One of the best selling budget games of the late 80's and a game that can't be completed on the CPC (the second time you try to round up the sheep the game crashes):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4M-b1V248o (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4M-b1V248o#ws)
Can't say I'd ever been bothered by the delay between screens on the CPC until I played it back to back with the C64 version when it came quite annoying. Shoddy programming!
Watching this game I do now understand the Royal Mail being so expansive and more often delivering broken items ...
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 12:27, 24 October 14
One of the best selling budget games of the late 80's and a game that can't be completed on the CPC (the second time you try to round up the sheep the game crashes):
I owned a copy of this game on tape when I was very young and I remember being annoyed at this bug as well. The good news is that I know of a way to fix this problem, so hopefully I can produce a bugfixed version soon. :)
By the way, I really like your videos!
This looks semi fun, and a game I would completely have ignored before. I might give it a look especially if a bugfix version can be made (Perhaps even improve the black screen flicking too?
Craig
Quote from: Nich on 20:31, 24 October 14
I owned a copy of this game on tape when I was very young and I remember being annoyed at this bug as well. The good news is that I know of a way to fix this problem, so hopefully I can produce a bugfixed version soon. :)
It would be great for a bug fixed version to be released. And to know what the bug actually is.
I assume they didn't properly play test the game as you always have to round up the sheep for a second time so there's not much excuse for missing it. Unless they never played it all the way through......
Quote from: CraigsBar on 21:02, 24 October 14
This looks semi fun, and a game I would completely have ignored before. I might give it a look especially if a bugfix version can be made (Perhaps even improve the black screen flicking too?
Craig
The black screen flicking is really annoying although oddly didn't bother me at the time.
To be honest though, I'd say play it on the C64 instead. It's just faster.
Quote from: TFM on 18:46, 24 October 14
Watching this game I do now understand the Royal Mail being so expansive and more often delivering broken items ...
My driving in the game is somewhat a satire on how postman drive. Ours often leaves skid marks in our gravel track and yesterday I saw one spin his wheels at a junction after pulling up at a terrifying speed.
Haha! Adventure time ;) Recently the workers from the city fixed the big hole in the street close to the place I live. After getting a lot of concrete in, they drove away - right through the fresh concrete. Well, the hole looks at least more exciting now. And people in the neighborhood can tell a new funny story.
BTW: Your vids are really awesome! :) :) :)
Happy weekend!
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 21:04, 24 October 14
To be honest though, I'd say play it on the C64 instead. It's just faster.
Except I never have, and don't have a c64, and have little interest in emulating one either. With the notable exception of MAME I really only emulate machines I have some interest of affinity with. So, currently BBC B/Master, Amiga 1200 and the Amstrad range.
Quote from: CraigsBar on 08:47, 25 October 14
Except I never have, and don't have a c64, and have little interest in emulating one either. With the notable exception of MAME I really only emulate machines I have some interest of affinity with. So, currently BBC B/Master, Amiga 1200 and the Amstrad range.
One of the great joys of using older computers is playing other versions to see what they are like. Unlike today where the PC, Xbox and PS versions will be nearly identical there can be everything from subtle graphical differences through to massive gameplay breaking problems (e.g. the Atari port of Jet Set Willy).
Each to their own though.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 21:04, 24 October 14
The black screen flicking is really annoying although oddly didn't bother me at the time.
To be honest though, I'd say play it on the C64 instead. It's just faster.
poke c79f,c9
now you can see the game is slow to draw.
EDIT: It is slow to draw because it seems to be simulating a c64. It is drawing tiles and colouring them as it draws them. The graphics are probably 2 bits per pixel.
I can see the loop where it gets 2 bits at a time, looks up the colour and masks it with the current data, repeating until it's done a byte, then writes that to the screen.
The black is there to hide this problem.
Perhaps they ran out of space storing the graphics if they stored them as normal cpc mode 0? Or perhaps they just used the c64 graphics directly?
2c1a is the tile drawing code.
2c5a is where it works out the colour it needs to write.
it writes to the screen for each pixel.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 18:25, 25 October 14
poke c79f,c9
now you can see the game is slow to draw.
EDIT: It is slow to draw because it seems to be simulating a c64. It is drawing tiles and colouring them as it draws them. The graphics are probably 2 bits per pixel.
I can see the loop where it gets 2 bits at a time, looks up the colour and masks it with the current data, repeating until it's done a byte, then writes that to the screen.
