Author: Robert Gomez

A Homebrew Atari 2600 Cartridge Design

Posted on
Elevators Amiss Maid

Recently, I took the time to enter an art contest. It was sponsored by AtariAge.com—a Web site devoted to the the preservation of the Atari 2600 and other ancient Atari computers and consoles. They also are one of the few places that sell new(!) games for the Atari 2600.

It was one of these new, so-called homebrew games that was the object of the contest. The game is called Elevators Amiss and it involves running a tiny pixelized chambermaid up the floors of a hotel, trying to avoid the elevators that move up and down across your path. Think of it as a less complicated version of Frogger. The winner of the contest was to receive a copy of the game and a credit from the AtariAge store. That was enough to get me to give it a go (I’ve been eying the Joystick to USB converter for awhile now).

My approach to the design was to create an image that was dynamic and made you think you were buying a 3-D video action extravaganza… pretty much like every Atari game box tricked me into thinking when I was a kid. Looking back on past winners, I noticed that there were many entries that used some of the same design and layout of the classic games that Atari put out in the early eighties. In my opinion, such designs go against the spirit of homebrew Atari games. These games are not really about nostalgia, they more are about taking a near-dead platform and breathing new life into the system.

The hardest part about illustrating this game it that the theme of killer elevators doesn’t work well outside of the constraints of the 2-D pixelated screen. My idea was to have the elevators flying through the walls and ceilings, completely dislodged from their elevator shafts smashing everything in their paths. In the image, the chambermaid is sprinting down the hall, just avoiding a crashing elevator car. Originally, I was going to give her a rainbow colored tracing of her movements trailing behind her (ala the Keystone Kapers box) but I liked my elevator painting too much to cover it up with action lines. Anyhow, here’s the final product for your viewing pleasure.

Unfortunately, I did not win the contest. The winner was Nathan Strumm #1. It was one of the better ideas, but to me it doesn’t capture the essence of the actual game play. My personal favorite was Patricio Cuello #1—simple idea, well executed with lots of colors. It seemed very appropriate to me. Check out the contest page to see all the entries.

Champaign/Urbana Music Scene and the Rise and Fall of Der Lugomen

Posted on

Last weekend Nonagon took a little mini-tour to play a gig at the Iron Post in Urbana, Illinois. The town was buried, ball-deep in snow and was completely dead. All the old haunts have been sterilized, commercialized and bland-o-fied. From what we hear, gone are the days of Cham-bana’s vibrant music scene. Sure, there are still some good bands down there, Triple Whip for example, and I hear the Poster Children are still alive, but the spark is gone.

All this said, our show was a blast, and we were very thankful to the people who brave the weather to come out that night. But cruisin’ around the town brought back many reminiscences of gigs of years past. For me it was my college-years band, Der Lugomen. We only played out three times, but each show was an event to behold.

Der Lugomen was comprised of Robert Gomez (hey, that’s me), John Burgess, Thom Burbrink (who now goes by the professional moniker of Frank T. Burbrink, PhD.), and an Alesis 16-B drum machine. Our music was much influenced by Big Black and The Jesus Lizard, basically that late 80s early 90s Illinois indy sound.

At the time we all lived in the same apartment and seemed to have endless hours available to us for dicking around and writing songs. We would have full-volume practice sessions in our 3rd floor apartment unit, and the neighbors never seemed to complain (at least not to our faces). All of our work cumulated in the release of 2 tapes full of songs. The first was a patchy hodge podge of songs entitled, “No Rules Barred.” The second was our magnum opus, “Honky Lips.”

I have put together a DVD of footage from our last show. Here’s a clip from it that I posted on YouTube.

Der Lugomen only performed out three times. This show, at Treno’s pizzeria in Urbana, was our first non-house party show and our last show ever. We basically played our songs while Thom sang, threw garbage and terrorized the folks near the front.

For those of you with good eyesight, you may be able to see Jay Ryan taking my shoes off. After us, Jumpknuckle played (featuring John of Nonagon), then Snapcase, and finally Hot Glue Gun. The local bands were all great. Snapcase was awful. Retarded NYC punk–they actually had guys on stage who would accentuate song changes by punching in the air. We theorized that they would have to pull the tour van over every couple of hours so that they could all take punch breaks at the side of the road.

If you are interested in obtaining some Der Lugomen music send me a note and maybe we can work something out.

More Videos from my VHS Archives

Posted on

I’m beginning to slowly make my way through my old VHS tapes in search of interesting video to post and have found a couple. First we have a short clip from Ben Stiller’s old MTV show. The MTV show was pretty funny, much better than the Fox incarnation that came along later. He really has the mannerism of Shatner down, but Stiller can’t do the voice at all. That’s basically the problem with most of Stiller’s sketch comedy. He can write good sketches but doesn’t have the impersonation skills (that Zoolander voice was freakin’ awful) that define most of the recent American sketch comedy greats like Mike Meyers. Anyhow, enjoy this high point in his career:

UPDATE: The above video was removed from YouTube due to a copyright violation, but thanks to a glitch in YouTube’s API you can still view it embedded here!

