A downloadable game

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Play the original Xanthiom as it would have been if released in 1981 for the Atari 2600! Play as Lieutenant Grisham on his first mission on Planet Coati 5!

Requires an Atari 2600 emulator to play.


Controls:

Joystick Left/Right: Move

Joystick Down: Select Missile

Joystick Up: Jump

Joystick Fire: Fire

StatusReleased
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(4 total ratings)
AuthorMathanGames
GenreAdventure
Tagsatari, Metroidvania
Average sessionAbout a half-hour

Download

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Click download now to get access to the following files:

Xanthiom2600 Version 6.bas.bin 64 kB

Development log

Comments

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Hi

Please, do you know if the game works in a real Atari using Flashcart?

Yes it does

Thank you

Out of curiosity, will you ever consider the various DPC+ mappers for your games?

Possibly in the future, yes. I have a much more in-depth Metroid-like for the 2600 that I work on every now and then that will probably use DPC+

Where can I get older versions of this game? I’d like one for a TAS, but also for archival purposes.

Which version do you need? I don’t have any of the older versions available anywhere.

That TAS is using version 5, although I’d prefer to get all past updates, if that’s possible.

I’m sorry, when I made each new version I overwrote the old ones, so I don’t have them anymore. Nothing fundamental changed from version to version though, so a TAS on V5 should probably still work on V6.

Enjoyed this so much! Very impressed as well. Keep up the awesome work, my friend!

(1 edit) (+1)

ah great job! We chat on Reddit :) Really had fun, and the stress of no saves was a nice challenge. I did use the map because I kept dying haha but it allowed me plan out a 100% route.

soooo excited for xanthiom zero!!

Thank you, I’m glad you enjoyed it!

(+1)

how does one play this?
i dont know what to do with this .bin file :-(

You will need an Atari 2600 emulator. I suggest Stella.

(+1)

In your honor a full game play. Congrats !

(1 edit)

Looks like an amazing game but there is very noticeable vertical jitter on Stella 6.7. The line count in the game alternates between 262 and 265 standing still and varies wildly up to 270 when jumping in the air. Line count issues can result in an unsteady picture in an emulator or on digital displays. On a CRT it may look fine but they are much more tolerant of issues like this.

If you run your game in Stella and press Alt-L you'll see the line count in the top left.

Yes a few people have this issue, it ran with no shaking on my emulator. I just released a new version that will hopefully address some issues that others are having.

Thank you for the update, the new build has eliminated a number of the scanline issues but still some remain along with the visible shaking. In the new version standing still seems to be mostly okay but walking (on most screens) and jumping still seems to invoke issues.

You should be able to see the issues in Stella if you're running the newest version of 6.7. Here is a post explaining the scanline issue better than I can.

Thank you for the help! I just uploaded version 3 and the screen jitter is greatly reduced. It now should only jitter when switching screens (for a single frame) and in other rare cases.

You're very welcome! We'll be playing Xanthiom live on the ZeroPage Homebrew Twitch channel tomorrow, hope you can tune in!

There is either a lot of seismic activity in this world or some kind of vertical hold problem. 

Are you playing on an emulator?

Yes, I'm using the latest Stella.  It seems like it's the same vertical jitter issue that ZeroPageHomebrew reported.

Okay. I just uploaded Version 3. It will hopefully resolve 99% of the jitter.

I just played through it.  It's much more visually stable now, at least for me.  

I played through and managed 82% completion.  I would love to see you continue building a larger world with more features. A Mother Brain battle, and I would like to see ice beam and actual Metroids.  A screw attack and morph ball/bombs would be cool, and a way to shoot up.  More hidden areas would be cool too.  

I guess it's not easy to do that with a 1-button joystick, though...

As it is, I like it already quite a lot.  Better than Princess Rescue, even :)

(1 edit)

Thank you! Some of that won’t be possible, but I might make an update in the future.