Mark's CD32 Genre Compilation Project - Platform Games

[kokapetl]

I have begun work in creating a "Platform Games" CD32 compilation using the excellent
"AMIGA CD32 Games Compilation Toolkit" by lennonlives (http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=40027)

I'm looking for suggestions and contributions from you guys!
If this works out well, other compilations are a definite future possibility.

I'll work on keeping it all together and I'll find a way of incorporating a credits list into the resulting compilation.
The plan is to release a beta image once it's all done, then make as many further releases as required.

Work in progress shot:

For the look, I've decided to go with Superfrog as a menu theme.

The vision:
Have it work on an unexpanded CD32.
Preferably steer away from requiring a keyboard but mouse is okay; everyone has a mouse.
I would prefer to steer away from CD32 pads being required where appropriate.
Most CD32 pads aren't that great, everyone has a joystick that they love, and most games don't need it anyway.
Do not to use any pirated WHDLoad etc keys.
WHDLoadCD32 versions or other installs should be used.
Only good games to be included.
As a starting point I've picked pretty much everything that scored 7.0 or above from the lemonamiga site.
We can blur the genre lines a bit regarding games like Ruff 'N' Tumble and Turrican.
If we later work on a "Shoot Em Up" compilation, there can be overlap.
Choose the "best" version of a game.
If we can't decide, maybe have > 1 version (ECS/AGA/CD32) though most CD32 releases were shovelware anyway.
Only to use menu music from games that are actually going to be on the compilation.
Sorry, no Lotus music in this one

Completed:
- Created menu graphics, borrowed/stolen from Team17's Superfrog
- Created a complete screenshot pack in .IFF format of 8792 images (here if you want it: http://tinyurl.com/kbn4j83)

In progress:
- Current build .iso(super pre-alpha, just for people to have a look at): http://tinyurl.com/lbfeqt4
- Completing the actual games and .start, .txt configuration files!
(current list here: http://tinyurl.com/l5vktqk)

- Current Music selection (current list here: http://tinyurl.com/ltqyczd)\
- Proposed Full Games list selection (current list here: http://tinyurl.com/knkbte3)



How to help:
If you have a contribution for a working game, please send me an email to my gmail account.
My account name for this email domain is "rotaryjoystick".

1) Please ensure that the game works under the toolkit. If there are any problems, let me know.
2) Please include the game files, the .start file, the .txt (cheat / description file) and any required special libs or other files and please include whichever version of WHDLoad you used.
3) Let me know which name you want to be credited under (no full names, and the name "Mark" is taken - haha, sorry!)

Please post any suggestions, feedback, ideas, and abuse here.

[sokolovic]

Don't put CD32 version when the music is CDDA. Prefer an AGA version with classic amiga tunes. For example, if you put Zool 2 or Robocod, the CD32 version will lack the music, unlike the 1200 version.

And I hope you'll put Mr Nutz Hoppin Mad. Haven't see this game in any CD32 compilation.

[kokapetl]

Noted. I'm probably going to avoid official CD32 releases in general for a number of reasons and because people who really want them can just have dedicated discs for them. I want the compilation to work for stock unexpanded CD32 consoles and, where possible, to work with a standard 1 or 2-button Amiga joystick which is another reason for going for non-CD32 versions.

Mr Nutz is in the list of planned games. Hopefully the reason that it hasn't been included isn't because no one could get it to work!

...hrrmmm, apparently when you rename a thread's title it doesn't change the thread's name.
any mods feel like doing me a favour?

[Turran]

I was thinking of doing something similar for my CD32 but never got around to. Props if you get it out there =)

[sokolovic]

This is always a thing I've asked to myself. Is it possible to enhance some classic amiga games for the CD32 ?

I was thinking of adding some CDXL anims, CDDA musics and joypad support. Some games like Aladdin could have been terrific on this machine !

[kokapetl]

It's possible, but it would take a lot of effort and work. CDXL and CDDA additions aren't really the kind of thing you'd want for a mass compilation disk anyway, takes up too much space.
Adding buttons in most cases wouldn't be needed.

The only additional button I'd want to add to pretty much any of them is to add the ability to pause the game.
Re-routing a keypress of "P" to the Start button shouldn't be very hard; this is something I will look into.

[sokolovic]

An exit button should be fine also... Plus, when I was thinking of doing a special edition of Aladdin on CD32, I wasn't thinking, in fact, of a compilation...

