6 Playfields Scrolling Prototype

[lionagony]

I was just looking at the post from a few years ago on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/yves.grolet...22868958655944 of Yves Grolet the coder of the beautiful game Agony. He released the source code of the game and in the package said there is also the source of a 6 playfields scrolling prototype he was working on. Here is a picture

Has anyone tried to play around with this at all? I'm not a coder but just wanted to make people aware of it if they hadn't seen it so maybe it could be used for something. The 3 layers of parallax in Agony are incredible but here he is talking 6 playfields 8 direction 50 Hz scrolling + 20 levels of parallax. This is screaming out to be tried for a new game. Does this look feasible? Please somone give it a try, I'd be eternally grateful

[saimon69]

They also coded Unreal (the amiga one) that was doing a remarkable job with 3D but that source code got lost

[grond]

If you use 6 playfields, you probably end up with very few colours on screen (something between 6 and 12). This could be enhanced by some copper fading and by using some reduced modern-style esthetics that work with very few primary colours. I'm thinking about Thrust on the C=64. Just a couple of colours but very entertaining gameplay. But in such a case the many layers of parallax should not be purely decorative but a part of the game mechanics (now I'm thinking of Forbidden Forrest 2, again C=64, where the player character can change distance / parallax layers from the camera).

[gimbal]

What drew me in most to Agony is that water animation in the first level. Not only does it look pretty legit even today, but I was wondering: how did they stretch that out over the entire level and make it look so seamless? So I made a recording for myself and I started to dissect it frame by frame.

I eventually figured out that there were certain spots where the water actually did not align perfectly with a slightly visible seam, so those were my anchor points. From there I figured out that the water is 160 pixels wide and has 12 frames of animation. And here is where I got impressed; two frames of the animation tile. Frame 1 & frame 6, frame 2 & frame 7, etc. etc. I made an image for myself to illustrate that:



It always blows me away how the artists of those days managed to do so much with so little.

(sorry, slightly off-topic)

[Photon]

Originally Posted by grond

If you use 6 playfields, you probably end up with very few colours on screen (something between 6 and 12).

Parallax doesn't necessarily limit the number of total colors on the screen (excluding Copper shades).

The bushes, mountains, and clouds can each have a 15-color palette (as long as they don't overlap vertically). The bushes palette would share the 15 with the player sprite.

From top to bottom, the 4 sprite sections (excluding the player sprite) make 4 playfields, and then the normal 2 playfields are used, with 7 colors each.

The big tree is playfield 0, and the other trees seem to use "playfield 1a,b,c,d".

Assuming that the background trees parallax isn't blitted, this would reduce the 7 colors to 4, and it seems OCS falls 1 bitplane short. Perhaps meant for AGA?

Finally, there's the ground parallax. The most efficient way of doing this is with the scroll register, but by mentioning Pl0+Pl1 (don't know what Sol or So1 stands for), it seems he would use at least 2 bitplanes of each playfield for the ground, and scroll them with the Blitter. If true, this would mean that the background and foreground trees have 3 colors on AGA and are 1-color outlines on OCS.

8-way is not quite included in the 6 playfields; 2 disappear off the screen if you should climb a tree far enough up, and most likely the background trees would not extend far up into the sky, so that they also would disappear. It's a not a criticism, but this is mostly a 2-way horizontal scroller with a front playfield that is 8-way. 8-way scrolling games are games like Rock'n'Roll.

[lionagony]

@Photon Very interesting. I wonder if anyone has actually extracted the source code for this prototype from this package. I don't know if that picture is just static or is it part of an actual moving routine? Would love if someone could at least get something basic like that running in order to get the full effect of the visual.

[Photon]

This is the analysis of a DPaint sketch. Code? A picture doesn't make code possible.

[sokolovic]

Originally Posted by Photon

(don't know what Sol or So1 stands for)

"Sol" simply means "ground" in french.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by Photon

This is the analysis of a DPaint sketch. Code? A picture doesn't make code possible.

I was under the impression that there might be the source code for this prototype in the package. I don't know how to look through source code so thought maybe someone who had the skills could see if it was in there and make a demo out of it.

