Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[+DjayBee]

6 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

It would be great to see something seemingly impossible _{^{like stun runner}} being done on the Atari.

This sounds about right for @rensoup and even more the whole team of nay-sayers and cranks/sourpusses from this thread.

Edited February 18, 2022 by DjayBee

[Beeblebrox]

Love to see the A8 do The Untouchables which I played in the early 90s and recall with fond memories. Loved the mixed genres of gameplay in the levels. 

 

 

[rensoup]

On 2/14/2022 at 12:47 PM, xxl said:

But on the basis of modifying an existing game?

 

 

maybe somethig from 1982*

arcade style:

 

I wouldn't start from an existing A8 game. If a game is good enough on the A8, no point in touching it. If it's no good, better start from scratch.
 

Maybe something around those years ?

 

On 2/16/2022 at 12:53 AM, xxl said:

I'm still hoping that this will be a game for real Atari hardware, and not some craft machine

 

---

and not Shadow of the Beast because it is a super boring game - more interesting is Jet set Willy

It'd be stock A8 of course because that's the machine I grew up with!

The A8 JetSetWilly port is pretty nice already ?
 

On 2/16/2022 at 12:17 PM, DjayBee said:

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tales-of-dragons-and-cavemen_5249.html

 

I was just about to start work on that one, thanks for saving me a bunch of work ?

 

17 hours ago, snicklin said:

Pacmania on the A8 would be great.

Interesting choice, a little complicated in terms of colors though... potentially all ghosts, pacman and the background can be on the same scanlines! It would look just like the original ?
 

15 hours ago, Jacques said:

I for one can't stop dreaming of Silk Worm, it's an outstanding vertical shooter (incredible on Amiga, very good on C64), for me personally much more tempting than R-Type alike "cosmic" shooters.

There was an attempt made by @Eagle about 10 years ago, but in 2019 he admitted it would require complete rewrite with new approach (the chances seem slim for it to happen, I guess).

 

This one would be less difficult technically, it's a fairly decent game too... Would be a good addition to the A8 library for sure but it doesn't have that spark though.

 

That demo had potential...
 

13 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

It would be great to see something seemingly impossible like stun runner being done on the Atari. Maybe using techniques similar to yoomp and stunt car racer. 

Ouch, vaguely remember that one, doesn't seem too great, and hopelessly impossible !

 

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

Love to see the A8 do The Untouchables which I played in the early 90s and recall with fond memories. Loved the mixed genres of gameplay in the levels. 

 

Those are best played with a mouse, not too many people have one on the A8. Paddle based games would be a slightly more mainstream alternative.

 

[rensoup]

The choices are -mostly- Arcade, Nes, and perhaps C64/BBC.

Nes and C64 are both 6502 so the path for a port would be:

 

-> very basic Nes/C64 emulation to get the targeted game to run -> port to A8/ optimize. The Nes is more difficult because of the increased resolution.

 

For arcade, it's more complicated, most machines before 85/86 are z80 based (multiple ones) and higher resolution:

 

-> very basic arcade emulation (using Mame as a guide) -> conversion to high level language(*) -> conversion to 6502/ port to A8

(*) that step is required for higher level optimization, otherwise there's no way to maintain a good frame rate

 

[snicklin]

7 hours ago, rensoup said:

Interesting choice, a little complicated in terms of colors though... potentially all ghosts, pacman and the background can be on the same scanlines! It would look just like the original ?

Yes, it would be complicated if you wanted to keep all the colours, but the ghosts could be dithered to show other "colours". The main thing would be getting the gameplay the same. It's a great arcade game that we're missing. Jose Pereira took a look into this game a few years back (maybe 10?) and saw that the occlusion of the ghosts/pacman in certain situations would make it difficult. However I can see that you have the skills to overcome this issue, from what I have seen in Prince of Persia.

[emkay]

After "Final Assault", I'm pretty sure, any car racing game can run fluently at the resolution of 80x80 

C64 games usually run at 40x20 at game resoulution and only at 4-12 fps.

The "3D" environment runs flawless at 25 fps with 80x80 "game resolution". 

Doing the same on the Atari, a 2 scanline Charactermode ... every game is possible...

 

[Poison]

Atari needs: Renegade, Golden Axe, Robocop, R-Type, Double Dragon

[Goochman]

I throw a couple more suggestions out of left field from the ST world:

Starglider

Artic Fox

 

[rdefabri]

Kung Fu Master?

Impossible Mission?

Maniac Mansion?

 

Someone here ported Biscuits From Hell, what a fun game that is, glad it was done!

[Synthpopalooza]

1 hour ago, rdefabri said:

Kung Fu Master?

Impossible Mission?

Maniac Mansion?

 

Someone here ported Biscuits From Hell, what a fun game that is, glad it was done!

If KFM, then I have the music done already.  It just needs the game. 

[pseudografx]

7 hours ago, Synthpopalooza said:

If KFM, then I have the music done already.  It just needs the game. 

Yey, so it's pretty much finished!

[Kyle22]

There was a device called "The Rat" It was a mouse w/ a heavy metal ball.

It works on the Pot pins on the Joystick port.

 

I love it because you don't need PoKey timers or any code taking up CPU time to read the POTs. Just PEEK PoKey register for the vertical + horizontal of the POTs.

 

 

 

[Schnurrikowski]

On 2/19/2022 at 2:09 AM, rensoup said:

I was just about to start work on that one, thanks for saving me a bunch of work ?

 

Roc'n Rope: I think it's not what I would call an optimal conversion as graphics is stripped down considerrably and some parts are missing completely (spinning wheel AFAIR).

[TIX]

.

 

Edited February 21, 2022 by TIX

[Kyle22]

No offense, I was only pointing out that the POTs are Free to read. PEEK them anytime you want and find the location of the mouse.

