gng for Atari 8-bit - work in progress

[Tezz]

Whilst XXL is busy with gng, I was thinking about the Spectrum games worthy of converting and also the ones that can be recreated with justice on the A8 with concideration to the fact that we only have PM overlays to add multiple colour in that resolution. Amongst the best titles in my opinion are the Ultimate games such as Alien8, Knightlore and, Pentagram to name a few. All of these use a limited pallete and are possible on the A8. A similar title in that genre by Ocean that has aready been done on the A8, Head over Heals. I don't know which titles xxl is concidering, I mean after all it is a lot of work but well, food for thought anyway I think converting any of these to the A8 would be beyond great. Below is a couple of pics, the Spectrum original and the usual mock up in G2F (Yea I know, another "what if" picture) to illustrate how it could look on the A8.

Alien8_ingame_G2F.zip

Edited October 21, 2007 by Tezz

[xxl]

> I don't know which titles xxl is concidering

 

voting were here: http://atariarea.krap.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5005&p=2

[Tezz]

> I don't know which titles xxl is concidering

 

voting were here: http://atariarea.krap.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?id=5005&p=2

Great, I'll do that now. It might be a long list ..

[Wrathchild]

Ant Attack could be good

 

Can the translation techniques be extended to the Gameboy? R-Type?

[Tezz]

Ant Attack could be good

 

Can the translation techniques be extended to the Gameboy? R-Type?

Yea Ant Attack I agree with that too, that would be a good conversion (and if I remember correctly it was monocrome too so no colour enhancement would be needed) Here's hoping Edited October 22, 2007 by Tezz

[Tezz]

ok, I posted a short list on the other forum for concideration yesterday. Here's a couple of screen shots from one of my old favs Bombjack. Now, a real A8 version could always have been made of this game and there's no shortage of source on the net from the original arcade via Mame and there's many pretty acurate remakes out there, I even downloaded one done in Flash but, I like the Spectrum version too as it brings back a lot of memories andn I think plays well so I'd love to see it converted. The backdrops are static so PM and raster enhancements can make them look the same or even a bit better that the Spectrum version once recreated..

 

I had a go today at converting the first backdrop in G2F the results of which you can see a picture of below. It's not finished, I'll continue to tweak it a bit but you get the general idea of how it could maybe look. It is simply coloured in by mid scan line raster changes and PM overlays. It's only a theoretical G2F mockup and i've used a bitmap mode (GED-) when creating it rather the a char mode to implement the mid raster change.

 

So then, here's the possible Atari conversion and the Spectrum original. The other backdrops can be easily done.

Edited October 22, 2007 by Tezz

[emkay]

So then, here's the possible Atari conversion and the Spectrum original. The other backdrops can be easily done.

 

 

Sorry, but this is NOT possible. You did waste too much CPU cycles on the GED mode. Please remember that all moving objects have to be done by software.

The colours cannot be set this way without a heavy CPU load.

 

You can try to create b/w graphics an build some coloured "outlines" and "ranges" to have the objects in the wanted colour. Also the protagonist has to use one player at the highest priority, to have his own colour ver the full screen, to make the game looking more serious.

 

This picture is done like it can really be done in a game, because it uses only some DLIs.

 

 

With this solution, the objects can have up to 4 colours and the screen looks colourfull. The "colour" handling's CPU usage is rather low. The problems here:

 

1. The movement has to be set to 160 pixel

2. The movement takes a bit more CPU time, because the object has to be moved in the bitmap & with the overlayed player.

Edited October 22, 2007 by emkay

[Tezz]

Sorry, but this is NOT possible. You did waste too much CPU cycles on the GED mode. Please remember that all moving objects have to be done by software. The colours cannot be set this way without a heavy CPU load.

I had hoped that with the screen being only 32 byte wide the extra CPU cycles stolen by using interrupts would still leave enough for the software sprite routines. Maybe I was wrong. I didn't go as far as thinking it out properly. Maybe I will work on this now and see what's possible with regard to software sprite routines in GED. I will prob be disapointed at the results of what is possible but I'll see. maybe it will only make an "F7" game but maybe then it will look ok rather than less than the Spectrum version. Edited October 23, 2007 by Tezz

[emkay]

I had hoped that with the screen being only 32 byte wide the extra CPU cycles stolen by using interrupts would still leave enough for the software sprite routines. Maybe I was wrong. I didn't go as far as thinking it out properly. Maybe I will work on this now and see what's possible with regard to software sprite routines in GED. I will prob be disapointed at the results of what is possible but I'll see. maybe it will only make an "F7" game but maybe then it will look ok rather than less than the Spectrum version.

 

 

One idea...

 

If just using "25" standard DLIs for standard colour enhancements and only using the Players for DMA.

The missiles could be set to the extended colour and the shapes are set directly and by up to the full width

You could position the missiles then where the blue heaven crosses the "brown" shpinx. Change the missile colour (and the background) where the part of brown gets less and the blue gets more to adjust the colour of the pyramid .

In the regions where the colour crossing is too much, just try to use black and white .

If enough CPU time is left after the game is written ( ) , one player could be used for the scoreboard enhancement.

Important would be, that the "Sprites" have their fixed colours. For this 3 Players are usable... possibly with some flicker...

[Chrodegang]

Too bad, emkay has no programming abilities ...

