Post by: fano on 20:50, 17 April 18
I put pricing as indication, that can vary.Same thing about possibility to product cartrige plastic case, i don't know about 'pro' finition instead of 3D printed cartriges.
Who would be interested with a such project ? please vote even you're not interested in such project.To finish, i'd say there is no good vote, everyone is free to be interested ;)
Post by: tjohnson on 21:05, 17 April 18
After discussion here : http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/gx4000-article-from-the-pixel-empire/ (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/gx4000-article-from-the-pixel-empire/) , i was wondering who would be interested for a new commercial game for GX 4000 / Plus range.I have actually no project for this range (as i'm already involved in other projects) but that may be interesting to know if GX/Plus community would be interested in a such project for future devellopers.
I put pricing as indication, that can vary.Same thing about possibility to product cartrige plastic case, i don't know about 'pro' finition instead of 3D printed cartriges.
Who would be interested with a such project ? please vote even you're not interested in such project.To finish, i'd say there is no good vote, everyone is free to be interested ;)
It would be great to get a new game that uses the features of the plus models in a good way rather than some of the shonk we've seen in the past.
Post by: HAL 6128 on 21:32, 17 April 18
Post by: andycadley on 21:45, 17 April 18
I think it would vary greatly based on what it was, I'd not fork out a lot for a physical cartridge just because it was a physical release.
I have some ideas (and a smattering of code) for a GX release at some point but trying to find time, particularly after spending all day coding, is the perennial problem. More titles that show off what the GX hardware is capable of would always be a good idea though. :)
Post by: ukmarkh on 21:48, 17 April 18
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: fano on 23:19, 17 April 18
Interesting. But, what do you think, would be the difference between a commercial and a homebrew game? (Quality? programming experience, Professionality?...) Your version of R-Type for example is free and one of the best Games.Thx, i'm not objective so i can not say if it is one of the best CPC game but i'm very proud of it ;)
Let's say the idea comes from my personnal experience, i've worked on project for other machine than CPC.Just finished a game for Colecovision and noticed it is usual to have new games in cartrige format for Colecovision.That comes for NES and MD too.
For 'commercial' game, i meant quality (i meant quality in the way they can be compared in quality with some console games of 8/16 bits era) games where authors are paid (note i didn't said homebrew games can not have quality, there are a lot of quality homebrew on CPC)
Maybe knowing if GX/Plus users are ready to follow this way may motivate some CPC devs and makes come some from other machines.As author, i can say making a game that is liked is a very great thing (i see regulary great feedback from R-Type and that makes me very proud), getting a bit of money of your passion is cool too and know someone would pay for a game you made is really great.
I hope this pool will open the debate and i'd like moderator pin the subject when the pool will be closed, it could be usefull for future dev in the choice of a project ;)
It would be great to get a new game that uses the features of the plus models in a good way rather than some of the shonk we've seen in the past.For me this is obvious, GX/Plus range need games especially develloped for them.Without lazy programming but without dealing with state of art, it is possible to make great games for theses machines.
Post by: Sacrosanct on 13:03, 18 April 18
I voted for the "SD/C4CPC" version, because the extra storage/memory that the SD option provides can in turn make for better, bigger games, if the latest demos released for that format are any indication. I usually opt for physical media myself, but in this case if it means giving up the physical version for a more enriched game, then I'm all for it.
Post by: kawickboy on 15:57, 18 April 18
A bubble bobble-like with gameplay improvement taken from bubble symphony, parasol stars, snow bros 2 -4 players mode !- would be a nice beginning. Taking inspiration from Fire&Ice (the master system port isnt' so bad), Toki, Cabal too.
Post by: CraigsBar on 16:06, 18 April 18
40€ for a really gorgeous new game in opposition of some early jaguar homebrew (cheap pong-clone coded with the atari2600 basic then ported to jaguar, worst than a speccy port) why not.I'd pay 40 easily for a physical cart in the style of ghost on the MSX [emoji6]
A bubble bobble-like with gameplay improvement taken from bubble symphony, parasol stars, snow bros 2 -4 players mode !- would be a nice beginning. Taking inspiration from Fire&Ice (the master system port isnt' so bad), Toki, Cabal too.
Sent from my ONEPLUS 3t using Tapatalk
Post by: roudoudou on 16:38, 18 April 18
Post by: tjohnson on 22:47, 18 April 18
What will be the cost of a real cartridge, since an additionnal chip is needed to emulate the ACID chip protection? Plus the box, plus the eeprom, ...
Making a pcb would be relatively cheap, the expensive part would be making the case and the box. I don't know the actual costs but low volumes would probably make it prohibitive.
