(https://barjack.fr/perso/cover.png)
Hello everyone,
Some news for those who follow the development of Bubble Quest on CPC+ and GX4000.
I'm about to finish all the gfx of the levels, which were very numerous because of their animations and complex for having made the most of mode 1 with rasters for the backgrounds in addition to hard sprites.
Roudoudou will be happy to finally be able to integrate all this into his incredible engine which has already been in place for a while 😉
Almost all the music is finished, it is the work of e-dredon, takes advantage of the sound capabilities of the CPC+ and is absolutely fabulous! I hope he will consider my work up to his talent 😉
The game will be released in physical edition and will fit on a cartridge with a capacity much greater than the original ones as the content is substantial.
We owe this support to Toto, whose task was not so easy to upgrade from 512KB to 2MB!
We hope - without wanting to go too far - to be able to finish the game for this year 2023.
We will keep you informed soon.
The game features a multi-minute, fully animated intro :
(https://barjack.fr/perso/intro01.gif)
(https://barjack.fr/perso/intro02.gif)
(https://barjack.fr/perso/intro03.gif)
Some screenshots from the game :
(https://barjack.fr/perso/w01lvl01.gif)
(https://barjack.fr/perso/w01lvl02.gif)
(https://barjack.fr/perso/w03lvl01.gif)
Everything delivered here will be present in a next teaser ;)
Wait and see...
Looks amazing and looking forward to seeing what this 2mb cart is all about! :o
I mean... Damn.
Will there also be a CPR? I will be getting the physical edition, but I don't have a Plus or a GX set up permanently...
Quote from: Gryzor on 13:41, 04 March 23I mean... Damn.
Will there also be a CPR? I will be getting the physical edition, but I don't have a Plus or a GX set up permanently...
The modification to any Plus emulator is easy
CPCEmuPower (Linux,Win,MacOS) is already ok
i made modifications myself to an old version of CPCEC in a few hour
BTW do not expect this working on Winape
there will be an exclusivity for physical release first (the only way to NOT see some crappy emulated version on youtube first)
Quote from: roudoudou on 13:57, 04 March 23Quote from: Gryzor on 13:41, 04 March 23I mean... Damn.
Will there also be a CPR? I will be getting the physical edition, but I don't have a Plus or a GX set up permanently...
The modification to any Plus emulator is easy
CPCEmuPower (Linux,Win,MacOS) is already ok
i made modifications myself to an old version of CPCEC in a few hour
BTW do not expect this working on Winape
there will be an exclusivity for physical release first (the only way to NOT see some crappy emulated version on youtube first)
Presumably not compatible with C4CPC?
Out of interest, how does the paging work (or is that top secret)?
Also, how much ROM is the big intro taking up? ok if top secret too ;)
Quote from: dthrone on 14:06, 04 March 23Quote from: roudoudou on 13:57, 04 March 23Quote from: Gryzor on 13:41, 04 March 23I mean... Damn.
Will there also be a CPR? I will be getting the physical edition, but I don't have a Plus or a GX set up permanently...
The modification to any Plus emulator is easy
CPCEmuPower (Linux,Win,MacOS) is already ok
i made modifications myself to an old version of CPCEC in a few hour
BTW do not expect this working on Winape
there will be an exclusivity for physical release first (the only way to NOT see some crappy emulated version on youtube first)
Presumably not compatible with C4CPC?
Out of interest, how does the paging work (or is that top secret)?
Also, how much ROM is the big intro taking up? ok if top secret too ;)
not a secret, i already give the sheet to emulators authors (most of them do not care since the game is on progress...)
the cartridge is splited in 512K slots
on each slot, when you read the last bytes of the ROM 0 (disregarding the mapping, the cartridge do not know where 16K are mapped)
if you have 4 slots (2M for us), then ROM 0 addresses 16380, 16381, 16382, 16383 will change the current 512K slot
that's it
once 512K slot is changed, every 32 ROM of the slots are handled like a regular CPR
due to the amount of DATA for some levels and the overall managing system, i wont do anything to split the game in 4 cartridges :(
Alta, wie geil ist das denn?!
