72 replies to this topic

[Heaven/TQA]

http://www.sheddysha...wip/jan03.shtml

i haven't noticed the updates on the side... nice comments & insight views...

the perfect story for the edge magazine in UK? as he is UK based as well???

hve

[Heaven/TQA]

and the source code is there as well...

[Goochman]

This is a cart I will buy if/when it comes out!

[surfnmadness]

Actually the link you posted is an older one. The last update he has on the site is from March 2003 http://www.sheddysha...k/wip/wip.shtml

I did see that title page on someone's avatar recently but dont remember who it was per
surfn

[Godzilla]

man i just cant believe how great that game is looking

[yodan]

I'd buy it too but now if he could port that to the 5200, well that would be a money cart!

[Jetboot Jack]

Somehow I don't think a 5200 version is possible -- the XE version requires 128k or RAM and is disc based -- for 128K of storage...

Maybe an XE cart will be possible, but with so little RAM and small cart space (32k I think) the 5200 is unlikely to get Space Harrier

sTeVE

[Godzilla]

cant u put ram on cart? ram is soooo cheap these days...

[Jetboot Jack]

I don't think the 5200 and its "OS" would be able to make use of cart RAM so it appears as a larger expanse of contigious RAM like in a 130XE.

Is there a way to make the 5200 address LOTS of ROM I wonder? The 5200 seems very handicapped by not being able to work with a cart schema like the 8bit/XEGS can -- currently upto 1MB.

sTeVE

[Sheddy]

I'd love to make the game work on all Ataris, but there are a couple of problems, as sTeVE has mentioned.

RAM is a problem if you want more than a "standard" 4 colour screen - which I refuse to use for this game ( it does the original Space Harrier no justice at all - its main pull is the graphics and sound - my original work on this game in the late 80's was 4 colour, and I just didn't like it - although it was blindingly fast).
I'd need all 16K RAM of the 5200/400 for the screens alone, and preferably 24K to maximize the speed with triple buffering as I'm doing at the moment.

32K ROM size on the 5200 would be a major problem too - interested if anyone knows how to work round this. Also intrigued by prospect of adding RAM...

Until I hear a reply about officially licencing the game, either yea or nay, (I rather NOT just produce a clone), or being given some kind of response from Sega or Elite Systems (they haven't replied to anything I have asked via e-mail, so far), I don't want to get invoved in anything that would involve money changing hands (which involves any kind of Cart of course)

Saying that, however, I'm very keen on the idea of a mega cart that could run on 800/800xl/600xe/130xe - anything with 48k or more of RAM.

Also using the full expanse of the cart, I can take away a lot of the limitations that I've had to place on myself:

I'd do more colourful objects - I'm limited to 4 colours per object right now.

There's another faster sprite routine that's waiting in the wings if I get a whole load of rom space (and I mean something like 2MB )


...And the rest of the sound samples.

[Sheddy]

Heaven/TQA said:

http://www.sheddysha...wip/jan03.shtml

i haven't noticed the updates on the side... nice comments & insight views...

the perfect story for the edge magazine in UK? as  he is UK based as well???

hve

Even though I've bought every issue (including the ultra rare no.1) they just don't call

Edge do sometimes cover retro - but they are not really interested in ports - only original content.

BTW Paul Slocum got a small mention in there last month, with his excellent "Marble Craze" for the 2600

[Avram]

Any chance of a demo of your earlier incarnation of Space Harrier being released on your site? I'm intrigued!

[emkay]

Sheddy said:

RAM is a problem if you want more than a "standard" 4 colour screen - which I refuse to use for this game ( it does the original Space Harrier no justice at all - its main pull is the graphics and sound - my original work on this game in the late 80's was 4 colour, and I just didn't like it - although it was blindingly fast).

Looking back to the history of the ATARI 8-Bits, I recognize the following:

-There are true ATARI Fans programming their hardware
-There are true Hardwarefreaks active doing expansions for them...
-They are allways spending their time for doing allways the same...

But I know only one programmer, that is linear in the capabilities of the hardware and usage of the software to put in...Sheddy.
All others are trying to manage programs the wrong way and put it out "unfinished" or as a demo because they are not able to finish it....because it was not possible ... with the chosen technique.

I'm talking not only about the software sprite routines, but of the whole playable version of Space Harrier as it is... You're adapting the game as it was/has to be in the sense of the original..... and then look at the achievement of the production anyway.

Belonging to the "lacking" memory; I'd talked to some HW-Specialists to create an active Memorycontroller... All I got is a "Why"?
Belonging to the better Sound I'd talked (back in 1986) of a Player, that was able to partial digitize. This means the usage of POKEY's generators with a timed quantisation of true sounds. This is now (2003) partial possible with the RMT.

Belonging to better graphics (back in 1987) the development had to go to the MCS standard (up to 64 colors for games) that I began to develop.

