Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Steril707]

15 minutes ago, DjayBee said:

Quite sure but he probably will not tell. 🤪

Pretty sure it is a high quality port of Sex Games (C64).

Edited September 12, 2022 by Steril707

[Peri Noid]

9 hours ago, rensoup said:

No C64 or BBC version either...

Also the Atari ST version was skipped.

[+MrFish]

3 hours ago, Peri Noid said:

Also the Atari ST version was skipped.

The Macintosh version isn't included either.

 

[+MrFish]

BTW... I have no idea why he's praising the CPC version so much. Sure, it was done fairly well graphically and plays alright; but he's lost when he says it has "fluid animation". That version uses only about 50% of the original animation frames (probably for memory reasons); and fluid animation is one of the hallmarks that makes Prince of Persia such a unique game in its era. Take away half of the animations and you're left with about 75% of the game.

 

[zbyti]

15 hours ago, Stephen said:

Any ideas on the next project?

I would put my money on R-Type but by lack of my imagination (or skills) I can't see this game on A8

Edited September 12, 2022 by zbyti

[Yautja]

What about completing this project?

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

1 hour ago, Yautja said:

What about completing this project?

 

 

Niiice!

 

Was there ever an executable available for the above Beta WIP at the time?  Would love to see it running other than on YouTube. 

 

A good few Atari games have used 2 colour hi res mode to great effect. (Chimera, Amaurote, Artefakt przodków, Kult, Attack of the PESCII Robort, and many others). And of course on NTSC games we have had artefacted colours for many decades.

 

I wonder if - as illustrated below with Jet Set Willy (2019), Manic Miner, (2016) and Monty on the run, (2019) - colour could be pulled into areas of this hi res Atari graphics mode Cybernoid game as is stands:

 

                     

 

The Cybernoid demo graphics and animation is fantastic but would look better IMHO with some coloured areas where at all possible. I realise the above is achieved mostly along the horizonals with the use of DLIs as well as some PMG colouring where available.

Edited September 12, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[xxl]

39 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Was there ever an executable available for the above Beta WIP at the time?

after all, there is a package with such things, there is also a Cybernoid under xBios:

 

https://forums.atariage.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=961647&key=f94413825de51eb00aafaa5aa1b76178

 

 

 

---

and besides, I think it's a weak title.

Edited September 12, 2022 by xxl

[Steril707]

2 hours ago, zbyti said:

I would put my money on R-Type but by lack of my imagination (or skills) I can't see this game on A8

Would love to see someone tackle this, but no idea yet how this could be done graphically and not looking like crap.

[Peri Noid]

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

I wonder if - as illustrated below with Jet Set Willy (2019), Manic Miner, (2016) and Monty on the run, (2019) - colour could be pulled into areas of this hi res Atari graphics mode Cybernoid game as is stands:

Aren't those VBXE ports? Or versions running in VBXE mode?

[Beeblebrox]

1 minute ago, Peri Noid said:

Aren't those VBXE ports? Or versions running in VBXE mode?

I don't believe so.  I'll run the xex's I have for them and see.  I grabbed em from YouTube. 

[rensoup]

23 hours ago, Stephen said:

Any ideas on the next project?

I dropped clues a while back but converting Z80 code to a high level language is really boring, I've got about 5% done 😑

 

I may change course for a bit and try a port that doesn't require perfect accuracy... (hence less peripheral work)

[rensoup]

6 hours ago, Yautja said:

What about completing this project?

meh

 

6 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Niiice!

 

Was there ever an executable available for the above Beta WIP at the time?  Would love to see it running other than on YouTube. 

 

A good few Atari games have used 2 colour hi res mode to great effect. (Chimera, Amaurote, Artefakt przodków, Kult, Attack of the PESCII Robort, and many others). And of course on NTSC games we have had artefacted colours for many decades.

I'm not a fan of hires except for a few spectrum ports (Manic miner,...) 

 

JP's cybernoid mockup looks pretty good in midres:

 

 

 

same with Tezz's Chimera+

 

 

 

[José Pereira]

14 hours ago, rensoup said:

JP's cybernoid mockup looks pretty good in midres:

 

 

It'll need to follow these exactly colours:

Here you have them in 5colours (eachone/single 2x2 and all them joined in a single sheet) where:

PF0- (02);

PF1- (0E);

PF2- (8A);

PF3- (84);

BACKGR:- (66)with darker gray/black (on status area) and red on top and bottom DLIs;

 

These colours using priority_0 can then be Ored to accordingly PMGs (Missiles will allways be in quadruple width):

P0 & P1: red (24) will Oring PF0 & PF1: (26) & (2E) for the two add-ons ship balls;

PM2 and PM3 in quadruple width will be distributed along the screen for the grouns pale green and/or green plant, brown towers... (dark and Oring PF2/PF3);

M0&M1 red will then covers the playing area sides:

I'm using 48Bytes wide screen mode or the 2Missiles will not cover completely the two sides.

