Steve Mynott Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 What's the best port of Space Invaders which most closely resembles the archive original? I was never keen on the original with the strange green rocket shape on the left. Is there a homebrew version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wrathchild Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 AtariMania: Shoot-em-up - Space Invaders Deluxe Invaders often gets good mentions Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 It's a lacking area. Pretty up the graphics and next we're changing gameplay elements and the resemblence is almost lost. What's needed is something that's close in gameplay and look. And if it's just monochrome with green shields then all the better. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Mynott Posted February 16, 2020 Author Share Posted February 16, 2020 While basically agreeing with Rybags I can see that Deluxe Invaders is very good. It's true to the original spirit and isn't too much of an upgrade. Apple Invaders looks very close to the original although it suffers from the usual "bit corruption" issue due to being an Apple port. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 224 x 256 resolution. It could be done in narrow mode 256 x 240 such that the AR is preserved and most of the display is present. Arcade uses about 32 lines for score/status stuff which we could condense down a bit to compensate for the less available vertical resolution. It also uses a scabby 2 MHz 8080 so a line by line translation would probably work without slowdown - though of course graphics mapping is probably different to a big degree. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 How about... - Space Invaders, the 5200 conversion (most-likely done by Glenn, the 5200 man) ?!? - Galactic Chase ? (Stedek, more like Galaxian) - Laser Strike ? (Stedek) - Atari Invaders (pre-release of Deluxe Invaders?) - Wavy Navy ? (more like Galaxian) - Space Blaster - Gorf ? (multiple games/levels, one level is like Space Invaders) - other Invaders There is also [Atari] BAS[ic] Invaders, but this one is awfully slow and always ends with an Error at line after some seconds (tried it with Atari Basic and after several tens of seconds got the error, tried it with Altirra Basic, now playing speed is better, but the error comes much sooner, with TB XL playing speed is good, but the error comes very soon)... maybe someone can fix this ?!? BASINVAD.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 4 hours ago, Steve Mynott said: While basically agreeing with Rybags I can see that Deluxe Invaders is very good. It's true to the original spirit and isn't too much of an upgrade. Apple Invaders looks very close to the original although it suffers from the usual "bit corruption" issue due to being an Apple port. I think Apple Invaders has the potential to be the best version but it needs the speed adjusting to slow down the single invader to make it playable, possibly the code runs fast as it is not processing all the other invaders... The single firing hacks of one of Atari or Deluxe or 5200 invaders (somewhere on the programming forum) also offer better gameplay - the others all suffer from just holding the button in and getting under the bottom row invaders. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 4 hours ago, CharlieChaplin said: How about... - Space Invaders, the 5200 conversion (most-likely done by Glenn, the 5200 man) ?!? - Galactic Chase ? (Stedek, more like Galaxian) - Laser Strike ? (Stedek) - Atari Invaders (pre-release of Deluxe Invaders?) - Wavy Navy ? (more like Galaxian) - Space Blaster - Gorf ? (multiple games/levels, one level is like Space Invaders) - other Invaders There is also [Atari] BAS[ic] Invaders, but this one is awfully slow and always ends with an Error at line after some seconds (tried it with Atari Basic and after several tens of seconds got the error, tried it with Altirra Basic, now playing speed is better, but the error comes much sooner, with TB XL playing speed is good, but the error comes very soon)... maybe someone can fix this ?!? BASINVAD.zip 21.57 kB · 4 downloads Pretty cool version! Pity it ends with error and the shooting is pretty laggy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Yep, Deluxe Invaders. There is a broken .xex version out there that has a screechy fire sound.. beware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 We need a version that looks something like this. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Should P/M a saucer in there too... 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 Yeah, something like that. And have options for full mono and varying levels of cellophane overlay. The backdrop as done by mirrors could be done as a VBXE static backdrop (also switchable) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 16, 2020 Share Posted February 16, 2020 37 minutes ago, MrFish said: Should P/M a saucer in there too... Please make than for fjc's GUI Screw Solitare as the built in game, this is what we need. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 Problem is, it needs all the vertical res it can get, and really there's no benefit to be had running it in a GUI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 (edited) And it needs the 'counting' feature where you can shoot a number of shots which guarantee's a 300 saucer every time that the original has Edited February 17, 2020 by Mclaneinc spalling 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+therealbountybob Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 This one has a good feel to it "Space Invaders Edition 2008" by STJack, but the gameplay needs more work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bandit Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 On 2/16/2020 at 2:22 PM, MrFish said: Should P/M a saucer in there too... That is close to the TI-Invaders, which is a good port. I do like deluxe invaders on atari best. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 17, 2020 Share Posted February 17, 2020 I tried the 2008 one in various configs and it crashes every time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CharlieChaplin Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Try the [a] alternative version - boot it without Basic and it should present a menu. Looks like this is written in (uncompiled?) Advan Basic. In the menu press A to load the game... The other ATR does not work, but it contains a dir. and files accessable from DOS 2, the CAS and COD files were most likely extracted from this ATR (the CAS file is NOT a PC generated .CAS file with typical Fuji header)... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) 19 hours ago, Rybags said: Problem is, it needs all the vertical res it can get, and really there's no benefit to be had running it in a GUI. There's only 200 pixels height in the GUI; but I really see that as no problem. Space Invaders is a perfect candidate for pushing the data sections off to the side. With that, there'd still be enough room for a game menu (hidden during game play), while maintaining all the exact arcade vertical spacings -- which is not the case for the 100% vertical layout I did above. "No benefits to be had running it in a GUI"? I guess you mean no advantage over what could be accomplished graphically in a non-GUI version, with full control over the screen, DLI's, etc. (like I was demonstrating above); agreed there; but, they'll be plenty of other benefits to having games available in the GUI, such as multitasking (paused game in the background waiting), standardized menus and dialogue boxes (for options, etc.), mouse control (for menus and dialogues, etc.)... and hi-res games are an obvious prime target. Edited February 18, 2020 by MrFish 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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