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Skool Daze port for CPC (FINISHED)

Started by Joseman, 22:33, 14 May 15

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Joseman

Quote from: seanb on 17:07, 31 July 15
I was using the joystick.
when I went down I did the classic mash the buttons to find one that worked.
Thanks for letting me know what button to press.

I really want to play the completed game and beat it.

Unfortunately there are too many keys to control eric for using only the joystick.

Here are the instructions of the game: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/pub/sinclair/games-info/s/SkoolDaze.txt

Now the game is on pause until the end of summer, because i don't have time now to dedicate to it.

As well I want to assemble JustCPC too...

Anyway... You can play it a lot of times, until you reach the bugged zone i think...





TFM

Quote from: Joseman on 18:38, 31 July 15
Anyway... You can play it a lot of times, until you reach the bugged zone i think...
... The bugged zone! ... the new horror shocker game for the Amstrad. Legal age is 21, only play after midnight!  :)  Couldn't resist - it just sounds too great!  :)


Anyway, great proceedings. It's really a cool project and I wish you all luck to it. But I guess you're like 99% done now. Thanks a lot for this !!!! Just awesome!!!
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus


Joseman

#103
Ok, it was time to make some progress on the game...

I don't have time, and not the best period of my life for it, but I promised to finish this port, and i want to do it sooner or later.

I've fixed the unflash the shields part of the game (they need to be unflashed after open the safe).

At this time the game can be completed, you can flash the shields, retrieve the letters from the teachers, put the year of birth of mr. Creack on any empty blackboard and get the letter from him too, put the correct combination (letters from teachers) of the safe on any blackboard, open the safe, unflash all the shields again, and the game will congratulate you for it and move on to the next class at school...

I'll need to play the game from start to finish to make sure that there aren't new bugs...

After this, the final part of the port: change the shields sprite when you hit them the first time... it's not as easy as it seems, because the sprite data is disperse in the code, but no problem at all, only patience...

and that's all for the moment!


P.S. oh and a decent scoreboard!


Joseman

#104
Ok

I've tested the game on winape and it can be complete, and i think bug free...

Tomorrow i'll try it on a real cpc...


Sykobee (Briggsy)

Great work.


Quick graphics suggestion, but it might require some jiggery-pokery of the screen position - could you use the hardware interrupts to change the grey on each floor? E.g., the top floor could be grey-blue, the middle pastel-green and the bottom pink.


Obviously anything that involves actually *using* 4 colours would mean a significant rewrite of the rendering code for both the backgrounds and the sprites (although the sprites would be an obvious place to start), as well as re-drawing everything. It would really improve the look of the game however (and the raster effect could continue to be used).

Joseman

Hi

I can use the 4 colours on screen if i want, 2 for the school, 2 for the teachers / students, the problem is that the sprites are displayed speccy style only 2 colors and overlay the sprites with the school, this means that if i paint 2 colors for the school and 2 colors for the sprites then we have the famous attribute clash from speccy right front of our cpc!! I think that this is not tolerable.

About the hardware interrupts i don't know if that can avoid the attribute clash effect... i doubt that, but if you can type some example code i can try that, but only if the attribute clash is avoided!!

Another solution is to paint the sprites on screen cpc style, but i suspect that this way we need to consume more t-states, and the game is only a little slow than on speccy right now that i think is tolerable, the game is playable and even more fast than on speccy if there are not many sprites on screen...





seanb

We don't like colour clash round these parts mister  :D
Looking forward to the final release
Thou shall not question Captain Wrong!

Sykobee (Briggsy)

For the hardware interrupt to work using the CPC Gate Array's 300Hz timer you'd have to try to ensure that the interrupt happened in one of the raster lines that make up a ceiling. Unfortunately, the interrupts aren't exactly 48 lines apart like the different floors in the school - they're 52 scan lines apart (Interrupts on the CPC/CPC+ and KC Compact).


I guess the Spectrum sprite code is using the Speccy standard: Read background. (Optional store for the restore phase). Mask (AND) with sprite mask. Render sprite data (OR).
Hence to fix it on the CPC would require rewriting the entire sprite code and redoing the sprites too (merge the mask and sprite into a single 2-bit CPC graphic where 0=transparent). A lot of painful work when porting existing code.
If you are lucky and the code allows it, you could do the sprite rendering->cpc format translation within the sprite renderer code and thus achieve different colours. But I don't think the gains for this method are worthwhile. And you may be dealing with a game that renders offscreen then does a single copy (I think Ant Attack did that?) to screen memory, because Speccy screen layout is even worse than the CPC...


And yes, please avoid attribute clash :-)

Joseman

Hi Guys

finally the port of Skool Daze for CPC is finished.


I knew that i wanted the port finished before 2016, as a gift for chrismas :) and i knew that i didn't want to waste more time on 2016 with the port.


I've been working on the port intensely this last days and enough is enough, i'm tired and i wanted to finish and stop developing the port.

Anyway, doing the port has been a great time and joy for me, i've learned a LOT with it, i know now how a game is coded from scratch because i've learn all the source code of this game, i really think that i can move on and code a game from scratch... but that thing is not going to happen anytime soon :).

Now there is a MENU with several options:

-the menu can be used with keys and joystick 1, the options with the joy are choosen with the direction keys...

-there is a credit screen (when you hit play) where i thanks many people and this forum for the great help and support.

-Instructions, i've typed the original instructions of the game and there is an option to see them. It was a lot of work, please read the instructions one time! :D. The character set used is a font that i've converted some time from a very well know game, anyone knows wich game?

