Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Mr Robot]

4 hours ago, rensoup said:

I suppose you've seen playsoft's tech demo: 

I have, it's what made me think it might be possible. I read back in February that Paul has stopped developing for the 8-bits now so it's likely to remain unfinished.  

 

There was also an in development Phoenix which has apparently been lost somehow so won't be completed either. 

 

I'd also say a non-vbxe version of Moon Cresta would be a decent challenge, @Rybags promised that back in 2012 when the VBXE one was still being worked on, and it still hasn't arrived yet; c'mon @Rybags! don't make me quote Samuel L Jackson in the Hitmans Bodyguard...

[tjlazer]

I support the game being 128K.  It's appropriate for a great port like this.  If there was a way to make it 64k with an AtariMax cart or such that would be extra cool.  Otherwise 130XE it is!

[Rybags]

Moon Cresta - I've not touched it since about 2012.  One problem is a nasty bug somehow crept in.  Another problem is I just lost interest in it so it's unlikely to progress further from my end.

I might dig out the source and put it up so if someone wants to play with it they can.

Caruso also did a really good tune for the game which hasn't been made public.

As for a stock hw version - one idea I had there was to dynamically switch graphics modes - when all the enemies are present it would be done in Gr. 7 and once a few got killed off it would switch to Gr. 15.  But for such a version, any existing code I did would be next to useless, it'd need a fresh start.

 

[Mr Robot]

6 minutes ago, tjlazer said:

If there was a way to make it 64k with an AtariMax cart

Don't start down that road, you'll get all the Atari 400 owners wanting it to work in 16K! We can thank @playsoft, @kiwilove and @miker for getting AtariBlast into 16K for raising their expectations.

[Mr Robot]

@Rybags Thank you for the VBXE version, it's one of the few programs for the VBXE that isn't a scene demo that shows off what it can do, and it's great fun. It's a shame extra memory has to be disabled to get it to run.

 

 

[rensoup]

59 minutes ago, tjlazer said:

I support the game being 128K.  It's appropriate for a great port like this.  If there was a way to make it 64k with an AtariMax cart or such that would be extra cool.  Otherwise 130XE it is!

Sure is possible but extra work of course... and then it becomes tempting to use that extra ROM space for optimization and extra features and then it never gets finished!

 

With a 512KB ROM cart I could preshift all the sprites, precompile more of the background tiles. Then I could use black as a color inside the sprites (and/or have an outline ) and still run faster than it runs now!

 

But that would blurring the line between stock and newer hardware... which doesn't appeal to me ?

 

[TIX]

8 hours ago, VinsCool said:

The early version of the sprite looks like he had been injured and was dragging his left leg trying to run at the same time lol

 

The final art is pure eye candy however!

? yeah,

for my defense, the injured prince is mainly a recolored BBC sprite (left)

 

 

Edited July 10, 2021 by TIX

[VinsCool]

2 minutes ago, TIX said:

? yeah,

for my defense, the injured prince is mainly a recolored BBC sprite (left)

 

 

Your pixel art is also superior to most other ports on systems of the same era too, damn.
The Atari machines can produce nicely detailed graphics!

[Level42]

On 7/9/2021 at 3:16 AM, Kyle22 said:

I just want a good .ATR image that will work with SIDE and Incognito Loader. It should load very quickly from hard disk.

 

Why would you want an ATR when the cartridge versions all work great with SIDE3 and U1MB/Incognito ? Or am I missing something here ?

[Level42]

1 hour ago, VinsCool said:

The Atari machines can produce nicely detailed graphics!

Didn't take me 40 years to discover that LOL.... it's why I chose Atari XL over any other system BITD.

[Level42]

4 hours ago, rensoup said:

With a 512KB ROM cart I could preshift all the sprites, precompile more of the background tiles. Then I could use black as a color inside the sprites (and/or have an outline ) and still run faster than it runs now!

 

Why not go for it ? IMHO extended memory on any side (Internal RAM or external ROM) isn't straying from the original hardware. After all, the first games were 4k ROMs. The cartridge port Normally only supports 16kB of ROM space but we all know plenty of former floppy only games were later officially released by Atari as XE cartridges using bank-switching. If one is a purist, those games should be still loaded from floppy.....

