Jump to content

darkfalzx

Members
  • Posts

    13
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by darkfalzx

  1. I see this topic hasn't been updated in a while, so maybe I can give it my own try. Have the in-game sprites (enemies, weapons, pickups) been dumped by anyone into a PC-friendly format, and if they have, may I please have them? Thank you in advance!
  2. Out of all of them, only GraphicsGale saved proper 4-bit images. I use ProMotion for work, and I know it saves proper 4-bit PNG files, but the only kind of BMP I was able to get out of it was 8-bit. Got some sprites to display properly, however, but it's gonna be a while until I figure this damn thing out. Though this is definitely easier than assembler, it's still pretty damn "to the metal", especially for a spoiled modern dev like myself. Makes me really miss GameMaker: )
  3. Can anyone please suggest a graphics converter that can save proper 4-bit bitmaps? I tried using Photoshop, but the images end up corrupted.
  4. There was never a physical run of Ulti, though I tried to produce one myself: Which unfortunately didn't get far. There is little interest from people in Ulti, especially since the game is fairly old now. I have been quietly working on a major overhaul of it though, so maybe once that drops WayForward might want to publish it. Oh, and Mystik Belle might get a limited release physical PS4 version. Due to my shitty programming the software "ghetto shader" badly clogs up Vita's pipeline, causing terrible fps, so unless I somehow switch to a real shader, that version isn't happening.
  5. Ultionus was a remake/spiritual sequel/homage to Phantis as well as some other Dinamic games. I do realize Jag is a very old system probably closer to Genesis and SNES than to, say, PSX, Saturn or even GBA. The core of my games would definitely need to be re-coded from scratch, and to discover whether or not such a re-code was doable is the point of this whole post. The game I would optimally like to bring to Jag is Mystik Belle. At its core, it's essentially a simple metroidvania platformer with a Dizzy-like adventure component. In this proposed conversion, the most challenging aspects would be to approximate some sort of a lighting system (I imagine a tile-based solution), and to manage my large sprites. So, the vertical resolution is locked at 200? That kind of sucks, and certainly makes it more feasible to re-scale art. I am certainly spoiled by the modern systems. It would've been awesome to try and build at least a proof of concept. For now I'll continue to mess around with RB+ I guess... But then again - I'm an artist/writer/designer first, and programmer a distant second.
  6. I've been messing with Raptor Basic, but so far I couldn't really get anything to display properly. I would definitely need help here, or preferably an experienced programmer, or someone with a pre-existing engine capable enough to pull this off. I've been converting Belle assets to 4-bit color (not very difficult, as the game was developed with a limited palette), but was wondering - can Jag pull off resolution of, say 360x270? I know it's an unorthodox one, but this way the proportions of objects on screen will be affected the least. I fear that at 320x240 the on-screen action will appear far too crowded without scaling the sprites down by about 1/4 (in which case we might as well lower the resolution to 320x200, and squish the sprites vertically to display right in 4:3).
  7. I am absolutely fine with it taking ages, as long as we can get it done by the end. Being a pixel artist with something like 25 years of experience, I am quite familiar with all sorts of trickery that can go into making VFX. In fact, since I'm quite a lousy programmer, all of my games use my own software "ghetto shaders" as opposed to hardware ones that would make them much faster and more efficient. For something like Belle or Maziac I imagine the following "lighting" system: The screen being broken down into a chunky grid, with each space being either 8x8 or even 16x16. On this grid, a lighting table would be calculated. It could be updated either per-frame, or once every 3-4 frames, as it's so chunky, a delay wouldn't make a ton of difference (though in this case the updated table would have to be buffered, then applied all at once). The light map would then be applied as such: the background tilemap would use 4-bit indexed tiles using a single unified 16 color palette. We'll keep 8 versions of said palette in memory, from brightest to dimmest, and will apply one to the screen tile based on the light level of the region. Assuming an 8-bit indexed mode is used, this would leave us another 128 colors for other elements. However, if Jag can have more than a single 256 color palette in use at the same time, we could have several "temperature" palettes for the background tiles, like, say cold and warm. Thoughts? Also, if anyone wants to familiarize themselves with my commercial games to see if a port/recode is feasible, PM me, and I'll give you a Steam or Humble code.