Post by: Phantomz on 22:56, 18 April 18
Post by: CraigsBar on 23:57, 18 April 18
I still want to run the new R-Type from cart, would be great if you could make it run in 64k from cart to make it GX4000 friendly, if not, I'd still love it for my plus. ;)It should be fine if we get a version of the tool to convert a 80track dsk image right?
Sent from my ONEPLUS 3t using Tapatalk
Post by: Phantomz on 01:47, 19 April 18
It should be fine if we get a version of the tool to convert a 80track dsk image right?
Sent from my ONEPLUS 3t using Tapatalk
No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. ???
Post by: ukmarkh on 09:53, 21 April 18
No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. ???
Really? That makes me sad [emoji17]
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: Gryzor on 10:28, 21 April 18
Post by: keith56 on 13:56, 21 April 18
No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. ???
I believe it does not use the firmware, and has it's own built in disk reader that directly accesses the CPC disk hardware (probably to save the 8k of ram the firmware uses)...
And free to play is not the same as free to modify and redistribute - so even the disks are protected, that's up to the author.
Post by: Phantomz on 14:30, 21 April 18
I believe it does not use the firmware, and has it's own built in disk reader that directly accesses the CPC disk hardware (probably to save the 8k of ram the firmware uses)...
And free to play is not the same as free to modify and redistribute - so even the disks are protected, that's up to the author.
That's true and fair enough.
I was just stating that it's protected so we won't be able to convert to cpr for the plus machines even if a new version of nocart is released.
I believe a few plus owners might like to run this from cpr / cart, I know I would.
It needs 128k so it will only work on a 6128 plus, therefore no modification ( key remapping ) would need to be made.
Basically, if we can have a free to play disc/s to play, it would be nice to have a free to play cpr if possible.
Post by: keith56 on 14:41, 21 April 18
It's opensource, and you're totally welcome to convert it if you wish... also the new 'V1.666' version that is coming soon has CPC+ palettes for better colors.
EP2 is too big at 4x180k.. in theory you could remove the 256k content to shrink it down, and maybe it would fit, but I'm not willing to remove content from my own game... but again, I have no problem with someone else doing the work and releasing it.
Post by: ukmarkh on 01:59, 22 April 18
I believe it does not use the firmware, and has it's own built in disk reader that directly accesses the CPC disk hardware (probably to save the 8k of ram the firmware uses)...
And free to play is not the same as free to modify and redistribute - so even the disks are protected, that's up to the author.
Yeah, but it sucks not being able to play it on my GX4000
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: keith56 on 06:00, 22 April 18
Yeah, but it sucks not being able to play it on my GX4000even if it didn't use a custom loader, it wouldn't work on your GX4000, because it needs 128k minimum... and in fact, because they saved around 8k-10k of ram by writing that loader -if they hadn't used a custom loader it would actually needs more memory to make it work, so it would probably need 192k for the same functionality.
Post by: ukmarkh on 09:04, 22 April 18
even if it didn't use a custom loader, it wouldn't work on your GX4000, because it needs 128k minimum... and in fact, because they saved around 8k-10k of ram by writing that loader -if they hadn't used a custom loader it would actually needs more memory to make it work, so it would probably need 192k for the same functionality.
If you were to write a game for the GX4000 like R-Type, how would one go about it, would you need to cram and only access each level in 64k chunks? Just curious as I know very little about the GX4000 and it’s cart storage or access.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: keith56 on 12:33, 22 April 18
the 'Disk emulator' cartridge conversions have a 'Fake Amsdos' on them, which intercepts disk commands, and reads the data from this rom into the normal place in ram - of course this means you need the same ram as the original game.
If you were writing from the ground up, you would keep things that never need to change like Sprite data in the ROM, and just use the 64k for the 2 screen buffers (32k), variables and other things that need to change.
The trouble is, that if the game uses self modifying code, generated level data etc, then that data cannot work straight from rom.. so really, a game which is going to have the function of a 128k game, but run on the 64k GX4000 needs to be designed with that in mind from the start.
Post by: Shaun M. Neary on 12:53, 22 April 18
The trouble is, that if the game uses self modifying code, generated level data etc, then that data cannot work straight from rom.. so really, a game which is going to have the function of a 128k game, but run on the 64k GX4000 needs to be designed with that in mind from the start.
Stupid question, but can two versions of the same game not be put on the cart? Like a 64k and a 128k version of the game? Might be worth considering though.
