4 ms·

I'm utterly amazed by the fact I can communicate with one of the authors of one of the games that defined my childhood. Faceball 2000 is, to me, a hidden gem o

by msla 8y ago

I'm utterly amazed by the fact I can communicate with one of the authors of one of the games that defined my childhood. Faceball 2000 is, to me, a hidden gem of the Game Boy, a platform with many well-known gems already, and it helped me pass many pleasurable hours. (Seriously. The Game Boy had amazing battery life, as long as you were playing it in a well-lit environment.) Even playing it alone was fun, and I still remember the music as some of the best of that era of console gaming. (And, yes, I sank many hours into DOOM and DOOM II as well.)

emptybits 8y ago
That's awesome. It makes me happy that you enjoyed and remember the game. Robert Champagne, the real genius, coded the Game Boy and I rode his coattails. I was responsible for the Game Gear version, a PC prototype, and other things. My code ran a lot slower than Rob's and I was never happy with the final frame rate. :-( The GG had a nice colour screen but horrible battery life and poor market share compared to the GB. [Aside: the Atari Lynx was a slightly earlier platform and technically interesting but its market share was zilch.] We were pretty proud of Faceball 2000. James Yee, the non-technical founder behind MIDI Maze and Faceball 2000, was a visionary guy. Keeping the aesthetic abstract (smiley faces, minimal texturing or "realism", etc.) was way easier to code but it also won us some parental advisory awards in the industry because we avoided gratuitous violence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm glad you remember the music. The GB and GG music were composed by David Whittaker. Very talented. When you unavoidably listen to your game's music over and over and over and over, it's nice when it's actually well composed and sonically interesting. The SNES music is also great, composed by George Sanger, and the SNES had better audio hardware by a long shot but I actually prefer the tunes and instrumentation of the GB/GG intros, outros, level music, etc. Nice chat. And as the game says, when you get whacked by a smiley face, "HAVE A NICE DAY."
- deng 8y ago
  David Whittaker was my favorite back in the day. Sometimes I fired up "Feud" simply to listen to the music. It was funny to hear his "Lazy Jones" track later in the clubs, albeit covered by Zombie Nation.

by msla 8y ago

emptybits 8y ago

That's awesome. It makes me happy that you enjoyed and remember the game. Robert Champagne, the real genius, coded the Game Boy and I rode his coattails. I was responsible for the Game Gear version, a PC prototype, and other things. My code ran a lot slower than Rob's and I was never happy with the final frame rate. :-( The GG had a nice colour screen but horrible battery life and poor market share compared to the GB. [Aside: the Atari Lynx was a slightly earlier platform and technically interesting but its market share was zilch.] We were pretty proud of Faceball 2000. James Yee, the non-technical founder behind MIDI Maze and Faceball 2000, was a visionary guy. Keeping the aesthetic abstract (smiley faces, minimal texturing or "realism", etc.) was way easier to code but it also won us some parental advisory awards in the industry because we avoided gratuitous violence. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I'm glad you remember the music. The GB and GG music were composed by David Whittaker. Very talented. When you unavoidably listen to your game's music over and over and over and over, it's nice when it's actually well composed and sonically interesting. The SNES music is also great, composed by George Sanger, and the SNES had better audio hardware by a long shot but I actually prefer the tunes and instrumentation of the GB/GG intros, outros, level music, etc. Nice chat. And as the game says, when you get whacked by a smiley face, "HAVE A NICE DAY."

deng 8y ago
David Whittaker was my favorite back in the day. Sometimes I fired up "Feud" simply to listen to the music. It was funny to hear his "Lazy Jones" track later in the clubs, albeit covered by Zombie Nation.