Kyle22 Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 I know this is a long shot. Question: Has anyone thought about porting Earthworm Jim to the A8? This is a big game, so it would require hard disk, etc. But: My question is Is this do-able at all? Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 To do it justice I'd have thought there are just too many frames of animation to be viable, the game is all about the crazy characters as well as the game itself, a stick with 2 eyes on it isn't great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfollowell Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 While I love our 8-bits, I believe that a game like Earthworm Jim would definitely be out of the capabilities of our machines without some major upgrades like a VBXE and a Rapidus. Even then, that's too new a game to hope to make it through development without Activision catching wind of it and slapping down a cease and desist order. That's just my opinion though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 10 hours ago, Kyle22 said: I know this is a long shot. Question: Has anyone thought about porting Earthworm Jim to the A8? This is a big game, so it would require hard disk, etc. But: My question is Is this do-able at all? Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Might as well start with a system closer to ours for comparison - look how crappy the Master System conversion was - and that machine is way more powerful (10Mhz custom Sega VDP) than an A8. It can put 64 hardware sprites on screen and addresses unto 4MB of cart space! sTeVE 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StickJock Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 4 hours ago, bfollowell said: Even then, that's too new a game to hope to make it through development without Activision catching wind of it and slapping down a cease and desist order. Maybe make Lumbricus Terrestris James instead? ? 1 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 There's a Gameboy version of the game. Doesn't look too bad to me. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Shame I wanted to strangle the person playing it Zelda on the GB, proper handheld magic.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 16 hours ago, Kyle22 said: I know this is a long shot. Question: Has anyone thought about porting Earthworm Jim to the A8? This is a big game, so it would require hard disk, etc. But: My question is Is this do-able at all? Thoughts? Ideas? Comments? Depends on what you expect. The Gameboy version has already been mentioned. The game doesn't have too much moving objects on a screen at the same time. There is a "unwritten" limit of up to 6 small "software sprites" in Mode E , and depending on the size of the moving objects, Antic D would be the 1st choice there. The moving objects wouldn't reach the limits there, and a lot of funny software sprites including the needed animations would be fast enough. Fluent animations do better to that game than a higher resolution. The Atari can fill an Antic D screen two times per frame. Possibly, with some preshifting, 50 or even 60 fps were possible. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam1977 Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 Go for it emkay ? 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Here's about what the Gameboy graphics would look like converted over to the Atari in Antic D. I added some PM's to enhance a little bit. I also pulled the main sprite from Earthworm Jim 2 on the Gameboy Color; because I think it looks a little cleaner. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 35 minutes ago, MrFish said: Antic D OMG - you know who will be triggered. All things are possible when he gets the D. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 22 minutes ago, Stephen said: OMG - you know who will be triggered. All things are possible when he gets the D. Haha... well, sometimes Antic D is the right choice. The GameBoy uses square pixels at 160 width. So, aside from the benefit of providing more speed on the Atari (than Antic E), all graphics can be converted directly without any editing, by using Antic D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 hours ago, MrFish said: Haha... well, sometimes Antic D is the right choice. The GameBoy uses square pixels at 160 width. So, aside from the benefit of providing more speed on the Atari (than Antic E), all graphics can be converted directly without any editing, by using Antic D. If they only knewed which of their beloved games use Antic D , would they be shocked or embarassed? Antic D is really like clocking the CPU faster. So Antic D is needed when faster CPU speed is recommended. Looking at Prince of Persia, all 8 bits who have a fully working sprite hardware built in, could do smooth animations up to 50 or 60 Hz. There are two limits that were set. 1) The resolution , also the available pixels for a single moving object, makes too much animation speed useless. 2) Saving RAM to have a game on a single disk or running insider 64K. It's the luckily used balancing of the original game that makes the Atari version looking that impressive. But that doesn't work on games with superfluent animations and scrolling background. Everything else than Antic D is not possible then. OK, if people like to stare on still images, Rastaconverter might bring better results. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Earthworm Jim on A8 would be real longshot, I can't imagine it personally unless there's lot of simplification so it's more about the same title, than the same game. On the other hand Super Mario Bros would do - C64 has it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 hours ago, MrFish said: Haha... well, sometimes Antic D is the right choice. The GameBoy uses square pixels at 160 width. So, aside from the benefit of providing more speed on the Atari (than Antic E), all graphics can be converted directly without any editing, by using Antic D. One other thing to note here, is that the GameBoy's vertical resolution is 144 pixels. Antic D gives us 120; so it would makes some sense to lose a little "fat" when converting. The obvious place to hit is the over-sized info panel, which is 16 pixels tall. Cutting it in half would give us 8 of the 24 pixels we lack. Another idea would be to take off the whole 16, by having a "floating", all-P/M, info panel. Either way, the vertical view gets a little clipped. The other alternative would be to scale things just a bit; but that'd be a lot of work, with as many animation frames and graphics needed. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) I still say that the whole 'cute' of EJ is that there's tons of frames of animation on the character, without that I think it stops be EJ and just a generic platformer.. I love the idea of EJ being on our beloved Atari but if it has to be stripped out radically then it's just not EJ to me..It would be like trying to take one of David's other games, Aladdin and put it on the Atari, again it's the character animation and look that stands out, its true to the Disney ethic and as much as I love my Atari I don't want to see it be a joke.. Maybe I'm being too tough..Pass... Edited July 23, 2020 by Mclaneinc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 hours ago, MrFish said: One other thing to note here, is that the GameBoy's vertical resolution is 144 pixels. Antic D gives us 120; so it would makes some sense to lose a little "fat" when converting. The obvious place to hit is the over-sized info panel, which is 16 pixels tall. Cutting it in half would give us 8 of the 24 pixels we lack. Another idea would be to take off the whole 16, by having a "floating", all-P/M, info panel. Either way, the vertical view gets a little clipped. The other alternative would be to scale things just a bit; but that'd be a lot of work, with as many animation frames and graphics needed. The panel could be cropped completely. The PMg as an overlay would be sufficient. So only a little of the main screen would be lost. Other games drop 67% height, and people swear it looks like the original... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Irgendwer Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, MrFish said: The other alternative would be to scale things just a bit; but that'd be a lot of work, with as many animation frames and graphics needed. No hard work. Interleave Antic D and E to get 144 lines: Edited July 23, 2020 by Irgendwer 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacques Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 @emkay But comparing to GameBoy is comparing to what already dropped resolution, thus we speak of further simplification and reduction to the PC original. That way almost every game is doable, the question is percentage of original quality/playability left Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jetboot Jack Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) "PC original" - nope Genesis/Medgadrive original ? Have you played the gameboy version OMG it's horrific, very little of the magic of EWJ left in that! sTeVE Edited July 23, 2020 by Jetboot Jack Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, Irgendwer said: No hard work. Interleave Antic D and E to get 144 lines: Ah, yeah, I completely forgot about that technique; it's a great method to keep the original vertical pixel resolution in tact. The only thing is that you do get some vertical squishing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 2 hours ago, Jetboot Jack said: "PC original" - nope Genesis/Medgadrive original ? Have you played the gameboy version OMG it's horrific, very little of the magic of EWJ left in that! Yes, I was playing the GameBoy version yesterday, after having seen the video. I don't think it's bad at all. Can you be a little more specific as to what you find "horrific", and what "magic" you find lost that you feel keeps it from being a worthwhile conversion? Edited July 23, 2020 by MrFish Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, MrFish said: Yes, I was playing the GameBoy version yesterday, after having seen the video. I don't think it's bad at all. Can you be a little more specific as to what you find "horrific", and what "magic" you find lost that you feel keeps it from being a worthwhile conversion? Even if the game is "horrific" . Seeing it working on the A8 could end up at 50% gaming fun already. Particular because such games don't exist . Seems really hard to coders to just do the thing as is. There is no need for special color enhancements. Just put the 4 color screen to a game that is playable to the original game. As the vertical resolution is about 120 pixels, a 25 or 30 fps scrolling would be sufficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Here's an example of how floating, P/M info panels could look. The full 120 vertical pixels are available, but I've clipped it at something NTSC friendly. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted July 24, 2020 Author Share Posted July 24, 2020 I always had a hard time with the 'granny chair'. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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