Sorry, wrong language... 🤓
To keep it short: C'est incroyable!
Anyone got a CPC+ for sale :o ?
OWW!WOWOWWOWO!!
Is it Proline Software or Praline Software? Can't make out the font lol
(https://www.chezpatchouka.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Praluline-la-fameuse-recette-de-Brioche-aux-pralines-roses-de-Francois-Pralus.jpg)
Ahh Praline...
Looks tasty? lol
It looks beautiful !! Congratulations to both of you
@roudoudou and
@Barjack .
Wow, that would be a stunning looking game on ANY platform!
Looks amazing! Looking forward to this very much!
Quote from: Skunkfish on 10:29, 05 March 23Wow, that would be a stunning looking game on ANY platform!
Indeed I was thinking "hey, can we get a Switch or an ARM port (for the various handhelds)?". Simply amazing.
it's nice and flattering, but don't get too excited anyway ^^
in all modesty and I'm not alone on the project, it may be a game that can be described as triple A on cpc, but not on more powerful machines ;)
I think I can say that we are on a good game between the atari st and the amiga, which is already very good for cpc+;)
Awesome graphics! I can't imagine what efforts are behind the programming. And I am curious about the music.
Everyone gave the best of himself by exploiting the machine, we are clearly not - and at all levels - on cpc old.
-----
Roudoudou had to use tricks and tricks as a demomaker for the code, the physics of the bubble according to its environment is very realistic and its movement is at 50hz. It manages an impressive number of images and other visual effects that we keep secret but which are amazing for this machine.
-----
e-dredon composed about twenty really fabulous pieces of music with samples for the cpc+ that I listened to over and over during development and which I still can't get enough of.
-----
Toto has invested a lot to make us a pcb to have a cartridge that leaves us more room to integrate all that, moreover he will take care of the manufacture of the packaging and having seen his precedents we can only be reassured on the quality of the latter...
-----
Hwikaa whose talents far surpasses mine in the field will also participate, but we also keep it as a surprise for the release.
-----
Everyone worked well and for once, everyone was waiting for my graphics, it was a lot of work and we finally see the end.
We are all at least as eager to release the game as you are to discover it.
You don't have anything yet.
;)
^^edited for formatting
Congratulations. 2mo cart...
Can I be the first to say I'd like a physical copy? ;D
Quote from: Maniac on 18:46, 05 March 23Can I be the first to say I'd like a physical copy? ;D
I was first😀
Quote from: Gryzor on 20:57, 05 March 23Quote from: Maniac on 18:46, 05 March 23Can I be the first to say I'd like a physical copy? ;D
I was first😀
Good point well presented! Yes you were! But I do have a permanent 6128 Plus setup! ;)
Quote from: Maniac on 21:24, 05 March 23Quote from: Gryzor on 20:57, 05 March 23Quote from: Maniac on 18:46, 05 March 23Can I be the first to say I'd like a physical copy? ;D
I was first😀
Good point well presented! Yes you were! But I do have a permanent 6128 Plus setup! ;)
Well I have 6128 Pluses on standby (and one or two 464s) 😁
Quote from: Gryzor on 20:57, 05 March 23Quote from: Maniac on 18:46, 05 March 23Can I be the first to say I'd like a physical copy? ;D
I was first😀
then... so i'm the third hehe :laugh:
Congrats on a gameplay and artistic awesome project !
Increible...fantástico trabajo...regalandole a la gama plus los titulos que se merece, y colocándola como la mejor maquina de 8 bits incluso superior a msx 2 .
Yo también quiero copia fisica...anotadme!!😀😅
Gracias!
So it wasn't abandonned after all... long time awaited. Might be the awesomnest of the homebrew stuff.
(Can't wait for a PC1512 version either) :laugh:
Barjack: it's your first CPC+/GX project isn't it ? Do you have some feelings to share about it ?
The cpc+ is not my favorite machine and it is a mistake to think that it is a cpc with an "improved" palette.
Realizing a game on cpc+ that really exploits the machine is a new experience for anyone coming from cpc old.
Few games exploit the potential of cpc+, I am happy to have contributed at my level to the graphics of bubble quest as the talents of my comrades in their places is well above what has been done so far.
