IKARI WARRIORS (a possible new game on the way)

[José Pereira]

(Zoom the picture with "Open PAINT program".)

 

 

I see this just now, here on the 7800 Forum (they say it's from NES version).

I don't see any dificulties. A simple chars editor. The cells are simple to create and joined to do create all the objects on the screen

Almost a direct port. Just Vertical scroll and DLIs.

2Players in multicolour gives you 3 colours to your Man.

The same to each Enemy, gives only 1enemy, but if you use something like Ripper demo you can re-use them 2, 3, 4 on the same line, I think.

 

A NEW GAME ON THE WAY? WHO WILL TAKE THIS?

 

José Pereira.

[TMR]

A NEW GAME ON THE WAY? WHO WILL TAKE THIS?

 

You might want to read this...

[ThomSW]

finish Last Ninja first...

[José Pereira]

Programmers probably know what to do.

Probably... But I think I can put my ideas.

This why this forums exist. If you don't want to, why you enter and answer.

 

Like me, many others A8 users like to see games they don't never had on their machine.

 

This why I start these threads.

 

I think this is a democratic site.

I never answer or said something bad or against anyone here.

 

If someone see this, probably will try, as me to do some mockup screens.

See other mails here, and you see people asking things, and changing ideas.

I probably could have some screens and some things going on at this momment. But it's because people like you that I stop sending what I'm doing untill I have almost 100% sure I'm right and things could be done using my ideas.

I cannot be a programmer, but I know all the possibilities and graphic/PMss/Dlis,...

Even if I cannot do "LDAs/STA/NOP/...", I can know how things work. I put my ideas and the programmers might take them, or not!... It's their decision.

 

Shame on you TMR (It's your C64 feelings here... I think some of you, C64 users don't like very much all these a8 VITALITY NOWADAYS)

 

To all the others, it's good to be here with you.

José Pereira.

[PeteD]

José, I'm sorry to say that even though you do seem to be trying to help, at least in the Exploding Fist thread, you tend not to listen to what is being said and work from misconceptions, especially if you aren't the one programming something endless ideas won't help do anything but complicate what is being worked on. Maybe it would've been better to start a thread "Games I'd like to see on the A8" then if any coders were interested you could share your information with them and work TOGETHER with them to get something done.

 

 

Pete

[José Pereira]

PeteD when you enter here you said that don't know A8.

What I tried to do it's some information of A8 and my ideas. I am free to do that.

And as beggining a new Topic with the name "Games I want to see on A8", I don't think so. You probably wouldn't start coding Exploding Fist if I not start Exploding Fist Topic.

 

I don't know why you don't want to ear others ideas. I continue to say: it's why this forums exists.

 

On older times programmers do what they want. And A8 games artwork and playbility is what we all know...

 

Have a nice day.

[PeteD]

You're right I didn't know A8 but I've done enough work on different platforms over the last 25 years to be able to quickly pick up what you can do with some hardware sprites, some colour changes etc. I'm not saying don't try to help I'm saying as a non programmer you have to take the advice of a programmer because they're the ones doing the work in the end. Coming up with ideas that are impossible to code or won't work for some reason is just wasting your own time. I'd already stated I wanted to work on quite a few things before the new thread was started, if you remember it was me who requested that we close that Vs thread and start to open new topics

 

Nobody is saying we don't want to hear ideas. I think we're hitting a language barrier here. Your English is 100 time better than my ability to speak any other language (I can barely say a few words in Welsh and I've lived here 8 years).

 

 

Pete

[STE'86]

oh dear i think i can hear a countdown just started...

 

and Pete was trying to be nice too.

[Dorian_Gray]

A NEW GAME ON THE WAY? WHO WILL TAKE THIS?

Your mom maybe? I think you really should finish Last Ninja first, and then if you succed, which i have no doubt you will, start with a new project.

