Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I just talked with Luca, my idea was to ask some people with a poll, which games they wanted best to be converted to plus/4.
The main aim would be to convert something what was never converted to the plus/4 and best also not to the C64.
So we have a unique port of something to the plus/4. I just thought about conversions from the Arcade, Amiga, Famicon(nes), Super Famicon(snes), Mega Drive (genesis) or anything else..
It could be even Giana Sisters or some other game you know (for giana there is also a amiga port).. However me for myself would exclude ghost n goblins or any already ported game.
Just beeing curious what games come up and how they could be ported..
(I don't have any time free at the moment for coding something, however some ideas need a little pretime to blossom rightly.. And I personally wouldn't do too militaristic or brutal stuff.)..
Let's see perhaps there are some ideas of (Arcade/Amiga..) games never ported to the Plus/4.. And don't expect wonders.. The conversions could be exactly that clumsy like many of the old conversions..
So just an idea. What do you think? (Perhaps later on a poll would be good, too)
(And as said I personally don't have any time at the moment).. Perhaps this is also interesting for other plus/4 people.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Interesting topic! I think we need 1942, The Great Giana Sisters, Ghosts'n Goblins, some games from an Atari 2600 like Pitfall or H.E.R.O. and a real port of Bomb Jack for our lovely 264er (64 KB RAM). I converted the 1942 airplane to +4 but i can convert some more if desired.
The 264er can more than the most games shows.
Here some example of some of my projects (some of them are only for fun and will not be a complete game)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Awesome! Already some candidates. And RKSoft, top (that would be great game graphics!)!! Don't know if it gets to a concrete list at the end.. Any ideas highly appreciated! Lavina: a Rocket Science II is very unlikely to happen (soon?).. It seems that some of the plus/4 gods are working on demos, though.. Bubis, Murphy, Carrion and perhaps some other, atleast that is what I do know from the forum here.. The Idea with the games is to get a list of some candidates if someone would do some conversions in the future.. :) just some ideas. Not to mention Kichy can't wait to see, what he is doing at the moment Arkanoid :) ??? Perhaps there are some favorite games.. I am just thinking what did programmers do back in the days when they got the request to code this or that game for the C16 or C64, they all got through this somehow and many games are pretty ok for this..
edit: And all the "gods" working on demos, I have forgotten :)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. OFF
I'm positively sure that there are some more of us out there working on demos.
Frankly I'd pay for new demos faster than for games. Especially from the "gods" but I love to watch new demos from anyone
For Rocket Science II here and now I offer 100 euros.
Couple of nights ago I watched Rocket Science (1 - LOL) from Youtube on 65'' SUHD It's always awesome to watch it.
ON
There was a C64 game where you had to command a small space ship between some AT-AT walker-like things that had to be taken off before they reach a base (??) I don't know the name of it, I saw it once in my childhood at a summer camp. I'd love to play that on C+4.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yeah a decent football game would be good. The best we have I think is Indoor Soccer.
I think C64 games should be included too, let's not limit choices.
My list. I would also like to see an extra 16k version of these games too if possible. Although many may only need a 16k version anyway.
Double Dragon - Or something similar. There aren't any scrolling beat'em'ups on the 264 series. I admit a 16k version would probably be too much of an extra challenge though.
Bruce Lee - Brilliant on the C64. Would love to see both a 16k and 64k version.
Hunchback - Although we have the excellent Punchy, would be great to get the proper arcade version, bells and all. If possible include the tower levels too which other home versions missed out on, only being released as Hunchback II. Gorf - Include the Galaxiion level too which other home versions missed out on. Donkey Kong - We still haven't got a decent version yet. Donkey Kong Jr - Because why not? Mr. Do - We have the great Tutti Frutti clone, but that's mixed with a blend of Pengo too, and we already have two versions of that game.
And how about a decent puzzle bobble (bust-a-move) type of game? There's a million clones of those around now, none of which I think are even available for the C64.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Nice topic! @RKSoft: those are FANTASTIC screens!
Actually, there are a lot of good games around. But if I want to be realistic, heavy sprite stuff (arcades, actions) and 3D games closed out. As you will see, I could not keep my promise :-D
1) OFF. Deleted :-)
2) Some arcade Hack'Slash. My favourite is Golden Axe. Yeah, I know, big sprites.
3) OFF. Deleted :-)
4) And one of my all time favourite is the Metal Mutans on PC. It looked fantastic on EGA, but even on CGA. HUGE spites, certainly. :-) But PC has no HW sprites too, had to be SW sprites, though much more horsepower https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gexTPmSTV4Q
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Guys Please consider me a normal human being
I totly dig this thread and the idea of doing some games remakes In other thread i asked/sugested about re-doing some games like C64 scenes did with GnG, Commando, etc "You have my Axe" if you need it but to be honest I'm not sure how I can fit this project between others... like the demo with Murphy (there. I said it) and other game project I actually started to work on but due to personal life stoped for some time (hopefully to get back to it soon - sorry for waiting Robert. I haven't forget and will get back to it ) + one project on Amiga + some others started and or not started yet (I'll contact you back Bubis )
but I'll follow the discussion here and please consider me all in. My attitude is always to do it but real life verifies my plans.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Spektro: your list is a fantastic one! Though I like all the others too, but -despite my list- I prefer strategy too.
If I can contribute that project in any way (at my lame level- unfortunately that is not too much) pls let me know.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. It's not directly a project atm. It's just the try to collect some games for an eventuell conversion. Perhaps a real and full conversion even isn't possible since there are for instance all the assets of the original missing. I do have some favorites here, though. It could take months or years to do a full one.. Perhaps someone could take this thread as inspiration, too.. What do you think about a "guessed" conversion, is it still acceptable? If (mainly)the levels or characters look different? Without the code textbased games are really hard to port, too, i think..
I hope the offer didn't sounded like a promise since such big projects take much effort and time.. However.. Let's see, perhaps it could be fun to have just one level or something.. And ofcourse all help would be appreciated!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @MMS Millenium 2.2 and Joan of Arc are nice and not too hard to play, IMO.
Joan of Arc has nasty looking scanned graphics here and there and the sound quality is terrible but otherwise it's an enjoyable game. I'm sure the graphic and sound problems can be fixed in the Plus4 version, if made Here is a longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rf-c7ZqQzMY
I think Plus4 could come graphically close to the original Millenium 2.2 which would make it one of the best looking Plus4 games. Longplay: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmcF0a6oiFU
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yep, I throw in my 100$ for the Lemmings. 😀
@Spektro: I checked Joan: nice, but kind of repetive. Technically more advanced than the DOC and more complex too, although some effect and the too frequent (and sometimes useless?) screen updates spoil the overall picture. Most of the digitized backgounds are just a piece of cake for Plussy, but may mean lot of loading time. 😀 Still, at a lot of place they heavily use spites. (soldiers)
Millenium is a nice game, could be done from Gfx point of view.
Just to mention: somewhere I have the Warlords source code in C. 😁 (but the C librarries of the )
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Very cool! From a post of your Blog (very cool btw.) I got this line:
Maybe you could use two screens to avoid the problem. On one screen you have Mario and his hammer and on the other screen everything else. When you alternate the screens on each frame a composite image will appear.
