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ATARI BYTES

Remember those great Atari 2600 games? I have fond memories of playing classics like Pitfall or Yar's Revenge or River Raid. In this podcast, I take another look at the games, but as a writer, not a gamer. When I think of these games now, I see writing prompts; taking inspiration from the game plots or maybe even the titles to create original short stories. But this isn't simply fan fiction. The stories, more often than not, spin-off into some weird places in all kinds of genres. Sometimes funny, occasionally serious, always unique.
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Remember those great Atari 2600 games? Sure, they were fun to play, but didn't you ever wonder why they sent a plumber to take out Donkey Kong? What Yar was seeking revenge against? What the Defender was defending or why those robots went Berserk? Me too! ATARI BYTES is a game review podcast like no other. We review not just the game play, but the STORY within these classic games. We take a BYTE out of the story (get it?) and see if that story BYTES us back (now do you get it?).

May 12, 2019

In 1982, Data Age had a video game concept meeting. "We need a new idea, people," the team leader said. "We gotta get this one out by the end of the day."

It was 4:45 p.m.

The office closed at 5:00

It was also Friday.

In desperation, someone grabbed a marker and scrawled "SPACE BUGS" across the large flip chart, knocking the easel to the floor. 

Ernie sat at the computer. He wasn't the best programmer, but was the fastest typist. He banged out some code that would have pink centipedes type things and some other cylindrical bug with antennae crawl slowly across the entire upper half of the screen. It wasn't really clear what they were doing, but you could shoot them.

"Good enough?" Ernie said.

"YES," the rest of the team said in unison and fled out of the building into the five o'clock world where no owned a piece of their time.

And, thus, BUGS, the game at the heart of episode 172, was born. Is this a bad game? Well, can one dung beetle drag 1,141 times its weight?

This week's story is...BUGS: A POEM

Thanks to Kevin McLeod at Incompetech.com for creative commons use of his songs "Take a Chance", "Pinball Spring", "Reformat" and "Circus Waltz". 

Thanks to Mike Mann for the "Mad Mike Hughes" theme.

Thanks to Sean Courtney for the "Storytime" theme.

Atari Bytes show notes and what not

It's a Podcast, Charlie Brown - Hey! That's my other show!

The AB_Pod_Store on Zazzle.com has Atari Bytes related stuff to buy.

Please consider supporting the show financially on our Atari Bytes Patreon page.

Pick up your copy of MISERY BANANA: VERY SHORT STORIES INSPIRED BY OLD GAMES AND ODD THOUGHTS wherever you like to buy ebooks or print books. Here's one of those places.

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