This three points developed until today, and Numen was "only one of all the other great productions"....
But in every time there was a "why do so?" and all my argues are like talking to a wall...

I was really sad, my XL went to the ATTIC for about 10 years.
Today it looks the same way to me.... What? (you're asking?)
The reason, that the "ATARI-Freaks" themself were the cause of the XL/XEs faulty beeing.
I don't think that only one had sayed "WHY" as the 2nd reality demo was adapted to the C64. I laughed as I saw some of the badder than worse adapted effects appeared on the screen, but there was a tear in my eyes by knowing, never to see/hear this on the ATARI X.


Why I am writing that at all?

With this three points, developed until today by users that had the abilities and the time to do so, your Space Harrier would not even be as good as the original, but it was possible to use 160x192 res. with up to 64 colors without any flicker and it was possible to use a soundtrack like on AMIGA.... and this by a very fast way...
The production of software is a selfbuilding learning and doing by using of the gained knowledge before.


On every System this works fine and you'll see every time the results... But on the ATARI 8-Bits it is like swimming thru the Sahara...

[Sheddy]

Avram said:

Any chance of a demo of your earlier incarnation of Space Harrier being released on your site?  I'm intrigued!

Maybe! You got me thinking and I found an early version of the original ........but can I get my darn ProSystem to work
Won't detect the drive all...

Had enough trouble getting APE going too - as it is it doesn't work on my nforce2 PC, and I had to put it on our "file server".

[Heaven/TQA]

unfortunatly, emkay, i have to disagree a little bit... there are a lot of effects, techniques, etc... which you could use for developing games on atari... but sometimes you have to stick to a decision made early in the design stage... f.e. i could say, hey why not using TIP for games? 160x200x256 would kick C64 in the ass but... i doubt that this mode would be usable for space harrier... so i think MCS as well... and i am working in software development company... at a certain stage you can not turn back time...sometimes a decision is made and to achieve the goals you have to stick to it...

another thing... using 8 channel (2 pokeys) how high is the penetration of machines with 2 pokeys?

using digi speech... why the hell using digi speech in every game? just to be there? same with all "new" techniques...using them just "to be used"? is not the key... gameplay is... and combining clever affordable and available effects... that's my philosophy...

as we develope right now a 4 player packman should we use real whicked effects & hardcode technique for such a simple game??? i think sometimes less is more... ;=)

karolj

[emkay]

Heaven/TQA said:

using digi speech... why the hell using digi speech in every game? just to be there? same with all "new" techniques...using them just "to be used"? is not the key... gameplay is... and combining clever affordable and available effects... that's my philosophy...

as we develope right now a 4 player packman should we use real whicked effects & hardcode technique for such a simple game??? i think sometimes less is more...  ;=)

karolj

That's exactily what I am talking about...

"...Why doing it....."

"....less is more..."

These are two points who killed the 8-Bits...

As a Developer in profession you have to look of what the customer wants for his money. For shure no one wants the 1001st 4 color Tetris remake with the done ring rang POKEY sounds.
For a customer it is really alike what yoy are thinking or what your philosophy means. He buys what he finds worthy to pay for.
And ofcourse it is a nonsense to talk about it today, because the XL died a long time ago. And I see the nonsense to talk against walls again....

Still wondering if Manfred Trenz thought, if it was necessary to put Big Sprites and big Levels on Turrican...

[emkay]

>... f.e. i could say, hey why not using TIP for games?


TIP is useless for games...



>using 8 channel (2 pokeys) how high is the penetration of machines with 2 pokeys?

What was about removing that crap out of the brains and use the double usage of CPU time to create real synth-routines with one POKEY by using the POKEY soundgenerators?

Two POKEYS are useless until the soundquality wasn't better... But to increase the sounding capabilities of the POKEY is possible this way on ALL ATARI 8-Bits...




Please notice:
It was the hi-level programming of the c64 that pushed this system to number one of the homecomputers not its capabilities...
Look at Last Ninja... the gameplay is unbeatable crap but look at the graphics and listen to the music....

....nothing more to say...

[Heaven/TQA]

emkay, you are right.

re manfred trenz' turrican series...

i found nothing "special" on turricam except the design + music was nice? but the game itself was good, so the design... imho the turrican design is what makes the product so special and pushed the c64...

nowadays you still have the same kind of mechanics... stunning technical gfx... but just outstanding games have both... gameplay+innovation.

hve

[emkay]

Heaven/TQA said:

nowadays you still have the same kind of mechanics... stunning technical gfx... but just outstanding games have both... gameplay+innovation.

Open your eyes Heaven.... The best gameplay is nothing if you see on the screen a character "E" for the enemy a "S" for street and hear some blip blop in the background... It needs some graphics .... maybe better graphics.... maybe colorfull graphics... maybe...??
Ofcourse it does need the best graphics and sound (possible on the machine) too....!
Innovation on the XL endet in the early 80s (85?)....
At the end the System with better sound and graphics is the winner. But by clever programming the XL would have outlived the C64 as commodore went bankrupt But that's not the count...

