[STOT] ST Offline Tournament

ST Offline Tournament

STOT has been running for several years in a dedicated section of Atari-Forum. I had heard others talk about it but, for some reason, I never got involved - something I now look back on with a mix of confusion and regret. Thankfully, I've finally come to my senses and joined in. And I'm absolutely loving it!

So, what is STOT? Simple - it’s an offline gaming tournament. Well, to be more precise, it’s a tournament for ST Gamers organised by three familiar names from Atari-Forum and beyond: Thorn, SSB, and chrisTOS. Games are suggested by the community, and the admins then decide which ones to feature. Each game now runs for a month, and 2025 kicked off with the fantastic racer, FASTER. This month, we’re tackling a puzzler called Chroma Grid, and next month, we're whizzing through space like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars.

My gaming skills are often terrible - an odd thing to admit, considering I run AtariCrypt! Well, I finished near the bottom of the league for January’s FASTER, an incredible Atari STe racer by Jonathan Thomas. Sheesh, there are some seriously good players out there with way quicker reflexes than mine! Thankfully, Chroma Grid is going a bit better for me, but like all puzzlers, it soon pushes my ageing brain cells to their limit. As for Star Wars in March… I’m kind of dreading it - I haven’t played that since my Speccy days!

So, do you fancy getting involved? It’s easy, just create a (free) account on Atari-Forum to play the current game on your Atari ST or an emulator. Then post a photo or screenshot of your score on the forum. That’s all there is to it. I hope this tempts you to join in, play some Atari ST games, and be part of the ST community.

So, click here to access Atari-Forum's STOT section and get gaming - have fun!!

Finally, I recently chatted with Thorn(þ) and asked him some questions about STOT. He went away and came back with responses from all three - so a huge thanks to Thorn, SSB, and chrisTOS for taking the time; I really appreciate it. I hope you’ve enjoyed this, and maybe tempted you to check out the tournament?

I hope so - don’t game alone, be proud of your high scores. Get involved and join in the STOT fun...

How did you guys get the idea for STOT?

---

ChrisTOS

If I remember correctly Thorn, SSB and I were talking in #atariscne on IRC and thought how nice it would be to have online gaming either using emulators or real networked Ataris. We got the idea that we could hold a contest similar to the High Score Club in AtariAge. The concept was that we would create themes (eg space shooter/sync scrolling games etc), give them nice names, people would vote for which games to play and we'd play that game. Real hardware or emulator was accepted and we wanted to support new games.

As for the name, it's the ST Offline Tournament. I believe we chose it because it was also a small wordplay on STOS. Plus those Germans do like to be a bit accurate in their descriptions!

SSB

As far as I remember it was an online discussion between Christos, Thorn and myself around 2009. I don't remember the details. The basic idea was: "Hey we like playing ST games. Let's play them for real." We wrote an article for our LowRes online magazine around the time (https://lowresmag.wordpress.com/2009/08/30/that-is-stot-st-offline-tournament/)

þ

Back in the day, I loved to attend the High Score Clubs on Atari Age for the other Atari platforms. I also founded the "Abbuc Bundesliga" a competition where people meet once a month in a chatroom and play an Atari 8-bit game for 1 hour. On the ST there was nothing like that. So during some chats with SSB and Christos the idea of STOT was born. The format was copied from the HSC, but we chose atari-forum.com instead of AtariAge because it's the home of the ST scene.

We stopped some years ago. Because there was a demand on the forum to restart, SSB did a restart, many thanks to the people who requested it and participated in the first round after the restart (Riverpirate, LynxXX) and many thanks to SSB to do the restart. Even if there are only 2-3 gamers, it's worth continuing cause STOT is an indicator that Atari ST gaming is alive. Talking about games is great, but if you really play them and then send a score, that is the definition of active. I play much more ST since the restart. Being Atarian because you buy Atari merch alone is lame, scoring a post on STOT is cool.

Could any games make a return?

---

ChrisTOS

We have revisited games in the past but not too often. I am still sore from losing a great score in Starball due to a crash for example. Of course, Xerus (like always) and Lotek obliterated my attempts.

