looking for SuperHero/Psygnosis demo

[mcbpete]

All the info + scans + .adf's regarding The One Feb '93 coverdisk can be found at this [fantastic] site as well: http://amigacoverdisks.emuunlim.com/...BRUARY93.shtml (it'd be cool if the site was updated though)

hi all,

I'm Anthony Ball, I did the code for Superhero.

SuperHero was an Amiga game that ran at 60FPS with 8 way scrolling and used a colour "trick" to get a nice new palette of over 32000 colours. It looked like a snes game on an Amiga

The basic idea of the game was done by David Bland, it was that a genetically modified human - Apex - had gone crazy with power... Because of this another modified human had to be created to destroy him - thats where the user takes control (in a lab) - the user modified the gene formula to create a new "Superhero". You could create almost any marvel type superhero from spiderman to batman to wonderwoman, etc... Give them powers then play the game. When playing the game it played like a snes platformer, then when you got into a fight with a "villian" the screen locked - power bars came on, the music changed and it played kinda like a beatem up. It was pretty violent for the time - a strong Superhero you actually know the head spining off opponents or a punch to the stomach split them into 2 halves! After the fight the screen would unlock, the music would change back and the game would be a platformer again. The game included door-key type puzzles and completing levels before a certain time. When you died there was an image of Apex mocking you - the speech was really nice. All at 60FPS. Pity it never came out...

Anyhow - I agree with the comments about the coverdisc game, it was not very good. But it was done with 2 days notice and we had to cut loads out to fit it into the space on the disc provided. It didn't show the game off that much at all.

Galahad: I'm really sorry I didn't get back to the forum before now... I REALLY have been so busy - but i have setup my old Amiga in the corner - I wil try search the drives for the SuperHero stuff in the near future.

I really would like to release the source to Superhero with the last runable version disk images, but I can't unless all people concerned also give their permission. Hopefully it may turn up somewhere like SuprNova or something... Of couse I won't have been the one to release it.

FromWithin:I assume that from your post that your Mike Clarke?

I just read your link at BackToRoots, I have to disagree with some of the stuff that you seem to remember...

The main point is that Psygnosis did not cancel SuperHero and until April 1993 we had full with Steve Riding (our producer at Psygnosis), with bug lists and new fixed disc images being exchanged almost daily - ask Chris Stanley or his game testers (the gameboys)! The game was 99.9% completed, protection being tested - I even have the published advert and 1st version of the comic manual, when something disasterous happened...

At the very begining of May 1993, all our computers at Kage were seized by the Police and not returned until late 1998! During this time we could not get access to the original computers. Anyhow we won the case - but by then the Amiga games market had gone. All of this can be confirmed by Steve Riding.

All of the music for SuperHero was originally written by Ray Norris & Douglas Boari. This can be proven by looking at page 2 of the comic book that would have been with the game - I have a prototype designed by Keith Hopwood, Carl Critchlow did the amazing artwork. Notice that your name is not mentioned? Wonder why?

The original idea behind the music was for it to be 4 channel, but really needing only 3. The 4th channel was to be optional - being took up by a sound effect if needed. (Look at the driver source that was provider to you). They did a great job in creating the music and sound fx, all of it packed great into a small amount of ram - no problems.

Then for some reason - unknown to either myself, David Bland (gfx), Ray or Doug Psygnosis wanted some changes and more sfx. With the added sfx the music had to go to 2 channels!!! We all said that it would sound terrible - but Psygnosis persuaded us to let you have a go.

Anyhow, dispite going from 4 channels to 2 channels, the runtime music files seemed to grow in size - thus forcing us to make changes to the memory structure of the game - thus creating no end of problems... Your driver also seemed to corrupt various areas of memory - it took ages to track down that bug from what I remember.

I hope Ray and Doug will join this forum - as this feed may get quite interesting...

