Suggestions, please!

[JonBrawn]

I'm demonstrating my 6560 FPGA at Vintage Computer Festival - South West in Dallas in a couple of weeks, and I need some help picking things to demo.

I'd like to show one or two of the demo programs, but I have no idea which ones run on an NTSC VIC-20. I want one that doesn't look like a screen full of noise but where you can see that it is doing >this< and it is meant to be doing it (so you don't look at it and go, "Is it supposed to look like that?"). Which demo would you suggest?

I'd also like to demo a game or two, preferably a bit eye-catching and with a self-play mode. If there's a cartridge version, all the better, but that's not essential. Please suggest your favourite impressive VIC-20 games!

[bjonte]

Cheese and Onion should work on NTSC and is a cartridge game. H.E.R.O isn’t on cartridge, but has an attract mode. H3LP B0DG3 looks nice but I haven’t tried it. Super Monza also looks really nice.

[Vic20-Ian]

Please suggest your favourite impressive VIC-20 games!

Star Defender 16k tape - Expanded screen mode and large sprites, great Stargate / Defender game.

Jelly Monsters - Cartridge - Pacman

LaserZone - 8k tape - simple graphics but some interesting effects

Hell Gate - 8k tape - control 4 ships at once, similar to Laser Zone

Myriad 8k tape - lots going on at the same time on the screen, a bit like Astro Blaster

Omega Race - Cartridge - vector style graphics, single pixel box edges flash

Gorf - Cartridge - just Gorf, just a great game

[Mike]

I'd like to show one or two of the demo programs, but I have no idea which ones run on an NTSC VIC-20. I want one that doesn't look like a screen full of noise [...]

Not sure where you got that impression about demos.

[...] but where you can see that it is doing >this< and it is meant to be doing it (so you don't look at it and go, "Is it supposed to look like that?"). Which demo would you suggest?

I'm afraid you won't get much appreciation about that by the majority of people you will see at the Festival. Most people just do not have any clue about what is technically possible with the display hardware of the VIC-20. If anything, they will likely think "well, that's easily possible with a C64, so what?".

Yet, people seeing the 22 characters/line scheme should recognize the VIC-20 and be able to tell it apart from the C64. Under that premise, it might be most interesting to show off programs/tools and games that do not immediately tell they're running on a VIC-20.

I'd also like to demo a game or two, preferably a bit eye-catching and with a self-play mode. If there's a cartridge version, all the better, but that's not essential. Please suggest your favourite impressive VIC-20 games!

bjonte has already mentioned his H.E.R.O. port. +1 for that.

Imagic's Demon Attack is another worthy candidate (be aware there are two distinct versions for PAL and NTSC!). Even though Dragonfire has a similar involved programming of the VIC chip, I think Demon Attack is more approachable.

AndyH's Cheesy Trials also has seen extended playtime on my VIC-20.

The usual bunch of games with (just) character based graphics is well covered by my Games Collection. Of those, TRON (the 2004 edition) might hold up interest of passing people for a few minutes.

When it comes to tools, you might consider demoing lightpen functionality on a CRT with MINISKETCH (note: it needs a lightpen with trigger switch!), interoperability with MINIPAINT (you can load picture files saved in MINISKETCH into MINIPAINT) and you might bring into focus the smaller yet still readable character size used throughout in MINIPAINT.

[Jeff-20]

If the audience is familiar with the 64, I would suggest popular variations like Gridrunner or Omega Race because they look so different on a VIC.

[Vic20-Ian]

If the audience is familiar with the 64, I would suggest popular variations like Gridrunner or Omega Race because they look so different on a VIC.

....Better on the Vic

Laser Zone is the best Jeff Minter game in my opinion, great sound although Metagalactic Llamas Battle At The Edge Of Time has a unique gameplay aspect and is impressive for the unexpanded Vic20 as is Annihalator. Compared to many games for the unexpanded Vic20 there was always a lot of polish, gameplay and speed in Jeff's games.

[groepaz]

I always found "Capture the flag" somewhat impressive, being such an early title with first person 3D