What could be seriously a good idea for games. However they wouldn't make any fun on an emulator because of the flickering. I am just no fan of flickering screens, but never thought about this possibility. You would have two multicolored screens for sprites and multicolor for the background, but perhaps very much flickering going on. Don't know if a port of a game would be usable this way. However, cool idea (just atleast not for emulators)!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Thank you, Mad, for your kind words.
Haven't you used this teqnique already in one of your latest Bauknecht Demos's? I remember that moving chess pattern, which was realized with two planes ?! Dont' remember exactly. Somebody of yout team explained how you did it.
Maybe it would be enough to draw barrel and Mario not the same time (one frame the barrel, the other Mario), when meeting in a cell. I am sure there is a way to realize it.
I like the first arcade's of the golden era. You can feel how they made the most from the limited technology of that time. Still very entertaining games and a piece of art.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Year! Nice set! Once I saw the Great Giana Sisters demo, that runs the background pretty well on Plus/4.
I got excited, but the real coders cool me down, that showing and moving the background was the easiest part. Poor me
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Um. Not to be a party killer, but on the Famous Japanese Game Console Company screenshots ... it would be a good idea to mark those as mocked-up photos for discussion only.
Any port of said Famous Japanese Game Console games should not be very accurate to the original, for copyright reasons. It's bad enough that a Woooorld-Renown Search Engine makes it trivial for lawyers to find such unauthorized remakes; we don't need those lawyers knocking on our site admins' doors at 6am to demand those ports be removed from the site.
This is why I suggested the GTW list, because most of those games are owned by companies that no longer exist, or their owners don't know they own the rights to them. PLUS since those games were never released, there is no financial harm should a copyright issue pop up. Owners can't complain of lost profits on a game they never sold.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. JamesC is absolutely right. I don't think anyone will come knocking on doors, but we can't use trademarked names/likenesses. But ideas can't be copyrighted, so a clone of the famous Plumber Game(tm) would be okay (see Giana Sisters on the C64), or even Jerry's Quest.
I'm glad everyone is having fun with this thread! Now all we need is someone whose talent and hobby is actually project management to come along, and get all the talented folks together to actually do something.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Wow, now I'm wondering how nice would be porting on Plus/4 a clone of the classic City Connection, that should be a real unique case considering any game system...
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. okay, so we could have the copyright issues but we can make a clon with different characters and names ^^
And here are the Mikey Bros. (starring Mikey and Lemmy)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Thanks, i think i have done all tilesets in this charset. Only the normale arcade font isn't added but this isn't really a problem.
PS: and George: nice graphics, really, i love it!!! I hope anybody can do a port/remake of an old arcade classic game to +4.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft: Thank you. I love your graphics too. Looks very professional, in Video game console style, i always loved. I Like your visual style.
Classic Arcades are difficult to port to a homecomputer like ours. The graphics, the sound and the gameplay have to be excact as possible. That games were made to get people hooked and throw as much coins as possible in the cabinet. It took a few hours to find the right compromise in my try. I also tried DigDug and Phoenix (my Favoriten arcade).
But there are some really good clones: PacPac, Explode man, Asteroids...and many others i forgot. People habe done amazing games. But miss the classics, i played as child.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Bah to copyright issues. There was a proper Donkey Kong remake on the C64 recently, as well DK Jr finally getting a C64 version. Also with Ghosts'nGoblins, Commando, and soon to be Bombjack. There has so far been no threats from copyright holders.
All we have are poor clones of Donkey Kong. I can only think of two versions. Roller Kong and Climb It. Bleh. I'm sure a decent full version can fit within an unexpanded C16. It's just 4 screens.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Great port, RkSoft! Especially the Figures and the Cook are perfect. I love it, i love it even more, because i love the game too!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Baz i think it's a little different if you want to sell the game. As far as I know e.g. the german right allows nonprofit remakes, but that could be wrong..
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Nope, PLEASE do more if you have time! Nice to watch what could have happen if plus/4 would have been so popular as Zx Spectrum.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. It could be possible to use the charsets. I think that it's cool to move sprites on a per pixel basis and that's where some restrictions come in. Perhaps it would be cool to have these charsets somewhere as a zip. Btw all these graphics are too cool for charsetgfx.. Really great what you achieved there.
edit: I am really curious how the screens will work in a real game, since they look so awesome!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Off: Around one year ago Carrion asked for a tilemap level editor for the plus/4. I wrote Plus4Studio for that. It is possible to edit charset or bitmapmode levels like we used in Zador with it. There is also a Charpad C64 importer with it. You can load all the Turrican levels with it, they are also in the zip. They are automatically converted to the plus4 palette. Just wanted to tell, because they look quite the same as on C64.
If you really want to build complete usable levels, perhaps it's worth a look.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. A bit late in the thread already... but I gotta say this: totally dibs on "Sandwich Hour". I mean "Bread Minute". I mean "BLT Age". Well, that one with the pieces of food falling and stuff.
I look at most of these and they are cool and all, but that particular one totally makes me want to write the actual game. Which will happen precisely (checks clock) never, but if in case it does, Roland, you have a collab partner
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Csabo What do you mean? B-Time? I'm in when you want to do such a game. I would like to complete the charset (arcade font and title tiles). The rest (level, player, goodies and eneimies) are ready!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSoft and Csabo Related to Burger Time, there is a funny Flash derivative of it: Monster Time http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/516468
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Spektro nice find. Donkey Me, i know about that game but Monster Time is new for me. Thanks reporting it!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I think I give it a try.. Which game do you want to convert the most RKSoft? Perhaps the quality will be inferior (Charsprites for 16k), however it's just fun! I am curious to see the result of this .. (just if you want to.. :) the gfxs are so cool and perhaps making a real game out of them could be fun..)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Like Csabo said, i would prefer an inofficial port of Burger Time. We need only a name for it for the title screen. The arcade titlescreen has no real titlescreen (logo) but the nes version have.
If Csabo want to do this port, i wish a clon of Mario Bros., too. Both games are very arcade and really nice to play. Donkey Kong is a such game, too, but Burger Time and Mario Bros. are on my fav. list on top to see on Commodore 16/116/+4. So, you are the coders and i orientate me to the coders! ;)
Mario Bros. is like Burger Time, near as complete (only the arcade font a-z, 0-9 and chars for the titlescreen needs to add!)...
@16K charsprites If the memory is to low for one of the games why not use 32 or 64kbyte? But, my charsets needs only 2kbyte (256 chars max.) and there are many unmodified chars in!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Good that you say that. I can hardly adapt in doing a burger time. Originally I wanted to port a "highend" game, like stated in the first post of the thread. But a Mario clone would be nice. I look for the level datas in the net perhaps they are already somewhere. Let's see if and how we get this going!
Edit: burgertime was just not a favourite game of mine, but it can be cool to have a plus/4 port. Found some levels already, they can be converted automatically i think, even with your tiles: http://www.mariouniverse.com/maps/nes/smb
Edit2: i looked at your mario gfx again. It's different from the other nes Mario. Maybe doing a complete different gfx set is also cool (lije you did?). If you have (like you did) a black background for the sprites it's better for the sprite routines. Originally I planned to actually convert a game from one platform to the other, though. Or I just wait and do later perhaps a lemmings/space harrier/outrun or something. I fear a little, that I can't work well together with other people, especially over distance.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. The nes mario is to big for 8x16 (multicolor mode) (also 4 cursor blocks) and i don't like that phat sprites on C64, Atari etc., so i re-made a little mario figure to our resolution. Of course, the background should be black because it is easier for movements, the arcade game has a black background too, and with a black bg the figures have 4 colors in it (black eyes).
