Port Speed Runners

[nikosidis]

I like this game a lot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5D1oV5N5GM

Looking at the game it looks like a good fit for Amiga in lower res.
I actually sent a mail to the game developers and they replied to me. They are not negative about a port but does it look technical possible?
Requirements can not be more than 020 4MB fast.

[Tsak]

Well, any port is possible to any machine. I mean we've seen Doom 'ports' for ZX Spectrum (for god's sake). Question is how much one is willing to compromise on features and how much of the original game will remain there after the port.

Personally -and to be honest- I can't see how the game in question is a good candidate (no more than other similar indies). The assets are not pixel art so they'd need to be remade, probably from scratch. Then the biggest issue is that the game relies heavilly on zooming to keep players on screen. Gameplay would suffer on a tiny 320x256 screen, unless you kept the players Cannon Fodder size (or less).

[nikosidis]

Tsak: You have some very good points. I guess this project is not worth much effort. It would be better to make some kind of clone instead of a port. Thank you.

[Retro1234]

New games like this use zooming alot and a Totally new way of doing a platformer on amiga would be needed maybe something along the lines of saimo's Dot Matrix engine allowing full manipulation of each pixel.

[robinsonb5]

I've been thinking about this too. I think we would probably have to forego zooming, and use a tile-based map on a single bitplane. Probably 3 + 1 plane dual playfield mode, so we could draw a background of sorts in colour.
Sprites for the main characters.

[Retro1234]

Yes that would work but maybe think outside the box something like saimo's Dot Matrix engine, build the levels pixel by pixel a new line of thought for how zooming could be achieved and could open new possibilitys, of course its all very well me saying this but............

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Yes that would work but maybe think outside the box something like saimo's Dot Matrix engine, build the levels pixel by pixel a new line of thought for how zooming could be achieved and could open new possibilitys, of course its all very well me saying this but............

It's certainly an intriguing engine - I'm not sure speedrunners is the best game for it, though, because it will do a poor job of rendering grappling hooks / lines! If we really want zooming, it might actually be possible to render the levels as polygons to a single plane quickly enough.


Another game I'd like to see "converted" - or more realistically, a more Amiga-like simplified game produced, is Smash Hit. When I first saw that game it immediately brought Vaxxine to mind - and I think a game somewhere between the two should be achievable. This might be a better fit for the Dot Matrix engine?