Wiz (Amiga AGA)

[AmigaDweeb]

I think you'll find the low level disk code only works with FFS.

Also it came to mind this morning...

This game runs SetPatch on boot from Floppy Disk via the Startup-Sequence. If you notice some sluggish behaviour when lauching the game via your own Workbench and not direct from Floppy Disk, then you may need to run SetPatch on your system first.

I stuck that notice on the AGA Digital Download versions too anyway just in case.

Wiz Gold+ release works fine on my setup here which is A1200 020 / CF Card ADH2: / FFS / SetPatch <enabled>

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIBWR9UJ3Nu/

Also the CD32 controller buttons work in tandem with regular joystick all OK.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CIBWznvpXHl/

Same with Tin Toy AGA without WHDLoad for the record, as it uses the indentical RNC dosio disk loader.

Also remember Wiz trashes the Amiga OS on boot and is not system friendly. It takes over the machine plus the 2Mb of chipmem on boot after relocating itself. It then uses low level disk functions via RNC dosio to read your drives.

WHDLoad version is coming anyway so either way it will be covered I guess, tho personally I don't require that on my machine here to run the game as you can see in the videos.

Have fun!

Adrian

[AmigaDweeb]

Also... I guess the real reason many don't notice much of this sort of disk problem these days on their franken'Amiga's is because WHDLoad has patched and fixed almost the entire libary of Amiga games ever made that uses RNC dosio (many 100's) and other loaders. Once Wiz has been added to the WHDLoad pile I guess 'almost everyone' will be happy.

As I said above tho, I don't need it on my machine to run Wiz or any of my previous games as the disk code works fine with FFS on real Amiga for me.

[mahen]

Hi Adrian ! Do you think you could provide a WHDLoad installer with your further releases ? Just an idea... Would probably be too heavy to include in on the floppies.

Cannot wait to try it on my FPGA Amiga... I can boot on ADF's and even have the floppy drive sounds

[AmigaDweeb]

It's a bit chicken and egg, as I make a new game and release it, after then it gets the WHDLoad treatment later. I actually have no connection to the WHDLoad version. I just make the games for stock Amiga with what I have here and a bit of external testing. I don't really want to get into shipping more releases with bolt on things on them it's already a lot of work to produce in current forms of course.

[AmigaDweeb]

Originally Posted by viddi

Cool!
Please check out Wiz´walking animation, too.

There is a flickering hand in the middle of his beard.
I guess it´s an anim frame that shouldn´t be there and it kinda ruins the otherwise brilliant art and animation.

Thanks.

Here is a link to the the updated file that fixes the 'magic hand' to some degree that you dislike...

Update file 'P' in Gamedata on Wiz Disk 2 with this...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/06sywfi37mqatfn/P?dl=0

This is a bit of a bodge fix in that the anim sequence graphic is replicated from the very next frame in the sequence and not in the actual game code anim sequence data itself. It was far quicker to amend it that way in the few minutes I had spare today. It works OK but personally it doesn't bother me either way.

Happy Christmas

P.S. In further tests also, I have been unable to get the low level HD disk loader (RNC dosio) to read from anything but a regular FFS file system on any real Amiga hardware here. The CD32 .ISO version of Wiz is the better bet for those with CD32 systems IMHO ...that or wait for WHDLoad perhaps.

[viddi]

Originally Posted by Adrian Cummings

Here are some links to the the updated files that fix the 'magic hand' to some degree that you dislike...

Oh cool! Thank you very much!
Will check it out later this evening.

Much appreciated.

[viddi]

Wow, that´s a huge difference when compared to the original walking anim!

THX again for the fix.

[AmigaDweeb]

No worries.

[AmigaDweeb]

Just left this on a YouTube comment elsewhere today but it kinda belongs here too really...

---

Context Ref: [ Show youtube player ]

The developer speaks:

Firstly, thank you for your personal opinion as I/we try to read everything and take it onboard for the next great thing of course.

