|  Mr Angry Dude Released! | | Posted by Csabo on 2015-04-25 |
 Looks like Christmas is coming early to the Plus/4 Scene. This month has been nothing short of amazing: Majesty Of Sprites, PetDraw, Knaecketraecker, Blubb - and if you think April is over, think again. With that little intro, let's get to the release at hand...
Regular forum readers probably already know about the new game: Mr Angry Dude. Well, now it's public and official, the game is out, stop reading this and go play! Still here? Okay then. The game is a platformer, in which you control the titular character, Mr Angry Dude, who is indeed a dude, and presumably angry (although the game doesn't provide a backstory as to why that is). While playing, you can listen to the self-described "most annoying music ever". In the game, 8 levels await you with some interesting mechanics - the kind which is much harder to describe than to show. It's definitely something unique, even the first level (which is meant to be simple and introductory) will be a challenge to complete, until one figures out what's going on.
All in all, it's a polished game and wonderful addition to our scene, go play it now and be sure to provide feedback on our forums! |
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|  | After some days of deep debugging, Andreas Steffen tested his skills as rookie assembly coder releasing the sweet action game Blubb. | [ comment ] |
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| | Knaecketraecker: First TEDsound Tracker Ever! | | Posted by Luca on 2015-04-22 |
 Year after year, era after era, anybody who decided to create something that would run on a C16 or Plus/4, had to deal with that horrible questionmark: what with the audio stuff?
We tried anything. We tried to use rudimentary music editors like Sequential Circuit or Music Editor or Music-16 trying to keep us away from playing like an alarm clock; we tried the BASIC commands, but the results were...basic too; we tried to use the samples like in Rock Editor V1.3 but the screen had to get off when playing and the memory got wasted; then, we've stolen the best tunes from the commercial games, and somebody else had coded his own player, say Ern0, but that spaghetti code would be quite far from being spreaded in the scene. We've stolen and reduced the SID files to be played by two poor voices, then mixed to seem like three, sometimes with unhearable results, sometimes composing music on converted C64 editors just to have a working tool...eventually playing on 2 voices only; we've followed this way, using little slices of digitized SID audio to improve the quality, but the rastertime went away like hot cakes. When crossplatform tools made inroads, somebody coded his own TEDsound music player, and the code has been easily distributed as source, but the usage of those tools often looked like obscure and difficult, hence only few dudes did challenge the beast obtaining their results.
We tried anything, but now we can stop doing with what we have, because times are changing again!
As promised days before, Degauss/TEK has just released the Protracker-ish tool he used to compose the music for masterpieces like the multiprized Rocket Science and the incoming Majesty Of Sprites. Ladies, gentlemen, here it is: Knaecketraecker!
Knaecketraecker version 0.2b is the first proper crossplatform TEDsound tracker ever. It allows editable multispeed, partial and global playback via TEDplay (included in the installation package), .ASM/.BIN/.PRG file exporting, single instruments I/O in order to build up your own sound database, virtual 3rd voice editing, claviature mimicking to easily enter the notes and many other friendly features. It comes with a brief manual and several example tunes.
Classic trackers' experts out there shall have no difficulties to easily understand it and bring out the best in Knaecketraecker, whereas a certain training time is needed to beginners and to editors' addicted, just to get accustomed to the usage of pattern lines vs. groove in order to get out the best from it, especially using the virtual 3rd channel at its best.
If someone didn't read the relative thread in the forum, Degauss has released this great tool under the request of Mad/BKN, who announced the needing of contributions in order to have the game music to be included in the final release of his Majesty Of Sprites. Hence, time has come, to learn all the inner secrets of Knaecketraecker, show what you're able to do with it and join the BKN's great job!
Thanks again to Degauss for having placed another milestone along the path in the history of our beloved Plus/4. And now, time's ticking out, download Knaecketraecker and start handling it as a real pro. Show us your real potential dealing with TEDsound! |
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| | PetDraw | | Posted by Csabo on 2015-04-08 |
 David Murray has been developing a PETSCII drawing program for the C64, and to our luck he decided to port it to the Plus/4 and PET computers as well. It has a few minor issues, but otherwise it's functional, has a nice help screen and example images. It should be a handy tool for creating PETSCII pictures, be sure to check it out and send feedback! |
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| | Ladies And Gentlemen, Her Majesty The Bitmap Softsprite! | | Posted by Luca on 2015-04-06 |
 During the same days when Degauss carries in for Bauknecht the Meteoriks prize for the best low-end soundtrack, they arrived at Easterparty (aka Revision) and they were not with empty hands!
Majesty Of Sprites is a hardcoding experiment under the pretences of a no scrolling Giana Sisters' like game running in multicolor bitmap, full of software sprites, gorgeous backgrounds, evil jumps to perform and diamonds and hearts to collect! Bauknecht has shown this preview version at Revision, reaching the 4th place in the generic Game Developing competition. It allows you to play 12 different and very big screens, divided in 6 'worlds' of two screens each. Bitmap sprites look very Atari-ish, having two assigned color only, setting the code free to assign a very large variety of colours any 4x8 (8x8) box (look at the very last screens, they're incredibile), moreover allowing very extensive animation all around. The enemies attack in different movements, and some shoot at you. What you loose in all this, is the scrolling.
 This version doesn't miss even an intro, a jolly title screen that doesn't get shame to show its little colour clashes in the sides, an ending and a gorgeous vanity board with multicolor bubbles versus hires 2x2 characters that saves your scores!
This is a preview only, without ingame tunes, missing several worlds to play and who knows what else to still add in. Don't miss to play this gem and report back your thoughts about!
Code by Mad, graphics by Nero with some help from Decca, music by Degauss.
BKN and TEK, we love you back! |
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| | See this forum thread for news from Revision 2015 party! | [ comments ] |
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