Do you plan on buying Atlantean on a card?

[Bernie]

If one cannot justify paying that price for a BRAND NEW HuCARD GAME for their turbob...I question their dedication.....   

[Mathius]

That is a good price considering all Ark said. Not far off from actual retail price of the era.

[CrackTiger]

If one cannot justify paying that price for a BRAND NEW HuCARD GAME for their turbob...I question their dedication.....   

We still have many lurkers and members who don't post outside the sales sections, who are turned off by the prospect of the game not being factory sealed, as it limits the resale potential.

[synbiosfan]

If one cannot justify paying that price for a BRAND NEW HuCARD GAME for their turbob...I question their dedication.....   

We still have many lurkers and members who don't post outside the sales sections, who are turned off by the prospect of the game not being factory sealed, as it limits the resale potential.

Then I hope this release has no seal whatsoever besides the shipping method.

[Mathius]

If one cannot justify paying that price for a BRAND NEW HuCARD GAME for their turbob...I question their dedication.....   

We still have many lurkers and members who don't post outside the sales sections, who are turned off by the prospect of the game not being factory sealed, as it limits the resale potential.

Then I hope this release has no seal whatsoever besides the shipping method.

QFT

[HailingTheThings]

Will definitely still buy. :3

[spenoza]

If one cannot justify paying that price for a BRAND NEW HuCARD GAME for their turbob...I question their dedication.....   

We still have many lurkers and members who don't post outside the sales sections, who are turned off by the prospect of the game not being factory sealed, as it limits the resale potential.

Arky should sell two different packages. One is the regular, $60 non-sealed one. The second would be a $150 special sealed package which has one of those silver VOID stickers across all 3 sides of the case that open AND plastic shrinkwrap. That way the sealed game nuts can have their special edition sealed game, and it would be a completely different thing, so nobody would get butt-hurt. And he could make some cash on the side. All he'd need to do is keep some plastic, some VOID stickers, and a hair dryer around. And maybe a special $1000 package that has a trigger mechanism such that if you actually open the case, it wipes the AbCard (maybe there was never a game on there to begin with!).

I'm all for elaborate ploys...

[OldMan]

The second would be a $150 special sealed package ....

I told him, we should make 5 collectors editions cards, and seal  10 of them....
50/50 chance you actually got one
Of course, if you open it and look......

....it limits the resale potential.

Our sales contract may say you have a limited, non-transferable license for use on one system.

[jeffhlewis]

I say shrink wrap all of them, and right before shipping use a butter knife to rip just enough of the shrink wrap on each copy to piss off the collectards. Then we can watch them piss and moan on their retarded Youtube channels.

[Psycho Punch]

I've said it once already, shrink wrap only one copy, and put it on ebay for outrageous prices (put it in a VGA graded case for a plus). Halts every flipping attempt, because they can't claim there are no sealed copies of the game, so they can't send their copies to be VGA'd, and they won't be able to find sealed copies anywhere

[o.pwuaioc]

I've said it once already, shrink wrap only one copy, and put it on ebay for outrageous prices (put it in a VGA graded case for a plus). Halts every flipping attempt, because they can't claim there are no sealed copies of the game, so they can't send their copies to be VGA'd, and they won't be able to find sealed copies anywhere

Pretty brilliant, actually. Except for the fact that it requires sending $$$ to VGA.

[Arkhan Asylum]

How about I seal them with a lighter.

Melted together, for your collecting pleasure.


Anyway, yeah, the only seal you're getting from me is the Arkhan Seal-of-Fuck-Collectors-This-Game-Is-Supposed-To-Be-Played.

[Mathius]

Looks like Ark never learned anything from the Watermelon school of proper homebrewery tactics. 

[FiftyQuid]

Late to the party, but I voted YES.  I'll even throw in extra $$$ to ship it tracked to the Great White North.

[tggodfrey]

There is no god if I do not get one.

[CrackTiger]

I say shrink wrap all of them, and right before shipping use a butter knife to rip just enough of the shrink wrap on each copy to piss off the collectards. Then we can watch them piss and moan on their retarded Youtube channels.

That will only legimize the pro grading of the game. Everyone will buy stacks of the game to be graded, hoping to score a higher grade than anyone else has. Then it will be listed on eBay as "R@RE! *Only 8.5 copy on eBay!* L@@K!"

