Anyone Developed For The New Atari VCS?

Just wondering. I have my game running fine but am running into issues with their bundle install system.

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Does MonoGame run on it? :slight_smile:

Itā€™s Debian Linux. I did a 3.8 DesktopGL build and it ran right off the bat apart from some issues mapping the controllers.

Thatā€™s cool. How is the performance? I guess I could go look up the specs :stuck_out_tongue:

Itā€™s fine for Jetboard Joust as far as I can tell. Itā€™s a retro pixelart number but I do throw a lot of particles and custom shaders about! I think the specs are supposed to be pretty decent but I havenā€™t looked in detail, it seems on a par with the Switch anyway.

We were able to get a build of Muffed running on it (Linux DesktopGL build as well), but just through Ubuntu in PC Mode as we donā€™t yet have dev access. Weā€™d love any details you could provide on how you got into their dev program.

Also, for any looking for the VCS controllers support stuff, we had discussed that here (just for the sake of potentially useful interlinking): Support For Modern Atari VCS Controllers

I had no Idea about this console! It makes me weirdly happy! Is there a chance I can get my hands on a dev-kit as a nobody enthusiast?

I canā€™t help with the dev program Iā€™m afraid as my publisher sorted all that side of things.

To answer my original question though, the problem I was having ended up being due to the way I was accessing the application save data folder which changes when the game is launched as a ā€˜bundleā€™ via their dashboard. The way to sort it is to use the environment variable $HOME rather than the SpecialFolder enum in dotnet, i.e.

string homedir = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable(ā€œHOMEā€);

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Why would you develop for a dead-on-arrival system, tho.

yeah bruh, if you think developing for the new atari is a good idea, Iā€™ve got an Ouya to sell ya :sweat_smile:

Great info to have, thanks for sharing!

I believe the devkits and consoles are the same machines, with slightly different OS builds (info from rumors Iā€™ve heard, nothing concrete). That said, the VCS is able to run other OSs from either an internal SSD or a USB drive. That coupled with the knowledge that Atari World (the Atari VCS OS) is based on Ubuntu Linux, you can get pretty close without being in their dev program by targeting an OpenGL Linux build and running it via Ubuntu on the console. That said, this wonā€™t help with when you actually need to deploy with their packaging process and/or their API integrations, but should at least get you to where you can run your game on the console and work out anything weird gameplay-wise.

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The Atari VCS isnā€™t even released yetā€¦ Only backers (beta testers, basically) even have the console right now.

giveusachance

Didnā€™t games like Towerfall, a MonoGame-based title, famously make great money on the Ouya? :thinking: Granted, it had a very short lifespan though.

Update: upon looking it up, it looks like Towerfall probably didnā€™t make ā€œgreat moneyā€ on Ouya despite being the consoleā€™s most popular game :confused: I guess I remember this differently heh

I know nothing about Linux really but from the info I have I think Debian 10.6 is the closest to what the console is actually running.

People have successfully run both Windows and MacOS on it!

I think youā€™re right about the devkits being the same, thereā€™s just a slightly different version of the OS that allows you to connect to it via ssh to upload and test.

Iā€™ve had to do pretty much nothing to my game to port other than map the controllers.

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Thatā€™s survivorship bias.

Well thatā€™s true :stuck_out_tongue: