Games that made use of the Plus range capabilites non cartridge

[Trebmint]

@Briggsy. Im really not a hardware guy so I'm not sure quite how some of this stuff was to be implemented. I know they were planning sprite memory pointers, but I assumed it was on ASIC memory, and not from the main 64k.

[Trebmint]

@ArnoldEmu. At the time I spoke to Cliff I'd just finished some work on a Gameboy project, and was talking to Campursoft about doing the PcW16 stuff (Probably 1998/99???). Im sure all the other things were programmer aids rather than major hardware improvements and probably although useful not anything that couldn't be done easily through software. Probably something like sprite on sprite collision detection, or sprite blocking. That's just a guess cos Im sure I'd recall anything wow!

[Phi2x]

.

[TFM]

Its actually rather hard to find existing games that fit with the + as the number of sprites is so limited. If only they'd allowed you to set the memory start address of a sprite hmmm. I do seem to recall Cliff telling me they had planned to do that, and that the top nibble of sprite data was to be an alpha channel.... oh if that had happened the plus would have been a truely awesome beast

Hi!    Very interesting. But what do you mean with "Alpha channel" ?

[Trebmint]

@TFM Alpha in that each sprite would have been given a (I believe a 3 bit 0-7) transparency level, so you could have the sprite 100% displayed or % transparent. TBH although this is cool, its fairly limited to special FX and perhaps characters like ghosts etc. I guess if you multiplexed the sprites you could have done cool things, but with only 16 sprites it would have been novelty.

[TFM]

Thanks' for the Explanation. Well, yes, having a Pointer for each sprite to define the start in the RAM would be great. Without that the reload of data into sprites take a lot of time (especially if you have to write 8 bits for filling four bits...). However, I still think that a game which is programmed from the beginning with keeping the Plus Hardware Features in mind can be really awesome.

[Trebmint]

The other thing I was told, but Im not sure is true is that the ASIC wasnt initially planned as CPC product. Think less gx4000 and more zx4000 haha, and I guess it made more sense at that time to put a sprite chip on the speccy.
The reason I say Im not sure its true is the person who told me was a member of AA staff 92/93 time, who TBH i wasnt best pals with. He certainly told me other stuff that wasn't true or was taking the mick. Im very sceptical this was true TBH, but hey what does it matter now

[TFM]

Actually coming back to this ghosting effect, I guess it can be easily simulated. Here an (ugly) example for the CPC oG (old Generation)...

Transparenz

[Trebmint]

@TFM I say transparency, but I dont know if thats exactly what was planned, who knows there might have been the option of blend or additive, so you could have glow effects?? Im not even sure its possible with how I understand the ASIC, as the ASIC would need effectively the RGB content of the screenmap??? Perhaps a hardware guy might have some thoughts on this. As far as Im aware the ASIC just puts an additional layer on the standard display rather than merging the sprites into that memory map... which is a simplistic way of looking at it, but makes imagining how they might do an alpha thing tricky...

[TFM]

Maybe that's the reason why they didn't do it. The ASIC could have become to costy then. But if you want to compete with Amiga (with all that custom Chips), then a cut down Version of the ASIC may be not the best choice.
It's easy to ask for more in These days, back 1991 times have been different of course. So I'm glad that we have a 6128 Plus at all.

[Trebmint]

Who knows what went on back then at Amstrad prior to 1990. Dont forget they had access to all the sinclair developments, so whatever the status of the Loki was available to use, and then you had the Flare chip and guys (See Konix) who definately discussed a games machine with Alan Sugar back then. And there was supposedly a comfy relationship with Sega hardwarewise that resulted ultimately in the stupid idea MegaPC.
It is fairly strange that Amstrad made a games console out of the CPC and not the ZX. They built spectrum games into the e-mailer, why not CPC instead. We will probably never know

[TFM]

Well, the ZX Hardware was obviously inferior to the CPC [nb]even when some Features leave room for discussions.[/nb]. So it seems to be logic to use the CPC for a new Generation and not the ZX[nb]which was not their own design anyway[/nb]. Never mind if I missed the Point.

[arnoldemu]

So should we open a + game competition?

[Trebmint]

How does the compo work then?

[arnoldemu]

How does the compo work then?

