English Amiga Board - View Single Post - Modern retro-styled games

PortuguesePilot · 01 February 2016, 18:33

The issue is that many of these games only look, sound and/or feel retro, but underneath they're modern games, using recent coding techniques and often using colour pallets that exceed those of the humble OCS and even those of AGA. Or they use surprisingly complex physics that would present a real challenge to Amiga processors. Some of them even make call of the graphic cards and the RAM speed of current hardware. Or resort to stuff like DirectX.

Plus, because they're so simplistic, they're easy-peasy for current-day processors but would load considerably the humble 68000 and some would even present a hefty load on a 68060. Plus, precisely because the current-gen of processors has no difficulty playing these retro games, authors sometimes don't optimize the code. An example is the original Spelunky which looks like a 1994 game yet struggles to play at half the frames per second on a Pentium IV @ 1GHz.

So, apart from some very rare (and highly commendable) exceptions, I reckon that porting most of these neo-reto (is that a thing?) game to the Amiga proves to be too hard a task. Most of the time it would mean that someone would have to start almost from scratch like Master484 is doing with Megaman X, which is a Herculean task.

There's also the aspect of size. Many of these neo-retro games weigh on the few hundred megabytes, which now-a-days is considered light, but in Amiga context it's considered huge. Porting 5MB+ of data to disks is nigh-on-impossible, rendreing many of these games HD-only, which would narrow down significantly the amaount of Amiga-users that would be able to use them on real hardware. If we're to play those games on UAE, then why go though all the trouble of porting, then? Just buy the PC version and play it instead. So, IMO, in order to be worth the port, the game should be playable - at least - on an A1200.

I would also like to see 68000 OCS or at least 68020 AGA ports of some of these charming games such as Cave Story, Spelunky, Undertale, Gemini Rue, GeneRally, Akuji the Demon, Ikachan, La Mulana, Super Meat Boy, Super Crate Box, Pink Hour, The Journey Down and many, many others, but I understand the steep challenge (and, in some cases, the utter impossibility) of porting them correctly to the Amiga.

01 February 2016, 18:33	#11
PortuguesePilot Global Moderator Join Date: May 2013 Location: Setúbal, Portugal Posts: 611	The issue is that many of these games only look, sound and/or feel retro, but underneath they're modern games, using recent coding techniques and often using colour pallets that exceed those of the humble OCS and even those of AGA. Or they use surprisingly complex physics that would present a real challenge to Amiga processors. Some of them even make call of the graphic cards and the RAM speed of current hardware. Or resort to stuff like DirectX. Plus, because they're so simplistic, they're easy-peasy for current-day processors but would load considerably the humble 68000 and some would even present a hefty load on a 68060. Plus, precisely because the current-gen of processors has no difficulty playing these retro games, authors sometimes don't optimize the code. An example is the original Spelunky which looks like a 1994 game yet struggles to play at half the frames per second on a Pentium IV @ 1GHz. So, apart from some very rare (and highly commendable) exceptions, I reckon that porting most of these neo-reto (is that a thing?) game to the Amiga proves to be too hard a task. Most of the time it would mean that someone would have to start almost from scratch like Master484 is doing with Megaman X, which is a Herculean task. There's also the aspect of size. Many of these neo-retro games weigh on the few hundred megabytes, which now-a-days is considered light, but in Amiga context it's considered huge. Porting 5MB+ of data to disks is nigh-on-impossible, rendreing many of these games HD-only, which would narrow down significantly the amaount of Amiga-users that would be able to use them on real hardware. If we're to play those games on UAE, then why go though all the trouble of porting, then? Just buy the PC version and play it instead. So, IMO, in order to be worth the port, the game should be playable - at least - on an A1200. I would also like to see 68000 OCS or at least 68020 AGA ports of some of these charming games such as Cave Story, Spelunky, Undertale, Gemini Rue, GeneRally, Akuji the Demon, Ikachan, La Mulana, Super Meat Boy, Super Crate Box, Pink Hour, The Journey Down and many, many others, but I understand the steep challenge (and, in some cases, the utter impossibility) of porting them correctly to the Amiga.