Albert - new colorful game for Atari

[Mazzspeed]

People complaining about lag under emulators must have some serious hand/eye coordination. I'm so crap I can't notice the difference.

 

It's like the 'hardcore gamers' (does such a thing exist on the 8bit platform) claiming the OSSC is the greatest scaler ever as there's no frame buffer - Personally I can't notice the difference and prefer the crystal clear perfection of a digital output direct from the graphics chip.

[TGB1718]

1 hour ago, Mazzspeed said:

It's like the 'hardcore gamers' (does such a thing exist on the 8bit platform) claiming the OSSC is the greatest scaler ever as there's no frame buffer - Personally I can't notice the difference and prefer the crystal clear perfection of a digital output direct from the graphics chip.

I know what you mean, one of my son's has to have the latest graphics card/processor/memory and claims his games

look really great, but I play on-line games with a 6+ year old processor/memory and a now outdated (GTX1070) graphics

card and apart from the fact he can run at 100+ FPS and mine is about 90 FPS (which you really can't see) I don't notice

anything different (other than his bank balance keeps getting smaller  )

 

Edit: Sorry for brining PC's to this forum ?

Edited February 26, 2021 by TGB1718
Update

[+skr]

1 hour ago, Mazzspeed said:

People complaining about lag under emulators must have some serious hand/eye coordination.

For me it´s not about lag. I´m just not good with using the keyboard for controls. Never was.

With the new Classic Controller that comes with the Atari VCS800 I can play Albert in the Emulator (Atari800MacX, controller connected via bluetooth) as well as on the real machine. But I totally prefer the look of my CRT.

[zzip]

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

I know what you mean, one of my son's has to have the latest graphics card/processor/memory and claims his games

look really great, but I play on-line games with a 6+ year old processor/memory and a now outdated (GTX1070) graphics

card and apart from the fact he can run at 100+ FPS and mine is about 90 FPS (which you really can't see) I don't notice

anything different (other than his bank balance keeps getting smaller  )

 

I laugh at modern games comparisons when videos will put the game running on two platforms side by side, which generally look the same.    Then they will freeze the frames, zoom in and point at a shadow or something that has more detail on one of the platforms..   the kind of thing you will never notice while playing the game!

 

High-end graphics cards on PC are like that- yes they will render things in more detail,  but in many cases you won't notice.  People will see things to justify their investment.

[MARIO130XE]

Just my 2 cents... Okay... first: I don't want Emkay to step in, unasked, and tell me, he knows everything about the A8 hardware and only a GR mode 7 would make it possible ......... bla bla.... But ... isn't it possible to have games like Mayham in Monsterland or even Sam's Journey, when using this awesome and making coloful background graphics + lots of softsprites using - game engine? Okay, we havn't hires-sprites but we don't really need them, if we have such colourful and lovely painted low res and colorful soft sprites like in this game. I think it's all about itelligent leveldesign and soft-sprite-design.... Like I said.. just my 2 cent.... please NO another THREAD DESTROYING debate this time. 

 

 

Edited February 26, 2021 by MARIO130XE

[emkay]

55 minutes ago, MARIO130XE said:

Just my 2 cents... Okay... first: I don't want Emkay to step in, unasked, and tell me, he knows everything about the A8 hardware and only a GR mode 7 would make it possible ......... bla bla.... But ... isn't it possible to have games like Mayham in Monsterland or even Sam's Journey, when using this awesome and making coloful background graphics + lots of softsprites using - game engine? Okay, we havn't hires-sprites but we don't really need them, if we have such colourful and lovely painted low res and colorful soft sprites like in this game. I think it's all about itelligent leveldesign and soft-sprite-design.... Like I said.. just my 2 cent.... please NO another THREAD DESTROYING debate this time. 

 

 

 

Interesting. You want the answer but don't want the answer. 

 

[Mazzspeed]

7 hours ago, skr said:

For me it´s not about lag. I´m just not good with using the keyboard for controls. Never was.

With the new Classic Controller that comes with the Atari VCS800 I can play Albert in the Emulator (Atari800MacX, controller connected via bluetooth) as well as on the real machine. But I totally prefer the look of my CRT.

