Unicorns season: Prince of Persia for the A8!

[_The Doctor__]

POP sold pc clones, Tandy used have POP playing on their machine and at Radio Shack stores and allowed folks to play it for hours knowing come a holiday or birthday the machine would be sold at that time... I'd say with little reservation that this gem would have really made the 8 bit Atari get a number of double take and third looks and it would have more than likely satisfied a base of users and added some fans and owners of the Atari. That is to say excellent job once again. Looking forward to more news. I love the game and will continue to play the sh*t out of it.

Edited November 26, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[rensoup]

17 hours ago, kiwilove said:

I do wonder what your next game project will be? Or other ones further down the line.  There is one particular game I like to see fully done, but won't mention the title here.  It's probably on a lot of players' most wanted list - and is known to be doable now.

If you're talking about Playsoft's excellent Gloogloo demo, I looked at a possible conversion and I haven't actually ruled it out 🙂

 

It would be a great showcase for the A8. One potential problem is the original board' specs:

 

2 Z80s clocked at 6MHz (not counting the one driving the soundchip). The 2nd one being dedicated to the enemy movements and collision detection.

 

The graphics chip being able to display 64 sprites and a background.

 

The good news is that the hardware is underused. 

Regarding CPU usage, There's a NES version which runs fine on the 6502 (although it's simpler than the arcade).

For the graphics chip, although a lot of sprites are displayed, only a portion require proper sprite code.  The chip's background feature is hardly used (only the various texts and beam capture feature)

 

For a faithful conversion, formation expansion is a must unlike the NES version and Playsoft's demo. This would show off the A8's versatility over the technically superior NES. No 8bit version does this.

 

The main problem is the amount of Z80 code to convert 🤔 Although there are disassembled versions and even slightly more readable C version.

 

[invisible kid]

You seemed to have handled this conversion pretty adeptly and made all the right decisions IMHO. Did you have experience doing this before? Did you follow someone else's techniques? It doesn't seem like you could have done this without some sort of background doing this or programming. Also, any updates on what you are working on next, if anything?

[leech]

On 11/25/2022 at 6:07 PM, rensoup said:

That was a goal of mine.

 

To be honest, I doubt it would have been possible to get near the same quality back then. The development environment is just that much better. Something as simple as the code for optimizing sprite space would have been a difficult to run on even on an AtariST. The compression algorithms (ZX0, ZX5, LZSS) didn't even exist ! And obviously working with Altirra gives you access to all the A8 internals while you'd have been facing a blank screen for the hundreds of encountered bugs on a real A8.

 

Still quite satisfying though!

 

Thanks everybody for the support.

This is what I've been thinking for some time, that while clearly the possibility remains that the hardware itself was capable of such wonderful things as your port of PoP, the development tools and even just sheer knowledge of the hardware was lacking.

 

I also tend to think that a vast majority of games that look / run better on the c64 could be done better on the Atari 8bit, but due to the popularity of each machine, the Atari 8bits ended up getting less love, and after-thought ports. 

[JagChris]

On 11/25/2022 at 5:07 PM, rensoup said:

That was a goal of mine.

 

To be honest, I doubt it would have been possible to get near the same quality back then. The development environment is just that much better. Something as simple as the code for optimizing sprite space would have been a difficult to run on even on an AtariST. The compression algorithms (ZX0, ZX5, LZSS) didn't even exist ! And obviously working with Altirra gives you access to all the A8 internals while you'd have been facing a blank screen for the hundreds of encountered bugs on a real A8.

 

Still quite satisfying though!

 

Thanks everybody for the support.

Back then wasn't the C64/Apple/BBC in the same boat though?

Edited February 11, 2023 by JagChris

[leech]

27 minutes ago, JagChris said:

Back then wasn't the C64/Apple/BBC in the same boat though?

From what I've read, Atari was very stingy about letting developers have all the documentation for coding for the system until a few years into it's lifespan.  Good possibility this caused some devs to either give up, be bitter and release crappy ports, or just try their best, but ultimately didn't do the hardware justice. 