From the Facebook comments it sounds like it might be in the Spellsinger folder.

[TCD]

I've added the image to the file server in 'Collection/Source' (Yves Grolet Amiga hard drive - public distribution.rar) so people don't have to join Facebook and that WeTransfer website. Looks like there is indeed some ASM code included.

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by TCD

I've added the image to the file server in 'Collection/Source' (Yves Grolet Amiga hard drive - public distribution.rar) so people don't have to join Facebook and that WeTransfer website. Looks like there is indeed some ASM code included.

Thanks for doing that!

[CCCP alert]

Originally Posted by saimon69

They also coded Unreal (the amiga one) that was doing a remarkable job with 3D but that source code got lost

Which is a real pity because that scaling bitmap engine is fantastic, would come in very useful for an Amiga port of Forbidden Forest III (3D Windows PC game by Paul Norman himself).

[saimon69]

I was more thinking at a sorta Galaxy Force game

[vulture]

Well, Unreal, for what it does, is one of the most technically impressive games for OCS. The amount of objects on screen is staggering at times and, at the same time, we're talking many colours, parallax, line scrolling, full frame 50/60 fps (pal/ntsc) and almost full resolution without panels. And I think it only asks for 512k.

[saimon69]

It uses Dual Playfield for those zoomed elements using a double vertical pixel, they did a very good job of coloring them and - if you get rid of the horizon in the non-cave sections, you can really have a Galaxy Force look, but since the code got lost it will need a full disassembly (and am not a coder so no chance for me)

Also want to add that that dragon could have been made better, is too small and rigid, almost reminding me a Laser disc game, but that is me

[saimon69]

Coming back at the six playfields scroller, this indie game called Return seems to have a fitting style for it
[ Show youtube player ]

[lionagony]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Coming back at the six playfields scroller, this indie game called Return seems to have a fitting style for it
[ Show youtube player ]

That looks great! I'm still surprised no coder has played with this source yet and at least put up a Youtube video of the prototype. It could be an unhidden hidden treasure.

[lionagony]

I have an update on this. I PM'ed roondar and he was so amazingly kind to compile the source code in the Spellsinger folder which Yves said on his Facebook was the 6 playfields scrolling prototype. For some reason Yves' picture of the idea isn't displaying in the original message anymore so here is a link labelled 6 playfields 8 direction 50 Hz scrolling + 20 levels of parallax (Ground & Sky) https://sites.google.com/view/6playfield/home The files in the Spellsinger folder are:

char (a bin file)
CHAR.GFA
Char.iff
Char (RAW file)
Grid16x16.iff
Jouabilite (text)
joy_pos (Word)
map (bin)
scr2 (RAW)
scr3 (RAW)
Scr4.iff
scr4 (RAW)
ScreenDefiition.iff (that's the one linked above)
Spell_Back_Scroll.s
Spell_Data.s
Spell_Init.s
Spell_Interuption.s
Spell_Tracks
Spell_Tracks.s
SpellSinger.s

roondar made a Youtube video of what showed up when he compiled the source code. He did this just as a favour for me and it's not an in depth video of his, just a small demo of what the code provided by Yves does, here it is with permission [ Show youtube player ]

So it's not what we expected although roondar did say it's not just a simple screen scroller but has lots of blitting going on and multiple buffers being used. My non-coder self had lots of questions when I saw the video:

1 - The pressing down on the joystick to change where the scroll is split is interesting, could that have something to do with the 20 layers of parallax Yves was talking about?

2 - roondar said it is checking for joystick input in the up direction but that it isn't working because of a bug, so what was pressing up intended to do?

3 - There are no sprites in the code but is the sprite use depicted in the picture workable?

4 - Would any of the binaries or RAW files have something different in them?

Since Yves was the first to come up with the 3rd parallax layer trick and since he mentioned the 6 playfields prototype in his main Facebook post I thought that there could be some real potential there. So for any coders it might be worth scrutinizing closely to see if there is anything unique that could be used for a new idea or game.

[TCD]

Interesting follow up