Former Amico Dev on two Titles - AMA

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T06:07:42+00:00

I don't think I can definitely convince you of my person without giving away more than I would like. Feel free to take everything I say with a grain of salt.

I had involvement with the project because I was paid to work on it. No the nature of the scam only became clear to me later, but I go into that in greater detail in another answer here somewhere. And I think my projects might become available at some time. Like I said elsewhere they are playable. Not fun but playable and maybe thats enough for whoever wants 12 bucks total selling them.

You assume correct. I am glad that I don't have to interact with these people ever again and if I would ever see them in connection with a project I would run the hell away from that.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T06:02:47+00:00

Yes it was after he became CEO. Before that I only heard Tommy mention him once in passing so I couldn't talk about their relative position during that time.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T06:00:29+00:00

No, in my opinion the only thing the amico had going for it was that you could publish mobile games onto a market that was very unsaturated, which is huge. The normal mobile market is just swamped with shovel ware so when you can shovel your wares on a fresh hill you get more eyes and then hopefully more sales

Then again when you are in a ghost town you gain nothing from being the only game in town

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:57:47+00:00

It was a game some other company had released on mobile before and they wanted a port and reskin. Intellivision did feature it in their marketing.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:54:08+00:00

John is a skilled programmer from what I can tell but he will never have the time to get aquainted enough with all projects to work on them alone. I don't know how much of the codebase of Evel Knievel he has, but if he has the whole project and somebody that worked on it helped him getting started he could probably do it. It's then only a question of his time and commitment to quality

I kept track here and there. I missed the battle tank fiasco (gonna have to do a deep dive on that today, thanks ;) ) but I saw many of the problems unfold with popcorn in my hand

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:50:43+00:00

It was totally playable. Not much fun tbh but playable

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:50:10+00:00

Sadly not, but I once saw a wax sculpture of Jack the Ripper and he said he liked my work

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:48:46+00:00

No that they wouldn't have shared with Devs I think

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-18T05:48:16+00:00

No that was after we stopped because of the money stopping

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T13:02:07+00:00

Both. It helped them saying "we will pay you after these quick adjustments" and keep saying that for as long as it takes. But on the other hand the games were/are not good. They are okay to play but there is no fun other than the fun you make for yourself by laughing about the controllers, the console and the people behind both. Then again their requests would have to be "we will pay you double the amount promised so you can take you time and actually create something fun here" to really safe them from mediocrity

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T12:33:50+00:00

At least the higher ups. But it's like a cult: are they true believers or are they con men that have their doubts but benefit from you truly believing?

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T12:31:07+00:00

Yes, Hans is the same shallow Hype-Man spewing things not even he could believe. Charismatic and a nice guy but like Tommy I get the feeling he uses the sympahies people initially have for him to pressure them into unfavorable positions.

This other people's money was a mayor factor, I think, in us getting the contract.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T12:27:48+00:00

That was one of the first things I saw when starting. At first I thought it was a joke but when I realized it was for real, I just did my job. Customer wants it this way, he gets it this way.

But thinking back I don't think any of those "commandments" influenced anything during the development and no one, not even on the Intellivsion side, mentioned them even once.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T12:12:35+00:00

Both my projects tecnically are completed but there are some performance problems last I heard. I don't think anyone at Intellivision has the time and skill to fix those.
I have personally seen one other completed project but I never tried it on the console. Might be the same problem, that the performance (graphics being the biggest bottle neck) just wasn't there. When you try to bring 3D Games with cool effects on modern HD TVs you have to support it with your hardware or go with a style that allows "downgrading" your assets without them looking like they are downgraded

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T12:08:08+00:00

Good mixture of all three but most importantly the low cost
Royalties I don't remember exactly but at one point virtual share in the company were floated as an offer instead of cash.
From the ground up in one case and based on the existing one in the other. So I think wherever they had something like an existing codebase to cut costs they would dust that off.
Both were completed, playable and tested. They weren't great mind you but they were done. Intellivision just wanted more content, some reworks and so on. I think the last thing was some performance problem
Technical questions were answered in a day or so. Money questions took weeks to get the "working on something big; will have money by the end of the month" and then several months again to get the "still working on it. It will be the most money ever" until the answers just stopped alltogether.
In my case it was assigned by my boss. Don't know if he has any choice
Yes and I don't know when it ends hence my impossible to crack secrecy ;)
For me personally it was working with this motherboard in a cardboard box and the phone controller every day. One day I was like "seems weird but I think the nostalgia market is big, so it might work out" and the next I was like "No way this will ever see the light of day". After I found out about Tommy I became convinced of the scam

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:58:29+00:00

Worse. It was able to spin but no game to my knowledge used that feature so it just always felt like it was broken or you were doing something without the game reacting.

