Maniac Mansion?

[jbaudrand]

Is there a good reason for not having maniac mansion or a SCUMM point and click adventure on CPC?

[Gryzor]

No.

[MiguelSky]

Great !! 

[Metr]

So who is in charge of the project? 

[jbaudrand]

  I'm just starting "programming the Z80" give me five years..

[TFM]

CPC Adventure? Orion Prime? Ok, I missed one... can't remember...

[Targhan]

I guess some people (led by Megachur) are working on a conversion of the Scumm engine on CPC. They are talking about it at CPCRulez (french only !). But I know nothing more.

[jbaudrand]

incredible!

I wish they succeed!

[MacDeath]

The only problem with this is that they want to convert monkey island, which is a big morcel for a CPC6128...

But the task is not that impossible, this would just need quite a lot of work to get from C into Assembly language...

But graphically this is not a real problem.
We did a lot of mockups for CPC...

Why no scumm for CPC ?
Well, american company, they didn't even know the CPC exist.

ManiacMansion or zackMacKracken could run on 8086 IBM PC in 160x200x16 (super CGA...sort of, or Tandy...) or C64 (160x200x16 too).
Even the Humble NES...

On the other hand, IndianaJones3, Monkey Island and Loom could run on a CGA version... this per example can enable vrey easy Graphics conversion in Mode1...

But those 3 games (almost the same original engine/scumm version) used to need a 512K Ram PC... ran quite well on my 12mhz EGA PC with 2 HD disc Drives...
Or the 512K Ram CGA 8mhz XT PC from a friend (with 2 3"1/2 DD disc drives)

but to get those running on a 6128 would be with large cuts off.

Passing from a laggy 8 mhz to a laggy 3.3 (or 4) mhz... and from 512K to 128K (1/4...) and from 720k disks to... 2x180K disks...
the game would spend it's entire life to load and reload from disk...


The typical games that would love a good Ram Expension and 2 disk Drives (1x3"1/2 DD 720K and native 3"...perhaps...)...

On the other hand Loom was Awesome, Indiana Jones3 (scumm one) too and Monkey too of course.

but we already had this discussion last Summer, just find it.

http://cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php/topic,1150.0.html
done...

[Xyphoe]

There's also the excellent B.A.T. if you want a CPC point-and-click adventure.

[Targhan]

Mhz has never been the issue, it's about the size of the gfxs that you have to draw/convert. Though I'm pretty sure Maniac mansion could fit into a double sided 3,5" disc. But to me they're doing it wrong. Forget about Scumm, it fit to a PC. They should study it and recreate something else, lighter, that would fit the CPC. Anyway...

[jbaudrand]

That's why I was asking about maniac mansion, they did it on C64, so even if I'm a lamer in coding, I can imagine it could be done on CPC.

amazing GFX for Monkey on CPC!!!

[Phi2x]

.

[MacDeath]

 

It would put the 512kB Plus cartridge to good use thoug

Why not, such 512k ROM game with a 6128+ and using diskDrive would actually be more than awesome.

But always the same dbate... only for perhaps 10-12 users ?

[Phi2x]

.

[MacDeath]

So, let's put this in perspective: a GX4000 has glorious 64KB of RAM, that's 32 times more than the NES!

Also Almost no Hardware support compaired to NES or any real Console...
As it is a CPC main architecture...

[TFM]

The Nintendo NES had 2KB of RAM, and still there is Maniac Mansion on it.
So, let's put this in perspective: a GX4000 has glorious 64KB of RAM, that's 32 times more than the NES!

The NES had designated V-RAM, the CPC uses it's V-RAM from the first 64 KB. So if the game shall look a bit professional, then you have to use 32 KB screen RAM at last. Further you need some routines in the central RAM (sprite management, scrolling and and and...) to be able to access ROMs and upper Video-RAM. However, there is no reason why the RAM shouldn't be enought - as long as you write your program from the beginning for that design of using ROMs as data-source.

One good thing of the CPC is, that code is executed in ROM as quick as in RAM.

[sigh]

What about having a game spread over 2 cartridges allowing for 1MB? Is this possible?

[MacDeath]

like the PCEngine's RType in 2 cartridges/parts ?

Why not but having it a 6128+ version using both cartridge and disk may be better...but not GX4000/464+ friendly...

[sigh]

I reckon if it's possible to use 2 cartridges - that's a much better idea just so you can reach a larger audience. I suspect that there are still quite a few GX4000's as they seem easier to come by.

[arnoldemu]

The NES had designated V-RAM, the CPC uses it's V-RAM from the first 64 KB. So if the game shall look a bit professional, then you have to use 32 KB screen RAM at last. Further you need some routines in the central RAM (sprite management, scrolling and and and...) to be able to access ROMs and upper Video-RAM. However, there is no reason why the RAM shouldn't be enought - as long as you write your program from the beginning for that design of using ROMs as data-source.

One good thing of the CPC is, that code is executed in ROM as quick as in RAM.

Yes agreed.

The Ram would be needed to store changing data (e.g. sprite positions, score information, lives, etc ), and the rom for all other routines.
So really 64K ram could be enough.
You don't really need the functions to access upper video in ram because you can map any of the first 8 16k blocks of the cart into the lower rom position, and then you can have your drawing functions here. If done cleverly, you can map the cart rom in both lower and upper and easily swap between them as needed. Perhaps you need some functions in one of the lower 8 roms to do this.
So perhaps you have even more free ram

[MacDeath]

The problem is in the case of a Monkey Island : an awnfull lot of Graphic datas...
As every backgrounds are not tile based but more like an original paint each time.
Plus a lot of cinematic animations and so on.

But of course in the case of a Maniac Mansion there is far less animations and specific datas, and you can even get a few tile based backgrounds...(or partly tile based...)

So yeah this may be far more doable in 64K Ram and 512k Rom.

Why use 32k of Video Ram to look pro ? 24K is more than enough at best...

Also a few amount of Ram may be used to decompress graphical Datas (directly into "VRam" ?) to enable far more variety in graphics.


But then instead of re-doing an existing game, the best would be to get an original one...

[TFM]

What about having a game spread over 2 cartridges allowing for 1MB? Is this possible?

Well, if you want to change a Cartridge you have to literally switch your CPC off and then on (new Cart). You can't do it "hot", because the ACID is on the Cart.

But... a Carridge can take up a EPROM up to 512 KB. And if this is not enought, then use a good compressor, so you may can get 1 MB in it.

... else ... use an hard-disc ;-)

[TFM]

Why use 32k of Video Ram to look pro ? 24K is more than enough at best...

Because the V-RAM is organized in 16 KB blocks. You can work with 24 KB _AS LONG AS_ you do NOT scroll. But as soon as you have to scroll, 32 KB will be changed.

You don't really need the functions to access upper video in ram because you can map any of the first 8 16k blocks of the cart into the lower rom position, and then you can have your drawing functions here.

This works fine for accessing &C000-&FFFF, but you can't at the same time access &0000-&3FFF.

So usually you use the screen RAMs starting at &0000 and &C000. If you move a sprite, then you must be able to access both blocks. Finally your code must be located between &4000 and &7FFF.

[sigh]

Well, if you want to change a Cartridge you have to literally switch your CPC off and then on (new Cart). You can't do it "hot", because the ACID is on the Cart.

But... a Carridge can take up a EPROM up to 512 KB. And if this is not enought, then use a good compressor, so you may can get 1 MB in it.

... else ... use an hard-disc ;-)

Ahhh okay. I did think about that but I thought there might of been some magical possibilities that I missed.