Rolling Thunder - Amiga Port

[malko]

@saimon69: really nice video!
Don't even want to imagine how much drawings you did in DPaint to realise it ...

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Retro-Nerd

It's still an existing and active Namco IP. Last release was included on "Namco Museum" for the Switch. One should ask there. Not Tiertex. But Namco wouldn't give Graeme a license anyway. So, it's just like Rygar or Bomb Jack.

Exactly. Any problems are likely to come from the originator of IP, Namco, especially as you say, its currently being utilised.

The only thing I see as a benefit is they obviously don't see much cachet in the game on its own otherwise it would be part of a compilation release.

But its the chance you take as to whether or not someone objects, with the exception of Sony and Nintendo, most don't seem too bothered.

[mcgeezer]

@Galahad @DamienD

I know what you're saying and you're right in that I don't know exactly how it works, but I don't think any of us know exactly what was written into those contracts between NAMCO/US GOLD/TIETEX. You just have to look no further than what happened with Horace and that lass Youtuber who sprawled it all over her vids..... these fuckers just have a tendency to come out of the wood work after a couple of years and bite you.

If you look on the NAMCO website for licensing you'll see Rolling Thunder isn't there, I've sent them multiple messages now but I suspect I'll get the same response as I did with TECMO which was basically 'Fuck off', I didn't even bother trying with Bomb Jack because Elite still had it listed on their website and I just didn't want to go there.

Assurances is a strong word, but it's something I would need to port the game and even now I still run a risk with Tecmo... What happened with Hipoonios is slightly different I know but that lad had the best of intentions and had to get a money shovel to dig his arse out of it with Disney lawyers.

I'll keep on with the technical demo though so don't worry about that.

Graeme

[buzzybee]

Would be interesting to see if the game can be perfectly converted to A500. I´d imagine its possible, with a lof of dedication, time and knowledge. My vote goes for A1200 though, because such a conversion is easier and to and I don´t want McGeezer to lose motivation halfway up ... also a lot of tech stuff from Rygar could then simply be re-used without too much modification. :-)

Regarding licencing issues: You might give your version a new name, release the game with some slightly altered bitmaps (title, tiles, enemy sprites) and store these in a folder. If then someone releases a .lha-archive which overwrites your pixel folder with the original stuff, it´s not exactly your fault right? That´s exactly what all the soccer guys did on their Amiga in the 90s who played the soccermanager Anstoß. That came without official licence but still everybody played with FC Bayern München und Borussia Dortmund in the premier league.

[lmimmfn]

Can't wait for Tumbling Lightning!!

[d4rk3lf]

Well, if we can't get better port of Rolling Thunder for the Amiga, let's create even worse ports for Genesis and Snes.
Now seriously, how hard would it be to make the game even more sluggish?

I just googled "Rolling Thunder Android", and stumbled upon this.
[ Show youtube player ]

It seems they removed the game from their Namco Arcade app, so, let's hope they won't bother with it anymore.
I really doubt they would even know, even if every existing Amiga user today, install it.

What if you release it like mod for the existing Rolling Thunder for the Amiga? Of course it won't be mod, but you can say it's mod.

[mcgeezer]

So here's a performance test...

[ Show youtube player ]

So we have here 3 64x64 hardware sprites, the rest are blitted bobs.

What is nice about it is that the performance of the bobs is such that the animation frames are dynamic, some frames are like 64x40,48x64,32x58... on so on... but the sprite engine handles them all - only blitting what it needs (this could be very useful for something like a Street Fighter game).

The other thing is that I can select different 16 colour palettes for both hardware sprites and the bobs independently.

All of this is over and above what was done in Rygar, to get the third hardware sprite I have had to cut the screen by 32 pixels either... leaving one hardware sprite available for score overlays and such.

Enjoy.

[DamienD]

Looking good G

[jotd]

it's superb! the tedious part will be to recreate the levels like the original...

