José Pereira Posted November 23, 2015 Author Share Posted November 23, 2015 No, Rick Dangerous is already going on and going in a good way. Rick is coded from scratch on A8 and Switchblade this way only to have it ported same way as the others by Mariusz directly from the C64. Indeed this one seems similar to Rick that I even think that the same team could use part of the code to convert this one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Player is done with hardware sprites, all other objects are software sprites. Game is also character (not bitmap) based. Ok, thanks for the analysis. What about "Rasputin"? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Ok, thanks for the analysis. What about "Rasputin"? Done with software sprites in bitmap mode. Would be easy to get it running on Atari. Great music, but gameplay is questionable. Dynamite Dan is interesting: Done in bitmap mode, with all sprites (apart from Dan) done in software. May look nice with pmg overlays similar to Manic Miner. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 (edited) Great music, but gameplay is questionable. Seems also a bit speed depending... A thankful target for optimization would also be "Hard Drivin'": Regarding gameplay I would prefer "Cholo" (but the BBC version is called to be better - only due to speed?): http://www.lemon64.com/games/screenshots/full/c/cholo_02.gif Edit: BBC version Edited November 28, 2015 by Irgendwer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Usotsuki Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 ...it's possible to run Hard Drivin' on something less than a 68000? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 ...it's possible to run Hard Drivin' on something less than a 68000? IMHO the Lynx version is "somewhat" ok. Here some more titles to check (some may have rare/single use of sprites) and some rely on disk access: World Class Leaderboard Tir Na Nog Hole in One Stellar 7 Tau Ceti The Interplay titles which never made it (beside Mindshadow) to the Atari: The Tracer Sanction, Borrowed Time, Tass Times in Tone Town, BattleChess, Bards Tale Series(?) etc. http://www.lemon64.com/games/list.php?developer=Interplay+Productions http://www.lemon64.com/games/list.php?publisher=Interplay+Productions 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Word Class Leaderboard - possible (plus Tezz has produced work toward the fixed screens and player animation) TNN - disassembly of C64 version done and can 'show' graphics (attached can from Turbo basic) Would love to also see "Bards Tale" and "BattleChess" as have 'peeked inside' before, so happy to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Forgot the attachment disp_tnn.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
popmilo Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 My voice goes to Leaderboard golf. Played that game for months with family and friends! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Yawn.... Hard Drivin' is of a genre, the A8 has never seen. So where is the question, what has to be converted and the priority? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lynxpro Posted November 28, 2015 Share Posted November 28, 2015 Do you guys think C64 Marble Madness uses hardware sprites? I don't know if the N0stalgia group disassembled the game or if they had source code when they modded it to support 4 players. Either way, that's one Atari Games arcade title that's sorely missing from the A8/5200 libraries. https://www.n0stalgia.org/common/pages/releases.php?op=showrelease&id=150 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Do you guys think C64 Marble Madness uses hardware sprites? It does for player and mobile enemies i think, but would have to look properly to be sure though. I don't know if the N0stalgia group disassembled the game or if they had source code when they modded it to support 4 players. Either way, that's one Atari Games arcade title that's sorely missing from the A8/5200 libraries. If memory serves from idling in the IRC channel (i was Nostalgia's web/PR bunny at that time and coding the SID Burners music packs) all of that four player code was in there already but disabled, so the game was modified at an object code level to enable it in a similar way to how the trainers and N0SDOS were bolted in. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Word Class Leaderboard - possible (plus Tezz has produced work toward the fixed screens and player animation) TNN - disassembly of C64 version done and can 'show' graphics (attached can from Turbo basic) Would love to also see "Bards Tale" and "BattleChess" as have 'peeked inside' before, so happy to help. Can I take a look at Tir Na Nog disassembly? Mariusz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Tir Na Nog is done partially in bitmap mode (gameplay area is bitmap, status panel is character map) and without hardware sprites. It also uses 256 pixels wide screen (as it comes from Spectrum), which makes porting even easier, as Atari can easily emulate C64 bitmap layout for 256 pixels wide screen (already used by me in Saboteur and Fairlight). I like this game. World Class Leaderboard is in bitmap mode, and hardware sprite seems to be used only for player character. I have never been great fan of sport games though. Stellar 7 is in bitmap mode and looks like very nice Battlezone clone. Would probably benefit from faster Atari clock and make gameplay more smooth. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Tau Ceti looks complicated. It is done in bitmap mode, but there are few issues: - top part has on set of color attributes on left pane (gameplay window) and another set of color attributes on right pane - top part is in multicolor while bottom part is in hires mode - hardware sprites are used for gameplay area (but not too extensively) - the scroll on the very bottom is done with sprites I guess it will need to prepare new design to match Atari capabilities regarding color placement. