Giana Sister's W.I.P

[Beeblebrox]

Just been made aware of this in a passing conversation :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W6BhUuoljM

 

Download the auto-pilot demo here (eg it's not playable - just sit back and enjoy): https://demozoo.org/productions/296648/

 

Some promising graphics and music already. 

 

I played this game a few times on my mate's Amiga BITD.

[patjomki]

Looks great but when I read that the conversion is done by "new generation" I started getting concerned about flimbo's quest.

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

@patjomki Well I guess we'll have to see what unfolds with this one.  Certainly the bright colours in the main character and enemies looks promising. I like the music.

 

Early days I know but hopefully the speed of the character navigating the platforms, etc will be a little faster and more bouncy. I personally find speed is a bonus with platformers to keep the momentum. (Been a little spoilt of late playing FloB which is just astoundingly good in all areas including speed and fluidity! Also I cranked PoP up to the minimum redraw setting 3 and it's sooo much better playing that game slightly faster (on my PAL XE).

 

Anyway, easy to say these things at the early stages of an WIP.  It's great that the legendary title Giana Sisters appears to be coming to the A8 at all -  so kudos to New Generation. - I wish them luck.

[Jacques]

57 minutes ago, patjomki said:

Looks great but when I read that the conversion is done by "new generation" I started getting concerned about flimbo's quest.

 

I hope it just means Flimbo's Quest is getting closer to its release and will happen sooner than later (@solo/ng?) ?

FQ, Giana... Dreams are coming true! 

[Mazzspeed]

6 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Early days I know but hopefully the speed of the character navigating the platforms, etc will be a little faster and more bouncy. I personally find speed is a bonus with platformers to keep the momentum.

Due to the fact that Giana Sisters was originally a C64 release, the speed seems pretty similar to the original, I just fired up a quick game and compared it to the linked demo and both scroll at roughly the same rate.

 

A great demonstration, the only real difference I can notice is perhaps slightly less resolution in the 'diamond' sprites and possibly less colours on the screen? Good job with the music. I just hope Nintendo don't start their usual IP shutdown.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[tjlazer]

Great news!  Another port for our A8.

[rensoup]

Always nice to see new ports!

 

The fact that the player and the enemy aren't on the same horizontal line ever is really suspicious though ?

[Mazzspeed]

38 minutes ago, rensoup said:

The fact that the player and the enemy aren't on the same horizontal line ever is really suspicious though ?

Well spotted! Hopefully it's not an issue.

[TracMan]

Gave me a big grin this morning when I saw it in my Youtube feed.  All the best to them.  Was surprised that the absence of hires for the Atari version doesn't affect the look too much.

[emkay]

4 hours ago, rensoup said:

Always nice to see new ports!

 

The fact that the player and the enemy aren't on the same horizontal line ever is really suspicious though ?

Since the game doesn't really have a lot of independent moving objects on the screen, I wonder why no one bothered to do a conversion some decades earlier.

Seems, the coder tricked more colors to the screen. The "enemies" look like partially done using PMg overlay. 

It would flicker, if "Giana" was on the same horizontal lines for sure. 

[Rybags]

Looks good but she's got some sort of glitch on the side of her face.

 

She looks 10 pixels wide which in theory should only use 2P + 2M leaving the other 2 free (assuming the extra colour of the skirt is by way of colour register change) - ed:  actually probably not given there's more colour there.

 

The dead enemies, blatantly obvious PF due to the colour change.

But yeah, it'll be interesting seeing how it can handle full action where in theory you might have Gianna + 2 or more enemies + the shot in the same vertical space.

Edited July 13, 2021 by Rybags

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, Rybags said:

Looks good but she's got some sort of glitch on the side of her face.

 

The glitch on the side of her face is the same glitch that's in the C64 version; weird sprite.

 

[+MrFish]

5 hours ago, TracMan said:

Was surprised that the absence of hires for the Atari version doesn't affect the look too much.

 

They did the clouds on the Atari version here in hi-res. Only certain parts are hi-res on the C64 version anyway (it's mixed).

 

[Mazzspeed]

54 minutes ago, MrFish said:

 

They did the clouds on the Atari version here in hi-res. Only certain parts are hi-res on the C64 version anyway (it's mixed).

 

Really? I've never seen any low res clouds on the C64 version. Having said that, perhaps I haven't got far enough in the game!

 

Just did a quick run of levels 1-3, they all look like this:

 

 

A8 screenshot for comparison, bearing in mind LCD vs CRT:

 

 

Some interesting little factoids:

 

https://codetapper.com/c64/games/great-giana-sisters/

Edited July 13, 2021 by Mazzspeed

[Rybags]

C64 you can mix hires + multicolour in the text mode.

The glitch - yeah the C64 one does seem to have a similar look but less obvious.

[Mazzspeed]

20 minutes ago, Rybags said:

C64 you can mix hires + multicolour in the text mode.

The glitch - yeah the C64 one does seem to have a similar look but less obvious.

I'd actually like to see the A8 version on a CRT, LCD's tend to make things look a little too sharp.

 

If the A8 version was on a CRT of the same size, I think both versions would look remarkably similar.

[roots.genoa]

12 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

I just hope Nintendo don't start their usual IP shutdown.

