Krogharr - development thread of a new OCS fighting game

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Cego

yes i have

Then your post makes no sense.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Steril707

True, but why should someone spend weeks building and optimizing code in asm, when someone else can get near the same results for free?

Why ?
The love/like of it, pleasure and fun !

[Cego]

Originally Posted by Steril707

Then your post makes no sense.

nah, it makes a lot of sense

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by malko

Why ?
The love/like of it, pleasure and fun !

Good argument. True, there will always be people, who will want to do this, whatever the outcome might be...

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by Steril707

True, but why should someone spend weeks building and optimizing code in asm, when someone else can get near the same results for free?

If you just want to make a game and don't care for the technical details using an engine might make sense if it really delivers almost the same result.


If you do it for fun, or because you are trying to create the best code, then doing your hand optimized asm version also makes sense.


Two totally different point of views and both are IMO totally valid. Wether the audience recognizes the subtle differences is IMO totally beside the point unless you are doing it for the audience. So it is mostly a question of your motivation behind it.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Cego

nah, it makes a lot of sense

You are implying something in your post that was clearly not meant and said by me already a couple of times.

So how does your post make sense?

[Cego]

what am i implying?

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by sparhawk

If you just want to make a game and don't care for the technical details using an engine might make sense if it really delivers almost the same result.


If you do it for fun, or because you are trying to create the best code, then doing your hand optimized asm version also makes sense.


Two totally different point of views and both are IMO totally valid. Wether the audience recognizes the subtle differences is IMO totally beside the point unless you are doing it for the audience. So it is mostly a question of your motivation behind it.

How is the perceived outcome beside the point?

If two products are nearly the same end result, yet one took 3 years, and the other 3 months, I'd say that's a huge difference.

[Mixel]

If you add as much parallax etc as you did in Inviyya, and it ends up running perfectly on lowest end Amigas like Inviyya did, the only people who think it might be made in scorpion would be people who don’t know scorpion well.. From the early stages it’s indistinguishable from a scorpion project, but.. that’d apply to the beginnings of every project?

It’s mostly because so many people have been starting scorpion projects lately I suspect, the game jam seems to have tons of them.

Can’t speak for anyone else but I appreciate technical feats, Inviyya, Turbo Sprint, Boss Machine etc are clearly hitting the metal in obvious bespoke ways.

Edit: lol this blew up, when I started writing this there were fewer replies!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Cego

what am i implying?

That I am saying you had "bad intentions or any kind of disrespect towards the effort the programmer"

Also I don't quite get how my reaction "is kinda irritating", and furthermore I don't really understand why you personally attack me with "but i guess thats just the way he is and i'll deal with it."

We are having a fair and easy going discussion here about custom engines vs general ones that was spawned by your comment, but like it's been said again and again in this thread, this is not meant as a slight or attack against anyone.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Mixel

If you add as much parallax etc as you did in Inviyya, and it ends up running perfectly on lowest end Amigas like Inviyya did, the only people who think it might be made in scorpion would be people who don’t know scorpion well.. From the early stages it’s indistinguishable from a scorpion project, but.. that’d apply to the beginnings of every project?

It’s mostly because so many people have been starting scorpion projects lately I suspect, the game jam seems to have tons of them.

Can’t speak for anyone else but I appreciate technical feats, Inviyya, Turbo Sprint, Boss Machine etc are clearly hitting the metal in obvious bespoke ways.

Edit: lol this blew up, when I started writing this there were a lot less replies!

Good points. I am thinking we are nearing a state though, where around 70% to 80% of Amiga action game projects can be done in Scorpion.

Really impressed by what you achieved in your game, btw, Mixel.

[Cego]

Your initial reaction to my question here was "Guess it's time to leave the Amiga for good soon"

So obviously there's something wrong with my question if it raises such thoughts in your mind.
Of course in your next post you downplay it and say:

"And neither did I want to imply that is isn't or that this comment was made in bad faith."

good so far, but there comes your implication:

"My thought process is more on the side of if it still makes sense to do all that huge amount of extra work creating custom engine games, if nobody sees or cares about the difference anyway."

