How Atari Tried to Appeal to Kids

Atari had a lot of success making games using licensed properties later on they started making games that were targeted for kids they even made a kid's controller what was Atari really going for and were the games purely educational let's take a look what's going on it's poer coming at you with another video all right so we're going to be talking about some of the weird controllers by Atari we're also going to be talking about some of the non- games on the Atari as well as some kids games so I want to thank Grizzly Adams for the video idea he's running a newsletter called Doss and don'ts get it dos dos it's pretty funny right now he's got both a website as well as a YouTube channel right now he's got quite a few people from our Discord Community making articles for his website and YouTube channel and I'm actually really flattered it's kind of like a community within a community and that's the reason I made the Discord server in the first place his YouTube channel is Pretty under subbed right now I think he's at about 10 subscribers let's definitely get that in the hundreds if you got a second definitely drop subscription for him speaking of subscriptions if you got a second definitely hit the Subscribe button on our own channel it only takes a second but it helps our community grow and speaking of Discord definitely join our Discord server at discord.net I'll also put a link right in the description anyway let's get [Music] started so what's the difference between a computer and a game console a computer has an operating system that boots when you turn it on they usually come prepackaged with features right out of the box there are computer games but there's also software Ware like Word documents drawing programs and music creating apps the Atari 400 and 800 for example had both games and software computers usually have keyboards and a mouse they're not just units that have one purpose they're designed for many different tasks a console on the other hand has no operating software you need games for it to run otherwise you just have a paper weight it doesn't come prepackaged with anything except for maybe a pack-in game there's typically no keyboard or Mouse just a basic controller that you can plug into the unit and play with consoles play games that are made for it but there's typically no programs except Atari did see potential for programs on their newly released 2600 hoping to get people interested in programming they released basic programming where you can program with Atari basic the game came with controller overlays that were compatible with a keypad controller this way you could get a keyboard like experience on a game console the keypad controller was a set of two controllers that gave you more functionality than a standard joystick the game itself is what You' expect it's just a very Bare Bones program where you can write lines of code you're very limited on what you can do with it because of the 2600's ram limit you can only write 64 characters total and you can only write nine lines of code or less the instruction manual does get you started on how to write in Atari basic and it even gives you an example program you can run which is Atari would recycle the controller idea for the 2600 version of star Raiders it was one of the best selling games on the Atari 400 and 800 and it's super ambitious that this title got a 2600 release you play as a fighter pilot that must keep the enemies from invading your star bases the game features a map that allows you to track everything for its time this is a very Advanced Title Atari bundled all copies of Star Raider with the touchpad controller and an overlay that goes on top it's very similar to the keypad controller but it's just a single controller rather than two so why did Atari make new controllers for these two games rather than just using the joystick both games are very complex in nature and would be near impossible to play with the regular joystick the fact that both titles come with overlays makes them a little easier to play since you're told what the buttons do I also think that both controllers took inspiration from the intellivision which has a very similar controller concept where you put overlays on to enhance the gameplay experience unfortunately the touchpad controller that came with star Raiders didn't see any use with any other games the keypad controller however was compatible with multiple other games there were also a bunch of other controllers on the 2600 including but not limited to the driving controller this was bundled with Indie 500 it looks just like a paddle controller but it can turn 360° the flight Commander it's meant to emulate a fighter aircraft gun it was bundled with the game Spitfire attack which is a very ambitious rail shooter technically it works with all 2600 games but why would anyone want to play a game with this The foot craze the idea is that you put it on the floor and use your feet to play games it's meant for the titles video jogger and video reflex this would be a fun device to use for a track and field type game The Joy board you put it on the ground and you lean left or right it's supposed to to emulate skiing and it was bundled with a skiing game but I heard it doesn't work well and finally the track and field controller this is meant for the game track and field which is an extremely impressive arcade Port the design is meant to emulate the arcade style controls and it looks like fun to play technically it works for all games but you only get left and right inputs so it's not the best controller to use so this is just a small rundown of the different controllers on the 2600 it's surprising how far they went considering how primitive this console was however there's one more controller I wanted to talk [Music] about Atari had already seen a lot of success obtaining licenses to classic arcade games such as Space Invaders and Pac-Man so their next idea was to secure licenses to well-known characters Atari wanted to appeal to kids more so they obtained licenses to popular kids shows like Sesame Street the Muppets the peanuts and more Atari would give