Alex Kidd Port

[+Vorticon]

Haven't worked much on this the past week or so, but I did spend some time drawing a start screen. What do y'all think?

 

kiddtitle_with_sprites.png

 

 

Wonderful screen! I would suggest including TI 99/4A somewhere in there though.

[sometimes99er]

Nice work.

Found this relatively nice look into the world/history of Alex Kidd.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/11/06/alex-kidd-retrospective

Before finding the game for SMS and playing, I was wondering about an original world map. Boy was I surprised at the size of the game.

http://www.smspower.org/Maps/AlexKiddInMiracleWorld-SMS

Even though you've made a titlescreen, I guess you're not trying to port all of the game ?

 

Edited September 5, 2014 by sometimes99er

[TheMole]

Nice work.

 

Found this relatively nice look into the world/history of Alex Kidd.

 

http://www.ign.com/articles/2008/11/06/alex-kidd-retrospective

 

Before finding the game for SMS and playing, I was wondering about an original world map. Boy was I surprised at the size of the game.

 

http://www.smspower.org/Maps/AlexKiddInMiracleWorld-SMS

 

Even though you've made a titlescreen, I guess you're not trying to port all of the game ?

 

 

 

Cool, thanks for the link to the retrospective, looks like a nice read for when I'm at the airport later today .

 

Yes, the game is huge... it felt so epic back when I originally got my Master System. For a built-in game it was absolutely tremendous (suck it, Gyromite/Duck Hunt!). It's very unlikely that I will do a full port, but I do intend to turn it into a full game heavily inspired by the original. At the very least I want to do some of the horizontally scrolling levels without vehicles. I also want to design new levels. I might look at adding vehicles, water levels and vertically scrolling levels at a later point in time.

 

That's why I'm calling it Alex Kidd on Miracle Island (it kind of conveys a smaller scope).

 

I plan on releasing one more disk image with just the current level, all polished up. After that I'm afraid I'll have to start working on tools first (ugh... dreading that) 'cause creating the level data by hand is very hard and tedious. And between 9918scroll, 9918coldet (my own command line tools for scrolling and collision detection), Magellan, Tursi's 9918convert, classic99 and vgmtool, UnHuman's GraphiCV, your Patterns, Michael's TiImageTool and MESS, Marc Rousseau's ti99sim "disk" utility, Insomnia's gcc, Rasmus' js99er, ... I'm using way too many different tools across different OS's to make it usable. I hate doing tools, but if this is to turn into an epic game, I'll have to .

[TI-Sissy]

wow! more goes into these lil games than i knew.

[mäsäxi]

Wonderful! I just hope you won´t get any problems with ©. How about A.K. IN TI99 WORLD ? Ok, not the best name, but something like that could be cool. Next game in the series could be "A.K in 99 LOST STARS".

[TheMole]

Wonderful! I just hope you won´t get any problems with ©. How about A.K. IN TI99 WORLD ? Ok, not the best name, but something like that could be cool. Next game in the series could be "A.K in 99 LOST STARS".

 

True, although I think the TI community is probably small enough to not get them worried...

[TheMole]

I've been working on the graphics for the "map" screen that is shown in between levels and when Alex accesses his inventory. It doesn't do much except show where on the world the current level is by means of a bouncing arrow, but I still think it's important to add stuff like this to make the game feel more polished . In the original, the map is a very colorful screen with lot's of details that don't translate very well to something that would fit within the 9918a's limitations. On top of that, as mentioned in one of the posts above, I'm reducing the scope of the game to make it feasible for me to get to a finished product. Since I've renamed it to Alex Kidd on Miracle Island, I felt the map should show, you know... an island.

 

This was the original map screen:

 

Nothing I tried based on this looked satisfying or professional, so I thought I could go for a more stylized look, something that's a better fit to the limitations of the VDP. I found inspiration in Super Mario 3, which does this kind of pseudo-perspective style drawing that not only hides the tricks one uses to get nice outlines around parts of the drawing but also shows elevated terrain.

 

Also, it's a bit clearer which different levels the player can expect (I'm planning beach, plains, woods, lake, town, castle, big lake, volcano and ice castle levels, so 9 in total).

 

I ended up with this:

 

It's a big departure from the original, but I think it could work. What do you guys think, does this fit the game?

 

[+OLD CS1]

I do not think it diminishes the game in any way. In fact, I think it is an extraordinary adaptation. Good job.

 

I have been poking around looking at various games which get converted and ported between platforms and find, in general, the graphical adaptions are far below that which the platforms are capable. Around these parts I see a Herculean effort to maintain as much integrity and fidelity to the original games as possible (where applicable) and IMNSHO you are maintaining that bar.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

 

It's a big departure from the original, but I think it could work. What do you guys think, does this fit the game?

