Why is the homebrew scene on the Amiga not as impressive...

[demolition]

Originally Posted by trydowave

Lol... As one of those casual Amiga users/gamers I don't know how I feel about this. A bit lame.

It basically came down to whether you had something to contribute or not. Most regular Amiga users could not, so they shouldn't bother calling. It wasn't personal, just 'quid pro quo'.

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Jope

ASCII/ANSI, code. I never put in the hours to pixel graphics, so I can't do that at all. I haven't put enough hours into coding either, but at least I can do something there. I am yet to compose a piece of music that I can bear the next day, but I'm working on that. :-)

You can put Your work with ASCII/ANSI into this thread?

When You will finish your music, may You send it to me by email?

Lisiak4@seznam.cz

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by britelite

Unfortunately, most often these "positive thinkers" are people who don't want to do anything themselves, and instead expect others to do all the work for them.

I thought right. I know yours nick name...

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Sorry chap, but I think you entirely misunderstand how "leet" and "Elite" were used back in the day.

If you were "Elite" you were part of the Amiga scene, piracy/cracking specifically, and were involved in that world.

If you were not "Elite", you were a lamer, i.e. someone who just played games, couldn't crack an egg let alone a copy protection, and relied on copies passed down from 8 other people before you got a copy.

Well there was also a second class demoscene - not into the big trading and too far away or busy to go in demoparties,and i guess italian Quazar (which i did belong to) were in that :/

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Dunny

Yes, I suppose I am. I'm a professional developer, working in music software. I also have numerous other public projects - a BASIC Interpreter, a couple of emulators, that sort of thing.

Do you also make amiga music?

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Lisiak4

Do you also make amiga music?

I used to do when I worked for Applied Systems Group back in the 90s - we worked with and produced hardware for Amigas. These days I'm mostly just coding.

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Dunny

I used to do when I worked for Applied Systems Group back in the 90s - we worked with and produced hardware for s. These days I'm mostly just coding.

Coding on Amiga? Assembler or other?

[Daedalus]

To reiterate what's already been said: projects on the Amiga do indeed tend to be much bigger than those on 8-bits, mainly because more is possible. If you can make an 8-bit looking game on an 8-bit, you can make a similar looking game on an Amiga. It's the extra work of making quality MOD music, fully sampled sound effects, beautiful pixel art with a generous palette (WRT 8-bits anyway), and detailed and complicated level design that are over and above the 8-bit homebrew challenges. As was said, this typically needs more than one person to do well - a coder for the logical parts, and an artist for the graphics and sound. And often separate people for graphics and sound, maybe even level design. That's 4 people, and while that was commonplace back when games studios did commercial releases for the Amiga, it's pretty rare to get a team together like that these days. And with the upper limits broadened again by the extra capabilities of AGA it makes it even more difficult to produce artwork that does the system justice.

I can do the coding part, but the other three aspects tend to let me down (was never much of an artist). My graphics look crude and rudimentary, sound is likewise, level design totally linear and uninspiring. I have a half-finished tank game that I started with a friend in school in 1997, still sitting on my hard drive waiting for me to pick it up again... Maybe some day

So I think we really need some collaborative projects between people who understand that it's all for the love of it rather than making money, and then maybe we'll get somewhere. Tanks Furry and similar projects show that it is possible, just needs some cooperation between some people who can produce decent results in one particular area, rather than having one multitalented person that can do it all, which I expect is less common.

I've little time for coding these days with a little baby and a number of hardware projects on the go, but I would like to offer assistance to anyone wishing to code in Blitz. Maybe someone just starting out in coding but who has a good idea of what they're going to do.

As for assets, hand-drawn graphics specific to your project are always the first choice, but there are some sites like OpenGameArt.org that have lots of free artwork, a good amount of which is quite suitable for conversion for Amiga use. Most just ask for an acknowledgement in the game credits if they're used in a project. If nothing else, they can serve as placeholders in a game until you find an artist to do some bespoke work for you.

Attached is an example from an upcoming part of the Amiga Future Blitz Tutorial series. There's no game associated, but it's a smoothly animated AGA sprite that can walk left and right with parallax scrolling, and all graphics are from OpenGameArt.org. A massive improvement over my stick-man drawings

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Lisiak4

Coding on Amiga? Assembler or other?

Not a lot of coding on the Amiga anymore, no. I've been writing a couple of helper apps for Amilator just lately, but nothing in any seriousness.

I'm employed by a european company to collaborate on music software, so we tend to use a range of methods from Delphi through C/C++/Obj-C and on up to x86/x64 asm. In my spare time I code mainly in Delphi and port to ARM and MacOS.

[Samurai_Crow]

FreePascal is largely compatible with Delphi and works with AROS to a large extent also. The runtime library is not completely finished but it's on its way!

Maybe that will help you out, Dunny.

Sent from my Prism II using Tapatalk

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by Samurai_Crow

FreePascal is largely compatible with Delphi and works with AROS to a large extent also. The runtime library is not completely finished but it's on its way!

Maybe that will help you out, Dunny.

Oh, I don't have any issues porting to other platforms from Delphi, trust me

We have contacts at work within the FPC developers - our main product is written in Delphi and so when porting to 64bit mac (which Delphi cannot do, yet) we switched to FPC. It's... different to Delphi, but our code literally just builds for any platform we want.

I don't have any plans to port any of my work to AROS though, it's a dead-end.

[aszu]

@Daedalus i have sent pm. have a look pls

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Gzegzolka

http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...7&d=1508423638

Nice job! Did you do it according to some draft?