Games like Turrican are/were truely able on the XL if one had not asked "Why" but did it. Even the parallax-scrolling was possible. Please remember, you can multiplex Players and Missiles in x and y positions and to use softwaresprites...The Charmode is hardly necessary to manage the big Sprites.

If you listened already to my Demo-Song "slow" you may have recongized the "synth" like voices. By further development of this way to create music, you would have a more less CPU usage than with RMT and have 4 voices in SID music-quality.


Games done the correct way ... that was the count.

[Sheddy]

Tell me more about MCS mode, guys. EmKay is that where you stretch the players and use them as background colour? How'd you get to 64 colours that way?

Maybe 8-bit developers did not push the Atari as hard as the C64 in the day. During most of the Atari's lifespan it proved more than capable of making good versions of simple games, without a huge amount of intense programming effort to REALLY push the boat out. It had no real competitors. It was only towards the end of its life that arcade, and other systems games were becoming more sophisticated (visually and sonically) that people even felt the need to try for better. The C64 was born into this age of vast improvements in arcade graphics etc. so it was necessary for its developers to keep up with the trends...the Atari was more or less dead by this time, so no one tried - except the demo coders and crews. They were not responsible for the lack of impressive software - they only showed what could be done, even if it might not be possible to make some of the effects into a full game.

Still IMHO the gameplay is more important than graphics or sound. Maybe someone could make something fantastic looking and sounding but utterly unplayable - but to me there would be no point in that at all. Each has to complement the other, so there are limits to what should be done, as against what could be done.

just my 2 cents...

[Heaven/TQA]

Sheddy, this is exactly what i meen and emkay and i have not too much different point of view...

f.e. i can not judge how far speccy games f.e. where "pushing" the machine as for me most of them look ugly...

hve

[TMR]

Heaven/TQA said:

i found nothing "special" on turricam except the design + music was nice? but the game itself was good, so the design... imho the turrican design is what makes the product so special and pushed the c64...

So the vast end of level guardians (one is several screens high in Turrican 2), reasonably fluid control system and the sheer amount of stuff it hammers around the screen aren't special? As a C64 coder, i'm here to tell you it ain't easy to get a breadbin moving that kind of stuff around...

Heaven/TQA said:

nowadays you still have the same kind of mechanics... stunning technical gfx... but just outstanding games have both... gameplay+innovation.

Turrican 1 and 2 managed to be very playable, i still return to one of the series every now and then to finish it.

[TMR]

Heaven/TQA said:

f.e. i can not judge how far speccy games f.e. where "pushing" the machine as for me most of them look ugly...

Judging the Spectrum is quite easy, probably easier than any other 8bit; 3.5MHz Z80A (about the same speed as the 6502 in the Atari 8bits when you work out the cycles per command ratio) and absolutely no hardware support for scrolling, sprites, mode splitting (no modes to split!) or sound. Everything moving on the screen is shifted through sheer CPU horsepower and the screen is always a bitmap, a lot of games pushed damned hard on what was there.

Even budget games (like my personal favourite, Chronos with about two thirds of the screen scrolling) are doing incredible amounts of work.

i do agree with Sheddy that gameplay is the most vital element but at the same time my admittedly limited knowledge of the Atari means i'm wondering why a lot of games didn't push the graphics hardware quite as far as it could have gone. But i'll get back to you when one of the other members of Cosine lets me know a bit more about it. =-)

[Sheddy]

I think when a system has reached a certain amount of market penetration, the one-upmanship between developers becomes much greater (plus there is marketshare to go for). To show you can do the best on a leading platform is an intense buzz, I suspect!

[Sheddy]

emkay said:

Games like Turrican are/were truely able on the XL if one had not asked "Why" but did it. Even the parallax-scrolling was possible. Please remember, you can multiplex Players and Missiles in x and y positions and to use softwaresprites...The Charmode is hardly necessary to manage the big Sprites.

I'm sure it could be done - but I'm not so sure it could be as good..

OK, you CAN multiplex Players and Missiles in x position, but only at the expense of having DLIS every line where that is required, or more efficiently, a VCS 2600 style kernel. Both options severely limit the amount of CPU time you have left for any actual gameplay logic or anything else.

Sorry, but the C64 sprites are just awesome compared to the Ataris - if only just for the fact of getting all 8 of them on a scanline at once, 12 pix wide with 4 colours each. Even with horizonal multiplexing on the Atari, it can't come close to that. Sure, things are different vertically, and on the Atari its easy to split them this way - whereas the C64 may well be a bit more tricky (I'm not 100% sure about this since I'm not a C64 coder)

Parallax (which is always a big cheat on nearly all 8-bit systems) I suspect is also harder, due to having only 128 characters in the character set with the Atari, and having to resort to interrupts mid screen again to up the count....