Bomb Jack Beer Edition

[Amiga1992]

Wouldn't bother, especially since it's an IP you don't own. Recipe for disaster. You don't want to go there...

Looks really great! Any reason why it works on that config only? Would be good to just use 1MB of any type, so anyone can play it.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Akira

Wouldn't bother, especially since it's an IP you don't own. Recipe for disaster. You don't want to go there...

Looks really great! Any reason why it works on that config only? Would be good to just use 1MB of any type, so anyone can play it.

Thanks and agreed, it could lead to real trouble and i dont fancy that.

Only reason it will run on that config for the monent is just due to development, while i iron out those bugs and add the other enemies. Likely be a few weeks away but i’ll make it as compatible as i can across the amigas.

[Amiga1992]

Excellent news man. Looking forward to see what else you make!

[van_dammesque]

Excellent!

[Trachu]

Hi Mcgeezer

First I want to thank you for development of another Amiga OCS game. Please do not consider my post as a critic of your work as i am only interested in expanding Amiga possibilities and see the progress i observe on C64 scene.

What i propose you here would probably ruin your code upside down, but i believe its worth it.
You will find below the HAM6 versions of original locations which you could replace those old crappy arcade versions.
There are very few HAM6 games and this is for a good reason, however this game seems to be perfect for the job as it uses 16px wide objects.
To avoid HAM fringe effects and time consuming drawings, instead i would suggest to use hardware sprites to draw game area.
With good sprite multiplexer we would receive the game worthy of 2018.

I have found and made the best pictures of original game locations - Sphinx, Acropol, Neuschwenstein, Miami Beach and Los Angeles. I converted them using the best converter you can find and i have optimised it for commpression. The rest is yours my friend.

[Tigerskunk]

I don’t want to sound too offensive ( ), but: That would make the game look like some cheapo 90ies SDL-game fan project imo...

Please stay with the original graphics...

[nobody]

These images don't stand a chance against pixel graphics. They would look too cheap, a simple game with real pictures as background. A solution would be to find some other iconic pictures and pixel them as background if he wants to change graphics.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I don’t want to sound too offensive ( ), but: That would make the game look like some cheapo 90ies SDL-game fan project imo...

Please stay with the original graphics...

I have used to notice your sence of art. is different than mine

Anyway do not miss the point here. What i see here is this game is perfect for creating game which actually uses HAM6 mode.

Yep those images can be replaced by pixel graphics as well, but still in ham6 mode. The real problem is that the author probably uses here Blitter object engine and with hardware sprites everything would have to be written from beginning. Still the effect would be great and INNOVATIVE.

All clear?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Trachu

Still the effect would be great and INNOVATIVE.

If you use HAM on pixel graphics, it would introduce an extra difficulty just for the sake of doing something different with no visible gain.

Plus, it would probably even look worse.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by Steril707

If you use HAM on pixel graphics, it would introduce an extra difficulty just for the sake of doing something different with no visible gain.

Plus, it would probably even look worse.

Does this pixel art. has no visible gain over typical 32colour(sic!) ocs pixel art?

http://www.imagebam.com/image/df0bea737965403

Does it look worse than 8colour sfinx?

Sorry man but with such attitude Amiga would go no further. Open your mind.

[Tigerskunk]

Sorry, I don't get what your goal here is.

The game McGeezer coded already looks like arcade Bomb Jack.
So, there is no need to be "innovative" here other than for the sake of it, which is always the worst idea.

Also, your example looks definitely more "messy" than some clear cut pixel art.
Using that kind of stuff is interesting if you need to display photos or high colour images, but definitely not for a game with a few colours like Bomb Jack.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Sorry, I don't get what your goal here is.

The game McGeezer coded already looks like arcade Bomb Jack.
So, there is no need to be "innovative" here other than for the sake of it, which is always the worst idea.

Also, your example looks definitely more "messy" than some clear cut pixel art.
Using that kind of stuff is interesting if you need to display photos or high colour images, but definitely not for a game with a few colours like Bomb Jack.

OK, for start, you can keep yopur sence of beuty, however the author of those images which is famous and victoriuos in many serious democomeptitions SLAYER/Ghostown has publicly stayted he likes very much those pictures and is amazed by what current converters can do.

