Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Mclaneinc]

5 hours ago, dhor said:

Is it still about PoP? I'm getting a little bit confused...

I don't follow this thread often, but what I saw was more about arguing than the game..

 

So technically yes, but practically not so much..

 

Not good..

[rensoup]

On 1/30/2022 at 11:55 AM, Beeblebrox said:

For what it's worth a few more genres I'd personally love to see attempted on the A8:

 

The other thing to bear in mind with these games is to have joypad control factored in - the likes of the SNACK adapter for SNES controllers - I've got one and Final Assault with a SNACK/SNES pad is amazing to play using one.

 

I also suspect quite a few A8 hardware owners have RAM upgraded machines. I own multiple A8 models - both stock and enhanced A8s. 

 

That's quite a list but can't say there's anything that I fancy, but yeah I do agree that the A8 needs more (classic) platformers and shooters... I'm less convinced by 3D though ( except Elite ) 

 

Snack is potentially interesting as many classics remain unplayable without a 2nd button... I don't know if there are simpler alternatives that allow connectivity for Neogeo controllers and other multi button sticks.

 

I'm not interested in going beyond stock hardware, I only went with 128KB for PoP because that's what the original A2 runs with. I'd rather stick with 64KB if possible (and potentially use more ROM space)
 

Hi score cafe support would be cool too.
 

On 1/30/2022 at 12:04 PM, xxl said:

Then maybe give more direction ? There are many coders improving the system, maybe they will find inspiration in your idea and do something new

 

 

Not sure what you mean, there are plenty of classics to choose from ?
 

 

On 1/30/2022 at 10:08 PM, patjomki said:

I vote for either finishing Sub Hunter or (even better) a port of Defender of the Crown.

 

As we already know (https://atariage.com/forums/topic/175028-defender-of-the-crown/) the latter seems doable on the Atari 8-bit because there aren't too many moving objects in this game and a colour palette with more than 16 colours also helps a lot.

 

I really envy the c64 community for this game.

 

Subhunter was more of demo, a nice parallax doesn't make it a very good game.

 

Defender of the crown was yet another disappointment on the ST (sure the catapult part was nice once or twice). I don't know why people would want games which looked great but played like garbage ported to the A8 as they'd look like garbage too.
 

On 1/31/2022 at 1:34 AM, advfan said:

I would love to be able to play Pirates! on the A8. ?‍☠️

Never played Pirates! (too much text!) 
 

On 2/1/2022 at 7:44 AM, dhor said:

Is it still about PoP? I'm getting a little bit confused...

It stopped being about PoP 146 pages ago, now it's just pub talk ? 

[xxl]

you said something that already exists on A8 ... hmmm Road Race Lotus (Amiga Forever)

 

thanks to FujiNET, a plug-in for HiScore Cafe and the Google Maps API for downloading traffic and route calculations

 

Checkmate

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by xxl

[patjomki]

17 hours ago, rensoup said:

Defender of the crown was yet another disappointment on the ST (sure the catapult part was nice once or twice). I don't know why people would want games which looked great but played like garbage ported to the A8 as they'd look like garbage too.

 

?

 

Idk Defender of the crown is a nice strategy game with a slow pace. I just like it and every once in a while I play it. I agree that input should be better than the st version (like the amiga version) but I disagree that graphics must be garbage on A8. Most graphics are static so there is plenty of computing time for dli tricks, pm overlays etc.

 

If you are looking for something unique what about ape shit (https://megastyle.itch.io/apeshit) or scuttle butt (http://eweguo.ownit.nu/scuttlebutt/ )? A8 needs more games with strange humor. There is udders and strictly gone bananas but the more the better.

 

If you want to do a real showcase well then like others already suggested Another World is a nice game to convert.

 

Regarding shooters:

R-Type is really missing on A8

 

Or if you want to convert a game where source code is available then what about the C64 conversion of Chopper Command (https://github.com/tonysavon/Chopper-Command-C64)?