[lmimmfn]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

So here's a performance test...

[ Show youtube player ]

So we have here 3 64x64 hardware sprites, the rest are blitted bobs.

What is nice about it is that the performance of the bobs is such that the animation frames are dynamic, some frames are like 64x40,48x64,32x58... on so on... but the sprite engine handles them all - only blitting what it needs (this could be very useful for something like a Street Fighter game).

The other thing is that I can select different 16 colour palettes for both hardware sprites and the bobs independently.

All of this is over and above what was done in Rygar, to get the third hardware sprite I have had to cut the screen by 32 pixels either... leaving one hardware sprite available for score overlays and such.

Enjoy.

Looks great, AGA I take it? That's fine just curious, also with/without fastram?

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by jotd

it's superb! the tedious part will be to recreate the levels like the original...

Surely nowhere near as difficult a task as what it was with Rygar

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by lmimmfn

Looks great, AGA I take it? That's fine just curious, also with/without fastram?

Stock Amiga only.. so no Chipram.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Stock Amiga only.. so no Chipram.

Surely you mean no Fast RAM?

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Surely you mean no Fast RAM?

Yeah, hahaha

Backward today.

[jotd]

no chipram, now that's a challenge.

[d4rk3lf]

So, definitely no A500 version?
That's sad man, but I understand.
Aga is your "thing", and I believe you've mastered it, and even I am depressed we won't get OCS version of Rolling Thunder, I'd like to support you.

Long story short: Tell me where can I pay 10-20 euros. so you can buy a pizza, or beer, while you code this?

[mcgeezer]

Update here as I've managed to add a couple of things... first is I've got the hardware sprite animations now enables, so when I add a sprite in the game it can use a hardware sprite if one is available.

The thing is I have the different enemy colours working (very rough) using the same bitmap data... so all enemy types including the hardware sprites use the same data saving an absolute boatload of memory.

[ Show youtube player ]

Adding another sprite leaves me no time so I'm about at the limit of what and A1200 and my capabilities can do, I'll continue on and get interaction for the enemies working with the tiles.

Then I'll have to tackle the vertical scrolling properly.

This is all still an experiment at the moment, no commitment will be made to port the actual game.

Geezer

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Update here as I've managed to add a couple of things... first is I've got the hardware sprite animations now enables, so when I add a sprite in the game it can use a hardware sprite if one is available.

The thing is I have the different enemy colours working (very rough) using the same bitmap data... so all enemy types including the hardware sprites use the same data saving an absolute boatload of memory.

Adding another sprite leaves me no time so I'm about at the limit of what and A1200 and my capabilities can do, I'll continue on and get interaction for the enemies working with the tiles.

Then I'll have to tackle the vertical scrolling properly.

This is all still an experiment at the moment, no commitment will be made to port the actual game.

Geezer

Awesome job as usual !

[Lord Riton]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

So, definitely no A500 version?
That's sad man, but I understand.

There is already an Amiga 500 version. While the animation is not great if i remember, i also remember the sound of the explosions beeing impressive.
I had the original game on my A500.

I don't really understand why to remake this game, instead of making something better.

If i had to remake a game on the Amiga AGAs, i would for sure choose some better game, like: "Legend of Hero Tonma", "Street Fighter II", "Magician Lord", "Gauntlet I&II" ….
But i would probably rather make my own game, instead of a remake...

[buzzybee]

Originally Posted by Lord Riton

There is already an Amiga 500 version. While the animation is not great if i remember, i also remember the sound of the explosions beeing impressive.
I had the original game on my A500.

I don't really understand why to remake this game, instead of making something better.

The original conversion is a total waste of time, subpar on so many levels. The way I understand this project, it is not only going to be a conversion worthy of the Amiga hardware, but also putting some elements on top – like extra pixels from the arcade successor which was not available on Amiga.

McGeezer already proved he is able to handle such a project. So there you go - this should be "something better".