Conversion Capers: Rygar

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by Lonewolf10

I'm with Galahad. You can use the copper to change colours midscreen for the graphics. For example you could do this for the enemies, as the winged creatures appear to always be high up in the tree or flying high in the sky and the ones on the ground don't seem to be able to jump high up on the screen.

The red baddies that sit in the lava come up through the ground and end up on the same platform that Rygar is on. The winged baddies also swoop pretty low and drop other baddies from the top of the screen, so they would need to have static colours for almost the entire height of the gameplay window. (Unless you are happy with baddies changing colours as they drop down).

For those saying the Amiga could do an almost (graphically) perfect port, there's actually a lot more to consider than it first appears!

[phx]

The graphics which are most focussed by the player are the main character, followed by the monsters and the scrolling foreground tiles. These graphics should be as detailed and as colourful as possible in this order. So I wouldn't do double playfield and use 32, or at least 16, colours for it.

The parallax scrolling background is not so important. Doing it with some sprite tricks, like Codetapper suggested, is absolutely sufficient, when adding some copper bars and colour changes with the copper in this region (for background and sprites).

I think a perfect clone of Rygar is impossible at 50fps on OCS hardware. But we can get very near to it and even improve some parts (e.g. the playfield width). A perfect copy is also not required for a good, comparable gaming experience.

[dlfrsilver]

Rygar is an 8 bit game, powered by a z80 and dispplaying ~120 colors on screens on a 256 colors palette (the 1024 colors stated on mame are the whole colors for the whole game).

Risky woods which is a rygar like game is 64 colors, and it animates more sprites and biggers than Rygar does.

[Asman]

@dlfrsilver

No offence but can you provide a screenshot from Risky woods with 10 bigger enemies then on my screenshot (taken from mame).



As I see there are following enemies:

2 dragons (or something like that ) 64x32
2 enemies (bulls ) 32x32
4 ground grey enemies 32x32
2 pets or something 32x16

If I am wrong then please correct me. Thank you.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Rygar is an 8 bit game, powered by a z80 and dispplaying ~120 colors on screens on a 256 colors palette (the 1024 colors stated on mame are the whole colors for the whole game).

Rygar has a Z80 just for the gameplay elements. But it also has hardware that can combine 3 playfields automatically without the CPU having to do any work. And a separate Z80 just for sound.

Risky woods which is a rygar like game is 64 colors, and it animates more sprites and biggers than Rygar does.

Risky Woods is actually a 16 colour game with a very limited palette, as the sprite background uses almost all DMA time. Certainly the copper can't even change the palette as it's repositioning all the sprites.

The panel at the bottom of the screen is another 32 colours accounting for the 64 colours you are counting. But there's probably never more than about 5 or 6 reasonably sized enemies on the screen and a few collectables etc. It's also only updating at half frame rate (25 fps).

[Retro-Nerd]

Interesting stuff, guys. But i would go for 50fps at all costs, even if it limits the colors, sprites or effects. Noboby wants to play a Rygar port in 25fps. The perfect scrolling and controls of the Arcade version are part of the fun. The game itself isn't aged that good.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Asman

@dlfrsilver

No offence but can you provide a screenshot from Risky woods with 10 bigger enemies then on my screenshot (taken from mame).

Attachment 36581

As I see there are following enemies:

2 dragons (or something like that ) 64x32
2 enemies (bulls ) 32x32
4 ground grey enemies 32x32
2 pets or something 32x16

If I am wrong then please correct me. Thank you.

Risky woods sprites are bigger (32x32 at min.) the screen surface is bigger than the one in Rygar, and it uses a trick to make a dual playfield.
and the game can have as much ennemies on screen.

Here are the specs of this game :

- 12 levels with 48 different ennemies
- Up to 32 sprites on screen
- Double scroll with 16 colors per plane
- additional screen with 32 colors.

So yes, Risky woods is going further than Rygar (quite normal for a 16 bits game of '91)

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by Codetapper

The red baddies that sit in the lava come up through the ground and end up on the same platform that Rygar is on. The winged baddies also swoop pretty low and drop other baddies from the top of the screen, so they would need to have static colours for almost the entire height of the gameplay window.

Back to the drawing board for me then!

Originally Posted by Codetapper

(Unless you are happy with baddies changing colours as they drop down).

Ahhh, I have quite a few spectrum games like that (Ghouls 'n' Ghosts). Alternatively, you could do it monochrome, like the speccy versions of Joe Blade or Switchblade!

[Michael Parent]

@ Cotetapper,

Fantastic thread!

Here's my thoughts as a near 10 year veteran professional pixel artist who learned pixel art and the love of the art-form itself on my Amiga computer:

I find it fascinating in the best way possible that even strict theoretical tasks like this end up more of an argument over what people personally value in a game, more than simply arguing over technical methods.

In this case, our task seems to be to make as close a copy of this specific game as possible, presumably leaving ALL aspects as close to the original as possible, but leaving game-play and level layout as the highest priorities.

This is VERY different from statements like “the Amiga can make games as good or better in a similar style”. That is (in this case) a completely moot point. The question is “can the Amiga reproduce THIS game”, with these layouts, number of enemies etc, and what is the BEST hardware banging trickery to be used to come as close as possible without severe visual compromise (read as "ugly, grainy, colorless, no parallax etc")?

This game can not be compared to Shadow of the Beast etc. for sheer color count etc, as the level design and enemy placements were designed completely around the hardware trickery that Beast used, and the vast majority of this falls apart in Rygar where most of these different colored things can overlap on-screen at the same time.