This is what I suggest:
- small game (this ensures games are finished)

When I say small, I mean, something you can develop and finish within the deadline, not the actual size in bytes of the game.

I suggest a limited time - say 6 months.

must:
- use plus palette
- use plus sprites  - sprites can be used for anything

could:
- plus line interrupts
- plus dma
- hardware scrolling (but if you do this you must use the plus pixel scroll). Use of scrolling depends on the type of game you want to make.

optional:
- analogue joystick input
- 2nd digital joystick

This is what the aims are:

- to have more games using plus features. we don't just want a cpc game with plus colours.

- we all become more familiar with the plus hardware, especially the sprites, how we can use them, and perhaps find creative ways to use more or get more from them.

- opens up good discussions about plus because we are more familiar with it's hardware

- opens up more possibilities for using plus

- gets more plus games

- some people may find development on a plus more easy because of it's hardware sprites.

I understand that some people don't have a plus.

So for those development using an emulator is ok. Perhaps somebody who has time and a plus could give them feedback on things that don't work on a real machine.

But all entries will be tested on a real plus. I know people will flame me for this, perhaps the base is a 464+. If the games are all small this is enough I think.

Please give your feedback.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

@TFM I say transparency, but I dont know if thats exactly what was planned, who knows there might have been the option of blend or additive, so you could have glow effects?? Im not even sure its possible with how I understand the ASIC, as the ASIC would need effectively the RGB content of the screenmap??? Perhaps a hardware guy might have some thoughts on this. As far as Im aware the ASIC just puts an additional layer on the standard display rather than merging the sprites into that memory map... which is a simplistic way of looking at it, but makes imagining how they might do an alpha thing tricky...

Well the ASIC also handled the standard screen display, and is selecting whether to show a sprite pixel or that screen pixel at any point on the display already...


However blending operations would have taken up quite some logic - even at 50% transparency you're talking about doing an add and dividing by two, for each pixel displayed. And that's before you consider vertically stacked sprites... I could see more simple bitwise operations being doable, but they're less useful (although some interesting effects could be done).


Ultimately alpha channels had to wait for later consoles with far higher transistor budgets and cpu clocks.

[Trebmint]

I like the idea of a competition. However as you say its more about people never having coded the plus, so having to learn it.

Thing is as anyone knows who has written for it. Its simple. Bang there's a sprite... Bang there's another. Ok there's more complex stuff with the interrupts, but hey its far easier than getting something on the screen on the CPC.


The thing about the plus is thats its not as flexible with the added hardware as say the c64. Its 16 sprites, it very hard to use them more than once... and if you need to you have to start doing hardware/software sprites combo etc and it starts getting harder. The problem is you have to pick a game the hardware can do and concentrate on gameplay rather than more rasters and more sprite etc


Howabout a few of us get a plus game framework together. Like a map scroll/drawing routine and a PC based map designer, (perhaps something that imports from a BMP). Just a load of Plus game routines ready to plug together. That lets people stop worrying about technical and do gameplay

[dcdrac]

learnt all about the gentle art of cartridge connector cleaning

[arnoldemu]

@Trebmint:

Not sure about the idea. I would say let people learn from nothing. If it's so easy it'll not take them long.

If a editor was made, then all the games would be the same, all would be scrolling games.

If they also learn about how to put the sprites on the screen, use interrupts, colours etc, perhaps they would think up different ways to use them.

What about a puzzle game that uses plus sprites perhaps one for a cursor and a few for displaying score in high resolution?

[Trebmint]

@arnoldemu
I was really thinking more like a firmware aimed at the plus hardware, and a gameloop setup with sections for screenupdate, gameupdate and interrupt. And TBH side scrolling platformers and shooters is where the plus could excel over the cpc. It takes games from 12fps to 50fps, and thats the main difference imho

[TFM]

Any kind of Software is better than no Software 

[mr_lou]

Any kind of Software is better than no Software 

Not to me. In my world "No Windows" is better than "Windows"....   a lot.

[dcdrac]

I would love to see 3D Starstrike 2 mixed with Elite

and my least favourite piece of software OS X

[TFM]

Not to me. In my world "No Windows" is better than "Windows"....   a lot.

So why is your hard-drive still not formatted? 

[mr_lou]

So why is your hard-drive still not formatted? 

Because it contains Linux.
Haven't used Windows for centuries.