Spy Hunter - Scorpion MAYBE

[flibble42]

I was wondering if anyone could give me info on the background, I have the main sprites, Cars etc.


Is the background a tileset? Are the road sections random or defined sections repeated? If you have a tileset for the background i could use it.



@earok This why i asked about Hires

[saimon69]

is a pity Scorpion does not support interlace yet, you could have used med res

[jotd]

that's the hardest part: ripping game logic / tileset.

AFAIR it's not random. At some point you have to switch for a boat, there are splitting roads, icy, etc..

not a piece of cake, but excellent game. Personally I found out that I can't play that anywhere than on arcade because of the controls.

[Mixel]

This would be a very cool project. As a scorpion one i can see a few problems..

i think a high res interlaced game with scrolling that fast (which is what you'd need to use the original assets from the look of it) would have trouble running smoothly even if made in ASM?

Such a weird looking game in retrospect, lowres track but higher resolution cars? it'd probably look better all at one resolution anyway. And the arcade was tate mode so you maybe want the cars a bit smaller or you're maybe going to limit your visibility..

Does it ever load/have track ends, or does it just scroll up infinitely throughout the entire game? if so that's going to be another very weird thing to pull off in scorpion, as the map is a lot taller than scorpion's Tiled map size limit.. Unles the limit had been removed? (the memory usage for an astronomical map adds up pretty fast) There's no way of streaming in new track data unless i guess the game constructed the entire level out of.. blocks (?!) above the player or something (i have no idea if that's a thing you could do.. But Flighty Fox does similar) either that or having sections with loading between different maps?

ooh actually, you couldn maybe make it out of a bunch of prefab sections if it routinely reuses the same sections of road and have it teleport the player and camera (and enemy cars?) between the tiles at the exact moment nececarry to make look seamless.. But that sounds very difficult. maybe possible? Would love to hear from other Scorpion people if they have ideas how it could work.

[jotd]

lowres backgrounds hires sprites (AGA)

[Mixel]

That would seem like the best compromise, yup.. The sprites still have square pixels in the OG version so (I think?) the whole screen would have to be interlaced to keep them without edits.. either way (low or high) they’re getting somewhat smushed.

This maybe seems more of a “Jotd; king of arcade ports” style project than “someone could make it in scorpion in anything approaching a straightforward manner” type project? But I’d love to see it attempted just to see see people puzzle out the work arounds needed.

[tomcat666]

Just don't make it interlaced... that's the worst option for a game if you ask me. Just look at that Super Sprint port. It has a STATIC screen, no scrolling and it is so-so, everything is flickering, can't really play it, eyes start to hurt. This has scrolling... no way interlaced will look good.

[Mixel]

Neither high res or interlaced are actually an option if it's going to be a Scorpion game anyway so it's all a bit irrelevent.

I like the hires laced in Turbo Sprint? I guess it depends on the display used.

[nikosidis]

Originally Posted by Mixel

Neither high res or interlaced are actually an option if it's going to be a Scorpion game anyway so it's all a bit irrelevent.

I like the hires laced in Turbo Sprint? I guess it depends on the display used.

True, some digital screens acts like flicker fixer and others have real flicker fixers like Indivision from Individual Computers.

As already said. For a static screen is ok but for fast scrolling you can just forget it.

Follow what jotd said.

Great idea by the way! Very nice game

[flibble42]

Good, i like that it started a conversation.


The road definately has pre-defined sections car to boat and boat to car for example, so i figure use tiled to create multiple strips that can be jumped between to make the road look infinate.


The best version i ever saw is the NES version, low-res not many colours but the aspect ratio is correct and it plays well.


At this point the most pressing thing is how the hell is the road built, from a tileset point of view.


Here are the sprites i have, just need the BG tiles.

[acidbottle]

Have sat down and had serious thoughts about what arcade games would be do-able in Scorpion. I am uncertain if this will be easy in a 1:1 sense, though perhaps the spirit of it could be achieved.

The big issue, aside from weird resolutions, is that the map scrolls in an almost infinite fashion. I have not seen any ripped maps but it may verify a particular map area, defined and perhaps looping at parts.

