Next game to port?

[ZEUSDAZ]

Originally Posted by dunny

ranarama would be awesome. As would gauntlet with the deeper dungeons expansion pack! - although gauntlet is playable via mame, the expansion pack was never released in the arcades...

I do have to agree though - when i want to play those classic arcades, i fire up mame. I used to play the new zealand story to death on my a1000, but as soon as i could emulate the arcade i never went back - it's just a better game.

Exactly!

[Retro-Nerd]

Can't you play MAME via CRT tv?!

I'm afraid not. Newer ATI cards doesn't support the needed lores resolution output anymore. And i don't want to setup a second PC/Laptop just for that.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

2x 256 colors.

That is kind of a waste since there seems to be no more that 16/max 32 colors on screen at once - and no parallax, but we are talking of a tiled graphics system...

...nothing an a500 cannot do with splitting copper on top and one frame scrolling plus two frames objects update in 4 bitplanes!

[Tigerskunk]

Lot of true words have been spoken in this thread..

1) It doesn't make much sense to port arcade games to the Amiga, since we can play those perfectly in MAME.
2) but it's fun to have just a technical discussion about it.
3) off course we could have Amiga 500 versions of those arcade games. Thing is, though, who would want to spend 1 year of coding and pixeling for delivering something that is sub par, these days. We are not in the 80ies anymore.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by saimon69

That is kind of a waste since there seems to be no more that 16/max 32 colors on screen at once - and no parallax, but we are talking of a tiled graphics system...

...nothing an a500 cannot do with splitting copper on top and one frame scrolling plus two frames objects update in 4 bitplanes!

Each sprite has its own 16 colors palette, and the backgrounds use many 16 colors palette.

EDIT : even worse, i did a check : the main player sprite is using 32 colors on its own ! add up the other sprites and background 16 colors palettes, and you're way beyond the amount of colors an A500 can go for.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Steril707

3) off course we could have Amiga 500 versions of those arcade games. Thing is, though, who would want to spend 1 year of coding and pixeling for delivering something that is sub par, these days. We are not in the 80ies anymore.

Emphasis mine.

Not knocking Geezer's efforts here - what he has achieved is simply stunning and a fantastic example of what the Amiga can do.

Back in the 80s, we could have to go to the nearest seaside town (at least for me) in order to play these games, and it was quite expensive too for a kid of my age back then.

The Amiga was a way, back then, to play those games at home - no matter how bad they were. I remember being really excited at getting my first working copy of Outrun - sure it was crap, but it was still a "get the mates around and gawp at Outrun at home" moment. Even when I got Lotus for my birthday, it was a great game but "I wish these guys had done Outrun".

Now of course, if I want to play those arcades I just fire up MAME. I even have a cab for it.

My Amiga games playing is pretty much these days spent playing the classics I recall from my youth, and discovering those I didn't get to play back then.

Which is why I would like more Amiga versions of stuff we didn't get that we really, really should have done.

And correcting the injustices of some of the shit we did get - like Outrun for example...

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by ZEUSDAZ

Actually after much thought, why bother with converting any of these games now?!

For me, it is several reasons:
- Bringing justice to injustice.
Because of companies greediness, we, as a kids, were left out with so many good ports. Finally, we can show (to ourselfs (I don't care what others think) what our beloved machines are capable of.
It's a late victory - but victory.
- I'd like to replay many of those games on my Amiga, and to see what compromises had to be made, and to learn something.
- It's great practice for both coders and graphic/sound person to first do a port, because (most of the) ports are easier to be done, then creating everything from zero.
- It's a great thing to research what are the actual limits. In that regards, I am not only talking about Amiga, I am also interested to see ports on many other computer, and consoles.
When I saw that (abandoned unfortunately) Mortal Kombat 2 port on C64, on youtube, I was stunned. Same as with some 3D person shooters on 8-bits.
This stuff (for me), it's incredible to see.
So yeah, I'd much prefer to test out Wolf 3D engine on some 8-bits, then playing Z-Doom to my PC .

[malko]

@Dunny & @d4rk3lf : teardrop () but +1.