[Tezz]

I had hoped that with the screen being only 32 byte wide the extra CPU cycles stolen by using interrupts would still leave enough for the software sprite routines. Maybe I was wrong. I didn't go as far as thinking it out properly. Maybe I will work on this now and see what's possible with regard to software sprite routines in GED. I will prob be disapointed at the results of what is possible but I'll see. maybe it will only make an "F7" game but maybe then it will look ok rather than less than the Spectrum version.

 

 

One idea...

 

If just using "25" standard DLIs for standard colour enhancements and only using the Players for DMA.

The missiles could be set to the extended colour and the shapes are set directly and by up to the full width

You could position the missiles then where the blue heaven crosses the "brown" shpinx. Change the missile colour (and the background) where the part of brown gets less and the blue gets more to adjust the colour of the pyramid .

In the regions where the colour crossing is too much, just try to use black and white .

If enough CPU time is left after the game is written ( ) , one player could be used for the scoreboard enhancement.

Important would be, that the "Sprites" have their fixed colours. For this 3 Players are usable... possibly with some flicker...

I'll run with it and see where it goes

[Tezz]

Ok, I've had another go at working out Bombjack... Before going to the trouble of working out how many cycles would be available after rasters and working out any software sprite routines etc as it is most likely the case that it would not be possible, I decided to rethink it in only DLI's and this time I've managed it so it should now be possible to use these within a working game. Below you can see Backgrounds 2, 3 and 5 which I have created in G2F. I've managed to enhance the score panel with more colours than the Spectrum also redesigning the spare lives which I had always disliked on the original. The backgrounds themselves are as close as I could get with the available overlays. I've not yet completed background 1 (Sphynx) and Background 4 (Chateaux). I will post the G2Fs themselves tomorrow as there's a single error I need to correct first and I'm too tired after a long day to do it tonight.

 

Needless to say, I would love to see Bombjack and Alien8 Converted, I was thinking about Thrust earlier today, there was talk here some months ago about doing a hi-res version as the real A8 release was poor. If the spectrum version is acurate, that would be awesome to convert.

 

Tezz

[Tezz]

hmm not much interest in doing this maybe it seems? oh well, here's the 3 g2f files anyway for the pics I posted yesterday if anyone is interested. The other two will follow.

 

Tezz

(PS. Error is not yet corrected)

Bombjack.zip

[pseudografx]

hmm not much interest in doing this maybe it seems? oh well, here's the 3 g2f files anyway for the pics I posted yesterday if anyone is interested. The other two will follow.

 

Tezz

(PS. Error is not yet corrected)

Your mockup screen looks quite nice and it would be cool to see this finished on the atari, includig your ideas

Edited October 28, 2007 by pseudografx

[emkay]

hmm not much interest in doing this maybe it seems? oh well, here's the 3 g2f files anyway for the pics I posted yesterday if anyone is interested. The other two will follow.

 

Tezz

(PS. Error is not yet corrected)

 

I guess that it was better to make an "original" A8 version. The screen set to 32 Bytes is a good thing for a hires game.

The scoreboard should be set below the gamescreen. Perhaps it can look like your workout (but in horizontal). The gamescreen really must be done with greyshades for the background graphics (f.e. light grey houses and dark grey heaven) , to have the relevants for the game coloured (Platforms, Pills, Bombs Enemies).

The horizontal scoreboard would save a lot of CPU cycles and all coulours are available for the "play"-screen.

And, ofcourse: When using hires, it would be better to use the separated missile colour.

[Tezz]

I guess that it was better to make an "original" A8 version. The screen set to 32 Bytes is a good thing for a hires game. The scoreboard should be set below the gamescreen. Perhaps it can look like your workout (but in horizontal). The gamescreen really must be done with greyshades for the background graphics (f.e. light grey houses and dark grey heaven) , to have the relevants for the game coloured (Platforms, Pills, Bombs Enemies). The horizontal scoreboard would save a lot of CPU cycles and all coulours are available for the "play"-screen. And, of course: When using hires, it would be better to use the separated missile colour.

Thanks for your comment MK. I agree it would be better to make an original arcade conversion on the A8 as I said a couple of posts earlier, I like the Spectrum version too, it plays well and I like the hi-res look so I think it would be nice to convert it in this way as XXL is making possible. A couple of years ago I was working on some graphics and routines for a possible conversion of the arcade original, the game is pretty rudimetary to do. Graphics wise I posted G2F's of the title screen with the rotating colour effect and also my conversion of the Amiga loading picture which you said looked a little sparse (which is true as the original artist used a spray brush effect on the sand) I can and will draw a better picture from scratch myself, the reason I converted the Amiga screen was because I looked at the box art etc and thought it was not too badly done so why re-invent the wheel. With regard to using a different horizontal based layout, I didn't want to redesign the layout as I want to convert the game "as is". I take your point about cpu time and not wasting colours on a score panel down the right side of course that will leave all availalbe for the game area but I think it can be done either way with a bit of thinking and I prefer it to look the same. The Arcade original does have the score panel in a horizontal layout at the top and bottom BTW apart from a shaded frame around the play area so that conversion would indeed be horizontal.

 

Here's that Amiga title I did 2 years ago on G2F..

And also the title screen here as a GIF anim.

Edited October 29, 2007 by Tezz

[Heaven/TQA]

bomb jack would be cool...

[Cybergoth]

:-) it will be port of zx spectrum game (like jetpac) and i want to write game looks exectly like zxspectrum g&g.

 

So it will look like this:

 

Bonus points for those who find the player sprite