[WIP] Galaxian conversion - Page 5

jotd · 16 June 2023, 14:17

thanks! Update is pending to fix what Stuart reported (doesn't change gameplay)

Bren McGuire · 17 June 2023, 02:30

amazing work! can we have gaplus/galaga'90 next? that would look alot more amiga-ish

jotd · 17 June 2023, 08:38

I was thinking maybe Galaga, but Galaga 88/90 is a different kind of fish. I wouldn't want to Tiertex it.

There's a X68000 version of Galaga 88. Did anyone attempt to port a X68000 game? I mean the machine is clearly more powerful, but a game like Galaga would possibly not exploit the machine at its max and could be doabe.

Pyromania · 17 June 2023, 08:54

@jotd

Just read you learned to code two years ago. You're doing fantastic, I would have never known if you didn't mention it. What resources or books did you use to learn Amiga coding please. Inquiring minds would like to know.

jotd · 17 June 2023, 09:35

Well, it's not exactly true and maybe you're going to be disappointed

I've coded Amoric (Oric 8 bit computer emulator) in 1996 alongside with JST (before that I was hacking on A500/AR3). Then moved on to whdload slaves & game debugging. Then I coded retro-games in java, c++/SDL for modern platforms. All that gives solid background for amiga game coding.

I started coding real games for Amiga 2 years ago if you don't account for Bagman (C++, slow, I may redo it some day)... What is true is that now I've found my development model and sticking to it (python to generate sound/gfx assets, vasm to build, winuae to test). I also refused to do any amiga coding "from scratch" for all those years because I considered that too difficult, but the games I've ported are early arcade games that don't have all the challenges of Strider or other 8-way scrollers, or Final Fight or Raiden, Project-X...

So about the resources, I'd say "Amiga bible" for starters in 1992 something. Then guru book (not useful for games coding), a lot of talking with the living bibles out there on EAB (mcgeezer, A/B, ross, roondar, stingray, paraj, robinsonb5...) and experimenting a lot.

TjLaZer · 20 June 2023, 08:37

Testing the latest version. On my A500 ECS NTSC it hangs (yes I set it to PAL mode first) Previous beta works fine on it.

AnimaInCorpore · 20 June 2023, 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

There's a X68000 version of Galaga 88. Did anyone attempt to port a X68000 game? I mean the machine is clearly more powerful, but a game like Galaga would possibly not exploit the machine at its max and could be doabe.

[ Show youtube player ]

jotd · 20 June 2023, 10:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnimaInCorpore

[ Show youtube player ]

is there some source? We know about a lot of ports to Atari (Pole Position...) but since source is never released, it's not very helpful.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TjLaZer

Testing the latest version. On my A500 ECS NTSC it hangs (yes I set it to PAL mode first) Previous beta works fine on it.

There's a random startup bug on low memory machines that I have to find.

Cris1997XX · 20 June 2023, 15:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

is there some source? We know about a lot of ports to Atari (Pole Position...) but since source is never released, it's not very helpful.

Actually, now that you mention it...how about an Amiga port of Pole Position? Someone converted it for Atari STE some time ago and it's awesome, almost on par with the arcade

saimon69 · 20 June 2023, 19:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

is there some source? We know about a lot of ports to Atari (Pole Position...) but since source is never released, it's not very helpful.

You can get in touch with the coder of the revamp of Outrun on Atari STE if he can give you the sources to port it

tomcat666 · 21 June 2023, 15:13

Patched galaxian 500 working perfectly fine on pistorm32:

[ Show youtube player ]

Thanx to amigo/binary for helping out with searching for the cause. The cause is that pistorm32 sometimes needs double interrupt acknowledge (aparently it is a problem with some other 040 accelerators too). Devs of pistorm will check what can be done and what is the cause of this problem, hopefully someone can help out too, if anyone has experience with the problem?

Maybe this simple fix would also fix Xevious bug on pistorm32

jotd · 21 June 2023, 15:57

probably! good find. Will update both games officially

tomcat666 · 21 June 2023, 16:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

probably! good find. Will update both games officially

Thanx

We will see if something can be done on the pistorm end too, might also fix some other problematic demos and games.

jotd · 22 June 2023, 22:45

updated. With some other enhancements btw.

It appears that the arcade record holder played my version and loved it

He also reported a bug about the difficulty not increasing with the levels, and it turns out he was right! so I've fixed all that.

(Xevious also got an update BTW)

paraj · 22 June 2023, 22:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

updated. With some other enhancements btw.

It appears that the arcade record holder played my version and loved it

He also reported a bug about the difficulty not increasing with the levels, and it turns out he was right! so I've fixed all that.

(Xevious also got an update BTW)

Very nice! Also shows that even with great effort from the main coder(s), good QA really helps. Probably doesn't get much better than the an record holder playing the game, but also quick shotout to testers of killing cloud and TFXAGA from me.

Getting something working is only half the battle so major props for seeing both of those projects to the end!

Pyromania · 22 June 2023, 23:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

updated. With some other enhancements btw.

