Eugene Jarvis = Pioneer

[PVB]

Eugene Peyton Jarvis - Pioneer
The creator of Defender and Robotron has been honoured by the AIAS - and it's about time.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013- ... is-pioneer

[Deckard]

I would so like to go to this

Classic 2D arcade shooter Robotron: 2084 will be featured in a Classic Game Postmortem session during the 2014 Game Developers Conference, event organizers announced today.

The talk will be given by Eugene Jarvis, veteran designer, programmer and creator of Robotron: 2084, the title Jarvis made after popular 1980 scrolling arcade shooter Defender. Jarvis' talk will cover the development of the title as well as its influence on video games.

Robotron: 2084 was developed by Vid Kidz, founded by Jarvis alongside Defender co-designer Larry DeMar, and published by Williams Electronics in 1982. In the game, players face off against endless waves of robots and try to rescue humans in danger at the same time.

Last month, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences announced Jarvis will be honored with the 2014 Pioneer Award at the DICE Summit awards ceremony on Feb. 6.

[gilesgoat]

I think they should give one to Dave Theurer for "I Robot" .. now if that wasn't pioneering

[Kelloggs]

Wasn't that after Dave Theurer did Tempest? Which, to be fair, was also quite good...

[benedictw]

Gosh, I had completely forgotten about I, Robot, now THAT needs updating for recent hardware.

[Jamesac]

I, Robot is such a great game. The arcades around my home in the 80s had it, and it was utterly revolutionary. The psuedo-3D of vector graphics made sense, but I couldn't figure out how they managed to animate the perspectives of true 3D in I, Robot. Seeing it for the first time was amazing.

James

[gilesgoat]

I, Robot is such a great game. The arcades around my home in the 80s had it, and it was utterly revolutionary. The psuedo-3D of vector graphics made sense, but I couldn't figure out how they managed to animate the perspectives of true 3D in I, Robot. Seeing it for the first time was amazing.

James

All I quickly found out is that it has a special designed ALU made with some Bit-Slice chips.

[Istar]

Christ, how fucking awesome is I, Robot? I completely missed this at the time - never even heard of it before today, in fact (to my shame). Just watched a couple of gameplay vids on YT and am now itching to have a blast on it.

That is so, so ripe for an up-to-date version. Is there a conversion that's worth playing on anything retro (Atari 800, C64, ST/Amiga, etc?) or a MAME image that's playable?

[merman]

It is playable in MAME, it never got a conversion.

[gilesgoat]

I think I Robot could be a "bookcase" of "Too advanced for its time" .. there's absolutely nothing wrong with that game, it's just as awesome now as it was probably TOO awesome when it came out.

Quick look around seems to tell, in fact, that I Robot is in the Guinness Book of Records as "the FIRST ever arcade game to use 3D".

So ... it's incredible .. if you think it was there at that time and "it took SO long" before people actually started to understand 3D ...

[Jamesac]

I'm not so sure about the understanding being the limiting factor, rather than the hardware. Once the PS1 came along and barely-acceptable 3D could run at a decent framerate it took off to the point that it basically destroyed 2D for several years. Games like Race Drivin' were more for novelty factor than real contenders, just because the framerate was so utterly abysmal.

One of the first times I played Race Drivin' was in one of those sit-down machines with the hood that extended back over the player, immersing you in the game. A friend was watching, crouched and peeking around the edge, as I tried the loop and went sailing off the side in such a way as to flip end over end after flying up to a decent height. Bad as the framerate is in retrospect, at the time we both let out a protracted "AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" Immersion used to be so easy.

James

[Yak]

My favourite bit in Hard Drivin' was the cow. I probably spent more time making the cow moo than playing the game properly.

[Deckard]

I always found the challenge levels with the spikes broken tbh - One miss and you are dead which seemed far too handy for them to grab more coinage from you



4mins 58 in

[fog]

If you get the chance, listen to Jarvis getting interviewed alongside Mark Cerny at this years DICE. I think he might have been on something stronger than coffee. The usually laid back Cerny looked like he wanted to kill him

It's just finished, but I'm sure it will end up on Youtube later.

[buddh4sack]

Couldn't find that Jarvis interview yet, but I thought this one was great. Pretty funny, the details about the first Robotron brain level and how the brains all chase Mikey only at first, and how to use that to maximize your points.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv_sHdjaJpg