-Anthony

[Galahad/FLT]

I haven't spoken to Ray Norrish (Aka NZO/Dual Crew Shining) for a LOOOOOONNNNGGG time, would be good to hear from him again.

[FromWithin]

Well well, Anthony Ball....Hello, sir.

FromWithin:I assume that from your post that your Mike Clarke?

Yes I am.

I just read your link at BackToRoots, I have to disagree with some of the stuff that you seem to remember...

My link? What link did you read?

The main point is that Psygnosis did not cancel SuperHero and until April 1993 we had full with Steve Riding

Fair enough if you got all of your computers taken away, I still maintain my point on this forum about the playability of the game, however. I always looked forward to it being finished, but I never saw a version that looked close to completion, and as far as I was told, I was getting the latest versions. But it's possible that the stuff I received and the versions that I saw in the test-room were not near to completion, so if the game was so fantastic, please upload it and let us all have a go. It would be interesting for me to see it again, you certainly have my permission to upload my contributions to the game.

Notice that your name is not mentioned? Wonder why?

I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to imply here. Are you saying that I'm a liar and that I didn't do any music for the game? Seriously, I would like an answer to this question. I can assure you that I spent many weeks on it. The music has been again uploaded to The Zone. The archive contains both the original Ray Norrish music and my conversions and additions/rewrites. Feel free to scan the prototype comic and share it with us all. If I'd known that the comic existed, Keith would have changed it for me without a shadow of a doubt.

Now then. Your final three paragraphs have got me really annoyed. They are accusatory without backup, the facts are incorrect and you provide no support to your statements. I really must question your motive for writing publically on this forum. However, you have accused me in public, so I shall respond in public.

Let me address each part individually.

The original idea behind the music was for it to be 4 channel, but really needing only 3. The 4th channel was to be optional - being took up by a sound effect if needed. (Look at the driver source that was provider to you). They did a great job in creating the music and sound fx, all of it packed great into a small amount of ram - no problems.

I never received any driver source, nor would I have been interested in it. My programming at the time was limited. I'd only just written a sound effect player for G2, I wasn't going to attempt a tracker replay routine.
Anyway, there were problems with the original music. It was not designed for three channels. That is obvious by running through it in a tracker. Muting any of channels causes an obvious hole in the music. None of the channels are really optional. A fighting game will have almost constant sound effects, so it should have been designed differently. I suggest that you download my Last Action Hero music to see how you go about designing music when one channel is to be muted intermittently. It must be carefully thought about with instruments being swapped around the channels to make one specific channel contain only the least important note, hi-hat, or whatever at each point in time. Let me just state that this is in no way a judgment of the original music files. For all I know, the original music spec could have just asked for "music" without specifying any more technical details. I am just noting that the original music does not look like it has been designed with a sound effect channel in mind and absolutely needed to be re-written.

Then for some reason - unknown to either myself, David Bland (gfx), Ray or Doug Psygnosis wanted some changes and more sfx. With the added sfx the music had to go to 2 channels!!! We all said that it would sound terrible - but Psygnosis persuaded us to let you have a go.

"Psygnosis" being whom exactly? Psygnosis only had about 50 employees at the time. Your contact was Steve Riding. He was the producer, it would have been his decision. And I knew Steve. He really wouldn't have been that interested. He works at Traveller's Tales now, feel free to e-mail him. I remember contesting the two channel issue with you when you came to see me at Psygnosis. You explicitly stated that you wanted one sound effect channel for the player and one for the baddies. If the decision had been forced upon you, I could have had a word with someone and changed their mind, but you never let me believe anything other than it was what you wanted.

I can imagine Steve saying that there should be more sound effects, but this is irrelevant to the two channel issue. The music was written in Protracker. It doesn't matter how many channels of data you put in, the memory usage stays the same. Reducing the amount of channels would not create memory space to fit in more sound effects. As far as I remember, you wanted two channels free for the reason mentioned above.