SSB

I personally play 'Virus' and 'Goldrunner' from time to time so another STOT round with them would be welcome. Important is that games have a useful scoring system and no selection menu to keep it easy to track. And no tutorials or "learn how to play" sessions". We all are middle-aged guys now with real life so playing those should be a distraction you can try for a half hour of free time without preparation.

Þ

We played Metrocross at least 2 times. In the wish list for 2026, we could also include games to play again. However, there are so many games left to play in a competition mode, that it's great to give them a try instead of playing the same games a number of times. I would go for one game per year, the ST Classics of the year.

Favourite memories?

---

ChrisTOS

There were a lot. The aforementioned Outline events. Cooper released a game just for STOT, D-bug who patched games for the Falcon and Hard disk so that we could play in STOT. There was quite a bit of competition in those events. Starball, Obsession. PS. I missed Nano Cave too.

SSB

The few where my girlfriend and now wife participated. We both like to play 'Rodland' in two-player mode from time to time.

þ

At the outline live STOT competition, I met Christos in person, that was cool. I met SSB a number of times, for 11 months we both lived in Friedrichshafen at the lake of Constance, we had some cool sessions where we played the actual STOT game and SSB explained to me his secret “mouth pockets” receipt: Ready-made mouth pockets and chicken broth from the supermarket and water! Easy, cheap, delicious.

The Super Sprint competition was very close, I scored 2nd, but only very close. In the end, I got so much adrenaline in the final levels, I needed 15 minutes to calm down.

The highlight was the Switchblade II compo where Simon Phipps the author himself sent us self-painted winner certificates with his signature. Was a great sign of respect for us that people see that we try to keep the Atari gaming alive.

Phobia. I won it, I love it. Many complained it was too hard, but I passed level 1.

All the games where I reached a level I never was before, because I had the motivation to get a high score. Apache Flight was great, but I would have given up with level 1 until Wietze sent in a screenshot of level 2 for example.

Any future plans for STOT?

---

ChrisTOS

For plans, I don't know, maybe find time to play some games? We were much younger people when we started STOT and with fewer obligations. My favourite moment is the tournament we held at Outline back in 2009. So a repeat of that would have been great. Maybe at a Sommarhack this time. Also since Hatari now supports Falcon, we could think of including a couple of Falcon games in the mix.

SSB

We should keep going as long as players are willing to participate.

þ

Best homebrew game award? Therefore we need a constant number of entries. 2025 is already looking good. The difference to other awards like the one on Atari Age is, that this award is given to active gamers since only people who entered scores would be allowed to vote.

More cooperation with all the Atari gamers on YouTube like yours, Stickhead, Hundgirrid, etc. You guys find the games, we do a STOT round. During the rounds, we could also do some more videos. We need people who try out a game and have the feeling that it's worth doing a competition.

STOT gaming competitions on-site at Atari meetings. Once we did one at an Outline party, I would like to do one at the ADN, GemTOS, SillyVenture, OFAM, ejagfest, and so on. Looking back on the STOT history I also like to mention Xerus. He showed in many competitions that he was the best Atari ST gamer back in the day. Would be great to see him back.

Nano Cave - this is a good example of the STOT philosophy. It was a wish and was a new game, so was prioritised. I tested it before when I played some games on the ADN (the best Atari party in France). There the first two levels were great fun and I liked the visual concept that you have different original designs from all the other Hack versions of the previous years.

So a STOT round was announced 1-2 months later. There we played the game and had fun, but suddenly we found out, that there were so many bugs, that scoring was nearly impossible. Since Nano Cave is such a great game, we would do immediately another round if there would be a new version. (I love Nano Cave so THAT is something I will look forward to - Steve)

exQUIZitely

Tests? Exams? Ugh, NO!!

It's always great discovering something new that people are working on and I've been talking with Ole who runs the Exquizitely website. This is dedicated to playing online quizzes with one area devoted to the Atari ST. There are different quiz modes, and all scores are recorded and saved with an option to replay anytime.

