Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[rensoup]

1 hour ago, xxl said:

this may be the best atari 8bit game ever.

... and you're part of it ?

 

Thanks everybody for the enthusiastic response ?

[Franco Catrin]

WOW you did in a few days what several of us were trying to do for a long time. I've just seen the first stage and got blown away!

 

Hats off. Excellent job!

[rensoup]

1 hour ago, Yaron Nir said:

I saw the video posted on YouTube and it looks very very promising , job well done! 
 

@rensoupwhat screen mode is this? Char mode ? Bitmap mode ?

i thought that the prince is combined from player missile graphics by judging the outcome , it seems as if he is a software sprite , hence now I understand why @TIXis placing all the images in a png.... make sense.

so pre shifting ? Brute force 

how many images in mem you have prepared for this? Animation is really good.

There's a youtube video already ?

 

As for your questions, it's all in the 2nd post at the beginning of the thread ?

 

number of frames I don't know, but it's a few hundreds I believe?

 

[rensoup]

There seems to be somewhat of a glitch in the running cycle, TIX tweaked it already and it should be better now. It'll be in the next release (which may be some time away...)

 

There's also a bug when trying to turn around when running to the right, they guy keeps running... Yes, it's kind of annoying ?

 

 

[Yaron Nir]

4 minutes ago, rensoup said:

number of frames I don't know, but it's a few hundreds I believe?

figures.... with such animation.

 

quick question about the *.atr file you have posted. it doesn't work on my altirra, what type of settings do i need to change in order for this to run properly? (i experience a black screen and nothing else)

 

[Yaron Nir]

3 minutes ago, Yaron Nir said:

figures.... with such animation.

 

quick question about the *.atr file you have posted. it doesn't work on my altirra, what type of settings do i need to change in order for this to run properly? (i experience a black screen and nothing else)

 

an update: after about couple of minutes the game begins.... just wasn't expective a long loading..... super cool!

 

[rensoup]

12 minutes ago, Franco Catrin said:

WOW you did in a few days what several of us were trying to do for a long time. I've just seen the first stage and got blown away!

 

Hats off. Excellent job!

few days ? hell no ?

 

I spend 2 months ripping out the BBC graphics code and doing some silly optimizations. I was working in a virtual environment (my 6502 core and D3D code which gradually replaced the BBC code)

Then I spent a good 3 months learning the Atari HW and doing various graphics and loading tests.

Getting the game to load and run was probably just a week, the level display code was just a few hours.

 

I spent a few weeks probably just on the main sprite routine, like the one you did for your test.

 

And speaking of your test, I believe your sprite routine may be faster as well as taking half the memory. I'm probably going to use it but if you're interested in tweaking it for Pop (clipping code mostly) I'd be happy to include it in the game (and credit you of course).

 

If I decided to stick to 4 colors, the game would be done and wouldn't require the extra cycles. But adding PMGs, although seemingly a simple task, is quite the challenge. I've had a taste with the torches and the potions.

 

Additionnally I'm running out of mem in the base 64KB, so you may have made my life a whole lot easier ?

[rensoup]

24 minutes ago, Yaron Nir said:

an update: after about couple of minutes the game begins.... just wasn't expective a long loading..... super cool!

 

Yes loading time is an issue. You can speed it up by enabling D :  burst IO in configure system->acceleration

 

You also need to make sure you have accurate sector timing disabled in configure system->disk

 

[Yaron Nir]

1 minute ago, rensoup said:

Yes loading time is an issue. You can speed it up by enabling D :  burst IO in configure system->acceleration

 

You also need to make sure you have accurate sector timing disabled in configure system->disk

 

i can also use F1 to speed things up  

[Jinroh]

Oh wow! Beautiful work everyone!!

 

Just the first level, but still lovely and showing more of our lovely 8-bit's power! ❤️

 

Also making me want to keep pushing to finish my VCS project and get back to the 8-bit! Inspiring work.

 

[snicklin]

I've always struggled to get off the first level, so this is like a full game to me! Great work here.

[xxl]

6 hours ago, Yaron Nir said:

an update: after about couple of minutes the game begins.... just wasn't expective a long loading..... super cool!

exactly one minute and 20 seconds after turning on the computer

[miker]

@xxl I miss tape loading sound then.

 

@rensoup Great work, please continue! ???

Edited December 1, 2019 by miker

[+Adam+]

I'm very happy that PoP will finally get Atari 8-bit version, but please, please don't use sprites version with turban (in the final version)... If it's a problem, I can draw for you the movement phases without it 

Edited December 1, 2019 by +Adam+

[xxl]

16 minutes ago, miker said:

I miss tape loading sound then.

The original Eidolon, which has twice less data to load, loads in 50 seconds?

[miker]

@xxlYeah 1985 vs 2019.

And oh, there is music playing during loading.

[xxl]

19 minutes ago, miker said:

Yeah 1985 vs 2019

atari has not changed since 1985  it's still the same good machine?

[miker]

Ok, to be more serious:

Maybe some workaround to a bit too looong load time, no?

 

[Mclaneinc]

Stunning first demo...

 

I simply can't wait

 

Amazing work guys

Edited December 1, 2019 by Mclaneinc

[Heaven/TQA]

Just in case MrSid

 

http://popc64.blogspot.com/

[ldelsarte]

Thank you SO much for this amazing conversion!

[rensoup]

 

Thanks again for the comments everybody!

 

4 hours ago, +Adam+ said:

I'm very happy that PoP will finally get Atari 8-bit version, but please, please don't use sprites version with turban (in the final version)... If it's a problem, I can draw for you the movement phases without it 

Well that's @TIX's choice and I'm fine with it ?

 

Like I mentioned earlier, for background graphics it would be quite easy to do a classic version as an alternative. For sprites it may be a bit more complicated if there is PMG coloring.

Additionally the sprite graphics take a lot of mem and so an alternate version wouldn't fit on disk. Perhaps for a cart version but that's a bit further away.

 

 

1 hour ago, miker said:

Ok, to be more serious:

Maybe some workaround to a bit too looong load time, no?

What are you're using? real HW or Altirra ? For Altirra:

10 hours ago, rensoup said:

Yes loading time is an issue. You can speed it up by enabling D :  burst IO in configure system->acceleration

 

You also need to make sure you have accurate sector timing disabled in configure system->disk

I don't think it takes 1m 20 with at config, does it ?

 

Inflate isn't the fastest depacker either (but it compresses best).

 

For development I just switch Warp mode on/off which makes it very quick to load.

 

[+CharlieChaplin]

Hmmm,

 

if one does not have 1m20s time to wait for loading, I wonder why he is turning the real Atari on.

 

Loading and depacking Yoomp (and other games) from newer carts. takes more than 10 seconds - oooooh, no, I cannot wait that long... mama!

 

[Lastic]

Just as information PAL 130XE with U1MB, Stock RAM config, HSIO drivers, SIO2SD, 20 seconds for the red line to show, 56 sec in total to get to the PoP screen.

And I prefer tapes so my patience runs up to 16 minutes

[emkay]

hr..hr..hr..

 

The game isn't finished , and how it will look like , is a part of the unknown future . But people already blame the loading time. PMg extensions and Cutscenes not included.

More Details, more Colors, more Leveldesign has it's side effect, using more Data could be one

 

If the game is working, afterwards someone may think of throwing it all onto a Cartridge.