And the big bad wolf Psygnosis persuaded you to let me have a go, like I was some shitty musician with no experience. For Christ's sake man, I was helping you out, and even if I do say so myself, I don't think that anybody could have done a better job than I did. How can it have been unknown to you if you were allowed to respond, and then had to be persuaded to allow it?

Anyhow, dispite going from 4 channels to 2 channels, the runtime music files seemed to grow in size - thus forcing us to make changes to the memory structure of the game - thus creating no end of problems... Your driver also seemed to corrupt various areas of memory - it took ages to track down that bug from what I remember.

What the hell is your motive here? Are you really so petty and small minded that you come in here accusing me of doing a shit job just because I never liked your game 10 years ago? What the hell is wrong with you? How dare you!

The files did not grow in size. They all got smaller, and yet each file of mine contains an extra end-of-level baddie tune. I even re-made the title tune instruments for you to improve the quality. The only one that didn't go down in size was level8, because that was actually the endgame music and I left it alone.
I shall re-iterate that the music has been uploaded to The Zone. Have a look yourself.

So it's not enough that you accuse me of a) giving you larger files, and b) causing you problems that could never have happened because I never actually gave you larger files. You have to go one further. You then accuse me of providing a driver to you that corrupted memory. I never gave you a driver. I wasn't enough of a programmer to be able to write a driver or edit an existing driver. The music was done in Protracker. You surely just used the driver you already had (remember the one that was apparently provided to me?)

I've wasted enough of my time on writing this post, and will not waste any more getting into a slanging match with you about a game from 10 years ago. I expect carefully worded answers to my questions, with supporting evidence if necessary, and an apology from you to be posted to this forum.

[andreas]

Originally Posted by DoubleDutch

Galahad: I'm really sorry I didn't get back to the forum before now... I REALLY have been so busy - but i have setup my old Amiga in the corner - I wil try search the drives for the SuperHero stuff in the near future.

At the very begining of May 1993, all our computers at Kage were seized by the Police and not returned until late 1998! During this time we could not get access to the original computers. Anyhow we won the case - but by then the Amiga games market had gone.

Incredible! How dared they!
Did they have *serious* reasons to accuse someone of piracy (?) or other illegal activities (?) or whatever?

(just out of curiosity ...)

Moreover, it seems as if the old bash-him-until-he-drops thing between Mr. Dini (Kick Off) and Mr. Campbell (SWOS) gets a kind of imitation here again. Can't developers talk friendly with each other after such a ludicrously long time?
As a HOL member, I was the one to do the big part of all the research for games from IMAGITEC, e-mailed the people I could retrieve and - hah - they really set up a mailing list and I got infos from first hand that never were on the original boxes even! And none of these guys had to accuse the other of anything! This proves that there ARE developer teams where people can have conversations that do not go into personal things and/or show off any personal hatred.

So please try to be friendly to each other.
I would be extremely pissed if your personal infighting is going to be the reason for this game being doomed to never EVER see the light of day again!
(Remember this here and now could be the VERY LAST chance!!! )

FromWithin:

This is a quote from this very board - showing that you don't get your facts correct...

Superhero...no game there either. It seemed to have a lot of potential. I could see why it was taken on in the first place. It was a platform beat'em up in the style of Rolling Thunder. You would build your own superhero with a few parameters and choose the colour of his clothes (they all ended up the being the same but in different colours) then go from left to right across a city or sewers with baddies coming at you. After a couple of months development, there was no progression whatsoever and it got binned. Ray Norrish did about 4 pieces of music for it. Then I had to re-write them, the title screen in 3 channels, the in-game ones in 2, and had to do loads more. I did about 28 end-of-level baddy tunes! I was dry by the end of it. I used bits of the original music where possible but mostly it was a complete re-write. All for nothing. I haven't seen the demo on the coverdisc, but the final game wouldn't have been anything more than that.

Here is the link !

The 1st point "(they all ended up the being the same but in different colours)" is completely untrue! You obviously never played the game properly.

