Hi guys....I was wondering if Another World could be made on the plain CPC or on the plus ....
No reason why it couldn't be done.. The CPC has shown it can do rotoscoped graphics (Ghost Hunters)... Not always much on screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ2OOFeW_pE&ab_channel=Xyphoe
wow I didn't remember this one....well it definitely can do it and maybe the plus range is able to deliver a port of at least in par with that of the A500.
I remember playing a demo of Another World on Atari 8-bit computers, so definitely can be done.
Quote from: Misel982001 on 17:30, 15 February 21Hi guys....I was wondering if Another World could be made on the plain CPC or on the plus ....
Yes! A plain CPC 6128 is enough.
One of my favourite non-CPC games - would love to see a port of it..
The virtual machine to run Another World is only 20kb, but the performance requirements to appropriately recreate the atmosphere are probably hard to achieve on an 8bit machine. The Atari 8Bit demo is no counterexample. It replicates a few screens with background pictures and some sprites. Saying this would be a similar experience is like saying Star Wars in ASCII is a similar experience to Star Wars the movie (btw: if you haven't seen Star Wars ASCII yet, you definitely should).
Another World is not only a game but also a movie. To achieve that it requires lots of effects, that are possible on 16Bit machines like the Amiga or ST but are hard on 8Bit machines. Filled polygons and cinematic effects like zooming and sound effects create the atmosphere. Pixel graphics and 3-channel YM sounds will be just a game similar to Prince of Persia - not necessarily bad, but not Another World.
If you need some insights on what it requires, then I would recommend the following two sites:
http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/another_world.htm (http://www.anotherworld.fr/anotherworld_uk/another_world.htm)
https://fabiensanglard.net/anotherWorld_code_review/index.php (https://fabiensanglard.net/anotherWorld_code_review/index.php)
Actually, I was going to say "why mention Ghost Hunters* and not PoP?". Saying that PoP on the CPC is "not necessarily bad" is an insult :D I think it's an excellent, very playable and very faithful port.
Yes, Another World has a few more things thrown in, sure, lots of cinematic stuff going on but I don't think it'd be impossible to cut it down to something still respectable...
*I had forgotten about this one!
Quote from: Gryzor on 09:22, 16 February 21
Actually, I was going to say "why mention Ghost Hunters* and not PoP?". Saying that PoP on the CPC is "not necessarily bad" is an insult :D I think it's an excellent, very playable and very faithful port.
Yes, Another World has a few more things thrown in, sure, lots of cinematic stuff going on but I don't think it'd be impossible to cut it down to something still respectable...
*I had forgotten about this one!
I didn't mention PoP as I didn't know if the CPC version had rotoscoped graphics. (even though that version is a beautiful one and very playable). Ghost Hunters I knew for certain.
Quote from: eto on 09:01, 16 February 21
The virtual machine to run Another World is only 20kb, but the performance requirements to appropriately recreate the atmosphere are probably hard to achieve on an 8bit machine. The Atari 8Bit demo is no counterexample. It replicates a few screens with background pictures and some sprites. Saying this would be a similar experience is like saying Star Wars in ASCII is a similar experience to Star Wars the movie (btw: if you haven't seen Star Wars ASCII yet, you definitely should).
Except that Another World Atari/Amiga is the Ascii version of the game ;D
So a pixel version with all animations can't be worse than the original
I check the second link you post, with the background designed with 981 polygones. As the same link says, a polygone is many bytes, even optimised and crunched afterward
So i converted the background screen to a Plus version 160x200
This is crunched in 2142 bytes with ZX0 and the decrunch is done in 0.25s, not that bad for a 8bits machine 8)
The Another World technical choice had sense back in the days. Not today
Anyway, convert such a game is a lot of work and i doubt someone will try to do it ;D
(https://i.postimg.cc/wjBph7CQ/another-cpc.png)
Quote from: roudoudou on 10:05, 16 February 21So i converted the background screen to a Plus version 160x200
Agreed, the backgrounds are not the problem, especially with state of the art compression technology. But do you think you can do animations and sound on the CPC that is even close to what we see on the ST?
Another-World and the cinema-technically very similar Flashback game from the same French developers, had SNES versions. There the vector cinema seqeuences were slower than those of true 16-bit machines like Sega Megadrive (Mc68000) or Atari ST/Amiga (Mc68000), since the SNES' CPU was more like a 8-bit CPU and the SNES' sprite chips didn't help with vector graphics. Still the SNES versions were very nice.
How does the CPC's 8-bit Z80 with 4 MHz compare to the SNES's CPU with its 8-bit data bus and even less MHz? Wikipedia says:
QuoteThe [SNES'] CPU is a Ricoh 5A22, which is a derivative of the 16-bit WDC 65C816 microprocessor. In NTSC regions, its nominal clock speed is 3.58 MHz but the CPU will slow down to either 2.68 MHz or 1.79 MHz when accessing some slower peripherals. ... This CPU has an 8-bit data bus and two address buses.
