Space Cactus Canyon for Atari 2600 Homebrew Review

Space Cactus Canyon for Atari 2600 Homebrew Review

Background
“The year is 2543 and you are the last cactus on earth. You live in the scorching deserts of the Rocky Mountains in what used to be Alberta, Canada. The rest of your fellow cacti have moved to a more temperate climate. On Mars. They have sent you a final spaceship to transport you there…”

Space Cactus Canyon is a homebrew game released for the Atari 2600 last year, 2017, at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo.
In the game, you are playing as the last cactus on Earth, a very thirsty cactus. Your goal is to collect the water located on the right side of each map. Standing in your way are various enemies, some of whom shoot at you. Do not fear, because as a cactus, you have one method of defending yourself, the ability to discharge deadly needles to dispose of your enemies. However, your supply of these needles is limited, so you need to conserve as many of them as possible in order to make it through all of the canyons.

Space Cactus Canyon is a single-player game.

Continuing reading from the box.

“Reaching it won’t be easy, water has become earth’s most precious resource, and although you are a cactus, you need every drop. But watch out for the humans, the few that remain after World War XII are convinced they need the water even more than you do. And they’ll do anything to protect it.”

When you first power on your Atari 2600, you are presented with a really nice introduction screen with the game’s title splashed across the top in sort of a western-themed brown colored font. Just below that is an image of the star of the game, the Cactus. The high score is displayed at the bottom of the screen and you start the game by pressing the fire button.

Doing so will take you to your starting point in the first canyon.

Gameplay
Here you will witness the first canyon being drawn in. This is a key attribute of the game. The procedurally generated playfield, as it was described by the games programmer B.J. Best. Each time you enter a new canyon, the screen it is randomly drawn. The programming has to take into account enemy placement and make sure the map is possible to be completed. You start out in all canyons on the far left side. On the right side of each canyon you will find water, either just a small amount or a nice bucket full, which will keep you going until you make it to the next canyon.

At the bottom, center of the screen, your score is displayed in blue. To the left of your score are blue squares, each one indicating the number of cacti’s available. To the right of your score is a blue bar indicating your needles remaining. Every time you lose a cactus, one additional needle is added to your inventory.

Your goal is to make your way through some thirty canyons, in an effort to find your spaceship, where a trip to Mars awaits you to meet up with all the remaining Cacti which were previously evacuated.

Occasionally after a canyon is drawn in, it only leads to a dead-end, in which case you back up, select another path, and another canyon map is drawn. In each map, there is an impediment to your cactus reaching the water. They are called shredders, shooters, and shooter-shredders. The shredders do not fire at you, but instead, carry hidden machetes to kill you. As you progress through the game, you will make it to the canyons with the shooters. The shooters as their name implies, shoot at you with plasma rifles but remain in a stationary position. The shooter-shredders are much more aggressive. They will fire on you while moving in your direction to attack. Occasionally there are shooters mixed in with shredders. I have seen up to four shooters in a single canyon. Your cactus, as well as the shooters, can only fire horizontally. After every five canyons cleared, you experience “a strange dream” stage. Here, notice at the bottom of the screen the words, “Press Fire, Pardner”. This is one place where you can take a quick break before continuing. There is one other way to take a break in gameplay. In the canyons with the shooters only, as long as you are in a safe location, you can take a break and continue to play later. This WILL lower your bonus, however.

Upon pressing the button, you enter a bonus canyon where you can pick up additional needles and score bonus points. Every “dream sequence” contains needles and different bonus items which resemble a cat, cowboy boots, umbrellas, handbags or ice cream?

Your time is limited, so my suggestion is to make a quick dash for the needles, then go for the bonus items.

When your time runs out, you wake up and are thrust back into the canyon map stages. When the game ends your score is displayed with a sign that reads “Trail’s End”. If you make it to the rocket stage you can continue playing the game by pressing the fire-button.

Controls
You can move your cactus in all directions up, down, left, right, or diagonally. Pressing the fire button will launch your needles in the direction you are facing, either left or right. One hit is enough to destroy your enemy. From what I have experienced the movement is nice, fluid, and responsive. This is required since you have to move fast in order to defeat some of your enemies.

