Back to the golden age

[meynaf]

Nah, alas we're not back to the 80's ; it's just the name of the next game i've ported to Amiga...

I did not want to do new Atari ST game ports, but this one was waiting on my HD for quite a while after a first failed attempt (on which i admit i didn't try very hard ).

You can get it here :
http://meynaf.free.fr/pr/bttga.lzx

Thanks to Don Adan's help, i could get rid of the main problem here (absolute addressing). The saved game is a mess but the game works.

This version is multilingual. Choose the relevant start script (french or english).

You can play with a joystick or with the keyboard. As my other ports do, it's 100% OS friendly and it multitasks happily - try Amiga-M.

For now the game won't work on 68000, more a matter of 68020+ code of mine than a matter of speed. If some coder wants to turn my 64-bit mul & div into old 68000 code, just speak.

People having the experience of that game on the ST are more than welcome to test this version thoroughly. Anyone finishing the game must know that the end text has several pages and you cycle thru them with up and down (keyboard or joystick) - as that's not obvious.

Do not redirect cli output to nil:. Only error messages get there and we don't want to lose them - should you get one, give it to me with preferably a saved game and the instructions to get it from that point (you can first PM me).

Gee, i was too talkative here. Time to go to sleep now. Bug reports will follow and i must be ready.

[dlfrsilver]

mmhh.... it works quite nicely

[Zagrebista]

Can someone convert it to a zipped ADF file?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Zagrebista

Can someone convert it to a zipped ADF file?

You don't need that. Better is to setup an HD in your emulator. Then from here you can put as many programs as you want.

[meckert]

Great game, great conversion. Finally an ST port actually worth playing

[daxb]

Had a small test on A1200 040 AGA 3.1 Patche and it workd without problems so far. The first ugly thing I notice was the sound fx but that is not your fault of course.

[Zandig]

This is awesome meynaf.
Thank you for porting this to the Amiga. Lots of fun with this very cool action/adventure game. I made it well into the second town before I died and have not come across any bugs so far.

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by daxb

Had a small test on A1200 040 AGA 3.1 Patche and it workd without problems so far. The first ugly thing I notice was the sound fx but that is not your fault of course.

The sound fx is using samples, so it's already better than the ST version in that aspect - even though these 5khz samples of course suck a little bit

[daxb]

Originally Posted by meynaf

The sound fx is using samples, so it's already better than the ST version in that aspect - even though these 5khz samples of course suck a little bit

Interesting. Do you know why they chose such a low value (I guess Atari can use similar sampling frequencies like Amiga)? Is it because of saving disk space size? The most Amiga ECS/OCS games use at least 11-16kHz what is already low.

[OldB0y]

Originally Posted by daxb

Interesting. Do you know why they chose such a low value (I guess Atari can use similar sampling frequencies like Amiga)? Is it because of saving disk space size? The most Amiga ECS/OCS games use at least 11-16kHz what is already low.

The ST's soundchip was an off-the-shelf component that had no-where near the capabilities of the Amiga's Paula chip. To use higher quality samples would require a lot of CPU time on the ST. Don't forget the Amiga had custom graphics/sound hardware which could offload a lot of otherwise CPU intensive stuff, the (basic) ST simply did not.

[daxb]

Thanks! That explains it and general atari game quality.

[Nobby_UK]

Went to a Black Screen just after the Sword in Inventory Flashed ???
Nice Game though.

[Irek´72]

I tried it on my A1200 / 040/64 MB and the game ran without problems on my setup.
I like games of this type very much, it reminds me a bit of Torvak the Warrior of Core or Targhan of Silmarils. All in all a very good Atari ST port for the Amiga, thanks for that.


It looks like that this game is only playable from a HD on an Amiga. A Amiga HD game without a start icon? I could not accept that, and I decided to change it ..... (see below)

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by Nobby_UK

Went to a Black Screen just after the Sword in Inventory Flashed ???

Try to reproduce it. Then send me a save game and instructions how to get it. Without that i can do nothing.

Originally Posted by OldB0y

The ST's soundchip was an off-the-shelf component that had no-where near the capabilities of the Amiga's Paula chip. To use higher quality samples would require a lot of CPU time on the ST. Don't forget the Amiga had custom graphics/sound hardware which could offload a lot of otherwise CPU intensive stuff, the (basic) ST simply did not.

The YM2149 chip is not supposed to be able to play samples at all. It can do it only with a trick but the cpu has to push every sample manually (no dma). Disk space can count too, so low frequencies are quite common.

Anyway, the ST can do high frequencies when it has nothing else to do. Listen to the title music for example.

[turrican3]

Merci Meynaf,
you are a king !

[Nobby_UK]

I made a Save-State (WinUAE)
and when I went back it was OK

That archer is annoying - I shall have to buy a Cross Bow

[meynaf]

You don't need a save state. The game can save its state by itself (press S).

Btw. A new version is available now (same link). Fixes a few minor things.

[s2325]

[ Show youtube player ]

[Retro-Nerd]

The German retro magazine RETURN mentioned this Amiga port in their latest issue 19.