 

Sadly enough, they repeated such a thing with the Jaguar.

[JagChris]

6 minutes ago, leech said:

From what I've read, Atari was very stingy about letting developers have all the documentation for coding for the system until a few years into it's lifespan.  Good possibility this caused some devs to either give up, be bitter and release crappy ports, or just try their best, but ultimately didn't do the hardware justice. 

 

Sadly enough, they repeated such a thing with the Jaguar.

I know the A8 is 2 some years older tech than the C64 so it had a disadvantage there. But I guess Atari compounded the problem with their lack of initiative.

 

So probably the only person who could do justice to an A8 port back then was a Bill Williams type character.

 

What a loss he was.

Edited February 11, 2023 by JagChris

[Beeblebrox]

As I've read there was definitely a huge problem with Atari and its relationship with developers, it's timing and stuborn attitude ... and so many other issues. This all contributed to Atari seeming to fall behind in terms of ports, decent gaming libraries and the like.  Not content with screwing up the 8 bit line in many respects they pretty much repeated the same mistakes for both the Atari ST and the Jaguar. In the case of the jaguar... Truly appalling games like Trevor Mcfur and Kasumi ninja really sealed it's fate and not even the widely acclaimed Doom,  Alien vs predator or Wolfenstein 3d could save it. 

 

Back to the Atari 8-bit the fact there were amazing coders who were able to push the Atari to do amazing things and play to it's strengths, get around it's technical limitations and quirks, etc is amazing.

 

So case in point as mentioned the genius that was Bill Williams came up with Alley cat. That game was released in 1983 I believe and crams so much in. It is a fast, colourful, content rich game with great graphics and amazing sound effects. And most importantly excellent arcade gameplay. 

 

Then take Rescue on fractalus. It's amazing what was achieved there. Groundbreaking. It still amazes me today. 

 

The 1987 release of the Atari version of the amazing platformer Henry's house, (which I believe came several years after the release of the c64 version), used interrupts/dli's, etc to pull off an amazing feat. A platformer that is fun, funny, challenging, addictive, and looks absolutely gorgeous. (It's one if not the best looking platformers on the Atari 8 bit). 

 

Zepplin games really pushed the boat out with the excellent Blinky's scary school and Zybex titles. 

 

I am sure I've missed out many many more titles. 

 

The thing is that back then whilst there were major mistakes made, and some truely awful ports, games, etc, there were glimmers of genius where coders did play to the Atari's aforementioned strengths and get around the quirks/limitations.

 

Whilst it's a pity each game release didn't always build on this, what is personally important to me is now, 35-40 years down the line, coders are pulling off feats of coding genius producing the likes of games such as Prince of Persia, l'Abbaye des morts, flob, atariblast, the last squadron, final Assault, bunny hop, gacek, Albert, arcadia, bubbleshooter, and demos like rewind and Alley dog. 

 

Not to mention the fact we have seen a proof concept (64k segment) doom engine running... 

https://youtu.be/UwKu5pbbmtw?t=8377

Yes this was part of the rewind demo but this segment is running on 64k..and it is hoped we'll see 2 x Doom engines released sometime this year - one running this on 64k and another enhanced 128k engine. Amazing achievement!!! 

... and wolfenstein 3d inspired engines (including Project M below) also:

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[JagChris]

Thanks for mentioning Henry's house etc. Ill look into those.

 

I thought Necromancer was impressive and faster than the C64 port with tons of sprite zipping around.

[JagChris]

OK Henry's House just blew me away. That's you're right that's amazing. Its nearly up there with the C64 version. But easily one of the most beautiful achievements on the A8.

 

And Blinks scary school is fantastic as well though not quite what Henry's House is.

[Beeblebrox]

The more you play Henry's house the more you appreciate the clever level design and humour and the extra care/effort the coder went to in order to squeeze the most out of the Atari's graphics. The little animation touches are amazing. I love the 2nd level especially. Gameplay doesn't suffer at all at the hands of pushing the machine graphically. 

