Mockups (free for all)

[carlsson]

For those who don't yet have a "real" project but just want to play with some mockups, I was looking for an existing thread but didn't quite find one and didn't want to clutter down @cmadruga's thread more than required.

 

So here is an awfully crude mockup of a game I might try to program one day. The orange crosses should really be flashing rhombs. I had to make Rockin' Rodney a 8x16 sprite in half vertical resolution rather than a 8x8 sprite in order to not look like a poor man's Zool. No promises this will turn into a real game any time soon.

 

 

Feel free to add your tests and mockups!

Edited February 26, 2020 by carlsson

[Zendocon]

Interesting.  My first thought was "SameGame meets Boulder Dash."

[+cmadruga]

8 hours ago, carlsson said:

For those who don't yet have a "real" project but just want to play with some mockups, I was looking for an existing thread but didn't quite find one and didn't want to clutter down @cmadruga's thread more than required.

 

So here is an awfully crude mockup of a game I might try to program one day. The orange crosses should really be flashing rhombs. I had to make Rockin' Rodney a 8x16 sprite in half vertical resolution rather than a 8x8 sprite in order to not look like a poor man's Zool. No promises this will turn into a real game any time soon.

 

 

Feel free to add your tests and mockups!

So how would you play this game?

[carlsson]

A video says more than 1000 words (and yes, it would be yet another port, not an original design).

 

 

[+cmadruga]

Pretty unique game! Great use of the SID ?

 

[+Black_Tiger]

I've been working on a bunch of mockups in my spare time for a while now. I always end up starting something new before getting one complete enough to feel comfortable to post, but I'll show one of my first ones here.

 

I love Donkey Kong 3 and always wanted a version for Intellivision. After trying to adapt Donkey Kong himself, I found that the most effective way was to use background cards and a line art style. He can look and feel very animated this way without using too many frames/cards. I thought that the spay can shots should be multiplexed because the translucency effects suits it. Flowers would be multiplexed sprites once they're picked up.

 

After that if there's ever an excessive number of enemies they could begin to flicker as well. But the idea was that everything would be re-balanced for what best suits these proportions. So maybe fewer enemies onscreen at once, but they come out more frequently. Maybe they spend more time moving horizontally, etc.

 

The player uses 3 sprites/MOBs. The bugs each use a single sprite.

 

The visual design of the arcade original means that there should be plenty of available cards to animate Donkey Kong, although he doesn't need that much. He'd move up and down just by shifting cards one space at a time. I figured that expression and limb animations taking place while he takes longer to shift vertically would keep it from looking too rough and he moves in spurts in the arcade version anyway.

 

I was waiting until all of the pixelart was complete before posting, so I could make some animated gifs showing how Donkey Kong works. The bugs also don't resemble the originals in still frames, but would make more sense animated. Even just using your imagination, I think that this at least shows how the game isn't too complex to pull off one way or another on Intellivision.

 

 

 

 

 

[+cmadruga]

Very nice. One idea could be to use a zoomed sprite to help emphasize his facial expressions? Like a white sprite that would fill his eyes and teeth?

Edited March 1, 2020 by cmadruga

[carlsson]

So I've got this question for a while if the Intellivision world would be ready for some adult oriented games... Yes, I am wasting 4 sprites on the ugly face.

 

 

Edited May 27, 2020 by carlsson

[carlsson]

I'm no graphics artist, but for being a conversion from C64 it isn't entirely awful.

 

 

[Sinjinhawke]

3 hours ago, carlsson said:

I'm no graphics artist, but for being a conversion from C64 it isn't entirely awful.

 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Which Atari-Age user was the model for this?

[carlsson]

Someone from New Zeeland, about 35 years ago.

 

Edit: And here's a ROM for the naughty ones.

strip-poker.rom

Edited May 27, 2020 by carlsson

[YerOut]

On 5/24/2020 at 3:23 PM, carlsson said:

Yes, I am wasting 4 sprites on the ugly face.

 

 

  Hide contents

She has a face?  Oh yeah!  She does.

 

[+nanochess]

Given the mountains look good, a better face should be draw ?

[+nanochess]

My small effort for your impudic game

 

Feel free to use it

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited May 29, 2020 by nanochess

[carlsson]

Thanks. For the moment I have enough projects to go further with so this primarily was toying with whether one can fit a "bitmapped" image of sorts into a game, which of course has been done before but perhaps not this exact type of content. The day it goes real, I'm sure an even better graphician can come up with nice pics. For those who didn't pay attention, I converted these from the somewhat obscure Data Stream (NSFW but also NZ) game.