Currently: - all 4 different level themes - the turtle has 2 frames per direction - the crab has 2 frames (not per direction) - mario has 3 frames per direction - no animation for the coin - no points on screen (100, 200, 400 etc.) - extra chars needed? - no fly sprite (i can add) - no fire sprite (i can add) - no slip ice sprite (i cann add) - no flip animation for the enemies - solution: i make one flip frame per enemy
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Mockup looks awesome. Max size for the upload is 2000 * 2000 pixels, we don't normally hit that limit. Including such a large image in the forum would mess the layout right up.
If you scaled it down to half, would it look good? Should I increase the limit? You can always just drop it on something like imgur, or just email me and I can still upload it of course.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @KiCHY it looks amazing, great work. Why don't make a game with these tilesets? And, please show us your complete level, please! :)
@George thx for finding, i found it too and here is my re-made titlescreen (mock-up)
Singlecolor (left) / Multicolor (right):
and finally, a combination of both:
And here is the complete level tileset of Mario Bros. (no titlescreen, but i have enough chars free for it):
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. KICHY the mockup looks awesome, the idea to use just 4 colors is great for this case. Perhaps it's also possible to add a Paralaxscroll there.. RKSoft the sprites are marvelous, I was just thinking if it could be possible to use just the sprites and make the map from another source (KICHY?? or just converting the gfxs from some internet place).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft that was the plan. I am currently not sure if it's a good idea to port a real Mario game since the judgement could be a little harsh later on. However the sprites are great, and I originally planned to convert a full game, like Mario Bros or something.. With scrolling and perhaps with parallax scrolling ( which would be the excuse to use 64K instead of 16K :) ), and thus we can of course hold all the levels in memory and not loading them from disc (however I think KICHY would do a complete port in 16K :) ).. Would a scrolling game be ok for you?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. For sure, you can use the chars. And about the copyrights, you can use the custom sprites Mikey and Lemmy. No Mario, no copyright issues with a big company .
Tell me, if you need more tilesets like plattforms, extras etc. and please, feed us with a work in progress. The Commodore Plus/4 need more killer(!) games to show the full potential of this system. Can a game better on this system than on C64? Thats my big question to this round...
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @KiCHY The complete level of SMB1 looks nice, great work! There is only one bug in it. There is missing an abyss at ca. 1110 pixel. But it looks extremly nice!!!
@MBros game I added the arcade font and here is the ZIP file with CST (CBM PRG Studio charset file), a PNG file to import and the screenshot with the tiles. If someone need the DATA values, i can export them from file to BASIC, too.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. OFF (just for fun) Mikey name initiated some nice memories They could be Mikey and Paddy. And they may collect potatoes and jump over sheeps ! (Irish language Lab, Lession2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZENBrrV2EQ
Alien Breed is my fav Amiga game. That mock-up look fantastic, but I dunno how it may look as a real game due to color clash limitations.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. So, i've uploaded the complete charset for Burger Time at my homepage https://rksoft.info/... and at a filehoster (see post about Burger Time mockup above).
When i want to do a remake of this game, i think i will name it Candy Time with sweet, sticky candy instead of burger. I began a simple game on DIV engine for Windows to see, how the chars looks in action. If anybody want to see that i can make a video.
New add: I made a new mock-up: Super M...ikey Brothers ^^. I post only 3 pics of them, the other 2 are shown on my webpage, because i don't want to spam here with the massive screenshots.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. AAh, it looks super great!
Only one technical question: all the animated character should be out of the 3 fixed multicolor charset colors? Does the background has little more freedom without the risk color clash?
I was checking the C64's Creatures game background. If I do not count the sprites, the stones I could check has three different colors. How they managed it on C64, it should have the same limitations in multicolor charset mode? Could it be that it does not have the object map (containing the positions of characters of the objects), but also it has it's own, scrolled colormap too? Or it is still not enough, and they may change the fixed character colors at the middle of the scree? http://www.lemon64.com/games/screenshots/ext_full/c/creatures_02.gif
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. In Creatures screenshot, the screen is divided into 3x8 chars height portions, and each region has its own fixed colors. Another trick is that when you see that the background is blue, that doesn't mean they set the background color register to blue. They are blue characters full of pixels. When you check the slope in bottom left corner, you can find the character boundaries.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft That looks supergreat! If I find the time within the next months I give it a try. It would be 64K, though! Good that you kept a look on colorclashes, it's cool, that the sprites do have just the three fixed colors!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @KiCHY: thanks for the explanation! I knew I did not notice something important. Just after you told that, I remember once I thought about PETSCII art, how it could be done? As it used two colors in one attribute, and looked it is different than the black background color around the art (it was a triceratops, but right noe could not find the link).
After some inspection on te picture I found out, that the real background color as brown, and the black was the foreground color full inverse space character, and not the background color. Same trick here. Thanks for clarifying it.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @KiCHY & @MMS i looked some minutes on this picture (i know this game and i like it very much). When brown is the background color, how is it possible that the 2 grey colors are put on screen? The 64 can, like other 8-bit commodore computer, show only the first 8 colors in multicolor + 2 extra colors (multicolor 1 and 2) + 1 background color.
There are grey, light grey, light red and brown on the same screen. We know the first 8 colors are black, white, red, cyan, purple, green, blue and yellow (like on +4). How can you put 3 colors from id 9 to 16 on the same screen? Is it possible with a trick? On +4 too? How?
Okay, on a 264 machine, we have the luminanz 1 to 8 for every color. But on C64?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSoft: On Plus/4 and C64, in multicolor character screen you can use the 3 fixed color (the same in every chars) and one variable color per char position. It's true that you can use the first eight colors, but this restriction exists in character colors only. The 3 fixed colors (background and its friends) can be any color (0-15).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Off:I really forgot that 8 color limitation.I just checked it in the SVS database
To be honest it is very hard to understand this design limitation, except they wanted as much c64 compatibility as possible.because the highest 7th bit is unused, so there WAS a space for this bit. They could just use this 7th bit for standard/multicolor selection. You could set the char color as usual, and if you add 128 to the color value, you have a standard char instead a multi one . Elegant to program it and no color limitation.
BTW I do not really understand why on c64 it was necessary, but i am unsure of the color byte's other uses on that machine. On that machine they could do it with the background color the same: the upper 4 bit of color byte could ne used as a dinamic background color setting, if required by the programmer. The 7.bit could be a selector, if the global or a local background color color is needed, then could have thesame 8color limitation, but with extra feature. Imagine how much colorful the games could be.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. So, with the permission by George, i made a Donkey Kong tileset for Commodore 264. It contains all 4 screens plus title, arcade font and all enemies and extras. It miss 2 Donkey Kong climb anim., 1 fall anim and 1 crash anim of this stupid ape.
