Strat-O-Gem (formerly Col-Gems2600) is a Columns / Jewel Master like game for the Atari 2600. Changes:

Foul line rule is implemented, but foul line is not displayed (yet). But if there’s a gem within the top three rows after all reactions have finished, game over.

Some coding improvements which freed up some RAM and should let me free up some code space and also add more color cycling effects at little cost.

Skill levels! At present, there’s no”proper”way to select them, but there are a couple of cheats available. If I cheat to the start of level 8 I can clear it. Level 9 is too much for me, though, and I doubt I could clear level 8 twice in a row. To me, that suggests the skill levels are probably about right. Level 1 is really slow, but you can always pull down on the joystick to move things along.

I haven’t yet changed the gem generation. Actually, as I play this I sorta like the frequency of the wildcard gems. Rare enough that when they do come along it’s something of a treat.

All scores are multiplied by the current skill level. Starting at level 8, I end up with scores in the 1200 range. So starting from level 0 something in the 5,000 range will probably be a good score. I tried adding a superfluous zero to the end of the score but didn’t like the way the”score tally”thingie looked when I did that.

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=77817&st=25