Being around the same computer with friends and playing (even a shit) conversion is part of the best moment of this period (and it's not specific to the Amiga. It seems to me that all those who practice retro-computing think the same thing about their respective platforms).
And honestly, who has never, as an example, prayed what the Amiga was able to do (get so close to the original / or a so amazing original creation) to criticize the power required by some others platforms to achieve an equally result ?
"Look only 512K of memory a 7Mhz processor. Result is amazing !!!"
It is these good games or demo coders/gfx/snd artists who have given their letters of nobility to a profession. And some of them are still wandering around here in EAB. Thank you all. .
(end of the philosophical minute )

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Dunny

And correcting the injustices of some of the shit we did get - like Outrun for example...

Same reason why we need a proper version of Shinobi on the Amiga after the absolute abomination that we got

[Tigerskunk]

In no way I would try to knock what Geezer has done here... It's a miracle what he as achieved with Rygar.

It's just that I feel he could really create something crazy, given freedom from porting something already existing..

Just my opinion, though.

[DamienD]

I imagine creating a new game would take way longer than trying to port an existing. It's a totally different league...

Besides ideas for story, gameplay, mechanics etc. you would need someone to do the graphics / sound fx / music from scratch.

[Retro1234]

It's like Demos except it has to have gameplay so it actually more interesting than a Demo.

[Lord Aga]

Amigans: "The A1200 was underpowered! We needed a more powerful machine!"

Also Amigans: "We want a black-and-white game port that fits into 4K of RAM!"

[Anubis]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Each sprite has its own 16 colors palette, and the backgrounds use many 16 colors palette.

EDIT : even worse, i did a check : the main player sprite is using 32 colors on its own ! add up the other sprites and background 16 colors palettes, and you're way beyond the amount of colors an A500 can go for.

So the game will be quite changed on A500 and a bit less changed for A1200. I would rather see something closer to original than something closer to C64 version of the game. We had too many of those in beginning.

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Same reason why we need a proper version of Shinobi on the Amiga after the absolute abomination that we got

Besides Shinobi, Rolling Thunder would also be awesome to port.
It's even worse then Shinobi port it seems.

I was all for the "beat em up" port (because we haven't got any good one on the Amiga (I would be also for Shinobi, if that gender didn't had any good ports (but it had)).
But now, after announcement of Metro Siege, I feel more relaxed.

So, yeah, Shinobi would be cool.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I imagine creating a new game would take way longer than trying to port an existing. It's a totally different league...

Besides ideas for story, gameplay, mechanics etc. you would need someone to do the graphics / sound fx / music from scratch.

It really depends on what new game you're making, but I agree with what you are saying.

With Rygar and Bomb Jack I had a ready made design template to work to.

I said before though the beauty of making these ports has been learning the intricate game mechanics that make them fun to play.... many games on the Amiga I think missed this and still do today. I've seen some horrors.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

It really depends on what new game you're making, but I agree with what you are saying.

With Rygar and Bomb Jack I had a ready made design template to work to.

I said before though the beauty of making these ports has been learning the intricate game mechanics that make them fun to play.... many games on the Amiga I think missed this and still do today. I've seen some horrors.

Well the problem as you know it, is that the programmer is the key the get the game, and as a coder yourself, you know that you can't spent more than a year to port a game.

We need a toolchain with automatised color converter if an A500 or A1200 version is planned. It's too complicated to reduce the colors by hand and time consuming as well.

[nobody]

Anyone noticed Rolling thunder and Shinobi are the same game? (Shinobi is a better clone of Rolling thunder).

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by nobody

Anyone noticed Rolling thunder and Shinobi are the same game? (Shinobi is a better clone of Rolling thunder).

There are a lot of games with that gameplay template indeed.

Rolling Thunder is the worst Arcade-to-Amiga port ever IMO. That thing is an abomination. Shinobi is very acceptable close to Rolling Thunder. I wonder how Donald Campbell made that game run on such a tiny window and STILL get nothing better than like 4 frames per second. Damn it.

Well, it's either Rolling Thunder or Bionic Commando.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

There are a lot of games with that gameplay template indeed.

Rolling Thunder is the worst Arcade-to-Amiga port ever IMO. That thing is an abomination. Shinobi is very acceptable close to Rolling Thunder. I wonder how Donald Campbell made that game run on such a tiny window and STILL get nothing better than like 4 frames per second. Damn it.

Well, it's either Rolling Thunder or Bionic Commando.

Actually, I really liked Bionic Commando back in the day...

But yeah, the Spectrum version was better than the miggy's.