Scoring
The manual states that the shredders are worth 50 points each. The shooters, 100. The shooter-shredders, 150. Completing a canyon is worth 50 points times the canyon number plus the time bonus. Each object retrieved in the dream stage is worth 500 points multiplied by the total number of dream stages plus 500. In novice mode, If you make it to the end of the game, the rocket ship screen, you are awarded 20,000 points for each life remaining plus 10,000 for each needle still in your inventory.

Note: When playing the game in novice mode, your score will end in zero or five. When you play in expert mode, you start out with one point, so your score will end in one or six.

Patch
This game offers something very few other homebrew games offer, a patch for achieving a high score, in this case, 80,000 points. Achieve this score or higher and you can join the ranks of the Space Cactus Captains. Simply take a photo of your score showing your cartridge plugged in, and send in an email to editor@atariage.com. This is a great addition and harkens back to the old days when Activision would award patches for high scores.

Difficulty switches / Level ramp-ups
Starting a game with the left difficulty in position “B” is novice mode. Position “A” is expert mode. Expert mode is much more difficult than novice mode. The enemies move quicker and their projectiles are faster. The dream stages end quicker. In novice mode, you start out with seven needles while in expert you start with five. During normal progression through the game, the difficulty is ramped up by changing up the enemies thrown at you. For example in the early stages, you have to dodge the shredders, then after a few canyons are cleared, you are introduced to the shooters. Then, later on, the shooter-shredders. In the later stages, in order to make it just a little more challenging, the shooters destroy the wall barriers that were previously blocking the plasma shots. The shredder movement is sped up and shredders will appear in the same canyon with the shooters. Should you make it to the end of the game in Novice mode, you can continue playing, only the game switches you to Expert mode for the remainder of the game.

Spare man
There are no spare cacti awarded in this game.

Strategy
Your goal is to fetch the water on the other side of each canyon as quickly as possible, shooting as few needles as possible in the process. This affects your points bonus at the end of each map as well as increases your chances in the later stages, the more needles you have. With this in mind, before moving around the canyon, survey it first.
If possible, avoid shooting the shredders by navigating AROUND obstacles in the canyon while making your way to the water. See if there is a path that leads to the water, in-between the shooters, without having to take one of them out. Often times this is possible. Take note of the speed of the shooter’s projectiles. If there’s enough distance between your cactus and the shooter, sometimes it is possible to cross the shooter’s path without getting hit.

Only one shooter can fire at you at a time. So, If there are two or three shooters lined up, and If they are far enough away, you might be able to pass by all of them without firing a single needle.

On the dream stages, bee-line toward the flat-shaped needles, first, then go for the bonus items.

Graphics
I like the graphics in the game. They are a bit blocky, but you can make out your cactus character quite clearly. The colors are complementary and suggestive of a desert landscape. The shredders and shooters are well defined, even bending down on one knee to make shots. The cactus is animated as you move and has some fine details. The water is blue, however the pail sort of looks like an upside-down hat. On the dream stages, you can clearly make out all the bonus items.

If you make it to the rocket stage, there are two images of the rocket, the first one is a blocky zoom in, the second one looks a little more polished showing a green rocket with white exhaust blasting away with the words “Home” displayed, your score on the bottom.

The title and ending screens are nicely detailed. The ending screen resembling an old wooden sign with the words “Trail’s End”

Sound
The sound effects in the game are fairly basic. There is no start-up tune or game over music. When you die, the sound effect used sounds a little bit like the sound effect from Adventure when the dragon eats you. There is a sound effect for firing a needle. One for hitting the enemy. One for collecting water. One for making it to the dream stage. One for collecting the needles and a different one for collecting the bonus items. There is a different sound effect for the shooters shooting their plasma rifle at you. There is a sound effect for making it to the rocket stage and a different satisfying sound effect for the rocket being launched into space.

World Record
I was unable to locate any official world records for Space Cactus Canyon, but I did request the game be added to highscore.com for friendly competition.

Easter eggs
I am not aware of any Easter eggs being placed into the game. Based on the discussions in the forums it sounded like there was not a lot of free space available on the cartridge for this purpose.

