Atari VCS Snake Boxer 5

This page is about an Atari 2600 implementation of the Snake Boxer 5 game
by Videlectrix, roughly as it appeared in the game Strong Bad's Game for Attractive People

See also the Apple II version (TODO)

It's currently under development.

Legal Note

Implementation Details

The extremely limited Atari 2600 hardware is a bit too complex to get into here. I'm using an 8k ROM, and you get 128 bytes (yes bytes) for all your RAM. There's no graphics framebuffer, you have to "race the beam" (i.e. you have 76 cycles to update a line of graphics as it's being drawn, then start all over again for the next line).

Current Status

Under development.

Directions

Press reset/fire to start. Use the joystick to move left/right. Fire button to punch. Press down to block.

Story (from the manual)

After failing to lead the Lady Snake Parade into space, Boxer Joe returns to his roots as a New York deli owner.

It isn't long, however, before the local Snake Mafia learns of his return and forces him back into the ring!

How long can you last against wave after wave of deadly snakes, and can you unlock Boxer Joe's deadly secret before it's too late?

You really can't go wrong with the rye... or the kaiser.

Secret (from the manual)

(note this isn't fully implemented yet)

Try pressing up/up/down/up/fire on the title screen.

When in this mode, holding down block will charge up a special attack.

Videos

TODO:

Screenshots

These screenshots are all from the Stella emulator.

	The intro with the Videlectrix Runner It was a lot of work getting the logo going using just the playfield, especially the part with 3 colors right in a row. Some cycle-exact beam racing going on there. The runner sprite is fairly normal sprite handling.
	The title screen. Using playfield for the top. The snake is a bit tricky, it's doing a 48-pixel wide sprite. Some extra colors come from playfield in the background. Only had cycles to have a mirrored playfield which is why you can see parts of the tongue mirrored to the right a bit. It's split into two chunks to allow the belly of the snake be yellow.
TODO	Gameplay

Real Life

Strong Bad, Homestar, and Jeb Kerbin trying things out on a real system:

System Requirements

A NTSC Atari 2600. Though you'll need a harmony cartridge or something similar to load it on real hardware. I currently don't have a PAL version of the game but in theory I could possibly put together such a version.

How can I play it?

You can download the image below and then try running it on a real machine.
You can download the image and run it on an emulator. It seems to run fine on Stella.
You can maybe play it here on Javatari
In theory you might also be able to play it in your browser at the internet archive: here

Downloads

ROM Image

Here is the ROM image for v0.96 (16 January 2025)
snake_boxer5.bin (8k)

Source

You can find it in the full git repository here: You'll need cc65 to build it.
https://github.com/deater/vcs/games/snake_boxer5

Mini-faq

Strong Bad Endorsement

Development Notes

16 January 2025 (v0.96)

Some minor cleanups, also moving to fixed point 16-bit path in a lot of places to allow fractional increases in speed.

13 January 2025 (v0.95)

Added sounds and proper collision detection so you can more or less play the game, though it's not in its final form.

12 January 2025 (v0.9)

Finally got some game logic implemented so you can play (and lose) the game. Still no collision detection though and in really rough shape.

11 January 2025 (v0.8)

Got the Videlectrix intro mostly complete. Also for now it's going to be an 8k cartridge, maybe will try to squeeze it back down to 4k at some point.

6 January 2025 (v0.7)

Made a lot of progress. Score, lives, and health bars update. The snake moves. You can move. All of the sprites are in place.

Wasted time trying to add more color to the boxer, possibly using the ball graphic. Unfortunately the boxer is too wide for the ball to cover the background for the boxer's shirt.

Currently the base game might just barely fit on a 4k cart, but I am sure people are going to want music on the title screen and the secret bonus mode.

1 January 2025 (v0.6)

Got a proof-of-concept of the gameplay sort of going. It looks like it might be doable. The knockouts at the top took a while, as did each subset in the end. I got a bit out of practice with my VCS programming. Was hoping to have a playable version before 2025 but that didn't happen.

6 December 2024 (v0.5)

Got the title screen going. Initially had a red-striped belly as I didn't have enough room in the kernel to switch to yellow, but glurk on the atariage forum reminded me that you should never give up, and by breaking up the loop it would be possible.

2 December 2024

Was working on "Sundae Driver"" but then came across this game. Was working on the Apple II version initially, but then was thinking it's clearly supposed to be an Atari 2600 game, maybe it will be possible.

Other Demakes

Other VMW Software Demos

Other Atari Projects

Back to the VMW Software Productions Page