There is literally no budget for these new games and releases to pay anybody else as it's all run as a hobby here in reality. At around 1400 to 1500 man hours work by myself to bring Wiz to Amiga as it is now, we will never recover the cost of making it you understand. That is not a problem on it 's own, however, because it's nothing more than a pass time/hobby and love for the beloved Amiga itself that I even wrote it. Wiz takes over the machine plus is not system friendly code and the low level disk system (RNC dosio) requires FFS drives for HD install and does not support every drive format or file system out there, sorry. There are things that could be improved and there always are of course, but after starting the project in Jan 2020 and shipping it a month early in November; we here decided that that was indeed enough to hopefully please my past Mutation fans. In the most part, many are happy with Wiz and how it turned out ...I am for starters. Writing this game for ECS would be possible but it would mean removal of the AGA rear playfield and also affect the fps very badly (Wiz runs at 50fps on a PAL stock A1200). CyberPunks 2 next year will even further make use of AGA playfields however but will 'probably' run at lower 25fps so a lot more can by blitted to the screen as it's primarily an action game. Wiz uses the Tin Toy AGA engine and IMHO that engine pushes the AGA chipset pretty far and uses almost everything it has/had to offer, like dual 16 colour playfields, 64 bit HW sprites etc. The AGA chip set is not as 'holy' as some may think tho, and in some ways you also lose features when switching up from OCS/ECS. Also the blitter is locked to 7Mhz on all Amiga variants so you just can't move the data around any quicker with it on AGA chipset than an ECS/OCS machine (rather painful fact that). Having returned to Amiga (as a hobby remember) after about 25 years, I am hoping to up my game each new release but Wiz was a MASSIVE relearning curve for me to create from the coding scraps of Tin Toy from quarter of a century ago and it is what it is... good yes but not 100% perfect I know.

I only work alone now as am semi-retired. My 30 year's career in the games industry previously is now well behind me and over pretty much however.

We had Tony Aksnes onboard for further external testing with Wiz and TBH they don't come much better than him in the scene, but thank you anyway for your thoughts which are all appreciated OK.

'We aim to please many but never all' is our new moto here as it IS an impossible task for anybody to achieve regardless of skill level etc.

We hope many other developers in the scene now producing games are fortunate enough to have had the mostly warm welcome shown to us since Wiz was released.

AMIGAAAAA!

Adrian

[AmigaDweeb]

For the record most of the money/profit I made for Wiz went on buying a recapped CD32 and a TF330 gold top cpu expansion, so I can hopefully up my game even further next time round the loop. Plus I invested in the rather expensive Wiz glossy boxes (still to arrive of course) + some wine and curry + magazine adverts + restock of some component parts to make CyberPunks 2 physical game next year. There is no money left from Wiz to pay anybody anything after all taxes and physical production deductions OK LOL

The Amiga marketplace is now approx 1/15th of the size it was when I was in it 25years ago and that is a hard fact from the sales I have had. Good yes but dreams and aspirations of owning a lambo or French chateau hahahaaaaaaaaaa forget it.

Going by some of the problems going on I read here in the past about people working with other people on projects and then projects going tits up or whatever - nope can't be doing with that stress either.

Just saying so you all know where I am coming from 100%.

Finally, and I really do want to move on now as I'm sure you all do... I'll be posting Wiz Amiga unit sales at the end of January 2021 so some of you budding homebrew publishers just like me out there, can see how I/we did. It will be totals since launch for Wiz Physical Disk/USB, Digital and also CD32 .ISO Digital sales (and hopefully Wiz Big Glossy Boxes too) by units sold.

Bye for now.

[mahen]

Thanks Adrian for the insight !

It's actually quite a miracle there are so many quality Amiga titles nowadays. More than ever I can actually remember since a couple of years after Commodore's demise. In the early 2000 there were really really few of them -- even though it was a time it seemed possible to see a resurrection through MorphOS with some big investors etc.