[rensoup]

On 2/5/2022 at 8:12 PM, patjomki said:

Regarding shooters:

R-Type is really missing on A8

That'd be a very interesting one indeed (I did consider it) and quite a challenge if aiming for a good frame rate, lots of colors, and lots of sprites with a reasonable memory footprint.

 

On 2/5/2022 at 3:29 AM, xxl said:

you said something that already exists on A8 ... hmmm Road Race Lotus (Amiga Forever)

 

You mean road race (not lotus esprit) ? I don't know, I played it back in the day but totally forgot about it... but yeah a good racer is potentially one of those games where the A8 could shine compared the other 8bit platforms (I did consider one too ?)

[Beeblebrox]

R-TYPE would be great. One of the levels of the great Atariblast! is loosely themed R-TYPE. 

 

Weapons and upgrades would be a challenge. ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[patjomki]

18 hours ago, rensoup said:

That'd be a very interesting one indeed (I did consider it) and quite a challenge if aiming for a good frame rate, lots of colors, and lots of sprites with a reasonable memory footprint.?)

If you can achieve all that one can say that it would be another showcase what A8 can do with clever programming.

 

I am really curious to see what game you are going to convert next. ?

[rdefabri]

Stated on another thread, but Another World would be awesome!

[Beeblebrox]

There is always a great game like GODS or of course Shadow of the Beast - used to love these on 16-bit platforms:

 

 

 

And of course there was a demo of an Atari 8-bit version of Shadow of the Beast already, which (no offence to the original programmer(s)), I am sure given new programming techniques and approaches, could be improved on in many respects - (including animation, different resolution (maybe?), with good use of parallax scrolling, enemies, soundFX, etc):

 

Animation appears to be the same 4 x frames or so repeated, no matter what direction of movement your character is going in (including up and down).

No real game as such.

 

Original files here:http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-shadow-of-the-beast_4115.html

 

Actually to be fair watching the video of this the music ain't too bad and it has parallax scrolling plus good use of DLI colours:

 

.. and here is the C64 full game port (which lacks the glorious DLI colours):

 

Edited February 7, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Beeblebrox]

It's been discussed on AA in recent years (mainly as to how it might be done) but I think having an indie game similar to Limbo on the A8 would be amazing, playing to the A8s strengths... Would be a real challenge too. ?

 

 

... And it was ported to the C64:

 

 

 

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

meant to include this in the above post. The Limbo spider reminded me of this excellent part of the Atari Cyberpunk demo with it's excellent use of silhouette and animation:

..video below plays from the point the spider section starts BTW:

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[www.atarimania.com]

How about some Game Boy or MSX games? 

[rdefabri]

Limbo would be excellent!

[Beeblebrox]

...and maybe even Magic Pockets (played this BITD on the Atari ST (it was also released on Amiga). I spent a good few long weekends playing this one - great game:

Maybe some of the enemies and/or little whirlwind projectiles might be possible with sprite multiplexing?

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[+Adam+]

On 1/30/2022 at 1:59 AM, rensoup said:

After 10 years, I'd say RD is up for grabs ?

 

I talked with one of the developers of A8 conversion of "Rick Dangerous" during Silly Venture in August and this project is definitely not abandoned. As I understand, music and new graphics are ready, but some elements in code and in gameplay are still missing or need to be improved/ polished. It would be not very reasonable to start another RD port IMHO.

[xxl]

I place.

 

congrats

[Mclaneinc]

I vote Limbo, it's a fun game... Would need lots of frames of animation, as that's one of the things that draw you in to the game.

[+Philsan]

Trafic is a nice game

 

 

[xxl]

don't bother, it'll end up being Ghost'n Goblins anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Goochman]

I wonder with all the great work you did on PoP would translate into an excellent Impossible Mission port for the 8bit?

[+x=usr(1536)]

Congratulations on the win! It was much deserved!

 

Just gonna leave this here...

 

 

[Mr Robot]

On 2/8/2022 at 11:02 AM, +Adam+ said:

I talked with one of the developers of A8 conversion of "Rick Dangerous" during Silly Venture in August and this project is definitely not abandoned. As I understand, music and new graphics are ready, but some elements in code and in gameplay are still missing or need to be improved/ polished. It would be not very reasonable to start another RD port IMHO.

