Bedroom coding

SabreGolly · 05 May 2003, 04:50

Did anyone else attempt amateur games programming on thier Amiga in the past - and wrote a game that never saw the light of day for obvious reasons?

I wrote a Laser Squad type game for me and my mates to play on Blitz Basic 2 many years ago. Took me bloody ages, skived nearly 4 months off college to write it! Sent it into Amiga Format - not even a letter saying 'no, this is s**te, f**k off...'. And I was so proud of it...

I feel like resurrecting the old beast and posting it somewhere. Is there anywhere where we can all post our crude attempts, and try each others pride and joys out? Or am I the only one who ever bothered?

I'm not talking demos of commercial stuff - just what we put together late night at home, which vague dreams of fame and fortune at the back of our minds...!

Twistin'Ghost · 05 May 2003, 05:23

My first attempts at programming (AMOS) were with a friend who was teaching me, so most of the work is his. I doubt anybody would even want to bother looking at this stuff of mine, although I still find them amusing (one game and one demo).

There's always the Zone...

Drake1009 · 05 May 2003, 07:47

I wish I had done some coding on the Amiga. Alas I only got mine after I started learning Java on the PC. It's fun trying to code games in Java. Probably because in the end unless you do a lot of tricks it'll be slower than your average A500.

manicx · 05 May 2003, 09:25

Java rocks man. It's not Java's fault but the crap VMs we are using. TAO's JVM is much much faster than any VM on earth and is said that applets/application run about 80% faster....

Shatterhand · 05 May 2003, 10:20

You know, I used to code a lot when I had an MSX. I've done a few games, and even a graphic editor, ala Deluxe Paint !

The Amiga was my hiatus on programming. For some reason, I never got to code anything on Amiga. Amos always seemed interesting, but the lack of documentation for it here in Brazil was always a non-starter.

With the PC, I am slowly getting back to coding again. Though I was using a Delph-script based language, I've made 1.5 games - One is complete, the other one, which most EABers probably know, Space Disorder, had a big hiatus in the development... I've made some big mistake in the coding, and the game slowed down like hell. This put me off for sometime, because I have no idea of what happened, but now I am back to it, tracking down the bug.

I am now learning Delphi too.

I always wanted to learn to code on Amiga. Now I think it's a bit too late

Steve · 05 May 2003, 13:49

Quote:

Originally posted by Shatterhand
I always wanted to learn to code on Amiga. Now I think it's a bit too late

Erm, why is that? I've recently been learning to code Amiga assembler through books I've bought from eBay and Yahoo auctions. It's something I've wanted to learn since I first owned an Amiga back in 1992 but never thought I was good enough to learn assembler so I stuck with Blitz instead. The point is it's never too late to start learning to code for the Amiga. Who cares if the commercial side of the Amiga is dead; learning to code the Amiga is still a fun and fascinating hobby. You might even get your creation in Tosec.

SabreGolly · 05 May 2003, 14:51

Apologies - I'm a bit of a newbie here...

Can someone explain where and what 'The Zone' is?!! - is it an ftp server for use with this board?

If so I'll give my game a tidy up and post it for a laff! Don't hold your breath - I can't take months of work anymore (mores the pity!)

Cheers

CodyJarrett · 05 May 2003, 15:00

See the buttons at the top-right hand corner of this webpage - the Zone link is there.

DrBong · 05 May 2003, 16:35

A few university friends and I knocked up some silly demos in the early 90s over a number of drinking and weed sessions (hence my handle, DrBong). They did make it on to some PD company lists here in Australia, which we thought was hilarious at the time. I only have the mods left from them now.

Anyway, uni. work and going out killed my Amiga demo & game coding days quickly after that. The machine I really loved coding on was the C64, though. From memory I coded a saucy graphic adventure (think I called it Pussy Quest or some such silly name!) and a Hacker-type text adventure when I was at school. Did lots of other C64 stuff too and even managed to crack a few games when the machine was dying commercially.

SabreGolly · 05 May 2003, 18:56

Quote:

Originally posted by CodyJarrett
See the buttons at the top-right hand corner of this webpage - the Zone link is there.

............T..............
.........HANK..........
........YOUIWILL.........
.... GETMYEYESTESTED....

Twistin'Ghost · 05 May 2003, 23:00

Quote:

Originally posted by DrBong
Anyway, uni. work and going out killed my Amiga demo & game coding days quickly after that. The machine I really loved coding on was the C64, though. From memory I coded a saucy graphic adventure (think I called it Pussy Quest or some such silly name!) and a Hacker-type text adventure when I was at school. Did lots of other C64 stuff too and even managed to crack a few games when the machine was dying commercially.

