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File Name: Megablasters: Escape from Castle in the Clouds
File Submitted: February 1, 2015, 6:11:14 PM


Have you realised it's been 20 years since the release of the original Megablasters?

Let's celebrate with this special little game by Project Argon!

Coding: Axelay
Graphics: rexbeng
Sound and music: McKlain and Tom&Jerry.
Original game by Odiesoft.


Released 2015/01


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Click here to download this file (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=dldir;sa=details;lid=3939)

Really fine ! Congratulation to all the team ! This version is soooo goooooddd ! :D

Indeed it is... I played just for a little bit and it seemed ace to me!!!

Original megablasters was one of the best CPC games every. This one seems to kill me all to often. Maybe I am a particularly bad mega blaster, but the instant pixel overlap death spoils the fun somewhat. Great presentation and fantastic McKlain tunes, but IMHO not as fun as the original. Sorry I want to love this, but I died just to often. I live the vanishing baddies though.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

2015 starts great, may become a great CPC year...


I love Rexbeng use of palette and style, but really, I'm not into too much horizontal lines, prefer 50/50 ditherings.

Will get a look at it anyway, must look even better on real screen.

Quote from: Gryzor on 17:11, 01 February 15
Have you realised it's been 20 years since the release of the original Megablasters?

No, I didn't! Sheesh, where is my life going?! ???

Anyway, I like it, but I found it a lot harder than the original game (although I haven't played the original in a long time). On my first couple of goes I found the metallic robot heads to be very difficult to destroy, but then I found a tactic that seems to work.

Will this game see a physical release from Psytronik like most of Axelay's others? ;)

Amazing game. Congratulations! I love the graphics personally, gives the game a darker / edgier feel.
Agree with the difficulty, I died extremely quickly but I love bombers so I shall endure.

May I ask how many levels / stages the game has as I amazed it all fits onto 1 dsk file compared to multiple dsk's in the original. Smaller game or amazing compression?

Huh? Already more than twenty years passed since we were sitting at Marabu´s castle and Odiesoft philosophized about his code? And already twenty years since Gert Genial crossed the bridge over the Rhine in Konstanz, trying to spit into the river against the wind direction? And also twenty years ago that we were sitting in a piano bar in Konstanz drinking Weizenbier that was much too expensive? Seems to be true... Thanks guys for reminding me.  8)

The game looks great, but I always died really quick...

Quote from: Nich on 22:27, 01 February 15
Will this game see a physical release from Psytronik like most of Axelay's others? ;)

Quote from: Morri on 23:27, 01 February 15

May I ask how many levels / stages the game has as I amazed it all fits onto 1 dsk file compared to multiple dsk's in the original. Smaller game or amazing compression?

Two different questions, but answered with the same point.  Escape from Castle in the Clouds is a small mini-game to celebrate the anniversary, so it features only one world, though with a few more rounds than a world had in the original game, and the two player mode gets some different maps too.


It wouldnt, I suspect, warrant a standalone physical release.


That said, it's a quite large mini game.  Without modern compression it would likely have been both sides of a disk.  :)


With the difficulty, it's probably worth remembering that the original game gives you an energy bar, which we dropped for this game.

Can you Tell us more about the sprites displayed way you use ?

The technic used on this game makes it an equivalent of any 8bit game console!

Quote from: Ast on 11:28, 02 February 15
Can you Tell us more about the sprites displayed way you use ?

Are you sure you want to ask that here?  Could be a bit dull for the games section.  ;)

I was going to guess compiled sprites and adjusting the overscan screen start.

Quote from: Axelay on 14:19, 02 February 15

Are you sure you want to ask that here?  Could be a bit dull for the games section.  ;)

Spoiler: ShowHide

Well, OK, the game uses compiled sprites.  They are locked to even lines to halve the address line calculation with a bit set moving down every other line, and the most common values are stored in registers for writing to screen ram rather than transferring from memory.  The overscan screen start positions are set so that the second part of the screen starts at the beginning of a new line and lookup tables are used to get line addresses, so the compiled sprite routines dont need to make any checks for encountering the second part of the overscan screen memory.

Exactly what i think  8)  really great coding...