Fascinating. If you look the graphics are near identical to the C64 versions. So perhaps they have just been ported across and the display routines converted from 6502. An example of a C64 port perhaps?
One of the c64 modes is char mapped. They define the font and 1 of the colours is define per cell on the screen, others come from background colour etc, so they write 1 byte for each cell. To do similar on CPC we need to write 16 bytes, but on postman pat they probably used original c64 char set and coloured it therefore simulating the c64 char mapped display, so in some way it is a c64:port. It could have been done faster. But at least its not speccy port graphics.
Quote from: arnoldemu on 19:34, 25 October 14
One of the c64 modes is char mapped. They define the font and 1 of the colours is define per cell on the screen, others come from background colour etc, so they write 1 byte for each cell. To do similar on CPC we need to write 16 bytes, but on postman pat they probably used original c64 char set and coloured it therefore simulating the c64 char mapped display, so in some way it is a c64:port. It could have been done faster. But at least its not speccy port graphics.
Odd thing is I can't say it ever bothered me until the point where I played it back to back with the C64 version.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 21:03, 24 October 14
It would be great for a bug fixed version to be released. And to know what the bug actually is.
I assume they didn't properly play test the game as you always have to round up the sheep for a second time so there's not much excuse for missing it. Unless they never played it all the way through......
Here is a bugfixed version! :D
The patch was quite simple to implement once the bug was found - a certain byte (&11DD) needs to be reset to zero before you go to the screen where you round up the sheep. If it isn't zero then the game will crash.
Quote from: Nich on 23:13, 25 October 14
Here is a bugfixed version! :D
The patch was quite simple to implement once the bug was found - a certain byte (&11DD) needs to be reset to zero before you go to the screen where you round up the sheep. If it isn't zero then the game will crash.
Fantastic work! Can we get this version uploaded to the various CPC archives? Does anyone here have the power to help.
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 23:18, 25 October 14
Fantastic work! Can we get this version uploaded to the various CPC archives? Does anyone here have the power to help.
I maintain the NVG archive. ;) I'll send a copy to Kukulcan at CPC-POWER as well.
Bleh. That transition at 7:30 from the lovely bold, colourful, clear CPC graphics to those of the washed out, drab C64 version made me feel a bit ill.
Quote from: Carnivac on 16:26, 27 October 14
Bleh. That transition at 7:30 from the lovely bold, colourful, clear CPC graphics to those of the washed out, drab C64 version made me feel a bit ill.
Yeah but the c64 is a hell of a lot better to play in this instance, which is more important. I didn't think the graphic difference was that terrible either. In fact I think they look better on the C64.
Quote from: EgoTrip on 17:36, 27 October 14
In fact I think they look better on the C64.
I really don't. The C64 palette can be used well in rare cases but here it just looks like the usual vomit.
Quote from: Carnivac on 16:26, 27 October 14
Bleh. That transition at 7:30 from the lovely bold, colourful, clear CPC graphics to those of the washed out, drab C64 version made me feel a bit ill.
Damn right!!!
Quote from: EgoTrip on 17:36, 27 October 14
Yeah but the c64 is a hell of a lot better to play in this instance, which is more important. I didn't think the graphic difference was that terrible either. In fact I think they look better on the C64.
The C64 graphics have been ported across to the CPC (causing the slow down). So colour palette aside there isn't any difference
And I think you are right. They do look better on the C64, and they are much faster which counts for a hell of alot.
Quote from: CraigsBar on 23:02, 27 October 14
NOOOOOO That would mean no more Chinnyvids and I love them so!
Oddly enough I'm editing an "emergency" one as I just played a new 8 bit game I'm rather taken with! Will be out tomorrow.
Excellent news.
Mod alert
Topic split - left a couple of inconsistencies but I had to. See The commercial decline of the CPC (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/longplays/the-commercial-decline-of-the-cpc/) for the new thread (interesting discussion!).
A message was edited - please watch your language.
Patched version uploaded (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=dldir;sa=details;lid=3933) - thanks @Nich (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=53) !
Quote from: chinnyhill10 on 23:37, 27 October 14
Oddly enough I'm editing an "emergency" one as I just played a new 8 bit game I'm rather taken with! Will be out tomorrow.
oh indeed, rgb looks really good. Now to see if anyone would be up for porting it to the gx4000?