I normally hate things like this as I'm rubbish at quizzes but I've thoroughly enjoyed it. You shall note that a few of us from the ST world have already played. It was no shock (for me) to discover who made the top slot. I'll say nothing more but I'm sure you have already guessed? I'll give you a clue, it isn't me! :)

ExQUIZitely is a professionally designed website by two friends, Ben & Ole. What a great website and I'm happy to have helped (a little) to beta test it. Also, I asked Ole for some background on their work...

"Ben and I created the site to make something purely driven by passion. We both have day jobs, so we do this exQUIZitely project on the side, after hours. That's why word of mouth (or any other help) is so important. We wanted a clean, playful, ad-free, no-BS site. Ben is a programmer, and I do all the other stuff (design, content, reaching out). We wanted an 80s theme, hence the pixel-style graphics and the old-school 80s TV screen layout for the quiz."

I urge you to check out this cool website for yourselves: https://exquizitely.com/quiz/Atari-ST-Games

Three quiz modes last 1-3 mins or you can play sudden death.
Here, I am playing "stacker" mode. This is abbreviated by "ST" pleasingly enough!

Challenges can be set with the results taken and recorded.
Ole challenged me in the (of course) Atari ST quiz.

There are loads of other quizzes you can partake in.
I tried one about the capitals of countries. Never have I sucked so badly... Ugh!!

---

If you're interested in more external ST-related websites, check out this section of AtariCrypt "Other STuff Out There!". That is listed on the right, alongside tons of other sections!

---

Into The Vertical Blank

The boys are back in town

If you love retro gaming, especially using the world's best 16-bit computer, then check this out. These guys are Atari 8-bit masters and also prove their knowledge of ST. Into The Vertical Blank has recently released two new compilation videos that feature a ton of Atari ST games - Photon Storm, Rainbow Islands, Stunt Car Racer, Sideways, Scooby-Doo, Fire & Ice, Oids, James Pond, Bubble Bobble, and lots more.

Hold your horses, there's also a hefty wedge for the overlooked Atari STe!! Stuff like Rock 'n' Roll Clams, Asteroidia, Uridium, Prince of Persia, No Buddies Land and other (Atari STe) upgraded titles.

Both videos feature fast & fluent presentation; ie, they don't drag on with overly long clips. This means you get to watch many games within a short time. I also enjoyed the varied range of games, along with the fact the Atari STe was used whenever possible. I hope there are more in the pipeline! Both videos are on YouTube but don't forget to check out their excellent website with ST games, Podcasts and more.

My greetings to Fultonbot and 8bitrocket. Keep up the fantaSTic work lads and STay Atari.

Atari Legend

It's Hollywood time!

I'm taking a break from my ST gaming to share something special. Well, it's only special for one reason - I shall let you guys decide what that is - Atari Legend has a YouTube channel run by Maarten Martens. This channel has the most professionally produced content. Actually, it's on another level compared to most channels.

It shocked me that many Atari ST gamers don't know about his channel. Maarten has a fantastic sense of humour which is equally matched by his video production skills. Everything always comes together for an excellent presentation. I hope you will enjoy this video as much as I enjoyed participating.

Hang on, what did I just say? Just watch the video...

Ironman Challenge III

Running The Gauntlet!

A couple of years ago, I asked Mike (The New Retro Show) to play Atari ST games. An alternative selection that I knew would push this bloke to his limits. It was fun watching him endure Fire And Brimstone!!

Two years is long enough, so I challenged him to an "Ironman" video which he agreed to! I picked games from the PD/Shareware scene, four platformers and three conversions of arcade classics: Clod Hopper, Crapman, Frogger, Hector vs The Mutant Vampire Tomatoes From Hell, Hoog, Space Monsters and Winglord.

Watch the video of Mike torturing himself playing these games!

My thanks to Mike for taking on the challenge. Oh, and this video is actually an early screening just for Atari ST gamers and it will not be made public until this Wednesday!! One more thing... Mike, I've got some cool (and cruel) ideas for a fourth challenge if you're interested? Go on, I dare ya!