Features: - Mario left, right, climb - Pauline (with the help anim, take a look at the tileset) - Donkey Kong - barrel (horizontal and vertical) - flame - jumping spring - cook (for stage 3) - hammer (left and right positions) - bag, umbrella and head for bonus - bonus timer - and much more
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hey Roland, thats a really, really excellent port! I am so happy you did this and the result is perfect. If this game would habe come out in the 80's the 264 would have become a succes. This is almost Nintendo quality graphics!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @George thx. I tried to use your kong but you have one little error in it. There are 2 multicolor plus 2 colors plus background color. But, you can use only 2 multicolor + 1(!) cursor color and one background color in charset mode. And your kong is a little bit to wide. My kong is 4x4 CRSR (or 32x32 Pixel or in multicolor 16x32 Pixel).
@Majikeyric I use CBM PRG Studio. With the charset editor, you can open the .CST file. Easy tool with an im-/exporter. This studio supports 8-bit cbm machines. The .SDD file can be open with the screen editor! So, you can take a look into the screenshots and it shows that my mock-up isn't a fake. ;)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSoft: Your Kong is much better, i love it. I assume you had fun, designing all the levels and the characters. When i did my screen, i had a lot of fun !!!
Another cool game for conversion would be "Dig Dug". I tried a design myself, but i couldnt get the characters right. Would be interesting to see your approach, on the maincharacter, the apple-guys and the little dragons.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @George Thanks! I hope one of my tile/spriteset i can see it running on a real 264 machine, in a future.
@topic Now, i made a new mock-up: Pitfall II - The Lost Caverns. I hope, you like it.
It's a fantastic game released for the C64 last year. I just bought a clam-case cassette limited edition. I recently just completed it, but it's very morish.
It has more similarities to both C16 Monty Mole games rather than the C64 versions, that I feel even an unexpanded C16 version is possible.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Baz you are right, that a C16 port could be possible, perhaps it are to many screens, however they could be loaded later on from disc. I think the main problem would be the sprites, if you do have only 16Kb of memory, the only solution I seek would be blocky movement (per character) and a black background for every sprite. In this graphicmode (hires charset) all games with real "sprites" would look like a zx-spectrum game, or worse, because you only have one foreground color per "tile" and one background color for the whole screen, thus only two colors at every "tile" position. A sprite would require atleast a third color there. The sprites are also rather big! But perhaps it's doabel in some way. (I know the game looks prettysimple however at plus/4 the sprite limitation kicks in )
RKSoft I just made a few tries with charset mode, I think a Mario (erm M...ikey) will be possible! However it will run with 25Fps instead of 50, I hope this is also ok. At the moment I am thinking of automatically converting the mario levels for it, however we need a own tileset for plus/4, the map itself could be taken from the real mario levels.
@Anyone: Is there anywhere a good tileset editor for the plus/4 (crosdtool)? Me for myself could use my own tool (Plus4Studio), however it's a bit unintuitive and somehow a little messy (also I had to correct some bugs which made it partially unusable). I don't know if someone else can use it, perhaps with a little help by me.. Don't know! Something like Charpad (for C64 level gfx) would be nice.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. For me Auf Wiedersehen Monty is a very nice and enjoyable game, with music, and some kind of Spectrum like sprite simulation, and color clash is not terrible. Monty the run is also a 10KB game, though no music, and it is still OK.
For me this level of color clash in HIRES is still OK, does not disturb the game experience.
Certainly a Magician's curse style sprite simulation in MULTI is much nicer, you can have foreground and background objects.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yeah, you could even use highres backrounds and convert everything behind a sprite to multi. So you have two additional colors per sprite. This would mean the enemies and the player will just have two colors. Very nice game btw..
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. KiCHY did a similar choice to shrink Uwol into a C16 including the whole original game, to me hitting with a big performance overall.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. It seems, that the mar..erm...m...ikey idea is doable. I rawly converted the first level tiles using RKSofts tiles and some roughly converterted ones.. Some of "my" tiles look very crappy at the moment however the clouds are already pretty cool. I don't know if I for myself have to do the levelconversion, or perhaps if someone (RKSoft) could help in converting the levels. I could supply a raw converted version of the levels, the main part would be to build propper plus/4 tiles. I have added a tool, which is usable to the following .zip file. It's called mappy, you can find it in the net, and I think the maps can be edited with it. (It needs the 16x16 graphics of the plus/4 tiles, though). So here is a first version of a scrolling level with a single sprite over it. The only problem I see is the conversion of all the levels. RKSoft do you think you would be able to do this? If not, I can try to convert the levels and I am just using your sprites. So, have fun and here is the .zip (try the test.d64 there).. (And don't mind the bugs.. It's a very very very early preview :) )
DRe: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Wow!! That's awesome! I would be extremely kind if you could do the levels. That would be really great! The level looks very cool! Which editor did you use, and how do I get the data? Want to try this level, too. Thanx a lot man!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Holy moly oO. Thats looks nice!!! I'm speakless, really. I can complete the tile/spriteset for you, if you want. The clouds looks nice but the little hills needs a little fix. I can put a 3.frame for the main char if you want?!
About the level mapping, i'm happy that KiCHY will help you. I do another mock-up for George but i don't tell you which, now. ^^ After finishing the mock-up (i think max. 2-3 days) i can complete the Super Mikey Brothers charset for you, when you want, of course.
@demo It plays very well but a little bit slow. Will the mainchar can be running in the finish game?
@my SMB charset I did a mock-up that shows how can be a jump and run looks like Super Mario Bros. can be show on a Commodore 264. So, i took the artistic freedom to do this. How i said, i can try to convert the complete tileset of Super Mario Bros..
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft of course the player will move/run faster if required (The engine support Sonic like speeds, but we don't need this here)! I think I will stick to Kichy for the level tileset conversions. But I would be very happy if you could supply the sprites. I think, that would be a good setup! And nice to hear from the other game! Keep on rocking! (Hope that is okay for you!)
Edit: for the spriteset. The more animframes, the better. So yes, please a 3rd one. :)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Mad How do you want that sprites? I can export them to bitmap in 8x8 (singlecolor), so you can import them into your program, or, i can export them to BASIC datas.
@topic & George To answer your question about having fun with this: sure, its my new hobby and it makes me big fun And now, here is my try for a Dig Dug port. It took many times to finalize it but i think it looks good for a Commodore 16/116 Plus/4 port or?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft that looks awesome again! About the sprites. It would be nice if I get a bitmap (4 colors (black, white, tbackground(transparent) and one you choose)).. So all the sprites in the bitmap share the same 4 colors.. Resolution and how you tile them is up to you, your example picture wit one every 24 pixels was already good..
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. How? Like in singlecolor like
or in multicolor like
Only the sprites or the complete set includes tiles. I can take KiCHYs fix tiles and your clouds to put them into the set and fix the pipes (no black blocks on the side, see example at Super Mario Land 2 from Gameboy).
PS.: i exported all 512 chars in this example. I will export the finale with the first 256 chars (2 KBytes) for you. Bad, you can't see the white pixels on white background. So, i will use a grey for it. And, its missing the titlescreen. I will make one with the SMB logo from classic NES game.
PPS: Can i add the 3.frame of the main char between 64 and 127 petscii index? The range between 128 to 255 is full. The game logo will be add between 64 and 127, too!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I mean i need just the sprites. Like in this image here: If i get almost the same image with just the sprites (mikey and the others) everything would be alright. I can not use the charset files. (For me sprites are no charsets they are like C64 Sprites, also not in the charset in memory, they have an extra place in memory)..