BUGS:

Quoting from the games programmer on the Atariage forums late in the development:

• There are two known remaining issues, and unfortunately aren’t solvable given the space limitations of the code:
Sometimes in the bonus round, there isn’t a path between you and the replenishing needles.
In rare instances (I haven’t had this happen yet in my testing), there will be a narrow vertical chute that you’ll have to cross, directly into the path of a shooter without sufficient space to get off a shot (i.e., it’s a guaranteed death).

• In my testing, I’ve noticed a few issues playing on real hardware. On the dream stage, sometimes you are blocked from moving in a certain direction when no wall is present like an invisible wall appears in front of your cactus. This is extremely frustrating when it happens because it can prevent you from collecting your much-needed needles.

• I’ve also noticed what looks like a random needle or short line or wafer being randomly deposited on the screen from time to time, that cannot be collected.

Suggestions for Improvements
Really I think the game plays great as is. The only thing I can think of gameplay-wise might be to have a temporary shield of some kind. This would come in handy especially in expert mode when you are out of needles. I would have like to have seen an intermediate difficulty or maybe some more difficulty settings attached to the right difficulty switch. It might have been nice for the shredders to have visible machete rather than hidden ones. Finally, I think the game could really benefit from some nice intro music to set the tone.

Packaging
Space Cactus Canyon comes complete in a box with a manual. The box art is consistent with the game’s title screen graphics, with a few extra images thrown in of the shredders and shooters. The same treatment is applied to the game’s manual and cartridge. The back of the box repeats the game’s story. In all, it looks terrific, as do all of Atariage’s boxed releases. The stock for the manual is thick and glossy. They even threw in a magnet and sticker. The extra effort was put into the manual which turned out great. It was extremely creative and is appreciated. Every aspect of the game is detailed and they even threw in a humorous section about “Caring for your video game Cartridge”, which I will read here:

Ports

This game uses a technology called DPC+, which is sort of an extension of a special chip that was used to create Pitfall II, because of this, this game is not compatible with the Atari Flashback portable units.

Podcasts / Other Video Review coverage

In my research, I found this article:
http://retrogamingmagazine.com/2017/07/23/space-cactus-canyon-enters-beta-on-atari-2600/

The game was mentioned in this link:
http://readretro.com/upcoming-atari-2600-games-you-need-to-play/

B.J. Best is a writer and you can find some of his work here:
https://bjbestpoet.wordpress.com/work-online/

He also set up a BBS named after the game and it can be accessed here:
https://bjbest60.neocities.org/telnet.html

Purchasing Information
Space Cactus Canyon is still available for purchase, complete in box, over at the Atariage store for $50 plus shipping.

https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1108

Conclusion
I really like Space Cactus Canyon. It’s a fun game and has a lot of replay value. Once you have finished the game, you can challenge yourself to either play again in expert mode, or even try to make it all the way through a second time!
I am also really impressed this game was programmed in Batari BASIC, the second game in a row I’ve reviewed being coded in BASIC, the other being Super-Mine Field for the Intellivision. This game requires fast reflexes, especially in the expert setting. The randomly drawn maps ensure no game will play exactly the same. There was a lot of creativity put into the lore behind the game and the packaging is wonderful. Highly Recommended.

Youtube Description:

This is my review of the Atari 2600 homebrew game Space Cactus Canyon, released at last year’s (2017) Portland Retro Gaming Expo.

SCC Bug Correction & glitch video:
https://youtu.be/pTQ9sG_4V2I

Complete Playthrough – Novice Mode:
https://youtu.be/QHfIb0Enm_8

Vendor website:
https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1108

AA Forum development info:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/261911-space-cactus-canyon-beta/

Space Cactus Canyon BBS:
https://bjbest60.neocities.org/telnet.html

Space Cactus Canyon BBS forum entry:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/276229-new-bbs-space-cactus-canyon/

Magazine Article:
http://retrogamingmagazine.com/2017/07/23/space-cactus-canyon-enters-beta-on-atari-2600/

Article 2:
http://readretro.com/upcoming-atari-2600-games-you-need-to-play/

More on DPC+ :
http://atariage.com/forums/blog/134/entry-7832-batari-basic-11-beta-with-dpc-kernel/

Youtube Original Post Date: 06/01/2018