Quasarius Rush - New game for Amiga (I would like Feedback)

[phx]

The game looks quite enjoyable. I'm sure I would have some fun playing it. There are multiple attack patterns, bosses, etc. - the game engine is really well done. And this is already the most important part for a game, in my opinion. The rest is fine-tuning, like working on graphics and sound.

Also the graphics are not bad. You might only improve on the colouring, as already mentioned before.

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

I am using Dual Playfield mode to get more speed, so I don't have to redraw backgrounds

Are you sure you need Dual Playfield? There is absolutely nothing in the game which takes advantage of it, besides your claim to improve performance. The disadvantages, with having just 7 colours in each playfield and the heavy DMA-load for 6 bitplanes are huge. I would bet that the performance doesn't suffer a lot when redrawing backgrounds in 16 colours. It would make the graphics automatically much prettier.

[Tigerskunk]

After having dabbled in dual playfield for one and a half years, switching over to a normal 16 colours setup was the best thing ever. Even if it took me some time .

You have so much more choice in doing different colour ramps, etc.

[Master484]

God damn it, this looks freaking incredible.

Someone else here offered his hand to draw the graphics for the game and I accepted. So it's already happening.

But I am very, very grateful for your offer, mate.

Ok.

But in any case, I'll soon make a new shmup graphics set to OpenGameArt, using that 8+8 palette.

Who knows, maybe they'll be used in some future Amiga game, or I might even use them myself, if I find the motivation to continue my own projects.

[Shatterhand]

Qq

Are you sure you need Dual Playfield? There is absolutely nothing in the game which takes advantage of it, besides your claim to improve performance.

Bobs are drawn/updated every frame. With dual playfield I don't need to store/restore backgrounds when they move. Not the first Amiga game to use this "trick"

EDIT: I'll test again with and without dual playfield and post my results here, when I get back to my Amiga

But also, I've planned some bosses that will take advantage of the dual playfield mode

[roondar]

It´s been my experience during tests that Blitter performance for 16 colour and Dual Playfield mode is very similar - the extra cycles used by display DMA are more or less gained back by needing fewer cycles per bob.

But this only holds both playfields show 'something' and bobs are added on top of this (doing so requires a restore step for the bobs). If you use Dual Playfield like Shatterhand has done, with one playfield for bobs and one for background graphics, then it is usually faster to use Dual Playfield mode. As he mentions, in that case you don't need to restore anything. Merely clearing will do, which tends to be cheaper to do and is less affected by bitplane DMA. Also, it makes some extra tricks for even more performance easier - such as if some/all of your bobs don't overlap.

However, the game as is doesn't seem to show that many objects. At a glance, I'd say it ought to work just fine using 16 colour mode. Though I guess it all depends on what the game is coded in and how 'heavy' the game logic is.

[Shatterhand]

This is Just the first level. I want to throw more bullets, but not on the first level

Dual Playfield also helps moving big bosses around. Look at Turrican 2 final boss for reference

Of course I could always just completely remove background against those bosses and say it's another throwback to 8 bits times

[Ami]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

But I also admit I have a very bad eye for it, and this "best work" may also be the my wall and the best I can manage to achieve... I know I can understand and deliver a good gameplay experience, but I really never cared much about graphics in a game and I have a very hard time getting what's right or wrong with them. It's been a few hours I begun asking for feedback outside my personal friends circle and a few people said the colors for the objects aren't good. I believe them yet I CAN'T SEE it and for me it looks just fine.

I feel exactly the same. I would say... just do your own! Honestly, I can't see nothing wrong with your pixels. Amiga is still waiting for a "shmup done right" and you are my hope!

[Adrian Browne]

Hi, is this project still being developed?