The 2nd point "After a couple of months development, there was no progression whatsoever and it got binned.", also completely untrue! Utter rubbish!

The 3rd point "Ray Norrish did about 4 pieces of music for it.", also completely untrue!

The 4th point "I haven't seen the demo on the coverdisc, but the final game wouldn't have been anything more than that", how can you say that if you have not seen the demo? The demo was a fraction of a disk and the game was on 3 discs - did you really presume there would be no difference??!!!

I never received any driver source, nor would I have been interested in it. My programming at the time was limited. I'd only just written a sound effect player for G2, I wasn't going to attempt a tracker replay routine.

I don't care what you received nor that programming at the time was limited, all I know is that the driver supplied with YOUR version of Ray & Dougs music was bugged!

Please find here a link to a pdf of various adverts and the manual (note your name is missing)...

The music that Ray and Doug did was indeed much smaller than yours, the music was edited by a tracker program & supplied to you in that format. However it was not used in my program in that format - it was compressed to about 50% by a compressor supplied by Ray & Doug, the player would play the music in the compressed format - real time. Again, I wish Ray or Doug would join the forum!

I don't wish to get into a massive arguement with you, but *please* dont write down things that you just don't know about or are untrue!

[Amiga1992]

Would be cool to know who you are, mate. Seems like you have been involved in Psiggy matters as much as FromWithin.

I'm Anthony Ball, I used to program video games...

The first "proper" job in video games (I was freelance before) was for Zippo games (unofficially Rare-North) in Manchester programming the NES - I programmed "Cabal". I left there to go to Tiertex, also in Manchester - to create new protection routines and systems for US Gold - while there I programmed "Mercs". I then left with one of the graphic artists (David Bland) and formed Kage (I think it means something like Dark Ghost or Evil Phantom in Japanese - correct me if I'm wrong), we had two games ideas "Penguins" and "SuperHero". Penguins was the better of the two games, but because of internal "strategy" we went with the weaker title first. Our contract with Psysgnosis would have been for 2 or more games - greater royalty percentage after the first game.

Then...

In the 90's anything computer related was seized by the police, they had a "tip-off" that we were doing some smart-card related work. Anyhow, they case took years to come to trial - without us or Psygnosis being able to access the computer equipement to carry on the work. Anyhow it took years but we won the case - but as said before - it was too late for any Amiga version of the game.

Currently working on "other" stuff with my company Double Dutch Designs. You can find some more info at www.doubledutchdesigns.com ...

I don't know much about Psygnosis matters, they just had the licence for the Amiga & Megadrive versions of SuperHero. We went on a few Psygnosis "outings" like the bowling & Karting, but so did most of Psygnosis & the external developers. They seemed like regular events and were always free!

From what I remember the trips to Psygnosis used to be great fun - the atmostphere always great, up until Sony took over. From there is all seemed to go downhill "fun wise" and that spoilt the atmosphere, I suppose this lead to the ultimate downfall of the place? FromWithin would probabily know much more about this than me...

I didn't see FromWithin that much - at most once or twice - I think he was in the second "newer" building at the time. We really only visited the original building next door.

I know Steve Riding (our project leader for SuperHero) left to go to Travellers Tales (Andrew Ingram - cofounder of the original "Travellers Tales" has been a friend of mine for almost 20 years - Andy did the graphics for "Leander" amongs others), but I thought he left there quite a while back to work on Mobile Phone games down south. Steve btw has been in the games industry since at least the 8-bit Atari - he programmed "AirStrike" and "AirStrike II" for English Software in Manchester. Steve would probabily be the ultimate person to speak to about what happened at Psygnosis "behing the scenes", he seemed to know most of what was going on at the time.

Hope this helps "fill in some blanks"...

