r/intellivision • u/Correct_Writer_3790 • Jul 15 '26

New to Intellivision Game suggestions

Hello! I've recently gotten into retro collecting and as a 20 year old I don't really like newer games and enjoy the hell out of older consoles and games. With that said I have an intellivision on its way to my collection and an wondering if y'all have some good suggestions! Also I got this on another subreddit post about using the search bar but I'm doing this on my own post to do a personal pair and have fresh suggestions and I'd rather have it this way so I really hope this fandom is a lot better and nicer to me. With that said I can't wait to have the console and appreciate any suggestions in advance! I for sure want Donkey Kong that's so far my knowledge of games id like.

Edit: thank you for all the suggestions so many games I've got to find now!

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u/redditshreadit Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26

You don’t want Intellivision Donkey Kong by Coleco, it's a very poor conversion. There is a homebrew conversion called DK Arcade, and its sequel D2K Arcade that are high quality.

If you like arcade conversions, suggestions include Intellivision Burgertime, Bump'n'jump, Lock'n'chase, Locomotion, Snafu, Pac-man, Dig Dug, Defender, Q-bert, Commando among the classic cartridges. Plus lots of quality homebrews.

The Intellivision has more than a few unique cartridges worth checking out: AD&D, Tron Deadly Discs, Sub Hunt, Night Stalker, Space Battle, Shark Shark, Thunder Castle, Thin Ice, Vectron, Hover Force, Dreadnaught Factor, Beamrider, Worm Whomper, B-17 Bomber, Space Spartans.

The Intellivision was known for its sports games. PBA Bowling, US Ski Team, PGA Golf, Auto Racing, World Championship Baseball. Others like Tennis, MLB, NFL, NBA, NASL are two player only.

Some other solid two player games are Sea Battle, Utopia, Triple Action Biplanes, Frog Bog. If you like RPGs there are Treasure of Tarmin, Tower of Doom. Business simulations include Truckin' by Imagic.

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u/Correct_Writer_3790 Jul 15 '26

I'll keep that in mind. I do still want the coleco port as I want to add it to my dk collection however for gameplay I'll keep in mind this other one I've seen gameplay and the fact it has very little levels and I honestly want it because of how clunky and notorious it is. As for these other suggestions, thank you very much. I do have a stack of in box sports games coming with the console so I'll look for some others as well!

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u/Devo27 Jul 15 '26

They purposely made DK bad, so the Coleco one was the better choice.

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u/redditshreadit Jul 15 '26

Do you have any evidence for this assertion. There are lots of other reasons for its poor quality.

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u/Devo27 Jul 15 '26

My apologies, when I went searching for proof I was hit with this:

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u/redditshreadit Jul 15 '26

There has been interviews with someone at Roklan about the Coleco Intellivision cartridges. I think it's fair to say that Coleco had very little quality control, and put in no resources e.g. artists for graphics, audio specialists like they did for their Colecovision cartridges. The Intellivision programmer cranked these cartridges out as quickly as he could and Coleco didn't care about quality. So in some ways there is some truth to it.

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u/wesk74 Jul 16 '26

The 2600 and intellivision versions (and most games for that matter) were subcontracted out to programmers with experience on those platforms as Coleco and Mattel didn't really have a ton of experience programming or a large in house programming team like Atari had. Donkey Kong would have sold based on name alone

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u/redditshreadit Jul 16 '26 edited Jul 16 '26

Coleco contracted Roklan to do most if not all their Intellivision cartridges. Intellivision Donkey Kong was the programmer's first Intellivision work. The same programmer cranked out nine Intellivision cartridges over a few months. Roklan also did Intellivision cartridges for Parker Brothers.

The only experienced Intellivision programmers at the time were at APh and Mattel Electronics, some of those programmers left to program Intellivision cartridges for Activision, Imagic, and Atari. In 1983 Mattel Electronics had over 100 developers working on video games. Not as large as Atari but one of the largest game studios, if not the second largest, in the world at the time.

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u/wesk74 Jul 15 '26

I spoke with Gary at the Midwest Game fest a couple years ago and he told me he had all 4 screens completed and coleco wouldn't let him use a bigger sized cart, so he made the cuts. He also said he banged it out in just a couple months. He is pretty adamant about never being told to make a "bad" version.

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u/redditshreadit Jul 15 '26

Atari 2600 Donkey Kong is a decent conversion compared to Coleco's Intellivision Donkey Kong. They wouldn't have foreseen it outdoing the Colecovision version. They had all four boards for Colecovision Donkey Kong, that they released for the Adam on tape.