The problem with a hobby based on b.s. is that there is nothing to stop it. Each seller simply evolves the standard rules of their hobby to suit their particular sale of an item. Then the next guy builds his b.s. off off that.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I was thinking about having the manual say


"If you paid more than 60$ for this game, you got taken for a ride by some douche."

[shubibiman]

Still OK for 60$.

[tggodfrey]

That would be a good

I was thinking about having the manual say


"If you paid more than 60$ for this game, you got taken for a ride by some douche."

Good introductory warning in the manual!

[hizaygizirlz]

Count me in I'll probably pick up PP at the same time since I somehow kept putting that off.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Count me in I'll probably pick up PP at the same time since I somehow kept putting that off.

You should never put PP off.

[tggodfrey]

Yeah I need to Order PP as well.  Hurry up and make Atlantean available already

[FiftyQuid]

I was thinking about having the manual say


"If you paid more than 60$ for this game, you got taken for a ride by some douche."

If you do this I'll pay $70 for a copy.  Or you can just sign it "To Fifty from your Douche"

[Arkhan Asylum]

I'll probably use a more friendly word like "Money Grubbing Toolbag" or "RoyVegas", but you get the idea, lol.

[T2KFreeker]

$60.00 makes it worth it for the nostalgia. I look forward to holding one of these in my grubby hands shortly. Le Play Le Game!

[xcrement5x]

I voted yes, the price is fine by me.

[Arkhan Asylum]

[synbiosfan]

I believe so

[Bardoly]

I plan to buy a copy of Atlantean on a card.

[seieienbu]

Out of curiosity, how  long does it take to actually manufacture this stuff?

[Lochlan]

You should charge more.  I get that this is a hobby for you rather than a business per se, but I, for one, would be happy to pay $100 for a hand-assembled 3D-printed game.

[VestCunt]

You should charge more.  I get that this is a hobby for you rather than a business per se, but I, for one, would be happy to pay $100 for a hand-assembled 3D-printed game.

If I may be so bold, I think part of Arkhan's philosophy -- of programming classic games for real hardware and not shrink wrapping them -- is specifically to cater to gamers and invigorate the culture that spawned video games. Part of that culture is pricing games in the same ballpark as other kids toys.

He COULD charge $100 and most of us would still buy it, but boutique prices perpetuate collector mentality, artificial scarcity, reselling, and sitting-on-the-shelf-in-a-polybag "investment" bullshit.

Prices for Insanity and PP never compromised. Aetherbyte is in no danger of selling themselves short.

[OldMan]

Out of curiosity, how  long does it take to actually manufacture this stuff?

Assuming I have everything at hand, and don't have to wait for it....

It's about an hour to mount the chip and make sure it works.  That includes time for repairs/rework, if needed.
It takes anywhere from 5 to 10 hours to print the plastic parts, depending on how the printer feels that day. That's right, 5 to 10 hours. The card holder takes 4+ hours alone. Screw-ups after an hour or two of printing are fairly common, too.
It takes about an hour to mount the chip/board in the plastic. That's a very touchy, sensitive process, because we have to be accurate to .01 mm, or the contacts don't line up.
It takes another hour or two for programming and testing. Each card gets written twice (once US, once JP) to make sure it works in either machine. Any failures here have to start over, and the board has to be un-mounted first. It does happen, mostly due to solder joints breaking because the board got flexed during mounting.

Some of these operations can be over-lapped. I can print plastic while mounting chips or complete boards. The limiting factor is how quick I can make the plastic parts - 3D printing is slow for larger objects, especially if you want them to look nice.

And it doesn't help that I actually am an old man, and can't stare at a small chip through a magnifier for too long without getting a headache

I can manage, on the average, about 1 card a day, given a weeks head start on the plastic stuff. Some days I get none done, some days two or three. It averages out to 1 a day, with final finishing and cleaning.

(And I don't work Thursday, Friday, or Sunday.)

He COULD charge $100 and most of us would still buy it.

Like Arkhan said, about half of the $60 price tag is to cover what we have -already- invested in materials. Feeding the printer alone is a huge chunk of that - especially when its being a pain and nothing wants to print right, or it fails on the next-to-last layer of the cd plate because a wire breaks. (The wires to the print head flex a lot, and are a frequent failure point)
All we are looking for from our sales is enought to recoup our investment, and pay for parts for the next run.

