+splendidnut Posted March 6, 2021 Share Posted March 6, 2021 Hey all, Here is an early attempt at a graphics engine for Congo Bongo. I've worked on this mainly over this past week. This morning I finally added the ability to have a movable sprite (Bongo himself), so I figured it would be good time to show off. For the engine itself, currently it's using the 160A graphics mode. The cliff-side is using Indirect (Charactor) Mode. The water, the trees, the bridge, and the skull are applied as "decal" sprites over top of that. And then Bongo is added at the end. To generate the graphics, I'm using an artwork processing tool that I've developed. The tool let's me easily convert image files I've cut/copy/pasted from an arcade screenshot. It currently generates a tileset/tilemap usable with this style engine. So far, it only generates 160A graphics, but I'd like to eventually get it working for ALL the graphics modes. 160B is next on the table... which is needed to improve the appearance of Bongo. The background is static (no animated water yet), but Bongo is movable with the joystick (NOTE: it's just quick and dirty movement code). Enjoy. congo.a78 Edit: Screenshot for those who asked: 22 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted March 6, 2021 Share Posted March 6, 2021 What you have just made is really solid, and as a fan of Congo Bongo, gets my approval. (I used to have that on my Commodore 64.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jinks Posted March 6, 2021 Share Posted March 6, 2021 Anyone got a screenshot or video. You programmer guys are killin it! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+sixersfan105 Posted March 6, 2021 Share Posted March 6, 2021 3 minutes ago, Jinks said: Anyone got a screenshot or video. You programmer guys are killin it! I second this. Excited to see screenshots! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted March 7, 2021 Author Share Posted March 7, 2021 Screenshot added to first post. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 (edited) Oh, wow. That is some killer work. Congo Bongo is one of my all-time favourites, and it's fantastic to see a screenshot that is so close to the arcade game's graphics. None of the home versions have really done it justice in that regard, IMHO. Hmmm... A graphics engine that works for Congo Bongo should also be able to support the other Sega isometric games (Zaxxon, Super Zaxxon, and Future Spy, though the less said about Future Spy the better). Just saying Edited March 7, 2021 by x=usr(1536) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SearsRoebuck Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 (edited) I would buy this as a full game (hint hint) I think someone else did a demo of this game before - was that someone else? I dont think it had any movement though Edited March 7, 2021 by SearsRoebuck 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 Needs POKEY music lol. Seriously ... this looks awesome. I hope we can see a game sometime from this one 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 Also: 160B is fraught with trouble ... it eats up MARIA's DMA processing time. What you have in 160A looks really good. 160B is fine for sprites, but I wouldn't necessarily use it for play field characters in this instance. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
R_Leo_1 Posted March 7, 2021 Share Posted March 7, 2021 This looks amazing! As a big fan of the original game, I approve 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted March 8, 2021 Author Share Posted March 8, 2021 Fixed Bongo and added more sprites. Bongo and the explorer guy are 160B, and the monkeys are 160A. I changed the background color because the red was starting to bother me.... Redrum... lol Bongo seems a bit "pinkish" in emulators, but appears to me to be orange/red-ish on real hardware (NTSC CRT TV) Enjoy. congo_demo-(20210308).a78 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 27 minutes ago, splendidnut said: Bongo seems a bit "pinkish" in emulators, but appears to me to be orange/red-ish on real hardware (NTSC CRT TV) In general, $4x hue range is pinkish, $3x hue range is orange/red-ish. If using a $4x value and it is looking more orange-red-ish than pink, it could be the result of color bleed influence from the surrounding brown/tan areas. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted March 9, 2021 Share Posted March 9, 2021 In regards to Bongo's garish palette, be sure that when changing that it doesn't make him blend in with the background. