Bomb Jack remake

[dodogildo]

Wow. This is a love letter to Mode 1! Amazing job @Anthony Flack and thank you!!

[GUNHED]

Great!  Great!  Great!  Great!  Great!  Great!  Great!  Great!  Great! work!!! 

[scorp6128+]

Just checked it out this evening.
It's really great.
With all respect to the arcade original and much love to the CPC showing all the details in the fantastic use of mode 1.

Graphics, sprites, sound, details and all the small extras are making an outstanding CPC game.
Thank you, Anthony.

[Mr. DVG]

The only thing I can say is fantastic... since yesterday I can't play anything else but this game, on emulator, on original hardware, everywhere I can't help but play "Bomb Jack Extra Sugar"... Thanks to Anthony for this fantastic pearl that will be talked about for a long time in this 2025 (and beyond).

My modest contribution was to make another video on the Remix Mode that I'm also sending you here. I used the invincibility cheat, I know I shouldn't have, but I was too curious to see the new levels!

Thanks again Anthony! 

[norecess464]

Hello!

I played the game on real hardware, and it's a blast. I love the details -- it's very well done. Congratulations!

I can tell when a game is perfect: it's one that you know you'll launch and relaunch multiple times. And this new Bomb Jack is one of them!

Also, thank you. It was a pleasure to follow the development of your game over the years. The result is truly impressive, especially considering it's your first real project on the Amstrad CPC. I'm really looking forward to see what your next project will be -- or not, which would be perfectly fine too! (Enjoy your well-deserved vacation now!)

Again, thanks!

[roudoudou]

my girl likes it!

[eto]

Absolutely fantastic game. It's so accurate I can only play it with an arcade controller.

[OneVision]

Amazing work, technically, gameplay-wise, graphically. This is so close to the original arcade game. Bombjack is part of the very first arcade games I discovered back in the days and it's so heart warming to see and hear again about this game. All the feelings are back and for that a very big thank you !

[ajcasado]

I'm really impressed. The classic CPC version was one of my favorites, but this one is superior in every way. Thanks for the talent and effort put into making this game!!

[ZorrO]

Here they even praise old version,
https://lemmy.world/post/3866272
and in the meantime...
Great improvement.

[Egg Master]

@Anthony Flack I played Bombjack yesterday. Lots of content, options, game modes, very arcade looks and sounds. I have a really enjoyed to play and replay like children. Last but not least, some nice display tricks that are well highlighted. I think this is the best arcade conversion done on CPC to date. Congratulations, you are the best surprise of the last few years!

[Prodatron]

OMG what a f**ing cool implementation for the CPC! You really have to play it on real hardware, like I did it right now!
@Anthony Flack : This is such a great work, my biggest respect! (I was a CPC Bomb Jack maniac in the past)
With all the details around and the screen format the original arcarde feeling is just awesome!

[Prodatron]

so cool

[nikos_a]

I always thought that Mode 1 was treated unfairly because of all those crappy ZX ports. The CPC suffered somehow from the same problem that Amiga did with a lot of ST ports (even the ST games were not taking advantage of the 16bit h/w). Wec Le Mans was a proof that Mode 1 games can be good. Now this. Together with Amiga's Bombjack Beer Edition are the best version of the game, one for 16bit, one for 8bit. I cannot find anything wrong in this new CPC version. It's flawless. Perfect.

[ZorrO]

Properly made graphics in MODE 1 have 10 colors, not 4. Because there are so many unique combinations of two colors meeting in neighboring pixels that merge on CRT. Just look at Jill Lawson's work. And Anthony  use it perfect.

But a few years ago I read an interview with a programmer from Ocean (I don't remember his name, the one with long hair), who told what it was like to make a port from Arcade to ZX and CPC in '84-85. They would get a game machine in their room, and graphic designer and programmer had 2-3 months to make a port to ZX, first they had to play the game and take pictures by camera, sometimes they would film VHS. One would make pixels, other would write code. When they were done, the graphic designer would get another job, but coder had two weeks to made CPC port. There were much fewer CPC owners than ZX owners at that time, so it wasn't worth for company to spend more time on it. There was no one to improve graphics, and if someone didn't like it, they could buy another computer. If someone was rich, they bough some 16bit back then and to this day believe that all CPC games were uglier than Spectrum games. Meanwhile, 2/3 of CPC games have wide pixels like C64, or use MODE 1 with dithering or have different palettes in several areas of screen, and they don't look worse than on ZX.

[Devlin]

Absolutely gorgeous. Plays beautifully, even if i'm not that good at it!

Definitely one I'm going to go back to, for sure.

[andycadley]

Bought a copy and had a very brief go this morning. It's seriously impressive and absolutely shows what can be done in Mode 1 when you aren't just recolouring Speccy graphics. And it seems to play very well too, although I'd be the first to admit I've always been terrible at Bomb Jack.

[Targhan]

Bought it, played it on a real CPC. What a treat! There are so much details everywhere, it's impressive! And the gameplay is also perfect! But it's waaaayyy harder than the original CPC version, probably due to the smaller screen (I managed to get to level 6 though while collecting almost all the sparking bombs on my first try, not so bad).

The graphics are quite spectacular, and sound is very good too! Thanks a lot for your effort!

[Anthony Flack]

The sound is all thanks to you my friend. I thought it would be a big job - and it probably would have been too, but then I downloaded Arkos Tracker 2 and it was all done in a day. So easy to use - we are spoiled.

I can tell you why it's harder - the original CPC version had only five enemies at most, but now it goes up as high as nine. 

[ZorrO]

Is it  invincibility cheat  is one of option?

[Anthony Flack]

Yes, invincibility or infinite lives, in options. 

[roudoudou]

I can tell you why it's harder - the original CPC version had only five enemies at most, but now it goes up as high as nine.

We had discussion at a mini-meeting about the difficulty, because we found the easy mode not that easy and... hard ^_^

Is the easy mode based on arcade code/mode ? Or easy mode based on your feelings (of a guy coding the game since many years and cannot realize what is hard or easy) 

[Anthony Flack]

Each difficulty setting changes the enemy sequence you get, which follows the pattern of the arcade if you mess with the dip switches.

As well as that, for easy I slowed the rate that the enemies speed up, I delayed when the second bird arrives, I think I also removed one enemy entirely, and also made bonus lives come more often. I was concerned that people might find easy to still not be easy enough, but I didn't want to take away too much.

I think easy should be easier than the easiest setting of the arcade game, but that doesn't mean a mummy won't still land on your head. I don't think I've made it harder than the arcade, I think it's a little softer overall, but the arcade game was always quite tough. 

[dodogildo]

On CRT it looks and plays just like the arcade. So fun!

[Egg Master]

I love the title screen. The best on CPC. The Bomb Jack logo is just amazing!