Scrolling Beat'em ups for Amiga

[Shatterhand]

After the War falls on the same category as Dragon Ninja, Vigilante, Ninja Warriors, etc.

We can still fix this.

I swear to God, I begun learning Blitz Basic because I'd like to do a proper Beat'em up for Amiga someday. I know what I want to do and how I want to do it. But I don't think I'll ever have the time or resources to do it

I think it's a shame the machines doesn't have any good games on the genre, considering even the NES have a few good ones (Mighty Final Fight, Double Dragon games, River City Ramson, the TMNT games ....)

[s2325]

Final Fight have excellent but still unfinished remake for Amiga.

[Shatterhand]

I played the ECS beta version of that remake. IF that was ever finished, it would be the best game on the genre for the system.

[Amiga1992]

Mighty Final Fight is awesome.
Also a Street of Rage-like game on Amiga would be really good and very possible.

[TurboCrash]

Just found a "new" beat'em up by chance today for the Amiga: Beastlord. Haven't played it yet looks like RPG+Beat'em up. Look at that crazy parallax ground, lol.
Unfortunately Lemon classifies all fighting games as beat'em up. So Vigilante, Street Fighter and Final Fight are all in the same genre over there.

Judging by Renegade's port for the Amiga maybe it's a good thing it never got a Target Renegade port. The Spectrum version by Mike Lamb is by far superior to all the others, where it lacks in gfx it compensates in gameplay and sharp controls.
Renegade 3 should be buried together with Double Dragon 3 in a really deep hole.

Capcom always took itself too seriously, their Beat'em ups while graphically stunning end up being bland in the moves and combos available. In Renegade/T.Renegade and to some extent Double Dragon you got some dirty no-holds-barred street fighting moves like grab the shirt and knee the groin, grabbed from behind you can use your elbow or kick the guy facing you, kick opponent on the ground, get on top of fallen enemy and punch him silly, back kick, grab the head and knee it. And kicking Berta's groin is no use
While with Capcom games you got punch and kick and some autograbs after some punches to do some grab&knee and very little tricks like kicking the enemy down a hole. After a while it's boring like Wrestling.

The Strangers (AGA) is a bit stiff on the controls but it's probably the best Beat'em up for Amiga. And limiting to OCS probably Double Dragon II.

[Shatterhand]

I remember Beastlord got a good review on The One.

I really want to like DD2 on the Amiga, but the game has too many issues to be enjoyable.

I usually say SNK did the most for the 1on1 Fighting game, trying a lot of different stuff on their games, while Capcom more or less stayed safe.

In the other hand, I really think Capcom did a lot of different stuff for the scrolling beat'em up genre. Yeah, I'd like more if they had added the option to kick a downed option on at least ONE game... but look how different are games like Armored Warriors, Knights of the Round, King of Dragons, Alien vs Predator, The Punisher, Cadillacs & Dinousaurs, both Dungeons & Dragons games ......

They tried a lot of different stuff on the genre. And all their games are top quality.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I swear to God, I begun learning Blitz Basic because I'd like to do a proper Beat'em up for Amiga someday. I know what I want to do and how I want to do it. But I don't think I'll ever have the time or resources to do it

I would rather recommend going with C, it is about as simple as Basic dialects but more portable, more flexible and overall more powerful. Also, most C mix really well with assembly language, inline assembly inside a C function can save a lot of time.

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I think it's a shame the machines doesn't have any good games on the genre, considering even the NES have a few good ones (Mighty Final Fight, Double Dragon games, River City Ramson, the TMNT games ....)

It is a shame and a mystery. Beat them ups are a pretty common genre and their usually horizontal and predictable level structure makes them nicely suited to Amiga specific tricks. One would expect that since quite a few were adapted from the arcades developers would have made some 16 bit exclusive ones but they did not really try (at least not the big ones).

Originally Posted by Akira

Yet nobody does.
There has to be less forum activity and more action. I include myself on this.

"Nobody" = over-generalization.
Nobody means no-one, zilch, nada, zero.
"Yet few people seem to do" would be more appropriate.

I have been (slowly) working on my part with some noticeable progress in the last weeks as I ramped up activity (safe for the Xmas pause) but there is still nothing to be shown so obviously I am not going to advertise anything explicitly. I suspect that a few others are in similar situation from what I have read here and there on the EAB.