Ok, I'm going back to lurking

Edited July 28, 2009 by Dorian_Gray

[TMR]

Shame on you TMR (It's your C64 feelings here... I think some of you, C64 users don't like very much all these a8 VITALITY NOWADAYS)

If you really think i don't like the vitality (and threads like these have very little to do with that vitality, it's purely down to people like xxl, Fandal, heaven and so forth actually programming games) then you know marginally less than bugger all about me; i honestly hate blowing my own trumpet, but over the years i've done my fair share of programming, assisting in developing and promoting new Atari 8-bit games so utter garbage like that is not only wrong, i find it openly offensive.

 

Enthusiasm is great and all that (don't confuse that with vitality, however) but perhaps it would be better if that enthusiasm were channelled towards learning how to code and trying to write the games rather than coming up with some "design brief" and trying to hand them off. Read the link properly because it's written by a well-established and respected Atari coder.

[Rybags]

The problem is that so many people think that once some graphics are designed, that's two thirds of the work done.

 

Of course the reality is that the graphic design is more like 2 percent of the work.

[Tempest]

I'm fairly certain a real Ikari Warriors prototype exists for the 8-bits. It was planned, and from the time frame it was supposed to be released in, I think it exists somewhere.

 

Tempest

[carmel_andrews]

Rybags/TMR....fact is, very few people these days anyway, actually program the whole game

 

I think where Jos'e is coming from is the chris crawford concept of the game industry, i.e where the games gfx, sound, design, level design etc etc is separated (i.e a separate function) from the game engine and game logic itself, which is the coding/programming (as chris actually stated in his book 'art of games design')

 

Though those beginings had already begun to surface before the likes of Imagic/Activision had spun of from the likes of Atari/mattel, a classic example of this is the Iconic c64/A8 game 'Boulderdash' which was designed by chris gray...but he didn't design any of the game's graphics, sounds, levels or program the game engine or logic, that was down to the likes of peter liepa and Fernando Herrera (who did all the bits that Gray didn't)...infact i recall an internet article mentioning that there was a legal dispute bettween Peter liepa and Chris Gray over Boulderdash, which wasn't resolved till some years later

 

funily enough that is how the games industry turned out from at least the mid 80's onwards (at least in the UK anyways, can't speak for other markets), where all the programmer did was the game logic and game engine, everything else like the gfx/sound/level/game design etc etc (created by other people outside programming/coding) had to gell or fit in the programmers code like a jigsaw puzzle

[José Pereira]

Carmel I just want to see new things on A8.

Will PeteD or other, do all the work alone?

With Internet you and everyone can say their ideas to others.

 

If PeteD do all alone, why he's here talking to others.

 

PeteD, you think you can do all.

You start here, step by step. But I think I was wrong... I must see, that someone who was so critic to others job (Enforcer - the authors try to do their best), probably...

Then you start saying you want to prove that... Then, that you have done... Then, you see my LN topic, and said that... even if... but have more projects... If I show you that it can be done on my way, you... Then, someone talk about Exploding Fist and I thought it was a good idea and create a nex Thread. Then you say you would do it. Then, you start to talk with me and others (I only said that I was looking about the screens graphics). How will I do any screen, if I don't know any of your ideas... Then, you start to say you have things on the way (so you don't need me or anyone else). But, some days ago, your even don't know all the sizes of the Players. And if I do one you won't want to use it, or even think if some of mine with others and yours do a great game.

 

You can do Enforcer on A8, you can do LN (even if you don't have time because of your other projects), then Exploding Fist,... And tomorrow who will put here a name of a game, and you, the "good guy" say that: "O.K. I don't have many time, but I'll take it!..."

 

I'll be here to see... But what I am suspecting... It's strange, why you never post here any screen, video, never said some of your real ideas and technics.

I would like to see you do games for A8, as a A8 lover! But...

 

All this "..." it's that I don't have time to find and quote all your posts.But I can go and quote all to put them here. I probably will continue to put here all my ideas and games and screens and all I want, if that don't affect others!...

