Amigo the Fox (Scorpion Engine sample game)

earok · 13 June 2020, 10:00

[ Show youtube player ]

Hope it's OK to post this separate to the main Scorpion thread

the intention is to get this one finished and release it as a separate thing (though it'll still be a 'Scorpion Demo' in the sense that project source will be bundled with the editor itself). There's only six levels in the original game, and most of the major gameplay features are implemented one way or another.

Performance wise it seems OK on stock A1200, A500 performance is currently a bit spotty due to a combination of reasons (no use of hardware sprites, 5 bitplanes etc).

I'll try to get it finished sometime this month, though it's possible I may come back to it in the future as Scorpion gets more features added.

Predseda · 13 June 2020, 18:14

Although I personally can't stand that plumber character, I must admit the engine works fantastic! Congrats, Erik!

jotd · 13 June 2020, 18:19

Quote:

port of DOS Mario fangame to Scorpion

What assets did you reuse?

Certainly looks excellent!

Dan · 13 June 2020, 21:05

Quote:

What assets did you reuse?

The source code of the dos version is available at http://www.wieringsoftware.nl/mario/ (it has an sprite editor in it)

I remember playing it, back then.

This port looks almost identical to the original ! Great work.

qupe · 13 June 2020, 22:49

Definitely looking good Earok.

earok · 14 June 2020, 00:56

Cheers guys.

I'm going to change the name to 'Amigo', for reasons. I don't think Big N would care about an Amiga port of a 25 year old DOS game that they've never cared about either (and every second person on social media is saying stuff like 'look at what happened to the C64 game' which was never taken down). But you never know.

Art does indeed come from the fan game, though I've had to make some programmer art hacks to it. In particular, the block resolution is 20x14 so I've had to squeeze that down to 16x16, and for characters that are 17-20 pixels wide, I've squeezed them down to 16 so I don't double the blitter time. (Also, given the original is a VGA game, I've squeezed the palette from 256->32. Though I figure 16 would be enough if used in tandem with a copper sky or copper sprite background).

It doesn't use any of the original games' source (given that it's a mix of Turbo Pascal and x86 Assembly), but I'm likely to write a converter for the level data at some point so I can rip the levels directly.

Anyway, I've zoned that preview release if anyone wants to look at it. There's some obvious bugs and shortcomings (no working pipes, turtle shell can't be stopped). A500 is the bare minimum (with severe frame drops in parts), A1200 is recommended.

saimon69 · 14 June 2020, 01:35

I can suggest Call it Giuseppe and make Tsak modify Mario sprite to become bald

Plus, instead of turtles New York cat-sized Rats

[ Show youtube player ]

earok · 14 June 2020, 01:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by saimon69

I can suggest Call it Giuseppe and make Tsak modify Mario sprite to become bald

Plus, instead of turtles New York cat-sized Rats

[ Show youtube player ]

Hah. Not a bad idea.

Psst, if you've got some music lying around..

lilalurl · 14 June 2020, 03:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by earok

I'm going to change the name to 'Amigo', for reasons

Do you want the thread title to be changed accordingly ("Amigo (port of DOS Mario fangame to Scorpion)" I guess)?

earok · 14 June 2020, 03:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilalurl

Do you want the thread title to be changed accordingly ("Amigo (port of DOS Mario fangame to Scorpion)" I guess)?

Yes please

Dan · 14 June 2020, 07:10

I just woke up, still half asleep, seeing the adf amigo in the zone.

Amigo, i thought, that was a German diskmag.

Then i read the description: Amigo (port of DOS Mario) ... and noticed something:

If you exchange the g with r, then you have an anagram ...

earok · 14 June 2020, 08:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan

I just woke up, still half asleep, seeing the adf amigo in the zone.

Amigo, i thought, that was a German diskmag.

Then i read the description: Amigo (port of DOS Mario) ... and noticed something:

If you exchange the g with r, then you have an anagram ...

That's true haha. But Amiro doesn't have the same ring to it.

Posted a minor update to the zone, interim NTSC support (full NTSC support is a long term goal of Scorpion, but for now, the game will run but slightly too fast) and a raft of bug fixes, mostly to do with the shell.

jotd · 14 June 2020, 10:12

so basically you just reused the art (but converted it) and recoded it all from scratch.

I wouldn't call that a port of the DOS game then. You reused the assets, just like this game reused the original game assets.

Excellent work.

earok · 14 June 2020, 10:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

so basically you just reused the art (but converted it) and recoded it all from scratch.