You ask me what is my goal here? The same like everywhere - if i see an oportunity to propose something in order to make Amiga great again i come and explain the idea.
I dont want to do old stuff just for the sake of doing it. If i am willing to spend my precious time to do something, it must be something innovative, something which would push Amiga 500 progress.
Have you seen Ryggar conversion? Did you know it is the only game which combines Extra Half Bright with real 16colour backfield paralax effect? Do you remember who got an idea how to use sprites this way? It progress slowed down because we could not achieve 50Hz but hopefully Sandruzzo will find a way to achieve it.

Utilising HAM6 somehow was on my mind on ages, but it had to make sence. You are right there is no need to be "innovative" here other than for the sake of it. After i saw Bomb jack on youtube I got this idea which i wanted to present here. Its up to author can make arcade clone or something far beyond it.

[mcgeezer]

Hi Trachu,

While I appreciate the time taken by you to look into how the game can be made to look better, the Amiga OCS isn't geared up (or at least without a significant amount of effort) to having the number of sprites that Bomb Jack requires with a HAM6 resolution.

The game now as it stands pushes around 18-20 sprites with full collision detection in 32 colour mode - but takes up all of the CPU time on a real Amiga, to increase it to using HAM6 mode and keep the number of objects with the game play would be a real technical stretch.

The OCS only has 4 16 colour sprites to work with and multiplexing those with all the required objects isn't feasible.... sprites would disappear and the game play would suffer.

The goal of the project is to get it as close to the arcade version as possible, but then using the beer edition as a playable option which adds extra elements to the game, such as:

• Changing the bombs to beers
• Jack becomes slightly uncontrollable, left/right reverse when he has too much beer etc.
• A beer bonus round with a different back ground if the fire bomb bonus is achieved for 5 rounds without losing a life.
• Moving platforms
• Appearing and disappearing platforms

a few others as well that I have written down.

The focus at the moment is to get the game finished with the last three enemies (UFO/Club and/Bird) - these are difficult for me to code and will take some time to get right.

I'm not sure if you know but those images you posted seem to have already been used in a Bomb Jack remake on the PC so doing the same for the Amiga version I would just refer people to play the PC version if they wanted that gaming experience.

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm really happy you're suggesting stuff though, keep it coming - if I'm technically capable I'll happily consider it, there are by far much better coders than me hanging around on the EAB. If it's not feasible then it isn't a matter of thinking bigger, it's just some things are not technically possible anyway with the hardware and the time I have to spend on the project.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Hi Trachu,

While I appreciate the time taken by you to look into how the game can be made to look better, the Amiga OCS isn't geared up (or at least without a significant amount of effort) to having the number of sprites that Bomb Jack requires with a HAM6 resolution.

The game now as it stands pushes around 18-20 sprites with full collision detection in 32 colour mode - but takes up all of the CPU time on a real Amiga, to increase it to using HAM6 mode and keep the number of objects with the game play would be a real technical stretch.

The OCS only has 4 16 colour sprites to work with and multiplexing those with all the required objects isn't feasible.... sprites would disappear and the game play would suffer.

The goal of the project is to get it as close to the arcade version as possible, but then using the beer edition as a playable option which adds extra elements to the game, such as:

• Changing the bombs to beers
• Jack becomes slightly uncontrollable, left/right reverse when he has too much beer etc.
• A beer bonus round with a different back ground if the fire bomb bonus is achieved for 5 rounds without losing a life.
• Moving platforms
• Appearing and disappearing platforms

a few others as well that I have written down.

The focus at the moment is to get the game finished with the last three enemies (UFO/Club and/Bird) - these are difficult for me to code and will take some time to get right.

I'm not sure if you know but those images you posted seem to have already been used in a Bomb Jack remake on the PC so doing the same for the Amiga version I would just refer people to play the PC version if they wanted that gaming experience.

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm really happy you're suggesting stuff though, keep it coming - if I'm technically capable I'll happily consider it, there are by far much better coders than me hanging around on the EAB. If it's not feasible then it isn't a matter of thinking bigger, it's just some things are not technically possible anyway with the hardware and the time I have to spend on the project.

Thanx for the replay. I appreciate what you are doing and i have seen your blitter objects engine on youtube, however i have the feeling you dont quite get what I had in mind.
Your blitter engine is utilising a lot of resources because thats what it cost in standard plannar mode, but i am not telling you to draw directly on HAM bitplanes. HAM is left alone.
What you are utilising is only 4colour eight hardware sprites operating as FRONT PLAYFIELD and multiplex them vertically, with some object multiplying in horizontal also.

