Scorpion Engine

[earok]

Originally Posted by TCD

Congratulation on the new release Very impressive that you still find ways to improve the performance

Thanks TCD, I appreciate it

There's a lot of Blitz code left to be rewritten in ASM, and possibly a lot of optimisations I haven't thought of yet, so hopefully it'll continue becoming smoother over time.

[earok]

Did a few check ins for the 2024.1 experimental version which may break things - I've been abstracting the code a bit so panels and talkpads on Amiga and Mega Drive share more of the same code (and thus there's fewer places where a feature or optimisation is only available on one platform or another, also it should keep it a bit easier to maintain with NeoGeo support looming).

It's very early in the experimental cycle so I may continue doing riskier stuff until it's time to get a new public release out there.

[earok]

Added new pattern movement feature to the experimental build.

[ Show youtube player ]

[earok]

I wanted to apologise for the lack of update notes recently - I've been focused on Neo Geo support lately, I'll get back into the habit of more frequent updates here once the Neo Geo side is a bit more stable and feature complete.

[earok]

Well overdue for an update.

Neo Geo / CD support is now official, albeit pre-alpha.

[ Show youtube player ]

Other updates:

- Can open sproject files directly from the Windows shell.
- Removed background tickbox from the animations tab. Instead, all sprites with a z-order of -1000 or less will be in the background.
- Pico-8 import support has been restored.
- Control1_HitButtons tells you which buttons have just been pressed.
- "Prevent Attack" toggle in the animation tab, allowing you to make it so some animations prevent the player from attacking.
- Added ability to view a level in the actor tab (mainly so that you can align the pattern movement type).
- "Alias" variable type (eg, you could make a variable called "actor_health" which is an alias for "actor_var1")
- Various bug fixes.

[jotd]

This will possibly allow to create great games with lesser overhead as the tile/sprite engine of the NeoGeo is less prone to tricks than the amiga (well I suppose that there are but...)

So probably less overhead of the engine compared to the amiga version and great games or ports!

Well done.

[S0ulA55a551n]

Originally Posted by earok

Well overdue for an update.

Neo Geo / CD support is now official, albeit pre-alpha.

[ Show youtube player ]

Other updates:

- Can open sproject files directly from the Windows shell.
- Removed background tickbox from the animations tab. Instead, all sprites with a z-order of -1000 or less will be in the background.
- Pico-8 import support has been restored.
- Control1_HitButtons tells you which buttons have just been pressed.
- "Prevent Attack" toggle in the animation tab, allowing you to make it so some animations prevent the player from attacking.
- Added ability to view a level in the actor tab (mainly so that you can align the pattern movement type).
- "Alias" variable type (eg, you could make a variable called "actor_health" which is an alias for "actor_var1")
- Various bug fixes.

So not followed this for awhile. Do the multiple systems allow you to create a game once and export it to amiga/mega-drive/neo-geo without change ? and then futher allow you to branch to add hardware specific extras ?

[earok]

@jotd Thanks! In general I've found the Neo Geo to be very simple to work with, and the sprite capabilities are fantastic.

@S0ulA55a551n To a degree. All of the game samples are intended to work across Amiga/Mega Drive/NeoGeo, but they've all received some platform specific work in areas such as music and parallax to fit each system's capabilities. The Gothicvania sample has three layers of parallax on Neo Geo, two on AGA, one on Mega Drive.

[Amigajay]

Great news! Wish i kept my Neo-Geo CDZ now it opens the floodgates for quicker and easier homebrew!

[earok]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Great news! Wish i kept my Neo-Geo CDZ now it opens the floodgates for quicker and easier homebrew!

Hey AmigaJay, it's been a long time!

If you're ever up for doing NeoGeo homebrew CDs, do give me a nudge. Might be an interesting challenge to see if a homebrew launcher is possible (unless someone's done it already)

I'm still waiting to get, I've been pledged a NeoGeo CD+SD reader by a generous supporter but I may also get a consolised MVS.

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by earok

Hey AmigaJay, it's been a long time!

If you're ever up for doing NeoGeo homebrew CDs, do give me a nudge. Might be an interesting challenge to see if a homebrew launcher is possible (unless someone's done it already)

I'm still waiting to get, I've been pledged a NeoGeo CD+SD reader by a generous supporter but I may also get a consolised MVS.

Yeah, it’s been a while! I miss those CD32 game fixing discussions!

Never say never, although it’s a different beast to the Amiga. Homebrew wise there isn’t very much at the minute, with only 3-4 active people doing 1-2 games a year on average, and a couple of commercial games sold in the last few years too. But i can see this program opening the floodgates to the Neo-Geo scene, very exciting!

I have tried your program a couple of times, but my brain can’t get into gear, i think if i was 18 again i would have the patience to create and learn something from it, but i can’t play a game for more than 10 minutes at a time now so it’s really not gonna happen now