[DyLucke]

Hello there Kokapetl, it's really nice to know you're working on a new compilation for our CD32 consoles... I wanted to start one myself but i don't have the time to do it.

As it has been stated before, avoid CD-audio game versions.

The list seems pretty complete.

Maybe you could consider to add:

Prince of Persia (OMG! You missed it?)
Indigo
Impossible Mission II
Impossible Mission 2025
Oscar (as long as you added Trolls)
Persian Gulf Inferno (Not sure if it could be considered "platformer")
Total Recall
Liquid Kids
Hudson Hawk
Rolling Thunder
Rolling Ronny
Magic Pockets
The Adventures of Quick and Silva
Dithell in Space
Global Gladiators
Aunt Arctic Adventure
Bagitman
Batman the Movie
Solomon's Key (Recently released ST port, i wonder if it could work on the CD32)
Jumping Jack'Son
Beavers
Yo! Joe
Assassin
Assassin Special Edition
Stormlord
Deliverance Stormlord II
Beyond the Ice Palace
Adventures of Moktar (Original Titus the Fox)
Donk
Bionic Commando
Strider
Strider II
Shinobi
Black Tiger
Sly SPy

Of course, of course... Bucktooth Bob.

Take in consideration ACSYS is AFAIK a demo.

[Amiga1992]

I wish we had a new menu system for this. The one we all use is slow and clunky.
Maybe I should work on one, more simple but efficient!!

[DyLucke]

Bomb Jack
Catch 'Em
C.J.'s Elephant Antics
C.J. in the U.S.A.
First Samurai
Second Samurai
The Amazing Spiderman
Creatures
Bubble Gun
Teeny Weeny's
Mega Twins
Titanic Blinky
Blinky's Scary School
Wonder Boy in Monster Land
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (There are 2 versions AFAIK)
Gold of the Aztecs
Sink or Swim
Metro Cross (ST port)
Indiana Jones Last Crusade ARCADE
Cool Croc Twins
Cosmic Space Head
Shadow Dancer


UFFFF many more coming to my mind.

[sokolovic]

Played yesterday to Quik. Nice, good looking and smooth platformer in AGA. (don't know if it is in the list, since I cannot see the link at work)

[SolderPCB]

Maybe you can test Cool Spot & Global Gladiators

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=62442

[mombasajoe]

Originally Posted by Akira

I wish we had a new menu system for this. The one we all use is slow and clunky.

That´s right. I like the MEGAGAMES menu: Just the title of the game as text, no screenshots.

I´ve made an own slim one for myself but I think it´s not really good for third party use (AMOS DATA lines and you need an compiled GFA-BASIC prg as "trigger" individually for each game)

Just as an impression/ idea:
http://eab.abime.net/attachment.php?...6&d=1329667804

The 200, 350, 444 and 888 compilations are really, really great! Cool work!... but loading times and game selceting times are unfortunately really annoying.

[Bluntman]

Awesome idea, dude! I downloaded a couple of these discs years ago and they were pretty good but a pain to wait for them to load. It seems this new version is full of improvements? Hope it loads up faster!

* a heavily modified and improved custom version of AGS, now called AMS:
- optimized for the AMIGA CD32
- game list allows for an unlimited number of entries
- fast scrolling by 1 step using digital pad
- ultra-fast scrolling by 5 steps using shoulder buttons
- freely assignable data directories
- support for RAM disk caching to improve overall seek times considerably
- support for custom fonts
- improved 256 colour palette to make your screenshots look a little nicer

Can you put games on there that aren't WHDLoad ones? What about some of the newer PD and homebrew games, some of them have been platformers and would surely run on a CD32. Pretty sucky that they were never published on CDs or disks anyway, I woulda bought em.

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by mombasajoe

That´s right. I like the MEGAGAMES menu: Just the title of the game as text, no screenshots.

Dude, YOUR compilation is my favourite, functionality wise, because it's so easy to use and smooth. It's exactly what i'd like to do.

Pictures and all are flashy and cute, but it takes me FOREVER to select a game and play, and I rather have that going faster than look at pretty pictures. All the ones I tried based on AGS suck.

So at some point, I'd love to make my own launcher.

[Retro1234]

What about not including the pictures or text the menu should be faster
With some multi assign script you could probably have an option to turn pictures on or off on boot - maybe by holding down red.

