Jaguar game developement and pre-existing graphic engines

[Gunstar]

This is a topic I submit for discussion to all past, present and future Jaguar developers as well as fans and others who might contribute in the way of music or art.

 

With all these possible ways of development available for cheap, including JUGS and Jagfree and BJL as well as the traditional development systems and tools, an increase in game development is now possible. My question is regarding new development and tools and core game/graphic "engines" that are already out there. What is available to the homebrew or even semi-professional developer out there that wants to do something without having to over come the hurdle of starting a game from scratch? Are these engines available for license or as shareware or even free? Like Battlesphere's core, and the Doom "engine" that Songbird has. I guess these would be refered to as the source code? Whatever they're called, how about for Skyhammer, or Iron Soldier Iⅈ I heard a rumor a while back about Eclipse wanting to license or sell it. Or any of the other "engines," from the Hover Strike/Space War one to Battlmorph and beyond. What is percievably available for developers to use? I could imagine a great racer or platform game done with the Iron Soldier or Battlemorph engines. The Doom engine is perfect for shooters and RPG's. Who knows with Battlesphere's...big things?

[Starcat]

Hi Gunstar !

 

There are no engines at all that could be used. There are a few Routines like JagPeg compression and BPEG available for Jag coders and some other examples, but that's it. But there are no game engines of other Jag games that could be used.

 

Regards, Lars.

[Thunderbird]

Anyone with sufficient funds (lots and lots) could probably license the BattleSphere Engines. Most other games apparently don't have any source code. The entire source code for Native is available and if you ask, you could probably get permission to use it in your own game. DOOM was released by id software to the public domain, so anyone can use their engine. I think if you make a new version of the game and call it "Doom", you have to pay them a fee.

[Starcat]

Hi Thunderbird !

 

I'm not thinking about doing a 3D game for the Jag, but out of curiosity, how much would it cost to license the BS Engine ?

 

I thought Gunstar was refering to Game/Graphic engines that Atari provided.

Of course the Native engine could be used if you ask Duranik. They are really kind people.

 

About Doom, I thought only the PC source code was public domain ? Is the Jag Source Code also public domain and available somewhere ?

 

Regards, Lars.

[Gunstar]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starcat:

Hi Thunderbird !

 

I'm not thinking about doing a 3D game for the Jag, but out of curiosity, how much would it cost to license the BS Engine ?

 

I thought Gunstar was refering to Game/Graphic engines that Atari provided.

Of course the Native engine could be used if you ask Duranik. They are really kind people.

 

About Doom, I thought only the PC source code was public domain ? Is the Jag Source Code also public domain and available somewhere ?

 

Regards, Lars.

---

 

 

As far as I knew, Carl contacted iD about licensing the Jaguar Doom engine and that Carl either successfully licensed or was given the engine, as well as their entire Jag development system. So I believe that access to this engine would be through Carl at Songbird.

 

Also, what about the Iron soldier engine? Does anyone have any evidence either way whether Eclipse really offered it for licensing or wether it was purely an imaginative rumor? I distictly recall hereing something about this on JI2 at some point...

 

It could be that Bruce over at B&C has some sources in those "truck loads" of equipment bought from Atari. He's releasing some development stuff on cd soon already. I'd be more inclined to see stuff like this and source code for some of the Jag games released for developers to use in creating or finishing original games properly, than seeing incomplete bits&pieces being released for as much as the complete stuff. Although it does look like Bruce is reducing prices.

 

But from where i'm sitting, so far it looks like there is the definate possibility of the Battlesphere, Doom and Native engines becoming available.

 

How about Phasezero? the incomplete game was released into the public domain, and I think Carl has something up his sleave over this one too, but maybe the voxel engine could become available for development. Even if people like Thunderbird think the game is complete crap (and I totally disagree), i think that voxel engine could be used for something great...

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starcat:

Hi Thunderbird !

 

I'm not thinking about doing a 3D game for the Jag, but out of curiosity, how much would it cost to license the BS Engine ?

 

---

 

It would probably work out to maybe $5.00 per published game or something like that. But it would need to be paid up-front because we forsee someone pretending to be making a game just to get our code then distributing it all over.

 

That may seem like a lot of money to someone, but in this business it's pretty resonable. Also, considering that there would be much work in making it useful to someone else (documentation, examples, etc.) we'd like to have compensation for that.

 

Besides, Atari's code is serviceable and well documented for someone to do a simple 3D game... but nobody even tried yet.

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starcat:

About Doom, I thought only the PC source code was public domain ? Is the Jag Source Code also public domain and available somewhere ?

---

 

About 4-5 console versions of Doom have been created so far, and every one of them is based on the JagDoom code that id wrote. I know the 32X version's source code is floating around the 'net, and that's basically the Jag's version. It even has Jaguar comments in it!