At the moment, I am almost fully blocked because I do not have a computer anymore and will get one only next week but I expect progress to be rapid and steady afterward since I will be able to free about one hour everyday to work on it. I will eventually make it official but do not hold your breath, there are many, many hurdles to be overcome first.

Originally Posted by Akira

Mighty Final Fight is awesome.
Also a Street of Rage-like game on Amiga would be really good and very possible.

Street of Rage would be a piece of cake.
I play it from time to time on my Genesis and there is nothing it does that the Amiga cannot, at least for the first installment (I do not have the two others and I refuse to pirate them).
I even suspect that given how little action there is on screen most times that a EHB version would be feasible.

[TurboCrash]

Yes they are all top quality games with very elaborate big sprites, but a bit bland in the gameplay. I think the beat'em up genre can't be sanitized and politically correct. Ok in Captain Commando you could cut your enemies in half with the ninja IIRC. But to be fun these games need more dirty moves, some humor and more interaction with the background have a look at Vendetta/Crime Fighters 2, Combat Tribes, Night Slashers, Violent Storm, Growl, 64th Street: A Detective Story.

I'm not bashing Capcom, I played their beat'em ups when arcades were around, mostly Final Fight, Cadillacs&dinos, The Punisher and Captain Commando. Unfortunately I rarely saw any of those "b series" beat'em ups I mentioned at the arcades.

[Shatterhand]

Streets of Rage 2 would be really troublesome I think, there are some really big sprites with lots of other smaller sprites moving, and also a shitload of frames for each character and enemies.

But the first one, I see no reason why it couldn't be done on amiga (or something similar). It doesn't even run at 60fps if I remember correctly.

[Amiga1992]

The key being "SoR-inspired", let's not keep trying to port games over, rather, let's inspire ourselves in these games to create something from the ground up but with a heavy influence coming from there, all the time having very clear in our minds what the limitations and possibilities of the Amiga are.

In my opinion, to get an SoR-inspired game, all you need to have is some smooth multi layered parallax, an amazing graphic artist (no half assed efforts would be good, and also must know how to pixel stuff in japanese game style), and a great soundtrack. The gameplay is very basic and it's easy to beat the game with some tricks here and there. There's not really that much to level design, but it's simple and fun and that makes me keep going back for more.

[Shatterhand]

I would never try to port or remake a game. I begun remakes twice in my life, and I felt stupid trying to make something that had already been done before, I'd rather do something new but inspirted by something good, as you said

Streets of Rage has no parallax scroll, also no vertical scroll:
[ Show youtube player ]

You just have to design some nice enemies that do a little more than move into your punches.

Edit: Well, it would also be nice to have some extra moves, like a "down+punch" while jump to be a low-range flying attack that doesn't knock down enemies and can be comboed into, grab moves, etc.

You could even have the "punch+jump" special attack done by down-up-button. And jump with up+button.


Of course, you could also add support for 2 button and then controls woud be a no-brainer.

Edit2: Ok, some levels do have some parallax.

[Amiga1992]

Well I am actually talking about SoR2 which is a much better game than SoR1 which I never quite liked. SoR 2 has extra moves.

Working in 2015 on an Amiga game and not making it default to a 2 button controller is kind silly. You need at least a jump + an attack button. Who can't get a Sega controller for an Amiga nowadays?

It would be like making a game that cannot be installed on a hard drive by default, or making a game incompatible with some Amigas (unless higher tech requirements demand it, like use of AGA)

[Shatterhand]

I dunno, I still see a lot of pictures of people using Amigas with 1 button controllers.

My only concern with having lots of moves and enemies it's memory.. if you start having a lot of animation frames, you run out of memory very quickly And I'd like to see the game running with just 1mb.... for nostalgic reasons I guess

I do like the first SoR, though of course SoR 2 trumps all over it.

[Shatterhand]

I have been (slowly) working on my part with some noticeable progress in the last weeks as I ramped up activity (safe for the Xmas pause) but there is still nothing to be shown so obviously I am not going to advertise anything explicitly. I suspect that a few others are in similar situation from what I have read here and there on the EAB.