And thats irritating, because my question shouldn't raise such a thought. I have never stated that i'm blind to the work you're doing. Neither did i ask you to use the scorpion engine for you game.
Actually i even asked what you think about the engine and got no answer. You even laughed about my last sentence that games "built with it run very well"

That seems like a straight disrespect to the hard work of Earok.
So the implication here is coming from you, not me

But still, i'd like to hear your answer to my question. Have you played around with the engine and whats your opinion on it?

[sparhawk]

Originally Posted by Steril707

How is the perceived outcome beside the point?

Yes, if you value the opinion of the audience. If you do it for the fun of it, it doesn't matter at all.

If two products are nearly the same end result, yet one took 3 years, and the other 3 months, I'd say that's a huge difference.

For a company definitely. For you personally it depends on what your goals are. If your goal is to make a game then the three month option is the better one. If your goal is to have fun coding in asm then you can take as much time as you want even if the result looks the same.

Just the other day I coded a small tool which shows the keys pressed on the keyboard on a C128. If my goal would have been to have a keytester I could have downloaded any of the 1000 tools already available. My goal was to see for myself how this is done on the hardware so I spent a few days making it myself.

If somebody likes my tool and uses it thats nice, but if nobody notices it, I don't care either, because I didn't do it for some audience, I did it for myself.

[torturedutopian]

Eh, you'll get all kinds of reactions, constantly Doesn't mean most people don't appreciate your work properly !

There's definitely a resurgence of titles making use of vanilla machines -- and I'm sure most people do realize way more easily the quality of the coding for a simple reason : we can instantly compare to the vast majority of titles released during the commercial life of the Amiga. While it was not always really obvious what an accelerated Amiga was really supposed to deliver as they were never really made the most use of back in the days.

Of course, you have to get personal enjoyment out of the tremendous amount of hours you put into it -- and getting positive feedback is definitely part of it !

As for me, I am way more satisfied when playing / watching games / demos making use of basic configurations because their limitations have been "built into my brain" for decades I'm really not a fan of 040/060/RTG titles (except if using a PPC OS & a modern machine but that's a different world).

cheers !

EDIT : as for the "is the the huge amount of extra work worth it compared to using Scorpion ? Well, it's definitely a matter of what you're looking after. Learning ? Fulfillment ? Getting the most out of the machine ? Achieving your vision more accurately ? Clearly, the question to this was obvious in the days of Backbone, now it's indeed a different situation. You and a few others like Richard Lowenstein have bumped in terms of skills thanks to your custom engines.

[acidbottle]

Ahhh deep discussions, I like these

There isnt an Amiga fan around who has not been impressed by this new wave of asm coders, mcgeezer in particular is really pushing the bar and Steril707, the fact you self taught from scratch is a massive achievement, plus your gfx talent shines.

Game engines come and go, I remember SEUCK and that was pretty cookie cutter style, a couple of other emerged, again they dont really cut the mustard, fun to tinker but not serious.

Redpill comes along and Zener's engine is really neat, especially as it works on the actual Amiga. Then earok with Scorpion comes along and makes massive waves. It is very easy to see why to, it is a very versatile engine that is being constantly updated with features with the awesome and pro active earok being massively helpful to boot.

That said, it has its limits which a capable asm coder doesn't have. Please also bare in mind, while it is fairly simple for an asm coder to pick up, it still takes a lot of work to achieve results. Have spent over 100 hours on Wonderboy so far alone, you get bugs and you have to use logic to achieve results, its not all click and go tbh.

I simply do not have the time to learn real code, I learnt AMOS many years ago but it was very buggy and cumbersome to use, no fun at all. I also had the time to do so, these days I have approx 2 hours per day (at best) spare to tinker with Amiga.