They didn't prevent Black Forest Games from releasing a Giana Sisters port on the DS; the dispute about the original game is long gone and Nintendo doesn't have any rights on Giana Sisters. However, Black Forest Games could send a C&D.

[Mazzspeed]

20 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

They didn't prevent Black Forest Games from releasing a Giana Sisters port on the DS; the dispute about the original game is long gone and Nintendo doesn't have any rights on Giana Sisters. However, Black Forest Games could send a C&D.

I just remember in the day Nintendo threatened legal action against the devs of Giana Sisters and it was pulled from the shelves days later (making boxed versions of the game very rare).

 

When it comes to their IP and copies of their IP, Nintendo are very heavy handed. The levels of Giana Sisters are literally SMB clones.

[Beeblebrox]

I digress slightly, (only everso slightly .......although in a somewhat similar vain); I've often wondered how supermarket chains like Aldi get away with some of their product packaging:

 

 

Apparently M&S is currently suing Aldi for ripping off their Colin the Catapillar cake......... with the subtely named Cuthbert the catapillar! 

 

Mannn I am getting the munchies now:

Edited July 13, 2021 by Beeblebrox

[José Pereira]

8 hours ago, emkay said:

Seems, the coder tricked more colors to the screen. The "enemies" look like partially done using PMg overlay. 

How can it be that the Mr. 'knows it all don't see things correctly.

 

First I'm not sure if this  ever goes to anywhere as I share the same opinion:

13 hours ago, rensoup said:

The fact that the player and the enemy aren't on the same horizontal line ever is really suspicious though ?

Lets then have a closer look...

 

-> Game is, of course, using charmode Antic4 and colours are (on the outside levels):

BAK: blue;

PF0 and PF1: 2browns;

PF2 and PF3: black and yellow/DLI/green (so can't have diamonds over the ground);

-> Giana is indeed 10pixels wide maximum (like @rybags stated) and it seems that DLI white/blue/DLI/white:

But then comes the part where you totally don't get things:

-> In the demo she don't go over the enemys lines and just jumps over them:

-> And enemys are white/red/pink like C64 and in 12pixels wide (so totally different colours and so are using 2+2Players multuicolour):

So Giana will flicker on same line as an enemy and also 2enemys will flicker at the same line...

Don't really get how it'll be.

Too many flicker!...

[emkay]

10 minutes ago, José Pereira said:

How can it be that the Mr. 'knows it all don't see things correctly.

 

So Giana will flicker on same line as an enemy and also 2enemys will flicker at the same line...

Don't really get how it'll be.

Too many flicker!...

1. You got it about the flicker

2. Reading about "W.I.P." finally causes nausea, so I'll keep things short now. 

 

[Rybags]

For whatever reason it seems the Gianna sprite is actually more than just 2 players.

 

Start the demo then pause and enter Altirra Debugger (F8)

 

Enter the command GS 100.  Then enter E D000 0 0

which will move PL0 and PL1 offscreen.

Then enter command GS 220

and you'll see the result of not having whatever given PM object (try other combinations like E D002 0 0)

Edited July 13, 2021 by Rybags

[Jacques]

If that's the only way, let it flicker from time to time. 

Crownland is excused, so is Albert (although it flickers less), so especially Giana should be excused, too ?

[jefffulton]

Amazing work! 

[solo/ng]

Well!;)

 

FQ:

At first just small disclaimer about Flimbo - yes its getting closer to release (waiting for the stuff from another coder) so this project is my small detour. We have many projects on the move and after a break we had, we are back to coding. One is a big custom SDK with new auto linker, auto data manager, auto relocator, auto .car creator, and even a new assembler - all for the sake of faster A8 production. Flimbo is waiting for it because we really want to have it working on stock Atari as cartridge. Besides this our priority is to finish MK and FQ first.

 

Giana:

About flickering and sprites - my target is to have enemies as softsprites (we already have the same amount of soft sprites in FQ and this game is much much more cpu taxing). For the sake of the presentation enemies are - like you folks realized on hw 2p+2p multicolor, then swapped to softsprite (with uglier color). Nice catch;).
Im going to test some dynamic hybrid with soft+hw sprites but not sure how it would look. Generally there wont aby any issues to having all enemies on screen at all besised uglier (same as tiles) colors (still going to try few tricks).

 

About level tiles and colors - original version has some hires chars (diamonds, most green bushesh and so on) but it translated very well for A8 (I was always curious how it is going to look). In the game 5th color dynamically changes (for green and more in future) when game scrolls the level. Proably some levels going to have small changes to background elements position because of that but thats it.

The original character on C64 is made up from 3 sprites (the third one eye/legs is in hires mode):


In our version it is similar (for now - not finally decided yet):
- two multicolored sprites for main colors
- one blue for the dress
- one for eye and legs
Additional two missiles are rendered during jump (for hand and leg) and going to be used for powered version (the new hair adds 2 pixels and its going to be one missile).

I've written a small tool that auto converted their sprite combination to our P/M and was pretty happy about the result. 

@rensoup I also want to thank you (and all involved) for the PoP project. One of our group member is uber PoP fan and he loves it (we also!) very much. Its a huge step for Atari XL/XE.

Edited July 13, 2021 by solo/ng
more information