Old school platformer comes to the jag

[TXG/MNX]

Today was the first day of the Video Olympics event at the Lass O'Gowrie pub in Manchester, UK. For a laugh I ported the SDL version of A&F's Chuckie Egg originally reverse engineered into "C" (from the BBC micro version) by Paul Brook over to the jag. The jag is so hard to program for, that it took a massive 3 hours (last night) to rip out the SDL code and replace it with jag code to get it running at a decent frame rate :-

 

 

Photo of it running on real hardware (NTSC) :-

 

 

The original code is GPL'd so I'll be releasing the source along with a binary image. I doubt there will be an NTSC release because the games needs 256 vertical scan lines. There have been adaptations of the game in the recent past that have reduced the vertical screen requirements so I may go down that route.

 

Many thanks to Linkovitch and sh3-rg for testing. The game caused a few laughs and plenty of smiles and was therefore a complete success in my eyes.

 

There are no plans for a CD or cart run.

 

Can you tell us how to convert SDL software to the jag :-) 3 hours seems to be really quick ..... Maybe you can make an SDL lib/wrapper for the Jag that underneath uses Jag code :-) this way more sdl apps can be ported to this machine....

[+GroovyBee]

Can you tell us how to convert SDL software to the jag :-) 3 hours seems to be really quick ..... Maybe you can make an SDL lib/wrapper for the Jag that underneath uses Jag code :-) this way more sdl apps can be ported to this machine....

 

I don't know anything about SDL unfortunately. I could see that the code was making a linear frame buffer and queuing key events and a timer so all that code got ripped out and replaced with jag specific stuff. It was still very slow at that point because it was doing a software conversion from its internal buffer to the SDL frame buffer. The spend went up quite a bit when I replaced that with a blitter block copy. Well... it was a good enough speed to take to an event anyway .

 

People will be able to compare the jag version against the original when I release the source code along with the ROM image.

 

If you know of any other SDL games that would fit in 2M of RAM then post some links and I'll take a look at them at some point in the future.

[omf]

LemmingsSDL might be doable, its a little big bus that's content mainly music, the source is small however.

 

if the gfx were compressed im sure a version could fit

 

http://lessermatters.homeunix.com/LemmingsSDL/

[+GroovyBee]

Just tried the windows binary to SDL Lemmings and it doesn't work on my machine. It was just a quick try so I'm not sure what the issue is.

[omf]

deffo works!

it does however spew out a virus warning on AVG ?????

 

tested on a crappy laptop running windows 7. Intel Centrino duo 1.73 ghz, 3 gig ram, mobile Intel 945 express graphics

Edited August 12, 2012 by omf

[+GroovyBee]

I'll try it again when I get some more time.

[+CyranoJ]

OK, I woke up at 4am with insomnia, busted out Griffs's 3DWorld.s and notepad++... and at 5:45am I have the 3d world part of his demo running on the Jaguar.

 

The bit planes are all messed up, but the line draw wont take too long to rewrite.

 

<2hours. 3D renderer. This shit is SIMPLE.

 

Now, what do I do with the other 5 months, 30 days, 22 hours and 15 minutes, eh?

 

(You can see the ST version

at 3:54)

 

I suppose I should get ready for work now? Bah.

[Griff_]

OK, I woke up at 4am with insomnia, busted out Griffs's 3DWorld.s and notepad++... and at 5:45am I have the 3d world part of his demo running on the Jaguar.

 

The bit planes are all messed up, but the line draw wont take too long to rewrite.

 

<2hours. 3D renderer. This shit is SIMPLE.

 

Now, what do I do with the other 5 months, 30 days, 22 hours and 15 minutes, eh?

 

(You can see the ST version

at 3:54)

 

I suppose I should get ready for work now? Bah.

 

Yes you should!

 

(Nice to see code that I wrote over 20 years ago still being useful )

[walter_J64bit]

Any updates on Chuckie Egg?

[+GroovyBee]

Any updates on Chuckie Egg?

 

Nothing new since Sunday. Hopefully I'll get some time in the coming weeks to go back to it.

[Tyrant]

One of the coolest parts of that demo in my most humble opinion is probably not the most challenging by any stretch, but for simple beauty and awesomeness the fractal fern wins in my book.

[walter_J64bit]

Any updates?

[+GroovyBee]

Nothing to report at the moment.

[sh3-rg]

Any updates?

 

He's waiting for some graphics and busy doing other things until they arrive :-)

[omf]

Any updates?

 

He's waiting for some graphics and busy doing other things until they arrive :-)

yes get on with it man! lol

[+GroovyBee]

I've updated the graphics to use 16BPP instead of 8BPP which means that a more modern look can be implemented. In the final game there will be the option to play the game with the original look or the new look. Sound effects for walking left/right and going up/down the ladders have also been put in too.

[walter_J64bit]

I've updated the graphics to use 16BPP instead of 8BPP which means that a more modern look can be implemented. In the final game there will be the option to play the game with the original look or the new look. Sound effects for walking left/right and going up/down the ladders have also been put in too.

Just live Xbox Live modern look and classic look!

[+rdemming]

I've updated the graphics to use 16BPP instead of 8BPP which means that a more modern look can be implemented. In the final game there will be the option to play the game with the original look or the new look. Sound effects for walking left/right and going up/down the ladders have also been put in too.

 

Why 16BPP? , with 8BPP (256 colors) it can already look much more modern than the original 4 colors

 

Robert

 

Robert

[+GroovyBee]

Why 16BPP? , with 8BPP (256 colors) it can already look much more modern than the original 4 colors

 

True! Its just easier for a pixel artist to create 24BPP images without having to limit themselves to a palette of 256 colours. When I get the new images in they will be processed by a custom tool (written for the game) and converted into the jag's 16BPP graphics mode.

 

ROM space isn't an issue for this game so I'm not too concerned about the size of the graphics.

[sh3-rg]

Why 16BPP? , with 8BPP (256 colors) it can already look much more modern than the original 4 colors

 

You're right, but the gfx are so small and possibilities aren't exactly stellar, it's not going to look stunning whatever amount of colours you use. As gb says - keeps it simple. 256 colour palette stuff is really impractical and horrible to work with for me... I prefer fun restrictions such as 2-4bit stuff or none at all, something inbetweeny like 256 colours is just meh. If I *had* to target 256 colour palletted stuff, I'd just do it 24bpp and muck around converting it down.

[Tyrant]

The main reasons I can see for 8 bit is if you're going to do some phunky magic with rotating parts of the palette or having the same sprites drawn in multiple different palettes at different times. Then again having sprites in 4 bit allows for 16 different palettes to be used at once if you want that kind of effect.

 

Or of course if memory is a worry, which it often is on the Jaguar.

[+GroovyBee]

I haven't planned to go Minter mad on the updated version so there will be no colour cycling rainbows.

[sh3-rg]

I haven't planned to go Minter mad on the updated version so there will be no colour cycling rainbows.

 

Yeah no point.. the game is hard as nails and I doubt many people will see beyond the first 4 or 5 levels anyway before massive emoragequit! :-)

[+GroovyBee]

Yeah no point.. the game is hard as nails and I doubt many people will see beyond the first 4 or 5 levels anyway before massive emoragequit! :-)

 

Thats why I added the joypad buttons to select the start levels. Although all you get in reality are more things to avoid being killed by on each level .

 

Maybe I should add an Easter Egg for infinite lives as well? .

[sh3-rg]

Yeah, those later levels are insane, it'd still be a challenge with infy lives.