Albert - new colorful game for Atari

[_The Doctor__]

why do you feel compelled to speak for someone you don't know, and ascribe demands to people? The author already said he's going to do something for us, why do you want to discourage him then? We're talking in general at this point... and people have already made it so it works on NTSC by simply by-passing the check, half PAL machines formally locked out now play the game perfectly... as well as replacement modified chip machines, antix user, remakes, the like...

 

so again panties in twist... buck up buttercup... the fixes are coming... It's already great for people who have PAL machines using other chips and solutions.. I love people becoming the defenders of the universe over stuff though. I found your response to my post more off putting in that you suggest people won't code for the Atari because folks talk about and debate stuff. Most of the people will contact us and have us play test and point out what needs fixing, and they are very happy to do it. They want their creation to be enjoyed by as many people as possible. At lest that's been my experience. If you don't speak up and do something you get nothing. I guess we could all find a way to convert as many Atari's as possible, but our friends over seas might not be able to repair their pal machines if we eat up all the parts and chips they need to do so... and I guess we all can buy PAL CRT's, monitors and such... but they are also in short supply.. if we were to do what you demand converting extra Ataris to pal, although you assume everyone has multiple Atari to do so...

I'd say that's all beyond presumptuous. But hey that's just me interpreting you the same way you interpret me..

Edited February 17, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[adam242]

40 minutes ago, TheNameOfTheGame said:

Well, that's why I put a PAL Antic in my 130XE.  Maybe that is not the most best way, but it usually works for me.  Do I need to buy a PAL 130XE and have it shipped overseas now with all the problems the carriers are having?  I hope not lol.

 

THIS^

 

It works nearly all the time, unless the programmer chooses to check the internal PAL register and abort the program, usually with some obnoxious "No game for you!" message.

 

Code your game, demo, whatever.. optimize it for PAL if you wish, but please don't code it to not even TRY to run on an NTSC or ANTIC-swapped Atari. I'm not asking for NTSC palette optimization or anything like that. Just let it do what it's going to do without artificially crashing.

Edited February 17, 2021 by adam242

[tjlazer]

Us yanks really do appreciate the NTSC fixed games and hacks! Thank you and keep up the good work!!!!

[BIGHMW]

5 hours ago, Gunstar said:

I've known of Cygnus X1 since I got my first Atari UK pirated software in the 90's. Though I always thought it was more of a rip-off of Sega's Buck Rogers than Stealth. I enjoy a game of it occasionally, just because it's so unique to have background graphics in APAC mode. But it was always a bit dull looking due to the alternating color and grey-scale "scan lines." That washed-out color has been just a distant memory ever since I did the SV 2.1 video upgrade, 1200XL edition, with the fixed chroma boost circuit. And, of course, interlaced or RGB rapid page-flipping 256 and 4096 color modes and all standard graphics are much more vibrant. I'm still waiting on a replacement Sophia 2 to see it's RGB and DVI color facilities in person on my 800.

Download for Cygnus X1 from AtariMania.com right here:  

 

 

Cygnus_X1.zip

[BIGHMW]

8 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

 

 

 

?

 

I know the first one depicted is Rainbow Walker and the last one is Cygnus X1 but what is the second one, and can you give us a link to it, thanks!  

 

EDIT: never mind the second game is Timeslip.

Edited February 17, 2021 by BIGHMW
found out what the second game was - Timeslip

[BIGHMW]

BTW, I just checked my Cygnus X1 and noticed it's a .cas file, can someone perhaps please convert it to either .xex, .rom, or .car so we multicart (Ultimate Cart owner on a XEGS) users can perhaps give her a spin? Thanks!  

 

EDIT never mind found her already!  

Cygnus X1.xex

Edited February 17, 2021 by BIGHMW
UPDATE

[BIGHMW]

8 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

 

 

 

?

 

All three ROMs for all 3 games.

 

The top one is Rainbow Walker, the middle one is Timeslip and the bottom one is Cygnus X1 (I Googled the second one, Timeslip, using the keywords Atari, XE, and Orbs)

 

Rainbow Walker.xex Timeslip.xex Cygnus X1.xex

[emkay]

8 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

 

 

 

?

 

Of them, only Rainbow Walker uses the colors active on the screen for the gameplay. 

 

 

But you really put them into one pot ? Interesting. 

Cygnus X1 isn't even sharing the range of higher density DLIs with the gameplay. It's all static. 

 

The DLI handling in "Albert" is like a separated game engine. 

Seems every scanline several register were to change for the objects in front, and the parallax color background moves at an own vertical speed. 

See the problem? Why do I have to explain this to an atari coder?

 

[Irgendwer]

4 hours ago, emkay said:

See the problem? Why do I have to explain this to an atari coder?

Because you have other priorities than I have.

