Hero Quest CPC Plus CPR with music?

[abalore]

Works pretty well.
Awesome colour pallette.

Is it possible to adjust the colours in the menu screens to match the in-game colours?

Is a DSK version possible?


Anyway, congrats. Great work.

Hello!

Thanks for your comments. Yes, it is possible to change the menu colours. Any more opinions about this? If there is some more consensus I will change them for the final version.

Sadly a DSK version is not possible because the trick is to use the ROM in cartridge as replacement of the extra RAM in the 128k machines. That's what allows having the music and other features which otherwise would be impossible.

[abalore]

No i don't think so It don't patch internally the english text. I think the dsk its compiled from House in the english space.


But the last levels are bugged,i think the bug is in the maps not in the core so he can be easy taken unbugged from the tape versión and fixed.

View details of the spanish bug here

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1078

I see. For now I'll leave it in english only. If one day I make a true remake of the game it will be multi-language. There are a lot of other things to improve apart from the language. From the awful menu navigation (you can't go back in most screens) to the game speed. The original doesn't use double buffering or dirty zones, so it draws the whole scene off-screen and copies the entire contents to the visible buffer in every frame.

Ok great! If you like when you considerer you have finish It share with me the  source code i have curiosity about the changes you made

Are you curious on how I managed to play the music and sound effects without having the extra memory bank? 

No worries, I'll reveal you the tricks when the final version is released.

[dragon]

No i don't think so It don't patch internally the english text. I think the dsk its compiled from House in the english space.


But the last levels are bugged,i think the bug is in the maps not in the core so he can be easy taken unbugged from the tape versión and fixed.

View details of the spanish bug here

https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1078

I see. For now I'll leave it in english only. If one day I make a true remake of the game it will be multi-language. There are a lot of other things to improve apart from the language. From the awful menu navigation (you can't go back in most screens) to the game speed. The original doesn't use double buffering or dirty zones, so it draws the whole scene off-screen and copies the entire contents to the visible buffer in every frame.

Ok great! If you like when you considerer you have finish It share with me the  source code i have curiosity about the changes you made

Are you curious on how I managed to play the music and sound effects without having the extra memory bank? 

No worries, I'll reveal you the tricks when the final version is released.

Well i can view few things out of the box as you have made the cpr from 0, thats eliminate the nightmare of noscart blocking use the first eight pages in the lower rom. That is  a lot of more Liberty (and space). and work.

But well yes i like know the secrets of the Magic .

[viddi]

Works pretty well.
Awesome colour pallette.

Is it possible to adjust the colours in the menu screens to match the in-game colours?

Is a DSK version possible?


Anyway, congrats. Great work.

Hello!

Thanks for your comments. Yes, it is possible to change the menu colours. Any more opinions about this? If there is some more consensus I will change them for the final version.

Sadly a DSK version is not possible because the trick is to use the ROM in cartridge as replacement of the extra RAM in the 128k machines. That's what allows having the music and other features which otherwise would be impossible.

I think the grey/white ingame font scheme would be a cool fit for the game menu.

Also tried the witch lord expansion. There are some sound problems ("cracklings") 

[abalore]

Works pretty well.
Awesome colour pallette.

Is it possible to adjust the colours in the menu screens to match the in-game colours?

Is a DSK version possible?


Anyway, congrats. Great work.

Hello!

Thanks for your comments. Yes, it is possible to change the menu colours. Any more opinions about this? If there is some more consensus I will change them for the final version.

Sadly a DSK version is not possible because the trick is to use the ROM in cartridge as replacement of the extra RAM in the 128k machines. That's what allows having the music and other features which otherwise would be impossible.

I think the grey/white ingame font scheme would be a cool fit for the game menu.

Also tried the witch lord expansion. There are some sound problems ("cracklings")

Did you try on emulator or real machine?

[viddi]

Emulator!

[abalore]

Emulator!

I have many sound artefacts in emulators, but clean sound in real machine. It would be nice if you can identify what's the sfx with the artefacts and if it's consistent or random.