I'm hooked on 'Bunner' on my Raspberry Pi 400, it's like never ending Frogger where the screen caches up with you Micro Machine's style if you sit still too long. You use the arrow keys on the keyboard which makes things difficult, i tried to plug in a controller and it doesn't work.

 

I can appreciate your frustration.

 

[emkay]

7 hours ago, zzip said:

 

I laugh at modern games comparisons when videos will put the game running on two platforms side by side, which generally look the same.    Then they will freeze the frames, zoom in and point at a shadow or something that has more detail on one of the platforms..   the kind of thing you will never notice while playing the game!

 

High-end graphics cards on PC are like that- yes they will render things in more detail,  but in many cases you won't notice.  People will see things to justify their investment.

I get it the funny way, if people claim to see "Stairs" in Game Graphics, when they talk about full hd 1980x1080 pixels. That's why 4K is needed "at least" for gaming. 

And, what to say ? Yes, you see the difference between 1K and 8K, depending on the size of the display device and the viewing distance.

It's the same with static pictures and movement pictures. If the picture contains the "movement blur" , even 30 fps would be enough. If the picture is just a picture at every step, you might see enhancements for up to 144 updates per second. 

The real phyisical aspect is that "5000 fps" were as accurate as 50fps on a CRT.

[Irgendwer]

20 hours ago, MARIO130XE said:

But ... isn't it possible to have games like Mayham in Monsterland or even Sam's Journey, when using this awesome and making coloful background graphics + lots of softsprites using - game engine?

Albert is very well "constructed" around the A8 limitations. The level and baddies movement design have not a great degree of freedom to change that.

You will either lose the colorfulness when moving things more freely or introduce color clashes/changes, while an object crosses a vertical color range. Or you stick to the quite limited movement patterns Albert already supports.

Both titles you've mentioned make good use of the sprites and color-ram of the C64. (And then we haven't even discussed CPU/memory limits for soft-sprite design.)

 

What Albert really shows is, that you can create a much better presentation, if you design something respecting the spec/strength of the machine.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Irgendwer

[Kaz atarionline.pl]

On 2/26/2021 at 1:03 PM, Philsan said:

Programmer wrote is working on Albert II. I would wait and release boxed version of Albert II.

True, however "Albert II" is a completely different game than "Albert". It is the continuation of the story, technically a different engine, more possibilities, fewer limitations, etc.

[MARIO130XE]

I gave it a lot of thought. Should I share my (very personal) opinion? Or should I leave it as my secret and save the current situation? ?

 

Maybe I was not exactly enough. I don't want to play Mayham or Sam's on the Atari 8bit. If I want to play those games, I could play the original version on my C64 or mini. All I think is, we could have much more GREAT and BEAUTIFUL scrolling platformer or scrolling jump 'n run games on the A8. Even if XXL, the 'stock machines fan and blessed 6502 coder' want to make such a game... the 130xe should have enough of ram to store lots of charsets and even reloading the next level charset next world charset is possible. Just a clever level-design and charset-design would make great games. The game-engines are already done. Take a look at Little-Princess-Demo for example. Also a great demonstration of clever charset, sprite and leveldesign. So, what we need are artists that could deal with the limits of our machines. Dimo's Dungeon, Running Bear, Albert, Crownland .. that's all great examples of scrolling and colorful platformer or jump n runs. 

BTW-Little anecdote: Does anyone know, why the clouds in Super Mario Bros look the same as the bushes, and just having a different color? Because there was not enough RAM for more CHARSET. Today all developers would have a laugh about it and most of the modern NES Games have a lot lot more CHARSETs than it was possible in the good old SMB times. But.. thats showing exactly, MK for example, is completely wrong with his outdated 'machine-manual-knowledge' of the 78's. Now and then the machines are the same, but a lot more is possible, lot's more, than designers of the machines in the 78's ever could imagine. That's why I don't want reading MKs opinions anymore. In his opinion, the A8 is the best 8bit-machine to have 1st person shooter in GR7 mode... bla bla bla... But I think it's still CRAP!!! I think, the A8 scrolling and DLI are the perfect requirements for playing platformer and jump n runs. Even AMIGA and STE machines wasn't powerful enough for playing doom. That's why they died. PCs had DOOM. 16 bit machines NOT.
StuntCarRacer.. great port, but not really playable on A8. 

