Too bad the 7800 never got a port of Rainbow Islands

[KrunchyTC]

This game has always caught my eye as being a simply gorgeous arcade game with it's ridiculously colorful graphics, and it would have been cool to be able to compare the NES, SMS, and 7800 versions, as it seriously pushes the color capabilities on the other two consoles. I just love the way this game looks.

Edited May 19, 2023 by KrunchyTC

[miker]

@KrunchyTC the you have great chance to change it.

 

Please inform us about possible updates.  

[8th lutz]

The Atari 7800 not having a port of Rainbow Islands makes perfect sense. The timing wasn't there for the 7800 getting Rainbow Islands during its commercial life considering Taito was publishing games for NES, Pc Engine, Sega Genesis and I believe SMS at the time. 

 

As far as Rainbow Islands not having a homebrew port, there is a lot of explanations of why not.

 

Atari 7800 homebrew cartridges from the Atariage Store couldn't go higher than 48k for many years before there was a board that is able to do 128k,144k and 256k Atari 7800 cartridge sized  homebrew games.  I think it was around 2014 to 2017 time frame when Atariage store first was able to sell Atari 7800 homebrew games that were 128k or higher in cartridge size. This is a key fact because I feel Rainbow Islands is one of those games needs to be a cartridge higher than a 48k cartridge size to do the game justice.

 

The Atariage store for many years had issues getting Pokey sound chips for 7800 games.

 

The  3rd thing with the 7800 homebrew scene  is the scene does not have a lot of homebrew authors that do arcade ports compare to the amount of Arcade games that do not a have a port of the 7800. You might as well attempt a 7800 homebrew port as a result.

 

The 4th thing with the homebrew scene is homebrew authors usually don't take requests for homebrew arcade ports. The 5th thing is Arkanoid and Tetris are the only 2 arcade game homebrew authors to my knowledge that have been attempted that came out in the arcade after 1984.

 

The final thing is I know based on posts on this forum that there are people want Bubble Bobble on the 7800 and that likely means Rainbow Island is not high on priority considering Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are part of the same series.

Edited May 21, 2023 by 8th lutz

[KrunchyTC]

11 hours ago, miker said:

@KrunchyTC the you have great chance to change it.

 

Please inform us about possible updates.  

If only! 😆

 

This post was originally going to be in the "7800 ports you wish existed" thread, but I forgot it existed lol

[KrunchyTC]

20 minutes ago, 8th lutz said:

The Atari 7800 not having a port of Rainbow Islands makes perfect sense. The timing wasn't there for the 7800 getting Rainbow Islands during its commercial life considering Taito was publishing games for NES, Pc Engine, Sega Genesis and I believe SMS at the time. 

 

As far as Rainbow Islands not having a homebrew port, there is a lot of explanations of why not.

 

Atari 7800 homebrew cartridges from the Atariage Store couldn't go higher than 48k for many years before there was a board that is able to do 128k,144k and 256k Atari 7800 cartridge sized  homebrew games.  I think it was around 2014 to 2017 time frame when Atariage store first was Atari 7800 homebrew games that were 128k or higher in cartridge size. This is a key fact because I feel Rainbow Islands is one of those games needs to be a cartridge higher than a 48k cartridge size to do the game justice.

 

The Atariage store for many years had issues getting Pokey sound chips for 7800 games.

 

The  3rd thing with the 7800 homebrew scene  is the scene does not have a lot of homebrew authors that do arcade ports compare to the amount of Arcade games that do not a have a port of the 7800. You might as well attempt a 7800 homebrew port as a result.

 

The 4th thing with the homebrew scene is homebrew authors usually don't take requests for homebrew arcade ports. The 5th thing is Arkanoid and Tetris are the only 2 arcade game homebrew authors to my knowledge that have been attempted that came out in the arcade after 1984.

 

The final thing is I know based on posts on this forum that there are people want Bubble Bobble on the 7800 and that likely means Rainbow Island is not high on priority considering Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are part of the same series.

All very good reasons, it's a complicated task. I really like the Rainbow Islands, and Bubble Bobble games alot!

[Synthpopalooza]

On 5/21/2023 at 1:23 PM, 8th lutz said:

 

The final thing is I know based on posts on this forum that there are people want Bubble Bobble on the 7800 and that likely means Rainbow Island is not high on priority considering Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands are part of the same series.

 

A birdie told me that might change soon, that's all I can reveal ... 

[christo930]

The Turbo-CD version of this game is excellent.  IMHO, it's the best way to play it at home, or maybe the Saturn version.  The problem with the Saturn version is it doesn't have the funky somewhere over the rainbow musical score. But the turbo-CD does.  I play it on my GP2X and thank God for save states.

 

I'm not sure the 7800 could do it justice.  The Amstrad version is pretty good.  In fact, most of the 8-bit ports are pretty good. But none really do the game the justice it deserves.  I'm pretty sure the Arcade board has 256 colors.  The sprites are not limited to 4 colors either.

