Gauntlet Gauntlet U.S. Gold

[José Pereira]

Hi.

We and me already talked about this one maybe many times but I was here just thinking again.

 

We have the two players using ours PLAYERS with eachone using two in Multicolour mode.

Then all is in 4colours. In the tittle screen they used ANTIC4 but in-game? Is it GR.15 bitmap or GR.12 charmode?

 

From the old Atari User magazine, I think, I read that the Gremlin Graphics team that did the game for U.S. Gold was A8 the original for the 6502 versions. The C64 uses their usual charmode and colourmap.

All the enemys move in char steps that was the the solution to have so many on screen so does it is sometimes seeming slow becauise on A8 they are using biytmap mode (then moving to move in vertical directions they need to move 8scanlines instead of all 8=1charline in one time)?

 

I never did it, maybe I'll do it today night just because I don't have anything really to do but if I count all the different walls, enemys, treasures,... it seem that they can fit in our just one charset=128chars, or is it that on C64 they have 256chars and its the playing area+status area the same charset?

 

So main question, is it on A8 the in-game in bitmap or in charmode?

 

 

 

Was wondering if it is in charmode just adding a 5th colour wouldn't be hard... Or if it's in bitmap turning it into charmode difficult?

Maybe isn't a game worth of all that working but if it wasn't all that hard...

 

[Rybags]

Yes, likely they used bitmap due to the 128 char limit.

Changing such a game from bitmap to char, not worth the bother - so much work it'd be easier to start from scratch.

 

And you'd probably not end up with anything much better. Really, it's a game that's beyond the capability of an 8-bit computer if it's done in the proper way with smooth steps and faithful to the arcade.

[Mr SQL]

Yes, likely they used bitmap due to the 128 char limit.

Changing such a game from bitmap to char, not worth the bother - so much work it'd be easier to start from scratch.

 

And you'd probably not end up with anything much better. Really, it's a game that's beyond the capability of an 8-bit computer if it's done in the proper way with smooth steps and faithful to the arcade.

 

 

 

I'm not so sure; the TimeBandit programmers could surely have pulled it off on the original CoCo and Dies did an awesome job with the CoCo3 though that's not really a fair comparison.

 

True they had a 16-bit advantage but the c64 version (the first one, not the horrible ones) is pretty awesome with even the perfect soundtrack in the treasure room.

[Synthpopalooza]

Would it be possible to do if you used 2 fonts, but used a dli font set change every character line? ... in essence, you'd have 128 character tiles with each character being 4x16 pixels.

 

Or if you stuck with bitmap mode, use the same trick Bomb Jack did ... set up Antic 4, use 8 font sets, all on the screen with DLI's, and poke to the character memory for your bitmap. This would make the screen bitmap setup like the Commodore 64 lowres multicolor graphics mode.

[José Pereira]

Got it and the A8 in-game PFs, thats simple 2players two PMGs multicolour and shots for each is 2MISSILES as 5th Player taking [0E] white on all the levels.

Hmm, Synth you're right because all gfxs are in [2x2] chars tiles but with enemys even they are moving in chars steps, at least for them you must have for them sharing those two charsets on their top and bottom char frames.

In a last asking can any here investigate if on C64 its one charset for the playing are and another for the bottom status area or its a single C64 256chars one charset for the two?

 

Thanks

[José Pereira]

By the way and for anyone interested the game follows this rule in all the levels:

-> each level one hues

-> then lumas are PF0_4/PF1_E/PF2_8 then the no used on gfxs its always PF3_0E thas gives the guys shots missiles.

Hmm clever but maybe having that same code in ANTIC4 GR.12 charmode a better solution could had been achieved

[TMR]

In a last asking can any here investigate if on C64 its one charset for the playing are and another for the bottom status area or its a single C64 256chars one charset for the two?

It uses has four in total, one contains the status bar and other presentation characters (big numbers for the start of level and so on) while the other three are in-game graphics and it ping pongs through those three to get animation on things like the enemies and the chests. i had a cursory prod and there looks to be about 200 characters in use for enemies.

[José Pereira]

Shit so maybe using like Synth said, one for top and other for bottom charline, interleaved two charsets. It works for the gfxs [2x2] chars tiles but the enemys all frames moving in char steps must also be in the 2charsets.

This same idea its present on that game Chips Challenge type but just for the static gfxs as the enemys are only PMGs.

[TMR]

Shit so maybe using like Synth said, one for top and other for bottom charline, interleaved two charsets. It works for the gfxs [2x2] chars tiles but the enemys all frames moving in char steps must also be in the 2charsets.

That's where the problem will probably be, from what i saw the walls and so on aren't taking that much space so you have to hope that splitting them and other static items like chests or generators between fonts will reduce the count enough to make space for whatever needs to move arbitrarily, either that or remove some of the movement angles perhaps.