If you’ve been wondering what I’ve been up to for the past while, the answer is working on a new color layout for the Philips ProntoPro NG – and, of course, a complete review of it and the Marantz RC9500, both of which will be released in the near future.

While pondering late one night over PCF design ideas, I noticed that no one had yet released any games for the Pronto NG. If you look at the Pronto Classic file area you’ll find a number of entertaining files, ranging from trivia questions and card tricks to mazes – in addition to the Pronto’s built-in Easter egg game(s). My contribution back then (nearly 4 years ago to the day) was a game called Galaxy, which pushed the limits of the Pronto’s architecture and was even too complex for the original 1 megabyte remote.

Since the Pronto NG lacks any built-in games, I’ve been thinking on how I could effectively convert Galaxy for use on the ProntoPro NG – and finally went ahead and started over from scratch.

Today, I am very pleased to present the first-ever game for the Pronto NG, Galaxy NG. This full-screen full-color game encompasses over 3,300 buttons, 2,800 frames, 500 pages and (for speed concerns on the remote) 8 devices.

Since the Pronto NG can’t run programs and can only operate with static layouts, it limits the complexity of any game designs. Hopefully releasing Galaxy NG will give others new ideas on what can be done with the remote and encourage them to follow suit with games of their own! Let’s build up the Pronto NG’s “Fun & Games” file area!

March 16th 2005 update: I've just released two black and white versions for use with the Pronto NG TSU3000 and Marantz RC5400, as well as a color version for the Marantz RC9500.

Download Galaxy NG here!