Ahhmmm.. please don't judge me about my fucking english skillz. I think, I am still comprehensible.

Like I said, just my 2 (german is my native language) cents. MK and XXL are only examples of members. I don't have any personal dislike against AA-Forum-members.

 

Greetings and happy weekend to everyone.... 

 

 

 

 

[+Philsan]

In my opinion Albert (in the game, not in title screen) looks like Maurice Moss, one of the main characters of The IT Crowd British sitcom.

 

  

[IndusGT]

On 2/26/2021 at 7:13 AM, Mazzspeed said:

People complaining about lag under emulators must have some serious hand/eye coordination. I'm so crap I can't notice the difference.

 

It's like the 'hardcore gamers' (does such a thing exist on the 8bit platform) claiming the OSSC is the greatest scaler ever as there's no frame buffer - Personally I can't notice the difference and prefer the crystal clear perfection of a digital output direct from the graphics chip.

Yes they do. Hardcore games of the past are the casual games of the present. Remember when we spent all day at the arcade playing PacMan, or Galaga.

[+MrFish]

6 hours ago, Kaz atarionline.pl said:

True, however "Albert II" is a completely different game than "Albert". It is the continuation of the story, technically a different engine, more possibilities, fewer limitations, etc.

Any previews/screenshots of the new Albert?

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by MrFish

[Mazzspeed]

2 hours ago, IndusGT said:

Yes they do. Hardcore games of the past are the casual games of the present. Remember when we spent all day at the arcade playing PacMan, or Galaga.

Oh well...

 

I played all those games back in the day, to me it was more about memory and remembering the behavior of objects on the screen than allowing for lag. I didn't notice lag then, I don't notice lag now.

 

Even on my PC, I'll opt for resolution and IQ over refresh rate.

[_The Doctor__]

2 minutes ago, Mazzspeed said:

Oh well...

 

I played all those games back in the day, to me it was more about memory and remembering the behavior of objects on the screen than allowing for lag. I didn't notice lag then, I don't notice lag now.

 

Even on my PC, I'll opt for resolution and IQ over refresh rate.

lag kills on all games and especially in first person shooters of today. If you are competing at all and the other guy is good, 130 ms is death for you, if you are equal and great, 13ms is all the difference in the world. On patterned completely predictable games you can adjust yourself and play to make up for lag, but it isn't optimal. If the game has any AI or randomizing to any real degree... lag will kill you.

[Mazzspeed]

3 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

lag kills on all games and especially in first person shooters of today. If you are competing at all and the other guy is good, 130 ms is death for you, if you are equal and great, 13ms is all the difference in the world. On patterned completely predictable games you can adjust yourself and play to make up for lag, but it isn't optimal. If the game has any AI or randomizing to any real degree... lag will kill you.

Naturally excessive ping is a bad thing, but that's a little different to the delay we're talking about regarding on screen lag due to frame buffers. No argument that excessive ping kills any hope of performing well in an online FPS shooter.

[_The Doctor__]

No ping is only one form of lag, video lag is real, and yes to equally matched player vs each other, one on a <2ms screen the other on a 20+ms screen is all the difference in the world. I use to kick *ss using a CRT vs LCD players in LAN settings. They would scream aim bot and all the usual crap. I told them exactly why and lent them my CRT, next tournament, they used CRT's themselves. This was the case until better LCD screens and game optimization as well as video card changes finally equalized the advantages.

 

On the old machines screen lag matters to a decent degree, they are cycle exact creatures designed to race against a scanning beam. Frame buffers and processing in the video display device matters quite a bit, where as the frame buffer in the computers program is timed to the code so of course that isn't going to to matter nearly as much. Bottom line you still score better and normally enjoy games a heck of a lot more on a CRT or super fast LCD... most bog standard lcd televisions and computer run of the mill low price/low quality lcd monitors just don't cut it.

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Mazzspeed]

8 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

No ping is only one form of lag

Ping is usually an excessive form of lag and generally affects what you perceive on the screen as opposed to where the server believes hit boxes are on the screen - You think you're shooting an object, the server thinks you're shooting air.

 

It's a vastly more noticeable form of lag than anything introduced by a frame buffer regarding mostly 2D games on an ageing platform. Besides, many here are using LCD's containing scalers. If lag was a real concern, surely they'd be using CRT's, as any scaling will introduce lag.

