Which Amiga game offers the most for the byte?

[trixster]

I was always impressed with Exile. The original programmers managed to fit that game onto a 200k 5.25" floppy and run it from 32k is bonkers. The Amiga version has the same scope but much more detailed graphics and sound. For one floppy I always thought it was a great achievement.

From a content PoV, The Sentinel gives you 10000 levels on one floppy disk!

[Seiya]

i add also Ruff'n'Tumble. a ton of graphics, rock music and a great gameplay.

[Dunny]

Originally Posted by trixster

I was always impressed with Exile. The original programmers managed to fit that game onto a 200k 5.25" floppy and run it from 32k is bonkers. The Amiga version has the same scope but much more detailed graphics and sound. For one floppy I always thought it was a great achievement.

From a content PoV, The Sentinel gives you 10000 levels on one floppy disk!

And let's not forget Archipelagos

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by nobody

Captive. Hundreds of levels in one disk. Great graphics too, not too much sound.

The procedural generation of the levels was and still is quite impressive. I've never seen levels generated by code feel like they were created by hand.

[demolition]

Originally Posted by gimbal

The procedural generation of the levels was and still is quite impressive. I've never seen levels generated by code feel like they were created by hand.

What should matter in the end is what the final output looks like and not whether it came from an editor or was procedurally generated. If you can make something generated look like it was hand-drawn, I'd consider that a very effective compression method.

[desiv]

On another different side of the spectrum, Dragon's Lair managed, I believe, to get quite a bit of data onto those floppies... ;-)

[Rotareneg]

I liked Captive, but to me the maps always seemed to be confusingly random, which made a lot more sense when I read about the specifics of the map generator: http://captive.atari.org/Technical/M...troduction.php

Frontier and Elite, as others have mentioned, also get a lot of mileage out of using procedural generation. However with Frontier I feel it didn't really work as well as with the simpler Elite "universe" as the procedural generated systems seemed more to be just padding around the preset systems.

Starglider 2 packs the whole game into around 500k and on only one side of the floppy as it was meant to be released so that the same disc would work with both the Amiga and Atari ST, and not all STs had double sided drives. The other side of the disc has digitized music (from the included audio cassette,) which would play if the computer a megabyte of RAM (and a double sided drive on the ST.) More info on that here: http://birdsanctuary.co.uk/adls/

[eXeler0]

If title was "best packed bitmap graphics" then its a tough call.. But otherwise, i´ll say Frontier also. I think cleverly generated stuff counts just fine here in "offers most for the byte" category.

[ransom1122]

Dungeon Master

[jotd]

Rise of the Robots? (14 disks full of crap)

[Mrz]

Originally Posted by jotd

Rise of the Robots? (14 disks full of crap)

olofight AGA 10 disks of worst crap

[Marcuz]

Hired Guns came in 5 disks, but there were many huge, carefully designed mazes, then new gameplay features (multi leveled environment, nice use of water floods, rarely used before game party splitting on same screen + multiple mouses control) and the game was highly polished.

about procedural generation, I think it still counts however: as long as the result is consistent and good; does it serve gameplay or does it serve marketing feature list? If it's the former, then it's very welcome!

Plus, in case of Frontier, not only there are many manually tweaked places and easter eggs (Nirvana System, for instance), but the randomisation serves the mission system too.

Consider the system this game has in play:

mission system / progression, with three separated branches:
- elite rank for combat
- imperial ranking
- federation ranking

the nature of missions:
- moving commodities / people / contraband
- mining
- hit missions

the core navigation plus:
- combat system and mining system
- autopilot and manual flight
- tons of ships
- commerce

All of that does serve gameplay and is hugely enjoyable!

Then a spectacular fluidity on not exactly high specs; the management of the star / galaxy boards and travel planning is great... Add for music tracks, decent audio effects... I mean all of that takes about 500Kb!

[Leffmann]

Emerald Mine and the Ultima games.

[Hewitson]

I'm sorry but it just has to be Turrican 2. All that graphics, leveldata, and music on 1 disk is still to this day a miracle. Even if the game took 4 disks it would be acceptable.

[sokolovic]

Frontier of course. It doesn't count that the game was proceduraly generated (the question wasn't what 2D games with bitmpa graphics offer you the most for the byte).

You cannot beat a game with a single floppy with no loading, a whole universe on it and virtually endless.

[roondar]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I'm sorry but it just has to be Turrican 2. All that graphics, leveldata, and music on 1 disk is still to this day a miracle. Even if the game took 4 disks it would be acceptable.

It's slightly less impressive when you realise the exact same game & level layout* are available on the C64 as well - in under 340kb and with way more 'parallax' effects

I do know the Amiga version needs more memory because of the way it's audio/graphics operate, so do I understand why it's bigger on disk. But it's still funny. There's also a 48K Spectrum port, which again has all the levels intact.

Edit: don't get me wrong though, Turrican 2 on Amiga is a very nice game and one I've played a lot. This is more tongue in cheek than serious commentary.

*) I know there are some minor differences here and there, but these only make the C64 levels slightly larger, not smaller.