    
Three belters: Winglord (Atari STe), Crapman and one of the latest games released for the ST, Frogger!

  
Hoog is one mightily impressive jaw-dropping platformer and Clod Hopper feels so authentically 8Bit.

  
Hector... must be one of the best titles ever and who doesn't love a fantastic conversion of Panic?

Ballerburg for mobile phones

[This video shows the wonderful Atari ST game because I have no way to record directly off my phone!]

An ST classic goes mobile

Let me start by saying that I never play "mobile" games as I don't see the point of using a tiny screen and virtual controls! However, I was waiting for my wife in the car - totally bored stupid (it didn't take very long). Then I remembered Eckhard Kruse's Ballerburg had been remade by a company called DonkeyCat. To say I'm blown away is an understatement because this classic mono game looks and feels very authentic.

The gameplay is just the same with wind, angle, and speed to decipher. Choose your kingdom and blast cannons over the mountains. I admit, I prefer the Atari ST original but this mobile game is jolly good fun. Waste no more time, get on your chosen App Store and download this mobile artillery action (both iOS and Android).

Considering this isn't on an Atari ST, I had buckets of fun with this game. Highly recommended.

- ST DOWNLOAD & SCREENSHOTS -

Ironman Challenge II

Mike's torment!

Glutton for Punishment Mike, of The New Retro Show, has released the second part of our Ironman Challenge. As you may remember, I gave him a list of Atari ST games which I thought would help push him over the edge. Well, he's still with us, so let's see what torture he endured for the final part of this challenge (above).

This new video features Fire And Brimstone, Crash Time Plumber and R0x. If you missed the first video from this Ironman Challenge then clickety-click to watch that video of Mike's torment! Get the popcorn - enjoy :)

The New Retro Show

Challenge set!

I love finding YouTube channels with great Atari ST content and The New Retro Show is one such place to get my fix. It's run by a fella with a beard, called Mike! He's been addicted to the ST since he first got to play Dungeon Master (there's a shocker) and currently owns two machines: a Mega STe and a 1040 ST.

After watching his video I came up with the idea for a challenge and suggested a few games that have appeared on AtariCrypt: Chubby Gristle, Cybernoid, Zynaps, along with others. Shockingly, he actually agreed to the challenge (Muwhahaha!!) and released the first Ironman Challenge which you can watch here.

My thanks to Mike for taking on my silly challenge but I am now looking forward to the second part!!

UPDATE: Part two has been released... Clickety Click!!

Wasabim

FantaSTic ArtiST

It's always great to see somebody start up a new Atari ST site and today we have one by Aurélien Vaillant, aka Wasabim (I dare you to say that after a few beers). His website will feature each of his various artworks along with those awesome videos, many of which begin with the box cover coming to life - that never fails to impress. Incredible talent!

Clickety click right now to take a gander through the Wasabim website... Enjoy!!

Everyone's A Geek

Top Of The Pops!

I've just been contacted by Robin, of Robberie, an acoustic indie group. Their latest record is about retro gaming and features numerous devices like the Atari ST and ZX Spectrum. In fact, an Atari ST even played a role in the production using VideoMaster and this alone is very cool. I was extremely fascinated by their ST's role in the production so he kindly sent pictures of his setup that went into making the video.

Check that out above and clickety-click to visit the Robberie website!

- Chatting with ROBIN -

"My 1040 STE plays a starring role in the robberie video for Everyone's a geek, helping to create the pixellated monochrome shots. To do this, footage was recorded on a video camera, which was then fed through a Microdeal Videomaster cartridge.

The software has a live preview mode which displays a quarter-screen feed of whatever you play in 16 shades of grey. So the recorded footage was played back and then I recorded the output from the computer's screen on my smartphone in order to get into a format compatible with editing software on my Mac.

There are some other Atari relics in the video. There are some shots of Roadblasters on my Lynx, which is modded with the brilliant replacement LCD colour screen. The shot of Pong is I'm afraid not original hardware but comes from an Atari classic tv games joystick.