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gunstar:

How about Phasezero? the incomplete game was released into the public domain, and I think Carl has something up his sleave over this one too, but maybe the voxel engine could become available for development. Even if people like Thunderbird think the game is complete crap (and I totally disagree), i think that voxel engine could be used for something great...

---

 

I wouldn't want to touch that one with a 10 foot pole...

 

First off, the folks at HyperImage claimed several times to have destroyed the source code because Atari was jerking them around. (Actually, they were jerking Atari around by buying and using Saturn Devkits with the money Atari was fronting them for Phase0...)

 

Second off, the main guy who wrote the engine and actually funded the company at the start was recently booted out of his own company by his team. (nice). I doubt that the split was amicable, and if either side is licensing source code to anyone the other would surely object... a legal morass I would not want to be anywhere near.

 

Third off, the game is crappy and unfun. The engine kicks a$$, but the gameplay is too repetitious. It would need major work.

 

Fourth off.... the game is so incomplete that I don't think anyone would be able to finish it. Sadly, there have yet to appear any games that are all-new. I know Lars is working on one, and Gorf Pluz is supposed to be coming. But so few people seem capable of making a complete game these days. Not even a simple one. Even BattleSphere Gold is not a total new game... but it does contain 2 hidden games that would qualify as real complete games if someone else were to have done them.

 

Don't people find writing little games FUN anymore?

[shepdawg06]

I wuld love to program some simple jagaur games, but i recently got a new job, and have not had time to try and learn any assembly. I cant find any books on 68000 assembly in local areas anyways. Besides from what Ive seen on programming simple games like Space Invaders and Tetris clones in other languages like C, it looks very complicated for a newb such as myself. Id find it fun if i knew what i was doing. Oh and the fact i have no hardware to load and games onto a jag

[Starcat]

Hi Thunderbird !

 

I think it is great fun to create a game.

I'm rather starting a game from scratch than using an existing engine.

 

I really wonder why nobody does those little games... They can be done really fast.

 

Regards, Lars.

[PeterG]

Hey Gunstar,

I once talked to Marc Rosocha from Eclipse when he was demoing IS2 at a show here in Germany and he said that if somebody would give him enough money he would sell his development kit and everything he has to code on the Jag....

So I don´t know how serious this was but that is all that I know.

What I would be very interested in is the last game he was talking about to me...

He said it would have been a fully textured racer which would look very cool but when he showed it to Atari they said it would be too late...

He should have come earlier....

I would love to know what this looked like.

Peter

[Starcat]

Hi Guys !

 

I have talked to Marc a few months ago about this.

He said that he would not give the source code away as long as there is still a possibility that they release another IS game for a system. He also said that he needed lots of months to understand the code again when he started again to finish IS2. Somebody who doesn't know the code at all would need ages if he understands it at all.

 

I don't know if it really that complicated, but I could imagine that he's right.

And who would spend that much effort to do a new game with the IS engine ?

After all the Native Source Code was available for many months on my site and nobody tried to finish it. Why should somebody try to make a new game out of IS then ?

 

Regards, Lars.

[Gunstar]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thunderbird:

Fourth off.... the game is so incomplete that I don't think anyone would be able to finish it. Sadly, there have yet to appear any games that are all-new. I know Lars is working on one, and Gorf Pluz is supposed to be coming. But so few people seem capable of making a complete game these days. Not even a simple one. Even BattleSphere Gold is not a total new game... but it does contain 2 hidden games that would qualify as real complete games if someone else were to have done them.

 

Don't people find writing little games FUN anymore?

---

 

This is why I brought up this subject in the first place, because there are so few ALL-NEW games coming out, I thought people's awarness of thhe availability of game engines could spark some interest in doing an all new game with the help of a proven engine.

 

As far as phase Zero goes, yeah, that does sound like a mess, but i still totally disagree about thee game being crap and to incomplete to finish, i love playing what's there, so do many others, we think it's genius...just like Battlesphere...and obviously Carl seems to think it's good and completable too, because he's mentioned working out a deal to get it finished and published. So it seems that once again your bias, because of hate for the development team is once again seeping through on all sides here...Everyone else-PhaseZero is a fantastic game, if unfinished and i highly reccomend it as a fun diversion, a cool thing to explore on many levels (metaphorically speaking) and it's a great show-off game of what the jag can do, just like other finished games like BS or IS2, etc. I ceratainly hope Carl is successful in his aquiring of the game!

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gunstar:

As far as phase Zero goes, yeah, that does sound like a mess, but i still totally disagree about thee game being crap and to incomplete to finish, i love playing what's there, so do many others, we think it's genius...!