We are well aware people only make Amiga games out of passion, we are really spoiled kids & very grateful

Best regards
Mahen

[nikosidis]

There are a few things to consider regarding sales. OSC, ECS has a huge % of the real hardware market. Nr. 2 is the quality of the game. Sam's Journey on C-64 sold almost 3000 copies and the price is around 20Euro for digital download. Boxed versions, limited versions etc. been much more.

[MickGyver]

I just heard about someone having compatibility issues with this game and my KTRL CD32+ gamepad (the player character keeps jumping when UP on the DPAD is being pressed). Can somebody else perhaps confirm this?

I will buy the game and try it myself, but would still like to know if somebody else have experienced this.

[AmigaDweeb]

Sales were always more for me on AGA machines since Tin Toy and sadly the C64 is not a guage for sales on Amiga. Wiz is only US$9.99 for Digital Download version of course

The game is written to support regular joystick and CD32 controller in tandem by default. I cannot vouch for any other gamepad or controller types working 100% with it.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Adrian Cummings

Here is a link to the the updated file that fixes the 'magic hand' to some degree that you dislike...

Update file 'P' in Gamedata on Wiz Disk 2 with this...

https://www.dropbox.com/s/06sywfi37mqatfn/P?dl=0

This is a bit of a bodge fix in that the anim sequence graphic is replicated from the very next frame in the sequence and not in the actual game code anim sequence data itself. It was far quicker to amend it that way in the few minutes I had spare today. It works OK but personally it doesn't bother me either way.

Happy Christmas

P.S. In further tests also, I have been unable to get the low level HD disk loader (RNC dosio) to read from anything but a regular FFS file system on any real Amiga hardware here. The CD32 .ISO version of Wiz is the better bet for those with CD32 systems IMHO ...that or wait for WHDLoad perhaps.

Originally Posted by viddi

Oh cool! Thank you very much!
Will check it out later this evening.

Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by viddi

Wow, that´s a huge difference when compared to the original walking anim!

THX again for the fix.

I was trying hard to work out what you mean viddi...

...but now that I've compared the "original version" with the "fixed hand version", I see what you mean i.e. the right hand when walking swings in front of Wiz's beard and it looks a little funny.

To be honest, previously I never noticed.

Unfortunately though, the Flashtro trainer no longer works with the updated "P" file... Alpha One, if you read this can you update the trainer for this "fixed hand version" please my friend?

[AmigaDweeb]

That is very odd that the flashtro trainer breaks with the new P file because its exactly the same size in bytes as the old file on disk 2. Strange as its just s/w sprite data.

Maybe the trainer was for the Gold version of Wiz before extra stuff was added to the final Gold+ release version.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by Adrian Cummings

That is very odd that the flashtro trainer breaks with the new P file because its exactly the same size in bytes as the old file on disk 2. Strange as its just s/w sprite data.

Yup, I was thinking the same... its only one data file changed.

I fully expected the trainer to just work.

Originally Posted by Adrian Cummings

Maybe the trainer was for the Gold version of Wiz before extra stuff was added to the final Gold+ release version.

Definitely the final Gold+ release version as far as I'm aware.

Alpha One can clarify though

[thyslo]

Originally Posted by MickGyver

I just heard about someone having compatibility issues with this game and my KTRL CD32+ gamepad (the player character keeps jumping when UP on the DPAD is being pressed). Can somebody else perhaps confirm this?

I will buy the game and try it myself, but would still like to know if somebody else have experienced this.

Yeah I can confirm this behavior. It was the same on my A1200, Blizzard 1230IV and the KTRL CD32+ gamepad. I then used a Joystick and it worked. Never tried the original CD32 joypad, 'though.

[MickGyver]

Originally Posted by thyslo

Yeah I can confirm this behavior. It was the same on my A1200, Blizzard 1230IV and the KTRL CD32+ gamepad. I then used a Joystick and it worked. Never tried the original CD32 joypad, 'though.

Thanks, I will do some research!

[DanyPPC]

I have purchased Wiz Digital Edition 35 days ago.
how can i upgrade my version to Gold + ?

By simply update file "P" on Disk 2 ?

Many thanks.