That said, I can't wait to turn this page to return to the old cpc ^^
Your gfx are always amazing. Have you perhaps done any mockups for a CPC port of BQ?
Wonderful to see that the work on this awesome project continues! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
Eventually displaying the 6128plus real potential in a great way. ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Please put me on the pre-order list for a physical copy. :) :) :)
(if physical copies get numbers then please reserve me one of these: 9, 12, 18, 27, 36, 45, 54, 57, 63, 72).
I'm really looking forward to this, it is exactly what I need to celebrate finally getting a Plus machine. I hope you're making plenty of carts!
That's interesting to hear you can't wait to return to the original CPC though. I'm quite keen to take the Plus for a spin, programming-wise, once I get everything working. It seems like the sprites would be fun to work with, but you don't think so?
It is simply impossible to redo bubble quest on cpc old, partly because of the use of hard sprites, but not only.
Trying it would be like making a whole different game.
For my next projects on cpc old, I would like to use extension cards (sd or usb support + ram extension)
I see a lot of games limited to 64k for 464 in Spanish, why not...
But I find it a shame not to take advantage of our expansion cards to make games with no support limit and with 512kb or more for graphics and sound on cpc old.
This for me does not distort the machine, very quickly on the amiga we moved on to games that required a ram extension and we could have a hard disk.
This closes doors for us to have much better games on cpc...
Quote from: Barjack on 10:37, 09 March 23But I find it a shame not to take advantage of our expansion cards to make games with no support limit and with 512kb or more for graphics and sound on cpc old.
Many hundred of people with expansion cards, not using them...
i would like to hear more games that use my PlayCity !!! ;D ;D
Quote from: Barjack on 15:43, 08 March 23The cpc+ is not my favorite machine and it is a mistake to think that it is a cpc with an "improved" palette.
not improved, but extended... ;D
Quote from: MacDeath on 12:23, 09 March 23Quote from: Barjack on 15:43, 08 March 23The cpc+ is not my favorite machine and it is a mistake to think that it is a cpc with an "improved" palette.
not improved, but extended... ;D
or worsened?? :P
"There is also a slight color difference between ASIC machines and those with a real Gate Array. The Red, Green and Blue levels produced for each of the 32 color-codes between the CPC and the Plus are close, but not equals. This won't be a problem most of the time but as soon as you start combining differents colors together (dithering and mostly flippping), the differences are accumulating and can be much more annoying (ask SuperSylvestre about that if you dare :)."
https://www.grimware.org/doku.php/documentations/devices/gatearray
Quote from: dthrone on 12:39, 09 March 23Quote from: MacDeath on 12:23, 09 March 23Quote from: Barjack on 15:43, 08 March 23The cpc+ is not my favorite machine and it is a mistake to think that it is a cpc with an "improved" palette.
not improved, but extended... ;D
or worsened?? :P
"There is also a slight color difference between ASIC machines and those with a real Gate Array. The Red, Green and Blue levels produced for each of the 32 color-codes between the CPC and the Plus are close, but not equals. This won't be a problem most of the time but as soon as you start combining differents colors together (dithering and mostly flippping), the differences are accumulating and can be much more annoying (ask SuperSylvestre about that if you dare :)."
https://www.grimware.org/doku.php/documentations/devices/gatearray
I suspect connecting a CPC to a modern display makes way more difference to the colour output than the slight differences in how it maps them onto the extended palette. I'd certainly not give up all the extra colours myself. :laugh:
I'm really looking forward to seeing this, it really seems like it might be a showcase for the GX. Will definitely be picking up a cart. Shame it won't be available for emulators too, both for convenience and helping future emulator accuracy but pushing it past the 512K cart limit presumably means we'll need to extend to CPR format anyway (and introduce something similar to the NES mapper logic)
I can see why you wouldn't want to try an old school CPC version though. When you code something specifically to take advantage of all the Plus hardware it's unlikely to be plausible to downgrade it without major rewrites.
