Prince of Persia

[peteym5]

There is a trick with Antic 4/5 to give the illusion of more colors. That is alternating between two colors in alternating frames to make it appear as a 3rd color. From what I understand, it works best with low luminances, values of 2,4,6. One of the easiest ways to do it is have 2 fonts that you chance between the tv frames. To hide the flicker further, you can use the 50% dither (checkboard) technique to swap the pixels. If you want to swap between green and red to create like a dark yellow, you will have the pixels in arranged like RGRGRG, and the next frame they will be swapped like GRGRGR. It is a little more work to make up two fonts but do hear it is effective.

[oky2000]

Apple II, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, GB, GBC, NES, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Mac OS, SNES, Mega-CD, Mega Drive, Nintendo GameCube (as a feature in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), XBLA, PSN

 

 

According to wikipedia anyway... I certainly don't remember a beeb version.

 

 

Pete

 

Hmmm Amstrad AND Specbum versions but not a C64 version....why would that be?

 

(apart from the publishers not wanting to make some money perhaps...quite a lot of it in fact haha)

[TMR]

Hmmm Amstrad AND Specbum versions but not a C64 version....why would that be?

 

The Amstrad version was produced by French publishers Microïds where the CPC was a dominant 8-bit, the Spectrum version wasn't an official conversion and released in 1996 by Russian developers Magic Soft.

Edited October 24, 2009 by TMR

[PeteD]

Apple II, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, GB, GBC, NES, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Mac OS, SNES, Mega-CD, Mega Drive, Nintendo GameCube (as a feature in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), XBLA, PSN

 

 

According to wikipedia anyway... I certainly don't remember a beeb version.

 

 

Pete

 

Hmmm Amstrad AND Specbum versions but not a C64 version....why would that be?

 

(apart from the publishers not wanting to make some money perhaps...quite a lot of it in fact haha)

 

Only thing I can think of is the others are all framebuffer (and coders used to handling such), no hardware sprites, at least until SNES etc where it was probably thought of as worthwhile to reorganise the code and data enough IF they didn't just use a framebuffer also. Doesn't really make a hell of a lot of sense (could've used bitmaps on C64) but that's the only factor of the hardware I can think of.

 

*edit* There we go then, just got TMRs reply while I was typing

 

Pete

Edited October 24, 2009 by PeteD

[oky2000]

No offence but I could probably write that game in LaserBASIC on the C64 with a multiload or something (not that I want to as I really don't like this game much). I never bought it on the Amiga because the animation was just OK (not as fluid as Imp Mission or Talisman on C64 to be honest) and the stones were like drawings made with the Deluxpaint solid rectangle tool

 

I just think such a simple game would have taken an experienced coder maybe a month tops with all the glitz and gloss you want to add so it is really strange not to do it. 2nd one on SNES looks better but the main characters animation isn't that special still AFAIAC

[pseudografx]

This is what I came up with after some pixelling in Paint Shop Pro

 

[tebe]

nice Pseudografx, and easy to convert (99 chars)

prince3.zip

Edited October 27, 2009 by tebe

[vcsdream]

Apple II, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, GB, GBC, NES, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Mac OS, SNES, Mega-CD, Mega Drive, Nintendo GameCube (as a feature in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), XBLA, PSN

 

 

According to wikipedia anyway... I certainly don't remember a beeb version.

 

 

Pete

 

Hmmm Amstrad AND Specbum versions but not a C64 version....why would that be?

 

(apart from the publishers not wanting to make some money perhaps...quite a lot of it in fact haha)

 

 

By 88/89 US companies started to stop doing games for C64, a dying platform. Apple 2 sales on the other hand, where still doing quite well.

 

Prince of Persia, Ancient Art of War, Airheart (all Broderbund), Arthur, Shogun, Mines of Titan, Journey (no C64 version, Wiki entry is wrong) (all Infocom), some example titles which didn't make it to C64, but Apple 2.

(But then, Wings of Fury (Broderbund 1990) did make it to C64, so who knows....)

 

 

As for PoP on XL, check out Cavernia from Zeppelin Games, pretty good PoP movement.

Edited October 28, 2009 by vcsdream

[TMR]

By 88/89 US companies started to stop doing games for C64, a dying platform. Apple 2 sales on the other hand, where still doing quite well.

 

An Amstrad CPC version exists, there was nothing stopping a similar deal being struck with a European developer to produce a C64 conversion but for some reason it didn't happen; the only options that spring immediately to mind were that Broderbund were asking too much for the license or the Euro devs didn't feel that PoP would sell in the existing market for the C64 perhaps.

[STE'86]

to seriously evaluate this, first of all the "sprite" data will have to be extracted from either the amstrad or the apple versions of the game.

 

these versions should offer the closest conversion of c64 or a8 graphics.

 

there will probably be a serious amount of frames if i recall the ST version correctly.

 

TBH i cant see a 64 version being too much of an outlandish project. enemy AI would be the hardest part.

 

however seeing as an a8 version would have to use software sprites and its associated colour reuse issues, this version could be a bit of a juggling act.