 

As I remember allmost all the screens could be 'underlayed' with PM2&PM3 to get things similar colours to C64 (PM2&PM3 have that 'shadow' around but isn't at real/will be the same darker gray/black (02) on all parts) for the level_01 example:

Where's the red Xwhere's the problem (I think I dioscussed this with the 'supposed' coder as I also have this map somewhere in good conditios (after AtariAge website updates the older images are now all in these bad lookings).

 

Edited September 13, 2022 by José Pereira

[Steril707]

44 minutes ago, José Pereira said:

It'll need to follow these exactly colours:

Here you have them in 5colours (eachone/single 2x2 and all them joined in a single sheet) where:

PF0- (02);

PF1- (0E);

PF2- (8A);

PF3- (84);

BACKGR:- (66)with darker gray/black (on status area) and red on top and bottom DLIs;

 

These colours using priority_0 can then be Ored to accordingly PMGs (Missiles will allways be in quadruple width):

P0 & P1: red (24) will Oring PF0 & PF1: (26) & (2E) for the two add-ons ship balls;

PM2 and PM3 in quadruple width will be distributed along the screen for the grouns pale green and/or green plant, brown towers... (dark and Oring PF2/PF3);

M0&M1 red will then covers the playing area sides:

I'm using 48Bytes wide screen mode or the 2Missiles will not cover completely the two sides.

 

As I remember allmost all the screens could be 'underlayed' with PM2&PM3 to get things similar colours to C64 (PM2&PM3 have that 'shadow' around but isn't at real/will be the same darker gray/black (02) on all parts) for the level_01 example:

Where's the red Xwhere's the problem (I think I dioscussed this with the 'supposed' coder as I also have this map somewhere in good conditios (after AtariAge website updates the older images are now all in these bad lookings).

 

That's beautiful, José...

[José Pereira]

Found it:

[José Pereira]

Moving things to its appropriate place: 

 

[popmilo]

22 hours ago, Steril707 said:

Would love to see someone tackle this, but no idea yet how this could be done graphically and not looking like crap.

4+1 character mode for background, enemies and bullets. Pms for main ship and some effects around it...
Don't think there's anything else you could do with it...

 

On the other hand, I would like much more a brand new atari horizontal shooter game built from scratch

 

[mr-atari]

On 8/25/2022 at 12:58 AM, rensoup said:

I don't know anything about those extensions though it doesn't seem that fixing a loader would work? Like I said, adding support for different cart schemes may be a solution if it's possible... megacart or sic! OR adding a a 256KB atarimax format (which would require a PoP update)

Complete misunderstanding about sram being used as extended memory v.s. how to load the game from a different bank-switched cartridges.

 

Look here for trying the MyIDE-2 version.

 

 

[rensoup]

16 hours ago, mr-atari said:

Complete misunderstanding about sram being used as extended memory v.s. how to load the game from a different bank-switched cartridges.

That's cool, maybe that means that XE cartridges are possible too ?

[mr-atari]

5 hours ago, rensoup said:

That's cool, maybe that means that XE cartridges are possible too ?

I didn't know pop was only loaded from atarimax, sic! and mega.

Then the cartridge is disabled.

 

I was under the impression levels were loaded from cartridge and the game ran from cartridge (being ON).

For example 8k right for switching and 8k left for fixed code, since sic! and mega are 16k.

But then 8mbit atarimax is a 8k left cartridge.

 

Don't think a XE cartridge can be switched off, so no.

 

No comments on my pop myide2 topic and having 10 downloads, so I guess it works ok?

[Wrathchild]

13 hours ago, mr-atari said:

Don't think a XE cartridge can be switched off, so no

There is a switchable variant but not such that it is readily available as a physical board, so as there is an emulatable (i.e. via existing AVG & other carts) image in the form of the AtariMax version then a XEGS cart switchable bank-model variant isn't really necessary.

[Stefan Both]

On 9/20/2022 at 8:26 AM, mr-atari said:

No comments on my pop myide2 topic and having 10 downloads, so I guess it works ok?

Downloaded it, but still could not test it.

There is a lot to do here at the moment.

No spare time left at all.

 

Stefan 

[nowy80]

I invite you to watch the short PoP Atari & C64 comparison

https://youtu.be/RjnD2hZnRFE

Edited November 13, 2022 by nowy80

[Beeblebrox]

@nowy80 thanks for the comparison. One thing. Presumably you made up your own Maxflash cart version and packaging for your own copy of Atari PoP since it isn't (& shouldn't be) commercially sold as it were? 

Edited November 13, 2022 by Beeblebrox