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The Shadows of Sergoth - A Dungeon Crawler on the Amstrad CPC

Started by Neil79, 17:24, 04 October 17

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Neil79




QuoteI'm almost in complete disbelief as I've only just been contacted by Chris94 about a brand new dungeon crawler called ' The Shadows of Sergoth ', that is not only a homebrew game, but it's a first person grid based dungeon crawler and made for the Amstrad CPC 6128. Now you may wonder as to why I'm in shock, that's because these types of games as a homebrew are a rarity on the Amstrad (it's mainly platformers and shooters), but from the footage below it looks very impressive indeed!


http://www.indieretronews.com/2017/10/the-shadows-of-sergoth-dungeon-crawler.html
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Arnaud

Whoua ! A real dungeon master CPC  :o

I always like this kind of game.

Neil79

Quote from: Arnaud on 18:03, 04 October 17
Whoua ! A real dungeon master CPC  :o

I always like this kind of game.


When we got the email and I saw dungeon crawler, I wasn't expecting it to look this good!
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||C|-|E||

It looks amazing and it is totally my type of game!  :D

mr_lou

Wow! Reminds me a bit of "Hired Guns" on the Amiga.
Very nice, very smooth, awesome graphics and music too.

Targhan

Wow, this is very good. I didn't expect such game to appear on CPC. I'm glad to see the return of Chris, which left the CPC after the demise of the sequel of "CPC Aventure".
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khaz

I just saw it on the cpc-power front page, and it's an amazing demo indeed! The movement was super fast, and maybe a bit too much: I had trouble to understand where the player was going because the screens changed so quickly lol. Slower, smoother transitions could be nice (maybe an option? I'm sure after spending 10 hours in the game I'd wish for faster movement lol)

The auto-map is very welcome. It helps a lot understanding where the player is and doesn't beak the immersion. I can only hope a full map will be available at the press of a button too.

It's a WIP obviously, but I know the pick-up option placement will be super irritating for me: seeing the player having to move the cursor over the whole inventory each time they need to pick something up triggered me lol. Simply swapping the boots and the pick-up spots would greatly alleviate it.

But yeah, super impressed by the work done, I didn't know it was possible on a CPC.

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Sacrosanct

f'ing awesome. I'm always up for some more dungeon crawling, old-school style.
Gryzor is now officially my bitch. :]

Gryzor

Wow. First, Dungeon Master on my 1040, then Grimrock, and now this!


Hungry for more info...

Neil79

Quote from: Gryzor on 08:29, 05 October 17
Wow. First, Dungeon Master on my 1040, then Grimrock, and now this!


Hungry for more info...


This game is going to be huge on the Amstrad from what I've been told, but don't expect a release any time soon  :)   There's a lot still to come and this just the beginning
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Gryzor

Well, obviously this is a big undertaking so I wouldn't hold my breath! I just wish it comes in a nice box :)

keith56

Looks absolutely fantastic! The artwork on the titlescreen is superb, and the ingame animation looks really good!

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Optimus

Quote from: khaz on 01:18, 05 October 17
The movement was super fast, and maybe a bit too much: I had trouble to understand where the player was going because the screens changed so quickly lol.


The movement confusion is a common thing in these games. Now, if I watch the video I don't understand but if I am the one playing it's better. Also, the player controls that, how fast you go is how frequently you tap key for movement. As for smoother transitions, maybe that's out of the question. These games where based on prestoring walls in different distances and orientations. And I'd like to see different wall graphics in later levels for change in settings, so it's gonna be more memory or disk intensive.

QuoteThe auto-map is very welcome. It helps a lot understanding where the player is and doesn't beak the immersion. I can only hope a full map will be available at the press of a button too.


At some point on the video (yeah, I was so thrilled about this that I watched it all carefully like a normal let's play) it does change screeen to a full screen view of the whole map.

QuoteIt's a WIP obviously, but I know the pick-up option placement will be super irritating for me: seeing the player having to move the cursor over the whole inventory each time they need to pick something up triggered me lol. Simply swapping the boots and the pick-up spots would greatly alleviate it.


Doing such controls without mouse (which is how I enjoyed playing Eye of the Beholder on PC) is a pain in the ass. I'd like to think or revisit again different approaches taken (like the EOB ports on SNES or MegaCD, also the original keyboard only controls of EOB on PC) and see what could happen. From what I understand, a button takes you to inventory where you move a cursor with arrows. What about a secondary set of arrows (maybe IJKL or the numeric keyboard, but anyway you can redefine) which moves the selector on the inventory while you can move independently the player. The inventory selector will be always visible (oh and you would need to have a second key for use inventory, instead of space for attack/use on main screen). Soon though more keys will creep in. It's an interesting thought what controls one can do (I was even thinking on GX4000 with two fire buttons, how I could tackle this problem if I ever decide to make my RPG project with the wolfenstein engine playable in GX4000 too somewhere in the future. It's easier on CPC with keyboard, but somehow consoles with few buttons managed such games back in the times).

kawickboy

Chris showed us a demo during the french RetroGaming Connexion last weekend. The animation is fast and smooth.
A project full of promises.

khaz

Youtube can play 50/60Hz videos, but it has to be uploaded as HD. Which also prevents the butchering compression of low-res videos.

mr_lou

Quote from: khaz on 21:50, 05 October 17
Youtube can play 50/60Hz videos, but it has to be uploaded as HD. Which also prevents the butchering compression of low-res videos.