 

99 chars on the above is all very well but that will seriously increase when u have to take larger animation frames of player AND enemies into account.

 

this could actually be a feasible project.

 

Steve

[GroovyBee]

to seriously evaluate this, first of all the "sprite" data will have to be extracted from either the amstrad or the apple versions of the game.

 

If you look at the 2600 version thats in development (linked earlier in the thread) lots of the graphics have already been created/reworked.

[youki]

Apple II, MS-DOS, Amstrad CPC, GB, GBC, NES, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum, Mac OS, SNES, Mega-CD, Mega Drive, Nintendo GameCube (as a feature in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), XBLA, PSN

 

 

According to wikipedia anyway... I certainly don't remember a beeb version.

 

 

Pete

 

Hmmm Amstrad AND Specbum versions but not a C64 version....why would that be?

 

(apart from the publishers not wanting to make some money perhaps...quite a lot of it in fact haha)

 

 

By 88/89 US companies started to stop doing games for C64, a dying platform. Apple 2 sales on the other hand, where still doing quite well.

 

Prince of Persia, Ancient Art of War, Airheart (all Broderbund), Arthur, Shogun, Mines of Titan, Journey (no C64 version, Wiki entry is wrong) (all Infocom), some example titles which didn't make it to C64, but Apple 2.

(But then, Wings of Fury (Broderbund 1990) did make it to C64, so who knows....)

 

 

As for PoP on XL, check out Cavernia from Zeppelin Games, pretty good PoP movement.

 

 

i'm sure Shogun have been released on C64 , i had it.

 

And i think i had the Ancient Art of War too.

[STE'86]

to seriously evaluate this, first of all the "sprite" data will have to be extracted from either the amstrad or the apple versions of the game.

 

If you look at the 2600 version thats in development (linked earlier in the thread) lots of the graphics have already been created/reworked.

 

well thats very impressive for a VCS but alas its not going to help us do a c64 or an a8 conversion. i am not talking about redrawing the graphics for these versions, thats a shedload of work at 160x200 and pointless exercise when they already exist at the size and res we would need in the apple and amstrad versions.

 

the more we could rip bodily from the existing versions, increases dramatically the chances that any demo conversion gets done. simply because i doubt anyone on here would want to redraw the whole game animation for free. but recolouring and retouching is another matter entirely.

 

Steve

[PeteD]

After hacking around at the DOS .DAT files on and off today (to see if I could work out the format) I finally went googling for a tool to extract frames from the files and now have rather a lot of BMPs.

 

Anyone wants to extract them get the Princed Resource Manager v1.2 from HERE and find a copy of the dos game somewhere that has all the .DAT files (kid.dat, guard.dat etc)

 

 

Pete

Edited October 28, 2009 by PeteD

[pseudografx]

After hacking around at the DOS .DAT files on and off today (to see if I could work out the format) I finally went googling for a tool to extract frames from the files and now have rather a lot of BMPs.

 

Anyone wants to extract them get the Princed Resource Manager v1.2 from HERE and find a copy of the dos game somewhere that has all the .DAT files (kid.dat, guard.dat etc)

 

 

Pete

Hi Pete,

 

could you please attach the animations to a post or send them to my mailbox? I may try to find some time to convert them for Atari use.

Thanks,

PG

[PeteD]

After trying to upload a rar here I gave up and stuck it on rapidshare, link HERE This is just the frames for your player (known as Kid). There are LOTS of frames but they do shrink down and colour reduce to 4 colours (including background) quite well, a bit of tidying needs doing, that's about it. Some of the other stuff however (the guards for example) need a bit more complex colour mapping/reduction as they don't reduce so well.

 

There seem to be a few frames with errors in. I did read somewhere on my hunt for this stuff that this version of the app produces BMPs that certain apps don't like.

 

There is no animation list as far as I can find so your guess is as good as mine as to what goes where (apart from most of the anims are sequential).

 

 

Pete

[vcsdream]

 

 

i'm sure Shogun have been released on C64 , i had it.

 

And i think i had the Ancient Art of War too.

 

 

Yes, there was a crappy version of Shogun from Virgin in 1986, probably that's the one you had. No Art of War, 'fraid.

Edited October 29, 2009 by vcsdream

[oky2000]

I always thought PoP was a UK developed game, oh well that explains it then. You can tell it isn't a game that greatly interested me beyond 5 minutes at the time the crack hit the jiffy bags haha

[José Pereira]

Hello.

 

I take picture PeteD send and get this using AIS:

 

 

It's 00424, the largets horizontal wide, and it's difficult to put using PMs.

 

What would you do?

 

 

PeteD: I discouver many .DAT on Integrator/Extractor from that site.

What you use to open .DAT files.

There I see, amongst others (Dungeons, Enemys,...)

 

 

Thanks.

Jose Pereira.

[Lazarus]

By 88/89 US companies started to stop doing games for C64, a dying platform. Apple 2 sales on the other hand, where still doing quite well.

It died in 1992-1993 not 1988-1989. And there are a hell lot of games on C64 which do not exist on A2.

[analmux]

Hello.

