Ambermoon open source remake in progress

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by alexh

Did you read Pyrdacor's analysis? The first Dwarfs you meet at the start of the Forest moon also speak English. So they could teach English speakers (i.e. the lead) how to speak Dwarf. I thought it was an elegant and logical solution to a bug that almost certainly didn't exist as enough Dwarfs also speak English (and most of the characters you can recruit can also speak Dwarf).


We could ask them. Jurie Horneman follows Pyrdacor on Twitter and has followed the development of Ambermoon.net

If most characters you can recruit can speak dwarf, then Pyrdacor was right about given the ability straight away. It means that the data logic was incorrect in the first place, so his solution is correct.

Well if Jurie still has documents or memories about Ambermoon, yes it would be great !

[dlfrsilver]

Back to the Black board : the characters limit in the extro is 44 characters max. 46 is way too much. I did a test by reassembling my Ambermoon 680x0 sources, it's a mess.

I will redo it again.

[Zandig]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

Ambermoon.net 1.0 was released yesterday. You can get more details on my GitHub page or new website.

https://GitHub.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon.net
www.pyrdacor.net


I also released updates for the Amiga original on https://GitHub.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon.

1.08 German
1.09 English

Many hard bugfixes and text improvements.

My next project is Ambermoon Advanced a mod for Ambermoon. It will be also playable on Amiga. It will add new content like places, quests, NPCs and so on. And it will balance the game and improve the experience all together (hopefully).

Thank you for the 1.0 release.

Question:
I downloaded the 1.0.0 (Windows 64bit) standalone. Has the game Intro been disabled? The intro option does not show (even after editing the config). I tried a few older releases and when it did show it would either gray out the option or play just the audio. Maybe issues with the intro?

[apex]

Thank you for the great german release 1.08!!!

[Pyrdacor]

I tried creating the french extro today. I managed to fix the encoding/glyphs (at least to fallback to similar English letters for now). But the extro still crashes in WinUAE. I guess it isn't as easy as I thought unfortunately. The biggest problem is, that there is no real error output.

[Pyrdacor]

Originally Posted by Zandig

Question:
I downloaded the 1.0.0 (Windows 64bit) standalone. Has the game Intro been disabled? The intro option does not show (even after editing the config). I tried a few older releases and when it did show it would either gray out the option or play just the audio. Maybe issues with the intro?

To be honest I didn't manage to add the intro. It is its own program and it would take much time to reverse engineer it. I added it to the main menu screen to be conform with the original but disabled it. There was a time where I considered adding it but a quick try had shown that it wouldn't be that easy. So I decided to not include it in 1.0. I removed the menu entry as well as a disabled entry isn't much of use.

I guess I will have to dig deeper into the code at some time. There are still bugs, the french extro has to be done and maybe I will have time to reverse engineer the intro as well. My biggest problem is time. There is so much to do and so few time for all of it.

Maybe someone with m68k skills can help me out in decoding the intro hunks. I already decoded some texts, palettes, graphics and glyphs but not how the sequences are put together.

[Pyrdacor]

Originally Posted by apex

Thank you for the great german release 1.08!!!

There are now also ADF files for German and English available. With my LOB algorithm I was able to make the files as small as the originals and they fit easily onto Amiga disks.

[Pyrdacor]

Originally Posted by dlfrsilver

If most characters you can recruit can speak dwarf, then Pyrdacor was right about given the ability straight away. It means that the data logic was incorrect in the first place, so his solution is correct.

Well if Jurie still has documents or memories about Ambermoon, yes it would be great !

The problem is that you won't be able to know that you will need someone who can speak dwarf when you use the navstone in the airship. When you are on the forest moon you can't learn dwarf. I think you can't learn dwarf in the entire game. Of course in general you will always have at least one character who speaks dwarf but of course you could travel to the forest moon on your own (only the hero).