50hz videos on YouTube is almost worthless though, since most people have a 60hz PC monitor, resulting in jerky animation and scroll anyway. Even a modern Smart-TV doesn't automatically change the display refresh rate to match that of the video.

But put 50 fps videos on a Blu-ray Disc, then you'll see some awesomeness that you probably didn't think your TV could even do.

cpcitor

 :o :o :o :o :o Now, that's reeaaally impressive. :o :o :o :o :o

Reminiscence

Not only this is totally my type of game, but it is a fun fact that before coming back to the CPC I used to program a dungeon crawler game on another system even smaller than a CPC: a machine with a 4-bit wide bus, running at 2MHz, with 32kb RAM, a 131x64 black-and-white screen, named the HP-48.



More details o DM48 Home Page. A Dungeon game for the HP48

The program is mentioned in a number of Dungeon Master (e.g. http://www.hpcalc.org/details/382 ) and HP48-related (e.g. http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/821 ) place, including http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/wolfenstein-3d-on-the-cpc/msg56434/#msg56434

The Shadows of Sergoth

This Sergoth-thing CPC production is huuuuge. So fluid, I'm wondering if some animations are not "cheating" (like: you can't actually move while a door is moving or a object flies).

The history of impressive productions for the CPC give credit to it, else one could question if it's really genuine: so much things to move on screen, so much data, text, monster sprites, etc.

As a programmer that tackled the challenge to code a similar program, including displaying monsters and objects with variable size with memory and CPU efficiency, I can testify that it is possible to compress graphics and reuse them. Still, that youtube video is really impressive.

In other words, I have not seen the Shadows of Sergoth on a real CPC but I think it's real, and it really implies a lot of work!
Had a CPC since 1985, currently software dev professional, including embedded systems.

I made in 2013 the first CPC cross-dev environment that auto-installs C compiler and tools: cpc-dev-tool-chain: a portable toolchain for C/ASM development targetting CPC, later forked into CPCTelera.

khaz

Quote from: cpcitor on 00:10, 31 October 17
This Sergoth-thing CPC production is huuuuge. So fluid, I'm wondering if some animations are not "cheating" (like: you can't actually move while a door is moving or a object flies).

Is it really cheating though? My experience of dungeon crawlers is super limited (I played Shining in the Darkness and Shining the Holy Ark) But both had a turn-based gameplay where you couldn't move during the animations, be they a door opening or a monster appearing (or you yourself moving). Legend of Grimrock was much more dynamic, but I thought it was more of a modern interpretation of the genre.

Your own game looks very amazing. I've never even heard of that machine before 😳

roudoudou

Quote from: khaz on 00:21, 31 October 17
Your own game looks very amazing. I've never even heard of that machine before 😳


Maybe because it's a (great and powerfull) calculator
My pronouns are RASM and ACE

cpcitor

Quote from: khaz on 00:21, 31 October 17
Is it really cheating though? My experience of dungeon crawlers is super limited (I played Shining in the Darkness and Shining the Holy Ark) But both had a turn-based gameplay where you couldn't move during the animations, be they a door opening or a monster appearing (or you yourself moving). Legend of Grimrock was much more dynamic, but I thought it was more of a modern interpretation of the genre.

Your own game looks very amazing. I've never even heard of that machine before 😳

The reference for me is Dungeon Master (on Amiga, Atari ST and PC). Everything feels like a (coarse grain) simulation: you can always move and act in real time while anything happens.

The granularity: any creature is either at center of a square, or in one of four quarters. Objects/spells/etc are always on (or above) one quarter.

It's part of the fun to click a button near a door and run beneath it before it closes, because of some benefit (like, the same button opened something else).

Or magically freeze a dangerous monster under a heavy door and close it on its head to hurt and possibly kill, while you run away.

If driving a fast team not carrying too much weight, you could even throw an object and run fast enough to bump into it before it fell to the ground.

In some areas you dodge fireballs thrown from a distant wall.

All this is not possible if throwing or other actions are rendered as smooth but unstoppable 2D animations preventing you to move.

Anyway, huge feat here. Kudos to the team!
Had a CPC since 1985, currently software dev professional, including embedded systems.

I made in 2013 the first CPC cross-dev environment that auto-installs C compiler and tools: cpc-dev-tool-chain: a portable toolchain for C/ASM development targetting CPC, later forked into CPCTelera.

Gryzor


Dubliner

Quote from: Gryzor on 10:42, 21 January 18
Any news on this??

I interviewed them one month ago. This time you won't need any translator, since i kept the english interview at the bottom http://retromaniacmagazine.blogspot.com/2017/12/hacer-un-juego-estilo-dungeon-master-en.html

ComSoft6128

I will buy this as soon as it available and chris94 is 100% correct - a good Wolfenstein clone on the CPC would be fantastic. I had to use a PC to play that game and it always irritated me that there was nothing like it on the CPC.

Gryzor

Quote from: Dubliner on 10:19, 22 January 18
I interviewed them one month ago. This time you won't need any translator, since i kept the english interview at the bottom http://retromaniacmagazine.blogspot.com/2017/12/hacer-un-juego-estilo-dungeon-master-en.html


Ahhh thanks, going to read it tonight!! So glad it's still on track :) 

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