New Game Conversion: Bruce Lee II

[landgraf]

Released today for the C64:

 

http://kollektivet.nu/brucelee2/

 

Enjoy!

[BillyHW]

OMG, so excited to try it tonight!

[+OLD CS1]

How cool!

 

I just read how the background loader will default to Kernal loading if it cannot automatically detect the kind of drive being used. Reads very similar to a Craig Bruce Commodore Hacking article discussing ACE and Zed. I wonder if the game uses the same or similar routines.

[BillyHW]

Since when can the C64 load in the background?

[carlsson]

Rather the opposite, while loading you can do other things that are interrupt based. See for example all programs playing music while loading, some even had minigames for you to entertain yourself with while loading. The game may also load the next level while you're playing the current.

 

I sat next to the developer of this game in August 2014, and even at that early stage it was clear how precise the conversion was about to become. It also struck me how many helper routines and own cross development tools he has produced in his career, to aid and simplify the development process. I don't know which routines he may have borrowed, but I'd imagine select few if any, and instead developed most of it himself to perfection.

[+remowilliams]

This is awesome and going on an Easyflash right away

[+OLD CS1]

Since when can the C64 load in the background?

 

Rather the opposite, while loading you can do other things that are interrupt based. See for example all programs playing music while loading, some even had minigames for you to entertain yourself with while loading. The game may also load the next level while you're playing the current.

Especially when using burst mode. IRQ-based burst mode transfers can be quite fast.

 

I sat next to the developer of this game in August 2014, and even at that early stage it was clear how precise the conversion was about to become. It also struck me how many helper routines and own cross development tools he has produced in his career, to aid and simplify the development process. I don't know which routines he may have borrowed, but I'd imagine select few if any, and instead developed most of it himself to perfection.

I hope no one perceives me to imply he misappropriated anyone else's work, not my intention at all. Craig Bruce and others wrote some great, often ground-breaking articles in the 90s which they provided to the community for use by any and all, either directly or derivative.

[RobertB]

Thanks for releasing this game. I'll show it off at the FCUG meeting in April and the SCCAN meeting in May.

 

FCUG celebrating 33 years,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug

Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network

http://www.sccaners.org

[landgraf]

Since when can the C64 load in the background?

 

Epyx' G.I. Joe did that in 1985 already, so since roundabout 30 years, I'd say.

 

I just read how the background loader will default to Kernal loading if it cannot automatically detect the kind of drive being used. Reads very similar to a Craig Bruce Commodore Hacking article discussing ACE and Zed. I wonder if the game uses the same or similar routines.

 

Ah, good old C=Hacking, lots of well written and easy to comprehend articles on assembly coding in there. I don't remember how Craig Bruce did it exactly, but afair today's common practice is to read out certain memory locations of the drive roms that are unique for each drive type, and my guess is that Bruce Lee 2 goes the same route.

[carlsson]

Yes, I'm sure the scene has learned from earlier findings, but a lot of people tend to design their wheels according to their own liking than inserting ready-made wheels even if it is granted to be allowed to do so.

[+OLD CS1]

Yes, I'm sure the scene has learned from earlier findings, but a lot of people tend to design their wheels according to their own liking than inserting ready-made wheels even if it is granted to be allowed to do so.

 

Heh, or in my case lack of awareness. I was not exposed to the old CH articles until much more recently. Back when I was programming on the 64 I was doing stuff all on my lonesome just using technical documents of the various equipment I was targeting. I have a couple of books on the Lt. Kernel and CMD HDs so I could write my BBS routines to access partitions and LUNs etc., though I have never owned one, as well as internals for the 1541, 1571, and 1581.

 

Unfortunately for now I only have access to Commodore via emulation, but very soon I will have my real 128D set back up so I can play this game for real. I used to play the original Bruce Lee for hours on end after a buddy introduced me to it.

 

Man, it just seems like there is far less time to "waste" today than 25 years ago.

[+Trebor]

Bruce Lee is one of my all-time favs on the C64.

Enjoyed the challenge and improvements provided by this sequel immensely:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rdBTH_7_j4&list=PLIsV_UGq8zBghEWq7DOMt5LNtN2Cm0yy6&index=1

 

WARNING/SPOILER: The above is a complete playthrough...

 

SPOILER II:

 

You know the game kicks-ass when Chuck Norris is in it!

 

[atarifan88]

Thank you so much for creating a sequel to one the best all-time games for the C64!

[+OLD CS1]

 

OMG! He drowns the green guy!

 

[BillyHW]

K, I did a long play-through tonight. Kewl game, and a worthy follow-up to the original, if perhaps a bit too similar.

 

Screen caps and videos in the spoiler section below:

 

 

 

 

Loved the Way Of The Dragon (Chuck Norris) and Game Of Death (Kareem Abdul Jabbar) references.

 

The game is hard in Original mode. There are very many pixel-perfect jumps. For now I played through with save states, but I'm not sure how far I'll get when I try it without cheating. Missing my Epyx joystick.

 

I took some screen caps:

 

Spiderman:

 

 

Game Of Death:

 

 

 

Way Of The Dragon:

 

They even got the chest hair and the cat right.

 

 

Johnny Caged:

 

 

Final Boss (who is conveniently standing overtop a trapdoor with spikes below

 

 

Edited April 5, 2015 by BillyHW

[BillyHW]

The only thing that appears to be missing from this game is a two-player mode. It would be cool to be able to play as one of the bad guys.

[landgraf]

Jonas Hulten has just released an updated version where some bugs have been fixed and the level design was altered so that you can no longer get stuck and lose all your lives if you exit a certain screen the wrong way. Furthermore, he made a second cartridge version that uses the Magic Desk banking scheme, so if you happen to have a Magic Desk or compatible cart and an eprom-burner you can make your own physical Bruce Lee II cartridge

 

The link is the same as in the first post.

[+OLD CS1]

Oh, that cartridge idea is pretty cool. I have a SuperSpace II module for the TI that can be used for certain images (though it supports a pretty special form of banking,) and I am using it to prototype my games. I will have to look at the Magic Desk.

 

Off to download the latest version. So long as a certain VMware installation and a certain NAS kept in a certain un-cooled room do not blow a gasket this week, this weekend I might have to write it out to a real disk and play!

[carlsson]

I wonder if the Magic Desk format is one of the cartridge formats that can be stored inside an EasyFlash cartridge image, so you could make a multicart with this one on it, instead of the old-fashioned way to use one cartridge per game...

[BillyHW]

Is there any difference between the cart version and the floppy version?

[carlsson]

Content wise, I don't think so. Jonas just liked to offer it in many formats for convenience, and then you have the cracked/trained versions of course.

[BillyHW]

Has anybody found any Easter Eggs yet?