 

 

 

And to others around there I want to help, and if I say my ideas it's that because with your answers I will learn more. I don't want to be the graphics engineers. I know, and all know, that the programmer do all the codes. But it's a vicious circle (Programming/Graphicis/Sound/Programming,... and so on).

 

If I can do all the screens of LN, I have to find one to do the code... If many of the coders here don't have time, they probably would not beginning it... If I do graphics they don't do the code as I espected to that particular game screens... If they do the code and don't have time, probably no one will do the graphics.

So as you can see, it have to be an agreement. Changing ideas. It's why I will continue my hard work. Even if many don't want, or don't like.

 

 

I only have one thing in mind: I WILL DO SOMETHING FOR A8!...

I expect to be here many years from now.

 

 

Yours Atarily,

José Pereira

[Irgendwer]

...

Like me, many others A8 users like to see games they don't never had on their machine.

...

Yes, but they aren't created by talking or providing mock-ups...

 

...

This why I start these threads.

...

What is your aim? Do you think the programmers out there are to lazy or silly to

grab an existing game and port it, awaiting someone like you clarifying

how things can be done?

 

...

But it's because people like you that I stop sending what I'm doing untill I have almost 100% sure I'm right and things could be done using my ideas.

...

Which isn't IMHO a bad thing at all.

 

 

...

I cannot be a programmer, but I know all the possibilities and graphic/PMss/Dlis,...

Even if I cannot do "LDAs/STA/NOP/...", I can know how things work. I put my ideas and the programmers might take them, or not!... It's their decision.

...

What prevents you from learning? Like I said before: Try to build your own, simple application. I'm sure you learn much more than

in 100 threads: "Who was arrogant enough not to see that THIS can easily be ported?"

 

...

Shame on you TMR (It's your C64 feelings here... I think some of you, C64 users don't like very much all these a8 VITALITY NOWADAYS)

...

No, no, no wrong way! Please do not insult members of this board - especially when they provided results!

 

...

You probably wouldn't start coding Exploding Fist if I not start Exploding Fist Topic.

...

 

That's another problem: Someone suggested something and a different person does the job, has the work provides a result.

Then, the first person claims: "Without me, this thing had never started - that's my fame!"

I do not say, that this is your position, but for me it is the reason that I wouldn't go for a port someone else strongly suggests.

 

CU

Irgendwer

Edited July 28, 2009 by Irgendwer

[PeteD]

José, think what you want. I came to this forum to defend the A8 against people showing a crappy youtube video of a certain level of a game demo on the C64, I simply said it's not THAT impressive to be showing as the best the C64 could do and that the A8 could probably produce something similar.

 

Then I noticed a discussion on Last Ninja and saw a lot of people posting screenshots of the c64 version and trying to make those work by running them through G2F then coming up with all crazy ideas on how to do masking. Of course some people had some great ideas on how to do things. I only gave my opinion in that thread that an editor would need to be made to design the levels and how to do the masking. I also expressed an interest in getting involved which I still am. I'm not planning on dying any time soon so have plenty of time to work on things.

 

Yes, as I've said I'm pretty much a noob to A8 coding (I did some about 8 years ago, just messing around with it) but as I also said, with 25+ years experience on different platforms I think I've got the ability to work out how to use a few hardware sprites and a 2bpp char screen (it's all not much different to the C64). You kind of sound like you're telling me I don't know what I'm doing just because I haven't uploaded some screenshots of what I'm working on or something. If that's your attitude then you go ahead and keep uploading pictures from the C64 version or the spectrum or amstrad. Then I suggest you buy a book on 6502 and learn to code.

 

If you want me to upload a picture of what I'm working on then just take a look at the complex fist background and think "it looks like that, only slightly different". I'm not an artist, all the work I've done is in data or algorithms or lists of lines/colours/bits/pmgs. I've also been working on software sprite routines and techniques to draw the 2 guys as fast as possible (eg using the hardware scroll and 4 different char sets for the lines of the background the guys cross so at least one guy doesn't need his data shifting through the chars to put him in the correct x position) but I'm sorry I'm not working fast enough for you.