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Akira

My problem with Backbone is that I believe there are some people using it that could do a lot better if they didn't use it. They have great ideas and the means to work around Backbone to get them to as best a point it allows them to, but if they teamed up with other people and make it with proper tools, or took extra time/effort to learn a new tool like Blitz Basic, they would make some incredibly gobsmacking games, so I hate seeing all that creativity spoiled by a shitty "engine" or possible laziness. I understand people have other more important shit to do, but nobody is rushing you, your hobby time is yours to use as you want, so if it takes 3 more years because you are learning how to code, so be it. The end result will be worth it. But I guess for them they need some sort of result (for example: people reaction), in a quicker time to make their hobby "worthwile".

On the other spectrum there's people that probably are working on stuff and they don't feel the need to mouth off online about their work in progress, and have been doing stuff for years without you or I knowing about it. I know some like that and can't wait for them to release whatever they are working on, whenever that is. I feel like Mr. Beanbag was a bit like that before it suddenly showed up (and I wish Mrs. Beanbag was still around the forums and working on that great game ).

Gzegzolka, you or anyone that says "I have no coding skills", like if it was some unchangeable destiny that forbids them from doing Amiga stuff, can change that point of view and realize that they can learn how to code and much faster than they think. It's not a DNA trait that you are born with and will take to your grave.

The matter is if you want to or not. But "no coding skills" is not really an excuse, because that is something that can be rather easily changed.

Now, as discussed before, getting to know and work with the Amiga platform in detail, that's another question, but also, where there's a will, there's a way.

Programming is my hobby. I have start since about 2008.
I did not do a lot of programs. But a few things yes. I pogramed in Python. Then I played with the Python port on Amiga. Last about 2 years I play with assembler. What I programmed is not worth publishing on a floppy disk.

You are a programmer?

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Lisiak4

You are a programmer?

No, but I learned how to code, and can do some things, just not yet Amiga. Why?

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Akira

No, but I learned how to code, and can do some things, just not yet Amiga. Why?

Nothing essential. Only for my overview

[saimon69]

Tried to learn blitz basic but got stuck in technicalities; is not the first time that i wish there were some modern style tutorials like screencasts and such to explain all detail of this. Earok did some good tutorial stuff the way i think is meant to be in Amiten show and need to put myself to study it when have the time and the right mood, however more is better.

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by Tsak

Well, there's that but there's also the fact that many people may be good at something but suck at something else. Or simply they hate or don't have fun doing that other thing. Would you say the same thing f.e. to a seasoned coder? Like: stop whining for not having good gfx for your games and just learn how to pixel art. Easy-peasy, only 3 years of intense training.... lol

I personally see the problem in a more wholistic perspective. In a scene, each member (creative or not) needs to do his part to ensure success:

- You don't know how to code, pixel art, make music/sfx or help with game design? Do you want more games being made for ? Pretty fine!
a) Make sure you SUPPORT those who are creative, financially or morally or otherwise.
b) Give good, positive feedback for their efort.
c) Provide constructive and sincere criticism (while being polite and without cannibalising) to help them make a better game!
d) Spread the word, write an article in your blog, share on facebook or do a video!
e) Eventually however you choose to act, engaging with the project in any way possible is the key here. Even a simple "good work there guys " is enough!

- For the rest, creative people, collaboration and communication is the way to go:
a) Offer your help or reach out to other people's help, build or join teams.
b) Communicate publicly your thoughts and creativity. Come forward, out of the shadows and SHARE your work!
c) Continue trying and being creative. One misstep is not the end of the journey! Be 100% sure that whatever you do, however you do it and regardless of the outcome there is a vast (often silent) majority out there that greately respects your effort!

- For the community as a whole, we need to make sure that we build a healthier environment for all those great things to happen and flourish. How we behave to each other and the level of tolerance and endurance we show is crucial (this stands true both for developers and public). Unfortunately the lack of those above is yet another reason that underminds the situation in the scene. For example, when a 9 year old pops up in the , eager to learn how to make games on (with the obvious lack of etiquette and naivity you WOULD expect from a 9 year old) and gets bashed 9 seconds later, this speaks volumes about the level of intolerance and toxicity towards creativity in our retro community. It's a rather extreme example (I know) but tells a very true, all too familiar story here.

-Last point, again regarding the community but from the perspective of resources: It's being mentioned 1000 times in this thread.
a) We need more technical s.
b) More info out in the open.
c) A better, more organised and comprehensive way for someone to access it.
c) More tutorials on how to make things.
d) And eventually (on a higher level) more and better tools to do our work.

@Gzegzolka: hey man, pretty awesome work there! Would you like to do some concept art for Alarcity perhaps?

Our community is represented by all types of people (negativists too). That's normal.

Otherwise, good work in the unfinished game Chaos Guns

[nobody]

Instead of talking:

http://flashtro.com/games/alco-copter/

I did some graphics for this small demo.

[Lisiak4]

Originally Posted by britelite

Unfortunately it's too easy to be cynical, but it's usually quite easy to spot who's genuinely asking for help and who basically just wants everyone else to do all the hard work for them.

EDIT: as in, it's better to try stuff for yourself and then do a post like "what am I doing wrong here" instead of just going "how do I do X or Y" without having put any thought to it.

Answers to questions can speed up learning itself. However, I have poor experience with queries. So I do programming with slower pace.

Things I do not understand are not necessarily on the agenda today.