I am working on something too, *very very* slowly, and learning a lot on the process too. And as I have nothing proper to show, I prefer to not talk about it too. When I have something more solid to show, I'll show it to the world

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Akira

The key being "SoR-inspired", let's not keep trying to port games over, rather, let's inspire ourselves in these games to create something from the ground up but with a heavy influence coming from there, all the time having very clear in our minds what the limitations and possibilities of the Amiga are.

In my opinion, to get an SoR-inspired game, all you need to have is some smooth multi layered parallax, an amazing graphic artist (no half assed efforts would be good, and also must know how to pixel stuff in japanese game style), and a great soundtrack. The gameplay is very basic and it's easy to beat the game with some tricks here and there. There's not really that much to level design, but it's simple and fun and that makes me keep going back for more.

We are drifting off-topic but if Shatterhand allows I will agree with you here that it is important to create Amiga-specific experiences which are not ports.

My focus is on ports because 1) the Amiga had more than its due share of crappy ports and these need a rewrite 2) it is easier to work with existing graphics and gameplays than to create good gameplay, even if it is inspired by a quality product: emulating/improving-upon is harder than strictly reproducing.

Very few "new" Amiga coders have produced original commercial quality games in the past years, I would say that the most notable exception seems to be Mrs Beanbag ("seems" because I have not played Mr Beanbag yet, only watched its YouTube videos) and Phx. And even Phx started from an existing solid base. Many have made solid games but these were ports: Asman, LazyCow, and a few others which I forget. I am sure that these kittens will move to more ambitious projects as they progress.

You have to walk before you can run.

Also, it is nice to have ports of well reputed games from well known platforms on the Amiga, if they are within the machine reach why abstain? I must admit that even if I find zero pleasure when playing Sonic on my Genesis, the thought of porting it on the Amiga is technically salivating. (I have no plans to do that anytime soon though!)

[Cpt. Hindsight]

My all-time arcade favourite of the genre is Growl. There was a Megadrive port, but I can't say if it's any good.

Anyway, one or two more good brawlers for the Amiga would have been very nice.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Akira

Working in 2015 on an Amiga game and not making it default to a 2 button controller is kind silly. You need at least a jump + an attack button. Who can't get a Sega controller for an Amiga nowadays?

Absolutely, but make that _three_ buttons.
It would be completely masochistic nowadays to stick to one button joysticks when the machine supports three and MD pads are available which the Amiga can support all six buttons with the aid of a super cheap adapter (and yet unavailable support code in WHDLoad which I offered to write but nobody wants apparently).

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I dunno, I still see a lot of pictures of people using Amigas with 1 button controllers.

Poor souls... Even in 1989 this was a sad sight.

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

My only concern with having lots of moves and enemies it's memory.. if you start having a lot of animation frames, you run out of memory very quickly And I'd like to see the game running with just 1mb.... for nostalgic reasons I guess

Ninja Warriors and Final Fight have proven that streaming makes this possible even with floppies without loading time. Beat em ups are perfect for streaming.

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by ReadOnlyCat

Ninja Warriors and Final Fight have proven that streaming makes this possible even with floppies without loading time. Beat em ups are perfect for streaming.

I remember Final Fight asking to change disks mid-level, and you could just keep pressing the fire button and moving forward while the game would show the change-disk message... at one point you would get garbled graphics on the backdrops and enemies wouldn't show up anymore.. you could basically skip the whole level doing that, but then the next level would crash if I remember correctly

[s2325]

Atari ST version have even more disk loading.

[Shatterhand]

I didn't mind the disk loading. I did mind the crap gameplay, the lack of music.. and the fact that when a new level loaded, you were already being beaten by enemies. No "Get Ready Player 1" or anything like that.

This was even worse on Double Dragon 2, you start Level 2 and before the screen finished its fading in, you are already laying on the ground beaten by an enemy.

This is game design 101, give the player a few seconds before throwing killing stuff at him at the start of any level. Like I said before, I really respect Richard Aplin programming skills and the completely bonkers job he had while porting those games, but I always felt he had no idea of what makes a good game, he was just a good programmer.

Which I actually think it's the case with a lot of people making Amiga games. There are a lot of "Look at this amazing parallax + copper rainbow + reuse of sprites + realistic physics + 32 colors + 50 fps + any freaking amazing trick" but no gameplay whatsoever to back all those programming tricks.