 

The arcade version is running on a Taito System 16 board.  I think it has a 68000 and a z80.  Probably has 16 color sprites too. 

[KrunchyTC]

1 hour ago, christo930 said:

The Turbo-CD version of this game is excellent.  IMHO, it's the best way to play it at home, or maybe the Saturn version.  The problem with the Saturn version is it doesn't have the funky somewhere over the rainbow musical score. But the turbo-CD does.  I play it on my GP2X and thank God for save states.

 

I'm not sure the 7800 could do it justice.  The Amstrad version is pretty good.  In fact, most of the 8-bit ports are pretty good. But none really do the game the justice it deserves.  I'm pretty sure the Arcade board has 256 colors.  The sprites are not limited to 4 colors either.

 

The arcade version is running on a Taito System 16 board.  I think it has a 68000 and a z80.  Probably has 16 color sprites too. 

You never know. Yeah, even the SMS version doesn't look super great, and the NES version looks like a CGA game on the IBM PC. It would be a serious hardware pusher for sure. The 7800 probably has more grunt than the Amstrad CPC, and that version looks great. If they can make the CPC version look that good, it can look good on the 7800. I don't know how the color works on the 7800, but can't it do 25 on screen at once? The 8-bit (and 16-bit) versions have use 10 to 16 colors, and still look great. I'm sure it could be figured out lol

Edited June 8, 2023 by KrunchyTC

[christo930]

18 hours ago, KrunchyTC said:

If they can make the CPC version look that good, it can look good on the 7800.

 

From what I can tell watching youtube videos of it, the Amstrad CPC version utilizes 6 or 8 color sprites (though probably 8 because I can count at least 6 and a no-color transparent color and 7 color sprties makes less sense.) .  It does make quite a difference.

 

18 hours ago, KrunchyTC said:

The 7800 probably has more grunt than the Amstrad CPC,

I don't really know how a CPC stacks up against a 7800.  I also don't know if the 7800 can do 8 color sprites.  Some of the new games look really good, so it may be it can do a lot more than what the original library would lead me to believe.

 

18 hours ago, KrunchyTC said:

I don't know how the color works on the 7800, but can't it do 25 on screen at once?

It's not really the total number of colors on the screen that matters much, it's the rules.  I think the 2600 can put quite a few colors on the screen, but the rules make the color somewhat worthless other than some cool special effects.  Like if you are limited to 3 colors per scanline (and I'm not saying the 7800 is, it's just an example), that would severely limit the colors in the game.  Pretty much all 8 bit systems are hampered by these "rules"

[Eagle]

You can have 25 colours in one line

 

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Eagle

[christo930]

2 hours ago, Eagle said:

You can have 25 colours in one line

Well, then hopefully if it ever gets made, I'll be in for a pleasant surprise.

Can it use 8 color sprites with no limits other than the maria limit?  Completely separate from the sprites, I think it could handle the background graphics.

Your demo is quite impressive, but it's also not a game.

[Eagle]

15 hours ago, christo930 said:

Can it use 8 color sprites with no limits other than the maria limit?

Easily 😜 

 

 

 

[christo930]

There are no 8 color sprites in this video. They  all appear to me to be  4 color (3 plus no color) and they are the same colors.  I don't know if it is a design choice or a hardware limitation though.

 

By 8 color sprites, I don't mean 8 sprites with color, I mean sprites with 8 arbitrary colors (by which I mean there are no "common colors" all sprites must share.. That each sprite can contain 8 colors for each of the sprites. Neither demo you posted has any spites with 8 colors)  up to the 25 colors per screen limit.

Edited June 9, 2023 by christo930

[Eagle]

Yes, because I chose that way for testing sprite engine. 

I can have every sprite having own  colours from one of 8 pallets (every sprite can have 3 independent colours from one of 8 pallets)

Engine is still WIP so no reason to mess with colours.

Below old tests. Maybe will satisfy you  

 

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Eagle

[Eagle]

Also sprites can have 12 colours (from two different pallets)  so you can see here (bosses), but unfortunately GFX was converted from Amiga version.

In dual playfield mode amiga can have only 7 colours, that's why quality of bosses is poor. (amiga sucks )  

 

edit: long story short, sprites can be 3 or 12 colours, it's up to programmer. Not very much different in Maria, Sally usage.

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Eagle

[christo930]

13 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Yes, because I chose that way for testing sprite engine. 

I can have every sprite having own  colours from one of 8 pallets (every sprite can have 3 independent colours from one of 8 pallets)

Engine is still WIP so no reason to mess with colours.

Below old tests. Maybe will satisfy you  

 

 

 

 

This would put it on par with the C64 version.  The game is certainly well done and fun, but it's not a great graphical representation of the arcade  game.