---

 

Sometimes I wonder if people out there are so starved for Jaguar software that I could take a dead fish and put it in a Jaguar box and sell it for $50.00 and make a fortune... all the while getting RAVE reviews.

 

I think people out there are looking at the Jaguar through Jaguar Colored Glasses. Look at how many people creamed their pants over SW2K: a buggy incomplete game which is complete junk. For every person who complained about the high price of the Demolition Man video footage CD, there was someone else drooling over the possibility of owning it.

 

I just tend to wonder how bad a game actually has to be before people will give it an honest review.

 

Phase Zero is incomplete, and buggy. Even if it were complete and didn't crash all the time, it would be about as much fun as looking for a lost pencil in your basement. There's no challenge to it, all you do is wander around and find the 'exit'. There's absolutely no variety to the missions. Nothing.

 

I agree the engine is a sweet piece of work, but the game they wrapped around it is total garbage. The art is good as well. But there's a think that a lot of people look for in a game, called "Gameplay". There is none in P0.

 

Sorry.

[Thunderbird]

It's just a shame that the Jaguar is so capable of making really nice games quite easily, yet nobody does (Yes, it is a real pain to program if you're trying to do "cutting edge" effects).

 

The real issue is that even IF the engines for IS2 and BS and P0, etc. were available, nobody would use them. We don't even have any complete SIMPLE games, much less a complex one. The work needed to make a game out of the BS engine (for example) would be huge.

 

Sadly, there are about 50 times as many people making games for the 2600, than there are for the Jaguar.

 

Where are all the Jaguar programmers?

 

Are we forever doomed to playing the same old half-finished demos of games that never came out?

[Starcat]

Hi Thunderbird !

 

I am sure that a lot of Jaguar fans look at the Jaguar and some of its games through colored glasses.

Otherwise they wouldn't pay that much for prototypes and things like that.

 

I agree that SW2k is in very early state of development and extremely lacking in gameplay. It is also buggy.

The only really great thing about the game are the graphics and to imagine how great the game would have been if it was completed.

Phase Zero is a lot more playable but also lacking in gameplay and it's buggy.

 

Yes, even simple games haven't been developed very far. I really wonder why, because games like pong or so could be done in really short time.

 

The problem about this is most likely the lack of developers. It's also quite unsure what will happen in the next years, because who will develop games then ? I know that some of the current developers hardly have time to develop for the Jaguar.

 

So even with JagFree CD and CD Bypass the future is as unsure as always since Atari abandoned the Jaguar.

 

What most people (especially people who do not code) forget is that using an existing engine in a new game can also take ages, because understanding how the engine works is often essential.

 

Regards, Lars.

[Tyrant]

I think the problem, or rather one of the problems, for there are many, a sizeable proportion of which are continually cloging up the civil, commercial, and criminal courts, in all area's of the galaxy, and, where possible, the more corrupt ones, this. The previous sentance makes sence, that is not the problem, the problem is this: writing in assembily is a b*tch. Writing in 4 different instruction sets on 5 chips and having to work round the various bugs and innumerible timing issues in those chips is enough to give anyone a severely painful headache.

 

While I've never tried writing anything for the jag, due to my lack of any skill in assembily, lack of dev tools, etc. I have tried to find / read some of the developer docs, and even tho Im a priety competant coder (mainly using high level languages tho, vb (for rapid development it rocks, once you learn its bugs), pascal, and still learning c++ on and off) it scared the crap out of me. I realise most Jag developers are too busy trying to actually write games, but a few really good tutorials with examples would go a looong way towards getting some new developers started. I for one would love to write for the Jag, but its just soo damned dificult, or at least it looks it anyway, lack of real practical information is a big problem too as far as I can see.

 

P.S. Opening quote typed purely from memory

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tyrant:

...writing in assembily is a b*tch. Writing in 4 different instruction sets on 5 chips and having to work round the various bugs and innumerible timing issues in those chips is enough to give anyone a severely painful headache.

---

 

Actually, there's a lot of things wrong with your statement.

 

1) Writing in assembly KICKS @$$! It's more fun than any other way to code! The VCS and 7800 and 5200 seem to ONLY be programmable in Assembly, yet they have droves of developers.

 

2) You can use the C compilers Atari put out and other Jag Developers put together, if you really don't want to code in assembly.

 

3) The GPU and DSP share a common programming language, which is somewhat "68000"-like in syntax. 68000 is really well-known and well respected, so you really are learning 2 assembler languages... and the Atari MadMac allows them to be mixed in the same source file. So you only need to know one assembler tool.

 

The rest of the "processors" are not really programmed in languages, so to speak. They are hardware devices that are set up and used via hardware registers. Not general purpose CPU's. And you really don't need to know them because there's a lot of existing sample code of their use.