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted March 13, 2021 Author Share Posted March 13, 2021 On 3/6/2021 at 8:15 PM, x=usr(1536) said: Oh, wow. That is some killer work. Congo Bongo is one of my all-time favourites, and it's fantastic to see a screenshot that is so close to the arcade game's graphics. None of the home versions have really done it justice in that regard, IMHO. Hmmm... A graphics engine that works for Congo Bongo should also be able to support the other Sega isometric games (Zaxxon, Super Zaxxon, and Future Spy, though the less said about Future Spy the better). Just saying Thanks. Congo Bongo is one my favorites. I was a bit surprised with how well the background graphics scaled down to 160 horizontal pixels. My backup plan was to try and figure out how to wrangle one of the 320 pixel modes, but after seeing the results of this, I decided it was completely unnecessary. As for reuse in games like Zaxxon, it's a mixed bag. Currently, this engine doesn't support any form of scrolling. But I'm trying to keep the display list generator code as a separate module, so it could be shared/re-used in other projects. Scrolling on the 7800 is something I'm interested in doing, but I wanted to get a basic single screen engine going first. For this, I might not add scrolling due to the amount of tiles the first level uses (90-95% of a graphics 'bank' is used for the character-set tiles). On 3/6/2021 at 11:51 PM, Synthpopalooza said: Needs POKEY music lol. Maybe, at some point when this is more in a "game" demo state. On 3/6/2021 at 11:57 PM, Synthpopalooza said: Also: 160B is fraught with trouble ... it eats up MARIA's DMA processing time. What you have in 160A looks really good. 160B is fine for sprites, but I wouldn't necessarily use it for play field characters in this instance. Indeed. That's my current goal, keeping the background 160A. I'm definitely happy with how the background turned out. As for sprites, I have a feeling the most will end up 160B. But I'm going to try and keep some at 160A (the monkeys). We'll see how things go. On 3/6/2021 at 10:09 PM, SearsRoebuck said: I think someone else did a demo of this game before - was that someone else? I dont think it had any movement though I've seen a few mockups floating around by @Defender_2600, which inspired me to look into this on the 7800. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted March 13, 2021 Author Share Posted March 13, 2021 Ultimately, my goal is to make this into a full game, with a sub-goal of trying to do this in parallel with the 2600 version I'm working on. So far, this one (7800) version has stolen my attention. I have a few other projects in the works that I'll be juggling around (to keep things interesting). So, no promises, but we'll see where this goes. Anyways, here's an update with some of the movement code stolen from my 2600 version. It's not perfect nor complete, but it's fun to play around with. I've fixed Bongo's colors using the darker shades in the $3x hue range, as that provides the best contrast/color appearance both in an emulator and on a CRT. Let me know what you think. Enjoy. congo-(20210313).a78 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Bongo looks much better, and the collision detection is solid for the most part. Just keep working on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TrekMD Posted March 13, 2021 Share Posted March 13, 2021 Wow, that looks awesome! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Synthpopalooza Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 If this gets closer to finish I'll whip up some POKEY music 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SearsRoebuck Posted March 14, 2021 Share Posted March 14, 2021 (edited) 14 hours ago, splendidnut said: Ultimately, my goal is to make this into a full game, with a sub-goal of trying to do this in parallel with the 2600 version I'm working on. So far, this one (7800) version has stolen my attention. This is one of my most wanted 7800 ports. If you make it into a full game, you have at least one guaranteed sale from me. It always drove me nuts that the rare Intellivision version was the only one that had the 'torch' intro. Edited March 14, 2021 by SearsRoebuck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MattelAquarius Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7800Knight Posted March 21, 2021 Share Posted March 21, 2021 Very good work so far! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+splendidnut Posted April 8, 2021 Author Share Posted April 8, 2021 Alright. Well I've got Bongo and the monkeys moving around a bit and some coconuts dropping. Granted, the coconuts look a bit like rocks but they're dropping/bouncing and it's fun to watch. Enjoy. congo-(20210408).a78 10 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted April 9, 2021 Share Posted April 9, 2021 Very cool! I'll make no secret of the fact that I'm very much hoping this can become a fully-fledged game - the 7800 seems like the perfect platform to do the original justice. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebor Posted April 9, 2021 Share Posted April 9, 2021 Hey, don't shortchange the improvement to the waterfall. Making some really nice progress here. Thanks for sharing it! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlidellMan Posted April 9, 2021 Share Posted April 9, 2021 The waterfall animation isn't too shabby, and we look forward to platforming physics and the rest of the screens. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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