I obviously agree with the fact to use standard expansions to extend the CPC capabilities. Extra ROM / RAM is not something that will add alien extra power to the CPC old, it just show the full power of its original design. Using an extra AY to be able to play music & sfx at the same time is a nice optional feature for CPC old games. All those things can allow to go ahead with the original system.
Making remakes of other games closer to more powerful machines is always disappointing.
- It's not original.
- We tinker to be closer.
- To necessarily compare to the original, it can only be worse, even if it is successful for the cpc.
This goes for Bubble Quest.
I think it is more interesting to do something new on cpc old taking into account the capabilities of the latter.
On my site there are graphics on old for a beat em up, a brick breaker, I still have the works of gryzor for a run n gun... with more ram on "HD", everything is possible to create a new game in these genres that will surpass all previous ones.
I'm much more motivated by this prospect than to make a failed and unadapted adaptation of Bubble Quest on cpc old ;)
Quote from: Barjack on 10:37, 09 March 23But I find it a shame not to take advantage of our expansion cards to make games with no support limit and with 512kb or more for graphics and sound on cpc old.
Totally agreed!!! :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Of course it's more work to support expansion, but that's the reason of having them.
Using RAM / ROM instead of (re)loading stuff form disc is easy and makes things quicker. Or one can specifically code for more ROM/RAM - which makes things even better.
And there are PlayCity (same as PSG, just a bit more easy to program and some sound channels more - great!). Also there are the LambdaSpeak expansions (just send the text to the screen and to the LS and it will say these words).
Eventually it's not so hard to take advantages of expansions, also only few bytes are used.
Wish you all the luck and success with you next CPC-unlimited project :) :) :)
Quote from: Barjack on 10:37, 09 March 23But I find it a shame not to take advantage of our expansion cards to make games with no support limit and with 512kb or more for graphics and sound on cpc old.
This for me does not distort the machine, very quickly on the amiga we moved on to games that required a ram extension and we could have a hard disk.
This closes doors for us to have much better games on cpc...
Complete agreement. On the Amiga 500, <1MB quickly became a "no go". But on the CPC, 64K will have to do for everyone. We had the ability to use 576K back in the 80's. And so flexible! Other systems could only dream of it (like those beloved Spectrum ZX, Commodore, Atari 8bit and most other 8bit systems).
Quote from: Prodatron on 00:57, 10 March 23Quote from: Barjack on 10:37, 09 March 23But I find it a shame not to take advantage of our expansion cards to make games with no support limit and with 512kb or more for graphics and sound on cpc old.
This for me does not distort the machine, very quickly on the amiga we moved on to games that required a ram extension and we could have a hard disk.
This closes doors for us to have much better games on cpc...
Complete agreement. On the Amiga 500, <1MB quickly became a "no go". But on the CPC, 64K will have to do for everyone. We had the ability to use 576K back in the 80's. And so flexible! Other systems could only dream of it (like those beloved Spectrum ZX, Commodore, Atari 8bit and most other 8bit systems).
DO IT !!!
(https://i.postimg.cc/rstLbD82/rambo-john-james-rambo.gif)
Were people asking for Bubble Quest to be downgraded to the regular CPC? Seems like missing the point of designing a game for the Plus machine. Oh well.
Yes, memory paging is something the CPC was built to do and it's a shame most games just stuck to 64k. The CPC is so much better when given more memory to work with, and like you say it doesn't distort the machine; extra memory was available from the beginning, but seldom used.
Quote from: Anthony Flack on 10:13, 10 March 23Were people asking for Bubble Quest to be downgraded to the regular CPC? Seems like missing the point of designing a game for the Plus machine. Oh well.
No. I just asked if there's a mockup with the CPC limitations. Got misunderstood.
Quote from: Gryzor on 10:16, 10 March 23Quote from: Anthony Flack on 10:13, 10 March 23Were people asking for Bubble Quest to be downgraded to the regular CPC? Seems like missing the point of designing a game for the Plus machine. Oh well.
No. I just asked if there's a mockup with the CPC limitations. Got misunderstood.
at the very beginning, bubble quest was intended to run on a CPC+128K
but fullscreen target leads me quickly to a dead end*
*it's not impossible, it's simply MOAR complicated and i did not wanted to go that way, +storage limited to a floppy, +..., +...