Great presentation, but that enemy that just appears right where you are without warning and kills you makes the game broken and unplayable. No thanks.

Great Game! Great introduction story. I use sprites in a similar way, saves a lot of time. Big Thanks to all the development team!!!  :) :) :)

Quote from: EgoTrip on 17:00, 02 February 15
Great presentation, but that enemy that just appears right where you are without warning and kills you makes the game broken and unplayable. No thanks.

There's no such thing in this game.


rb

Thanks for the comments everyone! As far as the game's dificulty goes, being a small game we didn't want MBEFCITC (lol!) to 'run short', so compared to the original Megablasters we decided it would be better to up the challenge a bit. When I say 'we', I obviously mean Axelay and I.


So it needs a bit of strategy to stay alive, and this requires some effort. Tough luck for those who'd expect the game to 'auto-complete' itself but, hey, stop behaving like you started gaming on a smartphone, pick up your gamepad and give it as many goes it takes!  :-*


The game is not unbeatable, nor unfair. The enemies can overrun you if you are not careful but you can outsmart them if you are a bit resourceful, mind your surroundings and make good use of bonuses. In fact, there are many ways (styles) to play this game.


rb

Quote from: rexbeng on 18:25, 02 February 15
So it needs a bit of strategy to stay alive, and this requires some effort.

Understatement, noun: the presentation of something as being smaller or less good or important than it really is.

but we are all nearly 40 or more... we became worse than casual gamers...  :laugh:

I simply don't have the time to play a game for hours. It's boring when I can't advance. Meine drei Groschen.  :)

Quote from: Axelay on 09:45, 02 February 15
Two different questions, but answered with the same point.  Escape from Castle in the Clouds is a small mini-game to celebrate the anniversary, so it features only one world, though with a few more rounds than a world had in the original game, and the two player mode gets some different maps too.

It wouldnt, I suspect, warrant a standalone physical release.

Thanks for your answer. I noticed that the DSK file was around 104K compressed so I reckoned it was a fairly big game with lots of worlds, even after taking into account the long intro and the overscan menu.

Quote from: EgoTrip on 17:00, 02 February 15
Great presentation, but that enemy that just appears right where you are without warning and kills you makes the game broken and unplayable. No thanks.

You talk about this silver teleporter ball? Yes, just happened to me. It matierialized in my player character, 2 seconds later the same again. With 3 lifes... tough. One needs luck in this game, or a poke  :)

I'm yet to get off level 1, because I keep getting stupid stuff happen that I cannot control or evade. Such as the teleporter ball materialising right in next to me and hitting me with me having no possible way to evade. Or getting trapped by 3 of the other enemies, dying and respawning only to get hit again more or less straight away, with no possible way to evade.

There is seriously no incentive to play a game where random shit kills the game. That IS unfair. I can handle a challenge, where something is genuinely difficult through good design. This is not it. I really dislike games that require more luck than skill in order to advance. Which is a shame because everything else about the game is really impressive.

The "ball" doesn't teleport. It hides (cloaks) if you put a bomb on it's way, you can hear the "cloacking" sound when that happens, and after the bomb explodes, it comes back again at the same spot.


Maybe the game needs some gameplay instructions for everyone. We all know the basics of the game system, but it has it's peculiarities.

Well, one can learn it by doing I guess.  :)  Not yet made it out of level one, but got that far that only one silver ball remains and me. But I can't kill it because I can only lay one bomb down at a time. So I have to stay alive longer when being able to drop 2 bombs. I see it's doable, but pretty hard. It's a bit frustrating, but a good gamer (not me actually) can do it. :)

Nevertheless: Great work!!!


Oh, btw. an explanation which icons do what would be helpful  ;)

Maybe a video of Level 1 would be helpful.

Well, the 'ball' doesn't 'randomly appear' next to the player (although I confess we were tempted to making it do so at some point :P ). The player needs to be observant and maybe do some trial and error.


Anyway, you guys should know that later enemies become even more tricky, so perhaps those who cannot get off level one should stick to playing casual games.  ;D


rb

Wow, stunning game!
Well done to the devs; it's absolutely brilliant.

Funnily enough I found the first screen easy (cleared it first try), but the second screen... holy cow, that's another story. Gonna need some time to figure out some useful strategies.

