13 replies to this topic

[Sheddy]

Thought you all might be amused to see this... an early proto, before I gave up first time round (as it was too crap)

Avram asked about my first attempts at Space Harrier in another post, and I had good hunt round and found some of the original disks - surprisingly some of them still work after all this time. I finally managed to get it into an .ATR image after giving up on ProSystem and just using APE.

I think this dates back to around 1991 before I had some sound effects put in.

strangely in some ways it is better than what I have done this time around ...full screen, up/down scrolling when the man dies...but hopefully you can see why I don't want to do a 4 colour only version....

Attached Files

•  shdemo91.zip   13.37K   90 downloads

[Goochman]

Still looks pretty good - fast also

Better than some 4 color games Ive seen

[emkay]

The color usage has more beauty in this Early Demo IMO.
The perfect gameplay makes the "more colors" not really necessary". You have a clear "optical distance" between background and sprite.
In this state I would test how it acts optical to use the hi varieties of colors to built "lightning-Effects"
So the Enemies on the upper screen are having a light-red-green touch. By getting near to the bottom, the color fades from light red over middle brown to the "dark-green" of the bushes.... and so on...
I am not meaning about every line a DLI, but in the "horizont" one DLI to make it possible to set the color and the variations... So if the Sprites are coming near the bushes, they have the same color....
Or the grey Enemies... the higher they go ..the lighter is the grey....
The question here is not how it looks, but how it acts.....

Do you see my reason?

[Heaven/TQA]

sheddy you will hate me for saying that: but this versions looks far better even it has less colors... (but i can not check on real atari just emulator...)

hve

ps. still this version is brilliant as well...

[emkay]

Sheddy said:

strangely in some ways it is better than what I have done this time around   ...full screen, up/down scrolling when the man dies...

Erm.... what you are calling an up/down scrolling is a z-buffer movement... now I know why you are having no more CPU time... And perhaps I didn't know the ATARI is that powerfull ...

[Sheddy]

Heaven/TQA said:

sheddy you will hate me for saying that: but this versions looks far better even it has less colors... (but i can not check on real atari just emulator...)  

hve

ps. still this version is brilliant as well...

Very Interesting!
Umm.... I don't know whether I should be happy or sad!
But thanks anyway for the kind words, people.

The graphics are less accurate on that old demo, but because of the full screen size and some oversized objects (compared to the original), the objects have more detail and the scaling would look better, I guess....

so the question is, what should I do now?

Carry on regardless....or tweak what I have been doing recently...or revisit the idea of 4 colour (maybe with a colourful twist, as emkay suggests)

[Heaven/TQA]

it's just a matter of personal taste but i hate flickering interlace game gfx... so sheddy...i would go further the path you have choosen now...

anyway space harrier XE is a brilliant conversion done by one person!

hve

[emkay]

"Sheddy said:

so the question is, what should I do now?

Carry on regardless....or tweak what I have been doing recently...or revisit the idea of 4 colour (maybe with a colourful twist, as emkay suggests)

What about taking a break of development and making a test of how my suggestion acts on the 1st Level anyway. You want more colors? So use the colors as they are available
And, if you want to see how great your work is, start CCS64 and view this crappy version of SpaceHarrier.

[TMR]

emkay said:

What about taking a break of development and making a test of how my suggestion acts on the 1st Level anyway. You want more colors? So use the colors as they are available  
And, if you want to see how great your work is, start CCS64 and view this crappy version of SpaceHarrier.

Just dont look at Chris Butler's later game Turbocharge... =-)

A comment from a passing interloper; the new version looks damned good but the interlace is bad on the eyes after any significant playing time, this older version is easier to look at.

[Avram]

Sheddy,

Firstly, a word of thanks for digging out your old disks and showing off the 1991 version of Space Harrier – thank-you. I played both of your versions back-to-back and the first thing I noticed was how much better the game is with the inclusion of sound and music. Having audio makes the game so much more satisfying.
Yes, the speed is faster in the earlier demo but I feel that it’s worth the sacrifice for the extra colours.
As for which version to work with, I’d say go for the one you get the most satisfaction from. The good thing about the your latest version of Space Harrier is that not only are you very successfully capturing the feel of the original coin-op (although the 1991 version does this great too) but also pushing the Atari hardware, as well as creating one of the few Atari titles that is specifically written for the 130XE. With the second incarnation I assume you’re writing much more optimised code and it’ll be an easier project to continue with as opposed revisiting a twelve-year-old programme.

Whatever way your project continues, good luck with it because it’s wonderful to see such a complicated game being written for the 8-bits!

Avram

[Goochman]

Sheddy,

When I played your 1991 demo I thought 'Nice, wish it was released in 91, now back to my ST version'

Your current incarnation says to me 'Wow, I cant believe how well the XE can handle this - lets put the ST version away'

I would continue on your current path.

[Joey Kay]

Could somebody post some screen shots for me? I'm away from home at my folk's place this week!

Cheers!

Joey

[SmileyDude]

Wow -- I'm impressed. This is good stuff -- both the original and the new version. As far as a vote goes, I'm more impressed with the newer version. It makes me want to go out and get a 130XE to add to my collection. It's a shame that at least a 64k version couldn't be made, but I completely understand why.

[Sheddy]

Thanks for your thoughts on this, people. I'll be making some changes because of them.


Joey Kay here's some shots:

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