 

I take picture PeteD send and get this using AIS:

 

 

It's 00424, the largets horizontal wide, and it's difficult to put using PMs.

 

What would you do?

 

 

PeteD: I discouver many .DAT on Integrator/Extractor from that site.

What you use to open .DAT files.

There I see, amongst others (Dungeons, Enemys,...)

 

 

Thanks.

Jose Pereira.

hmmm, just use 2 or 3 DLIs. Then only 1 or 2 PM might be needed, maybe even 1 player & 1 missile.

 

EDIT: Of course the best would be to use bitmapped screen in this case. No charmodes.

Edited October 29, 2009 by analmux

[José Pereira]

I recall I mentioned recently here on AA that the AppleII PoP would be a good one to port. I didn't know that there was a BBC version too.

PS. José: Benfica should easily take Everton

 

Hello all, here I am again.

 

No, the Apple2 isn't a good port. We don't need that lot of dithering.

 

I tried this picture today. It can be a good 1st try concept:

 

 

I done it using G2F. I used priority 8 and PM0 to our man and PM1 to enemy's clothe.

PF0/1 for the walls in front of Players.

PF2/3 & Backgr. for back walls.

PM2/3 to other screen objects:

-Razors on the Floor.

-Candles- You see two colours on the two candles, but can be only 1PM, one shines first then off and shines the other.

Or, You can use, for example M2&M3 (Yellow/Red) for one and then off and turn the other on. Just on/off the candles.

 

 

Other Screen Objects/other Levels - PM2/3 to some walls/Windows and yellowish pillars.

 

Enemy's Clothe is PM1 and our man's bODY it's PM0 as I said. The other parts of the Body and Weapon can be PF0-Lightest Gray/White (what you see on Enemy's Clothe). I simulate our man on that large cell as PM0 using Priority8 and the only major problem is that you see a little part of it on some lines of front walls, as you can see. But here, I think it's time to some coders here say something.

 

 

Just a little play with this one.

 

 

Greetings,

José Pereira.

 

Hello again.

 

FIRST: About the screen construction my idea, and the best is using Priority8.

PF0/1 for front pillar and PF2/3/Backgr. for the back pannel.

Seeing all Levels maps you can use a DLI for each floor lines, this gives you the possibility to have this floor as Backgr. colour and a second Backgr. in front side of the back Pillar.

 

For now I'll have 6colours. (only PFs+Backgr.).

In the front Pillars PF0/1 and you can use PF3. 5th Player above PF3 as the third colour (the problem I had on the above picture). 5th Player is always above PFs. and in Priority 8, when your "Kid" goes behind (using PMs. on it) you have PFs. Priority and when PMs. overlap you'll get PF3 colour.

 

 

SECOND: Screen Chars: In Pseudographx's picture it's 99chars, but this is not all the game graphics. I taked a complete level and cut it in single screen.

Than I Load each one on G2F (more or less 100chars, yes, but,...). Then I save the fonts. Do this for all the Level screens (Level3 have 24screens, for example).

Now I copy the 24Screen charsets into a single screen in .BMP extension. Load this again into G2F (like if it was a screen) and I got nore than 128, many, many more...

Because I am here to learn, how will you get over this? You can create 1charset to each line, but this is not the solution. If on past this game was ported to A8 what coders do? Someone can answer this?

 

 

THIRD: PMs: Windows, Bottles, Fire and some more things could be done using Ps. I had the idea of using P0/1 for the "Kid" and P2/3 for the Enemy in Multicolour format (3colours to each) and the weapons using PF0 - White.

But seeing all that farmes PeteD send to us, a new problem begins...

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am not say that I have intention to do... I am only trying some screens just for fun. About my questions, the idea is to learn some more things and like this and other Threads/Topics learn how could this or any other game turn on A8.

Even if this game, like many others may not see the daylights, it is just fun to see some screen/ideas in what it could be on A8.

 

For all you around there in some knowledge, please answer and give us your ideas. If if it is "just for the memory".

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks,

José Pereira.

[STE'86]

a sample of a 3 colour c64 hardware sprite version or an a8 sw sprite version.

 

ofc the hair could be pmg'ed on which would therefore make it a 2 colour version giving 3 colours to the background.

 

Steve

 

[atarian63]

By 88/89 US companies started to stop doing games for C64, a dying platform. Apple 2 sales on the other hand, where still doing quite well.

It died in 1992-1993 not 1988-1989. And there are a hell lot of games on C64 which do not exist on A2.

Maybe overseas but late 88 was about it in the USA. 16 bit had been out since 85. Most people had long moved on and Turbo XT was out and really moving. You could even add 8-bit VGA.

Edited October 29, 2009 by atarian63

[Lazarus]

Maybe overseas but late 88 was about it in the USA. 16 bit had been out since 85. Most people had long moved on and Turbo XT was out and really moving. You could even add 8-bit VGA.

I doubt that. I know a lot of C64 people from USA which still were there in mid 90s. Ofcourse many of them bought 16 bit machines too, but the same happened in Europe aswell. I bought my A500 in 1990 but still used the C64 aswell.