 

I really want to see a modern sequel coded to Henry's house. Would be amazing!! 

 

Same goes for Alley cat. I really wish more games had come out after alley cat that had the same exciting gameplay, level of speed, graphics and especially sound effects. The vocal effects for the cat and dog and all round sound effects used are fantastic and put a lot of subsequent Atari game releases to shame on so many levels. 

 

I am really pleased that with Prince of Persia they pushed the animation and sound effects side so much alongside the classic PoP gameplay engine. Amazing achievement. 

 

If you haven't already checked out the other games/demos I mentioned please do. They, among many others, really showcase the A8's abilities. 

 

It's great also we have already excellent classic games like international karate (which I neglected to mention earlier), being enhanced/tinkered with at present.

 

Edit. Just to clarify there are various different related IK projects. Ik+ has been running for 10+ years and is completely separate from the recent backdrop image tinkering below. 

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2023 by Beeblebrox

[Beeblebrox]

Additional : topic editing period expired so just adding a link to IK+ and the other projects.

 

Ik+project:http://uce.pl/ikplus/downloads.html

 

Rastaconverter IK backdrop tinkering :

 

 

Coder Nobody's incorporating of new backdrops into IK recently :

 

 

[+Philsan]

Henry's House was programmed by Chris Murray on his Atari but the publisher asked to make it for C64, because it would have sold more, and was released in 1984.

Eventually another publisher released the game for Atari, after some enhancements, in 1987. It sold more than C64 version, thanks to budget price too.

Murray always wanted to push Atari machines, as we can see in The Last Guardian, Winter Olympiad and Mirax Force.

Very good coder!

[JagChris]

Unfortunately it seems the IK+ is a dead project. Maybe he should consider a Patreon like the BigPemu author.

[JagChris]

4 hours ago, Philsan said:

Henry's House was programmed by Chris Murray on his Atari but the publisher asked to make it for C64, because it would have sold more, and was released in 1984.

Eventually another publisher released the game for Atari, after some enhancements, in 1987. It sold more than C64 version, thanks to budget price too.

Murray always wanted to push Atari machines, as we can see in The Last Guardian, Winter Olympiad and Mirax Force.

Very good coder!

Scribbles down Last Guardian, Winter Olympiad...

 

I can't find any interviews with the author though others seem to be able to.

 

Any in the interview thread? Didn't think to check there yet.

 

I heard online second hand it wasn't really at a budget price and author realized there was certain prices people are willing to pay.

Edited February 12, 2023 by JagChris

[+Philsan]

In all mentioned games you can see the will to have many colors, for example.

 

I read Chris Murray's interview in the book Unofficial Atari a Visual Story

[JagChris]

3 hours ago, Philsan said:

In all mentioned games you can see the will to have many colors, for example.

 

I read Chris Murray's interview in the book Unofficial Atari a Visual Story

Thank you. I've never heard of this book. Fantastic.

[JagChris]

Regarding the cart fiasco.

 

It's hard to deny the appeal of this especially if it allows the game to run on 64k machines.

 

However, there are people in the Jag community who do reproduction carts of games no longer available but only charge $30. Claim they are not doing it for money but only for the reproduction service. 

 

Audacity Games is selling Circus Concoy which was 3 years of work for them for $60. That's with box, instructions etc. 

 

So it seems the people involved in the A8 cart POP are trying to make a profit off other people's work by the above metrics. And not merely providing a service and basic recompense. 

 

Though I didn't read the entire thread about it what I did read their demeanors seem a tad disrespectful to the people whose work they're making money off of.

[+Adam+]

17 hours ago, JagChris said:

Unfortunately it seems the IK+ is a dead project.

