Moya Jackie

Damn, took too long. Sorry.

Good luck!

Hi there. I'm really interested in a few titles that you have, but I don't have any older Atari gear to swap. Would you be interested in selling some of the Lynx games without a trade?

I would like to make new games for the Lynx and Amiga. They share many similarities and are both still popular enough to make new software a viable venture. I am friends with an excellent pixel artist who specialises in 16 colour, 12bit images who is keen to make some Amiga/Lynx game graphics, and I know plenty of active ProTracker musicians still composing amazing tunes who I'm sure I could convince to work with us on Lynx games too. I'm only a beginner programmer though so I doubt I'd be able to code the kind of games I have in mind, but I'm willing to keep learning so I can improve. I do have plenty of ideas though, and experience designing levels, characters and storylines for games so I'd like to help creatively that way in any games we make. I like platform games, so I'd like to make both a single-screen platformer along the lines of Bubble Bobble or Rodland, as well as a scrolling platform adventure game like Viking Child, Switchblade II or Wonderboy in Monsterland. I'm going to create some concept demos of what I have in mind with my Amiga, then make some videos and screenshots to show you guys what I mean and hopefully my games will seem appealing enough to get some more interested parties involved.

Rygar, I see that you have an Amiga 2000 in your avatar, if you still have this machine you can use Personal Paint to create stereograms in any size, using either the random dots or a pattern. You can download Personal Paint for free from Aminet, I guess you'll need your own way to transfer it to the Amiga though. http://aminet.net/package/biz/cloan/PPaint It's really easy to make your images. You just create it in grey-scale, with lighter greys being closer and darker ones being further away, then you run the filter and it will process the image into a 3D stereogram. You can switch on coordinates and make sure the area is only 160x102, and of course your A2000 already has the exact same 4,096 colour palette that the Lynx uses, and can be set to 16 colours onscreen to get the most accurate results. I'm sorry I can't test out your ROM programs though, I'm blind in one eye and can't see in 3D at all, and I'm also deaf so can't test the audio one.

I have this busted Lynx. It doesn't work on batteries because the previous owner left batteries in it for years and they exploded inside it. So I bought a power pack for it, plugged it in and it actually turned on, the music started and I could hear that the game worked after pressing some buttons and hearing the sound effects, but there is no picture at all on the screen. The backlight works, but adjusting the contrast knob has no effect, the screen is blank. After opening it up, pulling it apart and putting it back together, making sure the screen ribbon was firmly in (it reminds me of my Amiga's keyboard ribbon), there was still no picture. Then the whole thing stopped working, possibly from the crappy power socket, hopefully not something else. I've not been able to get it working at all since then, so I'm not sure what the problem with the screen was but maybe it's similar to what has happened in yours. So, I guess I'm sorry this doesn't help at all, but I share your pain, you're not alone.

The Amiga and Atari ST versions are the closest ports to the arcade I think, but here are screenshots from all of the conversions: http://hol.abime.net.../conversionshot

What are you going to do with all your Lynxes? Do you have ComLynx cables so you can link them up and get some friends over to play together?

I think it'd be cool to write your game for the 7800, then when you've finished you could port it to the Lynx!

What a shame the game was abandoned, I've often thought that a Bomberman game would be perfectly suited to the Lynx. I wonder if the source code could be recovered from the author and continued by a new team.

Hi Ninjabba, I was wondering if you have visited the forums at Pixel Joint or Pixelation? They are the best forums to post your pixel art on so you can get critique and advice, or you could simply browse the galleries and threads learning more about pixel art and how best to work with a limited palette. With the help of the fantastic artists on those forums you could vastly improve the graphics and palettes you've already got in your game, and you'll learn some techniques and tricks which will be very handy if you continue to design your own game graphics for future projects.

I love the look of this game, Frogger is one of my favourites so I'd love to get a copy of this when it's finished. I wonder if you could add some more colour to the game by changing the palette several times up the screen. For example you would keep the green colours the frog uses the same, but maybe change the reds that the cars use, just along the scanlines where the cars are. So perhaps the second row of cars could be purple instead of red, and maybe the logs could also me different shades of brown. I'm not a Lynx programmer so I don't know how hard it is to change the pallete at different lines, but we know the hardware can do it without too much effort and it would really add a lot more colour to the game, and this type of game is just perfectly suited to this kind of palette-changing technique.

I've seen people comment that the Lynx II had an improved D-pad, and they were comparing it to the circular-based D-pad on the Lynx I, so I'm guessing my model might be a later revision of the original, just before the Lynx II came out. The original box mine came in has a photo of a circular-based D-pad Lynx I on it rather than the one it contained. Mine was made in Taiwan, where was yours made? I definitely prefer this D-pad over the Lynx II one, it has more roll and is easier to hit diagonals. With my small hands though I prefer to hold the Lynx II.

I've opened up my Lynx and know the parts well, the D-pad is definitely fully-black, cross-shaped and protrudes through a cross-shaped cut-out in the front of the dark-grey case. Don't believe me if you don't want to though, see if I care.

I know a few Protracker musicians, would it be any help if I asked around if any of them would like to collaborate with you on this? I also know a great pixel artist who specialises 12bit 16 colour low-resolution images if you'd like to outsource the graphics or form a team to get the game finished. I understand if you'd rather tackle the whole lot on your own though.

My Lynx has the cross-shaped D-pad too. I prefer it over the flatter Lynx II one, but have never tried the circular one.

My Lynx 1 has the same problem, it looks like this second picture where I guess about 1/3 of the screen area in the centre of the screen is slightly brighter. I hope someone knows a fix for it!

I think it's worth ordering now, if you wait too long you may miss out on the current production run, and since it's been confirmed that they will be out in the next few months I'd say there's no risk paying now if you do intend on buying it. These limited runs of awesome retro games sell out pretty fast, I regret missing out on the first run and am determined not to miss out this time.

Awesome, thanks for bringing the channel to my attention, I already hang out on Freenode so I'll drop by and see if I can fit in.

Obviously I did check the Songbird website first before asking, but since it was out of stock I thought I'd hope for a friendly and useful answer here.

I'll definitely purchase each of your Lynx games when they're available again, I feel bad for missing out on the initial release of these games but my Lynx was busted for a few years.

I just got my Lynx working again so I'm definitely going to try and get a copy of this, I have wanted to try it since I first saw those screenshots, it looks awesome. I love the story and the characters too!

Is it still available to purchase anywhere?