Entering Dor Kiredon starts with a huge text popup which describes your arriving. Kire, the head of the dwarfs and all other important dwarfs also speak the human language, so you can talk to people who speak both languages. As you walk around there I find it unlikely that you won't catch up the dwarf language at some time. Most of the times only 1 or 2 party members won't speak dwarf and will learn it here. I see no real drawback. At least you are at a place full of dwarfs for a decent amount of time.

[Zandig]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

To be honest I didn't manage to add the intro. It is its own program and it would take much time to reverse engineer it. I added it to the main menu screen to be conform with the original but disabled it. There was a time where I considered adding it but a quick try had shown that it wouldn't be that easy. So I decided to not include it in 1.0. I removed the menu entry as well as a disabled entry isn't much of use.

I guess I will have to dig deeper into the code at some time. There are still bugs, the french extro has to be done and maybe I will have time to reverse engineer the intro as well. My biggest problem is time. There is so much to do and so few time for all of it.

Maybe someone with m68k skills can help me out in decoding the intro hunks. I already decoded some texts, palettes, graphics and glyphs but not how the sequences are put together.

No worries - just wanted to be sure.
I very much appreciate the task of converting this, and properly fixing the game bugs

[vulture]

@Pyrdacor

Is there a place to dl English ADFs? Thx!

[Pyrdacor]

Sure: https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon

There are links for all kind of versions and file formats.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

Sure: https://github.com/Pyrdacor/Ambermoon

There are links for all kind of versions and file formats.

Pyrdacor, what do you need for the introduction ? Knowing what kind of data you're dealing with ? Maybe i can help

[Pyrdacor]

Yes, exactly. The extro data is kind of simple. It has only a scroll amount, a text index and a flag which indicates the text size (small or large). And some other structure which gives the background image and list of text display actions.

But the intro has flying moons, small running people and even moving clouds. So it is a bit more complex.

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

Yes, exactly. The extro data is kind of simple. It has only a scroll amount, a text index and a flag which indicates the text size (small or large). And some other structure which gives the background image and list of text display actions.

But the intro has flying moons, small running people and even moving clouds. So it is a bit more complex.

In order to implement the intro, we need a 68000 expert. I have already the intro and extro fully ressourced and that can be reassembled straight.

I'll try to get in touch with Ross (hehe).

[alexh]

@Pyradcor, I don't think you should go to that kind of trouble to reverse engineer the intro, use Amiga emulation to turn it into a video (some form MPEG?) and integrate it via a .NET video player plugin into Ambermoon.net. Concentrate on interesting things like content and gameplay to expand the Amber-trilogy universe.

[Pyrdacor]

Originally Posted by alexh

@Pyradcor, I don't think you should go to that kind of trouble to reverse engineer the intro, use Amiga emulation to turn it into a video (some form MPEG?) and integrate it via a .NET video player into Ambermoon.net. Concentrate on interesting things like content and gameplay to expand the Amber-trilogy universe.

The problem with videos is, that they are quiet large but I guess it is a reasonable approach. Maybe someone could help with that. I am not good with video tools and that stuff.

[alexh]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

The problem with videos is, that they are quiet large but I guess it is a reasonable approach. Maybe someone could help with that. I am not good with video tools and that stuff.

The resolution is extremely low (320x200?). Because it is an animation it will compress very well.

What codecs are supported in .NET? x265?

[dlfrsilver]

Ok, i have finished the extro translation for Ambermoon in french, at last !

Now, i will implement the patches that Pyrdacor found (the others are already done, plus my owns fixes).

[malko]

Great !

[dlfrsilver]

Originally Posted by Pyrdacor

The problem with videos is, that they are quiet large but I guess it is a reasonable approach. Maybe someone could help with that. I am not good with video tools and that stuff.

Pyrdacor, can you please hint me on your recompressor tool ?

I have extracted the file to path from the archive 1map_data.amb, i did the modifications, and now i do that :

AmbermoonPack REPACK 00D.amb 00D-.amb

Am i doing something wrong ?