Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Mazzspeed]

Considering the very first release of Prince Of Persia was on the Apple II and used the so called 'bathroom tiles' as bricks and looked great, I honestly see the whole comment as an elitist thinly veiled stab at another platform and therefore somewhat childish.

 

Don't get me wrong - The textured bricks look good, but so did the original. The same goes for the artwork.

 

It's supposed to be a port, not a competition.

 

 

[madness77]

Gentelmen,

maybe play with a more modern version? (author uknown)

 

 

 

[Jacques]

40 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Considering the very first release of Prince Of Persia was on the Apple II and used the so called 'bathroom tiles' as bricks and looked great, I honestly see the whole comment as an elitist thinly veiled stab at another platform and therefore somewhat childish.

Spot on, @Mazzspeed.

It's almost like the painter reproducing Mona Lisa doesn't like her colour of eyes, shape of the nose and the background, so suddenly decides to correct Leonardo, because he personally feels it'll be better.

Here we talk of CONVERSION of the game that IS Mona Lisa of classic computer games. Obviously it's not a strict reproduction, since the gfx are always platform-dependent, differ and should try to extract the most from given computer capabilities, yet keeping the style intact.

But to change artwork completely, just doesn't feel right to me. Both not right and inconsistent - why the levels and gameplay should stay original, then?

 

The place of completely new artwork belongs to completely new projects, not the conversions, methinks. And since it's "Mona Lisa" we're talking here on public forum, everyone should understand voices of concerns are expected and just accept them, too.
And true, in the end author decides (it can't be more obvious), be it for good or bad We'll see, cheers.

 

@José Pereira

Your proposition also looks very cool and "in classic PoP style", but as @Rybags already pointed out: it seems there's indeed room for improvement in colours department

Edited August 4, 2021 by Jacques

[Level42]

I see a selection menu coming up.

 

”Please select your intro screen”.….

 

ah whatever, we can always hack in any picture we like….maybe this ?

 

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-asian-beautiful-sexy-woman-wear-1781705270

[Jacques]

5 minutes ago, Level42 said:

ah whatever, we can always hack in any picture we like….maybe this ?

 

https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-asian-beautiful-sexy-woman-wear-1781705270

Not necessary, we already have extra big tits of the princess hacked in ? That's also quite odd, but hey, good tits can never be bad ?

Edited August 4, 2021 by Jacques

[Mazzspeed]

At the end of the day, if you were talking about an A8 port of a game from another platform that was total rubbish in the day due to laziness on behalf of the developer or the need to fit a title into 16k on the A8 vs 48k on another platform, and the opportunity arose to create a port as good as the original on the A8 due to modern upgrades in this day and age - I get it. Really I do.

 

But when you start name-calling the original and posting pictures of original artwork with stamps of disapproval when the original was a fairly impressive title in the day, that comes across as elitism and still doesn't really prove much all things considered.

 

The artwork choices I can handle, it's the devs game, he makes choices as he see's fit. The elitest remarks are largely unnecessary. Essentially, it seems the A8 community views themselves as some form of unappreciated underdog - The problem is the rest of the retro community don't really have an opinion one way or the other, so it's almost a case of misguided paranoia.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[MARIO130XE]

2 hours ago, José Pereira said:

So why not use the one I proposed from @MrFish?

 

 

Wow, it's an awesome, clean picture. 

 

[Rybags]

That modern one looks nice and all but by the time you convert down to 160 pixels I imagine it'd be a right mess.

 

Quick run in RC using Floyd dither - yep, a bit of a mess:

 

PoPmodern.xex

Edited August 4, 2021 by Rybags

[José Pereira]

2 hours ago, Rybags said:

That looks good, but the colour choices need some work.

That one is just (count them right now) 5colours Antic4 per line so changing the sky red and pale green dither leaves all PMGs free to have other/same as now colours on the palace...

[Faicuai]

1 hour ago, Mazzspeed said:

But when you start name-calling the original and posting pictures of original artwork with stamps of disapproval when the original was a fairly impressive title in the day, that comes across as elitism

There is none of that "elitist" illusionism, anywhere here.

 

The author simply believes it can be done better, especially the gfx-conversions he has seen around (those are the ones that have been disapproved).

 

At the end of the day, if the team truly believes it can be done better, and would also be a distinctive hallmark of the Atari PoP conversion itself, then let them bring-it-on!

 

I (and many others here) are and will always be a 1000% in favor of having the A8 version of PoP the best of all! There is not (and will never be) anything wrong with that!

[Level42]

Normally I'd say, stick as much to the original as possible. But that would be a bit foolish as the Atari 8 bit is such a much better machine than the Apple 2 ever was.

 

The in-game graphics are way better than any of the 8 bit ports I've seen so why not up the ante on the title-screen as well ? 

As always, I will be extremely happy with whatever rensoul is serving us. I already am. It's the game I play the most by far these days. Now if only I would "get" the third level.....

Edited August 4, 2021 by Level42

[Heaven/TQA]

1 hour ago, Level42 said:

Normally I'd say, stick as much to the original as possible. But that would be a bit foolish as the Atari 8 bit is such a much better machine than the Apple 2 ever was.

 

The in-game graphics are way better than any of the 8 bit ports I've seen so why not up the ante on the title-screen as well ? 