Post by: fano on 13:04, 22 April 18
No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. ???Nope, there is no protection, i just used my own FDC code because it's faster and smaller.Chany hacked the game and made a file version, maybe you can try with this version (btw i don't think the game would fit in a 512K cart)
I still want to run the new R-Type from cart, would be great if you could make it run in 64k from cart to make it GX4000 friendly, if not, I'd still love it for my plus. ;)If i remember well i gave the sourcecode, if someone wants, no problem.On other side, a 'real' GX version would involve some serious rewrite of the rendering system to take adavantage of the soft scroll for example.This would improve dramaticaly the speed of the game =)
Post by: Phantomz on 16:16, 22 April 18
Nope, there is no protection, i just used my own FDC code because it's faster and smaller.Chany hacked the game and made a file version, maybe you can try with this version (btw i don't think the game would fit in a 512K cart)
@fano (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=87) Thanks for the information, I thought it was protected. :doh:
The FDC still stops it being friendly with nocart. :(
I didn't realise there was a hacked version by Chany, have you any idea where it might be possible to download it from?
Post by: fano on 17:31, 22 April 18
@fano (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=87) Thanks for the information, I thought it was protected. :doh:You may try there as we asked some sites to avoid this version because it slaughtered our work : http://cpccrackers.free.fr/Downloads/Chany/RType2012_Chany.rar
The FDC still stops it being friendly with nocart. :(
I didn't realise there was a hacked version by Chany, have you any idea where it might be possible to download it from?
Post by: Phantomz on 18:00, 22 April 18
You may try there as we asked some sites to avoid this version because it slaughtered our work : http://cpccrackers.free.fr/Downloads/Chany/RType2012_Chany.rar
@fano (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=87)
Thank you for the link :) even though as you said " it slaughtered our work " :(
There are to many files on the disks to use with nocart, maybe someone might be able to make it run from cart, I'm not sure.
Do you know if your original or this hacked version work on the M4 Board ?
Post by: fano on 21:32, 22 April 18
@fano (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=87)You can remove some files i think and keep only one level to test.I don't know at all but original should work on any expansion RAM that works like original CPC.
Thank you for the link :) even though as you said " it slaughtered our work " :(
There are to many files on the disks to use with nocart, maybe someone might be able to make it run from cart, I'm not sure.
Do you know if your original or this hacked version work on the M4 Board ?
Post by: keith56 on 06:08, 23 April 18
Stupid question, but can two versions of the same game not be put on the cart? Like a 64k and a 128k version of the game? Might be worth considering though.
Yes it's perfectly doable, but everything extra you support means you have to 'up your game' in terms of planning and design, and means more testing and debugging...
The new ChibiAkumas has currently taken me 350 hours of development time (I've been running a timer)... at the moment, the last six weeks has just been testing and debugging... and much of the reason it's so hard is I'm testing on ZX+3 (DSK), ZX+2 (TRD), MSX2, MSX+V9990, CPC6128+,CPC6128,464+ and 464... it's really tough.
Say I had supported GX4000 and CPR too.. and it added just 10% to the development time (probably a realistic minimum)... we'll that's another 35 work hours, and the problem is, there's a breaking point - take on too much and you'll never complete the project - and end up with nothing to show for it... I'm pretty sure that's the main reason so few new games support CPC+ or 64k... it's just narrowing your target platform to a comfortable minimum... and when the games are being made for fun, who can blame the developers for that?
Post by: fano on 14:17, 08 May 18
What will be the cost of a real cartridge, since an additionnal chip is needed to emulate the ACID chip protection? Plus the box, plus the eeprom, ...Sorry i didn't reply you before, i must say i don't actually have a precise idea, it's not possible to get original GX game boxes but a cardboard boxe is not that expensive, 512K eprom is not that expensive too, maybe Gerald could light us about ACID replacement cost.The bigger overcost would be sadly the cartrige plastic case :/ (when looking audience, the 3D printed case is the best option, have to see to cost and quality we can have with this)
Btw, still 9 days to finish the poll and i must say i was expecting more potential ::) (this is not the whole GX/Plus potential but that give an idea)
Post by: Skunkfish on 20:08, 08 May 18
Out of curiosity, how many C4CPC's are out there now?
Post by: fano on 23:06, 08 May 18
SD card option is interesting. I guess this would pop straight in the C4CPC and make it work like a regular cart? (I.e. instaboot)Yep, there is not difficult as you can already do this with C4CPC ;)
About how many C4CPC, i think only Gerald knows.
Post by: dragon on 04:10, 09 May 18
Post by: fano on 05:10, 09 May 18
I not sure if a normal sd fit, (all microsd come with adapter now) . But maybe as game case you can use ps vita game cases. They are cheap and easy to find new. In case of sd card use.Normal SD doesn't fit in C4CPC but using a SD adaptateur to protect µSD card seems a good idea ;)
Post by: GOB on 13:21, 10 May 18
I hate dematerialised format and object is also important than game.
A good manual is welcome.
Post by: Shining on 10:14, 12 May 18
Making a pcb would be relatively cheap, the expensive part would be making the case and the box. I don't know the actual costs but low volumes would probably make it prohibitive.