It's pretty easy for me to convert these images! :) (I hope that's ok for you)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSOFT Yeah Dig Dug is tough. I really love your solution for the characters very much. But i would do the Earth-layers in monochrome like in the original...Why did you do it this way in the "Zebra-Design"?
@all:: The Mario Level-Port looks fantastik. Very happy to see something like this.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @George You can't combine singlecolor and multicolor at the same time in screen-editor of CBM PRG Studio. And, why in singlecolor? You can use only the first 8 colors (with 8 luminanz) on one screen at same time. I tried the same charset with singlecolor to use the beautifull brown/orange colors but the sprites looks terrible .
Other try, i made the same earth chars like on Atari 7800 but i wouldn't like to use it (maybe in BASIC) when the main char is digging through. In assembler, this wouldn't be a problem i think.
PS: @Mad Most of the sprites have a 3.frame (fish has 4 and the fire plant has 2). I added the fire plant and a final boss, an ogher, but you can add another one if you want. I made this fastest i can to support you. I added a new mask for Mikey, too, for the power up. I hope it helps.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft no hurry, take your time. I will check the new anims in the evening.. Thanx a lot (and they look very cool)!! All the best..
edit: I just implemented the new mario animation. I added a functionality for mirroring the sprites to the engine, so the x flipped versions aren't needed anymore. What I really want to say is, the walking animation is excellent. I played it like this first frame 0, then frame 1, then frame 2 and then frame 1 again. And it looks really awesome! Thanx a lot! (Btw. I think if you jump onto enemies in Mario they remain not moving and flipped in y, must look into the game, but I think these spriteframes are missing. And you can remove all mirrored sprites from the set.)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I read it correctly? No flipped sprites needed because you mirror them in your code? oO Extremly greeeeeaat work. I will remove the left looking sprites and add new one for jumping and dead on main char. A dead animation for the Goomba and Koopa, i can add too.
Okay, my work on sprites: - add jump anim for Mikey - add fall anim for Mikey (he looks down at falling) - add dead anim for Mikey - add crouch anim for Mikey - add dead anim for Goomba (like on the originalgame?) - a flat Goomba? - add dead anim for Koopa (do you want that koopa shields to kick them with?)
Okay, do you want some of the following? - add hanging anim for Mikey (for the finale movement from the pole) - add look-up anim for Mikey - a princess to rescue with 2 frames (stay and loving) - in the oiriginal, there are hammer bros.. Do you want them? I can try...
Like to read your answer, and its ...woah... that you make such a game for our lovely homecomputer
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Wow RKSoft, if you want to you can make all of this stuff, if you do have time, i think well need it later on. I think there where also flying Koopas. Perhaps two small frames of a rotating hammer would be also nice, and a small shot sprite for m...ikey.. However I am really curious how this will turn out! You did great work already!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. So, i did my best to fit on Commodore 264. Some of the sprites, i fixed like the fish. I added shell, hammer bros., a little girl/princess, a hammer, lakito (the guy in the cloud), an octopus and the para koopa troopers (the koopas with wings).
When i do more, i overwrite the normale chars a-z and 0-9. But, if you need more, let me know.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I can't agree with Mad about those walk animations. The legs and arms are out of rhythm. The arm has 3 stage: front, middle, back. The legs has 2 stage: open, close. The correct walking anim is: 1. arm: front, legs: open 2. arm: middle, legs: close 3. arm: back, legs: open 4. arm: middle, legs: close (same as 2.) It is a simple 3 frame animation, played "ping-pong" (1-2-3-2-1-2-3...)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @KiCHY right, i tested it with frame 0, 1, 2, 1, 0, 1, 2 etc. in in loop. It looks weird. I made 3 frames (0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2 etc.) for the walk and this looks good.
@Mad if you need a 4.frame i re-made all them for you to pass the walk and arm animation. With your anim the arms looks good but in combination with the legs terrible.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSoft: Don't forget all the other walk animations (not only Mikey), they suffer the same weirdness. BTW I like your sprites, they bring a fresh, clean, cute graphics style to our small scene.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKSoft: you could supply a 4th frame if you think, that's better. I would appreciate a 3 frame 0,1,2,1 animation , though, because of the saved memory.. (You have all the time in the world to do this..) (btw, your fishes alread have these 0,1,2,1 pattern even if it are 4 source frames (some of them are the same))
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Mad If you say the sprites are okay then i don't touch them. You are the programmer . We have only 64KB to use for the game, music etc... or will you make a multiloader? But how KiCHY said, when you use 0,1,2,1 on the main char it loosk terrible. I made the frames in order of 0,1,2,0,1,2 etc. (all sprites btw.).
And yes, some frames a copies in this screenshot because why use another char for that when it is avaible? Many custom chars are copies (see the heads of koopa, mikey, goomba etc.). Or the legs from normal mikey and super mikey, all the same. :)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. The problem is it's much better to have a cycle of 4 frames, because that is dividable by 4 and thus easy to handle by the 6502 a "division" by 3 is not possible and you mostly end up with a big mess of special code for every animated sprite. Do you think you are able to make them somehow to a 0,1,2,1 animation or if it doesn't suit you it would also be possible to add a frame so I can use a 0,1,2,3 animation. That would consume more memory, though.. Kichy is more precise in judging game graphics, so I would say he is right at that point.. I think he knows his stuff, and you, too ! If all 4 frames are different I would favorize these 4 step animations, because it's also more content!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Sure, i'm able to made a 4.frame to all (3.frame sprites). I will do a 4.frame to mikey, koopa, para koopa and hammer bros.
The fish and goomba have 4 frames, now. The piranha plant and the beetles have 2 frames. Is it okay? Then i add a 4.frames to above called characters.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. So, i fixed the animation for using 0-1-2-1 loop for mikey, koopa, para koopa and hammer bros.. I also added this combination to the swim animation. I checked the 0-1-2-1 loop with an external program and it looks smooth and nice, now.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. So, i completed my charset of Mario Bros. and fixed some things like the power block. Now, this charset is complete and finish. The download file includes the bitmaps, charset editor file .cst and the screen editor file .sdd from CBM PRG Studio.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. For some relatively simple games that I think the systems can handle.
-A nice platformer on several systems, including the VCS: Montezuma's Revenge
-Radar Rat Race (Rally X) -Omega Race - both had versions on C64 and VIC-20
-Star Castle - I'd previously asked if it was possible, having seen a video of a conversion to the Atari VCS
I agree with those looking for Dig Dug, and Donkey Kong, there being no good version on the C16/+4. Also, how about a better Defender? In fact, it would be great to have accurate versions of all the arcade mainstays. Many are single-screen shooters that don't rely on smooth scrolling (Invaders, Galaxian, Berzerk, Space Firebird, etc). Other non-scrollers such as Q*bert, Pooyan, and Lock 'n' Chase shouldn't be beyond the systems.
And yes, Door Door would be charming addition to the roster of games. I'm sure there must be lots of similar games, less well-known in the west, that would be good conversions.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Oh yeah, Radar Rat Race is simple graphics and should do on C264er easy than other games, i think. Montezumas Revenge will be nice to see on our homecomputer.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hello Super Mikey people!
