Posted By
Austin
on 2004-09-29
15:38:55
|  Why are you guys better?
I'm an old plus 4 user and remember the old games fondly. Indeed, I've downloaded several for my YAPE emulator.
However, I've noticed the 'new' games etc. you guys have coded are massively improved in terms of music and gfx. The demos in particular far exceed anything I saw in the 80's on my 'real' plussy.
I'm a layman really but I'm interested to know why? Is it because programming techniques have evolved or do we know more about how the plussy works inside now?
Anyone generous enough to answer??
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Posted By
TMR
on 2004-09-29
16:04:22
 | Re: Why are you guys better?
It's an evolutionary thing, as the years have passed people have worked out new ways to hammer the hardware; it's the same with the C64, Spectrum and just about every 8bit still getting new software. =-)
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Posted By
Ulysses777
on 2004-09-29
18:02:15
| Re: Why are you guys better?
But the main reason (as far as the 264 series is concerned) is that most commercial games were designed to run on the C16, and the 'new' games take advantage of the 64K Plus4.
A bit of a shame really, as some of the few commercial Plus4-only games were real gems (like Mercenary, which runs noticeably faster than the C64 version) 
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2004-09-29
20:44:23
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Well said T.M.R and Ulysses777, those are both very true. The 16K thing practially crippled our game market. The demos that were produced for the 16K demo compo would have probably shocked the heck out of the makers of the machine - had they seen them back in '84. There's no magic code, we just got better because we kept doing it, kept improving it.
I just have one thing to add: despite the fact that the new(er) scene-produced software are "technically" better, the "old folks" did know how to do one thing right: the gameplay. There are quite a few new games that look impressive, sound great - but simply suck as a game. It's not only the nostalgia factor that makes so many people say "I love playing Icicle Works", "I love playing Tom Thumb", etc: those are good games, period. And you didn't even need a 3D accelerated graphics card.
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2004-09-30
02:59:43
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Actually the development process is also improved a lot. We used to develop on the target machine (I mean both the code editing and the execution happened on the same machine). Nowadays almost everybody uses an external development environment, such as a cross compiler on a different machine/OS. The testing is mostly can be done on an emulator, what can be freezed anytime and check the actual state.
This helps a lot, not to mention the amount of documentation what can be found on the net. I used to dream about such tons of documents but I was stuck on a few books only.
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Posted By
MC
on 2004-10-04
03:15:01
 | Re: Why are you guys better?
I had only one book that said nothing about the TED. Somehow i've made FLI routines back then anyway :D Yes, cross compilers help a lot, TED reverse engineering started as Gaia implemented Yape. Bubis will announce some astonishing TED hack nowadays, keep checking back
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Posted By
TLC
on 2004-10-04
08:33:47
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Replying to the topic: well, IMHO "we" aren't. Seriously. Some of us may be technically better -- say, can code an extra, heavily optimized FLI, zoom4, 3d, music etc. routine and some efx (or music) on top of that. Still, I won't be brave (or daring) enough to state that -- as of this time, including the past 15 years or so -- any of us could beat Mercenary, Icicle Works, Winter Events, Magician's Curse, Ghost Town, ... which shows somehow. Speaking of myself, I don't think that I'm any better than Mr. Doug Turner or David Braben or Udo Gertz; they coded far better games _themself_ all alone (some of them with the help of a musician) that I could ever do. ...They didn't (or haven't, so far... =))) ) coded tricky music players or fli routines or whatever... so what?...
...It's probably about different type of talents. People above were talented in coming up with good game ideas, and also, realising those ideas IRL. It's also almost unbelievable that they did that _that_ early (coming up with a nice and _playable_ game in less than half a year after the release of an unknown platform, IMHO _is_ something). Some of us are on the other hand, talented in researching and exploiting still unknown features of the machine  . Some of us are talented in math... Some of us are talented in music, design, etc.
Whatever it is about, for me, nothing compares to the "oldskool", officially released and spread games. This isn't a critique of the scene or scene people -- it's just a statement that programmers of the old era could do better games (judge for yourself).
Rachy: cross development _was_ known still back in that era; a lot of C64 games were developed that way. I don't know if Plus/4 game developers used such development systems, though.
MC: Reverse engineering in fact haven't started with Yape, it probably started back in '95 or so (Marko Mäkelä).Those results just didn't make into Minus4, that's all (...but that fact has more to do with Minus4's development I guess).
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Posted By
bubis
on 2004-10-04
08:34:42
| Re: Why are you guys better?
MC, shut up your mouth!
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Posted By
Csabo
on 2004-10-04
22:44:12
| Re: new thing from bubis
Is it writing on the sideborder? or true Single Line FLI?
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2004-10-05
04:36:21
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Don't tease us bubis!
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Posted By
Lavina
on 2004-10-05
05:13:37
 | Re: Why are you guys better?
do not ask him, you will not beleive it anyway, till you have not seen it....
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Posted By
Crown
on 2004-10-05
05:30:45
| Re: Why are you guys better?
It's one of my old ideas, implemented by Bubis as he revealed it to me yesterday...
You will be pretty amazed, when he releases it, its very cool...
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Posted By
bubis
on 2004-10-05
06:17:32
| Re: Why are you guys better?
It is true, the idea is from Crown!
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2004-10-05
07:31:03
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Guys, guys! Shed some light please, I keen on waiting... :D
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Posted By
MC
on 2004-10-05
08:08:21
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Hmm, TLC may be right! And yes bubis showed me today that magic TED hack. We are still thinking thinking, how we could use that
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Posted By
Luca
on 2004-10-05
13:56:19
 | Re: Why are you guys better?
MC you'd broken a big cake!
Now I'm wondering about Bubis'implementation of the Croen idea all the time...
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Posted By
MC
on 2004-10-05
17:41:18
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Now it's up to bubis to reveal it. I think he will code something interesting using that effect before he shows us that hack.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2004-10-05
17:43:36
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Uhmmm...smells like sprites...
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Posted By
Austin
on 2004-10-07
15:56:17
| Re: Why are you guys better?
Great fun reading such interesting replies, especially when they dissolved into a tongue in cheek argument at the end!
Cheer guys...
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