When this comes out it will be (I hope) the release the decade for me. It's one of my favorite games of all time, one of my favorite games on the Amiga and the reason I bought a VBXE over a Sophia for my 1088XEL.

 

 

 

[Mr Robot]

Just wanted to reiterate xxl and say congratulations on the game of the year award, a worthy and well deserved win, I don't think anyone was surprised at the result and the top three were all outstanding efforts by all the people involved. 

 

 

[rensoup]

On 2/7/2022 at 7:31 PM, patjomki said:

I am really curious to see what game you are going to convert next. ?

So am I ? Probably something on a smaller scale though. It takes a lot of preliminary investigation before deciding a project -isn't- worth pursuing!
 

On 2/8/2022 at 12:24 AM, Beeblebrox said:

And of course there was a demo of an Atari 8-bit version of Shadow of the Beast already, which (no offence to the original programmer(s)), I am sure given new programming techniques and approaches, could be improved on in many respects - (including animation, different resolution (maybe?), with good use of parallax scrolling, enemies, soundFX, etc):

 

SOB, yet another great tech demo with limited playability... You seem to have an interest in those ( And so did I ? ). I too would be curious to know how well those parallaxes would translate to the A8 but (not enough to spend any time on it though!)
 

On 2/8/2022 at 10:16 AM, Beeblebrox said:

It's been discussed on AA in recent years (mainly as to how it might be done) but I think having an indie game similar to Limbo on the A8 would be amazing, playing to the A8s strengths... Would be a real challenge too. ?

 

Limbo's never been released for the C64, supposedly coming out in 2024... Don't think I'm going to wait for it  
 

 

On 2/8/2022 at 11:24 AM, www.atarimania.com said:

How about some Game Boy or MSX games? 

Donkey Kong SGB! Wouldn't that be cool ? 

 

Oh Wait...?
 

On 2/8/2022 at 5:19 PM, Beeblebrox said:

...and maybe even Magic Pockets (played this BITD on the Atari ST (it was also released on Amiga). I spent a good few long weekends playing this one - great game:

 

It'd be quite difficult to make any Bitmap brothers game look good on an A8, they really did use those 16 colors nicely. Xenon 1 would be fun and yes we've got the tune already ?

 

7 hours ago, xxl said:

don't bother, it'll end up being Ghost'n Goblins anyway.

 

I did consider GnG obviously ?. Damn difficult though, multi directional scroll and colorful sprites. Depends how faithful you'd want a conversion to be of course. The in-progress CPC version is amazing, the C64 one not so much.
 

 

5 hours ago, Goochman said:

I wonder with all the great work you did on PoP would translate into an excellent Impossible Mission port for the 8bit?

Im' sure an excellent IM port is possible, not something I'd want to do though. There are very few games that I'd be interested to port from the C64.
One game I really enjoyed back in the day on a friend's C64 was SuperPipeline which I considered porting but somehow wasn't motivated.

 

 

5 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

Congratulations on the win! It was much deserved!

 

Just gonna leave this here...

Never heard of I, Robot... crazy filled vectors for 1983! Not sure what's going on with the gameplay but pretty sure it wouldn't run well on the A8 ?
 

 

(started investigating something else...smaller scale yet difficult, old, classic, although perhaps not that popular anymore...  will probably end up in the bin ?)

[rensoup]

On 2/12/2022 at 11:22 PM, xxl said:

I place.

 

congrats

 

5 hours ago, Mr Robot said:

Just wanted to reiterate xxl and say congratulations on the game of the year award, a worthy and well deserved win, I don't think anyone was surprised at the result and the top three were all outstanding efforts by all the people involved. 

 

 

 

Cool! Going to watch it!

 

 

I didn't have a speech acceptance ready (sorry James)... but here goes:

 

Thanks to ZP and all voters for crowning this fine piece of gaming history, I think we made the A8 proud!

 

The game could have been a nice conversion but thanks to the pigheadedness of all involved, it is the best 8bit one ?

 

Special mention to those who spammed the AA thread for 2 years and contributed nothing ?