[Rity]

Hello, if your emulator is AceDL, you deactivate in the menu "Diverses Options, jouer sons du matériel" . In WinAPE and Amstrad 6128+ it works. Good!

[viddi]

I'm using Retro Virtual Machine and it sounds like a menu click sound. It's consistent.... Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick....

The main campaign works fine, though.

[abalore]

I'm using Retro Virtual Machine and it sounds like a menu click sound. It's consistent.... Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick....

The main campaign works fine, though.

That looks like the cassette relay bug not being properly patched in extension. I will take a look.

[abalore]

I'm using Retro Virtual Machine and it sounds like a menu click sound. It's consistent.... Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick....

The main campaign works fine, though.

Here is a fix:

The problem is that for some reason the game activates the bit 4 of PPI port C every time it reads the keyboard, which activates the cassette relay. I added more defensive patches around this, it should work now.

That click you hear is the RVM emulating the mechanical sounds of the cassette motor relay. Other emulators don't do it.

[Rity]

On my side, the music works well on emulator and 6128+. Nice work. Thanks!

[Egg Master]

you can't accelerate at least the ingame pointer? It is so slooooooow !

I agree, it's too slow to fully enjoy the game without a mouse. It is probably the main issue of this game.
I hope this version, which seems the more advanced, will offer to speed up the pointer to reach the icons.

[viddi]

I'm using Retro Virtual Machine and it sounds like a menu click sound. It's consistent.... Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick....

The main campaign works fine, though.

Here is a fix:

The problem is that for some reason the game activates the bit 4 of PPI port C every time it reads the keyboard, which activates the cassette relay. I added more defensive patches around this, it should work now.

That click you hear is the RVM emulating the mechanical sounds of the cassette motor relay. Other emulators don't do it.

Great! Will check it out, now!

Another idea:
Maybe the player´s stats in the top left corner could be displayed in a different colour? Something brighter?!

I think the mouse pointer is okay.

Edit:
Expansion works! 

[Egg Master]

Maybe the player´s stats in the top left corner could be displayed in a different colour? Something brighter?!
I think the mouse pointer is okay.

Mode 1 has 4 colours and the game only seems to display 3 in the game area. The pointer speed is slow and annoying. I stopped playing because of it. Okay it's a hack, but if the game was reprogrammed for the GX4000, I think it would be interesting to use the second button to switch between the game area and the game interface, to quickly select the desired option, using the arrows on the controller, so as not to waste time moving between them.

[abalore]

A couple of technical details to help understand how the game graphics works:

- The game area palette is 3 colours because the color index 0 (gray) is used as key for transparency.
- The in-game text routine only allows gray text over any color, or any color over gray background.

These are optimisations for speed, which is not really bad considering the game is isometric and it doesn't use double buffer, so it copies the whole image from the back buffer to the front buffer in every frame. The reason to not having a double buffer is because the memory was needed for something else.

In a game done from scratch, with 512K available in cartridge, without using any plus features and being 64K compatible, using double buffering, compiled sprites at full color, extra background buffer, dirty area tracking and other features, the game speed would be multiplied many times. Also enemies would be animated and would move in the isometric view instead of the map. The game cursor could run at 50 Hz while the animations could maintain 10/12 Hz without effort (more than enough for this kind of game). That game could also include not only The Return of The Witch Lord, but also Kellar's Keep and many other expansions with more monsters and items, as also the more detailed and complex rules of the Advanced Hero Quest revision.

[viddi]

Ah, thanks for the info.

Your version is already awesome.

[viddi]

Regarding menu colours:

You could use the colour scheme from your new title pic (incl. red).
This would fit perfectly.

BTW, is it possible to use the skull background for the menu?


I also played Space Crusade CPC yesterday and they nailed the mouse pointer speed with this one.

[zeropolis79]

That game could also include not only The Return of The Witch Lord, but also Kellar's Keep and many other expansions with more monsters and items, as also the more detailed and complex rules of the Advanced Hero Quest revision.

Always wondered if it was possible to make new expansions based on Keller's Keep and the late ones..

[abalore]

Just in case, I made some quick tests on isometric graphics.