 

I'm done. Sick of arguing, sick of repeating myself..

 

 

Pete

[Tempest]

I only have one thing in mind: I WILL DO SOMETHING FOR A8!...

Then why don't you try coding an original game first rather than posting graphical mockups of games that exist on other systems and trying to 'port them'. You'll gain a lot more 'street cred' that way and people may take you more seriously.

 

Tempest

[PeteD]

I only have one thing in mind: I WILL DO SOMETHING FOR A8!...

Then why don't you try coding an original game first rather than posting graphical mockups of games that exist on other systems and trying to 'port them'. You'll gain a lot more 'street cred' that way and people may take you more seriously.

 

Tempest

 

Or do as I suggested earlier. Instead of trying to come up with methods of doing graphics for a game nobody is working on, or doing graphics that the guy who wants to code it says won't work. Why not design some backgrounds for what I hope to do after Fist, the 4 player game. You yourself wanted to be able to have different backgrounds in fist, I said it's pretty much impossible but not if the players don't cross the background. You want something in an A8 game, try that. Impress us with what YOU can create, not taking something else and saying "if you changed this colour and moved that there it might work". I'd be happy to include your work in something I was working on if it's suitable. No point making up your own rules to work by.

 

 

Pete

[STE'86]

i'm thinking we might have to spend a while working out the raster splits for the 4 player one tho Pete

 

 

 

 

but it is the same shade of green they used for gauntlet

[PeteD]

Now you've done it, given away the secret A8 Super Fist screengrab!! lol

[peteym5]

It is possible to make a Ikari Warriors like game on the Atari 8-Bit. You would have to use a multicolor multiplexer player missile routine and we can get like 10 sprites. Depends on if you want to use 10pixel wide sprites (player+missile) or just 8-pixel wide sprites(just using players). I discovered using player/missiles together does take up about 3x more CPU time because of the bit manipulation with the missile portion. I am developing a routine for 8 pixel wide sprites multicolor.

[Heaven/TQA]

José, think what you want. I came to this forum to defend the A8 against people showing a crappy youtube video of a certain level of a game demo on the C64, I simply said it's not THAT impressive to be showing as the best the C64 could do and that the A8 could probably produce something similar.

 

Then I noticed a discussion on Last Ninja and saw a lot of people posting screenshots of the c64 version and trying to make those work by running them through G2F then coming up with all crazy ideas on how to do masking. Of course some people had some great ideas on how to do things. I only gave my opinion in that thread that an editor would need to be made to design the levels and how to do the masking. I also expressed an interest in getting involved which I still am. I'm not planning on dying any time soon so have plenty of time to work on things.

 

Yes, as I've said I'm pretty much a noob to A8 coding (I did some about 8 years ago, just messing around with it) but as I also said, with 25+ years experience on different platforms I think I've got the ability to work out how to use a few hardware sprites and a 2bpp char screen (it's all not much different to the C64). You kind of sound like you're telling me I don't know what I'm doing just because I haven't uploaded some screenshots of what I'm working on or something. If that's your attitude then you go ahead and keep uploading pictures from the C64 version or the spectrum or amstrad. Then I suggest you buy a book on 6502 and learn to code.

 

If you want me to upload a picture of what I'm working on then just take a look at the complex fist background and think "it looks like that, only slightly different". I'm not an artist, all the work I've done is in data or algorithms or lists of lines/colours/bits/pmgs. I've also been working on software sprite routines and techniques to draw the 2 guys as fast as possible (eg using the hardware scroll and 4 different char sets for the lines of the background the guys cross so at least one guy doesn't need his data shifting through the chars to put him in the correct x position) but I'm sorry I'm not working fast enough for you.

 

I'm done. Sick of arguing, sick of repeating myself..

