Help us test our new game on real hardware

[alpine9000]

A few of us have been working on a simple new game for PAL 68000 OCS/ECS Amiga. However the game is designed to also work on any PAL 68k based Amiga with 512kb of ram or more.

The game is pure assembler and runs at 50fps on a 68000 with only 512kb of chip ram.

So far, we have tested most Amiga variants on WinUAE/FS-UAE, but as you can see the only real hardware it has been tested on is my Amiga 500 with gotek

We have released a cut down test version (one simple level and a tutorial) for anyone that wishes to test the game engine on real hardware or emulators.

The current test version can be downloaded from here:

http://blockyskies.com/

This version is trackloaded, so floppy/gotek only. I have a Workbench compatible version of the test that I hope to release if this version is as stable on real hardware as it is on the emulators.

The game will be fully free and all of the source code and tools used to build it will be available on github.

If you are kind enough to test it for us, please leave feedback here or if you are on github you can raise a github issue

[modrobert]

Playing on my A1200 (see sig for details) from floppy works well, just one bug spotted in the lives left display, as seen below, the two chars after '02'.


Pardon the moiré, playing on awesome CRT.

The game is fun, but my memory sucks, hard to remember the paths, hehe.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by modrobert

Playing on my A1200 (see sig for details) from floppy works well, just one bug spotted in the lives left display, as seen below, the two chars after '02'.


Pardon the moiré, playing on awesome CRT.

The game is fun, but my memory sucks, hard to remember the paths, hehe.

Thanks heaps for testing it!

Does it render like that right from the start or only after a certain action?

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Thanks heaps for testing it!

Does it render like that right from the start or only after a certain action?

It renders like that from start with my setup, I choose "PLAY NOW!" and it reads 'P1 03xx' where xx is garbage.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by modrobert

It renders like that from start with my setup, I choose "PLAY NOW!" and it reads 'P1 03xx' where xx is garbage.

Great that gives me something to go on. It will be interesting to see if other real AGA machines have the same behaviour.

I'll try and recreate your machine in an emulator hopefully I can reproduce it.

All the other text is ok? Menus/credits/in game messages?

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Great that gives me something to go on. It will be interesting to see if other real AGA machines have the same behaviour.

I'll try and recreate your machine in an emulator hopefully I can reproduce it.

All the other text is ok? Menus/credits/in game messages?

Choosing "TUTORIAL" triggers the same bug, can't find any other problems so far.

[Superman]

Tested on my A1200 and no graphics issues for me.







I did have to turn the music off though as I found it a bit irritating and high pitched.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by modrobert

Choosing "TUTORIAL" triggers the same bug, can't find any other problems so far.

I have a theory as to what might cause it and can see a potential problem. It would also explain why it only happen some times.

If you get a chance you could try this version:

http://alpine9000.github.io/blockysk...sPAL_test3.lha
http://alpine9000.github.io/blockysk...sPAL_test3.zip

Thanks again for the help.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Superman

Tested on my A1200 and no graphics issues for me.

I did have to turn the music off though as I found it a bit irritating and high pitched.

Thanks for testing it. If my suspicion is true I think I can understand why it would work for some people and not others. It's helpful that you guys test it for me so I can get to know the kinds of issues that the emulators will not pick up.

The music (which is still a work in progress) has really grown on me. The musician (JMD) had done three tracks so far, each is quite different. The thing that irritates me most about the music is that its often stuck in my head

[Superman]

Test version 3 works fine on my A1200 and I also tested it on my 1mb A500 and no issues there either.

[JanciB]

Tested the "Test Version 3" on A500+ 2MB CHIP / 2MB FAST KICK3.1 / 1.3. Everything ok.

[hooverphonique]

Gave it a quick spin on my A4000/040. Didn't notice anything that seemed out of place.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I have a theory as to what might cause it and can see a potential problem. It would also explain why it only happen some times.

If you get a chance you could try this version:

http://alpine9000.github.io/blockysk...sPAL_test3.lha
http://alpine9000.github.io/blockysk...sPAL_test3.zip

Thanks again for the help.

The BlockySkiesPAL_test3.lha release works fine now. What did you change since BlockySkiesPAL_test1.lha (my first test)?

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by modrobert

The BlockySkiesPAL_test3.lha release works fine now. What did you change?

The string for the lives counter was in a bss section, so the null terminator was not guaranteed to be initialised to zero.

[modrobert]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

The string for the lives counter was in a bss section, so the null terminator was not guaranteed to be initialised to zero.

OK, thanks for letting me know.

BTW: I like the music, fits the game well.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Superman

Test version 3 works fine on my A1200 and I also tested it on my 1mb A500 and no issues there either.

Good to see there are still 1mb 500s out there. I hope you still spin it up once in a while

Thanks for testing it on both machines.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by JanciB

Tested the "Test Version 3" on A500+ 2MB CHIP / 2MB FAST KICK3.1 / 1.3. Everything ok.

That's the exact configuration I use for testing the workbench version in uae

That version needs about 650kb of free chip ram.

Thanks for testing it for me.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

Gave it a quick spin on my A4000/040. Didn't notice anything that seemed out of place.

That's great. The 4000 was the most problematic configuration for me to get working in UAE. It's so fast compared to the 68000 that the CPU out runs the custom chips and the video beam.

I'm really glad to know it also runs ok on the real thing.

Thanks for running it

[Galahad/FLT]

Loving the work so far, cant help feeling though that it being trackloading is a bit overkill, looks like it would single file with ease and be hard drive installable and still fit in 512k

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Galahad/FLT

Loving the work so far, cant help feeling though that it being trackloading is a bit overkill, looks like it would single file with ease and be hard drive installable and still fit in 512k

I think you are right that it could be squeezed into 512kb, if someone experienced was putting it together

The main purpose of this game for me was to learn Amiga programming, so I wanted to get my head around any issues that trackloading caused.

At the moment the full version trackloads the music (when it switches songs), the levels (some levels can be configured to be resident), and the splash screen which I use as scratch ram to save things like backgrounds behind bobs when in play mode. I figured that doing it that way meant there would be basically no real limit to the amount of songs and levels I could squeeze into the final release.

I was a bit lazy early on when it came to ram, so there is definitely waste.

Edit: And yes, the hard drive installable version is a single file that doesn't load anything from disk, but it is currently 594kb for the test version and 617kb for the full version.