[+nanochess]

5 hours ago, carlsson said:

Thanks. For the moment I have enough projects to go further with so this primarily was toying with whether one can fit a "bitmapped" image of sorts into a game, which of course has been done before but perhaps not this exact type of content. The day it goes real, I'm sure an even better graphician can come up with nice pics. For those who didn't pay attention, I converted these from the somewhat obscure Data Stream (NSFW but also NZ) game.

Hahaha, that link somewhat compels me to do another try on the images!!!

 

 

[carlsson]

You could try the second lady, or the Artworx ones which though use even fewer colours so it takes some work separating foreground from background. Back in 2013, newcoleco released a ColecoVision game reusing MSX graphics but as we know, the 9918A has far better bitmapped possibilities than the STIC has (not to mention higher resolution).

 

But yeah, this is the source code so far:strip-poker.bas

Edited May 29, 2020 by carlsson

[+nanochess]

19 minutes ago, carlsson said:

You could try the second lady, or the Artworx ones which though use even fewer colours so it takes some work separating foreground from background. Back in 2013, newcoleco released a ColecoVision game reusing MSX graphics but as we know, the 9918A has far better bitmapped possibilities than the STIC has (not to mention higher resolution).

 

But yeah, this is the source code so far:strip-poker.bas

Hahaha I thought you had a game!

 

Now that compels me to write a poker game, never have written one.

 

Oh no! I shouldn't distract from work with mountains, I shouldn't distract from work with mountains

 

[carlsson]

That is why I posted in this mockups thread instead of opening a proper WIP thread. Same goes for the Jammin' mockup I posted earlier too.

 

Feel free if you want to make a proper strip poker game for the Intellivision, mountains or not. Perhaps it turns out she wears a very padded bra in the end.

[Kiwi]

Suggestion: She should put more clothes on the more we lose at Strip Poker.  She can put on sweater, moomoos, chainmail to full plate armor, football(US) along with the paddings uniform. It should put that Random Number Generator into good use. If you lose too much, she dies from overheating from wearing all that clothing. 

[RevEng]

On 5/24/2020 at 3:23 PM, carlsson said:

So I've got this question for a while if the Intellivision world would be ready for some adult oriented games... Yes, I am wasting 4 sprites on the ugly face.

I did a strip blackjack for the 2600 some time back. (apparently the 2600 world wasn't ready).

 

Any chance for you to use 30Hz flicker, for more picture detail? Of is it a question of rom constraints?

[carlsson]

From what I understand, the STIC can only be accessed at vertical blank. Also you have 64 GRAM characters which can be redefined, though max 16 per vertical blank. I'm not entirely sure if IntyBASIC is fast enough to redefine those 16 on every frame but even then that is only a fraction of the image which would flicker a lot.

 

Of course if you reduce the size of the actual picture - the most recent example uses 20 columns x 7 rows (out of a maximum 12 rows) - to an even smaller size like in the very first attempt I did, you can get more detail within those 64 GRAM characters. If you arrange them as 10x6 you get a full bitmap, though it will only cover 1/4 of the entire screen, plus the remaining 4 characters for the cards: hearts, diamonds, clubs, spades.

 

The Intellivision and Atari 2600 are pretty much diametrically different in how they're designed and how they work.

[RevEng]

My 2600 display manages pretty well with 6 characters wide, but 4 shades of grey through flicker. Of course, I have to go "tasteful" top-only pics, with such a small bitmap.  You might reduce the size further to get 2 frames in gram, but I'm thinking the flicker approach probably doesn't jibe well with the inty palette.

 

I like where you're going so far, with it. ?

[carlsson]

Yeah. Like I wrote above, I'm sure a real graphic artist would be able to use up to 60 GRAM symbols per stage, spread out on a 20x7 display to get even better pics. Though pretty much nobody would pay attention if she had moved her arm or tilted her head a little between stages, I kind of like the concept of the girl laying perfectly still in the same position but clothes magically disappearing, instead of moving into a new position for each stage. It also allows for some optimization, to only redefine the portions that change to save a little ROM. In real life though it would be quite a challenge even for the best of photographers to reposition the model into the exact same pose after removing one piece of clothing, which might be why newer implementations using high resolution photos tend to shift the model around for each stage.

 

Since I'm more of a musician than graphic artist or retro programmer really, perhaps I should give it a go to arrange something like The Stripper (as used in Samantha Fox Strip Poker). Or I could ask the famous pseudonym "John York".

Edited May 29, 2020 by carlsson

[RevEng]

16 minutes ago, carlsson said:

[...] I should give it a go to arrange something like The Stripper (as used in Samantha Fox Strip Poker) [...]

I had to look it up, but really I shouldn't have had to. Everybody of a certain age knows that song.

 

I like to "collect" cultural touchstone songs that everybody knows from media, but not many people know the name of. This one qualifies greatly, so I thank you. ?