French Games

[ComSoft6128]

I recently had a look at one of the Bob Winner vids on YouTube and was really impressed with the quality of the graphics for a game from 86.
So two questions:


1. What were the top 5 (or 10) French games that were commercially released in the UK?


2. Which games could/should have been released here but never made it?


Cheers,


Peter

[cpcitor]

I watched that game recently on Youtube also.
Bob winner graphics are made with an interesting palette choice:

Images from https://cpcrulez.fr/GamesTest/bob_winner.htm and http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/bob-winner/index.html .

• mode 1
• background is not black, so all 4 colors have hue (instead of often 3 as most games choose ink 0 black)
• the 4 colors are in luminance progression,
• the 4 colors are in regular, gentle hue progression. That is, the hue is neither identical (e.g. bright red vs dark red) nor too different (e.g. red vs blue).

Now dither, but depending on the area, change the criterion to define your color pairs:

• based on luminance for large areas (e.g. big roof on the right below)
• based on hue only for selected relatively small areas (e.g. remote buildings below)

The benefits

• mode 1 -> fine contours
• 4 colors with regular, gentle hue progression -> prerequisite for rich chromatic experience
• luminance progression -> prerequisite for gentle dithering
• hue progression -> prerequisite for rich and subtle chromatic experience
• dither based on luminance for large areas -> large areas feel gently dithered, with the risk of "solarized greyscale photograph feeling"
• dither based on hue only for selected relatively small areas -> rich and subtle chromatic experience. Allows to selectively color an object, causing locally imprecise contours, which is okay for background

What is averted

• mode 0 with too big pixels
• feeling of black-and-white with low relevance colors (many many speccy ports)
• feeling of greyscale with tinted/solarized palette (e.g. Switchblade)
• heavy dither with too high luminance contrast, too different colors, on too big areas (e.g. Orphée, SRAM)

Overall: a feeling of fine details, rich and subtle colors, gentle dithering.

[ComSoft6128]

Thank you for your reply cpcitor,


It helps to explain the level of detail within the game.


Regards,


Peter

[cpcitor]

1. What were the top 5 (or 10) French games that were commercially released in the UK?

Difficult to answer and subjective.

Often there are hint in what games are covered in reviews and wiki pages.

Have you had a look at http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Category:French_companies ?

Each of the following pages mention games, some released in the UK.

http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Loriciel (e.g. http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Le_5eme_Axe )
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Ubi_Soft (e.g. Defender of the Crown )
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Titus_Software (e.g. Crazy Cars)
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/ERE_Informatique  (e.g. http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Get_Dexter , also Captain Blood )
http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Infogrames (e.g. http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Hostages well which  I didn't know. Alternates mode 1 and mode 0, worth a look at the two-part longplay  , also http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/North_%26_South)

2. Which games could/should have been released here but never made it?

[ComSoft6128]

Appreciated, I will check these out.


Regards,


Peter

[kawickboy]

cpc (and speccy/msx) releases of north&south, hostages and light corridor were done by the spanish studio new frontiers.


famous french games in UK ? what about get dexter, crazy cars 2 or skweek ?

[TomEtJerry]

Some french companies had commercial agreements with english publishers (ok Activision is american :-) ) :

Loriciels with Amsoft (Rally 2) then Activision (Pro Tennis, Bactron)
Early Ere informatique games with PSS (Get dexter, Doomsday blues, Macadam bumper)
Infogrames games have been sold under lowcost "Players" brand (Championship waterski challenge, Lee enfield series)

They seems to have sold other titles directly under their brand (Passengers of the wind, Bob winner, 500cc GP of Microids).

So, I would say that most of the good games of the most important main french companies have been sold in UK, excepted the ones with plenty of french text.