[XeNoMoRPH]

[MacDeath]

Greetings. Great project nice to see it was released.
Sadly in my opinion this game is beyound recovery, too many design flaws due to many factors, the main culprits being :
> speccy port
> mouse based interface on a machine that seldom possess a mouse
> did I mention it is a speccy port ?

Clearly a real 6128 oriented game could perform so much better, be it the menus, the interces (why drag the mouse all around the screen each time you must do anything and choose something from limited options ?

Even the use of the grey ink and how it manages the tranparency or so many other aspect of the game are clearly bad coder decisions...
Just check head over heels that somehow manages far betterly some proper isometric engine in f**cking real time and alllows for bachgrounds to be in proper 4 colours with sprites in 3 colours+mask.
They couldn't even design a proper menu to manage party, equipment or saved games or narrative campaign (which could be achievedin f**cking basic actually, oh wait they probably did...). The 2D map or combats interface are not great either, can't zoom or anything, can't "scroll" the board...
To be fair most RPG games from this era even on 16bit systems were archaic and heavy concerning the interface, but still.

So yeah, great patched version, yet a proper rendition of Heroquest would need something done from scratch.


BTW, some from scratch modern version could stick with Heroquest board game, or go for the Advanced Heroquest or even Warhammer quest board games later released by Games Workshop, yet the original Heroquest is nice because of its simplicity and  had many supplements, not jsut in computer game versions...
Same with SpaceCrusade, I would love some Eldar Attack option or even playing with an Ork warband as was offred in some whiteDwarf supplement (or Terminator or scout space marines quads...

If someone were to do some modern Heroquest/SpaceCrusade project, I'm quite into those games and Warhammer in general (both fantasy or 40k) and even other games such as SpaceHulk could use the same graphic engine.

[abalore]

Greetings. Great project nice to see it was released.
Sadly in my opinion this game is beyound recovery, too many design flaws due to many factors, the main culprits being :
> speccy port
> mouse based interface on a machine that seldom possess a mouse
> did I mention it is a speccy port ?

Clearly a real 6128 oriented game could perform so much better, be it the menus, the interces (why drag the mouse all around the screen each time you must do anything and choose something from limited options ?

Even the use of the grey ink and how it manages the tranparency or so many other aspect of the game are clearly bad coder decisions...
Just check head over heels that somehow manages far betterly some proper isometric engine in f**cking real time and alllows for bachgrounds to be in proper 4 colours with sprites in 3 colours+mask.
They couldn't even design a proper menu to manage party, equipment or saved games or narrative campaign (which could be achievedin f**cking basic actually, oh wait they probably did...). The 2D map or combats interface are not great either, can't zoom or anything, can't "scroll" the board...
To be fair most RPG games from this era even on 16bit systems were archaic and heavy concerning the interface, but still.

So yeah, great patched version, yet a proper rendition of Heroquest would need something done from scratch.


BTW, some from scratch modern version could stick with Heroquest board game, or go for the Advanced Heroquest or even Warhammer quest board games later released by Games Workshop, yet the original Heroquest is nice because of its simplicity and  had many supplements, not jsut in computer game versions...
Same with SpaceCrusade, I would love some Eldar Attack option or even playing with an Ork warband as was offred in some whiteDwarf supplement (or Terminator or scout space marines quads...

If someone were to do some modern Heroquest/SpaceCrusade project, I'm quite into those games and Warhammer in general (both fantasy or 40k) and even other games such as SpaceHulk could use the same graphic engine.

I'm working on a isometric engine that my lead to a HQ or SC game. Of course with advanced rules. BUT my engine is in Mode 0 because I strongly believe the benefits of the extra colours are higher than the limits of the lower resolution. Take Get Dexter or Scape From The Planet Of The Robot Monsters as examples. I think they only used mode 1 to reuse same graphics in all platforms with minimum retouching.

[robcfg]

If you find yourself low on resolution but aim for a 128KB machine, you could maybe use an overscan screen as isometric games rarely have scroll.

[abalore]

If you find yourself low on resolution but aim for a 128KB machine, you could maybe use an overscan screen as isometric games rarely have scroll.

Resolution is ok, original used 32 char width screen, but I use 40.