|  Elite +4: Circle Closes | | Posted by Luca on 2023-02-28 |
 Habemus "fixum" maximus! Mark Moxon turns back to the coding scene, and improves the flicker free version of the super classic Elite +4 released some months ago by (almost) fixing the planets' flickering too! The cleanest version of the "game of a lifetime" (cit.) is now here.
Elite +4 Flicker free Π (pron.: Elite +4 Flicker free Pi) is the title of this new and apparently ultimate hack of the famous 3D space trading simulation, where, after the first fix regarding the ships, the planets have been (almost) fixed too. Why we say "almost"? Well, in all the versions, including the BBC original where those patches have been based, planets still flicker a bit when partially off-screen. This is because of the way the ball line buffer works: it's a consequence of the way the circles are stored as sequential arcs, forcing the erase/redraw sequence to involve slightly different segments. So this isn't strictly flicker-free, but it's way better than the default. On C64 and Plus/4, this is even more evident due to the slower processor.
This was the best moment to celebrate the genius of Pigmy, the man who converted the game when he was 15, in less than a week, using only a Datassette and the internal ML Monitor of the machine. That's why Luca took his time to give the original intro a cooler aspect. Overall, with a modernized titlescreen and a stable wireframe 3D, *this* is the Elite +4 version worth to be run on your hardware. |
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| | Usagyuuun Kniffel! | | Posted by Csabo on 2023-02-26 |
 The newest member of Plus/4 World is Sirhadisen, and our new friend from Germany is here to gift us his first game: Usagyuuun Kniffel! It's a multiplayer Yahtzee game with some elements from the "Quan Inc." franchise (Usagyuuun and friends).
This project was a long time coming. Sirhadisen writes:
I started programming back in 1987, but I was too young to comprehend machine code in the limited time I was allowed to sit in front of a 60Hz screen. In April 2022 my nephew found an old book on machine language for the Plus4 and I decided to make up for what I missed in my childhood using the great resources that can be found on the internet nowadays XD.
The result of that work is now here for all to enjoy. Be sure to check it out! |
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| | Midi Expansion For The Plus/4! | | Posted by sabe on 2023-02-26 |
| Chizman has made a MIDI OUT expansion card based on Arduino Nano. Have a look at the demo on the hardware section here. |
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| | Sir Knight (Loves) C16 | | Posted by Luca on 2023-02-25 |
 Thee needeth not 32kB to saveth thy beloc'd princess!
C64Mark, the main and most important C16/Plus4 streamer known to date, the versatile C64 and C16 game developer with an attitude for the player-torturing games, the naive consumer of exotic flavoured beers, is back for his C16 sophomore production, dedicated to the not-that-famous Tynesoft classic Sir Knight title.
Basically, Sir Knight C16 fixes the debatable usage of the bitmap graphics which forced the noble predecessor to only work with a minimum memory of 32kB. C64Mark's complete rewriting of the game moves the field of action onto a less wasting screen RAM environment and softsprites, to make your C16 the perfect scenario for your own medieval heroic tale of jumping, dodging, running and princesses-saving.
As sometimes happens, less is more: in less memory, here come more levels (30!) with related names, the proper joystick control it deserved, a vanity board to start a challenge against both your and the other players, a real ending and much more! The addition of well greeted music, jingles and sfx is once again a worthy dmx87's affair.
Who is't'll succede to saveth the princess and triumph in the hisc're board? |
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| | TEDzakking Everywhere | | Posted by Luca on 2023-02-22 |
 Perfecting perfection? Yes, Hermit can! You need to compose sophisticated TED music for your forthcoming productions, but you aren't properly at home, so you can't handy have the proper emulator or the real machine, right? Now you can!
Hermit has released TEDzakker 1.2, the third incarnation of the TED music editor which pushed the sound editing capabilities on the TED machines beyond their limits, easily becoming the darling of 8bit music composers and demo makers. And from this 1.2 version, it's going crossplatform! As you can see into our Tools section, there are now two new distributions of TEDzakker 1.2 to be directly used on modern OSes: TEDzakker WIN for all of you Bill's BFFs, and TEDzakker Linux for the Rebel Alliance out there.
From now, you don't have any valid excuse for not experimenting on in your composing skills: use it literally anywhere. |
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