Legends of Hyboria - Arcade side-scrolling brawler

[Rebel-CD32]

Hello everyone.

I've been wanting to make this game for years, but never had the motivation to start.

I feel the Amiga really missed out on many of the games it was best at, arcade style games. Occasionally we got a good arcade port, like Golden Axe, or a great Amiga-only game like Fightin' Spirit. But most of the arcade style games the Amiga got were crappy ports from the Atari ST, a much inferior platform when it comes to these kind of games. They often played more like an 8-bit console than the 16-bit arcade original.

And since the mid nineties, people started trying to make the Amiga do what it wasn't strictly built to do, like 3D games, or PC conversions which were often stripped down to work in 2MB instead of the 8MB+ the PC originals required. It's as if people forgot what the Amiga was good at.

Now, I'm not saying that all the new games were bad, a lot of them were great, but it just seemed for so long that people were only out to prove that the Amiga could do what a PC or Playstation could do, instead of making a game that used the Amiga's abilities to the fullest.

Now, to this game. What I'm proposing is an arcade-style, side-scrolling hack and slash fighting game, like Golden Axe, but better. If you've ever played Knights of the Round or either of the Capcom Dungeons & Dragons games, you'll have an idea of what I'm talking about.

One or two players (or three if you use a keyboard as well as two controllers) select a character out of a small selection of Hyboria's finest warriors, and begin a quest to hack, slash, and decapitate as many foes as they can, collecting gold, food, potions and magic along the way. Gold can be spent in towns along the way to buy better weapons, food for health, or secrets (short cuts, advice, bonus levels). Gameplay will be non-linear, you will be able to choose different paths along the way, so the game won't always have to be the same as the last time you played. Occasional characters will interact with you, and there will be end of level guardians on certain stages who are harder to beat than the regular henchmen you battle along the way. There would be a story behind the game, and a goal to work towards, with a final boss character who will be super hard to beat.

Classic arcade formula with a bit more adventuring along the way to make it last longer. I would like the game to run on any AGA Amiga, with no RAM expansions. Possible extras for expanded Amigas are fine, as long as the game plays fine on a stock A1200 or CD32. An ECS version could be a possibility down the track if there is demand for it, as could be ports to other systems, but let's not worry about that now.

I've been working on a story for the game, as well as level designs on paper for a while, and have started drawing a few sprites and background blocks, but it will take some time to get them done. I will put together a mock-up screenshot in my next post.

But here's the big problem. I'm not a programmer, just a dreamer full of ideas, and I'm pretty handy with colours and pixels. I should be able to get the bulk of the graphics done, although any help is welcome, but what I really need is to find someone who would be interested in coding the game engine. I'm positive the game will be possible to program for the Amiga, since we've seen similar games before, and once the main engine is written, it could be used for other games as well. If the game becomes shareware, the coder would receive most of the payment, while the other contributers (we'll need a musician) would receive their share. I don't need any pay, I'll just be happy having another game to play with my mates.

Anyone interested in the project, please let me know. Post it here, or catch me in #abime.net on IRC, it's all good. The Amiga needs more games, and it's great to see more coming out. Let's keep the fire burning, we'll be here for a while yet.

[Graham Humphrey]

This project sounds very interesting. I can program, only in Blitz Basic though and I'm hardly brilliant at it. But I'm looking to have a bash at a new game and I would definitely be willing to have a go at this. The thing is, I've never done a game like this one before, and I'd be worried that I couldn't pull it off.

I've done 3 games so far (my latest one, Tank Wars, got 85% in the new Retro Gamer) and another game called Annihilation which is on hold due to a lack of people willing to do sprite gfx (maybe you'd be interested in that?) so I am capable of seeing a project through to the end. But this would be the biggest challenge to do, but I would love to have a crack at it at least. Let me know what you think.

[Rebel-CD32]

Hey Graham, thanks for replying. I've played your Annihilation game, and I'd like to help out. If you could send me some IFF files or something with all the sprites and background blocks, I'll have a crack at trying to make them look a little more stylised. I'm still an amature at this, but any help is better than no help, right?

I'll continue this post in your own thread.

[Graham Humphrey]

Cheers, I would really appreciate that. I've actually only done 1 set of tiles/enemies, and that was just to test the game out. As you have probably seen, they are truly awful!

I'm not actually able to send them to you today, but I will send you the relevant files sometime next week, with any luck. Hope that's not a problem.

Thanks a lot for offering to help, you might just help me get this project going again I've done nearly 50% of the basic level design overall, so it's been frustrating being held back by my rather, shall we say, limited graphical abilities

[DamienD]

This sounds absolutely wicked Rebel-CD32

I just wish I could help in some way but unfortunately I'm no good at graphics, music or programming

[Rebel-CD32]

Damien, you can be our official play-tester when the project gets off the ground then. :P

And to clarify a bit on the title, Hyboria is where Conan the Barbarian and Red Sonja are from.

I've already made a palette to use. It's in Extra-Halfbright, so if we can get the game made, it should run smoothly on an AGA machine and shouldn't be too hard to get working on an ECS machine either, since the colours won't have to be reduced (assuming a 1MB machine can handle the game). All sprites will be using the first 16 (15+clear) colours, while the floor/ground will use the first 32 colours, and the backgrounds and foregrounds will use all 64. The reason for the floors using only the first 32 is so the sprites can have real shadows, which will just be circles of half-bright colours.

For an example of EHB shadows, check out Fightin' Spirit.

I've drawn one sprite so far, although it is not animated yet. And now I've been working on a few background blocks. I should have a mock screenshot by tomorrow, fingers crossed.

[DamienD]

Sure thing, it would be my pleasure

I love these type of games... Have you ever played The Crystal of Kings on the arcades or via MAME32? It's sort of a modern day Golden Axe, pretty cool IMHO.

[Marcuz]

Rebel, i would like to provide some help, if you need static screens, or some design. or if you need it and it explain it perfectly how should it be, some stuff for the backgrounds: i'm not much learned in shifting backgrounds screens...

[Rebel-CD32]

Thanks Damien, I'm search for The Crystal of Kings to download now, I've never seen it before, cheers.

Marco, thanks for the offer of help. Once I get the palette sorted out, and the style organised, any pixel help will be appreciated. It'll all me for blocks and sprites though. Possibly an intro as well, but that will need to be worked out later on.