You focus on presentation while I focus on content.

 

When you experiment with Pokey you try to squeeze out new sounds while I put emphasis on notes/melody/accompany.

 

Albert is a very colorful game with an outstanding presentation and graphics. First, I was also thinking this is VBXE.

I appreciate the effort and hope it motivates others to stick to these high standards - but it doesn't help the essence of the game, which I find quite boring.

I find a round of Timeslip or Rainbow-Walker much more interesting and many other games which are not so elaborated graphic-wise too.

 

I would always favor an interesting but dull looking game compared to an interesting looking but dull game.

Compare this to "Chuckie Egg", which has a similar goal game play wise and decide which game makes more fun and where you would spend another round.

 

I've said this before but once again: My time for A8 gaming is in competition to PC gaming. If I would put emphasis on presentation a PC game would always win my attention.

You complained that "Disc 'o Pop" is missing colors etc. but this just shows, that you don't understand my goal: More colors, better resolution and sound wouldn't really help to make a better game of "Eckn", "dye" and "Disc 'o Pop".

 

If you like to have an example where interesting game play meets high presentation standards I would mention "Ridiculous Reality" again, but having a look, the boilerplate flash game "Continuity" has a much more reduced presentation and I find nothing wrong with that, as the gaming fun isn't affected...

Edited February 17, 2021 by Irgendwer

[zbyti]

3 minutes ago, Irgendwer said:

Because you have other priorities than I have.

You focus on presentation while I focus on content.

A man of my kind :]

[Gury]

I read the article about the game on http://atarionline.pl/, because I was really interested in programming techniques used to develop a game.

From reading I understand it was actually an experiment of what can be accomplished with DLIs and other techniques. Author started the project in Mad Pascal, as he wanted to see the limits to where it can be pushed before jumping to assembly.

 

Great game!

And hats off to all other members, contributing to this project. Kaz made great drawings.

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Gury

[Sikor]

16 hours ago, +Adam+ said:

Sikor, I don't see such declaration there. Like Ilmenit wrote just before your post, Kski (the coder) declared improved controls and better NTSC check.

 

And in his latest comment (so far), Kski wrote that he would have to get rid of music, some Albert colours and ladders to make it work in NTSC - or make other changes that would make Albert a different game.

Yes, he wrote later that it was some problems with it. I red atarionline.pl from time to time.

[emkay]

3 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

Because you have other priorities than I have.

You focus on presentation while I focus on content.

 

 

If you want to misunderstand things, it't up to you.

I wrote it in slightly different words, but the colors (and the mechanism) in this game add very well to the content. 

It's not just the presentation.

[Irgendwer]

41 minutes ago, emkay said:

It's not just the presentation.

So when are the colors or the parallax effect are necessary to achieve the goal of the game?

It's like with Nintendo's 3DS, the 3D effect is nice, but AFAIK no game was ever released to make use of it beside eye candy (to have a working 2DS game too).

 

Edited February 17, 2021 by Irgendwer

[emkay]

4 minutes ago, Irgendwer said:

So when are the colors or the parallax effect are necessary to achieve the goal of the game?

It's like with Nintendo's 3DS, the 3D effect is nice, but AFAIK no game was ever released to make use of it beside eye candy (to have a working 2DS game too).

 

Actually , you also could do the game without any scolling. So the scrolling not needed for the gameplay itself. 

Does it make sense?

[Irgendwer]

7 minutes ago, emkay said:

Does it make sense?

Sure, if you can downscale the whole scene and preserve object ratios and the play-ability doesn't suffer due to tiny objects, this makes totally sense.

Am even not sure that in Albert the mechanics suffer from scrolling and the two speeds of movement, while a platform somewhat "surprisingly" appears.

[emkay]

1 hour ago, Irgendwer said:

Sure, if you can downscale the whole scene and preserve object ratios and the play-ability doesn't suffer due to tiny objects, this makes totally sense.

Am even not sure that in Albert the mechanics suffer from scrolling and the two speeds of movement, while a platform somewhat "surprisingly" appears.

On other platforms with weaker graphics, it's common to stop the game while some scrolling is happening. So it might result in a different strategy for playing this game. 

But, on the other hand, what are you trying to say here?

The game is build to use as much colors as possible to act perfectly  to the game mechanics. 

My statement was about that. There is no other game handling that much colors that perfect for adding to the gameplay. 

And you post stuff like Cygnus X1 . This game is particulary a weak game with a lot of static colors - So YOU posted a screenshot of a game that is 96% presentation and 4% gameplay to compare it to "Albert" ?

[_The Doctor__]

I like Albert... it's really nice, and remember it wasn't going to be game.... and now it is. I think it was a great Valentine to AA. I give it a thumbs up.

[Irgendwer]

7 minutes ago, emkay said:

So it might result in a different strategy for playing this game. 