Look at what has been done with Space Harrier. Love it.

I know it's personal taste, but IMHO the line is only crossed when you add graphic capabilities like VBXE or much faster CPU's to the original machine. From that moment on, it stops being an A8 machine. Everything else only helps getting stuff faster/more convenient in and out of memory.....

But Rensoup, I'll be extremely happy with anything you come up with and I totally respect your opinion and choice about this.
 

[Mazzspeed]

23 minutes ago, Level42 said:

Why not go for it ? IMHO extended memory on any side (Internal RAM or external ROM) isn't straying from the original hardware. After all, the first games were 4k ROMs. The cartridge port Normally only supports 16kB of ROM space but we all know plenty of former floppy only games were later officially released by Atari as XE cartridges using bank-switching. If one is a purist, those games should be still loaded from floppy.....

Look at what has been done with Space Harrier. Love it.

I know it's personal taste, but IMHO the line is only crossed when you add graphic capabilities like VBXE or much faster CPU's to the original machine. From that moment on, it stops being an A8 machine. Everything else only helps getting stuff faster/more convenient in and out of memory.....

But Rensoup, I'll be extremely happy with anything you come up with and I totally respect your opinion and choice about this.
 

I was thinking the same thing, utilizing cartridges the way they were intended to be used is hardly cheating.

 

In terms of making another title for the A8, what about 'Metroid II: Return of Samus'? There's a version available for the RPi that's awesome, I could see it as an A8 game considering it started out on retro platforms.

[+Philsan]

What about a soccer game? 

 

 

https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/cpc-soccer-international-edition-amstrad-cpc-review/

[CPUWIZ]

On 7/9/2021 at 4:53 AM, DrVenkman said:

Wow, it’s pretty rare that the Mod staff has to actually step into a thread in the A8 forum and do a cleanup, especially after Mod warnings to knock it off.  Well done, people. ?

 

 

I don't mind the usual childish minor pittances, but when I see too many reports and then see why, I am not going to let that slide.

 

Fine, call someone a knob-head or whatever, but bring Religion, Politics, Mental or Physical abilities into the mix.  No!

 

I don't care if you are from Timbuktu or Poland, or if you don't know where you are from.  Being human is all it takes.  Often, people who called other people mentally challenged, have mental disabilities themselves, since they can't grasp the reality and consequences their words can have.

 

Can't play ball together in peace, I take the ball away.

 

 

[Mazzspeed]

Has anyone tried porting the SCUMM engined Lucas Film games to the A8? To this day Maniac Mansion is still one of my favourite games of all time.

 

Unless they were actually released for the A8, I never really checked.

 

 

[invisible kid]

14 minutes ago, CPUWIZ said:

 

I don't mind the usual childish minor pittances, but when I see too many reports and then see why, I am not going to let that slide.

 

Fine, call someone a knob-head or whatever, but bring Religion, Politics, Mental or Physical abilities into the mix.  No!

 

I don't care if you are from Timbuktu or Poland, or if you don't know where you are from.  Being human is all it takes.  Often, people who called other people mentally challenged, have mental disabilities themselves, since they can't grasp the reality and consequences their words can have.

 

Can't play ball together in peace, I take the ball away.

 

 

So who is currently banned from this thread? Was someone banned and then unbanned at one point?

[Heaven/TQA]

9 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

@Rybags Thank you for the VBXE version, it's one of the few programs for the VBXE that isn't a scene demo that shows off what it can do, and it's great fun. It's a shame extra memory has to be disabled to get it to run.

 

 

Hey... Feeling finger pointed at me ??

[CPUWIZ]

49 minutes ago, invisible kid said:

So who is currently banned from this thread? Was someone banned and then unbanned at one point?

 

It isn't you, why do you care?  Did someone drop a sack of rice in China?

[invisible kid]

Fairness? Transparency? You brought the matter up in your preceding comment.