-Anthony

[BippyM]

I hope you don't mind but I've put the PDF manual on my FTP for others to share (If you want me to remove it just say )

Great to see someone here who worked on the game (well created it ). Just a thought but does any of the original source/game/gfx etc exist that we can get hold of? pwetty pwease

Everything still exists. The CAPS project people have been in touch about it, together we are trying to establish who has the rights to the images, etc...

As far as Source and Original graphics data go, I *think* I have the rights - But object code may belong to Psysgnosis/Sony...

As soon as CAPS or myself have figured it out then it will be released or an explaination why it can't be released.

I don't really have any more info than this. If anyone knows who to contact at Psygnosis/Sony about this then please get in touch.

-Anthony

[andreas]

Anthony, could you please tell me which Amiga (!) games were developed by Kage and therefore should get a developer = Kage in HOL?
It might not be a "real" mistake of HOL, but more likely due to "wrong" declarations found in in-game screens and/or manuals, as they sometimes rather tell you about the copyright holder than the (actual) developer
Thanks

SuperHero was Kage's first game! Penguins would have been the second...

Kage also developed "TAME" and "TAMEpro" - Turbo Amiga Map Editor... Used by a few people at different software houses.

"PutDisk" was also developed and used on a few games as a mini disk operating system with built-in huffman compression/custom disk format.

Before that myself & David Bland both worked for Tietex on Tiertex/US Gold projects.

[andreas]

Thank you for the info.
Well, could just look thru all the Tiertex-developed stuff if everything is all right?
Thanks ...

[edits]
whoops ...
SuperHero too has Tiertex as developer ... should be changed perhaps.
Is the developer team name 'Ex Animo' correct for Globdule?
So was Ex Animo an autarchic developing team as well?

Ian Shaw was the coder for globdule, I just let him use a couple of routines and my PutDisk program. I don't know why I was mentioned in the Gmaes credits - no one else who used my routines gave credit...

I remeber they gave me a really good book as a thankyou.

I think they were called Ex Animo - just two blokes from Barrow making a game! - I think it was Barrow(-in-furness).

SuperHero is not from Tiertex!

I did the code for the 68000 versions of Mercs, David Bland did the graphics. David worked on quite a few Tiertex games. Does it really work on ECS - I don't think it should.... Should be easy to fix though.

Andrew Ingram did most of the graphics for the Early Tiertex games.

Donald or John (they ran Tiertex) did most of the early games there. I think Tiertex are still going - http://www.tiertex.com/ I'm sure that they would be helpful. They should have records somewhere...

[andreas]

Many thanks!
I think everything looks correct now.
About ECS: We have listed all games starting from 1990 with OCS/ECS, as they *basically* should run on an ECS system. I do know that there are some exceptions of the rule, though.

I've just released a new program, its not an Amiga game but a PC Spy App!

I though some of you may be interested in it as it can be quite fun to use.

You can grab keys, screens or webcams from multiple computers at the same time.

There is a trial download at www.SpyMon.com , there is a user manual with a DynDNS tutorial in it there too.

-Anthony

[mr_0rga5m]

Hrm .. reminds me of BO/Netbus

nope, not a trojan/virus.

The client program will only send data to one IP address. BO and others would start a server and let others in. This is the major difference between them.

Its more like http://www.e-spy-software.com/spy_software.htm

or http://www.spytech-web.com/spyagent.shtml

but real-time, rather than email based.

-Anthony

Originally Posted by DoubleDutch

FromWithin:
The music that Ray and Doug did was indeed much smaller than yours, the music was edited by a tracker program & supplied to you in that format. However it was not used in my program in that format - it was compressed to about 50% by a compressor supplied by Ray & Doug, the player would play the music in the compressed format - real time. Again, I wish Ray or Doug would join the forum!

Hi,
It's Ray here

Hi Galahad as well - it's been a while!

[Ray Norrish]

hey all (Galahad and all) I finally managed to set up an account from home (my local rules seemed to exclude eab emails for some reason, so I couldn't validate my account!!)


Hey ho and all that!