Space Harrier Released

[Heaven/TQA]

How about demoing your game here, http://www.replayexpo.com/ ??

 

i'll be in the Replay competition hall with a stock 800XL (along with a few other machines and hopefully a small collection of brand new 8-bit games to release over the course of the weekend) so if someone fancies bringing a cartridge along...

 

Jason, what about RG interview?

[TMR]

Jason, what about RG interview?

 

No thanks, you've already done one. =-)

[Heaven/TQA]

for CHRIS...

[Rybags]

I had a quick play around in the Altirra debug with this...

 

2 missiles are used left/right of screen for masking. Missile DMA is actually turned off on GTIA, so they retain their GRAF data indefinately.

 

Player DMA is turned on in Antic (note of course that means missile data is fetched too).

 

Saw one block of code executing with lots of consecutive STYs (brute force "CPU blit" )

 

Samples played by a z-page bit of code each 4 scanlines. Only the low address gets incremented. Data isn't packed, just the AUDF values.

[MaPa]

Deleted.

Edited July 8, 2011 by MaPa

[DracIsBack]

This really is amazing work, Sheddy! I just might have to spring for a real cartridge.

[+skr]

Great Game!

 

Best played with a Wii controller and the Nun-joy interface from HardwareDoc. :-)

[xxl]

one of the best games on the small atari.

 

 

thanks Sheddy

[Arjak]

Holy F***ing S***! I usually don't care about ports, but if Sega was putting in this kind of effort today, they probably wouldn't have so many disillusioned fans.

 

After watching the video and having my jaw drop several times, I must say that this is beyond professional quality. I don't think anyone would have bothered putting in the time and effort to make such an excellent port for a real company, because it would've had to be out by 'next Christmas.' This is what I love about people who program on old systems for fun.

 

Here's what made me excited:

 

1. Perhaps the title screen is a little too dark (it might be Youtube), but it is still an incredible recreation of the original version. By this point, I was somewhat impressed.

 

2. The voices. Just...the voices. When I heard, "Welcome to the Fantasy Zone! Get ready!" for the first time, I freaked out a little. I then had to rewind and watch it several times. Except for a slight change in sound quality, it sounds arcade perfect. I then started wondering about the other two pieces of voice. Yep, "You're doing great!" and the Harrier's death scream were also present. Even with the initial excitement gone, hearing the voice effects still brings a smile to my face.

 

3. The music. In retrospect, there definitely had to be a downgrade in quality from the arcade, but I was still very impressed with how faithful it was to the arcade original. All the songs were there, and all of them sounded as great as I could imagine coming from the system.

 

4. The graphics. They look amazing.

 

5. The gameplay. Holy... I can't believe how smooth and quick it is! I don't know how the programmer did this, but I hope one day that I can come anywhere close to this level of quality! I felt my heart cheer in excitement when Level 4 started and the ceiling came down, just like it should.

 

Overall, this is probably the closest this game could come to being arcade perfect on the Atari 8-Bit. Congratulations to everyone who made this port possible! In my mind, you are all programming geniuses.

[Syfo-Dyas]

Great job!!!!

[Mclaneinc]

Not only is this a fantastic bit of coding but the pressure to recreate the famous Space Harrier has ramped up the quality of this several more notches, Sheddy, you have exceeded anything any one could have guessed, this IS Space Harrier.

 

Also, this is Space Harrier on the mid range machine without any hardware mods..Simply stunning...

 

A fellow Brit offers you a virtual beer!

[Mathy]

Hello McIaneinc

 

A fellow Brit offers you a virtual beer!

Are you sure you're not Scottish?

 

Sincelery

 

Mathy

[Mclaneinc]

Hello McIaneinc

 

A fellow Brit offers you a virtual beer!

Are you sure you're not Scottish?

 

Sincelery

 

Mathy

 

Ha ha..Well spotted...

 

Northern Irish with some Scottish ancestry so I might well be a tight git

[jdh]

Awesome game!!! Looks, plays and sounds fantastic

[Irgendwer]

That could be very interesting on a 7800 with enough RAM

 

Could also be a great game for the Atari Lynx! Resolution matches and porting could by 'easy' thanks to the sprite mechanism of the Lynx.

 

Anyway: Congratulations Sheddy - you deserve a star at the (virtual) A8 walk of fame!

