Archon for Intellivison - feasibility?

[freewheel]

I've been mucking around mocking up Archon. I can get the graphics to pretty much match the C64 version without problem. They're 7x14 pixels, so the double-card MOB works just fine here. And if you set the ysize bits right, you can get that "wide pixel" look perfectly. The black outline isn't gonna happen, but that's fine. They look remarkably good. And you can stack 9 high on a screen and it fits very well with space in between

 

However this ain't gonna work, not with an 8 MOB limit. The gameboard has up to 36 pieces at a time! So obviously this has to be done with cards. And it should work easily enough as they're very static on the gameboard with just a bit of movement as you move a piece. Plenty of MOB space for this. There's only one problem that I can see - you can't do the "half height" sprite look with cards, can you?

 

The only way I can see this happening is heavily modifying the gamepiece graphics, and they'll end up fugly as all hell. They can be "full size" within the battle scenes of course - only need 4 MOBs to handle those.

 

Am I missing something? I haven't played around a whole ton with background cards to see how much I can push things, but I don't see anything obvious here.

 

 

[catsfolly]

I've been mucking around mocking up Archon. I can get the graphics to pretty much match the C64 version without problem. They're 7x14 pixels, so the double-card MOB works just fine here. And if you set the ysize bits right, you can get that "wide pixel" look perfectly. The black outline isn't gonna happen, but that's fine. They look remarkably good. And you can stack 9 high on a screen and it fits very well with space in between

 

However this ain't gonna work, not with an 8 MOB limit. The gameboard has up to 36 pieces at a time! So obviously this has to be done with cards. And it should work easily enough as they're very static on the gameboard with just a bit of movement as you move a piece. Plenty of MOB space for this. There's only one problem that I can see - you can't do the "half height" sprite look with cards, can you?

 

The only way I can see this happening is heavily modifying the gamepiece graphics, and they'll end up fugly as all hell. They can be "full size" within the battle scenes of course - only need 4 MOBs to handle those.

 

Am I missing something? I haven't played around a whole ton with background cards to see how much I can push things, but I don't see anything obvious here.

 

 

Yeah, there's no half height mode for cards. So the graphics would have to change for the gameboard at least. Maybe use symbols for the different character types, rather than trying to draw the character in 7x7 bits?

[freewheel]

Yeah, or similar. It would be a loss to the game; half of the appeal to me was the amazing board. A lot of games "cheated" back in the day and Archon always impressed me.

 

It's frustrating because otherwise, it's an ideal candidate for the INTV. Monochrome graphics, tile-based main screen, plenty of sprites available for the action scenes... I have no idea how complex the game logic would be, and there wouldn't be a whole lot of card space leftover for animations (it takes 32 cards just to display the main characters in their static positions), but still... just seems like a good fit. But I think any implementation would have to sacrifice a fair bit unfortunately.

[Bill Loguidice]

Honestly, the hardest part of Archon to get right is the battle screen and MANY versions of the game have failed because of that. Fidelity on the game board can be sacrificed with either abstracted graphics with little or no animation or even letter designations if the battle screens are properly tuned. In any case, I think if we get something similar to USCF Chess's board, then I don't think anyone will complain.

[Fushek]

It takes 32 cards just to display the main characters in their static positions.

 

Shouldn't take that many, should it? All the pawns are the same (so only 1 for them) and most other pieces have a duplicate piece. So ... each side would need: a pawn, rook, knight, bishop, king and queen image for a total of 6 unique images for the light and the dark.

 

So ... 12 unique images, right? Or, since I'm not even pretending to be a programmer, I may be missing something.

 

 

 

[+Tarzilla]

Shouldn't take that many, should it? All the pawns are the same (so only 1 for them) and most other pieces have a duplicate piece. So ... each side would need: a pawn, rook, knight, bishop, king and queen image for a total of 6 unique images for the light and the dark.

So ... 12 unique images, right? Or, since I'm not even pretending to be a programmer, I may be missing something.

 

 

 

Take a look at the mockup I did a few weeks ago using IntyBasic (not a paint program) so what you see is actual.

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/229346-wishing-for-a-new-game-archon/page-2?do=findComment&comment=3068077

 

The issue is you only have a total of 8 MOBs (sprites) on the screen at once. These are single pixel high so naturally you'd want to use them for the game pieces.

However, we need more than 8 so we have to use background cards. Unfortunately these are double vertical resolution compared to MOB's. The orange blob is a card. So to get an accurate game board, you'd have to make the screen bigger and scroll around, which may or may not be acceptable to the fans of the original. Its not the number of unique images that is the problem (you can have at least 64) it is what method you you to display them has limitations.

[Bill Loguidice]

I see nothing wrong with that image. While it might take some design creativity/liberties, having even rough sprites like that should be usable. You really just need to tell the individual characters roughly apart.

[+thegoldenband]

What about using simplified graphics for the general array of characters, but switching to a hi-res/fancier version for the currently selected/active character? Maybe that's obvious, but it would work in a "coming to life" sort of way.

[freewheel]

 

Shouldn't take that many, should it? All the pawns are the same (so only 1 for them) and most other pieces have a duplicate piece. So ... each side would need: a pawn, rook, knight, bishop, king and queen image for a total of 6 unique images for the light and the dark.

 

So ... 12 unique images, right? Or, since I'm not even pretending to be a programmer, I may be missing something.

 

 

It's more than you think, if you want it to look good. This is why some suggest making the game pieces low-res.

 

There are actually 8 unique pieces per side, so 16 in total. However, the original pieces are 7x14 (or 8x16 if you want to be anal) images, and the INTV uses 8x8 images. So you'd need 2 per piece, which is where 32 came from. Now, that's actually doable - except you can't use these double-high sprites if you want more than 8 on screen at once (and the game actually uses up to 36). So you have no choice but to use low res images, 8x8. You can use the double-high in the battle screens if you want.

 

I also didn't realize there was a whole 'nother thread on this one.

[vprette]

does any of you people feel able to make this game for INTV? I'm looking for a potential programmer

[AtariBuff]

Valter,

have you completed the licensing process with Freefall already? You know why I'm asking...

[vprette]

Valter,

have you completed the licensing process with Freefall already? You know why I'm asking...

 

not yet

[AtariBuff]

same here