That cloaking-ball is a pain in the a$$. I managed to destroy it on the first screen, but there are lots of them on the second screen, and destroying them seems to require some tight timing (it looks like your bombs need to "surprise" them as they come around a corner).

Still, it's wonderful to play a modern game (albeit on an *old* system) that offers a serious challenge to the player.
(I'd love to see a side-scrolling Dark Souls style game on the CPC!)

From what I have played , I prefer it too the original MB, which is also a great game imo. Thanks for this offering, all who were involved , definitely welcome release!

Quote from: villain on 07:49, 02 February 15
Huh? Already more than twenty years passed since we were sitting at Marabu´s castle and Odiesoft philosophized about his code? And already twenty years since Gert Genial crossed the bridge over the Rhine in Konstanz, trying to spit into the river against the wind direction? And also twenty years ago that we were sitting in a piano bar in Konstanz drinking Weizenbier that was much too expensive? Seems to be true... Thanks guys for reminding me.  8)

Sweeet ole memories. Never forget Odiesofts Megablasters Release meeting! Was it Necron who got thrown into the Snow outside because he took somebodies sleeping bag? Had such a nice talk to Hiroyuki back the day.

It was Vassago/Necron (formerly known as BBS) I think. :-) Oh, and I remember later talks between Hiroyuki and you that weren't as succesful.  ;D 

Thanks everyone, for the feedback!  Sorry I should have said that before, but I got a bit caught up in answering questions. :-[

Quote from: Nich on 21:31, 02 February 15

Thanks for your answer. I noticed that the DSK file was around 104K compressed so I reckoned it was a fairly big game with lots of worlds, even after taking into account the long intro and the overscan menu.

The game is 'big' in a certain respect, but it is mainly in the graphics & presentation side.  Before compression, the intro slides alone are around 80kB.  The game itself is only about 1/4 of the disk space, the intro, menu and outro take most of the rest.

Quote from: TFM on 22:54, 02 February 15
Oh, btw. an explanation which icons do what would be helpful  ;)

The pickups are virtually identical in design and function as the equivalent items from the original game, which you can read about on Odiesoft's page (http://www.odiesoft.de/amstrad/megablasters/extras/extras.html) about them, they're the first 10 on that page.  The only differences I think are that the original game had a single shoe and pair of shoes icons, EFCITC uses a red shoe as a single shoe, cyan shoe for a pair.  EFCITC also limits you to up to 8 bombs rather than 9, and 15 lives rather than 99.  Otherwise, those first 10 pickups on the Odiesoft page are just the same.

Quote from: ervin on 23:28, 02 February 15
(I'd love to see a side-scrolling Dark Souls style game on the CPC!)

I like your thinking!  :)

can you please provide some specifics i would like to write a news article for it and upgrade my writing skills -

need to know following -

why now ?

what made you code it ?

how many levels?

what specific coding you used to get the game done?

plans to release full version or is it a one off demo type of thing ?

how big is it ?

where can it be downloaded from ?

many thanks :)

There is an icon which looks like a CPC, what does it do? Or is it the shoe... let me play again...  :)

Quote from: TFM on 17:17, 03 February 15
There is an icon which looks like a CPC, what does it do? Or is it the shoe... let me play again...  :)

I was wondering about that one too.

Quote from: cpc4eva on 17:14, 03 February 15
can you please provide some specifics i would like to write a news article for it ...

A lot of your questions are answered when you finish the game. The developers shall remain silent!  :P


rb

Quote from: villain on 07:16, 03 February 15
It was Vassago/Necron (formerly known as BBS) I think. :-) Oh, and I remember later talks between Hiroyuki and you that weren't as succesful.  ;D

I don't know what you're talking about. But our talks were very successful, we become friends for a long time. But maybe that's the wrong thread here. Don't be jealous.  8)   :)

Quote from: rexbeng on 18:13, 03 February 15

A lot of your questions are answered when you finish the game. The developers shall remain silent!  :P


rb

I'm just waiting for @Metr (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=359)  to finish it and watch the video on youtube  ;D

Flying above the uncharted sea ... COWARDS!