[Sheddy]

Glad people are enjoying it

 

 

OK pretty sure I asked this already, and not in a disrespectful way more in a curiosity kind of way because I am trying to learn about the various funky screen modes and stuff for A8, but why are the colours quite dark? Is it the video? Is it a feature of the colours you can choose for the selected screen mode the game is running in? Has there been a change in the screen modes used in the last 3-4 years? etc etc

 

The guys are right about the flicker modes. If there is too much variation in brightness of the colours the flicker becomes very noticeable - One of the required colours was a black, so none of the other colours could really bright. The main reason for the darker seeming colours in the last few years was I changed to a more accurate palette in the emulator I was using for doing screen-shots and videos. The earlier emulator screen-shots were very over-saturated.

 

And now,

 

for something completely different, err, off-topic. Can the engine of SH be used for other games, e.g. "Afterburner" or something like that ?!?

 

-Andreas Koch.

 

 

I've said here some Months ago that those Sega Arcade Shoots are real good ones to try...

Driving ones like OutRun or Hang-on probably Flicker would not look good.

 

But I said on that post that Galaxy Force could be the best one to use this.

With the Sheddy code and someone remake the Gfxs... it certainly would be the best example I remember.

But I wasn't an Arcade user... what other ones do you remember (Sega or any others)?

 

No! Just No! While those games may look pretty, they're utterly unplayable, and for spectators only! Some of the code and ideas could be reused, but probably not as much as you might think.

 

 

great job - will it be available as file version for large drives -> PBI IDE ?

 

Nope, sorry - it'd need more memory than a standard Atari as well.

 

 

Sheddy - this looks amazing. I downloaded Altirra just to be able to try it. (the ROM doesn't work for me using A800win). I got the title screen, but haven't figured out how to start yet - must not have set my Altirra correctly.

 

It flickers in the emulator, but I turned on Frame Blending in the Video option and now its rock solid. I can't wait to try it out, once I get Altirra set up.

 

A question - I searched your site but didn't find this, did you ever reveal how you make use of the Atari's players, missiles, and bg graphics to create the game? It truly looks 3D, I can see images in front of others, the scaling competes with 16-bit Genesis/Mega drive game faux-scaling, so impressive is everything! I am very curious of the technical feats.

 

Hope you got your input mappings on Altirra sorted.

The blending feature is great for this game - Otherwise you'd need to set your monitor refresh to 60Hz to make it look like the real thing and bearable to look at for more than a minute.

The guys are right about the player/missile use. The man uses all the players in overlap mode, and missiles make the screen a bit narrower than a standard screen. Everything else is made from background graphics.

 

I think PMs are for the Player, Shoots & objects are plain gfx while background is graphics, too spiced up with DLIs and PMs (clouds)?

 

PM0&1 for Player as it seems that, probably,... 10pixels wide is enough.

Or not...

 

I was reading this right now and don't even bother to open another Window, but probably the ten or so pixels of the guy are probably two Multicolour Players.

And I am now saying this because the screen isn't a Normal 32/40/48bytes wide (if I remember it right).

Like that and because Sheddy is using a Bitmap Mode then the 5th Player enabled with four Missiles (two left and two right) with PF3-Black Mask side Borders.

 

 

But even this there's another thing:

If this is working in a 'Flicker between two Palletes' then there's (PF0,PF1,PF2) x 2 (I think I read it that the Flicker is two Palletes) then you'll see/study and there's more than two Palletes of these (PF0,PF1,PF2).

Why?

Because it seems a it exists a third Pallete: The shoots 'Dark greenwish'

There are two 'Flicker' palletes than changes colour/luminances according to gfxs./levels but the shoots are always that 'greenwish'.

 

 

 

The 'common colour' it's Backgr. register and there's only one, what 'Flickers'/more than one Pallete are the PFs.

That's why the Ground aren't 'Chess Board' nd just Lines line the Sky, all these Lines are Backgr. Register DLIs.

And this is another possible win of cycles? Bitmap Masking over (00) and just 16cycles ?

 

 

Just some Thoughts of a 'Non coder'

José Pereira.

 

Not far off! 16 pixels needed for the man

There are only 2 palettes though:

1) Background, Green, Blue, Black

2) Background, Grey, Red, Black

 

 

I had a quick play around in the Altirra debug with this...

 

2 missiles are used left/right of screen for masking. Missile DMA is actually turned off on GTIA, so they retain their GRAF data indefinately.

 

Player DMA is turned on in Antic (note of course that means missile data is fetched too).

 

Saw one block of code executing with lots of consecutive STYs (brute force "CPU blit" )

 

Samples played by a z-page bit of code each 4 scanlines. Only the low address gets incremented. Data isn't packed, just the AUDF values.