[For those who are really curious, we also have about another $3k invested in tools and sundries. (Price a good 3d printer. And remember, we got ours almost 2 years ago...) Almost none of the money is actual 'profit'.  We are hoping the next run will help pay for a filament maker ]

[TheClash603]

That last post provided a lot of insight and also made me feel guilty.

You guys are doing A TON for the TG16 community, something which can't really be matched by most of the rest of us.

Perhaps there should be a $60 price, but then an option to donate $20 at the buyers discretion out of appreciation, with nothing else provided in return.  I for one wouldn't mind contributing to a big fancy dinner for the two of you, so you can pat yourselves on the back.  Obviously you won't get rich off the extra portion, but maybe treat yourself to something small and deserved.

[FiftyQuid]

Couldn't we just buy them both a fleshlight and/or some lube?

[seieienbu]

A lot of hard work goes into this!

Clearly!  How do you get the circuitry on the hucard?  Does a 3D printer handle that too?  I honestly don't know too much about the things...

[OldMan]

The circuitry is etched on a 0.30 mm circuit board. (We don't have to hunt for someone to do thick, old style 0.90 mm boards). The chip is soldered on the board - on the bottom, so it doesn't stick up. The board then locks / is glued into place on the plastic.  (We have to glue them because they have to be positioned 'just so'. The locks get it close, but it still takes some small adjustments, and the printer is only accurate to about 0.03 mm.)


BUT a team at MIT has a working head for a 3d printer that does print conductive traces. Only about $3000......

Couldn't we just buy them both a fleshlight and/or some lube?

Is that a joke, or a recommendation from experience?

[Lochlan]

Prices for Insanity and PP never compromised. Aetherbyte is in no danger of selling themselves short.

It's drastically cheaper and easier to manufacture CD titles.  At least an order of magnitude.

I wrote my previous message under the assumption that "a lot" of time goes into manufacturing Atlantean, but I had no idea it was on the level of what TheOldMan described.  Given the amount of work going into this endeavor, I personally don't think even $100 is a sufficiently "fair" price.  A full day's labor is necessary to manufacture what has already had a ton of programming and art work go into it.   What an achievement!  It's impressive, not to mention commendable, that so much is going into providing a professional-quality product for an extremely niche hobbyist market.

My initial opinion is that the Aetherbyte team's efforts to deter "collectors" with this $60 price-point (basically a gift) will ultimately be in vain.  (How could such a lovingly-crafted product help but become a "collector's item"?)  The inherent slowness of the manufacturing process seems like it will force Atlantean, by design, to be produced in only extremely-limited quantities.  Perhaps the thought here is that by manufacturing this in-house they can meet supply over time and never be "out of print"? And by charging $60 they can have access to a more "casual" customer at regional game expos and so forth?  There must also be some fairly radical populist economic reasons behind the price-point, so I think it's pointless to try and convince Aetherbyte to charge even $100--but I could hardly call it a gouge if they decided to charge even more than that.

@The Old Man and Arkhan: I'm assuming you guys must have also considered having HuCards made in China or something like that, right?  Is the market too niche and the tooling too expensive to permit a more conventional production run (as opposed to the hand-made approach  used for Atlantean)?

[OldMan]

I'm assuming you guys must have also considered having HuCards made in China or something like that, right?

Nope. From the beginning, this project was about seeing if we could do it from scratch. If we could have solved the through-hole problem, we would be using self-etched boards, as well

Btw: this is only #2 of the tri-fecta An ACD would make it complete

[Mathius]

A product made in China would surely bring many more headaches I'm assuming. These guys love their product, their community, and their hobby. That brings with it a level of professionalism and quality that you wouldn't get with a Chinese manufacturing process.

To Ark, OldMan, and the rest of Atherbyte; Thank you for all your hard work, love and steadfast dedication to getting out not only a brand new game, but an actual fucking HuCard! You guys rock, you're price point is beyond fair, and greedy resellers don't seem to have any friends at this studio. *Brofist*

[seieienbu]

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.  Can't wait to check out the finished product.

[CrackTiger]

Nope. From the beginning, this project was about seeing if we could do it from scratch. If we could have solved the through-hole problem, we would be using self-etched boards, as well

Btw: this is only #2 of the tri-fecta An ACD would make it complete

What about a CD-ROMROM game?

...or LD-ROM?

[OldMan]

Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.