Quote from: roudoudou on 10:05, 16 February 21
Except that Another World Atari/Amiga is the Ascii version of the game ;D
So a pixel version with all animations can't be worse than the original
I check the second link you post, with the background designed with 981 polygones. As the same link says, a polygone is many bytes, even optimised and crunched afterward
So i converted the background screen to a Plus version 160x200
This is crunched in 2142 bytes with ZX0 and the decrunch is done in 0.25s, not that bad for a 8bits machine 8)
The Another World technical choice had sense back in the days. Not today
Anyway, convert such a game is a lot of work and i doubt someone will try to do it ;D
(https://i.postimg.cc/wjBph7CQ/another-cpc.png)
Impressive result.
Quote from: eto on 10:14, 16 February 21
Agreed, the backgrounds are not the problem, especially with state of the art compression technology. But do you think you can do animations and sound on the CPC that is even close to what we see on the ST?
Animation is not the problem, in my point of view, even huge ones. SoundFX will be harder because it's memory/time consuming a lot
Since PRINCE OF PERSIA was running well, wouldn't it be possible that a version with still screens instead of cinematics be created on a plain cpc? If we were talking about a plus version . I would expect something equal to the A500.
Another World *is* comprised of still screens. The cinematics aspect refers to cut scenes, things flying in front of the camera, spot sound fx, stuff like that.
In these days of mass storage solutions, we don't have to worry about the memory limitations that Éric Chahi was trying to work around on the Amiga/ST.
This could be the first game to really flex the muscles of those storage solutions....
so from our conversation so far, I many infer that contemporary cpc masters can indeed creat a great ANOTHER WORLD game for the plain CPC as well as its sequel, THE HEART OF THE ALIEN which was released only for sega saturn.
As @eto (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=3625) said.
You can't compare it with flashback, fb is using sprites.
Sound fx is not a problem, we could live without them.
Maybe some noise from the AY or that thingy that @roudoudou (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1714) made back then with the singing bird (if I remember correctly)
@Otto (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=2982) I agree with the snes cpu, nintendo was yelling back then about the pc engine not being a true 16bit... well well.
Quote from: Misel982001 on 10:41, 16 February 21
Since PRINCE OF PERSIA was running well, wouldn't it be possible that a version with still screens instead of cinematics be created on a plain cpc? If we were talking about a plus version . I would expect something equal to the A500.
I'm a massive fan of the Plus hardware, but I'm not about to kid myself that it's equal to an A500. I think you could do a passable version of an Another World/Flashback style game (and have been tempted to try), but I think it would be better to tailor the game around the hardware rather than doing a conversion that would probably end up lacking somewhat.
As for the SNES CPU, yes it was underpowered, but the graphics hardware is really quite a long way ahead of what home computers had, so most of the taxing work is lifted off onto custom hardware when playing the types of games that tended to be around at the time.
Iam not claiming that the plus is equal to an A500. However I think that is a very capable piece of hardware that was not appreciated during its short commercial life. Of course it was the era of the 16bit and the 32bit machines back then. Today however, there is a renewed interest on such machines and the PLUS is thoroughly examined. New people begin learning on old 8bit hardware. Also, new plus games are released and they look amazing.
Plus machines were 5 years late.
Even the A1200 was a piece of crap back then.
Quote from: Misel982001 on 13:26, 16 February 21
Iam not claiming that the plus is equal to an A500. However I think that is a very capable piece of hardware that was not appreciated during its short commercial life.
On Youtube there's a
Shadow of the Beast demo running on a CPC+ , which is so amazing that it can directly be compared to the Amiga version. OK, so a demo is not a final game, but stil it's a nice demo.
I'd love to see a kind of Another-World or Flashback type game on the CPC(plus). Technically something like that should be possible, I think.
Totally agree here. A 6128 plus in 1987 or 1988 would have been a radical piece of hardware, very capable and with a large dedicated user base. In 1992 the A1200 was very outdated and slow. It should have been launched with the same hardware as A4000T in order it stood a chance....and still it would have failed. The PCs had already dominated the market since IBM had allowed other manufacturers to market their own combatible hardware.
Quote from: Otto on 13:41, 16 February 21
On Youtube there's a Shadow of the Beast demo running on a CPC+ , which is so amazing that it can directly be compared to the Amiga version.
there is a shadow of the beast game work in progress (but less impressive than a one screen intro FX obviously)
there is some previews on youtube => https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX7PR_ROWYA36FTFQptStaQ
Here is some (little) stuff with Flashback sprite sheet 8)
Did you really enjoy that game ? I mean, seriously ? did someone here really finish the game?
Only my personal opinion: I loved the atmosphere, the graphics. Impressive back then, still impressive today.
But the game itself (the gameplay) ? I always found it too difficult / too frustrating. Probably because I wished to play the game as fast as an arcade game..