Next we have the legendary performance of 3-D (Douglas Denevio… Denebio[?]) lip syncing to Paul Hardcastle’s 19. I believe he won that season’s competition–I hope he spent his $25,000 wisely. Anyhow, the numbers tell the story 30-30-30. We can only dream that we could as cool as Doug:

You’re the Best of the Class this Year…

Posted on

For the past year or so I have been keeping a log of all the movies, books and media I have consumed throughout the year and giving personal ratings for everything. I can now present you with my top ranked items for the year of our Lord, 2006!

My only rule for adding things to the list are that I have to have not seen/read/played that item previously. This means my lists are filled with items that weren’t released in 2006, so don’t consider this a Best of 2006 list like you would see on other, so-called “web sites.” So without further ado, here is Robert Gomez’s favorite media of 2006:

Best of 2006

Movies

  • Deep Red (a.k.a. Profundo Rosso) (9/10)
    • Beautiful horror mystery with one of the best, and fair reveals at the end of the movie. It’s like a live action romantic painting.
  • Wallace and Grommit and the Curse of the Were Rabbit (9/10)
    • Very amusing animation that doesn’t rely on American animation formulas of anthropomorphism. Lot’s of humor for adults too.
  • Frenzy (9/10)
    • Hitchcock does giallo!
  • Rear Window (9/10)
    • What can I say, it’s a classic.

Books

  • And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie (10/10)
    • A great puzzle that keeps up its pace all the way to the last page
  • The Fortune of War by Patrick O’Brian (9/10)
  • Desolation Island by Patrick O’Brian (9/10)
    • Both of the above books are part of the Aubry/Maturin naval warfare books. These are (so far) my favorites in the series with strong, over-arching plot lines or espionage and survival and a slightly reduced emphasis on naval tactics and such.

Games

  • Day of Defeat: Source (10/10)
    • My first real foray into online FPS gaming. Fast paced and forgiving for n00bs.
  • Half-Life 2 (9/10)
    • A great game with some nice game play twists. I get a bit boring about 2/3 into it, but picks up again by the end.

Music

  • Hello Young Lovers by Sparks (10/10)
    • A masterpiece of epic, symphonic goofiness and left-of-center pop structuring. Sparks best since Kimono my House.
  • Fear Box Set by Ennio Morricone (10/10)

For Your Height Only

Posted on

After waiting for weeks, the planets aligned (I got access to my parents huge screen TV), I was able to watch For Your Height Only. This movie is the “A-side” of a DVD double feature including the previously reviewed Challenge of the Tiger that was released by Mondo Macabro ealier this year.

For Your Height Only (or as it appears in the title screen, For Y’ur Height Only) is another Dick Randall (Pieces) exploitation production. This film was made in the Philippines on a near-zero budget and features Philippino little-person Weng Weng as its secret agent protagonist.

The movie is essentially a Bond parody in which Weng Weng’s height is the basis for all the intended humor. The movie is, however, filled with loads of unintential laughs as well. The main source being the awful, over-the-top voice dubbing–all the baddies have James Cagney gangster voices. There are even self-aware moments in which the dialog serves as Mystery Science Theater-like comments on the action taking place. For example, during the ultra boring gadget sequence, Double-O’s boss says, “You got a bug in your hair?” only because Weng Weng happens to scratch his head during the scene.

The plot is horrible and loses track of itself about ten minutes into the film. It’s not until the climax that we remember that Double-O is trying to save a scientist or something. Most of the plot is simply an excuse to get Weng Weng to kill hordes of baddies (often the same guys multiple times). The kung-fu is a bit lacking but some of Weng Weng’s acrobatics are pretty amazing. Especially, since, I swear, Weng Weng has to be wearing leg braces under his stylish disco suits. On top of all the fighting there is also a bit of disco dancing and the obligatory, cringe-worthy Bond “love scene.”

At first I was also pretty amazed at the quality of the score, an almost note-for-note variation on For Your Eyes Only and other Bond motiffs. It’s at about the 14th time that they play the same song that I realize that the music is a bit repetitive.

This movie just oozes cheesy bad taste. It has all the markings of your typical so-bad-it’s-good movie. Take heed though, this also means there are plenty of boring moments between the insanity, but, all-in-all, a great movie to watch with your drunk friends. Taken in tandem with Challenge of the Tiger it’s a very worthwhile DVD purchase… yes, I bought this piece of crap cinema history.