I wouldn't call that a port of the DOS game then. You reused the assets, just like this game reused the original game assets.

Excellent work.

Cheers!

Ehhhh.. you've got a point, though it's not quite black and white. It's not just the art but the intention is to reuse the level structure as well (the first level I copied by eyeball, but for levels 2-6 and the hidden pipe rooms I'll convert from the source code).

But yeah, so far as the actual code goes - it's my own platform engine and bytecode virtual machine that's handling all of the logic, there's no way I can convert Turbo Pascal + 86k Assembly to it regardless.

Edit: Hmm, I'd still call it a port in the sense that (for example) arcade ports to Amiga are arcade ports, even if the code was written from scratch. But I realize it's not a port in the sense that recompiling the source code for Amiga would be.

BippyM · 14 June 2020, 10:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by earok

Yes please

Done

jotd · 14 June 2020, 10:47

yeah, okay then it's still a port all right. t just makes it look like you adapted the MS DOS code (not practical with all that x86 asm/pascal crap languages) when you used your engine to redo all.

What would be interesting to look into would be if there was some obscure AI algorithm that is difficult to recreate. But here you "just" have to get the "physics" right. I guess most of the original source code displays enemies/handles scrolling/sound/controls... useless.

Believe my experience though, recreating the level data (enemies & their setup) by eyeball is really tedious and frustrating. I've done that for Gods enemies in my java remake (not port as I rewrote code from scratch

) and that was really brutal (the tiles were converted though...)

earok · 14 June 2020, 11:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by BippyM

Done

Much appreciated

Quote:

Originally Posted by jotd

yeah, okay then it's still a port all right. t just makes it look like you adapted the MS DOS code (not practical with all that x86 asm/pascal crap languages) when you used your engine to redo all.

What would be interesting to look into would be if there was some obscure AI algorithm that is difficult to recreate. But here you "just" have to get the "physics" right. I guess most of the original source code displays enemies/handles scrolling/sound/controls... useless.

Believe my experience though, recreating the level data (enemies & their setup) by eyeball is really tedious and frustrating. I've done that for Gods enemies in my java remake (not port as I rewrote code from scratch

) and that was really brutal (the tiles were converted though...)

I believe you! Doing the first level from eyeball was a pain, I don't think I want to do that for the next five plus all of the pipe areas.

I'm hoping the physics will be 'good enough'! I'm not totally sure I'll copy every mechanic from the original (which had a discrete run button, and you couldn't reach full jump height unless you were running), but as long as it's an enjoyable game, and a decent demonstration of what Scorpion can do, I won't worry too much about getting it 100% right.

earok · 15 June 2020, 13:55

I did a quick playthrough of the DOS original to see what features are still needed. I think, so far as the engine itself goes, I need to add the ability for enemies to patrol platforms without falling off, and there's some other relatively tricky features (platforms that collapse if you stand on them too long) that I should be able to do just in Scorpion's visual scripting.

I'll aim for a "complete" release this weekend, though there could be some future updates when the underlying Scorpion Engine itself is upgraded.

(Ahem, JMD, I'd love it if you've got some music

)

Gzegzolka · 15 June 2020, 14:28

Very nice ^^

earok · 16 June 2020, 06:18

Cheers

I started digging into the map data of the original. It's fascinating how it's done. This is the visual output of my converter to help me make the Scorpion version of the maps.

The power up symbols like the flower and the star mean absolutely nothing on their own, but they change the content of the mystery block, brick or invisible blocks underneath, and they can also be used for linking the start and exit points of pipes.

13 June 2020, 10:00	#1
earok Registered User Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Auckland Posts: 3,539	Amigo the Fox (Scorpion Engine sample game) [ Show youtube player ] Hope it's OK to post this separate to the main Scorpion thread the intention is to get this one finished and release it as a separate thing (though it'll still be a 'Scorpion Demo' in the sense that project source will be bundled with the editor itself). There's only six levels in the original game, and most of the major gameplay features are implemented one way or another. Performance wise it seems OK on stock A1200, A500 performance is currently a bit spotty due to a combination of reasons (no use of hardware sprites, 5 bitplanes etc). I'll try to get it finished sometime this month, though it's possible I may come back to it in the future as Scorpion gets more features added.

14 June 2020, 07:10	#11
Dan Registered User Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Germany Posts: 629	I just woke up, still half asleep, seeing the adf amigo in the zone. Amigo, i thought, that was a German diskmag. Then i read the description: Amigo (port of DOS Mario) ... and noticed something: If you exchange the g with r, then you have an anagram ... Last edited by Dan; 14 June 2020 at 07:32.