So then the Amiga version of Pussy Quest is a C64 port? Interesting. (Even more interesting that you were involved in the history of this game!)

DrBong · 05 May 2003, 23:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
So then the Amiga version of Pussy Quest is a C64 port? Interesting. (Even more interesting that you were involved in the history of this game!)

I'm sure the games are different and only have the name in common. The C64 (and Amiga) stuff I coded was just for fun and often was only circulated to mates, so I'm sure I would know if I had coded something famous!

IIRC one of my friends, the Heavyweight (of DVS Tools fame), was involved many moons ago in coding a game called Pussy Quest on the Amiga. Whether it's the same one you're thinking of, I don't know.

LaundroMat · 05 May 2003, 23:55

The only things I coded on the Amiga were (here we go):

lots of keymakers for shareware (in AmigaE, after disassembling the code)
a "Matrix Generator" (people who know ShadowRun, v2, will know what I mean), first version in Amos, second in E with a MUI GUI. (The Amos version featured in an Amiga mag once, I still have a photocopy lying around somewhere. The reviewer liked it: "This is what freeware is about: people catering for the needs of other like-minded spirits, without asking for any credit whatsoever)
a Wolfenstein clone in... Amos! I drew a whole load of sprites, and wrote routines to render a 2D maze to 3D. I almost got the multiplayer part playable. This collided with my first steps on the internet, and some guy named Gareth Edwards provided me with some - excellent - gfx. The project never got finished though. I wonder if that man Edwards is still around, he was a good man.
F1GP tools, mainly for own use (lap time stat loggers etc)
basic ASM demo's mainly featuring copper effects, scrollies and fonts ripped from other demo's
MUI programs that never got finished, such as a personal finance tool, etc.
a top-down viewed basket-ball game in AMOS (never finished)
LOADS of unfinished stuff... Each time I had a new idea, I abandoned the previous one(s)

In fact, I almost never finished anything. But it learned me a damned lot. Consider it as speaking a foreign language when you're young. With a bit of training, you become quite proficient again. I never had a lot of problems learning new languages thanks to my Amiga (and CPC before that) upbringing. I recently wanted to give a PHP driven website as a present to a friend of mine who opened a bar, and it was no big deal getting to grips with the language (admittedly, I'm no PHP guru; but I get things done).

This is in fact my best memory of my Amiga: without it, I'd never have grasped the fundamentals of programming (and computers in general).

Twistin'Ghost · 06 May 2003, 00:51

Quote:

Originally posted by DrBong
IIRC one of my friends, the Heavyweight (of DVS Tools fame), was involved many moons ago in coding a game called Pussy Quest on the Amiga. Whether it's the same one you're thinking of, I don't know.

Actually, that's the one! But then how many games called Pussy Quest could there really be on the Amiga!

Here's a little mini-review I wrote for the game way back in the early 90's for our club's newsletter:

PUSSY QUEST 1 - A QUIET WEEKEND IN THE BUSH
TEAM: Sick Minds Software
CODE: The Heavyweight
DATE: 1992
GENRE: Adventure/adult
ORIGIN: Australia
NOTES: Written in AMOS
SCORE: **

An adult adventure game coded in 1½ days for a demo party. Load, save or
delete characters (your girl) with characteristics. A prompt will ask you
questions such as your name, girl's name, and slang words for certain body
parts and sex acts, among others. The spelling and prose is rather crude, and
the expected horny boy storyline is rather predictable (in an adolescent sort of
way) with the expected boolean choices and results. A juvenile fantasy that
may appeal to young boys (or those with similar mentality), but the rest of us
will want to pass, as it is neither erotic nor humorous. Allegedly the first
in a series - it is easy to see why no others followed.

SabreGolly · 06 May 2003, 02:02

Quote:

I never had a lot of problems learning new languages thanks to my Amiga (and CPC before that) upbringing.

It took me years to get into amiga coding - and only then in Blitz Basic! Loved programming my ZX81 and Spectrum - wrote tons of stuff in BASIC - then wrote various little machine code (Z80) routines to try and speed them up! I'll need to hunt these out again...

I hated Amiga Basic. Hated the fact I had to swap discs about. Hated the manual (!). Hated the interface. 8 bit machines just cried out to be programmed - the command prompt was there - when you switched it on - It could either be LOAD "", and find a tape, or you could be off on a new programming adventure - I loved that!

