13 replies to this topic

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

Sea Wolf 2 could've been a great port for the 2600, don't ya think?

All the action is vertically separated, so you could probably easy do big multicolored ships crossing the screen.

Just imagine an Air/Sea Battle variant 12 remake in Activision quality.

I know there is a similar game by Konami (Marine Wars?) but I think it could be done much better.

Hm... maybe I should try doing a mock-up screen once myself. Here's a screen of the 8-Bit version. A VCS port should come very close:



Any takers? I'd support any serious attempt!

Greetings,
Manuel

[Scott Stilphen]

I'd settle for a port of the original Sea Wolf (which should be even easier to do!)

[Cybergoth]

Scott Stilphen said:

I'd settle for a port of the original Sea Wolf (which should be even easier to do!)

Now I'm curious - why would you rather go for the original?
With "original" you're refering to the B/W arcade?
What's wrong with the sequel?

As for being easy, you can certainly make this port as complicated as you want.


If going the hardest way, you can even try doing the ships exactly as in the screenshot I posted, that is by creating a 32 pixel horizontal resolution for them by partially repeating the the old dragster/dragonfire trick. Since we're not going for the max posible resolution here, even the fancy colors might be doable.

From that simplifying, you can choose any easier way you prefer, down to Air/Sea Battle variant 12

Or even simpler when heading for a 1:1 port of the B/W arcade

Greetings,
Manuel

[Rob Mitchell]

Ahem .. I am showing my age here .. but I think the original SeaWolf was some kinda mechanical vertical shooter (if my memory is still intact).

There is a nice SeaWolf for the Bally/Astrocade.

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Scott Stilphen]

Manuel: What's wrong with the original?

The only differences with Sea Wolf II were that it was in color, and the option of having 2 players play at the same time (would that be possible?). What if the look (and play?) of both could be incorporated - putting the TV switch to b&w would give you the look of the original (actually, black and blue, since SW used a blue overlay)

Rob: I believe you're thinking about Sea Raider, which came out a year or two before Sea Wolf. It's essentially the same game, only mechanical.

Here's the KLOV entries for SW and SWII
http://www.klov.com/S/Sea_Wolf.html
http://www.klov.com/S/Sea_Wolf_II.html

[Cybergoth]

Hi Scott!

Scott Stilphen said:

Manuel:  What's wrong with the original?

Hehe, well, it's B/W and only for one player

Quote

The only differences with Sea Wolf II were that it was in color, and the option of having 2 players play at the same time (would that be possible?).

Yup. You see those two subs at the bottom of the screenshot I posted?

Quote

What if the look (and play?) of both could be incorporated - putting the TV switch to b&w would give you the look of the original (actually, black and blue, since SW used a blue overlay)

Now that idea is certainly cool!

Greetings,
Manuel

[NE146]

I've ALWAYS thought Sea Wolf (as well as a lot of the earlier arcade games that never made a home port) would be a great 2600 programming project. Sea Wolf and Sea Wolf II would be excellent and welcomed by all I'm sure.

...Anyone else here get frustrated as a kid trying to shoot that pesky fast little speeder boat?

[Scott Stilphen]

It'd be cool to have, but how many people would really use/want the 2-player mode? I think FireOne was superior to SWII, as far as having a 2-player Sea Wolf-type game.

The Atari 8-bit version is (visually) much better than the arcade version! If it's possible to make the 2600 version look as good, that would be amazing.

Btw, everyone forgets that Air-Sea Battle isn't the only Sea Wolf-type game for the VCS.......IMHO Submarine Commander is an excellent version, which always seems to be overlooked (btw Al, the screen shots for it aren't coming up).

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

I started turning the Atari 8-Bit scene into a pixel-perfect "Sea Wolf 2 on the VCS screen", the bottom third already done:



You see the players subs adopted to one color per scannline, yet remaining in their 32 pixel resolution. If required by the kernel, their level of detail might drop to 24 or 16 pixels. I made the subs a little cooler looking too, since I didn't like those fat ones from the original.

Then you see a display line, showing the # of topedos left for each sub, plus a timer in the middle. Following are the scores for both players.
(I had the idea of letting the players choose their initials at the beginning of the game )

If you like it so far, I can continue and complete the VCS screen.

Greetings,
Manuel

[Marco(2)]

Go Manuel Go!

Cheers,
Marco

[JCroniger]

Sounds awesome. I love all these new homebrews!!

[NE146]

That rocks

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

Ok, I finished the screen. This, to all my best knowledge, is, how a Sea Wolf 2 port could actually look like:



Note: I borrowed the top section from "Crash Dive".

But it'd be cool like that, or?

Wow, design process almost done.

Any suggestions so far?

Well, if there'd be enough interest in such a project, the next steps would be setting up a webpage for the project and then finding some talented programmers who'd help me with that. I'm still somewhat busy with Star Fire, but I'm willing to contribute where I can.

We'd need at least 1-2 programmers for these two tasks:

- Either reverse-engineering the Horizon of Crash Dive or programming a good looking horizon from scratch. Not to hard a task. Might be done by a beginner.

- Programming the main display part. We'd need a pro here.

I myself would contribute the score/state display code and maybe additional code where required, tough I'd not like to be the lead programmer.

Well, that's it from my side at the moment.
Any ideas welcome.

Greetings,
Manuel

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

Thank you for moving this thread to the Hombrew forum, CPUWIZ!

Greetings,
Manuel