As suggested by carrion we should change the name to a more not mario like name.. We will be pretty close to the original in many aspects, however perhaps a better name will keep us fine with Nintendo. What do you think about this? And are there any good possible names already?
And they sued a youtuber who build Mario and Peach from Minecraft cubes.. The display of the picture is ok they said, but it's not if they are making any money of it!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I would ask Nintendo directly, if they give permission for a port for a "outdated" 264 system. Maybe they don't have a Problem with it, since we are honering and advertising a classic game.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Now i read a lot in the net. We do have no other choice than taking different musics, different characters and different levels (graphic can be kept, just other structures). I also asked a lawyer specialized on this topic, lets see what he'll say. I could ask Nintendo what we shouldn't do but a grant of a Mario imitation is very very unlikely. I already have some ideas for some enemy modifications.
And we need another main character! And name for the game!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Ideas (such as gameplay) cannot be copyrighted. Your game doesn't use the copyrighted Mario characters, or any of the likenesses they protect, or even music.
Do they give a damn about a Commodore game? If that game has their copyrighted material, reality says yes. Simply Google terms like company name + cease and desist. I could give you a bunch of links to fan projects they shut down, but 1) this stuff isn't fun, 2) those links don't really belong here, 3) you can find them yourself.
It's a given though that if you change the name and the character graphics, you are in the clear to make a clone.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I know that Nintendo kicks freeware projects includes their characters. I worked on a Super Mario fangame 2001 called Super Mario World under the label of BB Software. Take a look at DIV-Arena ... There, you can find another Nintendo remake by my, Donkey Kong.
2002, Nintendo contacted my ISP to remove all copyright content of their games/franchises. Under this, i must removed Donkey Kong PC, Mario Bros. and Super Mario World from my webpage (bbsoftware.net).
So, when i remake fungames with big N arts, so i change name and use fanmade custom sprite/tilesets in my games. Take a look at my tutorial Jumpman, where i use custom sprites and tiles.
Well, if we want to re-made a port to Commodore 264, we should use different name and custom sprites and tiles ...
For the DIV DX development, currently, i work on DIV Kong instead of Donkey Kong. The copyright is by me!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Cool games (Nintendo most probably didn't recognize them). However I would change the name for our game to a better sounding one. Perhaps Ultra Mikey already would do the trick, but I would apreciate any suggestions!
We change at the moment the whole game to better fit into a original production. It will be more like a giana sisters for the 264 then. However it will be a cooler game! We currently working on a Tiled editable version. The editor Tiled can be found on www.mapeditor.org. One really important point is to also have our own levels instead of the original ones. As I read most of the content is copyrighted including levels, characters and music. However it is ok to use our own adaption of the tile graphics since they are different anyways!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. After a break, here is my new mock-up for Commodore 264. I tried my best to convert all tiles and enemies but i did not have enough free chars. My set uses 256 chars (2kbyte). To complete it with all charsprites, you need to mirror the charsprites via code or use 2 charsets (8kbyte) and switching ingame.
Have fun... and you can download the files from my webpage.
For the first 2 levels, you can take a look at my webpage. I converted them .
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @MMS What do you mean about sprite emu? The main character has 3 colors on head and 3 colors on body. Head has brown, orange and white. The body has brown, orange and blue.
@Mad and Spektro Thanks :)
I hope someone can do a real Giana Sisters clon for C264 (64KB).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I mean, when you pass before a bush, that has green color, what will happen? I mean what is the plan handling this situation?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I think you mean the color clashes when Giana collides a background item like bush. I made this as a mock-up. But if anybody wants to use it to make a port i can rework the charset:
- changing the mc1 from dark brown to white - fix all chars (ie: the dark brown parts to a dark yellow at the stones or ground)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Some sort of Pinball Sim that took take advantage of the machines extra colors & higher res screen modes would be an eye opener.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yeah, my little daughter played with Amiga Pinball Fantasies, and really liked it. But that very fast scolling of sevelar screens up and own, eh. With multicolor charset maybe possible, but then only 1 free color per attribute left (VS 2 of the multicolor GFX mode), so may need to give up the nice screens. FLI would change the end ruesult, but I am not aware of such fast FLI gfx moving routine.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Pinball Fantasies is an ace game and I love Stones'n Bones but yeah, I was thinking more Pinball Dreams with that more basic style of table design.
The hardest thing would be to nail the ball physics I believe. If Pinball Fantasies/Dreams ball physics could be replicated with that addictive one more go game play then the Plus4 could be onto a winner.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I was thinking about a pinball game lately. Perhaps the fast bitmap scrolling method used in Majesty Of Sprites could be utilized for that but I'm not sure, I'm not familiar with that effect enough to see it's limitations.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @siz, tilt, mms: Pinball Dreams is eventually possible in bitmapmode. Scrolldistance per frame should be 8 or below. I think the physics is not the hardest part it's "just" physics. There is an Amstrad CPC conversion going on right now. The biggest problem of them is the memory. And I think they use 128k. I think a complete and animated table will not fit in 64k. The C64 conversion was stopped because of memory as far as I know. There are a lot of tunes also used at every table.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I just thought of a few more games that should / might be possible on the 264 series.
River Raid - while available on many other 8-bit systems, it would be new to the 16/plus 4. River Raid 2- the sequel was only available on the Atari VCS. Chopper Command - also only available on the Atari VCS, a Defender-like horizontal scrolling shooter. The Dreadnaught Factor - Intellivision originally, then Atari 8-bit & Atari 5200. A vertical scrolling shooter, but doesn't rely on fast scrolling.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Another one not out on many systems: Ant Attack (aka Ant Attack 3D), on Spectrum and C64 only, published by Quicksilva.
No smooth scrolling, though it might be nice to have in a conversion. Also mono graphics, with shading to show perspective. Suggestions for improvement: a map editor.
This game had a Spectrum-only sequel: Zombie Zombie. Could be nice to have a conversion of this to another system.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Since I didn't write anything here for a long time.
At first glance we tried to convert some game. Like the thread said, I was searching for a propper game to be converted. They all seemed very good. My favourites (from a link) were Space Harrier, Lemmings and Super Mario Bros. I thought that Lemmings is too hard of a task. Remember these 127 levels (as far as I remember). So we choose Super Mario Bros..
However we stopped that project, because Nintendo would have crashed it anyways. They have a big lawyer bunch and are very hostile at even the slightest corruptions of their copyrighted material. (You find a lot of information about this in the net).
However we currently slowly get build up another own and original game. It will take some months now, but I think that will turn out well.
Sorry that we didn't convert a game, as it was originally planned..
Everyone who wants to put good candidates in this thread is very welcome as always but I don't know if someone could build these conversions. Anyways good to have this thread (I hope).
And RKSoft gives this thread another meaning by posting his prebuilt graphic sets. So programmers also already have a graphician if they choose to do such a task. (Thanks from here, too for this good initiative!)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Amazing that you have the energy for this! Keep it up! I hope that you don't have to completely throw away the work you did for the Super Mario conversion!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Well, changing the name Plus/4 Hero, a Black main character, slight changes in the "bad Characters" (intead of Turtle a C64 colored guy, instead of a Bee a Gameboy, etc) some other referred character could be eliminated, hehe. THIS MEANS WAR!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Next mock-up: The Legend of Zelda
Really hard, but it think it looks good. I know that Link isn't grey but i took this color to show the main character. The charset isn't finished and i will continue my work on this. So, any comments are welcome. And maybe, someone lets anim the main character. ^^
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Nice graphics.
