Gods reverse engineering

[jotd]

so, everyone should ignore the threads that are of no interest to them (i do that and never get any flaming because of that)

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by zenox98

jotd, Kroah et al, ignore the haters. This is fascinating stuff, and reveals interesting 'tricks of the trade'.

Seconded. What we can really do without is Facebook updates spawning in EAB threads :/

[jotd]

So, Kroah, what about Magic Pockets ?

[Qube]

@Kroah - I found some shots of the First Samurai tilemap, here we go.

I recall that the tilemap is somewhat interleaved or its actually two tilemaps in one, stored in byte pairs, so the first byte is block number, second byte is something else, perhaps event/trigger/collision/etc, and so on... I noted that the tilemap does not have the foreground graphics which the player can walk behind. To think I looked at this back in 2009, how the years spin on!

Q;

[Codetapper]

In case you haven't seen it, there's some useful stuff in AF28's Secret of Game Graphics article regarding First Samurai and how various things were stored, block sizes and some of the events etc.

[Qube]

Thanks Codetapper - I remember that article back in the day, I may revisit this one one day. Always interesting to read how programmers achieve what they want, the different ways and approaches etc.

Q;

[Kroah]

Hi all,

I'm back from holydays. Time to update my Gods Viewer and reply to some nice posts .

Originally Posted by Photon

I get so tired sometimes. What is there worth to reverse engineer in Gods. If you can code a similar game, why not make your own and contribute some elements that improves gameplay.

Photon, my objective is not to do any remake.
By reverse engineering Gods, i understand how old games were coded. Each time i disassemble a game i find new coder tricks. On top of that, we discover some hidden stuffs in some games.
The viewer is only the tip of the iceberg i'm glad to share with the community. The viewer is user-friendly, so everyone can use it.
The big work i keep private (until someone asks for it) is the partly disassembled and commented source code of the game, only advanced users may find it useful (to code a remake for example).

If you had visited my website, you would have seen my remake of Colonial Conquest. It adds multiplayer support and custom maps.
Anyway, I forgive you not to have seen it because it's an "Atari only" game not ported on Amiga.

Originally Posted by jotd

do you have in mind the task of reverse engineering magic pockets?

Sorry Jotd, Magic Pockets is not on my todo list. I haven't played it very much compared to other games. I found it so difficult, past the first levels.

Originally Posted by Qube

@Kroah - I found some shots of the First Samurai tilemap, here we go.

Thank you Qube, it's always interesting to share your work.

Originally Posted by Codetapper

In case you haven't seen it, there's some useful stuff in AF28's Secret of Game Graphics article regarding First Samurai and how various things were stored, block sizes and some of the events etc.

Thank you Codetapper. Being french, i didn't know this article. Very interesting.

[Kroah]

Here's the final version of Gods Viewer (v1.02). You can grab it on my website (source + binaries):
http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/

It adds:
- support of the Amiga version of Gods
- intelligent walking and flying enemies
- more information in the popup
- save map to PNG
- export of sprites and files on startup

Have fun!

[kriz]

Amazing reverse engineering.

[gimbal]

Jebus dude, how do you work so fast!? I'm always distracted by other things to be able to make such progress.

[jotd]

I've learned new things again on this game! thanks.

[Asman]

Originally Posted by Kroah

Sorry Jotd, Magic Pockets is not on my todo list. I haven't played it very much compared to other games. I found it so difficult, past the first levels.

Hi

I'm just wondering what games are on your todo list.

Regards

[Kroah]

Thanks all for your support.

Originally Posted by Asman

I'm just wondering what games are on your todo list.

I keep things private until i have something to show, not to disappoint anyone.

I can tell you i actually have a great time disassembling (and remaking!) this futuristic game... I have almost a POC done... ooops, already said too much .

[zenox98]

I guess......Speedball

[Asman]

Hi,

Originally Posted by Kroah

I keep things private until i have something to show, ...

No problem and I have hope that you don't have Rolling Thunder on that list .

Regards

[Kroah]

Originally Posted by Asman

I have hope that you don't have Rolling Thunder on that list .

I loved Rolling Thunder, one of the first game i have completed. It wans't too difficult.
Why don't you want it on the list, to keep the mystery of the game?

Originally Posted by zenox98

I guess......Speedball

Humpf...

[Asman]

Hi,

Originally Posted by Kroah

Why don't you want it on the list, to keep the mystery of the game?

I don't want to keep the mystery of the game. I just don't want to discover the wheels if someone did this before me

I'm trying to fix/improve/speed up this amiga game. Currently I have compilable version of this game. But understanding and improving thie source is another story.

Regards

[Grazey]

Great stuff kroah!
Love your work.

I spent a fare while in god's engine whilst hard-driving and 030 fixing it for d-bug

Showaddywaddy / D-Bug

[fishyfish]

Personally I was never a fan of Gods, but Ive found this thread to be fascinating and entertaining reading.
Are there any other similar threads for other games as well please? It's interesting to hear how others tackled thier game engines vs. the theoretical side of how I'd do it. I have a bad habbit of only going so far as proof of concept type code with my attempts at original Amiga games, but Ive been doing it for a few decades so like to think Im not too shabby when it comes to code logic and pseudo code when it comes to machines with limited resources. I just hope one day I can find the dedication to actually finish something

Thanks again for an entertaining read Kroah

[Amiga Forever]

interesting treads

How do you Convert ST Graphics(16 Colours) into Amiga Graphics(32 Colours)? Did you change Colours Palettes or somethings?