Spoke with bryce about this some time ago. Using asic-emulator and low volume we came to a pcb-price of about 18-20€ including 512kB EPROM. I've a resin-solution for casing (copy from original) made from a model constructor pricing about 10 €. So you only pay about 30 € for the hardware.
Post by: chinnyhill10 on 10:42, 12 May 18
[size=78%] I've a resin-solution for casing (copy from original) made from a model constructor pricing about 10 €. So you only pay about 30 € for the hardware.[/size]
Casing is a big expense. I know someone who has had injection moulds made for VIC 20 carts and while horrifically expensive to do, once the costs are covered the cost per unit is small. But you have to have enough of a user base to justify it and you'll never be able to do that on the GX4000.
Post by: fano on 12:06, 12 May 18
Interesting, add game, manual and box and we are at 50€, i'd be interested to see resin case quality.
Spoke with bryce about this some time ago. Using asic-emulator and low volume we came to a pcb-price of about 18-20€ including 512kB EPROM. I've a resin-solution for casing (copy from original) made from a model constructor pricing about 10 €. So you only pay about 30 € for the hardware.
Post by: Widukind on 12:41, 15 June 18
After discussion here : http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/amstrad-cpc-hardware/gx4000-article-from-the-pixel-empire/ , i was wondering who would be interested for a new commercial game for GX 4000 / Plus range.
That's an interesting thread. I really enjoyed reading it. Whilst I never owned a CPC+/GX4000, just a normal CPC, I recently discovered the CPC+ features and really love them.
Do we have some numbers concerning the CPC+ user base? For example on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000) we read that Amstrad sold only 15,000 GX4000 units. But what about the CPC+ (464+ and 6128+) ?
Post by: amijim on 21:53, 18 June 18
Post by: fano on 22:22, 19 June 18
Hello there , i am 35 years old and in my childhood i had an 6128 plus bought new by my father as a present for me for..... ,actually for no reason and this was the best lesson in my life but this is another story.Since then i had a lot yet i lost interest in all games except the one i used to play as a child in commodore 64 ,amstrad 6128plus and amiga 1200.Today i have a son of 3 years old and i guess my generation loves to spend more time with the children and there is no better way for than playing and learning and here comes your question.As a father i spend a lot for my child and i could happily spend 20 euros every 3-4 months for a game in my beloved retro home computer.I guess i am not the only one but Xifos game is a remarkable outcome.I could easily pay 20 euros for his game in cluding 4mhz games.But they have to be plus games because the lagging in the cpc original scrolling pause i think would be problematic for the your generations.For us it is okey , we are all used to it but the new generations i think not.I vote for digital c4cpc or dsk edition.Payment should be a thing of trust and understanding.The key question is how much time Xifo spend on his game?If it is half a year programming days he should get at least half a years half time salary.I guess 4000euros for every game.We should be at least 200 patriots paying 20 euros for him to invest his time on us.I think it really worth it.We are thousands out there who could spend 20 euros for a nice game.That was the goal my friend, to have an idea about how many people would be interested to reward Plus/GX dev for making a (QUALITY) game and to have an idea about audience choices.I must say the result is a bit disapointing...
Post by: Xyphoe on 23:03, 19 June 18
That was the goal my friend, to have an idea about how many people would be interested to reward Plus/GX dev for making a (QUALITY) game and to have an idea about audience choices.I must say the result is a bit disapointing...Oops. I'm a huge GX4000 fanboy and I missed this thread and poll! See? Maybe a lot of people weren't aware and perhaps spend more time on Twitter etc than forums these days. I don't know.
But I'm 100% interested, and would pay up to £50 for a proper physical release.
The choice of project though is key to it's success (duh!), and the best chance of success is 'remaking' an existing famous game - most likely one that didn't appear on the Amstrad or the conversion was poor. You saw how massively popular the R-Type remake was? I'm still staggered by the response I can see in terms of views and comments on the videos on my channel - it far exceeds any other 'homebrew' Amstrad project by a considerable margin. (And so yes - I can help to promote and hype the project like I did before with R-Type with trailers and teaser videos, etc!). That Super Mario Bros demo I put a video up of a few months got a huge amount of views very quickly too.... which leads me to some suggestions....
#Super Mario Bros
I think there's been two attempts and work in progress already, not sure how far these are. But maybe you could turn yours into Super ROLAND Bros, using the various Roland sprites for different power-up states - and go off and make your own game design with a homage to the original Super Mario? I'd like to see this on the Plus/GX4000 though with the available hardware sprites / scrolling for a smooth fast experience.
#Outrun
Someone's already mentioned it above. We desperately need a decent version of this!!
#Street Fighter II
Already in the works and quite far in I hear though.I think they are the 'top 3' on anyones wish list.However if you want to make your own game from scratch - because you'd be more passionate about it - go for it! Although as I said above, it wouldn't generate as much interest.