Made it into Level 5, but hey ... probably not much further. Loosing a life is kinda the end of the game... guess I will get my "Poke-Finder" out soon.  :)


EDIT: Level 8 now... and I need a break

Quote from: Grim on 21:34, 03 February 15
Flying above the uncharted sea ... COWARDS!

Grimmy you dog! Already?  :P


rb

Raised on Dynablaster. Years of training on Dynamite (on Amiga). That pitiful worm wizard was no match for me! Har! Har! But I must admit those long-range-megaphazers-head-beasts pissed me off, several times, but not as much as starting the level again with ... a damp squib! AARGH!

Gonna replay the game right now tho :)

Quote from: Grim on 00:23, 04 February 15
I recognized you ... wizardbeng!!!

Hahaha that's brilliant!  :D


Have a go at the 2p mode.


rb

Quote from: rexbeng on 07:55, 04 February 15
Have a go at the 2p mode.

Haaaa! Yummy! New maps! All bombed! Fantastic "little" game! Big kudos to all the crew! :)

Started a couple of days delayed playing this game, but not I found "Sanctuary in the Mythical lands".  ;)

AWESOME!!!!

And damn I better get back on with the next part of the original Megablasters longplay I started!


I'm not sure why people are claiming it's too hard, it's only 8 levels (not including the boss) so it's quite short. Once you get the hang of the monsters and collected powerups - if you're careful it's not too hard. I wonder how many have played the original Megablasters - that was pretty tough already!! If I had been asked to play test I would have said this is just right. But that's just my opinion that's all :)


Well done rexbeng, Axelay, McKlain and all involved :D

BOOM!

[AMSTRAD CPC] Megablasters : Escape From Castle In The Clouds - Longplay & Review (NEW GAME!) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OZvW-hTEs8#ws)

:D

Thanks for making a longplay video. It gives lazy people the chance to see the outro. :P
One question though. Why the horizontal stretch? Is it because of the capturing software, or is it a YT issue?

rb

Quote from: rexbeng on 08:40, 07 February 15
Thanks for making a longplay video. It gives lazy people the chance to see the outro. :P
One question though. Why the horizontal stretch? Is it because of the capturing software, or is it a YT issue?

My pleasure, and yes - of course - spoilers within! So only watch after you've played it yourself!!

Horizontal stretch ... mmm yes I deliberated about this. Obviously screen width of an Amstrad monitor doesn't match modern resolution scales. There was a small black border left, and because I talked about this game completely filling the screen if I didn't do this then dumb people on YouTube would start commenting 'BUT THERE IS A BORDER!". It's not stretched by much though, and I thought it looked fine and didn't stretch sprites too much.

Weird though how WinApe's AVI recording ability struggled with the scroller.

@Xyphoe (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=109) , I edited your post because remember, https links are not embedded...

Quote from: Gryzor on 19:16, 07 February 15
@Xyphoe (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=109) , I edited your post because remember, https links are not embedded...

Ahh, nice one - thanks man :)

Holy Brucewillis! The presentation of this game, both visual and aural, is just outstanding! And I have to say that Rex's graphics are really out-of-this world! The intro is really damn good looking (unlike the creator himself :D)

I have tried the game on my Emulator (on the Mac, not many options to play around with here), is it true that I can't play it using the keyboard in the 1-player-mode? Do I have to use the (emulated) joystick? Coz I couldn't move the player even a single pixel... And I grew up with QAPO Space, guys, c'mon!

A really great release and I like that you made a tribute to good old Odie :)

Quote from: BSC on 13:06, 08 February 15
Holy Brucewillis! The presentation of this game, both visual and aural, is just outstanding! And I have to say that Rex's graphics are really out-of-this world! The intro is really damn good looking (unlike the creator himself :D)

I have tried the game on my Emulator (on the Mac, not many options to play around with here), is it true that I can't play it using the keyboard in the 1-player-mode? Do I have to use the (emulated) joystick? Coz I couldn't move the player even a single pixel... And I grew up with QAPO Space, guys, c'mon!

A really great release and I like that you made a tribute to good old Odie :)

which Mac emulator are you using? I had some joystick/keys problems with the Richard bannister Arnold port (now very out dated) so started using Java CPC desktop on my macs with some more success. I'd start a collection to get @arnoldemu a Mac mini if I thought it would also give him the time to port the latest source to it lol.