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Thanks again for the analysis. Pity, that you don't like Leaderboard. Stellar 7 is in bitmap mode and looks like very nice Battlezone clone. Would probably benefit from faster Atari clock and make gameplay more smooth. The follow-up production with more strategic depth (and better rated here in Germany) is "Arcticfox" (would also benefit from an Atari-boost): http://www.lemon64.com/games/details.php?ID=139 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Word Class Leaderboard - possible (plus Tezz has produced work toward the fixed screens and player animation) TNN - disassembly of C64 version done and can 'show' graphics (attached can from Turbo basic) Would love to also see "Bards Tale" and "BattleChess" as have 'peeked inside' before, so happy to help. It'd be great to get World Class Leaderboard completed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tezz Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Tir Na Nog is done partially in bitmap mode (gameplay area is bitmap, status panel is character map) and without hardware sprites. It also uses 256 pixels wide screen (as it comes from Spectrum), which makes porting even easier, as Atari can easily emulate C64 bitmap layout for 256 pixels wide screen (already used by me in Saboteur and Fairlight). I like this game. I'd love to see Tir Na Nog on the A8, it was one of the great zx games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 (edited) I have never been great fan of sport games though. Otherwise "3D Pool" would be interesting... I just notice the following: If you like to have guaranteed sprite-free commodore games, maybe the "CBM plus 4" versions are an easier source for ports? On this site http://plus4world.powweb.com/games also many C64 ports for the plus 4 are available (Bard's Tale, Battle Chess, Total Eclipse, The Hobbit etc.) You can find "Tir Na Nog" there too. Edited November 29, 2015 by Irgendwer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I just notice the following: If you like to have guaranteed sprite-free commodore games, maybe the "CBM plus 4" versions are an easier source for ports? On this site http://plus4world.powweb.com/games also many C64 ports for the plus 4 are available (Bard's Tale, Battle Chess, Total Eclipse, The Hobbit etc.) You can find "Tir Na Nog" there too. I know about these Plus/4 ports. But actually C64 seem to be better versions for porting - the reason is that C64 had hardware registers in $d000 - $dfff area and games tend to avoid using this space for code. Plus/4 has its registers in $fc00 - $ffff space, and $dxxx is used for code - porting this Atari would require to relocate the code. Also, Infiltrator Disassembler doesn't work with Plus/4 snapshots from VICE, so I would need to used another way for disassembling the games. What's maybe interesting I used Plus/4 port of Total Eclipse when I was working on it - I compared snapshots from C64 and Plus/4 and I was able to easily identify all screen pointers in the code, as Plus/4 version had to relocate these access to another area (C64 uses $e000-$ffff for bitmap memory, on Plus/4 they had to move it because of hardware registers). I like Blockout which was also ported from C64 to Plus/4. On C64 it uses hardware sprites to draw failing element - on Plus/4 they did everything in software. So Plus/4 version may be better source for port of this particular game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I've investigated Plus4/C16 ports somewhat (having done 2 of them). The problem is - pretty much the entire C16 catalog is full of lame. 32K games tend to be the minimum for anything decent. Most of the Plus4 games that are worth bothering with are full blown 64K games which means quite a bit more work to port over. Similarly to the C64, Plus4 also uses the completely foreign to Atari bitmapping technique. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mariuszw Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 I've investigated Plus4/C16 ports somewhat (having done 2 of them). The problem is - pretty much the entire C16 catalog is full of lame. 32K games tend to be the minimum for anything decent. Most of the Plus4 games that are worth bothering with are full blown 64K games which means quite a bit more work to port over. Similarly to the C64, Plus4 also uses the completely foreign to Atari bitmapping technique. Which games have you ported? I must agree with your your rating of C16/Plus/4 games. The best games are unofficial ports from C64. There is quite large amount of logic games available, probably because they are easier to write when hardware sprites are not available than other sorts of games. But recent developments seem very nice - just to mention Xeo3 (unfortunately unfinished) and Adventures in Time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 There is always the nice looking Xeo3 for the Plus-4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heaven/TQA Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 Sentinel.... Stunt car racer... Hatrick.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted November 29, 2015 Share Posted November 29, 2015 The tragedy of Xeo3 is that it's not finished and is looking likely to stay that way. Games I converted - Quadrillion which is a homebrew asm game originally made for 32K machines. This one only for VBXE. Spectipede which is a budget title similar to Gridrunner. Works on VBXE and normal hardware. Hires and multicolour versions done. Plus4 suffered IMO in the day in that it's advantages weren't used to full effect and games were often just low effort ports. Rather than put effort into effective softsprite handling games often just resorted to lazy tricks like cell based movement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.