What makes a great arcade port for the ColecoVision, scroll or graphics?

[Pixelboy]

You know, there is a couple of games that I keep planning to port, but never really start because they present some very challenging dilemmas.

- Galaga - graphics over gameplay, gameplay over graphics, not to flick and go monochromatic and to flick and go multicolor, that is the question...

- Moon Patrol - Smooth scroll with simpler, less colorful graphics x choppy scroll (at least for the background) with arcade-like graphics. There are other challenges too, like reduce general sprite flickering using bg graphics as sprites and such. Moon patrol is my all time favorite arcade game, I still need to take the courage to start it.

Perhaps you should wait until you have a working prototype of the CV2 before diving into those two projects. The V9958 may give you more options to implement the graphics the way you want.

[opcode]

You know, there is a couple of games that I keep planning to port, but never really start because they present some very challenging dilemmas.

- Galaga - graphics over gameplay, gameplay over graphics, not to flick and go monochromatic and to flick and go multicolor, that is the question...

- Moon Patrol - Smooth scroll with simpler, less colorful graphics x choppy scroll (at least for the background) with arcade-like graphics. There are other challenges too, like reduce general sprite flickering using bg graphics as sprites and such. Moon patrol is my all time favorite arcade game, I still need to take the courage to start it.

Perhaps you should wait until you have a working prototype of the CV2 before diving into those two projects. The V9958 may give you more options to implement the graphics the way you want.

 

I had some more modern stuff in mind for the CV2, but yeah, that's an option...

Edited September 21, 2009 by opcode

[purenergy]

Arcade graphics may look nice on the Colecovision, but how will the game play?

Personally, I haven't played Zaxxon for years because of this.

If I remember right, Zaxxon did have choppy scrolling, but was fun to play, over 20 years ago.

Moon Patrol sounds great, and I would definitely vote for smooth scrolling if possible on the Colecovision.

Galaga would be fantastic, and the flicker should be fine, as long multicolor is possible.

 

Doesn't it simply come down to gameplay?

Either way, titles from opcode always put a smile on my face!

[Bruce Tomlin]

How about having two 256-tile pattern tables in VRAM, one at 0000h and the other at 2000h, and having the VDP going back and forth between the two? That should work for a 4-pixel increment system...

That doesn't work in the general case, because then your tiles have to be every combination of half tiles used in the display. It gets even worse when you scroll in both directions at the same time.

 

Also, when you scroll 4 pixels horizontally like that, the half tiles could use different color combinations, which doesn't work on the 9918.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Bruce Tomlin

[Pixelboy]

How about having two 256-tile pattern tables in VRAM, one at 0000h and the other at 2000h, and having the VDP going back and forth between the two? That should work for a 4-pixel increment system...

That doesn't work in the general case, because then your tiles have to be every combination of half tiles used in the display. It gets even worse when you scroll in both directions at the same time.

Yeah, generally that wouldn't work for most games, but looking at Elevator Action's graphics, I figured perhaps it would be barely feasible. But you cannot switch between multiple pattern tables in graphic mode 2, even if all three screen thirds point to the same 256-tile table, so it's all a moot point.

 

Also, when you scroll 4 pixels horizontally like that, the half tiles could use different color combinations, which doesn't work on the 9918.

Agreed. But my suggestion was for Elevator Action specifically, which only has vertical scrolling, AFAIK.

Edited September 22, 2009 by Pixelboy

[johnny_boy]

I think there's a threshold to the amount of tolerable flicker for each game. I personally believe a programmer should strive to push as much visual candy as possible, right up to the edge of what's bearable. Opinions might vary on exactly how much it is, but common sense goes a long way towards finding the proper balance.

 

Same goes for scrolling, chunky or smooth. Simply figure out how important the scrolling is to the overall experience, and adapt in consequence.

 

It would be interesting to see how a contemporary Colecovision version of Galaga would look compared to Namco's MSX port.

 

Gotta be careful with Moon Patrol's scrolling. I think it could still stand up with a bit of tile scrolling, but not much.

 

I believe smooth zero skip scrolling often asks too much of the Coleco hardware. Multi-colored sprites is a MUST!

[+thegoldenband]

I voted "It depends", since it's really a question of the type of gameplay. If pushed, though, I'd pick smooth scrolling. The official release of Zaxxon looks great in freeze frame, but the ~5 Hz scrolling makes me feel vaguely ill.

