Author Topic: Hire Hare, new game from CNGSoft! (Read 5258 times)

Joseman · « **on:** 15:23, 27 October 16 »

Just look, no words...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skP8apzCICU

Zoe Robinson · « **Reply #1 on:** 15:33, 27 October 16 »

This looks lovely!

Ast · « **Reply #2 on:** 15:35, 27 October 16 »

I posted the same thing yesterday on Amstrad plus Forum

Gryzor · « **Reply #3 on:** 15:49, 27 October 16 »

This looks quite polished and very well under development!!! Another one to add to the collection, I guess they'll do a physical release

seanb · « **Reply #4 on:** 15:53, 27 October 16 »

It seems that every day now there's a new thread that has new game in its title.
I'm loving it.

Gryzor · « **Reply #5 on:** 15:55, 27 October 16 »

Indeed. Crazy times!

villain · « **Reply #6 on:** 16:52, 27 October 16 »

Quote from: seanb on 15:53, 27 October 16

It seems that every day now there's a new thread that has new game in its title.
I'm loving it.

Looks like producing games is something like the new way of democoding. :-) I will need a lot of spare them when my M4 is running one day!

||C|-|E|| · « **Reply #7 on:** 20:21, 27 October 16 »

It looks amazing! I am really happy that the Amstrad scene is in such a good health. I mean, all what I am seeing lately is something seriously cool, it seems that we are back to the golden age, but with even better games

Rhino · « **Reply #8 on:** 22:27, 27 October 16 »

Amazing!, wanting to try it!

dlfrsilver · « **Reply #9 on:** 23:17, 27 October 16 »

i had the luck to play with it, and also translate the manual in french.

The game is very cute, and plays very nicely

Joseman · « **Reply #10 on:** 00:41, 28 October 16 »

Quote from: dlfrsilver on 23:17, 27 October 16

i had the luck to play with it, and also translate the manual in french.

The game is very cute, and plays very nicely

How many rooms will it have?

can you explain a little the plot of the game?

khisanth · « **Reply #11 on:** 01:52, 28 October 16 »

This looks AWESOME. Love the graphics and the music is plucked straight from the 80s, got it perfect.

dlfrsilver · « **Reply #12 on:** 17:07, 28 October 16 »

Quote from: Joseman on 00:41, 28 October 16

How many rooms will it have?

can you explain a little the plot of the game?

Ok, you play as the sorceress Hecatia, and you must defeat the warlord Lycurgus.

I prefer to no say more, better let the Author do it himself

Kitty · « **Reply #13 on:** 17:56, 28 October 16 »

Looks Fantastic!

Overflow · « **Reply #14 on:** 18:32, 28 October 16 »

Quote from: villain on 16:52, 27 October 16

Looks like producing games is something like the new way of democoding. :-)

Exactly my thinking!
Also note that 30YMD's menu looks like a game.

Joseman · « **Reply #15 on:** 23:28, 29 October 16 »

Quote from: dlfrsilver on 17:07, 28 October 16

Ok, you play as the sorceress Hecatia, and you must defeat the warlord Lycurgus.

I prefer to no say more, better let the Author do it himself

Maybe is a bunny? perhaps the girlfriend of Usagi Yojimbo?

cngsoft · « **Reply #16 on:** 13:10, 31 October 16 »

I'm glad to see that the preview of "Hire Hare" is well received here.

Dlfrsilver is right: the main character is sorceress Hecatia, hired to locate and banish the dreaded and mighty warlock Lycurgus, who lurks in the darkest corners of the dangerous dungeon where the game is set. Thus the main goal is to find nine magical lanterns that will reveal Lycurgus' hideout and let Hecatia fight him. The secondary goal is to find and unlock the treasure chests that will be her payment for her quest.

Unfortunately, the RetroDev 2016 contestants are fierce, and "Hire Hare" itself was delivered with a series of flaws and mistakes caused by the extremely tight deadline (I had to make everything in the limited timespan of five weeks) and only now I'm beginning to patch and amend them. For example, the in-game song is a horrible cover of Tim Follin's "Black Lamp" in-game theme, and it needs many tweaks to sound like its model:

[youtube]KqjbCagHuqs[/youtube]

The memory was also a big problem. Unlike "Knight Lore" and "Batman", and like "Crafton & Xunk" and "Inside Outing", this game remembers the state of every object in each room, and this requires memory to keep both their original locations and their current status. This problem was worsened because I was so short of time that I simply copied the whole map data! As a result I ran out of memory and I had to simplify the rooms, remove items and graphics, kill all the sound effects... I ended up with 16 free bytes and a severely simplified 64-room map. Here you have the most complex room and the simplest one:

I tried writing a more clever data backup method yesterday: it only copied the items' locations, everything else (backgrounds, doors...) was skipped. The improvement was noteworthy: the backup ended at $AB00 rather than at $B3F0, thus extending the original 16 free bytes to ... 2304 bytes! Enough room for 288 more objects!

It's a pity that these improvements couldn't happen before the deadline, isn't it?

Arnaud · « **Reply #17 on:** 13:15, 31 October 16 »

Quote from: cngsoft on 13:10, 31 October 16

It's a pity that these improvements couldn't happen before the deadline, isn't it?

Maybe for an enhanced 128k version ? I would be great, i always like games like "Crafton & Xunk".

cngsoft · « **Reply #18 on:** 15:15, 31 October 16 »

Right now it's in Spanish only, and I have yet to write the second half about the art and the gameplay, but you can read about the making of "Hire Hare" in http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/hirehare.htm ; internals such as the optimal dirty rectangle merger and the insertion Z-sort are explained there.

Quote from: Arnaud on 13:15, 31 October 16

Maybe for an enhanced 128k version ? I would be great, i always like games like "Crafton & Xunk".

No need for THAT much memory, the aformentioned 2304 bytes would be already good enough to restore many of the lost items and graphics.

Puresox · « **Reply #19 on:** 23:09, 31 October 16 »

Yeah love the graphics , some of the enemy sprites look so appealing . Truth be told ,I am not keen on protagonist . But that is personal preference . And not knocking a great looking production.

cngsoft · « **Reply #20 on:** 17:05, 02 November 16 »

http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/hirehare.htm has been updated with a full English translation (albeit a rushed one - please point me at every mistake you find) but before I write the second part (the development of the game proper) I'd like to know if you have more technical questions than the current article already answers.

cngsoft · « **Reply #21 on:** 14:36, 05 November 16 »

I finished writing the second part of http://cngsoft.no-ip.org/hirehare.htm, more relevant because of the drawings and the screenshots of everything that was lost in the version delivered to the contest than because of the text itself, but I hope that it will be enough to at least cast some light on the development of "Hire Hare". Again, the text is open to answer any further questions you may have. (and again, the English translation may need some help and assistance)

||C|-|E|| · « **Reply #22 on:** 14:50, 05 November 16 »

Lovely article and game!!

Arnaud · « **Reply #23 on:** 15:05, 05 November 16 »

It's really interesting, i don't know you have coded Inside / Outside it's a kind of return to root

How did you create the map ? Did you use an external level editor or directly made in code ?

Ast · « **Reply #24 on:** 15:34, 05 November 16 »

Great article, of course. I love this webpage...

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Author Topic: Hire Hare, new game from CNGSoft! (Read 5258 times)