 

I think it fits nicely with your title screen Seems to me it will work quite well. And... if you don't care for it later, you now have a reference point for an SMB3 adaptation

[+Ksarul]

I like it! It is a fine adaptation of the island theme screen.

[Iwantgames:)]

I like it less cluttered looking to me

[mäsäxi]

I like very much how the TI map looks and even more I like how you gave this game a new look by making a totally new looking map! This map screen is fine enough, but if you want, there are few places which could benefit from some little extra colour. The tree tops could have one or two light green horizontal lines in each tree, just to mimic sunrays making the tree tops having a lighter colour. I know some pixels can "spill" to neighbouring trees, but that might just give them even better natural look. The left and right edges of yellow paper could have similar red pixels what original map had. And that paper´s top and bottom pixel rows (1-2 rows) could simply have red line. This would make the paper look like an old paper map. This was just an idea, I like your map screen the way it is right now. Just wanted to mention these, as little nice touches will make a better game.

[sometimes99er]

Excellent. This is just a quick sketch, but demonstrates an alternative approach to the volcano. Or you could consider having an instruction manual explanation for your volcano like some ancient Inca pyramid accelerator meltdown alien stuff.

 

 

[am1933]

Map screen looks good, I like it enough to make me do an albino tadpole sex pee!!!

[TheMole]

The tree tops could have one or two light green horizontal lines in each tree, just to mimic sunrays making the tree tops having a lighter colour. I know some pixels can "spill" to neighbouring trees, but that might just give them even better natural look.

 

Hmmm, I gave that a try and to be honest, I'm not entirely convinced. I did change the green background color to the middle green instead of the light green to give it less of a pastel look, so I used the light green for the "highlights" which looks a bit much, to be honest. I'm thinking of doing the opposite and adding some shadowing using black pixels to make it look a bit more organic.

 

And that paper´s top and bottom pixel rows (1-2 rows) could simply have red line. This would make the paper look like an old paper map. This was just an idea, I like your map screen the way it is right now. Just wanted to mention these, as little nice touches will make a better game.

It's hard to see in the png, but the edges are actually "dark" yellow where the rest of the scroll is light yellow, so I did keep the edges. I replaced it with light red, which is much more obvious but it actually looks pretty nice. I think I'm going to keep it like that, thanks for the input!

[TheMole]

Excellent. This is just a quick sketch, but demonstrates an alternative approach to the volcano. Or you could consider having an instruction manual explanation for your volcano like some ancient Inca pyramid accelerator meltdown alien stuff.

 

Huh, that doesn't look half bad... it might work better with a square-based volcano though. Would you mind trying your hand at a modified version if I send that to you (or post it here)?

[TheMole]

Map screen looks good, I like it enough to make me do an albino tadpole sex pee!!!

 

Uhm... thanks, I guess .

[+Gemintronic]

 

Uhm... thanks, I guess .

 

For those not up on the latest Japanese arcade games.. I think he's talking about the English language version of this:

http://www.seanbaby.com/nes/nes/naughty02.htm

[sometimes99er]

Huh, that doesn't look half bad... it might work better with a square-based volcano though. Would you mind trying your hand at a modified version if I send that to you (or post it here)?

Sure. Perhaps something like this.

 

[mäsäxi]

TheMole, as you said it now, when I look carefully, I can see dark yellow pixels. Sure they will be better visible on television, but I think some red hue will look better, at least in my opinion. For the trees, as in your picture the background is light green, I thought it´s ok to use the same light green for the tree highlights. Also yellow can be considered as a highlights colour for tree leaves, but I don´t know if it suits for your picture or not. Trees are allright already, but I just thought as those small huts had the red roofs, tree leaves looked a little pale in contrast. Yes, I did understand that highlighting trees even a bit can look "too much", but I wanted to mention my idea.

Sometimes99er´s second volcano looks very good. But theMole´s original volcano is good too, maybe a bit blocky when one can now compare it to the more realistic volcano, but I do understand that you didn´t have real volcano in your mind when you designed your Inca steps volcano. Yes, Incas came to my mind also. And that´s not a bad thing.

Edited September 16, 2014 by mäsäxi

[TheMole]

What about this?

 

[TheMole]

Sure. Perhaps something like this.

 

 

Yeah, but I think the volcano is too big for the more realistic shape, hence why I tried it with a smaller version and an extra forest. Thanks for the inspiration though

[sometimes99er]

What about this?

 

 

Quite cute. More aligned with the rest of the graphics.

[Iwantgames:)]

I like it

[+OLD CS1]

 

Quite cute. More aligned with the rest of the graphics.

 

This. Definitely a better fit without a looming huge volcano.