Post by: Widukind on 23:15, 19 June 18
That was the goal my friend, to have an idea about how many people would be interested to reward Plus/GX dev for making a (QUALITY) game and to have an idea about audience choices.I must say the result is a bit disapointing...Seeing how few units of the GX4000 have been sold (only 15,000) and probably the CPC+ units were in a similar low magnitude (I'd still be interested in hard numbers concerning the sold CPC+ units), it's probably a financial risk today to produce a commercial CPC+ only game (including GX4000).
Post by: tjohnson on 23:58, 19 June 18
Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
Post by: keith56 on 02:33, 20 June 18
The choice of project though is key to it's success (duh!), and the best chance of success is 'remaking' an existing famous game - most likely one that didn't appear on the Amstrad or the conversion was poor.You are 100% right, but as a developer I wouldn't persue a remake, unless I had authorization from the original developer... as the project could get killed by a lawsuit at the last minute... especially if you're planning to profit from it (I don't think TotO made any money selling his game at $15).. and all the time you'd spent would be for nothing.
What could be done, would be a decent game which comes in a standard version for standard CPCs and in a parallel version for the CPC+/GX4000 using the extra plus features. The developers would use the same code but different "render paths" (hehe). A bit like with Atari ST and its STE.ChibiAkumas does this to some extent, the original game was CPC only when it was 90% complete, and the CPC+ sprites were added at the last minute... The new version added CPC+ color palette too... I plan to do a similar thing for future games too.. release with limited CPC+ support (cpc+ palette but no sprites).. then release an enhanced version with sprites if the feedback is good... the reason for this is the CPC sprite code is the same for CPC/MSX/ZX etc... but the CPC+ code has to work with the hardware limits, so it's all custom code.
Post by: kawickboy on 15:46, 20 June 18
Quote from: fano
That was the goal my friend, to have an idea about how many people would be interested to reward Plus/GX dev for making a (QUALITY) game and to have an idea about audience choices.I must say the result is a bit disapointing...
Don't underestimate the retrogaming general scene. Yes, the inquiry in this website didn't get many answers but remember r-type128, orion prime for exemple and recently the ghost'n'goblins remake. Thoses games are now famous in thoses communities. Many retrogaming webstes and boards mentioned them. You and Toto were invited to retrogaming meetings to show your work. In the french community Atlantis is now well-known for his Athanor saga.
GX4000 is well-collected now. In fact, too many people still believe that copter271 and panza cost 300€ due to 2 or 3 strange spanish auctions 15 years ago. But even common games like batman or klax and other cheap conversions are sought after.
Post by: Widukind on 18:10, 20 June 18
Don't underestimate the retrogaming general scene.Yes indeed.
Does anybody know how the number of CPC retro users compares to the number of C64 retro users, very roughly ?
Post by: andycadley on 20:38, 20 June 18
Seeing how few units of the GX4000 have been sold (only 15,000) and probably the CPC+ units were in a similar low magnitude (I'd still be interested in hard numbers concerning the sold CPC+ units), it's probably a financial risk today to produce a commercial CPC+ only game (including GX4000).I don't really get that argument, the market at this point is so tiny that making a standard CPC game isn't going to give you a significantly larger user base than a Plus title.
What could be done, would be a decent game which comes in a standard version for standard CPCs and in a parallel version for the CPC+/GX4000 using the extra plus features. The developers would use the same code but different "render paths" (hehe). A bit like with Atari ST and its STE.
Post by: Captain Past on 22:29, 20 June 18
I'm definitely interested in new GX4000 games, and I would happily pay for a good quality commercial release.
In all honesty, as someone who didn't grow up with an Amstrad CPC and who doesn't feel particularly nostalgic for that system, mainly because of the new Ghost'n'Goblins port, right now I find the GX4000 actually more interesting when it comes to homebrew than the classic CPC range, simply because it is more suited for the games that I like to play. Plus I want to see what more can be achieved on that console.
Now, that of course doesn't mean that I don't appreciate a lot of the new games for the classic CPC computers, and I'm glad that with poly.play there finally is a publisher who is selling nice boxed new CPC games (on disk). But I have to agree with andycadley: when creating a new game, supporting classic CPC computers and the Plus range at the same time is like shooting yourself in both feet, at least when creating games that could benefit from having hardware sprites.
Poly.play would also be the address to point questions to about how many copies of new CPC games can be sold nowadays.
Now for example there's a nice C64 retro game "Sam's Journey", and its authors wrote on their website (https://www.knightsofbytes.games/) in March 2018 :Even though the C64 community is of course bigger, those 1250 units of Sam's Journey are in no way representive of how many copies of new C64 can be sold. The last numbers I've read for the best selling new games are actually 1000 units lower, and games of average popularity probably sell like a 100-200 copies (including the digital download sales which are usually very cheap).