these games a special label and they were colorcoded depending on what show they were from for example Sesame Street was yellow The Muppets was blue and the peanuts was red as expected a lot of these games are educational ones that were meant for younger audiences only however some of the games like Snoopy and the Red Baron were just regular games that were meant for everybody to complement these new line of games Atari came out with the kids controller as we can see it resembles the touchpad all the games that are compatible with it come with an overlay however not all the children's games require the controller I assume the reason Atari came out with this is because kids like playing with shapes and toys and this controller with the overlays do accommodate that I imagine it's also easier to use because the overlays contain bright colors and visuals to help kids understand the game better with that said let's take look at some games first we'll talk about the Sesame Street games these ones were made with kids in mind and therefore very simplistic in Alpha Beam with Ernie you just have to match the letters together and you win in Big Bird's egg catch you must collect as many eggs as possible without dropping any in Cookie Monster Munch you must collect cookies and then drop them in the jar unfortunately these games all require a special controller and cannot be played with a regular 2600 joystick I'm not sure why they didn't make these games compatible with both of all the children's franchises Sesame Street had the most games Atari was working on another one that featured Grover but it was never released now let's look at Snoopy and the Red Baron here it's a horizontally scrolling shooter where you must bring down the Red Baron and collect snacks along the way the scrolling is very smooth which is impressive considering the 2600's limitations there's even Parallax scrolling which is mind-blowing to see this is the only 20 600 game in the peanuts franchise to be released Atari was planning a Charlie Brown game but it was never released here's Sorcerer's Apprentice you play as Mickey Mouse in the setting of Fantasia who must keep the cavern from flooding by collecting the falling stars if you miss one of them it adds to the flood meter below and if it gets full you lose you have a projectile that you can fire at the stars in meteors the game itself is nothing special but it's very interesting that Atari had the license to make Mickey Mouse shockingly Atari was working on quite a few Disney games one starring Donald Duck another starring Snow White and the last starring Dumbo it's a shame that these were not released because the Donald Duck game and Dumbo game specifically were fantastic it's really sad that these were not released but Sorcerer's Apprentice was the final game we'll look at is pigs in space this is based off a sketch from the Muppets that feature Three Pigs in Space one of them being Miss Piggy the game game is divided into three mini games the first one is a space invader clone where you have to destroy all of Gonzo's chickens the second one you're Miss Piggy and you must make it to the rocket ship while avoiding the enemies the final game is a horizontal shooter where you must make it to the end without crashing or getting hit by an enemy because it's three games and not one it actually makes for a very decent game this was the only Muppets game released on the 2600 unless you count the Sesame Street games since they're also Muppets thanks Janine Atari was working on another Muppets game called Miss Piggy's wedding but it was cancelled as we can see the Sesame Street games were definitely meant for younger kids but the other titles felt like regular games that could be enjoyed by anyone it's insane how much favoritism the Sesame Street franchise had with four games being released while the other franchises only had one each it's also ridiculous how many unreleased games there were if that's not enough there was also a planned Garfield game that wasn't released although it's not confirmed the game most likely would have received the children's branding had it been published about the kids controller the only games that required it were the Sesame Street ones the rest could be played with a regular joystick the kids controller is interesting but the Sesame Street games are so basic they really didn't need a special controller at the very least I wish Atari gave us the option to use the regular joysticks I mean look at this control scheme there's no way they couldn't have emul ulated this on a regular joystick so why did Atari try to appeal to kids there's a few reasons I could see atari's regular lineup of games tended to attract older audiences a lot of the games are in a Sci-Fi setting where it's dark and you're in a life ore situation some of their games are more difficult to figure out too you ever put in a game and you try cycling through the gameplay variations just to see what each one does without the manual it's hard to figure out some games Atari doesn't hold your hand through most of these perhaps they thought kids would enjoy games if they had an easier controller and more appropriate games for their age [Music] group hey I just wanted to thank you so much for watching this video if you made it this far hit that like button if you enjoy this type of cont content hit the Subscribe button for more content both of these things really help the channel grow if you have anything to share feel free to leave a comment I read every single comment on this channel and I'm pretty good at replying back anyway have a good [Music] one

Channel: pojr

Views: 5,886

Keywords: Children's Games, Kids Controller, Sesame Street, The Muppets, The Peanuts, Charlie Brown, Atari 400, Atari 800, Star Raid, Basic Programming, TouchPad Controller, Keyboard Controller, KeyPad Controller, Oscar the Grouch, Miss Piggy, Grover, Snoopy and the Red Baron, Pigs in Space, Big Bird's Egg Catch, Cookie Monster Munch, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Game Review, Game Rant, pojr

Id: xFpmMl5iZ8g

Length: 12min 23sec (743 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 31 2024