And the Powerplay Cruiser joysticks are the ONLY ones that I could properly play Kick Off 2 on! You can find out more about the other retro hardware to be found in the video on the robberie website."

Online ST Picture Viewer

Often I need to quickly view an Atari ST piccy on my Mac, and there are plenty of options, but here is a fascinating web-tool by Cyprian. It allows you to instantly view those old images within a web browser. It supports classic formats like Degas, Neochrome, Spectrum 512, and works with drag and drop.

This is an outstanding web tool.

Retro Image Tool

Argh, why are there so many different formats?

I recently found a video by Sascha Springer, aka Anima, who has created a tool to convert any modern picture into the Spectrum 512 format. This can then be loaded on your Atari ST/e with astounding results!!

These 3 pictures I created for my Atari STe are now in Spectrum format (extended palette). Fantastic results, I'm sure you'll agree. Give this extraordinary tool a playtest to see what you can create/convert.

Check out the other two images below that look ace on my Atari STe. Enjoy experimenting!!

Watch the tutorial video before using Retro Image Tool (use Chrome).

View any 'SPU' image using his slideshow program (any Atari ST/e computer)

  

1632 ATARI podcaST

It's always nice to see someone doing something creative for the ST scene and here is Atari 8-bit legend, Wade with a new podcaST. Obviously, this is about the Atari ST and by a guy that didn't originally care for it. Interesting? Maybe, so let's check this out and his re-discovery of the best 16-bit retro computer! <clickety click>

Floppyshop

Disks through the post?

For those of us old enough to remember Floppyshop, you will be pleased to hear that Chris Swinson has brought back to life their entire catalogue. That's right, it's all here and, unlike the old days, everything is completely free of charge!! All that is required is nothing more than a click of the mouse to relive those PD days.

Each disk is split into the original 16 categories and I'm currently hitting the games... How predictable of me!

Art & Graphics / Astrology / Clip Art / Communication / Demos

Disk Mag / Educational / Fonts / Games / Programming / Midi

Music / Product Demos / Sound / Utils / Word Processing

Anyhow, everything you once saw advertised in the latest issue of ST Format is now available to download. Kudos to Chris for supplying this service. I've already downloaded tons of disks and I hope you guys do too :-)

Page 6

My first PDL

Page 6 is a great slice of Atari history and has a website for the magazine. Their PD Library software is even available to download. I remember buying disks from Page 6 when I first became an Atari ST addict. Of course, their magazine had been going long before then and continued until 1998. True enthusiasts.

"Page 6 is remembered fondly by many Atari owners as a unique and invaluable resource, supporting enthusiasts in the heyday of Atari home computing" - I'd say that sums up Page 6 rather nicely!

Page 6 ~ Atari ST library: https://www.page6.org/st_lib/st_lib.htm

Page 6 ~ Homepage: https://www.page6.org/

Traveller-Box

I've stumbled upon a nifty resource for lots of Atari ST goodies waiting to be downloaded. It's the leftover remains of what used to be a popular German BBS called Traveller-Box, by Alexander Bochmann. His hard drives have been recovered and their BBS contents have been uploaded for the Atari community to use again.

Look, stop reading this lil' article and go and check it out for yourself... Enjoy!!

3D con kit

I've always been interested in 3D from my early computing years as a kid with a ZX Spectrum and games like Ant Attack, Deathchase and then the mind-boggling Knight Lore/Alien 8. Those games just blew my mind, so when I came across 3D Construction Kit for the Atari ST - I was delighted.

After a little googling, I found a fantastic web resource by Stuart Wilson which I'm hoping will prove to be useful and help me get the best from this program. They also run a FaceBook community page (link below).

3D Construction Kit is an old but excellent application for making your own virtual worlds. This video is the actual VHS recording that was released back in the day which is fascinating and explains many aspects of the program nicely. There are lots of projects already created on the Atari ST and many are excellent :-)

At my request, Peter Putnik has graciously adapted 3D Construction Kit so it can now be installed and ran from hard disk - so download this instead of the floppies! Plus those faster computers can make use of their power and my own 16Mhz Mega STe runs beautifully! :-)

Stu-Wilson’s website for 3D Construction Kit [and their dedicated FaceBook page]

The Ultimate Captive Guide

Escape!

