Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[Jetboot Jack]

On 2/7/2022 at 11:24 PM, Beeblebrox said:

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:

Remember the goal was the whole game in memory in ONE tape load - so ALL of SOB from the Amiga in around 52K (it was for XL/XE only) ?

 

Anyhoo - it was a fun project, although I thought we did Menace better....

 

          sTeVE

Edited February 14, 2022 by Jetboot Jack

[zbyti]

10 hours ago, rensoup said:

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!)

 

[Beeblebrox]

@Jetboot Jack thanks and no offence intended in my comments btw   I love the colours and music is good in the demo. Take your points about the contraints at the time.

 

Regarding Menace - I recall that game on the Amiga. Do you have the A8 file for it -  would love to check it out?

Edited February 14, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Wrathchild]

16 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Do you have the A8 file for it

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-prev-menace_3316.html

 

[Rybags]

Parallax engine - nice...

 

"I sell propane and propane accessories!"

[xxl]

1 hour ago, zbyti said:

 

exquisitely, ANTIC which displays a shifted half cycle of color.

 

 

fake

 

---

sorry, I meant perfidious manipulation ?

Edited February 14, 2022 by xxl

[xxl]

12 hours ago, rensoup said:

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

But on the basis of modifying an existing game?

 

 

maybe somethig from 1982*

arcade style:

 

[MARIO130XE]

If RESNSOUP and his coding skills need a challenge..... he shoud make a 2nd rality remake of the all time best future crew demo of all time. the reference 16/8 bit demo of all time.

If a system can make a Unreal2 demo, it's worth to surwife.

 

just kidding, bit still dreaming of a 2nd rality demo fpr A8 systems

 

[xxl]

 

[+Stephen]

That's some impressive scrolling!

[Beeblebrox]

20 hours ago, xxl said:

 

@xxlThat's a very cool example of multiple parallax scrolling indeed. Thanks for posting.

 

I am really curious as looking at the Youtube site post for this video and all the other videos they have posted, whilst the other videos are cleary running on Atari 8-bits, albeit enhanced - this also  - AFAIK - obviously isn't on any stock A8s, but I can't find out any more about the Veronica enhancement the other videos allude to. Is the Veronica a graphic enhancement and or a CPU replacement/accellerator?

 

I'd love to know more about it.  Thanks

 

EDIT: My bad - I should have searched properly on AA. (Must have initially searched with a typo as originally had no results). Just spied this:

 

Edited February 15, 2022 by Beeblebrox
incorrect info corrected

[+Stephen]

2 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

@xxlThat's a very cool example of multiple parallax scrolling indeed. Thanks for posting.

 

I am really curious as looking at the Youtube site post for this video and all the other videos they have posted, whilst the other videos are cleary running on Atari 8-bits, albeit enhanced - this also  - AFAIK - obviously isn't on any stock A8s, but I can't find out any more about the Veronica enhancement the other videos allude to. Is the Veronica a graphic enhancement and or a CPU replacement/accellerator?

 

I'd love to know more about it.  Thanks

 

EDIT: My bad - I should have searched properly on AA. (Must have initially searched with a typo as originally had no results). Just spied this:

 

D'oh - I never put it together, that Veronica in the video title meant it was running on accelerated hardware.  I wrongly assumed it was running on the coveted "stock hardware only" given the poster.  Still, an impressive demo.

 

I wonder how easily Veronica + VBXE can play together?  That would make for a fine setup.

[Rybags]

Veronika + VBXE I think would work OK but I see 2 problems:

 

Not many have either, probably extremely few have both.

Both have their own RAM I believe, but it's likely that the legacy 6502 has to do the moving of data between system RAM, VBXE RAM and Veronika RAM.

Though I believe with Veronika the intent is for it to do lots of work then present the data for Antic in it's own memory window.

Something like Veronika generating attributes (maybe ~ 1-2K of data) could feasibly be shuffled across by the slow 6502.

[xxl]

I'm still hoping that this will be a game for real Atari hardware, and not some craft machine

 

---

and not Shadow of the Beast because it is a super boring game - more interesting is Jet set Willy

Edited February 15, 2022 by xxl

[Schnurrikowski]

I would like to play a nice and complete conversion of Roc'n Rope on Atari.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWyVRPchwrk

 

Screen format is different, I know. So, why not implementing it with vertical scrolling? That should be a nice challenge.

Edited February 16, 2022 by Schnurrikowski

[+DjayBee]

1 hour ago, Schnurrikowski said:

I would like to play a nice and complete conversion of Roc'n Rope on Atari.

http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tales-of-dragons-and-cavemen_5249.html

 

[+slx]

20 hours ago, Rybags said:

Veronika + VBXE I think would work OK but I see 2 problems:

 

Not many have either, probably extremely few have both.

Both have their own RAM I believe, but it's likely that the legacy 6502 has to do the moving of data between system RAM, VBXE RAM and Veronika RAM.

Though I believe with Veronika the intent is for it to do lots of work then present the data for Antic in it's own memory window.

Something like Veronika generating attributes (maybe ~ 1-2K of data) could feasibly be shuffled across by the slow 6502.

Veronika uses a bank switching scheme so blocks of RAM are swapped between the two. The faster processor of Veronica can move graphics around and then they are switched back into regular RAM space to be displayed. The compelling and very clever thing about Veronika is that it is a cartridge requiring zero installation. You can plug it into any Atari. But just thinking about how to program for it gives me a headache as there are very limited means for the two processors to communicate.

[shanti77]

Something similar is used in the A2600 Harmony / Melody, there are many games that take advantage of it (Galagon, Draconian ...).

[Wrathchild]

Another chance to plug the Uno Cart's capabilities.

 

[Peri Noid]

UNO as a coprocessor?

[Wrathchild]

yes, offload work to the ARM micro it has onboard, e.g. be clever and 'feed' the screen data via the antic dma.

[snicklin]

Pacmania on the A8 would be great.

[Jacques]

I for one can't stop dreaming of Silk Worm, it's an outstanding vertical shooter (incredible on Amiga, very good on C64), for me personally much more tempting than R-Type alike "cosmic" shooters.

There was an attempt made by @Eagle about 10 years ago, but in 2019 he admitted it would require complete rewrite with new approach (the chances seem slim for it to happen, I guess).

 

 

 

(attached xex is newer version and has added background gfx made by Vidol)

 

For comparison Amiga, C64 versions:

 

 

 

SilkWorm.xex

Edited February 18, 2022 by Jacques

[Beeblebrox]

@Jacques   Nice early PoC demo there!!  Thanks for posting the vids and XEX. I really like the weapon and potential for more substantial weapons, (always more impact than a peashooter-esque weapon in vertical or horizonal shooters IMHO), and the enemy vehicles are niceley detailed. Would be good to see how sprite multiplexing and a bit more variation on enemy colour, perhaps animation plus some more paralax scrolling, would improve on an already impressive demo.  Some sampled soundFx too would really enhance it. Bosses in these games always make things more interesting. Kudos to @Eagle for the attempt a decade ago.

 

FYI I ran the XEX on Altirra and it is a bit glitchy with green bars flickering on screen. I'll try real hardware as it may well be just part of the early demo.

Edited February 18, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Mr Robot]

It would be great to see something seemingly impossible like stun runner being done on the Atari. Maybe using techniques similar to yoomp and stunt car racer.