Hope the snobbery regarding real coders and engine users is light hearted, end of the day you get far better polished end results with asm, but scorpion and redpill are getting people involved and active, that what this scene is about isn't it?

My humble 2 cents anyways!

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by Cego

Your initial reaction to my question here was "Guess it's time to leave the Amiga for good soon"

So obviously there's something wrong with my question if it raises such thoughts in your mind.
Of course in your next post you downplay it and say:

"And neither did I want to imply that is isn't or that this comment was made in bad faith."

good so far, but there comes your implication:

"My thought process is more on the side of if it still makes sense to do all that huge amount of extra work creating custom engine games, if nobody sees or cares about the difference anyway."

And thats irritating, because my question shouldn't raise such a thought.

You are clearly aware of me creating Inviyya.
By your question you imply that I could use Scorpion for the kind of technical quality I want to achieve with my former game or my new one.

So that means for me in the view of someone who has no big technical experience on Vanilla Amiga capabilities the performance of both are comparable.

Which spawned this discussion, that nobody seems to have a problem with other than you.

Originally Posted by Cego

I have never stated that i'm blind to the work you're doing. Neither did i ask you to use the scorpion engine for you game.

Actually i even asked what you think about the engine and got no answer. You even laughed about my last sentence that games "built with it run very well"

See above.
Made me chuckle that we are at a point now that such comparisons can be taken.
Also Eric and everybody else using Scorpion is clearly aware of its limitations compared to custom made engines. Scorpion is getting better and better though, so this might not be the case in the future anymore.

Originally Posted by Cego

That seems like a straight disrespect to the hard work of Earok.

Great, now you are trying to stir up shit between Amiga devs.
You are really a great chap, aren't you?

Originally Posted by Cego

So the implication here is coming from you, not me

See above.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by acidbottle

Hope the snobbery regarding real coders and engine users is light hearted, end of the day you get far better polished end results with asm, but scorpion and redpill are getting people involved and active, that what this scene is about isn't it?

No snobbery intended, mate..

The more games the Amiga gets, the better, and good work is good work..

These are just personal thoughts of mine about my hobby, and the perceived outcome of it in regards to the amount of time I put into it.

[Cego]

Originally Posted by Steril707

You are clearly aware of me creating Inviyya.
By your question you imply that I could use Scorpion for the kind of technical quality I want to achieve with my former game or my new one.

You're clearly implying that i am implying
It was just a simple question - still with no bad intentions

So that means for me in the view of someone who has no big technical experience on Vanilla Amiga capabilities the performance of both are comparable.

Another implication. You're reading too much into simple questions and taking it too personal.

Which spawned this discussion, that nobody seems to have a problem with other than you.

I don't have a problem with you creating your games from scratch.

Made me chuckle that we are at a point now that such comparisons can be taken.

what did i compare? I just asked a question.

Also Eric and everybody else using Scorpion is clearly aware of its limitations compared to custom made engines. Scorpion is getting better and better though, so this might not be the case in the future anymore.

Nobody argues with that. Still don't understand what this has to do with my question...

Great, now you are trying to stir up shit between Amiga devs.
You are really a great chap, aren't you?

I just cited what you wrote. Don't blame the messenger.

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by Steril707

No snobbery intended, mate..

The more games the Amiga gets, the better, and good work is good work..

These are just personal thoughts of mine about my hobby, and the perceived outcome of it in regards to the amount of time I put into it.

It’s cool, defiantly can’t quantify just how many hours and effort you and several others put into these projects, well worth throwing my money at as they are as polished as it gets!

Not since the mid 90s has the scene had it so good and am extremely grateful for that!

[mcgeezer]

I'm sort of wondering how much overhead (memory wise) the Scorpion engine takes. All of my battles in assembler on the stock machines tend to be on the memory.

I'm keen for my games to run on the A500 mini - so keeping them stock is important (among other things I do with memory management)