It appears that the arcade record holder played my version and loved it

He also reported a bug about the difficulty not increasing with the levels, and it turns out he was right! so I've fixed all that.

(Xevious also got an update BTW)

Now it’s even harder to play? Ouches!

jotd · 22 June 2023, 23:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by paraj

Very nice! Also shows that even with great effort from the main coder(s), good QA really helps. Probably doesn't get much better than the an record holder playing the game, but also quick shotout to testers of killing cloud and TFXAGA from me.

Getting something working is only half the battle so major props for seeing both of those projects to the end!

yes, exposing your work to the community is a must do!

And always Murphy"s law. Some bug goes unnoticed because it doesn't crash the game and is barely noticeable but to experts!

tomcat666 · 23 June 2023, 06:45

Thanks for the updated versions. Now both Galaxian500 and Xevious work perfectly without any issues on pistorm32

Lots of users happy.

Thanks for releasing the source code. It made me look into it and get help with the patching to see what is causing it. In the end everyone is better off.

If (or better when) this gets fixed on the pistorm side it might fix some other games that have problems with gfx and audio because of unack-ed interrupts

We will soon see the impact.

TCD · 23 June 2023, 08:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

yes, exposing your work to the community is a must do!

Pyromania · 14 July 2023, 06:49

Rampage would be a good game to convert to Amiga.

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16 June 2023, 14:17	#81
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,367	thanks! Update is pending to fix what Stuart reported (doesn't change gameplay)

17 June 2023, 02:30	#82
Bren McGuire Registered User Join Date: Nov 2019 Location: Croydon Posts: 594	amazing work! can we have gaplus/galaga'90 next? that would look alot more amiga-ish

17 June 2023, 08:38	#83
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,367	I was thinking maybe Galaga, but Galaga 88/90 is a different kind of fish. I wouldn't want to Tiertex it. There's a X68000 version of Galaga 88. Did anyone attempt to port a X68000 game? I mean the machine is clearly more powerful, but a game like Galaga would possibly not exploit the machine at its max and could be doabe.

17 June 2023, 08:54	#84
Pyromania Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 3,389	@jotd Just read you learned to code two years ago. You're doing fantastic, I would have never known if you didn't mention it. What resources or books did you use to learn Amiga coding please. Inquiring minds would like to know.

17 June 2023, 09:35	#85
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,367	Well, it's not exactly true and maybe you're going to be disappointed I've coded Amoric (Oric 8 bit computer emulator) in 1996 alongside with JST (before that I was hacking on A500/AR3). Then moved on to whdload slaves & game debugging. Then I coded retro-games in java, c++/SDL for modern platforms. All that gives solid background for amiga game coding. I started coding real games for Amiga 2 years ago if you don't account for Bagman (C++, slow, I may redo it some day)... What is true is that now I've found my development model and sticking to it (python to generate sound/gfx assets, vasm to build, winuae to test). I also refused to do any amiga coding "from scratch" for all those years because I considered that too difficult, but the games I've ported are early arcade games that don't have all the challenges of Strider or other 8-way scrollers, or Final Fight or Raiden, Project-X... So about the resources, I'd say "Amiga bible" for starters in 1992 something. Then guru book (not useful for games coding), a lot of talking with the living bibles out there on EAB (mcgeezer, A/B, ross, roondar, stingray, paraj, robinsonb5...) and experimenting a lot.

20 June 2023, 08:37	#86
TjLaZer Registered User Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Tacoma, WA USA Age: 52 Posts: 1,927	Testing the latest version. On my A500 ECS NTSC it hangs (yes I set it to PAL mode first) Previous beta works fine on it.

21 June 2023, 15:13	#91
tomcat666 Retro Freak Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Slovenia Age: 51 Posts: 1,665	Patched galaxian 500 working perfectly fine on pistorm32: [ Show youtube player ] Thanx to amigo/binary for helping out with searching for the cause. The cause is that pistorm32 sometimes needs double interrupt acknowledge (aparently it is a problem with some other 040 accelerators too). Devs of pistorm will check what can be done and what is the cause of this problem, hopefully someone can help out too, if anyone has experience with the problem? Maybe this simple fix would also fix Xevious bug on pistorm32

21 June 2023, 15:57	#92
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,367	probably! good find. Will update both games officially

22 June 2023, 22:45	#94
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,367	updated. With some other enhancements btw. It appears that the arcade record holder played my version and loved it He also reported a bug about the difficulty not increasing with the levels, and it turns out he was right! so I've fixed all that. (Xevious also got an update BTW)

23 June 2023, 06:45	#98
tomcat666 Retro Freak Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Slovenia Age: 51 Posts: 1,665	Thanks for the updated versions. Now both Galaxian500 and Xevious work perfectly without any issues on pistorm32 Lots of users happy. Thanks for releasing the source code. It made me look into it and get help with the patching to see what is causing it. In the end everyone is better off. If (or better when) this gets fixed on the pistorm side it might fix some other games that have problems with gfx and audio because of unack-ed interrupts We will soon see the impact.

14 July 2023, 06:49	#100
Pyromania Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 3,389	Rampage would be a good game to convert to Amiga.

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