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tyrant:

I realise most Jag developers are too busy trying to actually write games, but a few really good tutorials with examples would go a looong way towards getting some new developers started. I for one would love to write for the Jag, but its just soo damned dificult, or at least it looks it anyway, lack of real practical information is a big problem too as far as I can see.

 

P.S. Opening quote typed purely from memory

---

 

There's a whole series of "tutorial" articles in the developer documentation, along with a lot of sample programs and a COMPLETE 3D ENGINE and MUSIC/SOUND ENGINE already out there. Atari made very detailed documentation on how to use these things very late in the Jag's life (too late to help get developers). It's probably THE most well-documented and well-sampled machine they ever made.

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Tyrant:

and having to work round the various bugs and innumerible timing issues in those chips is enough to give anyone a severely painful headache.

---

 

I forgot to mention that the Jaguar -is- buggy, but the developer docs are quite detailed on how to work around these bugs painlessly (developers like me had to learn these tricks the HARD way))

 

With the exception of really complex multiprocessor code, you won't have to worry at all about the nasty inter-processor timing bugs we dealt with. Everything else is very easy. I really nice "Defender" or "Sapce Invaders" type game could be done by a single person in a couple of weeks of evenings. Without even learning GPU/DSP programming.

[eric_ruck]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Thunderbird:

Sadly, there are about 50 times as many people making games for the 2600, than there are for the Jaguar.

 

Where are all the Jaguar programmers?

---

 

 

This probably reflects the reality that people have lives and jobs. Even back in the day it only took a few weeks to complete a 2600 games, and they didn't have easy PC emulators and IDE's. You didn't need a staff of artist and musicians, and you only had 128 bytes to work with. OK, so the Myst folks managed a "modern" game out of their garage, but that's quite the exception. Takes to long to do a Jag game, what with all that comes with it.

[MikeStyle]

For sure, every Jag developer has a job or goes to school and has a life.

 

Lars an i also have, but till now we managed to work on the game. Even though the game developes slow, we working on it and it's really fun. Currently we're changing the style and atmoshere of the space ships and are thinking about details that can make the game special. We're really working on it and we love it.

 

So, a few other guys came along and started helping us with the game.

 

I think it's possible and it would be great if more people would do it. I know it takes long to finish a game, but it's worth it

[Thunderbird]

quote:

---

Originally posted by eric_ruck:

You didn't need a staff of artist and musicians, and you only had 128 bytes to work with. OK, so the Myst folks managed a "modern" game out of their garage, but that's quite the exception. Takes to long to do a Jag game, what with all that comes with it.

---

 

There is a huge community of people that develop freeware and shareware games that run on the PC, and online Java games. These people work in a similar "environment" as the Jaguar programmer does. (16-bit and 24-bit graphics, MIDI music, High level Language, etc.) I think that the complaints and comments the Jag developers had with the original Atari Devkit have created a "Myth" that the Jag is impossibly hard to program for.

 

As I said before, doing a complex multi-processor 3D engine with T-Mapping from scratch is horribly difficult and starts to expose the timing bugs in the Jaguar.

 

Atari's original "Devkit" consisted of the tools, the documentation, and about 3 sample programs. One to show a bitmap on the screen, one to show a line being blitted, one to show a bitmap being blitted, and one to show a filled box being blitted. The developer complaints were indeed heard by Atari, and they wrote some really nice sample code and tutorials late in the Jag's life. Sadly, the Jag was already dead. But, the new Devkit was actually useful and has definitely benefitted people like Lars who came in after Atari dropped the jag.

 

I think more people could program for the Jaguar and hopefully with products like JUGS and JUGS-DD, we will see more of them.

[Starcat]

Hi MikeStlye !

 

Nice to see you here :-)

 

I have to agree. Even though it takes a lot of time and effort to create a new game it is incredible fun to create something new, especially with a good team that supports you.

 

About the rumor that Jag assembler is so difficult, I have to say, that my personal experience is completely different. For me Assembler is really easy. I learned it in a few months without any previous programming knowledge. I know the Jag assemblers (68k and GPU/DSP), but I really have no idea why so many people are talking about how complicated it is.

 

I think especially people who haven't really tried it say things like that.

 

I think Jaguar programming is really easy, as long as you do not try to push the system to its limits. (Pushing a system to its limits is always difficult.)

 

I believe that ANYBODY who has enough time and interest can learn tp program the Jaguar.

 

Regards, Lars.

[Starcat]

Hi Thunderbird !

 

Yes, I'm sure today it is much easier to start Jaguar coding than in '94.

I have benefited a lot from the dev kits, tools, examples and better docs. But the help of experienced Jag developers like Duranik have helped me a lot as well.

 

Regards, Lars.