-Change colors, yes, the game still have only 2 colors for graphics, but, you can choose the colors you want to use. Anyway, the giveline bubble is in 2 different colors than the rest of the graphics and the scoreboard is "multicolor". The changes will be saved on disk.

-Change keys, now you can redefine keys, yes, you can use 2 joysticks and redefine all the keys on them. Great!! the gx4000 can now run the game... oh wait... you can't write on the blackboards and therefore the game can't be completed, but, the game can run on it till almost the end! or if any little boy goes to tell you something... Forget the gx4000  :laugh: . Take care of your redefinition, if you use letters, when you write on the blackboard the letters will be changed with your redefinition!!.


I wanted to make a reduced version for the cpc464 with cassette, but i'm tired really, i don't know if the game will work on cassette, but i think that with disc.bas, menu.bin, dt3.bin, dt1.bin, dt2.bin, inks.def & keys.def in that order the game should work on tape. keep in mind that the menu.bin is coded with disc in mind, there isn't almost any compression, the file is about 20k's that i think is a waste of time for a cassette load, but it is the way it is :).


I've been working on the port for a year and i don't want to continue adding features any time soon, if there is a critical bug, then will be fixed. if not then it will be not fixed... soon.

There is a LOT of work in this port, a LOT of code to make this port work on the CPC. I've docens of papers of code and anotations, i know that as time will pass i'll forget how the port works, it's possible that the final version of the port will be this and i will not work on it anymore.

I'll play to the end the game one last time and if it can be completed without hang, i'll send the game to CPC POWER to include it as a new game for our beloved CPC ;)

Thanks for your support.

Here is the DSK, enjoy and happy new year!!


Skool Daze FINAL VERSION 30-12-2015.dsk



Lazy Dude

cool, I will be having a pop at this then.

I still find myself asking why did it never exist on the CPC all those years ago!

alex76gr

Joseman you are awesome! :)
Thank you so much for this.
I still believe that i got my myopia from the green GT-65 monitor, but i can't prove it! :)

CraigsBar

Fantastic project, great to see it finished. Many many thanks, I know I am playing under emulation (since I am not at home) tonight!
IRC:  #Retro4All on Freenode

Gryzor

A bit late, but thanks for doing this man... perfect for Sunday morning's cup of coffee :)

Paulo Garcia

#114
 Hi

the link to download seems broken. Do you have another link to provide?

If not, PM me the images and I can host for you.


Thanks


Joseman


Yes, the game is now on cpc-power!

skool daze 4 cpc &copy _public_domain_ (2015)

There is a problem with the dsk that is actually on cpc-power, it doesn't work with cpc464 - DDI.

I just sent today a fixed version to kukulcan that i hope will be uploaded soon!

This version has a second loader called "464.bas" that is more faster than the "disc.bas" loader, but it has no option menu!.

Wait that the fixed dsk is on cpc-power, and then put on whatever page / pages you want, feel free to distribute!

Regards
Joseman





Gryzor

Hey man, why not upload it here too, really? :)

TFM

What's the aim of the game? What do I need to do? Any docs available?  :)

TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Joseman

#118
Hi

Here it is the last version 464 compatible

Skool Daze FINAL VERSION [v2 - 464 compatible].dsk

Feel free to distribute and upload - link it wherever you want.

@TFM there are instructions on the game menu!!!

Hope & glad that you like the port!

P.S. anyone wants / can make a CDT out of this?




TFM

Uups, my internet provider (Tulane University) blocks this site due to content filtering. Sadly that happens more often. Can please somebody attach the game file and instruction here in the forum? That would be nice.  :)
TFM of FutureSoft
Also visit the CPC and Plus users favorite OS: FutureOS - The Revolution on CPC6128 and 6128Plus

Gryzor


Joseman


Gryzor


Phantomz

Quote from: Joseman on 21:27, 19 January 16
P.S. anyone wants / can make a CDT out of this?

I don't know how to make a CDT, but do you want a cpr for plus users too, I know it won't work on the GX4000 because there are to many keys.  ;)

464 Plus users with a C4CPC could play the game a lot quicker than a CDT, I know someone still needs to make a CDT for normal CPC users.

I could also upload the version with the disc loader and not 464 loader, for 6128 users but people wouldn't be able to change colours like it says in the menu as can't save to the disc image in the cpr.  :doh:

Let me know if you want me to upload the 464 version here or both 464 and 6128 version.  ;)

Thanks for making this great port, I've never played the game but I remember my best mate at school going on about it, so I'll check it out when I have some free time ( away from making cpr's ).  :laugh:

Joseman

Quote from: Phantomz on 15:39, 02 February 16
I don't know how to make a CDT, but do you want a cpr for plus users too, I know it won't work on the GX4000 because there are to many keys.  ;)

464 Plus users with a C4CPC could play the game a lot quicker than a CDT, I know someone still needs to make a CDT for normal CPC users.

I could also upload the version with the disc loader and not 464 loader, for 6128 users but people wouldn't be able to change colours like it says in the menu as can't save to the disc image in the cpr.  :doh:

Let me know if you want me to upload the 464 version here or both 464 and 6128 version.  ;)

Thanks for making this great port, I've never played the game but I remember my best mate at school going on about it, so I'll check it out when I have some free time ( away from making cpr's ).  :laugh:

Thanks for the "great port"  compliment, well, i think that at least is better than the c64 version that was commercialized!.

Feel free to make CPR versions of 464, 6128 or both versions and upload wherever you want!.




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