As always, I will be extremely happy with whatever rensoul is serving us. I already am. It's the game I play the most by far these days. Now if only I would "get" the third level.....

Me not a fan of the rat screen but honestly it doesn’t matter which title screen will be chosen. Would Brøderbund not draw a new one on new platform anyway? Otherwise why have ST or SNES not the original a2 screen?

[Level42]

I just watched the "Let's compare" video on youtube. So many differences... I say go full blast on getting the best looking screen ever.... 

I really like the Genesis ones....

 

(p.s. I'm sure the mouse/rat screen is just to annoy (some of) us and will not appear in the final version......right ?..... right ???? )

[rensoup]

 

[rensoup]

4 hours ago, Level42 said:

(p.s. I'm sure the mouse/rat screen is just to annoy (some of) us and will not appear in the final version......right ?..... right ???? )

I could make it a groundhog I guess ?

 

[FifthPlayer]

@rensoup, I have a small request: could you open a new thread once you have released the final version?   I can't tolerate the toxic behavior in this thread anymore.

Edited August 4, 2021 by FifthPlayer

[Mazzspeed]

8 hours ago, Faicuai said:

There is none of that "elitist" illusionism, anywhere here.

 

The author simply believes it can be done better, especially the gfx-conversions he has seen around (those are the ones that have been disapproved).

 

At the end of the day, if the team truly believes it can be done better, and would also be a distinctive hallmark of the Atari PoP conversion itself, then let them bring-it-on!

 

I (and many others here) are and will always be a 1000% in favor of having the A8 version of PoP the best of all! There is not (and will never be) anything wrong with that!

So it's a competition. The port is visually remarkably similar to the BBC port it's based on with the exception of color, and I'm tipping the BBC port was chosen as it was the easiest 6502 example to port to the A8. I don't personally view texturing on the bricks as 'great graphics' and game play is identical to any other well done port out there.

 

Not everything needs to be a competition. If the A8 is viewed as some underdog that needs to make a point, it's only viewed as such by the A8 community themselves.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Mazzspeed
Typo

[ilmenit]

Guys, leave the decision to the project leader. There is always space for "hacking" the game after the release to replace what you don't like

[rensoup]

39 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

So it's a competition. The port is visually remarkably similar to the BBC port it's based on with the exception of color, and I'm tipping the BBC port was chosen as it was the easiest 6502 example to port to the A8. I don't personally view texturing on the bricks as 'great graphics' and game play is identical to any other well done port out there.

 

WOW.

 

You're pretty qualified at shitting on people's work and clueless about the tech obviously.

 

The BBC prince frames have less colors and run at half the resolution but your expert eye didn't notice I guess.

 

TIX redrew them all and they're pretty much the best looking sprites of all 8bit versions now.

Edited August 4, 2021 by rensoup

[Mazzspeed]

1 minute ago, rensoup said:

 

WOW.

 

You're pretty qualified at shitting on people's work and clueless about the tech obviously.

 

The BBC prince frames have less colors and run at half the resolution but your expert eye didn't notice I guess.

I mentioned the colors, no I didn't notice the increased resolution so much as the fact that there are a number of ports all based on differing platforms that all respect the exceptional quality of the original. So good job, but once again you're trying to claim superiority. It's a port, not a competition.

 

Do I feel less inclined to play the BBC version? No I don't, I don't share this collective bias. I've played the BBC version and enjoyed it as much as any other PoP port.

[rensoup]

45 minutes ago, FifthPlayer said:

@rensoup, I have a small request: could you open a new thread once you have released the final version?   I can't tolerate the toxic behavior in this thread anymore.

I'd rather keep it in one thread as part of the creation process and a reminder of the garbage I had to go through during development.

 

(Fortunately 99% of the people are happy about what they see and I'm trying hard not to lose sight of that)

[rensoup]

9 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Do I feel less inclined to play the BBC version? No I don't, I don't share this collective bias. I've played the BBC version and enjoyed it as much as any other PoP port.

Nobody cares which version you play so stop telling us about it.

[Mazzspeed]

1 minute ago, rensoup said:

Nobody cares which version you play so stop telling us about it.

I don't care which version I play, that's the point.

 

You made a great port, worthy of being held to the same level of respect as many others provided by coders that I'm sure also faced technical obstacles. I never stated I care a hoot for the artwork used. Great job on the game.

[Faicuai]

6 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

If the A8 is viewed as some underdog that needs to make a point

Nah!!

 

It's exactly the opposite: many of us consider it not only superior but (now historically) a ground-breaking formula... even to this day.

 

And, to that extent, it already made its point, many years ago... Our community is not the only one thinking alike:

 

https://www.pcworld.com/article/126692/greatest_pcs_of_all_time.html?page=5

 

PC-World's top-25 PCs of all-time.. 

 

[Mazzspeed]

2 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Nah!!

 

It's exactly the opposite: many of use consider it not only superior but (now historically) a ground-breaking formula... even to this day.

 

And, to that extent, it already made its point, many years ago... Our community is not the only one thinking alike:

 

https://www.pcworld.com/article/126692/greatest_pcs_of_all_time.html?page=5

 

PC-World's top-25 PCs of all-time.. 

 

Point in case.

 

Relax people, they're 30yo+ machines and I think the original graphics and artwork still look great even today.

Edited August 4, 2021 by Mazzspeed