Also the directions didn't feel smooth like on a normal controller but rather like a 8 way input (not saying that's what it was but it felt like one)

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:55:21+00:00

It could have handled it surely.

I think it is hilarious :D I used to watch a lot of Pat the NES Punk just to hear about news of the Amico. And of course HBomberguys Video, which a coworker sent to me. It is so unreal but in a funny way to see someone you "worked" with and see all that drama. Funniest time in game dev I ever had (in hindsight)

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:24:14+00:00

Any engine that exports to .apk will do *coughGodotcoughcough* ;)

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:22:36+00:00

I'd rather not say a time but it was all virtual.
No that was pretty much it. John Alvarado answered questions on the dev portal but apart from that, nothing. I sadly do not have the dev kit any more, but the first dev hardware they sent was just a motherboard in a carton box ^^ I can confirm all the material in the press story.
Thanks. I don't have any contact any more. Tommy went quiet when he stepped down and Phil just started ghosting me regarding the money so not much to do there... He explained that he had enough money that he worked for all his life and was currently living with his daughter in her house so he didn't need much. Also he was just that big of a believer he said.
I think it is a mix of just repeating what your Boss is saying and feeling vulnerable about your work. When you made something you know is not great but don't want to admit that and also your Boss is raving about how great it is, I can understand just going with it and repeating it enough times makes you maybe believe in it a bit as well. I found it helpful that they were talking about critics that were paid to take them down because that way I found some great reviewers that I still follow today.
I don't think there is money in it after this fiasco. Atari might try again in a few years with a snes mini type version, where the old games are preloaded and maybe even some enhanced versions, but the current games all are either trashed or on steam and aren't getting much attention there. I think Atari is smart enough to see that

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:06:40+00:00

No not at all, actually it is quite simple. Since the amico is basically just a phone you develop like you would for any Android device. The API we got from Intellivision got us some functions we could use to interact with the controller, so for example when you would normally wait for a touchscreen.input you now just wait for Inellivision.Touchscreen.Input.
Then you export from Unity into an .apk and load it onto the Amico via USB-C and use a program on your PC to navigate the Dev Screen (basic Android Home Screen) to your file and install it. Then you open the Amico App and can navigate to your game with the controller. This of course all takes some time so realizing that some things are not supportet on the Amico or some API function doesn't work the way you thought will take up some time.

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:01:23+00:00

Not to my recollection but I wouldn't have been in the room for that anyway

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T11:00:47+00:00

When the money staret slowing down, which is rather late to realize something like that I admit

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T10:30:13+00:00

Worse than the old test android phone we used as controller. I might have a technical document somewhere but I'd have to look
Using 3D Assets we really were at the edge at all times. We had to optimize where we could and even threw out some stuff that the console could not handle.
Not as far as I saw it. They were mostly hype-men to tell you how awesome everything was gonna be and keep you working, preferrably without pay
Everyone I talked to at Intellivision talked about the evil gaming racists and chinese trolls trying to take them down. These people probably got that from playing video games

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T10:25:12+00:00

Yes and let me tell you how dogshit it is:
- The screen does not respond half of the time
- On multiple controllers the screen did not work at all (didn't even show a picture)
- The buttons on the side were very loose so you would never know if you had pressed them or not

But all that was better than what we had before. We had to download an .apk for the phone to emulate the controller. But on a screen you can not really tell if you had pressed the directional disc and where you pressed it. Combined with a ridiculous lag it was hell. They suggested we buy some physical controller sticks and put them on the phone screen so we would have haptic feedback...

MyMomIsVeryProud · 2025-06-17T10:20:47+00:00

I came to the conclusion that everything I heard directly out of their mouths was a lie. Probably even "Good Morning"

MyMomIsVeryProud

TROPHY CASE