Kingdoms of Steam - AmigaPD announces a new shoot em up for the Amiga!

[amigapd]

Ok - this is the final ADF version - which now includes a background story / mission brief as part of the intro - I do not expect to make any more adjustments to the ADF version - but will expand the game for a hard drive / CD version to include the missing attack waves.

[viddi]

Thank you very much. I hope we´ll see a (commercial?!) CD32 version.

[earok]

As we discussed on Facebook, here's the version with the CD32 control mappings.

I'm just using Lorence Lombardo's Joy2Key2, just edit the "steam.cfg" file and replace with the codes from here if you want to customise them.

Controls:
Blue (Doesn't work?) / Green / Yellow / Forward: Shop
Reverse: Suicide
Play: Pause

[s2325]

There is new longplay on YouTube but maybe someone should play first.

[viddi]

I really like the game, but I think the zoomed in bosses look poor.
Any chance to replace them with proper pixeled sprites?

[amigapd]

Originally Posted by viddi

I really like the game, but I think the zoomed in bosses look poor.
Any chance to replace them with proper pixeled sprites?

I can have a go at improving those larger sprites for the hard disk cd version. Do you think it is possible to amend the main file to include music with each level. It's not possible using the editor so I am guessing the only way would be to hack into the source code and amend a few lines of code. The game loads the sprites and palettes for each level so I am wondering if those commands could be located it might be possible to add a line to load a music file for each level. then again it might be just wishful thinking.

[earok]

Originally Posted by amigapd

I can have a go at improving those larger sprites for the hard disk cd version. Do you think it is possible to amend the main file to include music with each level. It's not possible using the editor so I am guessing the only way would be to hack into the source code and amend a few lines of code. The game loads the sprites and palettes for each level so I am wondering if those commands could be located it might be possible to add a line to load a music file for each level. then again it might be just wishful thinking.

Maybe this won't be suitable, but with the CD version maybe it'll be possible to stream CDDA music with an external player while playing the game? The engine seems to be multitasking so it might be possible to do this somehow, though of course it means you won't have any control over the flow of music (so it won't change when you change from menus to the game etc)

[amigapd]

Originally Posted by earok

Maybe this won't be suitable, but with the CD version maybe it'll be possible to stream CDDA music with an external player while playing the game? The engine seems to be multitasking so it might be possible to do this somehow, though of course it means you won't have any control over the flow of music (so it won't change when you change from menus to the game etc)

I am happy to try this to see how it sounds - would you be able to convert a mod music file to CDDA format? I have a tune which I think would fit the game - alternatively do you have a CDDA file you could experiment with to see how it sounds?

[earok]

Originally Posted by amigapd

I am happy to try this to see how it sounds - would you be able to convert a mod music file to CDDA format? I have a tune which I think would fit the game - alternatively do you have a CDDA file you could experiment with to see how it sounds?

Sorry, by CDDA I mean plain old CD audio, so any old WAV or MP3 would do!

I can convert MOD to WAV if you can send me the song through.

[amigapd]

No problems - my music knowledge is very limited - I am assuming it is easy to convert a mod file to MP3 or WAV so that we could use the tune I have in mind - in the meantime would you be able to have a go at creating a CD32 ISO which contains a music player that would play the wav / MPS file and a test MP3 / WAV music file- the file slideshow.mus will need to be deleted from the last adf uploaded on this thread so there is no conflicting music in the game. At least we could see how this solution impacts on the sound effects. Thanks in advance.

[earok]

I'll do some experiments soon and get back to you.

Just a little request, the only thing that really bugs me about the game is how the Blimp completely flips. I take it there's no way in your engine to have the sprite pivot on it's center?

[earok]

Ok! Experiments over.