  8. Hello, I am a pixel artist and indie developer familiar with only the high-level dev languages like basic (ZX Spectrum variety) and GameMaker Studio. I have published several games for PC and modern consoles (PS4/Xbone/OUYA(?!)), and was wondering if Jaguar could be a feasible target to re-code my games on. Now, at the moment I'm only testing the waters to get an idea of how complicated Jag development would be, and to see if anyone in the community would be willing to come along for the ride. Here are some videos of my games in action: Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge https://youtu.be/9nFw09e7TDs Mystik Belle https://youtu.be/LZvCqdcBiNY Maziak https://youtu.be/9MfgVYvIPYo Ultionus is the simpler and more straight-forward of the two finished commercial games. It's a sidescrolling shooter with minimal special effects. It is rather asset-rich, and does include a fair number of skeletal-ish sprite animations for bosses, but I'm sure those could be worked around or pre-baked. Mystik Belle is the more complex game. It's a combination of a point-and-click adventure and a metroidvania. The light effects, though real-time in the original, could either be greatly simplified or pre-baked into the scenery. Personally, I would much rather see this game on the Jag, as the system, in my opinion, severely lacks games with a plot and large, pretty 2D sprites. Maziac was my very first finished PC game all the way back in 2004. Though it's primitive, it is likely that it could be re-done on Jag with less effort than the others. It uses a tile-based lighting system that could serve as a testing ground for effects used in Belle. Please let me know if I'm insane to even propose something like this, or if someone here would be willing to at least play around with those games' assets to see if they are interested.
  9. Ahh! Thank you SO much! Been using Steem Engine for years, and had Pasti DLL installed for at least the last 6 months, but never noticed that there (I just assumed my configuration got screwed up somewhere). Now to play some Dizzy games!
  10. I know this is an ancient post, but I'm having the same issue as the op. A few posts down the road I see the "I tried your method and it worked, so thanks a lot!", even though I saw no method of making this work described. What do I do to have the STX files show up in the Steem Engine file browser? The Steem Engine version I have is the latest, as is the version of Pasti.
  11. If you just want your game in a neat box - make a PC game and do this: The floppies are mini-CD sleeves: ) 8-bit computers are definitely easier to do games for, as you can just straight-up do stuff in basic. For example - in addition to super versatile, albeit pretty slow basic, ZX Spectrum has some very good game dev packages like Jonathan Cauldwell's Arcade Game Designer (free), Shooter Designer, and Platformer Designer. I think at some point in the near future I'll have to seek out a programmer to do a Sega Master System game with me. That console just isn't getting any love from homebrew devs: )
  12. IMHO The Lynx Shadow of the Beast is quite possibly the most playeble version of this game across all platforms. It still has a lot of the same pitfalls as the Amiga original, mainly making a mistake and taking an incorrect path or failing to acquire an item in a certain portion of the game may result in the player being completely screwed later on, but it corrects the terrible "gotcha!" gameplay structure to be much more, should I say, user-friendly. Therefore I disagree with the reviewer's assessment of the game's difficulty, as the three continues issued to the player should be sufficient to complete the game on the first try. And, yeah, the music, while far from the splendor of Amiga SOTB's epic soundtrack, is still one of the best on Lynx.
  13. * MegaMan 1-6 * Phantasy Star * Castlevania (especially 2) * Act Fencer (I know - that's pretty obscure: ) * Ghoul'n'Ghosts/Ghost'n'Goblins * Gunstar Heroes (Now, wouldn't THAT be awesome!) * R-Type * Chrono Trigger (yeah, dream on) * Puyo Puyo * Metroid (or better yet - Super Metroid!) Hey! I'd LOVE there to be a Metroid clone on Lynx! Something with as much character, polish, depth and phenomenal art direction would be awesome on a system where even the best games barely raise past the quality mark of middle-of-the-road indie project. Someone wants to code one? ...I'll provide the art: )
×
×
  • Create New...