It wasn't 'till years having my Amiga that Blitz Basic 2 came out - and I rediscovered the joys! Many of my mates went on to do Computing Science at Uni - (I did something else - which I wont mention for fear of attack) - and I always wonder where I'd be if I'd joined them... ho hum...

Twistin'Ghost · 06 May 2003, 04:41

Quote:

Originally posted by SabreGolly
I hated Amiga Basic. Hated the fact I had to swap discs about. Hated the manual (!). Hated the interface. 8 bit machines just cried out to be programmed - the command prompt was there - when you switched it on - It could either be LOAD "", and find a tape, or you could be off on a new programming adventure - I loved that!

I hated AmigaBasic, as well. Long before I knew M$ was responsible for it. It's one of the only parts of the OS that never felt Amiga (DiskDoctor is another). Some of my former 8-bit friends at the time kept assuring me back then that AmigaBasic was tops and way above other BASIC's on other platforms, but I just couldn't believe such a thing (and still don't). But even if that were true, even if it was the best BASIC out there, it is crap. I'd be happier with Ada. Or Logo.

I wanted to start with BASIC when I got my Amiga, but AmigaBasic changed my mind. I sought other BASIC's like TrueBASIC and HiSoft BASIC, but could never find copies at the time. ABasic certainly was not the solution. Only after AMOS was released did I indulge. AMOS was coolish, but its biggest flaw was that it looked like it was coded in AMOS.

Blitz is the deal.

06 May 2003, 05:43

hehe here's something u guys WON'T believe..how coincidental that Pussy Quest was bought up as it's sequel is on the agenda for this year

yes I'm serious..
and DrBong I think it's time you joined Affinity - don't u?
I mean with elite releases like Pussy Quest 2 how could you not! hehe

Shatterhand · 06 May 2003, 05:57

It's too late because I don't have an working Amiga anymore, and I don't have the same free time I had when I was younger.

Maybe in the future......

Twistin'Ghost · 06 May 2003, 06:10

Quote:

Originally posted by VermillioN
hehe here's something u guys WON'T believe..how coincidental that Pussy Quest was bought up as it's sequel is on the agenda for this year
yes I'm serious..
and DrBong I think it's time you joined Affinity - don't u?
I mean with elite releases like Pussy Quest 2 how could you not! hehe

Will be nice to have a new scene release! And TOSEC shall make ye immortal...

06 May 2003, 07:29

Quote:

Originally posted by Twistin'Ghost
Will be nice to have a new scene release! And TOSEC shall make ye immortal...

heh yeah it should be fun...prepare for TOSEC immortality!!

05 May 2003, 04:50	#1
SabreGolly Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Cheshire/UK Age: 52 Posts: 77	Bedroom coding Did anyone else attempt amateur games programming on thier Amiga in the past - and wrote a game that never saw the light of day for obvious reasons? I wrote a Laser Squad type game for me and my mates to play on Blitz Basic 2 many years ago. Took me bloody ages, skived nearly 4 months off college to write it! Sent it into Amiga Format - not even a letter saying 'no, this is ste, fk off...'. And I was so proud of it... I feel like resurrecting the old beast and posting it somewhere. Is there anywhere where we can all post our crude attempts, and try each others pride and joys out? Or am I the only one who ever bothered? I'm not talking demos of commercial stuff - just what we put together late night at home, which vague dreams of fame and fortune at the back of our minds...!

05 May 2003, 23:55	#13
LaundroMat Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: In the cellar. With your mum. Age: 49 Posts: 404	The only things I coded on the Amiga were (here we go): lots of keymakers for shareware (in AmigaE, after disassembling the code) a "Matrix Generator" (people who know ShadowRun, v2, will know what I mean), first version in Amos, second in E with a MUI GUI. (The Amos version featured in an Amiga mag once, I still have a photocopy lying around somewhere. The reviewer liked it: "This is what freeware is about: people catering for the needs of other like-minded spirits, without asking for any credit whatsoever) a Wolfenstein clone in... Amos! I drew a whole load of sprites, and wrote routines to render a 2D maze to 3D. I almost got the multiplayer part playable. This collided with my first steps on the internet, and some guy named Gareth Edwards provided me with some - excellent - gfx. The project never got finished though. I wonder if that man Edwards is still around, he was a good man. F1GP tools, mainly for own use (lap time stat loggers etc) basic ASM demo's mainly featuring copper effects, scrollies and fonts ripped from other demo's MUI programs that never got finished, such as a personal finance tool, etc. a top-down viewed basket-ball game in AMOS (never finished) LOADS of unfinished stuff... Each time I had a new idea, I abandoned the previous one(s) In fact, I almost never finished anything. But it learned me a damned lot. Consider it as speaking a foreign language when you're young. With a bit of training, you become quite proficient again. I never had a lot of problems learning new languages thanks to my Amiga (and CPC before that) upbringing. I recently wanted to give a PHP driven website as a present to a friend of mine who opened a bar, and it was no big deal getting to grips with the language (admittedly, I'm no PHP guru; but I get things done). This is in fact my best memory of my Amiga: without it, I'd never have grasped the fundamentals of programming (and computers in general).