My favorite version was the ZX Spectrum. Trying to control this in MAME or anything is really difficult.

[jotd]

Originally Posted by Mixel

This maybe seems more of a “Jotd; king of arcade ports” style project than “someone could make it in scorpion in anything approaching a straightforward manner” type project? But I’d love to see it attempted just to see see people puzzle out the work arounds needed.

the king of arcade ports gave up circa 1982 The Spy Hunter game is very advanced for its time. Plus the road / enemy data is to be reverse-engineered from the arcade data too. Maybe it's not that difficult, but still work to be done. Not going to do that from a video... And, yes, in pure assembly you have more freedom.

(I'm currently attempting a 1984 arcade game but there's no scrolling)

Is the background a tileset?

it's ALWAYS a tileset. Arcade machines of that time can only display either sprites or tiles, possibly scrolled. Maybe they can be ripped with "MAME - tile saving edition". I could rip some Karate Champ tiles including some not showing in V2 of the game. The palette is another thing...

and as acidbottle said the specific controls & the speed make it very difficult to play even in MAME, even with a wheel. One of the games I love but can't play (another one is Marble Madness until I buy a proper trackball, and the other one is Paperboy until I buy a proper bike handle )

[LessNick]

Originally Posted by flibble42

Here are the sprites i have, just need the BG tiles.Attachment 75345

In my humble opinion, the quality of the sprites leaves much to be desired. If we are to make a new version, then find an artist and draw from scratch.

So be sure to add more frames, otherwise everything will be twitchy.

I would be happy to help you, but unfortunately there is practically no free time.

Here is one of my preparations for the game (Top view + 360° rotation):

[jotd]

Let's play LED Storm instead

[flibble42]

Just had a look at the arcade version Hires sprites on lores bg, never noticed.
Tiled could be used to create all the road sections but Scorpion would need to be able to "on the fly" move right and left when fetching map data.


Hope that made sense

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by tomcat666

Just don't make it interlaced... that's the worst option for a game if you ask me. Just look at that Super Sprint port. It has a STATIC screen, no scrolling and it is so-so, everything is flickering, can't really play it, eyes start to hurt. This has scrolling... no way interlaced will look good.

Let me put you straight on a couple of things buster.

It's a port of the arcade game and if you play Turbo Sprint on a modern display it should deinterlace for you into a 512x384 progressive frame like very few other games do on the Amiga, that's why the game was built with the hi-res graphics.

I would not intentionally build a game to damage peoples eyes and I would not recommend running Turbo Sprint in interlace mode.

[flibble42]

I remember seeing Super Sprint in the arcade, the only time i noticed any flicker was when i caught it out the corner of my eye (that being the part most sensative to motion) otherwise not a problem.


I also had a friend who had an A3000 Tower system, awesome machine, built in flicker fixer, rock steady interlaced GFX, so interlaced not bad just fix it i guess.


Is it a scan doubler you needed? i can't remember. But i suppose on a standard CRT with a standard Amiga eye strain maybe, but as McGeezer said on a modern display you would not notice.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by flibble42

but as McGeezer said on a modern display you would not notice.

indeed... no interlace here and on a real Amiga.

[ Show youtube player ]

[flibble42]

Stunning work mate, i wish we could put all you "Bedroom coders" (hope that's not offensive) in a time machine and show what the Amiga was actually capable of, maybe more time would of been spent on it instead of the cheap arse ST ports.


I mean of late the Tiny series, Super Sprint, Green Beret and many more, sterling work guys.

[flibble42]

Originally Posted by LessNick

In my humble opinion, the quality of the sprites leaves much to be desired. If we are to make a new version, then find an artist and draw from scratch.

So be sure to add more frames, otherwise everything will be twitchy.

I would be happy to help you, but unfortunately there is practically no free time.

Here is one of my preparations for the game (Top view + 360° rotation):

The point is not to make a new version, that has already been done atleast twice on the PS2. Totally forgettable in my opinion.
The point IS to try and recreate the game that we all remember fondly in the best way possible. Tell me if i'm wrong, but the Amiga never had a version.