Arcade / Arcade - Miscellaneous · 1983

Tricky Tracks

Published by [no publisher] · Developed by [n/a]

atarimania.com — atari-400-800-xl-xe-games-tricky-tracks-5499

Information

Rating: 5.7/10 · Votes: 7 · Downloads: 1,326 · Hits: 5,334

Also released without authorization in a slightly reworked version on the Arcade II compilation.

David Oblad — 20 Jul 2022
Thanks for the preservation. This game generates random music because I got annoyed with some games that play one dull melody. I offered it to Atari for them to sell, they declined. Then they made a copy that uses a hat to gather fruit but the same concept. I got no recognition. Oh well.. Dave :^)
rave.N — 4 Nov 2015
Found there isn't any AI to this demo, the idle program plays back a prerecorded sequence of moves with no "thinking", was hard to see at first because the motion period is quite long and doesn't align with the music and color repitition, I sped playback up 5X to find this out. Still, way cool.
rave.N — 18 Sept 2015
Love this, haven't even tried playing (yet), I'm kindav a busy person, Tricky Tracks rocks as a beautiful and meditative Demo/screensaver. There's probably a novel mathematical algorithm in this "game engine" which keeps the demo train (or caterpillar) from a) crashing into the cursor square b) crashing off-screen c) repeating any loops; the demo AI thinks and acts several moves in advance. I get the impression the Music is randomized, in conjunction with the background color changes for CRT screensaver, once every four Verses "AB AB AB AB". I never knew this author "Dave Oblad" from the 1980s and am only meeting him now thru atarimania. If you go to this game's page, then click on author's name, atarimania will search result his other numerous titles and they all look interesting.