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Galahad/FLT · 09 April 2020, 01:20

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So Alexh has given some info on what this is.

Its basically a Super Mario Bros rip off (as if that even needed saying!!) written in 1995 and was actually a commercial product!

I saw it a few years ago and was suitably impressed because it was 320x200 on an Atari ST and it was 50frames per second with smooth scrolling, which obviously isn't the usual thing. No massive scoreboard running vertically to give the ST an easier time, just a full screen horizontal scroller.

So initially I thought it was an STe game, using the blitter and hardware scroll, but it didn't.

What it does need is 1meg of memory which this tiny little game almost fills completely.

The programmer has cleverly designed certain parts of the game so he only has to copy 3 bitplanes worth of data instead of 4, and every block in the level, every enemy is entirely preshifted before the Super Stario Land picture appears onscreen.

All done so that the CPU can bang the graphics onto the screen as fast as possible, but this comes at the cost of needing more memory to operate than the usual game on ST, because each level is made of sections which repeat a couple of times, and all of these block setups are preshifted as well.

What this means is that at this moment, this game might have to be A1200 minimum. Yes I can get this working on A500 1meg chip but there is very little room for 2x mods and sound effects and Amiga screen as well as Amiga code to drive it all.

On A500 512k/512k, this is even harder because i'm then going to have to dynamically copy samples to very limited chip ram on demand, whilst trying to keep the frame rate up and smooth.

I did toy with the idea of simply recoding the game, but it literally took me 2 hours to get this game running on Amiga, and whilst its nice little homage to Mario, personally, its one people might tire of easily because there are so many Mario clones and alternatives on a host of systems.

So I might well finish this off, but for A1200 so I don't have to concern myself with the memory requirements.

That deres effect at the end of the level is also predone.

09 April 2020, 01:20	#1
Galahad/FLT Going nowhere Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: United Kingdom Age: 50 Posts: 9,014	Atari ST conversion: Super Stario Land [ Show youtube player ] So Alexh has given some info on what this is. Its basically a Super Mario Bros rip off (as if that even needed saying!!) written in 1995 and was actually a commercial product! I saw it a few years ago and was suitably impressed because it was 320x200 on an Atari ST and it was 50frames per second with smooth scrolling, which obviously isn't the usual thing. No massive scoreboard running vertically to give the ST an easier time, just a full screen horizontal scroller. So initially I thought it was an STe game, using the blitter and hardware scroll, but it didn't. What it does need is 1meg of memory which this tiny little game almost fills completely. The programmer has cleverly designed certain parts of the game so he only has to copy 3 bitplanes worth of data instead of 4, and every block in the level, every enemy is entirely preshifted before the Super Stario Land picture appears onscreen. All done so that the CPU can bang the graphics onto the screen as fast as possible, but this comes at the cost of needing more memory to operate than the usual game on ST, because each level is made of sections which repeat a couple of times, and all of these block setups are preshifted as well. What this means is that at this moment, this game might have to be A1200 minimum. Yes I can get this working on A500 1meg chip but there is very little room for 2x mods and sound effects and Amiga screen as well as Amiga code to drive it all. On A500 512k/512k, this is even harder because i'm then going to have to dynamically copy samples to very limited chip ram on demand, whilst trying to keep the frame rate up and smooth. I did toy with the idea of simply recoding the game, but it literally took me 2 hours to get this game running on Amiga, and whilst its nice little homage to Mario, personally, its one people might tire of easily because there are so many Mario clones and alternatives on a host of systems. So I might well finish this off, but for A1200 so I don't have to concern myself with the memory requirements. That deres effect at the end of the level is also predone. Last edited by Galahad/FLT; 09 April 2020 at 14:42.