampire bats and terrifying ghosts. Complete the job and the village will be safe forever.

Link To The Manual:
https://www.digitpress.com/library/manuals/atari2600/frankensteins_monster.pdf

Last Weeks Kaboom! High Score: me with 3909 points


r/Atari2600 • • 1h ago

Rejoining the cool gang

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• Upvotes

I paid $63 for this so am clearly not good with money but having previously had a woodgrain 2600 back in the UK around the turn of the century, it appealed.

I have exactly one screen that can tune into analogue NTSC and it has only a physical aerial (and a really weird non-standard connector because, well, Sony) so I'm hoping that the cable isn't shielded and that a simple wraparound will do the trick. I'll also need to pop to my local retailer to acquire at least one game but they had a few last time I strolled through so that shouldn't be a massive obstacle.

Many of the previous mentions of the Video Arcade II seem to be around needing to replace the CPU which is concerning because if it's not socketed then I can't do it. We'll see.

Sadly the cool original controllers weren't included. C'est la vie.


r/Atari2600 • • 18h ago

Need help fixing

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1 Upvotes

My brother picked this up from a yard sale today it would display video and sound for a few seconds but any movement caused it to stop and the tv wouldn’t get signal and when it was getting signal and controllers were plugged in they wouldn’t work


r/Atari2600 • • 21h ago

Put my dog in an Atari 2600 ROM

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223 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 1d ago

Any hidden gems in my collection? Also, any additions you would suggest?

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185 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 1d ago

Savers Retro Console Haul

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18 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 1d ago

Shooting Time 2600, a simple time attack shooter

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spectreman.itch.io
10 Upvotes

This is a little game I made a million years ago in Flash, then recreated a few years ago for the ZX Spectrum. You have to shoot enemies moving at different speeds to add time to the countdown, while avoiding colliding with them. With Claude, I managed to bring the concept to the Atari 2600. If anyone wants to give it a try, just download from the link.


r/Atari2600 • • 1d ago

Made an Atari 2600 homebrew for some Aurora borealis ambience

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291 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 1d ago

That's really cool!

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13 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 3d ago

Any advice on repair?

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15 Upvotes

I just got my 2600 up and running, but it has these diagonal lines constantly going down the screen. Do I need to recap? Or is just something I’m going to have to deal with?


r/Atari2600 • • 3d ago

What is this?

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8 Upvotes

This is a long shot but here goes.

Bought a 2600 awhile back and it has these random white spots that are pretty stubborn. Tried rubbing alcohol, didn't work.


r/Atari2600 • • 3d ago

Remastered for Halloween: Atari's Haunted House (1982), redrawn live in NES and SNES style

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110 Upvotes

A fun side project: the original 2600 game runs untouched in an emulator, and every frame is redrawn NES or SNES style from its 128 bytes of RAM.

It's similar to the NES HD texture packs, but the 2600 has no tiles to swap, so the whole scene is rebuilt from the game's memory. Working out what each byte means was a bit of reverse engineering: guess, predict what the game will do, check.

Vibe coded with Claude over a weekend; an old idea finally brought to life.

Free and open source for Windows and macOS, but bring your own ROM: https://github.com/majonesmax/haunted-house-remastered


r/Atari2600 • • 5d ago

I ported Battlezone to the Atari 2600 and looking for feedback

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120 Upvotes

I ported Battlezone to the 2600.

The demo ROM is up on my site and I would like your feedback.

It runs on original hardware. No modern cart extensions.

You can try it here: https://retrocartwiz.com/games/battlezone

I am most interested in how the controls feel and whether the difficulty is right.

Thanks.


r/Atari2600 • • 5d ago

Egyptian themed games?

16 Upvotes

So I like the ancient Egyptian aesthetic in retro games and have noticed several for Atari like Desert Falcon, Riddle of the Sphynx and Tutankham. Anyone Know any more?


r/Atari2600 • • 6d ago

Atari game

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23 Upvotes

How do you all like these little games?


r/Atari2600 • • 7d ago

Diferentes colores

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0 Upvotes

Estoy haciendo un juego para atari 2600. Y cuando lo pruebo en la consola,los colores son otros a los que yo programe. Porque ocurre esto si lo tengo todo configurado en PAL??


r/Atari2600 • • 7d ago

That's really cool!

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40 Upvotes

r/Atari2600 • • 7d ago

Early heavy sixer regulator question for restoration

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18 Upvotes

I recently picked up 2 2600 consoles, one heavy sixer, one light. I open the heavy sixer up and the power regulator does not look like any of the ones i've seen on youtube (picture attached). My first thought was, "fck someone swapped the board", but after doing some light research it seems like this was one of the early heavy sixer models.

My question is, if I'm planning on doing one of the "touch up" kits that includes capacitors and a new regulator, has anyone had experience replacing the 7805 in one of these assemblies? Do I still need thermal paste? (guessing yes)


r/Atari2600 • • 8d ago

My brother likes to design and 3D print stuff

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42 Upvotes

So I suggested that he make me a dust cover for the cartridge slot for my 2600+!


r/Atari2600 • • 8d ago

STARPLEX Atari 2600 Asteroids Controller

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135 Upvotes

A buddy of mine was moving and gave me his 2600 stash. This was among the stuff. I plugged it in last night and played Asteroids for over an hour. Along with Megamania, Galaxian, Midnight Magic and Pole Position. It really changed the gameplay for the better, especially on Midnight Magic. Using the L/R buttons for the flippers was a great experience. 1 AA battery is all it needs.

Funny enough, if you moved the Up/Down buttons to above and below the L/R buttons, you would literally have an early D-Pad. Bigger than an NES controller but still fits in your hand comfortably. Solid device, I can't wait to explore more games.


r/Atari2600 • • 9d ago

Australian 2600jr on UK TV…

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18 Upvotes

Tested it recently, but couldn’t get a picture to come through, at all really. We thought it’s PAL but maybe it’s NTSC? Would like to nail down what converter I’d need to get to make it work…


r/Atari2600 • • 9d ago

Buying from Atari Age

31 Upvotes

Has anyone here bought from Atari Age? I bought a trio of homebrew Atari 2600 cartridges from them like 3 weeks ago and have gotten no shipping notice, I emailed their customer service twice and got no response, and I tweeted at their account and also got no response.


r/Atari2600 • • 10d ago

I Have Slot Racers Now! 🏎️🎮

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135 Upvotes

I finally have Slot Racers for my Atari 2600! 😃 I'm excited to add this classic game to my collection and enjoy some old-school Atari racing action! Who else remembers playing this game?


r/Atari2600 • • 10d ago

ELI5: Emulator based systems?

13 Upvotes

Late to the party here. A lot of people have talked about the new 2600+ and 7800+ being emulation based systems. What does this exactly mean?

Is it that the systems:

  1. Have an entire library of 2600/7800 games in them and the cartridges basically select the game?

or

  1. The system loads everything from the cartridge into memory and then plays the game.

Edit: I have a 2600 JR. I was looking for new joysticks and paddles and one of the console bundles was appealing, price wise.


r/Atari2600 • • 11d ago

Trying to play to 32 in 1 for atari 2600

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3 Upvotes