Atari 2600 Homebrew Companion Volume 3
Volume 3 of the Atari 2600 Homebrew companion recently dropped, last month just in time for Christmas. In his third book, Brian Matherne continues the monumental task of documenting nearly every aspect of the games covered.
The forward this time around was written by the Journalist and author, Brett Weiss, followed by a nice piece by James Earl O’Brien, from the Zeropage Homebrew Youtube and Twitch Channels.
If you are not familiar with what a homebrew game is, well, James examines that question in some detail, but in summary, it is an original game, programmed from the ground up, and completed for the system. So essentially, it’s a new game idea brought to fruition often by a non-professional source.
This book covers some 24 of these homebrew games spanning 20 years from 1997 to 2017. This is down from 34 titles covered in the first two volumes, the reason being there are a lot more photos included.
Notable titles include; The E.T. Book cartridge, Evil Magician Returns, Conjoined!, and Super Cobra Arcade.
I had previously asked Brian, how he was able to put these books together so fast, he reminded me that a lot of the research was pulled from his massive homebrew list, which goes by the title “The Most Comprehensive Atari 2600 Homebrew List”. I’ll provide links in the video description. I have to think even with all the information contained within that list, he still would have had to do a lot more research to fill out the pages of this book. For example, check out page 118, covering the many game options for River Raid 3.
As with the other volumes, the games in book three are arranged alphabetically and the author includes title screen images as well as gameplay screenshots from most of the games covered in the book. There are also images of game boxes and cartridges sprinkled in. Each game is broken into its various sections; background, release notes, gameplay, options, controls, scoring, design, strategy, analysis, and it’s done consistently throughout the book.
There’s quite a bit of knowledge to be gleaned within these sections, including in some cases, Easter egg reveals, and flashback portable functionality reports.
I particularly enjoy the release notes and strategy sections. Here we catch of glimpse of the game development history and the best ways to approach completing them.
The books cover is nicely done. It was taken from what looks like a screenshot of Champ Games Super Cobra Arcade. There’s a nice orange to yellow and blue font for the book title. On the backside, there’s an image from Star Castle.
This book contains a nice table of contents that lists all of the game titles. There’s a forward, a section explaining what homebrew games are, and another one covering how the games are programmed. Brian has managed to throw in a few low key advertisements for other products that he has contributed to and endorsed. Examples include the 8-Bit Annual 2019, the upcoming Blast Annual 2020, Zeropage Homebrew Youtube show, and the Atari Awards 2020.
At the end of the book, there is a short section of definitions and websites covered.
I purchased the paperback version, which is printed in black and white and is available for $12.99. If that sounds too pricey you can still purchase the Kindle version for $3.99.
All three volumes clocking in at exactly 182 total pages. This was intentionally done, both to keep the price down and to keep the series of books uniform in size.
Credit to Brian Matherne for completing his first homebrew trilogy. With volumes one to three in full production, we are starting to see the beginning of a new encyclopedia of Atari 2600 homebrew games. Adding to this, Brian has published another book, “The Atari 2600 Holiday Homebrew Companion”, which is currently available for $18.99, at 390 pages it is roughly double the size of the first three volumes, making it a super value proposition. I intend to put out a review of it later this year.
I appreciate the amount of work, research, and polish that went into producing these books and look forward to future editions.
Highly recommended.
Homebrew list – Shorter URL:
https://tiny.cc/Atari2600Homebrew
Youtube Description:
This is my review of The Atari 2600 Homebrew Companion Volume 3.
My review of Volume 1:
https://youtu.be/A4moEqCBR78
My review of Volume 2:
https://youtu.be/djUmBw_KimQ
Paperback version:
https://www.amazon.com/Atari-2600-Homebrew-Companion/dp/1676947175
Holiday Homebrew Companion:
https://www.amazon.com/Atari-2600-Holiday-Homebrew-Companion/dp/1731020201
The Most Comprehensive Atari 2600 Homebrew List:
https://tiny.cc/Atari2600Homebrew
Youtube Original Post Date: 01/25/2020