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05 May 2003, 05:23	#2
Twistin'Ghost Give up the ghost Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: U$A Age: 33 Posts: 4,662	My first attempts at programming (AMOS) were with a friend who was teaching me, so most of the work is his. I doubt anybody would even want to bother looking at this stuff of mine, although I still find them amusing (one game and one demo). There's always the Zone...

05 May 2003, 07:47	#3
Drake1009 Registered User Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Denmark Posts: 2,284	I wish I had done some coding on the Amiga. Alas I only got mine after I started learning Java on the PC. It's fun trying to code games in Java. Probably because in the end unless you do a lot of tricks it'll be slower than your average A500.

05 May 2003, 09:25	#4
manicx Junior Member Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Athens, Greece Posts: 991	Java rocks man. It's not Java's fault but the crap VMs we are using. TAO's JVM is much much faster than any VM on earth and is said that applets/application run about 80% faster....

05 May 2003, 10:20	#5
Shatterhand Warhasneverbeensomuchfun Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Rio de Janeiro / Brazil Age: 41 Posts: 3,450	You know, I used to code a lot when I had an MSX. I've done a few games, and even a graphic editor, ala Deluxe Paint ! The Amiga was my hiatus on programming. For some reason, I never got to code anything on Amiga. Amos always seemed interesting, but the lack of documentation for it here in Brazil was always a non-starter. With the PC, I am slowly getting back to coding again. Though I was using a Delph-script based language, I've made 1.5 games - One is complete, the other one, which most EABers probably know, Space Disorder, had a big hiatus in the development... I've made some big mistake in the coding, and the game slowed down like hell. This put me off for sometime, because I have no idea of what happened, but now I am back to it, tracking down the bug. I am now learning Delphi too. I always wanted to learn to code on Amiga. Now I think it's a bit too late

05 May 2003, 14:51	#7
SabreGolly Registered User Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Cheshire/UK Age: 52 Posts: 77	Apologies - I'm a bit of a newbie here... Can someone explain where and what 'The Zone' is?!! - is it an ftp server for use with this board? If so I'll give my game a tidy up and post it for a laff! Don't hold your breath - I can't take months of work anymore (mores the pity!) Cheers

05 May 2003, 15:00	#8
CodyJarrett Global Moderator Join Date: Mar 2001 Location: UK Age: 46 Posts: 6,161	See the buttons at the top-right hand corner of this webpage - the Zone link is there.

05 May 2003, 16:35	#9
DrBong HOL / AMR Team Member Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Australia Posts: 2,632	A few university friends and I knocked up some silly demos in the early 90s over a number of drinking and weed sessions (hence my handle, DrBong). They did make it on to some PD company lists here in Australia, which we thought was hilarious at the time. I only have the mods left from them now. Anyway, uni. work and going out killed my Amiga demo & game coding days quickly after that. The machine I really loved coding on was the C64, though. From memory I coded a saucy graphic adventure (think I called it Pussy Quest or some such silly name!) and a Hacker-type text adventure when I was at school. Did lots of other C64 stuff too and even managed to crack a few games when the machine was dying commercially.

06 May 2003, 05:43	#17
VermillioN Posts: n/a	hehe here's something u guys WON'T believe..how coincidental that Pussy Quest was bought up as it's sequel is on the agenda for this year yes I'm serious.. and DrBong I think it's time you joined Affinity - don't u? I mean with elite releases like Pussy Quest 2 how could you not! hehe

06 May 2003, 05:57	#18
Shatterhand Warhasneverbeensomuchfun Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: Rio de Janeiro / Brazil Age: 41 Posts: 3,450	It's too late because I don't have an working Amiga anymore, and I don't have the same free time I had when I was younger. Maybe in the future......

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