You're welcome. We are not trying to hide anything about the process, so ask away.

What about a CD-ROMROM game?...or LD-ROM?

Which one? Insanity or PP ?
I'm talking a game that uses the arcade card - all of it, if possible.
(And if things go right, it will be backwards compatible with older system cards. Just not as flashy)

And I have 0 interest in laserdiscs.

I wrote my previous message under the assumption that "a lot" of time goes into manufacturing Atlantean, but I had no idea it was on the level of what TheOldMan described.

Go back and read again. Yes, it's time-consuming, but a lot of things can overlap, or don't require me to be there. I typically:

Monday:
1) start the printer up, printing the card plate. I know that's gonna take a while, but I don't have
to watch it every minute.
2) Heat the soldering iron. Now I can start on the cards. I can usually get 1 or 2 done before the printer decides if it's gonna be okay or not. If it is, I keep going, till it finishes, or I have 5 cards soldered.
3) Kill the printer, so I can remove the plate. While that's hapening, I set up for mounting the card.
4) Remove the cd plate, and re-start the printer. If I'm lucky, and the printer is in a good mood, I can get another one done. If not, or if I had to stop it for some reason, I can still start another one today.
5) Mount the cards, and test them. By the time the second plate is done, I know which cards are good and which need fixed; I'm getting better at it, and usually only have 1-2 failures.
6) Kill the printer, and remove the second plate. That's probably it for today.

Tuesday:
Start printing more plates. While that's going, I fix any problem cards. If I'm out of other pieces, that's what I print later. Otherwise, I make sure all the cards work, and catch up until I have 5 good, working cards. Note that I'm 2 cards ahead of the printer.

Wednesday:
Again, more plates or other pieces. With luck, by the end of the day, I'm caught up with everything, and have 5 ready to go cards. Take note: this is usually the printers day, and I can do other things if needed.

Saturday:
This is down-time for the printer, usually. I clean it and grease it, and run a few other 'fun' things to make sure it's still calibrated and ready to go. If anything broke, I make another spare - I used the last one when I fixed it before If it's been a bad week, I catch up on plates or other stuff.

It sounds like a lot of work, but ...... I spend one morning soldering; I spend another mounting and testing. Other than that, I'm pretty free to do other things. I just have to check the printer every hour or so. It's doing all the slow stuff

[RayXambeR]

Of course, I plan on getting one!

[Arkhan Asylum]

Yeah I'll never delegate work to China.   I don't want a Magical Watermelon Super Mega Enhanced CD fiasco on my hands due to Chang's Replication Emporium doing a shitty job.


When we open up sales, I'm not going to turn away extra money any of you feel like you want to pay.  It's just going to go into the card funding anyway.

Unless one of you wiseasses donates like 10,000$.    That would immediately go into hookers, cocaine, and sunglasses.

[HailingTheThings]

and sunglasses.

Gotta look good. Approval.

[Psycho Punch]

Mind if I ask what kind of 3D printer you're using? I didn't knew they were durable enough to do cartridge shells and such. Guess I'm not up to date on current DIY 3D printing technology.

[Bernie]

5 no votes.....  wtf??

[OldMan]

Mind if I ask what kind of 3D printer you're using?

Something called a 'solidoodle'. We got it right after their kickstarter ended, and I've done quite a few mods to it.  If you're looking for one, get the model 3 with the 8x8 bed, and an e3d hot-end. Also check out the forum (google soliforum) - the guys there have been really helpful in figuring out how to tune it.

It's still hit-or-miss tech, though. Sometimes I can run 100+ hours without anything going wrong / breaking. Other times, it seems like it dies every other day But I think the quick failures are more from me trying to hurry getting it fixed rather than major design flaws. From what I've read, I'm doing pretty well with the repetative nature of the things I print.

I didn't knew they were durable enough to do cartridge shells and such.

ABS is pretty tough stuff.  Its used for a lot of plastic cases for things.

[HailingTheThings]

ABS is pretty tough stuff.  Its used for a lot of plastic cases for things.

I remember learning about ABS in plastics class in high school, from memory...it stands for ack-rill-lonny-tril (lol) butadene (lol pt 2) styrene, yes?

All I can remember is what it stood for, if that's even it. Wowzers. That class was actually fun. I miss embedding random stuffs in plastic to make keychains and what-have-you.

*sigh*