Don't want to be a killjoy but how are you going to handle the multiple colours once you start animating them on a C16? In particular the Giana (even harder with scrolling) and dig dug?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Dig Dug is easy to make them look a like my mock-up. I can make a little testgame in BASIC to show you. Giana Sisters is hard because the color clashes with the background (bushes). But i can change some things to handle with it. When it works in BASIC then in machine language too.
All of my mock-ups are working in BASIC (except Giana) currently!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I'd love to see the dig dug one moving and coping with the number of colours on screen. I can't see how you can cope with 9 different colours and make them work without clashing?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I made a video of my next game (for pc only) but with a mock-up of mine, Mikey Brothers! I think it shows one of my mock-up in action that can look like on a real Commodore 264 machine (without that overlay, of course). I only used that tiles:
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Rebooting this post to include a couple of news: - Carrion is on "Montezuma's revenge" conversion, and he's searching for an interested coder here; - Jonathan Caldwell, ZX Spectrum's longlasting game developer, has twitted this:"Any 8-bit developers looking for a project but lacking inspiration? Have dozens of Spectrum games that need converting to Acorn, CPC, Commodore, MSX, Dragon, Oric etc. Willing to share source code with anyone who has at least one title under his belt. Feel free to retweet!.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @Luca I hope Carrion finds a coder. I like Montezuma's Revenge on C64 and would like to see it on our system, too.
@topic On request, i tried to do a mock-up of Green Beret (Rush'n Attack in the US) and, first, i used the multicolor mode but i was not happy about the result. So, i found the ZX Spectrum port and used some graphics.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. How strange. I was reading through some retro speccy stuff and thought along the same lines, using speccy graphic ideas instead of the C64.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hi, We are actually finishing the Amiga & PC ports of Green Beret ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUE2MbnvejI ) maybe I should give a try to a Plussy port ? we'll see...
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Oh that would really be a great task for Megastyle! Not the easiest one of course...but that's the challenge
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Fantastic one KiCHY...although any time I see you doing something else, I cry waiting for the stuff you're working on (I'm kidding ofcoz...).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. It would be nice to have a decent version of Green Beret. I have to say I'm not a huge fan of RKSoft's hires mockup posted above, it just doesn't seem to work. Kichy's mockup is nice, but what about sprites? I think that's what it comes down to.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I'm with Csabo, I like all mockups, but the very interesting ones include the real deal about colours involved in a realistic project eventually working on the original machine. Hafta say, for what I know, KiCHY uses to automatically considers all the variables in his own mockups, they refers to a real machine and they're thought in order to include sprites. I loved his Green Beret mockups right because, counting the colours involved and their usage, I see it's possible to build some sprites on it, see the 3 fixed colours?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Fantastic looking stages! Yeah, the 3 fix colors means will be hard to notice the spriet on the bacground, but would be the same with 1 color sprite too
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. MMS oh well I did notice the 3 fixed colors just to say that the whole thing has been done in order to be set for a real project with sprites (one color left to be used in the different sprites) I mean: not a point of weakness but a clue about reality.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yeah, sure, the software mouse cursors (Borrowed time, Tass times) are also made with two fixed colors.
I know our limitation, on the other hand I started to prefer Spectrum approach instead of a speudo C64 sprites approach, as the C64 sprites color are typically VERY different from the background, but we just can't do it. Doing it will be a great challange and fun, but I can foresee, it will be very hard to play due to bad visibility on the colorful background. (eg. notice knifes and prevent them)
Recently checking AIT I realized it does not use sprites (I tought it did), but overwrites those few background images. But it is almost not visible side effect, because the majority of the background is black, and the movement is so fast. As the sprite has so different color than ANY of the background objects, it is always easy to recognise your hero. I prefer this way. Eg. Bubble Bobble on Amiga or Atari ST may work with exactly the same way, and those are still great games, despite they do not have those colorful background images the arcade version has.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. See, told you it would be kinda awesome!
No really high speed sprites, all sprites strictly stay within the open areas of the maze, the graphics would really benefit from the large Plus/4 palette... seems like an ideal candidate. It doesn't hurt that it was a really cool arcade game.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. RKSoft, can you post videos of you mock ups in 264 basic because I would really like to know how you can get so many colours on screen and have zero clash between sprites with different colours. In particular when they are adjacent on screen.
It's the biggest pain I'm having. I can solve it, partly and in terms of increased colours, but I cheat by using horizontal bands , on horizontally scrolling games. But it takes a lot of planning to avoid clash and very limited palettes. This really makes the whole 121 colours a bit of a joke in reality ( for games at least).
I can now see why no one bothers with 16k versions as defining software sprites is so memory intensive as 12k really isn't very much (16k - 1k screen - 1k colour - 2k character set)
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hey Stinaris, just some side notices. I think there is no easy way around the limited softsprite capability. You mentioned using Rasters to color the screen differently [horizontal bands]. I think that is an good option to increase the colors usable per screen or sprite.
I think the main thinking about this sprite/color thingy is, were you want more colors. Behind the sprites or in the sprites itself.
First option is: Using more colors for the sprites itself. So you can use the 3 fixed colors for the background behind the sprites. You can color everything solid which can never be behind the sprites with more colors, though. This approach could produce color clashes when sprites "collide".
The second is: To use only the 3 fixed ones for your sprites and color all the background like you like to. The drawback is, that you just have relatively monochrome sprites then. However the color of sprites gets easily "removed" by the brain you don't feel a big difference by it when playing. You even can change the 3 fixed sprite colors on the fly, let's say at a level or region change, and the player wouldn't get angry by this (at least that's how it behaves for me).
The third option is: To just move by chars and not by pixels. An FLI mode for instance could make you use a 40x50 screen for it, which is slower in using it then, too.
If you use a bitmap mode, you have 2 fixed and 2 free colors per cell/tile which could change the approaches you can use slightly.
There are some more advanced techniques to combine the colors so that you do have color clashes but they aren't recognizable. Degauss is said to have produced a demo of such a mode in the past. I know this is not helpful, but as said there is no easy way around this color clash issue. If anyone has ideas about it, I would be also glad to hear them here..
This is just what I "discovered" over time, and most probably not helpful..
So let's wait for RKSoft to explain if he found a way around this .. Could be that it's just the crossplatform editor he uses.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hey Stinaris, i don't know what mock-up you mean because all of them have a black background. So the softsprite will have 2 fixed colors (multicolor #1 and #2), the char color and the black background color (for the eyes as example).
Only my Giana mock-up isn't conform because the softsprites uses all 3 colors but it will have color clashes when collides with a background tile like the bush. It can be fixed by using only 2 colors and the 3. charcolor is for the overlapping!
But: The little secret is to use the right order of colors for your tiles and sprites. All my mock-ups can be use in BASIC games! If you want, i can make a little BASIC program that shows a mock-up on your screen (or emulator). If you want, let me know what mock-up.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hi Mad,
Moving by character blocks isn't really for the game type. I'm basically trying to convert C64 Delta to the C16. Obviously the main ship can't be spinning, it would take the entire memory to animate With careful planning and cunning I think I can get something reasonable. I would like a proper soft Sprite for the main ship and keep the attacking ships at least one whole char away from each other. This will give the illusion that everything is a Sprite.