Sprite 0 would be Jack
Sprite 1 would be floor and it will be mirrored by copper. Floor is in constant position on the screen so you can do it quite easily.

For multipling bombs in single line using single HW sprite you can also use copper because they are in constant position on the screen.
You can have a lot sprites on the screen and with horizontal copper multiplications even more than 8 in single line.

I am not sure do we need to exact copy the original levels, probably some modifications need to be made to make things easier, but what game engine would have to do is changing the sprite postions only and check for colision bit. Thats far easier than drawing blitter objects.

Why to do that. Well the game can look like this.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Please stay with the original graphics...

Agreed, I mean look at that PC remake, it looks horrid, exactly as Steril described (shitty open source SDL crappo game made by someone with no art skills ). Is that what you call "innovative"?

There is no point in having a background with more colors, especially if it over complicates the game.
Mcgeezer explained the GOAL of this project perfectly: replicate arcade Bomberjack as accurately as possible, and in that goal, there's no space for minimal gain bothers like a HAM6 background.

(not to mention HAM6 looks like garbage)

By the way TRachu, feel free to make a game that looks like the screenshot you posted, I'll look forward to it!

[coder76]

I also agree that Bomb Jack looks good as it is. And instead of trying to tweak with the OCS hardware, why not do an AGA version instead? With AGA you can have a better resolution and lots of colors also without a HAM6/8 mode. And some tricks work much better under AGA, like dynamic lores/hires, you can swap more than 16 colors per scanline with bplcon4 colorswitching, and also have room for a large fixed palette for moving objects.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Trachu

The same like everywhere - if i see an oportunity to propose something in order to make Amiga great again i come and explain the idea.

You know what would make the Amiga even greater again?

If you'd start coding these amazing ideas you have yourself instead of just proposing them to other people in their own game threads.

Show us how we were wrong criticizing your ideas by implementing them.
It's as simple as that.

People left who are able to code games on the Amiga are a few only. I guess all of us have their own ideas of what kind of game we want to spent our little spare time on.

As always with the Amiga:
if you want to have something done, do it yourself..
and: Talk is cheap, but showing results isn't...

Looking forward to your HAM6-Game with that complicated sounding sprite engine, Trachu.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by Steril707

You know what would make the Amiga even greater again?

If you'd start coding these amazing ideas you have yourself instead of just proposing them to other people in their own game threads.

Show us how we were wrong criticizing your ideas by implementing them.
It's as simple as that.

People left who are able to code games on the Amiga are a few only. I guess all of us have their own ideas of what kind of game we want to spent our little spare time on.

As always with the Amiga:
if you want to have something done, do it yourself..
and: Talk is cheap, but showing results isn't...

Looking forward to your HAM6-Game with that complicated sounding sprite engine, Trachu.

My coding skills are quite low, but i am good at graphics and overall knowledge at Amiga architecture which i have prooven many Times. I am not offended by your critics of my ideas, but please be aware that when i propose something it is not just talk. Suggesting otherwise its just rude. I am sorry you missed that.
I said what i would change in your game, you rejected them. For me its end of story. Here ist not your game and unless author will say the same i will continue, shall I?

Ok, lets back to bussinness. I have created set of 4 colour Bomb Jack sprites. They have the same colours but since each pair of sprites have indepenedent registers they can be far more colourfull.
It all depends which ones will be allocated to which pair.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Trachu

please be aware that when i propose something it is not just talk.

No one is trying to be rude, but how is it not "just talk" if there's no prototype or anything to show your suggestions?

Also agree with Steril that you should be doing your own thing, it would benefit us all.

[Trachu]

Originally Posted by Akira

No one is trying to be rude, but how is it not "just talk" if there's no prototype or anything to show your suggestions?

Also agree with Steril that you should be doing your own thing, it would benefit us all.

So in your universe graphics does not exist? And you really have no idea what i already done. Ok, I can live with that, but keep it to yourself and try to say something on the topic, because its starting to be boring.

I came here with SOMETHING to back up my ideas and I would really like if moderation started to delete such offtopic talk, because instead talking on what can and cant be done we have at least 3 messages where i need to explain why i am here.