Death Trap (doesn't make sense)

[blade002]

Not a major issue but it has kind of boggled my mind ever since I first saw this game for the Amiga.

It has an astonishingly good looking intro scroll with weather patterns, a ton of colours and a beautiful parallax routine that has great depth.

So WTF happened to the actual game which is nothing like the impressive routines of the intro?

[gimbal]

Another game I need to add to the A500 mini, never played it. Looks like a lot of fun. Boy I missed out on a lot back in the day, that's what you get when you're stuck in RPGs all the time.

[rothers]

It's likely that was a demo made by the programmer, and he just wanted to put it somewhere.

[gimbal]

Looks like an early version of pre-rendered intro sequences It's not like it was unusual in the 90's and 00's that pre-rendering would make promotional material look far better than the game itself.

[vulture]

I could be wrong, of course, but it looks real time to me.

[gimbal]

Define "real time". It's not video of course like you would see on the PC, but it is nothing more than animating sprites and music playing. No AI, no collision detection, no input reading, no game.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Define "real time". It's not video of course like you would see on the PC, but it is nothing more than animating sprites and music playing. No AI, no collision detection, no input reading, no game.

Like this is 'real time': [ Show youtube player ]
Btw, is StingRay still around?

[vulture]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Define "real time". It's not video of course like you would see on the PC, but it is nothing more than animating sprites and music playing. No AI, no collision detection, no input reading, no game.

Yes, it's not a game, it's an intro. There shouldn't be any AI or input reading or collision detection. But it's not a pre-rendered anim, at least, it doesn't look like it is.

[Master484]

The intro of Death Trap is indeed impressive, and I can confirm that it's running in "real time". So no pre-rendering or pre-shifting tricks here.

For those who wonder how it's done, here is a quick explanation:

It uses Dual Playfield, so it has background and foreground Playfields that are both full screen size, and that both have 8 colors, and that can be scrolled over each other for free. Also these playfields can be split into many horizontal segments, that can be scrolled individually at different speeds; this how the "depth" of the scrolling is achieved.

So for example in the top part we have a Front Playfield cloud layer scrolling over a Back Playfield cloud layer. And then in the middle we have Front Playfield islands scrolling over a Back Playfield sea and mountains. And then below this we have the brown rocks; the top part of them are in the Front Playfield (so that they can scroll over the sea), and the bottom part of the rocks and the road below them is again in the Back Playfield. And then in the very bottom there is one more Front Playfield section, scrolling over the Back Playfield road.

And the Player character is a sprite, located between the playfields. And finally, a lot of copper commands are used to make those 8 colors look a lot nicer.

The only parts that are actually drawn, are those up and down moving sea sections, which seem to be updated one at a time, and so the whole thing can still easily run at 50 FPS.

---

Now, could the whole game been made this way ? Yes, but then the game could scroll only left and right instead of having large 8-way scrolling maps. And a lots of trickery would have been needed for enemy placement and stuff, because everything is so complex, and the front playfield is divided into those horizontal segments, and everything in the front playfield has to share those same 8 colors, and so on.

So this is why the actual game uses a 32 color mode single playfield instead. But still, that too runs at 50 FPS, great graphics and very solid gameplay. One of the hidden gems on the Amiga in my opinion.

[kremiso]

thank you @Master484
i was asking something similar recently :
Death Trap

---
that intro is one of the best attract mode ever
needs to be made finally playable

great to see it running, on just ocs and full screen!

[Galahad/FLT]

Originally Posted by Master484

The intro of Death Trap is indeed impressive, and I can confirm that it's running in "real time". So no pre-rendering or pre-shifting tricks here.

For those who wonder how it's done, here is a quick explanation:

It uses Dual Playfield, so it has background and foreground Playfields that are both full screen size, and that both have 8 colors, and that can be scrolled over each other for free. Also these playfields can be split into many horizontal segments, that can be scrolled individually at different speeds; this how the "depth" of the scrolling is achieved.

So for example in the top part we have a Front Playfield cloud layer scrolling over a Back Playfield cloud layer. And then in the middle we have Front Playfield islands scrolling over a Back Playfield sea and mountains. And then below this we have the brown rocks; the top part of them are in the Front Playfield (so that they can scroll over the sea), and the bottom part of the rocks and the road below them is again in the Back Playfield. And then in the very bottom there is one more Front Playfield section, scrolling over the Back Playfield road.

And the Player character is a sprite, located between the playfields. And finally, a lot of copper commands are used to make those 8 colors look a lot nicer.

The only parts that are actually drawn, are those up and down moving sea sections, which seem to be updated one at a time, and so the whole thing can still easily run at 50 FPS.

---

Now, could the whole game been made this way ? Yes, but then the game could scroll only left and right instead of having large 8-way scrolling maps. And a lots of trickery would have been needed for enemy placement and stuff, because everything is so complex, and the front playfield is divided into those horizontal segments, and everything in the front playfield has to share those same 8 colors, and so on.

So this is why the actual game uses a 32 color mode single playfield instead. But still, that too runs at 50 FPS, great graphics and very solid gameplay. One of the hidden gems on the Amiga in my opinion.

The moving sea is likely just repositioning bitplane pointers in the copperlist, no actual animation is occuring.

[Master484]

The moving sea is likely just repositioning bitplane pointers in the copperlist, no actual animation is occuring.

Yes, I checked the WinUAE visual debugger and that seems to be the case. The only times when the blitter is active, is when those letters appear in the middle part, and when enemies walk in the bottom part.

---

And the cloud layer actually has four overlapping layers, which I think is achieved by splitting some of the cloud layers into two parts: one part is in the Front Playfield and one part in the Back Playfield, while both parts still scroll at the same speed, making each cloud layer look like a separate playfield.

So it goes like this: the first layer at the top part of screen is on the Front Playfield only. And then the second layer behind it has two parts: the upper part is in the Back Playfield and therefore is shown behind the first layer. And then the bottom part of the second layer switches back to the Front PF, so that it can appear in front of the third cloud layer, which in turn uses the same logic: top part is Back PF and bottom part is Front PF.

A clever trick that creates the illusion of four "real" parallax layers.