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Scorpion Engine	earok	project.Amiga Game Factory	3183	18 April 2024 10:43
Game Engine?	amigang	request.Apps	1	14 October 2010 14:49
can you help game has a Michael Jackson sample [Found: Elevation]	wobbly	Looking for a game name ?	11	03 August 2008 00:19
Game Engine v1.06	BinoX	request.Apps	0	10 August 2007 19:51
Scorpion (100% working)	andreas	request.Old Rare Games	13	01 August 2003 08:48

13 June 2020, 18:14	#2
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,539	Although I personally can't stand that plumber character, I must admit the engine works fantastic! Congrats, Erik!

13 June 2020, 22:49	#5
qupe Registered User Join Date: Jan 2018 Location: Beaufort/Wales Posts: 201	Definitely looking good Earok.

14 June 2020, 00:56	#6
earok Registered User Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Auckland Posts: 3,539	Cheers guys. I'm going to change the name to 'Amigo', for reasons. I don't think Big N would care about an Amiga port of a 25 year old DOS game that they've never cared about either (and every second person on social media is saying stuff like 'look at what happened to the C64 game' which was never taken down). But you never know. Art does indeed come from the fan game, though I've had to make some programmer art hacks to it. In particular, the block resolution is 20x14 so I've had to squeeze that down to 16x16, and for characters that are 17-20 pixels wide, I've squeezed them down to 16 so I don't double the blitter time. (Also, given the original is a VGA game, I've squeezed the palette from 256->32. Though I figure 16 would be enough if used in tandem with a copper sky or copper sprite background). It doesn't use any of the original games' source (given that it's a mix of Turbo Pascal and x86 Assembly), but I'm likely to write a converter for the level data at some point so I can rip the levels directly. Anyway, I've zoned that preview release if anyone wants to look at it. There's some obvious bugs and shortcomings (no working pipes, turtle shell can't be stopped). A500 is the bare minimum (with severe frame drops in parts), A1200 is recommended.

14 June 2020, 01:35	#7
saimon69 J.M.D - Bedroom Musician Join Date: Apr 2014 Location: los angeles,ca Posts: 3,519	I can suggest Call it Giuseppe and make Tsak modify Mario sprite to become bald Plus, instead of turtles New York cat-sized Rats [ Show youtube player ]

14 June 2020, 10:12	#13
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,161	so basically you just reused the art (but converted it) and recoded it all from scratch. I wouldn't call that a port of the DOS game then. You reused the assets, just like this game reused the original game assets. Excellent work.

14 June 2020, 10:47	#16
jotd This cat is no more Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: FRANCE Age: 52 Posts: 8,161	yeah, okay then it's still a port all right. t just makes it look like you adapted the MS DOS code (not practical with all that x86 asm/pascal crap languages) when you used your engine to redo all. What would be interesting to look into would be if there was some obscure AI algorithm that is difficult to recreate. But here you "just" have to get the "physics" right. I guess most of the original source code displays enemies/handles scrolling/sound/controls... useless. Believe my experience though, recreating the level data (enemies & their setup) by eyeball is really tedious and frustrating. I've done that for Gods enemies in my java remake (not port as I rewrote code from scratch ) and that was really brutal (the tiles were converted though...)

15 June 2020, 13:55	#18
earok Registered User Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Auckland Posts: 3,539	I did a quick playthrough of the DOS original to see what features are still needed. I think, so far as the engine itself goes, I need to add the ability for enemies to patrol platforms without falling off, and there's some other relatively tricky features (platforms that collapse if you stand on them too long) that I should be able to do just in Scorpion's visual scripting. I'll aim for a "complete" release this weekend, though there could be some future updates when the underlying Scorpion Engine itself is upgraded. (Ahem, JMD, I'd love it if you've got some music )

15 June 2020, 14:28	#19
Gzegzolka Registered User Join Date: Feb 2014 Location: Warszawa / Polska Posts: 1,858	Very nice ^^

16 June 2020, 06:18	#20
earok Registered User Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Auckland Posts: 3,539	Cheers I started digging into the map data of the original. It's fascinating how it's done. This is the visual output of my converter to help me make the Scorpion version of the maps. The power up symbols like the flower and the star mean absolutely nothing on their own, but they change the content of the mystery block, brick or invisible blocks underneath, and they can also be used for linking the start and exit points of pipes.

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)