I loved that game and finished it on my A500 back then.
Later on the MD an PC.
A few days ago I was live-streaming it :-)
An amazing experience on my ST. Some parts may be hard, but it does feel like you're playing a _story_ and not just a game.
I completed it bitd as well as in the past few months.
It is certainly completable, but you have to persist. Especially the parts before the arena and the underground one with the falling rocks are very frustrating and require buddha's patience.
The controls are laggy, so you must learn how to dance with it indeed.
Quote from: manossg on 17:41, 16 February 21
I completed it bitd as well as in the past few months.
It is certainly completable, but you have to persist. Especially the parts before the arena and the underground one with the falling rocks are very frustrating and require buddha's patience.
The rellections in the green light thing took me a while to figure out.
OK I get it ; I did not enjoy the game but that does not mean it's a bad game -- this game is just not for me. :) Thanks all for sharing your experiences!
Quote from: roudoudou on 16:39, 16 February 21
Here is some (little) stuff with Flashback sprite sheet 8)
Hehehe, brilliant! ;D
Quote from: norecess on 19:01, 16 February 21
OK I get it ; I did not enjoy the game but that does not mean it's a bad game -- this game is just not for me. :) Thanks all for sharing your experiences!
Each to their own.
https://youtu.be/5aM-McVryQM
Quote from: roudoudou on 16:39, 16 February 21
Here is some (little) stuff with Flashback sprite sheet 8)
Hahaha that was great :D
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 08:50, 17 February 21
https://youtu.be/5aM-McVryQM
Doesn't tell you much does it?
I'm sure that all the in-game aspects of the game could be done for the CPC (with enough storage for however many screens it has) - often only a small area of the screen is updating as well which means things aren't too difficult, as long as you can store the image data.
It's the cinematics that would need some work, to be done appropriately (rendering polygons or similar, not playing a video from mass storage!). Someone did the intro on the C64 recently, so it's possible to some extent. As they're mainly flat colours, maybe each frame could be stored as differences from the previous rather than rendering the polys direct (did the 16-bit versions even do this though?), but again, storage space.
In CPC mode Plus; it could be better like this :
if C64 can do it, Amstrad can too ... :-X :-X :-X
https://youtu.be/t6xqaMjlGKI
That is nice indeed!
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 14:38, 11 March 21if C64 can do it, Amstrad can too ... :-X :-X :-X
[/l]
QuoteNO SPRITES USED, NO PRE COMPUTED ANIMATION DATA.
obviously the animations are pre-computed ;D the missing information is what the renderer is doing precisely
We do not know the media used (romboard/cartridge, floppy) or the requirements
A lot of modern C64 games are using a 512KB cartridge format that has become popular. I imagine any large game, graphically, will be using the same these days.
There is nothing really hard to do, it's always a matter of how long it's going to be. As the animated scenes are rather simple, a simple diff with tilesets could do wonders. The same for the static images, and even probably the sprites. 128k is enough (with loading here and there of course).
Quote from: norecess on 16:46, 16 February 21I always found it too difficult / too frustrating.
Exactly my experience with the game! Also all the other things you wrote. I have just recently read about the guy who made the original Amiga version (all on his own, apparently) and the many follow-ups etc and I found that it is still considered one of the best games ever. I mean, I gave it my fair amount of time, but I think I that some day I just quit trying no to get shot in the bathroom time and again. Did you have to start over from scratch after dying?
Quote from: BSC on 17:32, 11 March 21
Exactly my experience with the game! Also all the other things you wrote. I have just recently read about the guy who made the original Amiga version (all on his own, apparently) and the many follow-ups etc and I found that it is still considered one of the best games ever. I mean, I gave it my fair amount of time, but I think I that some day I just quit trying no to get shot in the bathroom time and again. Did you have to start over from scratch after dying?
there is codes every 2 or 3 screens, you do not have to retry from scratch every time you play
If you guys find Another World difficult and frustrating, oh boy, you must try Heart of the Alien, you're in for a treat! :P
Quote from: manossg on 19:28, 11 March 21Heart of the Alien
Who will sell me a Sega CD at a reasonable price? :)
Quote from: Gryzor on 08:44, 12 March 21
Who will sell me a Sega CD at a reasonable price? :)
Try the Amiga port and the Another World lost level till you get one ;D
Quote from: VincentGR on 13:41, 12 March 21
Try the Amiga port and the Another World lost level till you get one ;D
Didn't know there was an Amiga port of the sequel.. Though tthat was a Mega-CD exclusive..
Can't think it compared very favorably?
They both are late ports.
From?
earok did the lost level.
heart of an alien:
http://aminet.net/package/game/actio/HeartOfTheAlienRedux
No, I meant, if both are ports, what was the original?
The first one was on an Amiga original and later ported to the megadrive with some more content, an extra level.
Well this level is a standalone now on the Amiga.
The second was a megacd exclusive.