Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[+Mr Robot]

7 minutes ago, Level42 said:

You kinda have to think that you send the “commands” a little bit ahead of time they are needed. I guess this is a bit of a keyboard controls thing maybe if the original version ?

Because of the rotoscoping for the animation, each action takes a fixed number of frames, you have to wait for that set of animation frames to finish before it is ready to perform the next set of frames so (for example) if you push up while running to do a running jump you will still have to wait for the run anim to finish before the running jump anim can happen. Once you get used to the number of frames each action takes and where on the screen you will be when it finishes you can judge when it's time to trigger the next anim without accidentally going over and having to watch him run headlong into a wall or off a ledge.

 

Here's the current speedrun record for PoP (12m41s) you won't learn a lot about how to play the game from this but will see all the glitches you can exploit. 

 

[Atari_Force]

On 11/26/2019 at 3:30 PM, rensoup said:

 

2021/10/24 FINAL release

 

What about a xex file version?

[Wrathchild]

1 hour ago, Level42 said:

Well I think we will have to be happy with what we’ve got as this discussion has been running wayyyy before the release of the final version.

One would hope that @rensoup will get around to posting his repo onto github as per JM and the BBC port did to get things rolling in the first place and then if others fancy building their own media variant then they are free to work out how 🤓

[Wrathchild]

29 minutes ago, Atari_Force said:

What about a xex file version?

That's a 'read forward' type of access format and so not suitable for (re)-reading levels etc.

 

[Edit] Unless of course you mean it loads everything into memory first and treats that like a RAM disk

Edited October 30, 2021 by Wrathchild

[DjayBee]

2 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

That's a 'read forward' type of access format and so not suitable for (re)-reading levels etc.

Not only this but with literally no free RAM left, where should the XEX loader a.k.a. DOS go?

[rensoup]

19 hours ago, Kyle22 said:

How about [uncompressed, NO XBIOS] Incognito Loader and FujiNet .ATR's. that would be great.

Cart images also good.

Just saying...

 

[rensoup]

3 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

One would hope that @rensoup will get around to posting his repo onto github as per JM and the BBC port did to get things rolling in the first place and then if others fancy building their own media variant then they are free to work out how 🤓

[Wrathchild]

Rude!

[+x=usr(1536)]

@rensoup: this one's for you:

 

 

Saw this in our local liquor store earlier.  I figure you're owned way more than just one, but it's a start 😁

[VinsCool]

2 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Saw this in our local liquor store earlier.  I figure you're owned way more than just one, but it's a start 😁

For some reason I read "WITBIER" as "WITTY AND BITTER"... I have no idea either, my brain goes to places sometime, maybe I'm too sober to fully grasp the mythical lapsus lol

[Level42]

48 minutes ago, VinsCool said:

For some reason I read "WITBIER" as "WITTY AND BITTER"... I have no idea either, my brain goes to places sometime, maybe I'm too sober to fully grasp the mythical lapsus lol

Witbier is Dutch for “White beer”.

Witbier is brewed in Belgium and The Netherlands. Taste great on hot summer days….
 

Noclue what that word is doing on that Scottish (?) can nor what it has to do with Persia
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_beer#Witbier

Edited October 31, 2021 by Level42

[Level42]

4 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

Rude!

Did you read the last 132 pages ?

[DjayBee]

4 hours ago, Level42 said:

Noclue what that word is doing on that Scottish (?) can nor what it has to do with Persia

The partially visible printing on the lower right says Belgian and Hibiscus / Safran. 

[Wrathchild]

6 hours ago, Level42 said:

Did you read the last 132 pages ?

Of course, my post was aimed to assist Kyle22 in regard to his original question (that yourself and Mr Robot had responded to) and so it was post #690 that I was referring to by 'will get around to posting his repo' indicating that 'others' (not myself or rensoupp) would be free to try and make their own distro media should they wish:

On 5/17/2020 at 6:12 PM, rensoup said:

On 5/17/2020 at 1:19 PM, José Pereira said:

Just curious... will you release all the stuff to public or just running file(s)?