 

(Ironically, I believe the frequencies thought to cause photosensitive epileptic seizures are more towards the 10-20 Hz range, so perhaps faster scrolling would be more likely to cause an attack in susceptible people? But maybe it wouldn't be perceived as "flashing" at that speed.)

[NE146]

Personally I thought the scrolling in Colecovision Zaxxon was just fine.. it didnt appear choppy to me then, and it still really doesn't I guess. But maybe I'm just more forgiving than others

[+thegoldenband]

It's funny, because 30Hz or 20Hz flicker, which drives many people nuts, doesn't really trouble me much at all. I mean, it's certainly better when it stops (like when you pare down the number of enemies in Wizard of Wor), but it doesn't bother me. But something about Zaxxon is, for want of a better word, taxing to look at. Maybe it's just the fact that such a large portion of the screen is affected, rather than just one stratum like in a side-scrolling shmup.

 

(FWIW I don't have epilepsy, or motion sickness for that matter, though I occasionally get nauseated when I play early 3-D games, especially on the N64.)

[youki]

though I occasionally get nauseated when I play early 3-D games

 

Funny, they have the same effect on me. But in my case with HD Games (like PS3 or XBOX360) it is even worst , after 5 minutes of play i'm sick!

[+5-11under]

though I occasionally get nauseated when I play early 3-D games

 

Funny, they have the same effect on me. But in my case with HD Games (like PS3 or XBOX360) it is even worst , after 5 minutes of play i'm sick!

 

I can't play these at all. No Doom or anything like it for me. Games with more of an overhead view are fine, like Bomberman for N64, and racing games.

5-11under

[newcoleco]

The problem is not the number of frames per second, but the fuildity.

 

I'm sick of claims like "I can see the frames", that makes no sense because what people see in reality is a speed variation that makes the sequence of frames a pain to watch. For example, I've never read a comment from someone telling that he can't watch tv or a movie on dvd because of the frame rate. Do you know that movies on dvd are at 24, 25 or 30 frames per second?

 

I understand the idea that by having the possibility of calculating a high number of frames per second the result will pretty much match the framerate of your monitor or tv.

 

Why we can't use the clock interruption anymore, like in the good old days of video games? Specially for the consoles if they are all the same, they should be able to do something to make the render more fluid without heating too much the video chip.

[+thegoldenband]

Newcoleco, was that directed at my post? If so, I'm well aware of video/film (and PAL vs. NTSC) framerates, and also love the Intellivision, which often does things at 20fps IIRC. I could say that I find Zaxxon hard on the eyes because it uses chunky scrolling, or because it's scrolling at about 5Hz; to my mind, the two issues are hard to disentangle, but if anything it's the framerate/scroll rate -- chunky scrolling that's twice as fast is easier to handle.

 

Also, by "speed variation", do you mean a shifting frame rate?

 

As for the 3-D nausea issue, I get it worst with the N64 (Goldeneye comes to mind) though I've gotten it with other systems as well. For some reason, it doesn't seem to happen with Halo 2 on the XBox. It's not severe, but it's unpleasant -- a little nausea, a bit of a headache, feeling a bit overheated.

Edited September 24, 2009 by thegoldenband

[Pixelboy]

As for the 3-D nausea issue, I get it worst with the N64 (Goldeneye comes to mind) though I've gotten it with other systems as well. For some reason, it doesn't seem to happen with Halo 2 on the XBox. It's not severe, but it's unpleasant -- a little nausea, a bit of a headache, feeling a bit overheated.

Looks like your brain needs a visual processor upgrade. I'm sure you can get one from Nvidia for cheap.

[+thegoldenband]

Ha! I think I like the circuitry I've got, thanks. At least it takes about an hour of playtime for it to happen -- not like a friend of mine, who literally can't play any 3-D game without getting motion sickness.

[newcoleco]

Ha! I think I like the circuitry I've got, thanks. At least it takes about an hour of playtime for it to happen -- not like a friend of mine, who literally can't play any 3-D game without getting motion sickness.

Yes, it was kinda a direct reply, but at the same time I wanted to give my opinion about this low frame rate responsable for sickness. I understand that people can be sick because of a kind of strobing effect, saccade, but it's the first time I've heard of the scrolling problem of zaxxon can be a problem inside a message talking about games that can make people sick.

 

I admit that I can't play modern games mostly because it's fast crazy action and flashes, with exagerated jumps, cliffs, explosions, etc. But, instead of convulsions on the floor, I just want to close my eyes for a few seconds and try again if I can. My friends know that and they no more invite me to play lan party games. But, I can play Zaxxon!