For my part, my approach to game development on cpc or cpc+ is simple.
I'm not nostalgic for games that are graphically or musically limited to 64kb
More ram allows more graphics, more work in number, but much less in realization to be able to make everything fit.
Likewise for music.
The coder no longer has to rack his brains to optimize everything and can focus on the essentials.
In the end, we have less development time and more content, more openings.
I don't want games from 1990 on my cpc, I want games from 2023.
Extra ram, ultra-fast loading on usb or sd, lots of different sprites, rich backgrounds, games that require a mouse, why not?
The Spanish platforms in 64k, do not amuse me personally, the gryzor or renegade are poor on the screen even if they are very good for 64k.
That's good if the devs want to keep producing 90s games on k7 ;)
It would also be nice if we did something else with our machines (like other machines do).
Best words of 2023!
Let's got an use the full potential of CPC6128 and 6128plus. :) :) :) :) :)
We have cards that allow this, for years... It would be high time to exploit them ;)
I also hope to complete uniload, more to democratize the cards than to have our old games on "Hard drive" :)
Having said that, having all the software in files on an ultra-fast support, from a menu, with patches so that you no longer have to return the diskettes would be a step forward similar to what whdload was for the amiga.
Kukulcan from cpc power is working on it too, I'll come back to it after Bubble Quest ;)
2023 Bubble Quest.
2024 UniLoad + an old cpc prod with extension.
My roadmap ;)
Your Gryzor sequel is not drop so ?
All graphics for Gryzor Rescue have been completed for a long time, among other things I kept all of this a secret.
But it could reappear with more ram and less restrictive development.
There are also other things on my site, like the beat em up or the brick break... I don't know yet what we're going to get into with roudoudou on cpc old, but all that is possible.
First finish Bubble Quest ;)
Quote from: Barjack on 17:06, 10 March 23We have cards that allow this, for years... It would be high time to exploit them ;)
I also hope to complete uniload, more to democratize the cards than to have our old games on "Hard drive" :)
Having said that, having all the software in files on an ultra-fast support, from a menu, with patches so that you no longer have to return the diskettes would be a step forward similar to what whdload was for the amiga.
Kukulcan from cpc power is working on it too, I'll come back to it after Bubble Quest ;)
2023 Bubble Quest.
2024 UniLoad + an old cpc prod with extension.
My roadmap ;)
+++ Yeah! Forget limits, kick the shit out the CPC Plus. +++
ah ah, yes we are going to come back to cpc old, for me it is really my favorite machine ;)
The cpc plus is still a superb 8 bits, Bubble Quest is a great adventure and the machine deserved to be pushed a little.
With gng from Golem and Hwikaa, maybe others will want to make software up to the task in the future, that's what we want.
Tengo los 2 sistemas. CPC antiguo 576K y 464 Plus 128K. Amstrad plus no solo mejora los colores simultáneos en la pantalla. paleta de 4096 colores... ¡No!, añade scroll de hardware y sprites de hardware, es una máquina muy superior en todo.
Personalmente prefiero títulos que exploten la familia PLUS ya que el viejo amstrad ya tiene un gran apolo de toda la escena. Demostremos que Amstrad Plus es la máquina de 8 bits más potente.
Y vamos a darle un catálogo de juegos de su verdadero nivel
last animation engine on a test level
Nice job, I'm expecting a physical version soon. I was able to try it at crocofest2023 and it was just awesome. Incredible gameplay
Oh wow this thing is gorgeous.
Quote from: XeNoMoRPH on 20:18, 27 March 23
Well, well, at the right side we can see a c64. So is that real or a game from commodore. ;D ;D ;D ;D Just kidding, c64 couldn't do it! 8)
I'm just finishing reading my issue of Amstrad Addict where this was featured and wondered if there was an update on progress of this amazing game please?
Quote from: Maniac on 11:15, 29 October 23I'm just finishing reading my issue of Amstrad Addict where this was featured and wondered if there was an update on progress of this amazing game please?
we were working on some levels this summer + proof of concept of underwater levels done
Barjack is supposed to work on GFX again since a few weeks