The source code will go on github but the art will be in binary form (because the art converter is just tailored for the current sprite sheets: any mistake would make the game blow up or not even build because it would run out of memory)

I appreciate that on the back of the frustration in post #3281 that the next post followed though felt it jumped to confusion if it was seen as some demand.  

[xxl]

And back to the important stuff...

 

how about the next entry being a genre without decent representation on Atari?

 

maybe... Maniac Mansion with its SCUMM interpreter?

[Wrathchild]

1 hour ago, xxl said:

Maniac Mansion with its SCUMM interpreter?

Its a fair bit of work, have discussed it a little in the past with @Jetboot Jack / sTeVE in PM.

Effectively I feel you'd need to write a background graphic tool to encode it in a format for the A8 to use and then re-code how it is decoded at runtime.

So not a small amount of work but as @rensoup has shown with PoP there are talented enough people around who can pull such things off (and with any luck the release of PoP may attract more!).

As with these things, time is the antagonist.

 

 

I have asked a few times but no takers to date

 

 

 

[tjlazer]

hOw aBoUt a xEx vErSiOn tHaT rUnS oN a 6ooXL?  lol

[+Stephen]

39 minutes ago, tjlazer said:

hOw aBoUt a xEx vErSiOn tHaT rUnS oN a 6ooXL?  lol

Can it be ported to the 5200?  I know at least one person here would go batshit crazy if this game could get a 5200 port!

[emkay]

1 hour ago, tjlazer said:

hOw aBoUt a xEx vErSiOn tHaT rUnS oN a 6ooXL?  lol

My ideas about a PoP version for the Atari was much more memory saving than rensoupp's solution. 

I supported his ideas , because he had a complete overview of what he was doing. Cost of a lot memory given. 

A fully hardware supporting PoP version might look different, but would save from a big memory usage.

16K version? Possible , for sure. 

But, I guess, a 16K version on a cart might be even more fun to play  

[rensoup]

13 hours ago, Wrathchild said:

Of course, my post was aimed to assist Kyle22 in regard to his original question (that yourself and Mr Robot had responded to) and so it was post #690 that I was referring to by 'will get around to posting his repo' indicating that 'others' (not myself or rensoupp) would be free to try and make their own distro media should they wish:

 

I don't see how putting the source on github would help create an uncompressed version that would magically load faster given ZX0/ZX5 compress very nicely and decompress very quickly... 

 

A 360KB version would load twice slower and I would guess you're well aware of that.

 

Anybody who has a solution for DOS loading without memory compromises has had 2 years to come forward, it hasn't happened so I don't see how having the source would suddenly help.

 

I'm still planning on putting the source on github, just not any time soon.

[Wrathchild]

Indeed it's up to others to prove otherwise, should they wish to try.

[snicklin]

2 hours ago, rensoup said:

I don't see how putting the source on github would help create an uncompressed version that would magically load faster given ZX0/ZX5 compress very nicely and decompress very quickly... 

 

A 360KB version would load twice slower and I would guess you're well aware of that.

 

Anybody who has a solution for DOS loading without memory compromises has had 2 years to come forward, it hasn't happened so I don't see how having the source would suddenly help.

 

I'm still planning on putting the source on github, just not any time soon.

@rensoup I suggest that you take a rest from the Atari and enjoy real life for a while.

 

Then come back with more energy and maybe if we are lucky, you might have another project for us on the go! 

[emkay]

A real "next" project for the Atari could be Rick Dangerous.  That game YELLS for being available on the Atari . 

I'd support the project with the correct FX  ...

[invisible kid]

.

Edited November 1, 2021 by invisible kid

[Rybags]

Rick Dangerous is supposedly already in development, I'm just about sure there was an expected release almost a year ago.

 

PoP is looking good - I've not had any chance to give it a decent look.  I was away for 9 days until today and a bit busy in the couple of weeks leading up to that.