How to play Barroom Baseball online
- Player 1: arrow keys to move, Z and X for the fire buttons
- Player 2: I J K L to move, N and M for the fire buttons
- Start: Enter
- Pause: P
- Keypad: the screen asks for 1 or 2 players, but in this prototype the 1 and 2 keys (and * and #) do nothing. The game always runs as a two-player match at intermediate difficulty, so you need a second person at the keyboard.
Gameplay
Underneath the new name this is RealSports Baseball: nine innings of pitching, batting, fielding and base running between two human teams. AtariProtos describes it as an official hack of that cartridge with a new title screen and fewer options. The difficulty choice, the computer opponent and the voice setting were removed, and the title screen gained the line “3 Minutes Per Coin”. Despite that text, the prototype plays all nine innings without interruption.
About this prototype
Gary Stempler of Atari’s coin-op division made the adaptation; the original RealSports Baseball is credited to James Andreassen and Keithen Hayenga. The plan was first to fit a standard 5200 with a coin mechanism and an external display and test it in bars, then to build sturdier hardware with new or modified games. Internal documents suggest barroom versions of RealSports Soccer, Tennis and Basketball were also planned, but none have been found. AtariProtos believes the project was cancelled before the first field test, due in March 1984. The main known build is dated 21 November 1983.