1,250 units in the starting three months, well that's not bad, isn't it?
I imagine something like 50 copies could maybe be sold of a new GX4000 game, which probably is about as many as a new CPC game ond disk/tape is selling (I'm really just guessing here). So making money can not be a factor for creating new games for these formats anyway. But hopefully there are still some people like Xifos who do it for the fun and fame :)
Post by: keith56 on 00:25, 21 June 18
The majority of my patreon backing comes from people following my Youtube tutorials, as does the majority of the positive feedback I get... youtube vids take a week where as gamedev takes 8 months ... so they also take less time and cause less stress.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again, people in the retro community are more interested in youtuber video creators than game devs - last time I said It I was speculating, now I'm saying it first hand.
Heck, it is what it is, but I'm not stupid, I'm going to allocate my time and effort to what I get the most positive return for, I'm trying to shift things so future games will be based around the code created for the tutorials, and will be more multiplatform to attract a larger possible audience, but if I had to give something up, I'd ditch the gamedev, and keep up the youtube vids - that's just common sense.
The other problem is, supporting more platforms means less platform specific features, so things like CPC+ sprites and hardware scrolling are not likely.
Post by: dthrone on 10:56, 21 June 18
That really, really cripples what you can do though. If you look at perhaps the biggest example, Prehistorik 2, there is no way it would have had to have that jerky push scrolling if it wasn't for the need to be able to work on a standard CPC.
I totally agree with this. It's what concerned me with the announcement that the new Toki would be on classic cpc and plus, there's no way the game is going to be anywhere near as good as it can be unless they are developed separately and just share a few graphics etc.
Post by: Widukind on 11:06, 21 June 18
Post by: kawickboy on 13:20, 21 June 18
C64 like Atari 8 bits, is a platform well sold in the USA and we are talking about a homebrew for the classic C64. 1250 units sold within Germany, UK, Italy, Scandinavia and USA isn't so far in fact. CPC orders are coming mostly from France, Spain & UK.
[/size]I don't think Orion Prime sold more than 200 units but it was a free download at the same time and some people don't want to pay anything in retro (that's another problem). But are we talking about a one batch release or "as long as it's sold" release ?
[/size]
[/size]Binaryzone didn't publish their charts. Not more than Polyplay. The 1st sold cheap game with a simple but useful package, the 2nd one more expensive games with a luxury content. As both are selling quality games charts would be interesting to know.
[/size]
[/size]CPC+/GX4000 carts is a specific "market", not inside the CPC market. Some people do collect GX4000 carts and don't care about CPC. Most of the hardware were sold in France and UK. And even there, when i read Amstrad Action it seems that it was really hard to find carts in UK stores and the games were published monthes after the franch release.
Post by: tjohnson on 14:21, 21 June 18
Sent from my E5823 using Tapatalk
Post by: andycadley on 23:22, 21 June 18
In case the CPC market is as tiny as the CPC+ market, I still can't see a reason to skip the CPC market just because it's as tiny as the CPC+ one? :-)To be clear, it's not about skipping the CPC market - if you have a game that works well on the old hardware that's great and you should totally go for it. And it's a "nice to have" if it "lights up" a bit on the Plus hardware in the way that, for example, Chibi Akumas does.
To create a game in two versions for both CPC and CPC+ is of course a challenge, like I said, but I think well worth the effort. On the PC we always had to do it this way, isn't it? Most of the code base (logic etc) is shared between both versions, but the graphics "driver" path is different.It just doesn't work like that in reality though. If you construct a scroll engine around the Plus pixel scrolling, for example, you can't then just "swap in" a slightly different routine to do the same on an old school CPC. You have to re-write everything that even vaguely goes anywhere near the display logic (and that's most of the code). You may have to redesign levels to cope with less fluid movement, redesign all of the graphics to cope with the lesser choice of palette and flat out remove or replace some functionality that the old school CPCs just can't do. The alternative is a "lowest common denominator" approach where you're really just targeting the original hardware and not really taking advantage of what the Plus has to offer.
PC games waste a lot of CPU time making those kind of scaling decisions because they have a lot of it to spare, every cycle on a CPC or Plus game is likely to be very precious.
So you, Captain Past, noted that the well selling C64 retro game Sam's Journey is the great exception. That's unfortunate to hear, but very important to know. (Do we have numbers, by the way?)The C64 was a vastly more successful system than the entire CPC range combined and still has more of a global reach, so it's frankly just a better target if you want a financially viable retro platform. Even the Speccy is more likely to be able to support the cost of development than the CPC and I honestly doubt you'd make any real return on sales there either.
Post by: Widukind on 12:44, 22 June 18
PC games waste a lot of CPU time making those kind of scaling decisions because they have a lot of it to spare, every cycle on a CPC or Plus game is likely to be very precious.Yes, but still the best optimisation in order to reduce cycles is the proper selection of algorithms and models.