In cases like this task, you need to develop the best UNIVERSAL solution, which will work across the board, on all levels, no mater what happens to be on-screen and overlapping at the same time. (there are time-limits, not matter how awesome a game studio, we cant realistically custom program every level from scratch)

For this reason, to maintain highest visual quality WHILE allowing for remotely close approximations of the color variety in the games enemies, environments etc, I would immediately rule out Duel Play-field mode.

That said, I would ask the art director and licensor (if they have a say) if keeping the same exact layout of the back play-field per level is important. Most likely it is NOT a top priority as compared to overall visual quality, number of colors, and the likeness that the actual playing layer (foreground playfield), player “sprite” and enemy “sprites” have to the original arcade game.

If this is was the case, I'd do as Codetapper said, and use the repeating sprite trick for a repeating sprite pattern, along with copper color changes to make very pretty, and similarly themed, but definitely somewhat different back layers from the arcade version.... but this would allow either 16 or 32 (roughly) colors to be used for the foreground layer, player, enemies etc...at which point, a very passionate artist, skillful with color usage could definitely make a very similar looking game, which could keep the same exact maps, enemy placements etc as the original arcade game.

IF the background layer designs and layouts were somehow too important to give up on (highly unlikely), I would suggest actually using 16 colors with processor and blitter simulated dual play-field effects, as found in games like Xenon-2 Megablast, and then use the 8 sprites as overlays to add additional color to the player, enemies, HUD etc. As well as using copper-color changes on one or two of the 16 base colors in the background to make the environment more colorful as well.

I and the vast majority of players would be perfectly happy with 25 FPS (especially if scrolling were at 50 or 60), as a great many of the most popular Amiga games were 25FPS or less. What was the FPS of Blood Money? Xenon 2? (and these are SHMUPS) Can we verify the actual arcade Rygar ran at 60 FPS?

-Mike

[Retro-Nerd]

Yep, Rygar runs fully in 60fps.

[Retro1234]

You could probably pull this of 7x8 - if it saved any colours what about making the floor a separate screen you would have 1 pixel gap but.....

[Codetapper]

The floor is different heights on various levels, sometimes you have to step down into it. There's water sections etc. Plus the enemies coming up through the floor. You have to have a solution that would work for the whole game, not a couple of static screenshots.

[Michael Parent]

@Boo Boo,

This goes back to personal criteria and priorities again. What do you mean by "pull off"? It would be drastically less colorfull (inferior) compared to the very game we're trying to port. It's certianly not going to have a better FPS, there's no license to drastically change the art style to compensate for the much less colors, etc. etc.

@ anyone who keeps comparing apples to oranges... it doesnt matter if there's past Amiga games that read as superior "on paper". The question as I understood it is what methods/tricks could/should be used to come as close as possible to this specific game.

-Mike

[DDNI]

Have tricks like the Munker White illusion ever been used to manage colours in Amiga games? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White's_illusion

[Michael Parent]

Hi DDNI, Great question, way to think outside the box. Good pixel artists use the same few color indexes in as many ways as possible, and this means purposefully using it near specific colors at specific times to not just get the illusion of more mileage in value, but also hue for the color, but this really can't take the overall illusion of colorfullness of the game very far...especially in 8X7 dual playfield mode.

-Mike

[Asman]

I have simple question: Is anybody working on Amiga version of Rygar ?

[Mrs Beanbag]

I agree with a lot of things people have said.

I think the parallax scrolling for the most part is expendable, I honestly don't think it really adds that much but trying to drop the foreground and bad guys down to 7 colours would take away too much. Some of the background details could simply be absorbed into the foreground, so as not to leave too much blank space. But we could use sprite and copper tricks to put something in the background, for a bit more depth.

The only bit of parallax I'd be keen to keep is the bit with the giant sun in the background, because that has a lot of character and is quite distinctive. One could do that with two sprites to define the edges of the sun (changing the X-position of the sprites on each line), with the copper changing the background colour to fill in between them.

Another way to add some level of parallax is to do it like how Agony achieves 3 layers, by blitting a single bitplane, perhaps within a limited region of the screen.

Otherwise I'd suggest a 16 colour screen with a 16 colour sprite for the man character plus his weapons, and bobs for all other moving objects.

I wouldn't bother trying to use sprites to overlay the score on top of the playfield, since the original game doesn't have that. But I would widen the playfield to 288 pixels, so as not to sacrifice any sprites.

Another idea I had lately to give an illusion of more colour depth, is to use a slightly different image on each of the buffers of the double-buffering, for a sort of dynamic dithering effect.

[Codetapper]

Originally Posted by Asman

I have simple question: Is anybody working on Amiga version of Rygar ?

I think you can safely assume the answer to this is no. It was just a game I picked as it had 2 playfields, scrolling, and loads of colours. I could have picked any game.

If you wish to convert the game to the Amiga, I'm sure people would be happy!

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by Mrs Beanbag

The only bit of parallax I'd be keen to keep is the bit with the giant sun in the background, because that has a lot of character and is quite distinctive. One could do that with two sprites to define the edges of the sun (changing the X-position of the sprites on each line), with the copper changing the background colour to fill in between them.

That's a neat trick, I will have to remember that as it may come in handy in other projects I have planned

[Michael Parent]

That is indeed an awesome solution for the big sun back layer Lonewolf10!