The Atari 2600 was a titan of the video game world. Released in 1977, the console was a pioneer in bringing video games out of arcades and into living rooms. Its games were sold in cartridges — blocky slabs of plastic that became gaming’s standard format for decades, but which were eventually replaced in modern consoles as CDs, DVDs and digital downloads became the norm.
But the classic Atari 2600 cartridge is making a small comeback, thanks to a St. Louis-based video game developer, Graphite Lab. Its new platformer, Mr. Run and Jump, is being released in a special edition for the original Atari 2600 — and, for the first time since 1990, Atari is releasing the new game on a cartridge.
On Wednesdays St. Louis on the Air, Graphite Lab game designer John Mikula said he began working on Mr. Run and Jump as a way to test his programming skills on the Atari 2600. Eventually, he pitched a two-game idea to Atari:
“We got this classic game, and we want to take this as inspiration and make you a modern version as well,” Mikula explained. “They were excited about that too.”
The more graphically and gameplay-intense version designed by Graphite Lab for modern consoles, which was released on July 25, has gained solid reviews so far. Players are noting the game’s difficulty but also the satisfaction in overcoming its challenges.
“I love this game. I love playing it,” Mikula said. “I think you know you have something good, where you'll spend 80 hours, you know, crunching and developing this thing and working real hard on it. But at the end of the week, you're still like, ‘Man, I could play a level right now.’”
“St. Louis on the Air” brings you the stories of St. Louis and the people who live, work and create in our region. The show is produced by Miya Norfleet, Emily Woodbury, Danny Wicentowski, Elaine Cha and Alex Heuer. Ulaa Kuziez is our production assistant. The audio engineer is Aaron Doerr. Send questions and comments about this story to talk@stlpr.org.