I went down the CDDA route to start with. The obvious advantages are being able to have CD quality music in the game, also it's easy to swap out the included track (just swap music.mp3 with anything, you don't need to redo the ISO). The HUGE downside is unfortunately needing to copy the whole game to RAM: (as you can't load from disc while the music is playing). You can do that with KOS even in the CD32's puny RAM, but you wouldn't be able to add much more content than there already is.

http://earok.net/amiga/KOS_CD_Music.zip (includes this song [ Show youtube player ])


Then I realised how stupid the above approach was, when we could have just had Hippo player running mods in the background, no need to copy to RAM: and you could even do this approach for the ADF release. So I redid it using Hippo player with the SOTB trilogy music as a stand in, just edit mods/music_playlist to put your own in.

http://earok.net/amiga/KOS_Mod_Music.zip

[viddi]

Great news! Will check it out later today.

[amigapd]

Originally Posted by earok

Ok! Experiments over.




Then I realised how stupid the above approach was, when we could have just had Hippo player running mods in the background, no need to copy to RAM: and you could even do this approach for the ADF release. So I redid it using Hippo player with the SOTB trilogy music as a stand in, just edit mods/music_playlist to put your own in.

http://earok.net/amiga/KOS_Mod_Music.zip

Thanks Earok - have just tried the version on my CD32 and the music plays ok - its the first time I have played it on a CD32 and not sure if the music player cause slow down on the game as I previously play it on my Amiga 1200 which has extra bits and bobs to it which might make it run faster.

Also did the ISO version include the CD32 controller amendment - my CD32 controller is starting to lose functionality with some buttons not working so wasn't sure if this routine got left off of the CD or whether my controller now needs replacing.

Thanks again for coming up with a solution to the music option - the question now is what Mod tune to add to the game - will put out a request on a seperate thread.

[earok]

Originally Posted by amigapd

Thanks Earok - have just tried the version on my CD32 and the music plays ok - its the first time I have played it on a CD32 and not sure if the music player cause slow down on the game as I previously play it on my Amiga 1200 which has extra bits and bobs to it which might make it run faster.

The speed of the game on my CD32 is certainly playable but not super slick. I think even just having some Fast RAM would make the game run smoother on an A1200.

Something I didn't even think of - I wonder if it'd run better in NTSC mode?

Originally Posted by amigapd

Also did the ISO version include the CD32 controller amendment - my CD32 controller is starting to lose functionality with some buttons not working so wasn't sure if this routine got left off of the CD or whether my controller now needs replacing.

Yes, it does include the CD32 joypad drivers, it seemed to work for me (although "Blue" does nothing, Green/Yellow/Forward enter the shop, Play is Pause and Reverse is quit)

Originally Posted by amigapd

Thanks again for coming up with a solution to the music option - the question now is what Mod tune to add to the game - will put out a request on a seperate thread.

No worries, looking forward to seeing how it comes out. Would love to post the game on http://cd32.co.uk when it's ready for release

[Lonewolf10]

Originally Posted by earok

Just a little request, the only thing that really bugs me about the game is how the Blimp completely flips. I take it there's no way in your engine to have the sprite pivot on it's center?

Was this ever solved? It's the only bad thing about this great game.

[amigapd]

Thanks for the kind comments - I am currently using Reality to create a platform game similar to super Mario bros on the NES called "Super Robin"- once this is finished I may return to either Kingdoms of Steam or Dylan the Spaceman to finish them off - for Kingdoms of Steam I hoped to add some more levels and fix the main sprite and then release as CD only or Hard drive install - the 3.5 disk release can only have 3 to 4 levels max - The other thing I got frustrated about was not being able to add new sound effects or in game music. Both those things are still outstanding -

Super Robin hopefully will be finished for September 2016 - after that I will look again at Kingdoms of Steam.

[earok]

When you get back into Kingdoms of Steam, give me a holler - I'm keen to try and help out with the technical issues

[saimon69]

@earok
if you decide to use the hippoplayer approach have the intro song for the game:
Kingdoms Of Steam Title (proposal) 2015 - of course as .mod