I've got a nice scrolling frame for the top and bottom of the play area (a bit like delta) but it's a lot slimmer because Delta puts sprites in the border!.
Not worked on it for a bit as I'm trying to convert the music at the moment and building some tools to help.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hi Rksoft,
The Mario mock up shows a Mario character with 5 colours (background black, beige, white, green, brown). Already colour clash issues if he jumps. you've got it adjacent to a block consisting of background black, white, beige and blue. Which simply cannot happen on 264 hardware, as far as I'm aware, without major colour clashing issues.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Hi Stinaris,
just read your post. Nice move to port Delta to the C16. The idea with keeping the "sprites" distant to each other is marvelous. I hope you get this final. About RKSofts mockups: I think he does them preferably for Basic games. But that's just guessing here. There real soft sprites almost aren't possible. Perhaps with your trick of using preshifted tiles, that would be doable, too in Basic. I hope atleast one level of your Delta clone will see the daylight somewhen, hard enough that XeO3 didn't got finished, yet. Major props and respect to you for doing this in 16k!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. OFF/remark (as you wish) sorry to be a little negative, but fitting the game into 16K is not a really good idea (if I understood well). You have to leave out graphics, effect, maps to fit into the 16K. (Please consider, how much better the 48K ZX Spectrum games to 16K versions)
I think back in the day the platform suffered a lot due to fact, that every company transferred chopped down lame 16K conversions, like Ghost and Goblins (OK, there was a programming bug, hires VS multi characters). And Commodore made a failure by releasing C16 and C116 with 16K, they should came with 32K (or make the memory expansion much easier and more straighforwards, like C128's VDC's 64K expansion...)
I had C16 too when I was a kid, but I upgraded the memory to 64K as fast my parents could pay it ( ). Without 64K, this computer is really, really limited and cannot show it's real potentials (and that1s why the gamers all left the platform, because there were very few impressive games due to limited RAM).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I had a plus-4 and could only play C16 games and I’m interested to see how much of a limitation it places on the programmer. As it happens, a great deal. I grew up with a C64 and the sprite and memory make it a joy to use. But I really need to do this in 16K.
This is also a step to writing something for the Atari 2600. You think a C16 is limited, the 2600 is laughable.
I love finding ways to overcome the limitations. For example, to keep the soft sprites fast I place each line of the sprite 40 characters on from the last. I do this because I can reuse the same register without reloading it to handle the index.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. OK, I understand the challenge part of it, that's why I also make PETSCII GFX instead of multicolor
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. I totally agree that the C16 should have been the C32. That would have allowed infinitely better games. At least then yo could run a bit map screen and draw software sprites onto that rather than pre storing char sets. I'm also confused why, as a replacement for the VIC20, it only had 2 channel sound? Weird.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. After the release of that fantastic new game it becom every evident, that with 64K RAM the 264 platform is a killer. (OK there will be always a need for a hw sprite and quadro SID sound )
Actually C= could realese C16 and C116 with 16K and some empty RAM IC sockets plus a jumper, and with the help of few 41464 you could have a 64K machine easily. Instead you have to solder the board and add new wires on the bottom of the board (maybe cut one lines too?). It is a kind of crazy While for VIC-20 they had tons of C= cartridges, and they could sell a lot for a good money. C= even did not release an official RAM 64K expansion card with a pass-though expansion port to have some circuit diagrams...
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Because I've had a tricky time getting stuff into 16K, I thought I'd try converting something that was originally 16K. So this weekend I wrote the main game engine for the Spectrum 16K game Transvision. Here is where i am thus far (yes I know the sound is awful)
https://vimeo.com/259140635
This game with 10 levels occupies 8.5K including the character set (127 characters), colour and character screen.
There is no title page, character death, music or game over screen. But that should all fit in 1K easily (unless I get a bit fancy with the title page)
Obviously there are no animation frames as such and each character is only 1 char.
I'm really starting to wonder how the author of Ghosts'n Goblins got as much as he managed to into the machine!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Yeah, it is nice! BTW if you want to make a title screen, how it may look like? Any idea PM me, if you want somehelp
(Too much time spent on the hard work and recently I did not draw anything, and I am getting anxiuos...) In PETSCII in 700-800 bytes (with color) some smaller title picture could be made...
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Stinaris I looked at the ghost n goblins disc and it contains 3 files. If you ask me I would follow Bubis advice to use their fastloader. It occupies the memory from $200 to $400 (in our case), which is pretty good. You even have a very good decrunch routine in there, even if you have to patch the code (injecting the propper address containing the data to decrunch) to use it from outside. The loading takes just some eyeblinks in time, if you ask me :)..
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. It’s got harder as I ironed out a couple of bugs that A) didn’t detect collisions 100% of the time B) turrets wouldn’t detect the player 100% of the time.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. And now, let's go incredibly back to the real initial topic of this thread: converting games to Plus/4.
Retroworks has a large catalogue of Zilog based games of various genres they used both to sell and to offer as freeware. And the source code is available too. I played the lovely Zelda-ish "Los amores de Brunilda" and I found it quite playable with a fascinating story.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. i think we still need a good football game! don't know if it is possible on plus4, but love to see a 2 player game. i hope my son will stop playing fifa18!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Aban Hawkins & the 1001 Spikes, awesome and very hard game but sadly it's commercial and still very current. I'd buy it again if it was ported to Plus/4 by official means!
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. An old-school arcade game from the 80's would be cool. Highsscores, Levels, Action... RK-Soft made some cool mockups.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Sorry Luca I didn't read into the heading, "Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game..", that it was plus/4 only.
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. stinaris: eh? Oh no no, I've just introduced the argument in a weird way, ain't no intention to blame somebody due something
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. Luca I completely hijacked the thread. I hate it when people do that and went and did it myself :-/ Awkward.
Anyway back to the original thread.
Has anyone converted Kennedy Approach? Used to love that, on the C64 so much so I converted it to Gameboy (well the main game engine).
The other one I would love to do is paradroid, but I don't think I've got the 264 kills at the moment (or the time).
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @RKsoft I ADORE your mock-ups! Burger Time, Super Mikey Bros, Pitfall, Mario Bros, Giana Sisters, Donkey Kong, all so fabulous, colorful and funny! They really reminded me of why I started liking games in the first place. These should all be made to their own ports really.
Alongside Pets Rescue they've really sparked my interest for the Plus 4 / C16 and the wish to create some small games of my own for the Plus 4.
@Mad Thanks so much for sharing Plus4Studio These kind of tools are really invaluable for development.
Btw. I wonder how you become a member in this nice community? Who should I ask?
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. @rksoft.. I *love* your mockups. Question though. How are the colors laid out? Are the screens supposed to be multicolor hires (so 4 colors per tile) or regular multicolor tiles. Would love to pick your brain about some of them as I'm working on custom hardware similar to the +4/c16
Re: Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game.. EOTB isn't the game people think it is, a Dungeon Master clone... The dungeons are set out like puzzles rather than it being a grand dungeon adventure and life simulator which DM is. EOTB has very little going on from a technical point of view. The art direction of the C64 version is very cool tho.
Just a silly idea.. How about converting some game..
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