Addams Family port/remake?

[TCD]

Addams Family: 256x208
Toki: 224x200

[Retro1234]

Thank you Mr TCD I was just assuming if they wanted parallax the same size screen as Toki would be needed.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Thank you Mr TCD I was just assuming if they wanted parallax the same size screen as Toki would be needed.

The size of the screen on Toki has 2 reasons :

1. The game was made for 512kb machines. with 1mb, the screen would have been bigger.

2. The amiga code was also shared with the ST version.

[Retro1234]

I think its probably more to do with the way the parallax is done, i.e having to redraw the background etc is a slow process.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

I think its probably more to do with the way the parallax is done, i.e having to redraw the background etc is a slow process.

Toki use a software dual playfield.

[Retro1234]

Exactly its very CPU intensive.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Exactly its very CPU intensive.

Toki operates without slowdowns, with all the sprites (almost) from the arcade.

[Retro1234]

Basically the way Toki does the parallax is very CPU intensive and a small screen helps a bigger screen would be even more CPU intensive.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Basically the way Toki does the parallax is very CPU intensive and a small screen helps a bigger screen would be even more CPU intensive.

It's a 1 x 16 colors playfield with a second 8 colors playfield + copper palettes.

I even wonder why no coders used this in other games.

[Megalomaniac]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

Another fun point is that Pierre Adane told me in 2018 (i met him in Paris), that he never understood why in UK some coders always started first on ST and then porting on Amiga ; he explained me that it was easier to simply from the Amiga to the ST, than starting on ST simple to then make something more complex on the Amiga ; He then ensued that this recipe just could not work, and that you'll always end with a correct ST version but with a bad or not exploiting the Amiga at his best.

Then in conclusion, he told me the examples of Toki and Pang ; for Pang, they made both version together, with the Amiga as lead machine, with the main logic and code identical on the ST and Amiga, with a single difference, each routine hardware used on the Amiga was converted to run in software in 20-25fps on the ST.

I understand him in the sense that it's better to have 2 very good versions instead of having on correct version on ST running at what it can, and a crap and borked, sabotaged version on the Amiga.

For him the english method of coding was a nonsense, pure and simple. Coders never had the time to work correctly when starting on the ST, because once the ST version was done, they had no time to make the Amiga version with better graphical aspect or even faster.

By the time The Addams Family was released, the Amiga version probably accounted for twice as many UK sales and 3 times as many global sales as the ST version, but for most of the lifespan of 'lame ST ports' that probably wasn't the case. ST Format outsold Amiga Format when they first launched in late 1989, remember.

Conversions and licenses particularly probably lost very few sales on the Amiga for not pushing the system, at least until stuff like Shadow of the Beast and Battle Squadron were out there to prove that (at least for arcade games) the Amiga could do more.

Leading with the ST also made it easier to release all versions simultaneously, so one ad in C&VG / ACE etc cover all five systems, and every version was on the shelves together. Removing blitter effects and hardware scrolling usage was probably a lot harder than adding them - notice how, as the ST did decline in 92-93, the last games it got were mostly conversions of Amiga stuff which didn't use the Amiga's special hardware, so was quicker and easier to port down.

[BigD]

My last ST game was Lemmings 2 and that WAS very much a poor Amiga port to the ST. I mean there really needed to be an option to have sound effects only/music only for ST rather than having the music cut abruptly when the Lemmings got hurt or leaped into the exit! Horrible! I still completed it with a Bronze! I must have had more patience then!

[Retro1234]

iirc Liquid Kids has a small screen, also no parallax.

[CCCP alert]

I looked at the SNES versions, on the starting screen the background is barely noticeable but in the other screens some of them look possible to replicate with 4 16 colour sprites re-used as a background layer like many other games did.

The Amiga version looks unfinished, "where is the backgrounds?" "we ran out of time!" etc

Wiz and Liz has the same problem, nice enough but those solid single colour backgrounds are a bit 8-bit looking. I would never pay 30 bucks for either game on Amiga.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

iirc Liquid Kids has a small screen, also no parallax.

That's what you get with an Amiga 512kb of ram.

For a bigger screen = bigger ram requirement = you need 1mb of ram.

[Retro1234]

Probably wouldnt make much difference hardware scrolling.

But really for the way Toki does parallax it makes a difference.

I was only pointing out the similarity in these Ocean games - possibly using the same engine/code.

[squirminator2k]

Originally Posted by CCCP alert

Wiz and Liz has the same problem, nice enough but those solid single colour backgrounds are a bit 8-bit looking. I would never pay 30 bucks for either game on Amiga.

This is an odd comparison considering the Mega Drive version of Wiz 'n' Liz - the only other system the game was released on - also had solid-color backgrounds.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Retro1234

Probably wouldnt make much difference hardware scrolling.

But really for the way Toki does parallax it makes a difference.

I was only pointing out the similarity in these Ocean games - possibly using the same engine/code.

Michel Janicki has done a truly great job on Toki. His parallax in software should be a reference really.

[Retro1234]

Yeah Tokis great conversion
Software Parallax could really go to another level on faster CPUs.

[Megalomaniac]

There's no way a 1Mb Amiga-hardware-using version of The Addams Family couldn't have smooth scrolling, a fullsize screen and all the backgrounds of the ST version. Plenty of games smoothly scrolled 32 colour screens with parallax scrolling in 512k, let alone 1Mb. It's sad that Ocean didn't allow extra time for that to be done, the days of software limited by the ST should have been long behind us by then.

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by squirminator2k

This is an odd comparison considering the Mega Drive version of Wiz 'n' Liz - the only other system the game was released on - also had solid-color backgrounds.

My point is that solid black backgrounds to me look like old old 8bit games from the early-mid 80s, like Spellbound. Even on the 8bit machines games that didn't do this, like Foxx Fights Back, were much better received, solid black backgrounds were first/second gen 8bit titles like Dark Sceptre where it was OK .

It's the difference between Blagger and Manic Miner really for me, visually speaking.