[kokapetl]

Thanks for the interest, discussion, and game suggestions from everyone. I'll choose to take the lack of criticism on my menu artwork as a compliment (which even then may be a compliment to Team17, but I'll take it )

Originally Posted by Boo Boo

What about not including the pictures or text the menu should be faster. With some multi assign script you could probably have an option to turn pictures on or off on boot - maybe by holding down red.

Originally Posted by Akira

I wish we had a new menu system for this. The one we all use is slow and clunky.
Maybe I should work on one, more simple but efficient!!
...
Pictures and all are flashy and cute, but it takes me FOREVER to select a game and play, and I rather have that going faster than look at pretty pictures. All the ones I tried based on AGS suck.

This is definitely important to me too, but so far it seems to be running fine. The toolkit I'm using has AMS as its core (modified version of AGS that is much faster). It's so fast that if you have too few games (less than about 15) it's very hard to stop on the game you want because the scroller easily skips past it! I agree though, I would rather have a single module (or no music) or pictures if all the sparkle meant having to spend 2 minutes scrolling through to the game you want. I'm hoping AMS will scale well, but if extreme sacrifices have to be made, holding down red on boot would be a nice way to have both.

Originally Posted by sokolovic

An exit button should be fine also... Plus, when I was thinking of doing a special edition of Aladdin on CD32, I wasn't thinking, in fact, of a compilation...

Exiting from WHDLoad tends to be flaky, if not on the dismount - then when you expect to do anything else without wanting to meditate first, so I think I'll leave it. Quik is on the list.

Originally Posted by DyLucke

I wanted to start one myself but i don't have the time to do it. ...

Same here, really. Telling everyone about it is a way to force me to eventually finish it and get some feedback / help along the way Thanks for your list, I'll definitely check through them. I was going to limit the compilation to english language games - but I can always just add a note next to the title or something saying (Polish), (Spanish) or whatever else.

Originally Posted by Bluntman

Can you put games on there that aren't WHDLoad ones? What about some of the newer PD and homebrew games, some of them have been platformers and would surely run on a CD32. Pretty sucky that they were never published on CDs or disks anyway, I woulda bought em.

I can; the install I have of Superfrog is just the files actually. If the PD and homebrew games are really good, I might put some on there.

Originally Posted by Sandro

whdload or floppy some games do not works on the cd32 for unknown reasons

If a game install works first try (and a lot do), then having it all done is little more than copying some files across and making a nice intro text. When it doesn't work out of the box is when you've got some work to do.

[kokapetl]

I added a very premature .iso to the opening post of where the project is currently up to. Please have a look and tell me what you think.

Also, can anyone help me work out why Rod-land takes over a minute to load between levels?!
Odd that the Zool games and Fire & Ice games appear out of order on the iso's menu, but not while testing (at least the Rick games are still correct though).

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by kokapetl

I'm using has AMS as its core (modified version of AGS that is much faster). It's so fast that if you have too few games (less than about 15) it's very hard to stop on the game you want because the scroller easily skips past it!

Was it fast tested on a CD-32 or on an emulator? Because that would make a huge difference.

[edit] Tested the image on my CD32. Yeah, the scrolling is really fast, but still, it's unresponsive, as you described. Also this will turn really nasty with more games added. It took a while too boot too which is anotehr griupe I have with AGS/AMS. Your time from bootuup to game start is way too long.

In all, it's looking good so far! But the limitations of AGS/AMS will soon appear. We need some serious development for a lightweight, fast, reliable menu system for multigame CD32 discs.

[kokapetl]

Originally Posted by Akira

Tested the image on my CD32. Yeah, the scrolling is really fast, but still, it's unresponsive, as you described. Also this will turn really nasty with more games added. It took a while too boot too which is anotehr griupe I have with AGS/AMS. Your time from bootuup to game start is way too long.

In all, it's looking good so far! But the limitations of AGS/AMS will soon appear. We need some serious development for a lightweight, fast, reliable menu system for multigame CD32 discs.

Thanks for the kind words and for testing! My CD32 is currently in a box, so I've been using an emulator with accurate CPU timing ticked. In what way was the menu unresponsive?

If you don't mind checking some games - Does Rick Dangerous from this iso have graphical glitches on a real CD32? When playing on emulator, there were ghosting problems with the graphics from the big rolling boulder at the beginning of the game. Was Rod-Land playable?

I haven't made a compilation before, so I'm unaware of any limitations of AGS/AMS not scaling well - I guess I'll find out soon if there are though!