Edited July 10, 2021 by invisible kid

[Mr Robot]

1 hour ago, Heaven/TQA said:

Hey... Feeling finger pointed at me ??

I think my sentence structure let me down a little there. By "one of the few programs for the VBXE that isn't a scene demo that shows off what it can do" I meant that only the scene demos that require VBXE really show off what the VBXE can do, very little^* other software does. ✌️

 

^*Hat tip to Monty on the Run , The Last Word and (if it ever gets released) Rick Dangerous.

[Heaven/TQA]

1 hour ago, Mr Robot said:

I think my sentence structure let me down a little there. By "one of the few programs for the VBXE that isn't a scene demo that shows off what it can do" I meant that only the scene demos that require VBXE really show off what the VBXE can do, very little^* other software does. ✌️

 

^*Hat tip to Monty on the Run , The Last Word and (if it ever gets released) Rick Dangerous.

Don’t worry. Me not a person who gets wounded by comments by others  as I said already my time my decision my life to code what I want in a way I want and if I want to release it as typed in listing it’s me and not wining that it does not run on my own built Morse teleprompter connected to the joystick port…

[Marius]

10 hours ago, Level42 said:

Why not go for it ? IMHO extended memory on any side (Internal RAM or external ROM) isn't straying from the original hardware. After all, the first games were 4k ROMs. The cartridge port Normally only supports 16kB of ROM space but we all know plenty of former floppy only games were later officially released by Atari as XE cartridges using bank-switching. If one is a purist, those games should be still loaded from floppy.....

Look at what has been done with Space Harrier. Love it.

I know it's personal taste, but IMHO the line is only crossed when you add graphic capabilities like VBXE or much faster CPU's to the original machine. From that moment on, it stops being an A8 machine. Everything else only helps getting stuff faster/more convenient in and out of memory.....

But Rensoup, I'll be extremely happy with anything you come up with and I totally respect your opinion and choice about this.
 

It's true what Level42 writes here. Even a stock 800XL (and sometimes even a stock 400) can play many extremely complicated and big games from cart.

I personally prefer always disk or xex files, but as soon a game takes the advantage of a cartridge, then I love cart games as well. Space Harrier, or Atari Blast are very nice examples of games. They work fabulously on my stock 800XL. 

But indeed, Rensoup is the author, so he decides. 

Love the work so far a lot anyway.

[Heaven/TQA]

19 minutes ago, Marius said:

It's true what Level42 writes here. Even a stock 800XL (and sometimes even a stock 400) can play many extremely complicated and big games from cart.

I personally prefer always disk or xex files, but as soon a game takes the advantage of a cartridge, then I love cart games as well. Space Harrier, or Atari Blast are very nice examples of games. They work fabulously on my stock 800XL. 

But indeed, Rensoup is the author, so he decides. 

Love the work so far a lot anyway.

Yeah when Wratchchild introduced me how simple cart games can be generated and me used that for a demo STNICCC I have to admit nothing beats that media and later on my SNES journey anyway....

 

[+DjayBee]

On 7/8/2021 at 11:38 PM, DrVenkman said:

Per Rensoup's request, I wrote out a physical copy of the "fastestmouse" demo and there's still what seems to me like a LOT of head movement during the loads between graphics screens and the like. Almost like maybe the data contained in the ATR is scattered across a lot of different tracks and sectors rather than being in contiguous chunks on the disk. Like, well over a dozen head movements in some cases, which seems ... extreme. But I don't know how the ATR geometry is laid out, just reporting how the drive is behaving. 

I tried to manually optimize the layout of the disk and directory.

 

Please try on hardware:

pop_DDfastestmouse_notplayable2_optim.atr

 

What I did:

- Optimized only the files loaded for the current demo

- The smaller the file, the closer to the directory sectors

- The smaller the fille, the further up its entry in the directory

- Put the biggest files to the beginning of the disk

[+CharlieChaplin]

Cannot fully test this, since I only have Speedy drives (sold all my XF drives) and as mentioned before, the Speedy keeps the boot and directory sectors in its cache buffer, so the order of the files in the directory does not matter. But I can test if the order of the files on the disk makes a difference...