Also, since a game needs a separate binary for the CPC (.dsk) and for the Plus (.cpr), the scale decisions – in contrast to PC games – would be done at compile-/assembling-time and not at run-time.
Quote
The C64 was a vastly more successful system than the entire CPC range combined and still has more of a global reach, so it's frankly just a better target if you want a financially viable retro platform.That's true.
However, I always prefered and still prefer the European home-computers (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, Acorn Archimedes) because they were better for us to learn how to program with their excellent OS, BASIC and Assembler.
Post by: fano on 12:56, 22 June 18
However, when doing an indie retro game today, the prospect of it returning some pocket-money wouldn't do any harm.I would not present like this but i totaly agree the idea.
Do we know some numbers concerning how many CPC retro fans are out there interested in new CPC games, in contrast to CPC+/Gx4000 retro fans? The poll in this thread indicates the CPC+/Gx4000 retro fans knowing this website.My point was not to skip the CPC market as main effect but it is a side effect.My goals when doing a Plus/GX game is to use their features, the game design itself would relies on the Plus features (mainly soft scroll, hardware sprites, DMA channels and ROM storage), it's not possible to transpose this on classical CPC without losing original design.
In case the CPC market is as tiny as the CPC+ market, I still can't see a reason to skip the CPC market just because it's as tiny as the CPC+ one? :-)
Now for example there's a nice C64 retro game "Sam's Journey", and its authors wrote on their website in March 2018 :Impressive, i think it's close to a just good NES/MD game.
1,250 units in the starting three months, well that's not bad, isn't it? (Digital download version for 20 €, and boxed edition for 45 €.)
Don't underestimate the retrogaming general scene. Yes, the inquiry in this website didn't get many answers but remember r-type128, orion prime for exemple and recently the ghost'n'goblins remake. Thoses games are now famous in thoses communities. Many retrogaming webstes and boards mentioned them. You and Toto were invited to retrogaming meetings to show your work. In the french community Atlantis is now well-known for his Athanor saga.Please don't misunderstand me, i think you know i have an idea about CPC/Plus scene.R-Type has been and is still a great success, i'm very happy how community received it, i see it on social medias at least every week, reviews, speak about it with a lot of people, btw i officially released the source with assets lately to allow a Plus cartrige port.My question was a bit different, i know a good game would be greatly received by community, the question was more about attractivity of the Plus 'market' for some homebrew devs.
#Super Mario BrosRemember seeing some messages about this, i think that could be a great idea.People who would make it must take the time to do a great job, that could be a future reference in terms of quality.
I think there's been two attempts and work in progress already, not sure how far these are. But maybe you could turn yours into Super ROLAND Bros, using the various Roland sprites for different power-up states - and go off and make your own game design with a homage to the original Super Mario? I'd like to see this on the Plus/GX4000 though with the available hardware sprites / scrolling for a smooth fast experience.
Post by: Shining on 15:40, 22 June 18
Defence was a game not for any kind of players and I "sold" about 25 copies for classic 128k CPC. Since I gave Polyplay Pentomino for free, I cannot give any numbers here.
Like keith, I'm always sad about the lack of feedback, nevertheless a plus-exclusive, cartridge-exclusive game is definitely in my pipeline for a long time now and I researched about cartridge-cases for over 4 years. Now, that I have a solution here, I can move on...
I don't care about the market and I don't care about multi-platform, I care about CPC and nothing else...
Post by: GUNHED on 15:54, 22 June 18
What would be the best way to get them?
Post by: keith56 on 16:28, 22 June 18
Since I gave Polyplay Pentomino for free, I cannot give any numbers here.I have ordered it, so you have at least one sale!
I'm sure that people on here will hate it, but the patreon model works well for me, people who make a $1 a month donation get weekly updates with behind-the-scenes info, early access to the game etc, and it helps me keep going through the times my motivation is drying up.
I don't know if there's any other ways for fans of game developers to make small contributions to the ongoing development to in exchange for behind the scenes info or input into the games final content,via a platform like Patreon, Twitch or Youtube livestreams?
Essentially boxed copies of retro games are selling for the same price today as they did in the 80's, despite 30 years of inflation, the lack of mass production and big publisher backing and 3 inch disks being rare as hens teeth..., if you wanted to encourage more (or better) development through financial reward it would seem to me some kind of 'alternate revenue stream' is needed.
Post by: Shining on 22:32, 22 June 18
Not completely off-topic I hope: How much would one Cartridge-Shell cost?
What would be the best way to get them?