Seeing drawbacks as advantages is fanboyism.

 

8 minutes ago, emkay said:

And you post stuff like Cygnus X1 . This game is particulary a weak game with a lot of static colors - So YOU posted a screenshot of a game that is 96% presentation and 4% gameplay to compare it to "Albert" ?

Where did I wrote that Cygnus is a good game?

And what would be your presentation/gameplay ratio for "Albert" and "Chuckie Egg"?

 

A good game, where the use of colors actually supports the game play would be "RGB" f.e. - I remember you liked that too...

 

But like said, I appreciate the production and the effort of "Albert", but there is no way inserting this game in my personal top 100 - only based on the looks.

[Level42]

It’s actually a very fun game. The level design is quite challenging and differing.I think I underestimated it at first.

So far it has the “one more try” factor which is so important......it’s  addictive and not only insanely beautiful looking. Because that it is, pure eye candy and I can’t believe that they pulled this from our beloved 70s technology box...

(I appreciate games like Disc’o pop just as much by the way).

 

I’m at Level 13 now.

 

I discovered  that you can pause the game by pushing the space bar and if you then move the joystick the screen scrolls around following the stick, making it possible to “see ahead” if you need. I didn’t really need it in gameplay yet though...but it might help to see where you have to jump to next...so far I guesstimated the location of yet unknown platforms...

 

the fact that the “remaining gems” counter has three digits promises some big levels up ahead....

 

 

[Gunstar]

On 2/16/2021 at 1:09 AM, Level42 said:

This is so funny as I can't stand playing the vast majority of games (the pre 1987 ones I guess) on PAL anymore. Being from The Netherlands, I grew up using PAL A8 machines and never knew better, but once I discovered the NTSC speed, I never wanted to go back. I only switch to PAL ANTIC when really needed, like with these more recent games and demos.

It's not only the speed increase with NTSC by the way. Many older games only produce the correct colors on NTSC (Pac Man f.i.), but there's also 60Hz which greatly reduces flicker (let's say it eliminates it) and you get the correct aspect ratio as it was intended by the A8 developers. 

The difference is and the reason I choose PAL on all my machines instead of having both NTSC and PAL is that the vast majority of NTSC software plays fine on PAL, with only minor speed, tempo or color issues, the reverse is most definitely not true; there are hundreds of PAL games that just won't work at all or very poorly with corruption and crashing when played on NTSC machines. I choose PAL because of a much, much larger library of software available to use of both PAL and NTSC. I'm willing to live with the comparatively trivial downsides to PAL.

[Level42]

Yeah I read your explanation earlier on.

 

what you call a “minor speed” issue is for my a huge difference.

 

to each his own, and I’m happy with my prototype AntiX so I have the best of both worlds in one machine ?

[emkay]

2 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

Seeing drawbacks as advantages is fanboyism.

 

So why do you equalize that?

 

2 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

 

Where did I wrote that Cygnus is a good game?

And what would be your presentation/gameplay ratio for "Albert" and "Chuckie Egg"?

 

Chuckie Egg is weird in movement and control of the protagonist, while in Albert things are fluent. This also can be reached without scrolling (Henry's House), but it is a far better gaming experience when scrolling happens. And the experience gets topped, if a lot colors move around, fitting to the graphics movement. 

 

2 hours ago, Irgendwer said:

A good game, where the use of colors actually supports the game play would be "RGB" f.e. - I remember you liked that too...

 

But like said, I appreciate the production and the effort of "Albert", but there is no way inserting this game in my personal top 100 - only based on the looks.

It should be on everyone's top 100 , because of the whole package. 

 

And, as I wrote above, the look has it's limits in possible gameplay, but this game is really an "Edge Grinder"  , as it is finally showing a peak of what's possible and was missing back then.

 

For now we have 3 games of that type.

 

Space Harrier

AtariBlast!

Albert

 

 

 

[+skr]

2 hours ago, Level42 said:

I’m at Level 13 now.

I´ll probably never see that. Level 08 is the end for me. I´m just not able to control Albert as I want to. All three control options are suffering fine control for me. Tried different sticks, but it keeps being a game of luck, and that gets boring quickly.

[Irgendwer]

1 hour ago, emkay said:

And, as I wrote above, the look has it's limits in possible gameplay, but this game is really an "Edge Grinder"  , as it is finally showing a peak of what's possible and was missing back then.

 

For now we have 3 games of that type.

 

Space Harrier

AtariBlast!

Albert

 

So huge and out-of-reach ROM carts were missing back then (1 MB). ?

Cannot even imagine which price tag the more memory conservative 128k Albert would have in the beginning 80's.

 

You could have mentioned Yoomp, which fits better to the standard setup.

Edited February 17, 2021 by Irgendwer