HATZ: Party In The Middle Of Nowhere

Text by Mad Butscher
Photos by Uncle Harry and Wizard

From 21 of May until 23 May the Huensruecker Atari Tage (days) 2k4 opened its doors to bring an Atari and enjoy it. The party was organized by R.I.K. of Kaisersoft/F2 and took place in Koenigsau, Hunsrueck Hills. The village has only 97 inhabitants - and a nice community hall. About 20 people attended the party. We were playing games, coding, configuring our operating systems, testing USB drivers for 8-bit computers, talking about Atari...

Friday 21 May 2004
I got all my stuff together and drove to R.I.K./F2. First we bought some necessary stuff for the party like beer and cigarettes. Then we went to the party place. Because we are experienced organizers, we arrived 15 minutes too late, and a huge crowd of people (TWW/MNX and Wizard/WGL) was already waiting for us. To calm down the furious mob we gave each of them a beer, and everybody was happy again. After seting up our machines, we started playing and programming. After a while, Sleepy and his wife "Fuesschen" with their two children (3 years and 4 month old), Bunsen and Grisu/WGL, Floppy Doc and Charon/Escape arrived.

The whole night we continued gaming and coding until at 05:00 the last one went to sleep. We played such nice games like Bandits (XL/XE), Berzerk (XL/XE) and Super Sprint (ST). We also trained for the upcoming AtariAge High Score Club (HSC) Jumpman contest.

Saturday 22 May 2004
After everybody refreshed with breakfast or nicotine, we continued where we stopped before. At lunch time Uncle Harry, Artax and CAS/RAF arrived. Later MK, Sage and Melly also arrived.

The RAF crew built up their equipment and were busy for the next day and a half programming and testing their USB driver and their USB tools for the Atari 8-bit. Soon we found out, that it is time for the traditional "hurt yourself" competition also known as Decathlon. Beside the fact that I chose the wrong joystick (a Competition Pro is the best stick in the world, but not for Decathlon). It was a great event. I scored my second 10,000+ in my life, so I was happy.

After this extreme sport, we were hungry and had some barbecue. Because twh/F2 is working in Spain at the moment, this year we didn't have Thuringia sausages. But the normal was also OK.

Now it was time to build up the traditional Lynx network, to play Checkered Flag. The building up phase is an adventure itself every time. We heard such nice sentences like, "Here is my power supply, it is damaged." and "My Lynx sometimes does not start, but that is normal." But after a while everything was working and some people also found their missing Comlynx cable, so we could start playing. First we played a whole session with six players.

For all poor fellows who don't know Checkered Flag, it's a racing game where you can build up a Lynx network with up to six players. Because the game is not that cheap any more we sometimes have the problem that we don't get six cartridges together, but this time we had exactly six cartridges and enjoyed the game a lot. Often used sentences were, "Get away from my back!", "Why are there cows?" and, "Who planted the cactus near the road?"

After playing Checkered Flag, Sage showed us some of his upcoming Lynx games like another Sokomania clone or a Bunion Canyon clone. He is also a beta tester of Alpine Games, and demonstrated it. This time we created a new type of competition, called "Wild Gaming". You simply play a game, write down the score on a sheet and put the sheet somewhere so everybody can look at it. Then everybody can play the same game, and challenge the score. During the Wild Gaming people scored in Jumpman, Berzerk (XL/XE), Bandits (XL/XE), Miner 2049er (XL/XE), Dragster (VCS) and River Raid (XL/XE). For each score you beat (in the end) you got one point.

Our next competition was a team game: Centipede on the Atari 7800. I'm a big Centipede and Millipede fan, and the Atari 7800 versions have the advantage that you can play in different team modes. We chose the team mode where you can't kill your team members. Each team had two games, where the scores were accumulated.

Then it was time to do another Checkered Flag competition. This time in the well-known K.O. Mode. We were 12 players, so had two qualication rounds. The best three of each round reach the final and the last three of each round drive a placement round. After a qualification lap, each time we played two circuits at two laps.

In the qualification round I finished the qualification lap in second place. Then in the first race somebody bumped in my back as always. When will Checkered Flag drivers learn, that they have to brake in the first corner? So soon I was in the last place. I was able to reach place 4 by bumping into the other drivers. With some more lucky bumps I managed to reach the second place in the last race, so finally I got third position and was in the final.

In the final I won the qualification lap, and had good feelings for the race, but in the second corner Sage crashed me and I was in the last place again. Again I only managed to reach place 4. So after the half of the final all dreams of the gold medal were gone. In the last race I became third. In the final table together this was place 3 together with Bunsen. During all these competitions we played a small Atari Tennis tournament. Only four of the six teams attended the competition, so we had a semi-final and a final. To play Atari Tennis with four players on an Atari XL is possible because of a patch done by Schmutzpuppe.

Next to play was Blip. Blip is a type of Pong, where you can move your racket in every direction. It was done in the early '90s by Hard/Hungary. We did such a competition at another meeting before, so some people were really trained, and we had some exciting games. Especially the final round. In the first final Bunsen and I played against each other. Bunsen led by 14:11 (you win at 15 with 2 points in front) but then I won by 16:14. Next final match was Bunsen vs R.I.K. Same situation: RIK led 14:12 and lost 15:17. So even in the last final match: R.I.K. against me, all three of us still could win. The result was that I beat RIK 15:4 and won. So this time not the best but maybe the luckiest player won.

After all these exciting competitions it was time for the pizza service. Even though we have been there once a year ago, the pizza service remembered us! When I collected the money the pizza man told R.I.K. that he threw away a C64 with floppy last week, and if he knew about the HATZ before he would have given it to us. If he had told all of us about throwing the C64 into the trash, he would have got a standing ovation!

But no party is without a MultiJoy8 Cervi competition. Because of the big victory of Team Germany at the Atari Day Netherlands, we once again had a team tournament with single player table.

Because we were six teams, we had two qualification rounds. In each round three teams played against each other and the two best teams reached the final. In the final we had an eight-player game.

After the last competition it was time to distribute the prizes. For the first time Bunsen and I made metal badges for the winners.

Sunday 23 May 2004
After awaking, everybody packed up, and at about 14:00 we cleaned the location and left the hall. Once again it was very nice in Koenigsau and we will see us there next year again.

thorsten@myatari.net

MyAtari magazine - Feature #8, June 2004