Will we see a new era of big games for the amiga ?

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by PortuguesePilot

Well, I wish that the Scorpion Engine could be for the Amiga what AGD was for the Spectrum and increase game production 300% but somehow I feel I'm being overly-optimistic...

I don’t think that is being overly-optimistic, the number of Scorpion created games is growing every year. What with the tools and no doubt documentation will become easier for everyone to get into game development without any coding skills, along with other 68000 platform support, which means not just Amiga games getting ported to the Mega Drive, ST, Neo-Geo but the potential to go the other way and get games from people outside the Amiga community, the potential to see 3 times as many games a year is not so overly-optimistic.

Of course high grade/detailed/optimised games take many years, of course the more of those we get the smoother and shorter the gap between them!

Scourge Of The Underkind - Dec 2015 (8+)
Alar City - Sep 2016 (7+)
Hyperborea - May 2019 (5+)
Jump - June 2019 (5+)
Dread/Grind - Aug 2019 (5+)
Metro Siege - Aug 2019 (5+)
Boss Machine - Dec 2019 (4+)
Super Metal Hero - Dec 2019 (4+)
Souveran Soccer AGA - Dec 2020 (3+)
Creeping Me Out - Jan 2021 (3+)
Krogharr - May 2021 (3+)
Inviyya II : Hyperblaster - May 2022 (2+)
Hyper Runner - Jun 2022 (2+)
Rogue Craft - Dec 2022 (1+)

[AestheticDebris]

I don't think it's impossible that we'll see "big" games again at some point. There will be coders who always wanted to make an Amiga game, but didn't have the skills or tools when they were younger. And some will certainly come back to "scratch the itch" later on. Whether they'll be any good (or what you're after is another matter). In recent years the number of larger projects on other computers/consoles has increased and that's probably something of a trend.

Such things will always be a labour of love though, the sheer amount of money you'd have to stump up to pay a full development team plus artists and musicians would be prohibitive. Especially because there is little to no chance of making anything more than pocket money from sales of new Amiga software.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by AestheticDebris

Such things will always be a labour of love though, the sheer amount of money you'd have to stump up to pay a full development team plus artists and musicians would be prohibitive. Especially because there is little to no chance of making anything more than pocket money from sales of new Amiga software.

Sorta hit the nail on the head: if the development find ways to give more ROI you will see more big games

[Rob68K]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Sorta hit the nail on the head: if the development find ways to give more ROI you will see more big games

I think you just have to forget about money.

What you need really are retired or semi-retired devs ( probably single ) who can still cut it and would rather make a game than addle their brain watching reruns of 'The Chase'.

[balrogsoft]

Originally Posted by Megalomaniac

I'm not a programmer, however - I'm sure it's simpler to make games for a 512+512 OCS 68000 than for a 16Mb Vampire-Enhanced 060.

I am a programmer, and I assure you that it is not easier to do it on an Amiga 500, you need to adjust everything to the timing perfectly, count the time of each instruction, each instruction counts, use the blitter with the copper list, use techniques to the reuse of sprites... Making a game for the Amiga 500 with the quality of the commercial Amiga era is complicated.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Rob68K

I think you just have to forget about money.

What you need really are retired or semi-retired devs ( probably single ) who can still cut it and would rather make a game than addle their brain watching reruns of 'The Chase'.

A good dream team of kaiko/Facto 5/Thalion former coders/musician/graphist... I'll gladly pay for this.

Or a dream team of Sensible Soft/Bitmap Bros/Graftgold former members.
They are maybe no to far from retirement. They need a hobby !

[nikosidis]

I think some of the best games for Amiga has come recent years like Reshoot Proxima III and Tiny Little Slug. It would surprise me if we will not see games in development like Grind and Metro Siege that will be as good as any other major release for Amiga. New era, I do not thing so. It is here right now. The interest will only decline from here in my opinion.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

A good dream team of kaiko/Facto 5/Thalion former coders/musician/graphist... I'll gladly pay for this.

Or a dream team of Sensible Soft/Bitmap Bros/Graftgold former members.
They are maybe no to far from retirement. They need a hobby !

I did envision the dual "mainstream+homebrew" route some time ago, where games are developed for amiga first then sold encapsulated in the emulator as a single app to fund development, however i know there are problems like roms and licensing for it - not to mention that retro bubble might burst any moment

[TCD]

Originally Posted by saimon69

not to mention that retro bubble might burst any moment

And there it just did by you saying so Seriously though: Retro looking games sell quite well, but games limited to work on actual retro hardware... eh, I don't think they have equally good chances.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

And there it just did by you saying so Seriously though: Retro looking games sell quite well, but games limited to work on actual retro hardware... eh, I don't think they have equally good chances.

That's why you should sell them also for modern hardware with an inbuilt emulator.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

That's why you should sell them also for modern hardware with an inbuilt emulator.

That's not the same. There are actually quite a few of those on Steam (using DosBox) and they aren't selling that well despite the 'retro' looking game hype.

[gimbal]

It all depends on how old the gameplay feels. If an old game does its own thing and does not look like the cookie cutter designs we know today, likely it won't sell.

Imagine a re-release of Fade to Black now. There will be a disturbance in the force.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Imagine a re-release of Fade to Black now. There will be a disturbance in the force.

Hmm, if they go all Resident Evil 2 remake... I'm in.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by TCD

That's not the same. There are actually quite a few of those on Steam (using DosBox) and they aren't selling that well despite the 'retro' looking game hype.

Well if they are selling more than 1000 digital copies that's still more than any modern Amiga game IMHO.
If it can produce some extra revenues for Amiga developpers, I can't see why it would be a bad thing. Boxed Amiga games would'nt suffer this concurrence I think (most of them are already available in digital download anyway).
An Amiga Turrican IV by Factor 5 available on both system could have a little success (all things mesured of course).

I believe that this they are intending to do for Metro Siege.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

If it can produce some extra revenues for Amiga developpers, I can't see why it would be a bad thing.

It wouldn't be a bad thing, but it wouldn't pay a living wage for a developer (let alone more than one). Just putting things into perspective.

[sokolovic]

Yeah it would be of course much for the beauty of the gesture than for making money.
Let's Hope some of them will have good retirement pensions and time to spare.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

Let's Hope some of them will have good retirement pensions and time to spare.

Am soooooooooooooooo screwed -_-

(and i detest when my answer is the last of the thread for like a week)

[Adrian Browne]

Well after Outrun AGA, agermose and I are planning to do a remake of IK+ for AGA.
A lot of graphics, animation and design are already done as it was supposed to be for Vampire originally and then back ported to AGA- but that never materialized. It's already very pretty but it's someways off in the future for now.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

Well after Outrun AGA, agermose and I are planning to do a remake of IK+ for AGA.
A lot of graphics, animation and design are already done as it was supposed to be for Vampire originally and then back ported to AGA- but that never materialized. It's already very pretty but it's someways off in the future for now.

Wow, that sounds great, exciting to have new things to look forward to. Would be great if you could tease just one graphic

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Adrian Browne

Well after Outrun AGA, agermose and I are planning to do a remake of IK+ for AGA.

That sounds interesting Hope you two can find the time to work on it