Aquarius Game Port Project - Open for Requests

[jaybird3rd]

Let me consider it further.

You have to do the NES version first .

Wow, I had forgotten about that, so let me clarify ... I meant Garry Kitchen's GameMaker, not Joe Cracker's GameMaker!

 

[Aquaman]

I just looked at some Vtech laser 200 games and they seem quite portable (only some are worthwhile I must admit)!

[Aquaman]

After some soul searching and realizing that I do really love this stupid little machine, I find myself wanting to port one game to Aquarius. I don't want to write my own, and I do not want mission impossible. My video player is almost done (I just have some timing and syncronization issues to work out) but I have been looking at games and various ports and have some ideas of what might port well, but I am not sure. I'd like your ideas on what game to port. I *may* be convinced if there is enough interest.

And did you you already decide on a game project for the Aquarius?

[nitrofurano]

btw, what about this one? i can't remember if i mentioned it earlier: http://web700.marukun.com/siderollf.html (and also others from http://web700.marukun.com )

[Aquaman]

On 8/7/2012 at 1:26 PM, jaybird3rd said:

You know ... now that I think about it some more, a good set of programming tools somewhat along the lines of GameMaker might be an interesting design challenge in itself, even if it's something I won't ever need to use for my own projects. I'll still want to do two or three other games first, to develop some of the assets that will go into creating it, but I might consider putting it on my long-term project list. Let me consider it further.

As I just read in the comments. Jonathan from the MPAGD wants to include the Aquarius if someone can help him on his way. 

  

Edited March 31, 2021 by Aquaman

[jltursan]

Uh?, you mean Cauldwell?, the Aquarius as a MPAGD target?, I can't imagine how a heavy sprite-based game engine can be ported to it. Do you know more about Jonathan plans?.

 

I've been also trying to increase the color resolution of the Aquarius to add some "pixels" to the screen; but found that right now, it's a nightmare to sync with the beam due RAM contention and lack of information about this. 

[Aquaman]

11 hours ago, jltursan said:

Uh?, you mean Cauldwell?, the Aquarius as a MPAGD target?, I can't imagine how a heavy sprite-based game engine can be ported to it. Do you know more about Jonathan plans?.

 

I've been also trying to increase the color resolution of the Aquarius to add some "pixels" to the screen; but found that right now, it's a nightmare to sync with the beam due RAM contention and lack of information about this. 

Yes this is him. He also included the VZ200, which capabilites look quite similar to the Aquarius. I only saw a question, from someone in the tutorial, asking him if he would want to include the Aquarius and his answer was yes. However he needs some help from someone, with enough knowledge regarding the Aquarius, to make this happen. 

 

As for your other question, you probably should look at this thread.

    

[jltursan]

Yep, I know it, it has a nice scroll ?

 

Although extremely limited, the VZ200 has a bitmap resolution of 128x64 with four colors (2 palettes available) and that's a key feature to have at least some graphics moving freely in the screen. The Aquarius can use a pseudo-graphics resolution of 80x75 (if the full 25 rows are used) thanks to some chars of its set, as shown in the scroll demo; but with only two colors every char (2x3 bloxels). Sprite movement could be achieved in 4px step with some color bleeding or 8px (a full character width) without color bleeding.

Of course it could be a funny experiment to use not only the "bloxels chars" and use every character available in the font set; but then you're forced to use 8px step movements.

 

Having a better timing knowledge of the Aquarius, a higher color resolution can be achieved, check Multicolor engines for ZX Spectrum, where you can easily get about 64x75 bloxels each with its own color, a bare minimum to get some nice results.

 

EDIT: ...but if you try to forget about the so-called bitmap graphics and think only in text modes with 8px movements, what you can get?. As point out years ago, the incredible Mr.Furuhata MZ-700's games: Side Roll F or Eugea are real examples to follow. The Sharp's character set is a bit more flexible; but with some care, the Aquarius font could serve well, Aquarius Draw is a great tool to practice ?

Edited April 7, 2021 by jltursan
Adding some thoughts...

[Aquaman]

13 hours ago, jltursan said:

Yep, I know it, it has a nice scroll ?

I particularly meant the "timing" fine line trick at the left bottom. 

13 hours ago, jltursan said:

 

 

Having a better timing knowledge of the Aquarius, a higher color resolution can be achieved, check Multicolor engines for ZX Spectrum, where you can easily get about 64x75 bloxels each with its own color, a bare minimum to get some nice results.

 

He is working on something like this which involves a very good understanding of the timing issues http://48k.ca/breakthrough.html

[jltursan]

I particularly meant the "timing" fine line trick at the left bottom. 

 

The "end of frame" trick is easy to achieve, the real problem is starting in the beggining of the visible frame and keep the execution in sync with the beam every line until this end of frame.

 

Check this thread:

 

 

Seems that there's some kind of RAM contention and you can't sync the execution using a fixed amount of CPU cycles every line. I really hope that MackJsy can find a way to overcome this; indeed their TRS-80 experiments in the page you've pointed out are what I'm trying to get changing Aquarius' color attributes on the fly.

Of course I can keep testing; but even with my MicroExpander, it's a PITA to manually tune the cycles of every scanline and load the code in the Aquarius to debug it. I reached about 16 scanlines tuned; but it's exhausting, definitely I need to find a pattern.

[Aquaman]

12 hours ago, jltursan said:

Seems that there's some kind of RAM contention and you can't sync the execution using a fixed amount of CPU cycles every line. I really hope that MackJsy can find a way to overcome this; indeed their TRS-80 experiments in the page you've pointed out are what I'm trying to get changing Aquarius' color attributes on the fly.

Of course I can keep testing; but even with my MicroExpander, it's a PITA to manually tune the cycles of every scanline and load the code in the Aquarius to debug it. I reached about 16 scanlines tuned; but it's exhausting, definitely I need to find a pattern.

I read the thread and it's very cool what you are trying to do. Let's hope MackJsy comes up with the solution.