Quote from: BSC on 13:06, 08 February 15
Holy Brucewillis! The presentation of this game, both visual and aural, is just outstanding! And I have to say that Rex's graphics are really out-of-this world! The intro is really damn good looking (unlike the creator himself :D )

I have tried the game on my Emulator (on the Mac, not many options to play around with here), is it true that I can't play it using the keyboard in the 1-player-mode? Do I have to use the (emulated) joystick? Coz I couldn't move the player even a single pixel... And I grew up with QAPO Space, guys, c'mon!

A really great release and I like that you made a tribute to good old Odie :)

Thanks.  :) You can get keyboard control for player one by pressing 'C' for the control menu and selecting option 'B'.  Then select a one player game and you will have keyboard control with QAOP/Space and Enter.

This game is amazing as I saw on Xyphoes video!
Thank you very much for this release  ;D
Today I'll fire up the real thing to play.

Quote from: BSC on 13:06, 08 February 15The intro is really damn good looking (unlike the creator himself :D )

Oh, come on, I know you say that because you want me badly. :-* 

rb

Its amazing how far some of these older machines can be pushed code wise...

Back in the day we were all amazed by stuff half this well coded  :D

You're right! And I have the feeling that there's more to come, hehe  ;D


Welcome to the forum!

Well I finally managed to play yesterday.
This game rocks technically and has awesome gameplay.
What I observed is that some times it will stop loading after the intro and some random crashes after you loosing.
A friend confirms that with his CPC too.
(both machines std 6128s)

Quote from: VincentGR on 10:08, 24 February 15
What I observed is that some times it will stop loading after the intro and some random crashes after you loosing.
A friend confirms that with his CPC too.
(both machines std 6128s)

Sorry you're having trouble with it, could you give the version of the game I've attached to this post a try and let me know how that goes?  It only adds some automatic retries, but otherwise if it stops loading, try pressing any key.

Quote from: Axelay on 15:49, 24 February 15

Sorry you're having trouble with it, could you give the version of the game I've attached to this post a try and let me know how that goes?  It only adds some automatic retries, but otherwise if it stops loading, try pressing any key.

I didn't say that for a bad reason, just to mention it.
The game is great!
I have the version on my other pc and I can't remember but it is the one that Gryzor upload.

The game is amazing. Congratulations. Great work!

With all the bashing we're throwing RG's way I cannot not mention the fact that they ran a nice little interview about this game :)


So, congrats Haris and Paul!


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The game deserves it well. And next issue they can cover Odiesofts original MB.

I'm still waiting for an interview about the R-Type remake, which was an amazing piece of work regardless of the platform...

Quote from: Gryzor on 16:20, 03 May 15
I'm still waiting for an interview about the R-Type remake, which was an amazing piece of work regardless of the platform...

I do sometimes wonder if they steer clear of unofficial remakes to some degree, because of the slightly dubious legal grounds they might be on as well as the risks of upsetting potential advertisers. There certainly seems to be at least some avoidance of such topics, on all platforms.

Are you kidding me? Irem puts advertisements in RG? Really?  :laugh: 
And even if you *would* be right (rofl) it would be a CPC specific phenomenon.

That's a good point! However, they did review it (even if they gave it a lower score than they give to way simple games coded in a weekend on the Speccy), so I'm not sure...


It's not aout Irem putting ads in RG, it's about not angering publishers in general. R-Type games are still published...

Ok, but seriously, look at the people putting ads in the magazine. Really can't imagine [nb]No Imagine doesn't do it![/nb] that *this* people would have a problem with it.  :)

Well the same could be said of the Castlevania game for the Speccy or Turrican III for the C64, both of which were major releases in the retro world which got at best minor coverage in Retro Gamer. Now it may just be an editorial decision, assuming that readers are more interested in nostalgia than new games for old platforms (which is probably true), but it's hard to say. Certainly in the early days of RG they were very reluctant to focus or even mention emulation, seeing it as too risky a legal ground to get into. And remember it's not just adverts in RG, but potentially sister publications that they could get on the wrong side of (wouldn't be the first time in magazine history).