Not true. The latest news from the coder about IK+ is from January 12th in this thread on AtariOnline.pl (in Polish): https://atarionline.pl/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=496&page=4

[_The Doctor__]

It basically says the work was moved to git a year ago, and that music conversion was ongoing. The bass that was being sought after however was squared away in 2019. Seems he wants SID music with better bass, I hope without the bumble bees. Pokey can do many amazing things recently with the work that's been done by a handful of folks. Who knows, maybe after the Commodore ported alike version is done, some inspired soul will do a from the ground up Atari strength version. Things like that have been known to happen. Started when the hair was dark and the body young, now old and grey, maybe one day, the praise will be sung.

 

Oh my, this is the Prince of Persia thread!!! Let's go rescue our Princess instead. Back to PoP!

Edited February 13, 2023 by _The Doctor__

[Lostdragon]

18 hours ago, JagChris said:

Scribbles down Last Guardian, Winter Olympiad...

 

I can't find any interviews with the author though others seem to be able to.

 

Any in the interview thread? Didn't think to check there yet.

 

I heard online second hand it wasn't really at a budget price and author realized there was certain prices people are willing to pay.

It's one of my old ones. 

 

It's also available here:

 

https://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/interviews/christopher_murray/interview_christopher_murray.html

[rensoup]

On 2/11/2023 at 9:35 PM, invisible kid said:

You seemed to have handled this conversion pretty adeptly and made all the right decisions IMHO. Did you have experience doing this before? Did you follow someone else's techniques? It doesn't seem like you could have done this without some sort of background doing this or programming. 

Thanks, I have plenty of experience with various machines but never attempted ports before.

 

As for following techniques, I don't think I did... Though there's one thing I was told at my job: Always start from something that works... which I used to be very much against at first but turned out to be a saner method than starting from scratch... altough sometimes not by  a big margin!

 

I developed all the tools I needed in order to make my life easier.

 

On 2/11/2023 at 9:35 PM, invisible kid said:

Also, any updates on what you are working on next, if anything?

Haven't done much progress on that front... I've been doing much on work on a RMT based tracker (see "moving beyond RMT"). Hopefully we'll get more music coming to the A8 thanks to a slightly improved import process (and Tatqoo's efforts!)

[JagChris]

Fantastic interview @Lostdragon thanks for that.

 

With the resurgence of IP's of yesteryear getting permission to be resold on the 2600 etc perhaps rensoup could take a stab at getting rights to resell this. I'd buy a cartridge. 

 

Maybe team up with a publisher like Audacity.

 

Same goes for Chris Murray. Repackage Henry's House or do the sequel he planned. Give it a shot like Audacity is with Circus Convoy.

 

And for those owning a 2600/7800 consider supporting  Audacity if you haven't. If they're successful they said they will expand out. Probably this direction.

 

Chris Murray should write a book on what he learned. Or is this stuff now known by others? 

[rensoup]

On 2/11/2023 at 10:40 PM, leech said:

I also tend to think that a vast majority of games that look / run better on the c64 could be done better on the Atari 8bit, but due to the popularity of each machine, the Atari 8bits ended up getting less love, and after-thought ports. 

Agreed... There's definitely more work involved for the A8 though because you have to take the software sprite route. I'm sure devs would have made the effort had the A8 outsold the C64 2:1

 

On 2/11/2023 at 11:49 PM, JagChris said:

Back then wasn't the C64/Apple/BBC in the same boat though?

For sure...C64 and BBC are recent though. Doesn't mean their authors goal was to push the machine, that was just my own goal knowing that a straight port was not a problem for the A8 given that the original runs on a 1MHz A2.

[rensoup]

On 2/12/2023 at 7:54 AM, Beeblebrox said:

Edit. Just to clarify there are various different related IK projects. Ik+ has been running for 10+ years and is completely separate from the recent backdrop image tinkering below. 

Like I mentioned in the IK thread, one of the folks involved in IK ultimate on the C64 asked if someone was interested in an A8 port but he got no response I guess.

 

I'd really like to see to new backgrounds on the A8 along with PG's own pictures.