 

The missile DMA still being fetched is annoying, as is the fetch every scan-line even when players are 2-line resolution. Maybe I was a little anal turning DMA on and off above and below the man though...

 

Phaeron noticed I hadn't really optimized the sample playback routine yet when sent him something to show a problem in the Maxflash emulation of Altirra. Putting it in Zero Page was a pretty extreme suggestion of his!

[Bunsen]

Great Game! Maybe one of the best ever released for 8 bit Atari.

- But only for the NTSC part of the Atari world. -

On PAL machines, especially with CRT's or tube tv's it's a pain for the eyes if you play longer than 5 minutes.

[+orpheuswaking]

Great Game! Maybe one of the best ever released for 8 bit Atari.

- But only for the NTSC part of the Atari world. -

On PAL machines, especially with CRT's or tube tv's it's a pain for the eyes if you play longer than 5 minutes.

 

 

Well it makes a change, usually we miss out on many games from Europe that cannot be palyed correctly on a NTSC machine

[+CharlieChaplin]

Well,

 

if there will ever be a fileversion, it would be good to see one that does NOT require 64k RAM + 1MB XRAM, since few A8 users do have 1MB XRAM. Maybe:

 

1) one could create a fileversion that loads one level after another, so it requires less RAM/XRAM (maybe 320k would be enough then)...?!? Sheddy, how much RAM is required for the main program only (without any levels) and how much RAM is taken for a level ?!?

 

2) one could save some RAM/XRAM by using a static title screen (in CIN/RIP/MAX/G2F/... format, min. 16 colours, 160x192 or 160x200; with less flicker or flicker-free) instead of an animated + interlaced title...?!? Sheddy, how much RAM is required for the animated Space Harrier title ?!?

 

3) the fileversion for real A8 should be packed and splitted into 2-4 files, so that it can be put onto 2-4 DD (180k) disks, since not all A8 users do have 720k or 1440k disks... (for a quick test I zipped the flasher-ATR and got a 386k ZIP-file, then I zipped the BIN/CAR and got a 387k ZIP-fle, since most A8 packers do not pack better than ZIP, I guess that 3 DD disks would be the minimum for a packed fileversion of Space Harrier - of course 2 packed DD diskfiles would be really cool)...

 

-Andreas Koch.

Edited July 10, 2011 by CharlieChaplin

[Jacques]

I'd vote for a comfortable file version using the goods of more RAM and modern storage devices which we mostly have nowadays

If it's easier to adapt it for 64 KB + 1 MB RAM from cartridge version giving 1:1 functionality, it would be good to have such version 1st.

[emkay]

Great Game! Maybe one of the best ever released for 8 bit Atari.

- But only for the NTSC part of the Atari world. -

On PAL machines, especially with CRT's or tube tv's it's a pain for the eyes if you play longer than 5 minutes.

 

 

Well it makes a change, usually we miss out on many games from Europe that cannot be palyed correctly on a NTSC machine

 

 

LOL

99% of the available games were optimised for NTSC.

[+Philsan]

Great Game! Maybe one of the best ever released for 8 bit Atari.

- But only for the NTSC part of the Atari world. -

On PAL machines, especially with CRT's or tube tv's it's a pain for the eyes if you play longer than 5 minutes.

I am waiting my cart and I would like to play it connected to a C1084 monitor.

I hope it's your TV's (or eyes) fault!

[+orpheuswaking]

Great Game! Maybe one of the best ever released for 8 bit Atari.

- But only for the NTSC part of the Atari world. -

On PAL machines, especially with CRT's or tube tv's it's a pain for the eyes if you play longer than 5 minutes.

 

 

Well it makes a change, usually we miss out on many games from Europe that cannot be palyed correctly on a NTSC machine

 

 

LOL

99% of the available games were optimised for NTSC.

 

Oh I don't disagree, but I was specifically referencing the most recent games to come out of Europe in the last few years... We have a number of those that don't work on NTSC

[Rybags]

I've not had a lot of chance to play it but the gameplay flicker didn't bother me.

 

The title screen, yes - very noticable. But you generally load up a game to play it, not stare at the title screen.

 

If you want to view some stupid criticism and irrelevant home remedies - check out Kaz's site's entry on it (comments) ... really, some people are being ridiculous when they should be grateful there's still others out there sacrificing their time for such releases.

 

http://atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1309845876&archive=&start_from=0&ucat=1&ct=nowinki&zin=Antic

[ThomSW]

Really nice game. Flickers as hell but grreeeeeeat overall.

+1 vote for non-cartridge version. Some job for Homesoft, eh?

Edited July 10, 2011 by ThomSW