Entombed for the Atari 2600 mystery

[VideoGameCritic]

Here's a pretty interesting new article about an obscure Atari 2600 game called Entombed. Apparently this game generates mazes on the fly, but nobody can figure out how!

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2019091 ... video-game

See discussion here:

https://games.slashdot.org/story/19/09/ ... e#comments

Funny, Entombed actually sticks out in my mind. I remember buying an Atari 2600 system (and games) in the last 90's from a guy from work. We met at Tyson's Square in Virginia where he had the system and a bunch of games in his truck, including Entombed complete in box. He told me to "take good care" of his stuff. Naturally I did.

[ThePixelatedGenocide]

This is why digital preservation is so important. Video games are the only artistic medium where we have anything close to a representative record of the formative years.

And their harsh limitations were the perfect controlled experiments to observe the human mind adapting to face a challenge. Every experiment, whether succeeding beyond anyone's imagination or failing just as hard...or everything in-between: It's all there.

And it's all the more amazing when you realize that even IQ tests can't measure half the things game critics (and players to varying degrees) are tasked to grade.

Thank you for these links.

[goldenband]

I saw that Entombed link! A good read to be sure.

The game itself is flawed but very interesting. The unfinished homebrew Man Goes Down offers somewhat similar gameplay (platform-based instead of tunnel-based) but with a slicker presentation and without the control issues.

[PAAGaming]

I’ve been looking for a Pac-Man clone game were the hook is that the maze is HUGE.

I’ve seen it once on YouTube somewhere, then never saw it again.

I thought this maybe it for a second.

Does anyone know what the game might be called?

[goldenband]

Sounds like it could be Dung Beetles on the Apple II, aka Mega-Bug on the Tandy Color Computer, aka Magneto Bugs on the Atari 8-bit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRPnmy5YsCE

[zetax]

Sounds like it could be Dung Beetles on the Apple II, aka Mega-Bug on the Tandy Color Computer, aka Magneto Bugs on the Atari 8-bit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRPnmy5YsCE

Wow, I haven't seen or even thought about that game for years. It was the "demo game" running on the Color Computer at the local Radio Shack for quite a while. Never knew that there were other versions, I need to look for it for my 800XL!