AMIGA and PC games as source for new XL games ?

[Lord-Chaos]

Some years ago I ripped some graphics from different AMIGA games and tried to make games on the XL.

 

Two of them were role-playing games which look surprisingly good on the ATARI , although both were not finished :

 

The first one used graphics from Eye of the Beholder (VGA) in the 256-color mode.This really looks good and would not be possible on a C64 for example , but the biggest problem is that this graphics takes lots of memory and CPU time.

But it looks better than the PC CGA and EGA versions.

 

The second one is about 95% finished as "engine",it uses graphics from the 16 Bit versions of "Bard´s Tale" which look far better than the C64 or Apple 2 or DOS versions.The only thing missing is the game design.

The graphics is 256-color mode too,but since the pictures only have 16 colors , I always wanted to change this to 160*200 with some players,because there are never that much colors/line ,so that sampled music could be played.

 

I´ve also converted lots of pictures and sprites etc. - the difference between ATARI 800 and AMIGA or ST or older PC games isn´t that big.

 

C64 games are not a great source for new XL games,because C64 games only use 16 colors but the better games are programmed so that they use the C64´s advantages well.That means Hires sprites,using the color-ram , FLI mode etc.

 

ATARI ST screens for example only use 16 colors , sometimes some interrupts to change these for "copper effects" like AMIGA,but usually 16 colors in 320*200.

 

The pictures of adventures like "The Guild of Thieves" look almost identical to the ST version on the XL ,only with 160*200.Even 320*200 is possible if interlacing is used.

 

So the idea is to grab graphics from ST/AMIGA and older PC games and use them in ATARI XL games.

Speaking of music : ST and old PCs with Adlib cards are not better than POKEY sound-wise , AMIGA usually uses MODs ,4-channel Soundtracker or multichannel custom-trackers - these music pieces are available on several internet sites and could be ported to POKEY music,since the .MOD format is well explained.

 

Thimo

[emkay]

Lord-Chaos wrote:

 

 

>The first one used graphics from Eye of the Beholder (VGA) in the 256-color mode.This really looks good and would not be possible on a C64 for example , but the biggest problem is that this graphics takes lots of memory and CPU time.

But it looks better than the PC CGA and EGA versions.

 

Is it possible to view the pictures you made?

 

 

> C64 games are not a great source for new XL games,because C64 games only use 16 colors but the better games are programmed so that they use the C64´s advantages well.That means Hires sprites,using the color-ram , FLI mode etc.

 

C64 games are good for a look at the programmcode and how to cheat in programs to use fewer CPU time and to fit big software-projects into 8-Bit computers...