 

Anyway, each to their own, it was just a comment in passing, I never meant to derail the thread on a great game.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[_The Doctor__]

Dude I see I left the door open for you to run with things concerning my mention of large ping lag to start an explanation getting the idea or frame of mind as to what lag is started in the minds of the readers'. We don't need a lesson in internet lag. It's clear I am talking about video lag. On a gaming LAN-not WAN, almost all the pings are damn near equal and extremely low without jitter. It's still a nice way to try and deflect off the actual video lag that was being discussed. Sure making it about some large terrible target that destroy game play such as internet/wide area network lag makes the problem seem a bit more negligible, but it's just a tactic to try and sway the thought process. All laggy games suck to me... I guess that's why I like Atari's machines so much... mostly all the games are just that responsive. I know if you are used to things that are predictable and slightly graphic and not all that challenging, none of this will matter. That's why I don't like most of the Commodore games offerings. I like many COCO games, Atari Games, Amiga games, and x86 games for the arcade quality and reaction time. Even as I age and my response times slow, I find my human lag requires the machine to have even less paths for lag if I am to have a great experience or showing.

 

When playing on a CRT walked through the DIMOS crushers no problem, on Slow LCD we got crushed... why, video lag is why... the game was adjusted to allow for both... making CRT play much easier than it should be.  Lag matters, laggy control also matters.

 

Good thing for us Albert isn't laggy.

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[Mazzspeed]

You're taking about a scenario that could be up to 200ms of lag vs a scenario that could be about 2ms of lag on a 2D game. If there's a wide vastness between those extremes and I highlight that fact, it's no good having a dig at me over the reality of your example.

 

I'm not too sure just why reaction time on a Commodore would be any worse than any other 8 bit offering available in the day, I find the need to even make such a remark quite odd. I get it, you hate Commodore, specifically the C64.

[emkay]

After the thread has been fully derailed  , I have to add that those "Lags" that appear over Networking, in modern games, were compensated by prediction of the game , and how the gamer is playing the game. The prediction works on all gaming devices and the winner is the  assumed result by the programmed logics. This has nothing to do with direct playing on a single PC and emulated stuff.

[_The Doctor__]

you are talking like 20ms 30ms is nothing, and I am saying it matters a great deal, many people can relate to internet lag, so it was mentioned to establish a frame of mind reference. You of course choose to use it like some method to invalidate the lag by saying the enormity of massive online lag make all other lag somehow insignificant and should be tolerated. Lag is bad. Period. How much people can tolerate or what will make a game terrible is another. 

 

as to emkay, I mentioned later versions of the online games try to take the lag into account..both in video as well as packet lag. Although those predictions are not always correct and bots sure do love those gaping lag holes. I know angry commie squirrels go nuts at any opportunity to act crazy and make these far reaching and stretching arguments but the bottom line is Gameplay matters, lag matters. The offerings on almost all other platforms are far more responsive and enjoyable. No matter how much make up we put on the pig, it's still a pig. I guess some people like lag... who knew?

 

I am thankful that the games on this particular platform are almost never laggy, and that Albert is a responsive game and a credit to the code and platform it's currently on. Good job on the game no matter what the we have this/that crowd comes along to say. And a big thank you to other coding gurus who fixed up other games to tolerate modern display lag for those who required it.

 

The good news is there are 1ms lcd screens now... I can't wait till they get them scan line emulation capable.

 

Edited February 27, 2021 by _The Doctor__

[snicklin]

Are you struggling with falling off the ledges at the top of level 8?

 

Are you using Altirra?

 

1) Get yourself to the top level and in a safe place.

2) Hit F8 to enter the debugger.

3) Select the debugger input area by clicking on it.

4) Enter: f dd00 LFF C8

5) Hit F8 again.

 

Life is now a lot easier.

 

[snicklin]

I've now completed all 30 levels, albeit by cheating in places. I had a good time with this game, thank you.

 

By playing around in the debugger, it was interesting to learn how the screen is comprised.

 

It is great to hear how an Albert II is being developed. I read above that there are less limitations. Is that less limitations with what the character can do, less limitations in how the screen is laid out or both?