As I said to you in the past, I'm not very interested in selling them but to produce a game on cartridge. If there is an interest, I can collaborate with bryce to give a complete solution: catridge with eprom + case. Now that I have a shell-solution which satisfies me, I need a pcb-solution. But paying the initial-costs alone keeps me away from it at the moment. I discussed that with Bryce already. To get a price, I can live with, there is a need to produce a minimum of 100 pcb (costs about 16-18€ without EPROM but with all other stuff including acid-emulator). And I cannot pay that amout of money. I do not know, if there is a general interest by others to get something on cartridge, now that the c4cpc exists. But for me, I sometimes want cartridges with my own stuff on it (like a special system cartridge or something like that). Perhaps it is worth to do a poll about cartridge-solution.
Post by: Maniac on 23:19, 22 June 18
Post by: GUNHED on 02:17, 23 June 18
Post by: ukmarkh on 04:41, 23 June 18
That's an interesting thread. I really enjoyed reading it. Whilst I never owned a CPC+/GX4000, just a normal CPC, I recently discovered the CPC+ features and really love them.
Do we have some numbers concerning the CPC+ user base? For example on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000) we read that Amstrad sold only 15,000 GX4000 units. But what about the CPC+ (464+ and 6128+) ?
Lots of GX4000’s were sold off cheap in the U.K. hundreds of thousands, there must be at least 500,000 that were sold off in the end. I remember one warehouse in Sparkbrook, Birmingham selling ‘em for £25 each, another shop selling ‘em for £50. These warehouses literally had thousands.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: keith56 on 05:50, 23 June 18
To get a price, I can live with, there is a need to produce a minimum of 100 pcb (costs about 16-18€ without EPROM but with all other stuff including acid-emulator). And I cannot pay that amout of money.Could something like this be funded in a Kickstarter fashion?
If someone such as yourself has freely contributed software/demos/etc to the community before, I'd happily donate some money to help them with a project like this, even if there was no 'reward' to me on completion... I mean, I can't give money to every newcomer with an idea... but if someone with a solid reputation and reasonable chance of success has a good idea that could help the CPC community, but needs funding to help attempt it, that's the kind of thing I'd say people should be supporting if they can to help the CPC platform flourish.
Post by: Captain Past on 11:06, 23 June 18
I do not know, if there is a general interest by others to get something on cartridge, now that the c4cpc exists.
I have exactly one donor cart which I'm using for Ghost'n'Goblins. In good faith that there will be more games worth putting on cart I would be interested in having a few of them (ready to add an eprom, complete pcb/shell/acid solutions) here just in case. I definitely prefer real carts over handling naked eproms to play games.
And I agree that some kind of crowdfunding to get the initial funds (and hopefully even the price down a little more) is a good idea.
Post by: amijim on 16:05, 23 June 18
Post by: ukmarkh on 19:04, 23 June 18
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Post by: ivarf on 14:40, 24 June 18
Lots of GX4000’s were sold off cheap in the U.K. hundreds of thousands, there must be at least 500,000 that were sold off in the end. I remember one warehouse in Sparkbrook, Birmingham selling ‘em for £25 each, another shop selling ‘em for £50. These warehouses literally had thousands.
Who says that there was 15 000 GX 4000 sold? Cliff Lawson at Amstrad?
Post by: Widukind on 15:38, 24 June 18
Who says that there was 15 000 GX 4000 sold? Cliff Lawson at Amstrad?
No, it would be nice to have such an accurate source.
I only quoted a vague source on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000) , which could be untrue of course:
Quote
The GX4000 was both Amstrad's first and only attempt at entering the console market. Although offering enhanced graphics capabilities, it failed to gain popularity in the market, and was quickly discontinued, selling 15,000 units in total.[3] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000#cite_note-Retroinspection:_GX4000-3)
...
[3] "Retroinspection: GX4000". Retrogamer Magazine Issue 52 Pg64.
Post by: roudoudou on 16:41, 24 June 18
No, it would be nice to have such an accurate source.or maybe we can contact them (but i did not see any contact form/mail on their website)
I only quoted a vague source on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amstrad_GX4000) , which could be untrue of course:
Post by: kawickboy on 12:21, 25 June 18
Post by: Widukind on 12:43, 29 June 18
Off-Topic:A friend told me that the publisher Protovision of the C64 retro game Sam's Journey wrote in their recent newsletter that they now sold 2000 copies (since Christmas 2017).
I know that there's been a lot of factors which helped the propagation for this game already before it's been published (including hyping), so it's not 1:1 comparable to other retro games. Nevertheless it shows that there can be a huge interest in retro games.
Well, let's see. Interesting times for sure.
I know that there's been a lot of factors which helped the propagation for this game already before it's been published (including hyping), so it's not 1:1 comparable to other retro games. Nevertheless it shows that there can be a huge interest in retro games.
Well, let's see. Interesting times for sure.
Post by: amijim on 23:04, 29 June 18