 

This would be only analog RAT devices.

 

The RAT would have been a big seller BITD if people understood it. (IMHO).

 

Faster than gray code decoding.

 

Could this be of help?

 

[Rybags]

Does it give a delta value?  Or values that just wrap around?

Though wraparound would probably be hard - you'd need to be able to produce precise values.  Maybe just using a subset of the overall values would work better then get the user to run a calibration procedure.

[Kyle22]

It's the exact same thing as paddles.

[Rybags]

Can't be.  Paddles have a finite range of movement, a normal mouse doesn't.

So it'd either have what I mentioned otherwise you'd just hit 0 or 227 and be stuck there and the only option would be to go back.

[Irgendwer]

4 hours ago, Rybags said:

So it'd either have what I mentioned otherwise you'd just hit 0 or 227 and be stuck there and the only option would be to go back.

CMI08 supports both (starting over when border is reached - which can be detected reliable with a quite relaxed sampling scheme).

 

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/134949-advance-orders-for-cmi08-ps2-mouse-interface/

 

Edited February 23, 2022 by Irgendwer

[Kyle22]

Sure. it is 0-227. the heavy steel mouse ball slips against the pot shafts when they're at min or max range. Pick up the mouse and reposition it. You'll get used to it.

Think outside the box.

 

[Rybags]

Does it spring back to centre or something when picked up?

[Beeblebrox]

Discovered this old 1990s DOS game. Apparently nice puzzle elements to it and by all accounts a much underrated game.

 

Isometric - poss lends itself to A8 on that basis.

 

In the right hands some clever use of colours and also some great animation might make this a possible contender if the interest were there/it felt like a worthwhile challenge. 

 

 

 

[rensoup]

On 2/19/2022 at 10:37 AM, snicklin said:

Yes, it would be complicated if you wanted to keep all the colours, but the ghosts could be dithered to show other "colours". 

Not sure why you'd use dithering on the ghosts when PMGs are perfectly fit for the job... In fact there's no other possible use for them in Pacmania except the fruit bonus. This leaves you with 4/5 colors for the level, the pills and pacman. Seems tricky to make it look good.
Just have look at the updated STe version (not the original ST one), it looks decent with 16 colors and twice the resolution.

The occlusion is wouldn't be the trickiest part.
 

On 2/19/2022 at 2:32 PM, emkay said:

The "3D" environment runs flawless at 25 fps with 80x80 "game resolution". 

Doing the same on the Atari, a 2 scanline Charactermode ... every game is possible...

Don't care much for 3D on the A8 beyond wireframe because the resolution or frame rate takes a hit.

 

On 2/19/2022 at 4:36 PM, Poison said:

Atari needs: Renegade, Golden Axe, Robocop, R-Type, Double Dragon

Agreed on some of those ?

 

On 2/19/2022 at 5:51 PM, Goochman said:

I throw a couple more suggestions out of left field from the ST world:

Starglider

Artic Fox

 

Starglider has that nostalgia factor because of the wireframe mode although not a very good game...

 

On 2/20/2022 at 5:53 PM, rdefabri said:

Kung Fu Master?

Impossible Mission?

Maniac Mansion?

KFM is one of my favorite games ever . It's also really demanding for an A8... it would be impossible to get it to run nicely even with 128KB of RAM. Perhaps with 64KB and a 512KB ROM.

No 8bit version does the arcade justice. The Nes version seems ok though.

 

If it doesn't play like KFM, it shouldn't be named KFM.

 

In other news, SCUMM on the ST, running MI1&2 and Indiana Jones http://www.happydaze.se/scummvm-lite-atari/

Looking pretty good for 16 colors but requires huge amounts of RAM and a fast CPU.

 

On 2/20/2022 at 7:10 PM, Synthpopalooza said:

If KFM, then I have the music done already.  It just needs the game. 

And it sound really good, It's the kind of stuff that's motivating!

 

(doesn't mean I'm ready to tackle that challenge ?) 

 

[snicklin]

2 minutes ago, rensoup said:

Not sure why you'd use dithering on the ghosts when PMGs are perfectly fit for the job... In fact there's no other possible use for them in Pacmania except the fruit bonus. This leaves you with 4/5 colors for the level, the pills and pacman. Seems tricky to make it look good.
Just have look at the updated STe version (not the original ST one), it looks decent with 16 colors and twice the resolution.

I think that Pacmania has 5 different coloured ghosts (and then Pac-man) making a total of 6 colours required. Also, are the fruits going to use PMG's? Unless you flicker the PMG's??

 

So I was thinking that you would could interpolate 2 normal colours (non-PMG's) to get another colour, maybe for the green ghost for example.

 

It would be tricky, yes and it wouldn't look as good as the 16-bit machines, but it would be a good achievement for the Atari 8-bit.

 

It's OK, I can tell you're not keen on this project, I won't push it!

 

How about a brand new game? The A8 really needs a decent pinball game, something inspired by (but not reproducing) Pinball Dreams on the A8, with realistic ball movement.

[rensoup]

2 hours ago, snicklin said:

think that Pacmania has 5 different coloured ghosts (and then Pac-man) making a total of 6 colours required. Also, are the fruits going to use PMG's? Unless you flicker the PMG's??

If you used 4 PMGs for ghosts and had less than 4 of them on the same Y coordinate, no flickering would be required. If 5 of them were chasing you on the same Y, flickering would be required of course.

 

Interpolating colors can look so so on the A8, just because of the coarse horizontal resolution. On top of that the levels use different palettes so it'd be tricky to get consistent extra colors.

 

It's about picking the right battles too... if there was an opportunity to make it look really cool, it would be worth considering...

 

...along with KFM, GnG, RType,...