 

 

Pete

 

the scrolling method sounds interesting but how does this work when you are allowing players crossing background?

 

and does it really help? but only in terms of ram but not on code?

[TMR]

Rybags/TMR....fact is, very few people these days anyway, actually program the whole game

 

José has not offered to help with the coding, in fact the only part of the original post that deals with the code, where it says about doing "something like Ripper demo" to produce more multicolour objects per scanline, is simply naive. And in the case of 8-bit development you're wrong, because the bulk of these games have one or perhaps two programmers being supported by (not dictated at by) graphics artists and musicians, check the credits on XXL's releases or Heaven's or Fandal's or mine for that matter.

[PeteD]

@Heaven, it uses 4 copies of the chars definitions in that area shifted 1 pixel at a time. So say the guy needs to be offset by 1 pixel, you'd smooth scroll the bottom area by that 1 pixel, move the bitmap area that they can go into to the set of data thats offset by a pixel, dump the bottom of the guy straight to the screen the softsprite the top of him but using those offset char definitions. Of course the top of the other guy has to then be shifted back the other way but so does the bottom of him and without using the smooth scroll you're likely to have to shift both of them (if it has to be done using the shifting data through chars method then thats a lot of cpu). Of course all the PMGs and stuff will need to move too but as most of the time it'll just be a simple x movement it wont take much time and any other PMGs I'm shifting around in odd positions, well they'll already have code to be moving them so changing the offset doesn't add anything.

 

I'm not sure what saving it'll make because I've not yet decided on what approach to take with the software sprites. I can chop them into char blocks which is more work per sprite but means I could probably just have all the guys frames repeated 4 times, or keep them mostly whole, or one of another couple of ideas I've used in the past. It all depends on how much ram just 1 set of the guys frames uses and looking through the C64s ram while the game is running you can see all the sprite definitions and they take up a LOT of ram. Maybe I'd have room for 2 copies one normal and one shifted 2 pixels so you'd only ever need to shift 1 pixel.

 

Now I've got the background stuff pretty much sorted I need to write a little converter that takes a raw dump (sounds painful) from the C64 ram so I can get something thats 2bpp and fix that up to A8 colours (you never know what bit patterns you're going to get from a C64 bitmap) and start putting the background together. Then I'll just take a couple of frames of the guys as full sized minimum rectangles just to make 100% sure they don't mess the background up in any way.

 

 

Pete

 

*edit* added a bit about shifting the PMGs in the background too just in case you've read and and thought AHA! the PMGs!!

Edited July 28, 2009 by PeteD

[PeteD]

Rybags/TMR....fact is, very few people these days anyway, actually program the whole game

 

José has not offered to help with the coding, in fact the only part of the original post that deals with the code, where it says about doing "something like Ripper demo" to produce more multicolour objects per scanline, is simply naive. And in the case of 8-bit development you're wrong, because the bulk of these games have one or perhaps two programmers being supported by (not dictated at by) graphics artists and musicians, check the credits on XXL's releases or Heaven's or Fandal's or mine for that matter.

 

 

Indeed, especially in the "good old days" and even now Ste (STE'86, who did my new C64/A8 avatar btw) knew that he had to know EXACTLY what a coder needed before he started drawing stuff. This way he did things quickly and to spec and didn't waste his own time let alone anyone elses. The amount of times I (and Ste) have come up against artists who you could say "do all these frames in 16 colours" and they'd do them in 16 DIFFERENT colours per frame because they had no clue how the machine worked and what the limitations are. José does seem to have a good idea of what the A8 is capable of but when he goes off on the wrong track he seemingly won't listen to corrections, hence at least my frustration with the constant posting of the same pictures (from the C64 version) in the WotEF thread.

 

Also, people who have produced nothing on any machine have no right to have a go at people like TMR who is extremely prolific, knowledgeable and has the "prods" to back up what he says.

 

 

Pete

Edited July 28, 2009 by PeteD