 

It's not really a matter of being satisfied or not.  I just don't happen to think the game suits the 7800s strong points.

 

[christo930]

17 minutes ago, Eagle said:

Also sprites can have 12 colours (from two different pallets)  so you can see here (bosses), but unfortunately GFX was converted from Amiga version.

I count 5 colors plus no color in those large helicopters.

 

With zero disrespect meant, this game looks like an 8 bit game. It's very inline with original library 7800 games.

 

 

[Eagle]

This is not a game, it’s an engine. I just put gfx from Silkworm to show how will look like. 
Check my topic in programming forum, you will see some nice examples.

 

Quote

 

I count 5 colors plus no color in those large helicopters.

Blame Amiga

 

Check this colours (80)

 

Edited June 9, 2023 by Eagle

[christo930]

1 hour ago, Eagle said:

Blame Amiga

 

 

Anyone not extremely familiar with the arcade would not notice they weren't playing the arcade version by the graphics and sound.  it's as close to arcade perfect as 80s home ports get.

 

Saying the Amiga original graphics are holding back the 7800 is delusional.  AFAIK, the Amiga hardware sprites are very limited, but not software sprites. They can be 32 color.

 

[Eagle]

14 hours ago, christo930 said:

They can be 32 color.

Unfortunately not in Silkworm, they are using dualplayfield mode. Amiga can get only 7 colours per playfield, so max 14 colours

That's why Heli boss has only 5 colours.

Spoiler

I like to make jokes about Amiga, Atari ST and the best 16 bit console Jaguar  So do not take it seriously.

 

 

On 6/9/2023 at 5:33 AM, christo930 said:

Your demo is quite impressive, but it's also not a game.

It's now. 

 

So let's explain:

Maria has 8 palettes - 3 colours each (24 all together)

Any sprite in 160A (3colours+transparent) mode can use any of these pallets, the sprite can be almost any size

You can put sprites on top of each other for more colours.

You can also use 160B (12colours+transparent) mode and sprite will use first 4 pallets or second 4 pallets.

They can also be combine, so we can get 24 colours per sprite.

We can do the same with tiles.

The only limitation is Maria dma.

 

I believe that Rainbow Island is achievable. 

Edited June 10, 2023 by Eagle

[christo930]

1 hour ago, Eagle said:

I believe that Rainbow Island is achievable. 

I would love to be proven wrong. It's a great game.

[Defender_2600]

17 hours ago, Eagle said:

Also sprites can have 12 colours (from two different pallets)  so you can see here (bosses), but unfortunately GFX was converted from Amiga version.

In dual playfield mode amiga can have only 7 colours, that's why quality of bosses is poor.

 

1 hour ago, Eagle said:

You can also use 160B (12colours+transparent) mode and sprite will use first 4 pallets or second 4 pallets.

They can also be combine, so we can get 24 colours per sprite.

We can do the same with tiles.

The only limitation is Maria dma.

 

All correct.

 

Over the years I've talked and shown examples of 160B (12 color sprites/tiles from 2 palettes, 24 colors per scanline) so many times I've lost count.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 6/9/2023 at 3:37 AM, christo930 said:

  I also don't know if the 7800 can do 8 color sprites. 

 

[Eagle]

But Maria's bottleneck is access to the video memory. Fixed bank at $C000-$FFFF it's Big problem.

Therefore, if you want to create a game with heavy use of gfx, you need a new mapper.

That's why TailChao did Souper for Rikki&Vikki, Reveng did Bankswitch for Petscii Robots, Activision for Double Dragon and I did mine.

160B uses a lot of ROM and hardly anyone uses the above mappers.

 

[christo930]

55 minutes ago, Eagle said:

But Maria's bottleneck is access to the video memory. Fixed bank at $C000-$FFFF it's Big problem.

Therefore, if you want to create a game with heavy use of gfx, you need a new mapper.

That's why TailChao did Souper for Rikki&Vikki, Reveng did Bankswitch for Petscii Robots, Activision for Double Dragon and I did mine.

160B uses a lot of ROM and hardly anyone uses the above mappers.

 

Could a mapper fix the problem?  Could Maria deal with all the sprites?

Are all graphic elements a sprite?  Like take the potion bottle which appears on certain enemies extending your rainbow, are those bottles sprites or does maria have the ability to render them not as sprites, but something more akin to a character graphic without putting additional strain on Maria?

What about the background?

Does it consume more of Maria's resources when dealing with higher color sprites?  Like does making Bobbie an 8 color sprite use more of maria's resources than if Bobbie was a 4 color sprite?

[Eagle]

My approach for this game would be similar to what I did with Bomb Jack.

12 colours scrolling bitmap and drawing rainbows on the bitmap. Sprites for the main character and enemies.

You never draw or erase more than one rainbow at a time.