Wonder Dog: an unfinished Rush job?

[saimon69]

I do like to see longplays on youtube often and like in particular the games of Core, including the aforementioned Wonder Dog one, also because the darn cool Martin Iveson Soundtrack that with funky and fusion put itself above the usual demoscene style of music.

However the more i see the game the more i think that was planned to be better than it came out: in some levels like Bunny Hop Meadow you can see how the parallax background seemed supposedly to have more slices with different speed, and the weird dogville perspective make think that maybe a Lionheart fake perspective was supposed to happen there; plus the obvious music or sound effects part (patched if i remember by someone lately).

Is still a more than average platformer but i feel like if those touches were implemented it might have stand up a bit more than now.

so i wonder if those features were omitted due to cutting development, to a change of focus from Core management or just am having a wrong impression.

I know Dan is here and maybe can tell more of the backstory of it that I (not siure if was already posted) don't know about.

[DanScott]

Your assumptions are half correct...

On the Mega-CD version, the background layer did have several speeds of parallax, but on Amiga this was not possible, as the "sprites" (bobs) were drawn to the background layer, so this would not have been easily possible.

Like Chuck Rock 2, this is a game that I would have loved to have done a specific AGA (A1200) port of... it quite probably could have retained a LOT of what made the Mega-CD version so appealing.. but never got a chance for that... Wonderdog was actually knocked out in around 2 to 3 months from start to finish, and the only reason it actually got made for the Amiga, was because I had promised the boss that I could get it out in that time-frame

[DanScott]

And yes, Martin's soundtrack is awesome.. wish I'd kept the 3 channel music + 1 channel sfx system from Chuck Rock 2 though

[saimon69]

According to a recent interview on The Retro Hour it was actually a two channel music, one channel of background noise (in the mod file) and then the last channel for SFX

[saimon69]

if i watch the Mega CD longplay i realized Wonder Dog walks ABOVE the background elements while on amiga walks BEHIND those ^^

[jotd]

DanScott: just play the CD32 version with audio tracks that I made: it has music AND sfx on CD32 hardware that's the first CD32 audio game I converted (well I think you seen it). So justice is done for that game 20 years later.

[Pyromania]

@jotd,

Thanx, I'll check that version out too. Too bad it never got some AGA makeup for the A1200 & CD32.

[kriz]

JOTD: Is it this one ? ftp://ftp:any@grandis.nu/Commodore_A...d32.co.uk].zip

[kriz]

Also Is this hack by Earok: WonderDog SE 1.0ftp://ftp:any@grandis.nu/Commodore_A...k_by_Earok.lha (Cracked by Classic, trainer by MST. Palette and control hacks by Earok 2016.

Updated in 2018.)

[jotd]

Oh I forgot that Earok provided the alternate palette and the audio tracks for that one too
He contributed to several whdload slaves and even to cd32load (virtual keyboard). Helpful chap! (also write cool games, I guess that helps)

The control hack in that one is pretty trivial, though: just remove "up" signal, and replace it by second button signal. Earok did a very good job in Ruff N Tumble where there are ladders, so you have to be slightly more aware of the surroundings when you hack controls.

[Cobe]

Was that cd32&cdda version ever confirmed to work on real cd32?
Last time I tried it didn't. Was there some new version afterwards that I missed?

[jotd]

I'm going to update with newest CD32load which has better features & more robust cd play and all. I'll burn a CD and will test. I see no reason why it wouldn't work, but at the time I created it my CD32 was not working so I never really tested that one (I tested all the other ones!)

[jotd]

burned a disc with latest CD32load v0.49 and it works perfectly on real hardware

http://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1267924&postcount=1

press "blue" at startup to enable trainer (the screen will flash in blue).
press "red+blue+yellow+green" during game to skip levels

[Cobe]

Great!

I've added intro anim from megacd version so now we have complete cd32 version. Here's link:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1uC...VCytrQjfnw0ZSP