I recently bought Captive and anyone with half a brain (like me) knows this is an awesome RPG by Mindscape. It has us held prisoner for a couple of hundred years for a crime we did not commit - and the A-Team thought they had it bad! After such a long time, your freedom from this unjust hell is your only goal.

This RPG uses a unique user interface to configure and control droids - it's a briefcase. I cannot tell you why a prisoner has this, but operating it is like something from Mission Impossible! The graphics are excellent with stunning monsters but I was a little disappointed by the sparse audio. This is made worse when finding out that the original release used DMA of the Atari STe whereas that was dropped for the v1.2 update!

Fans of this RPG should take a look at a website by Pierre Fournier called The Ultimate Captive Guide.

The Mercenary Site

Update: Paul Woakes sadly passed away on July 15th 2017. RIP †

The Mercenary Site

I love finding websites that are active and buzzing with great content for games that are available for the Atari ST. The Mercenary Site is run by a great guy called 'Symoon' and is dedicated to the entire Mercenary series. He's a bit of an obsessive and it shows when you browse his immense website!

Personally, I'm all about the second game, Damocles which is a cracker thanks to an open-world environment that isn't hampered by linear restrictions. Yep, you're free to do whatever you like and how you choose to do it is up to you. That's something that holds dear because I'm a sucker for messing about!

Before you rush off to his website, we chatted and I asked him a few questions about it...

My site is horribly old but, to me, the content is more important than its look - and spare time is a rare thing these days ;) .... (we then began to talk about Hunter!) ... I also have fond memories of Hunter, except that the energy was dropping way too fast! I cheated to stop that and finished all the missions a long time ago. Really good fun using helicopters or hovercrafts!

There isn't much to say about me - I can't call myself an active Atari ST owner. But my brother bought an Atari ST and we mainly played games with it. I remain attached to it, but not as much as I am to my very first computer (the Oric!). You'll find a few occasional posts from me on some Atari forums under the nickname Symoon, but nothing worth talking about really ;)

I began the website around 1996, learning HTML to make a solution page for Mercenary III while I was doing the compulsory military service in France. I had struggled so much to get my copy of Mercenary III (I guess it hasn't been imported at all in France then) that I played it and found a way to complete it with all the solutions. There was almost no information about Mercenary III on the Internet at the time, and I had discovered the great Mark Sachs' guide to Damocles which inspired me. So it all began as "the Mercenary III solution page", designed in the same way...

Then the site grew little by little, as I added content very quickly thanks to many, many contributors. I recently read old emails and was puzzled at how many people wrote to me about it, and how interesting many of the messages were. I got in touch with many people from Novagen (first was Mo Warden), all very kind, and even met some of them. I'm so sad that Bruce Jordan, who lead the Novagen company with Paul Woakes, passed away 9 years go.

Firstly, because he really was a friendly man! Of course, on more Mercenary-driven motivations, because he was a great source of information. The MDDClone, that appeared around 2002, also was a source of real motivation. Its author hadn't been here, I might not have kept updating the site so long - and certainly not with so much detailed content.

What I loved about the games? I can't tell you really, I'd say the freedom feeling, and the first-person 3D which put YOU in the world (it wasn't that common at this time). The fact that a whole world was created for the player to simply walk around and the mix between adventure and some kind of flight simulation too. Also, it's humour. As a French young man though, I didn't always notice or understand the fun there was in Benson's words!

I was visiting each and every location hoping to find something significant at any corner. I found (and still find) it amazing that a whole universe was there on a disk. Thanks again, I hope you spend many pleasant hours in the Gamma system soon!

Rick Dangerous

Indiana Jones

Rick Dangerous is a brilliant platformer. Simple as that! Well, I almost fell over myself when I found this superb website dedicated to this incredible game. Go on, take a look at it - have a guess which is the best version of Ricky Dangerous!! :-) Before you go, here is my video recording of this excellent game!