What about a new 'commercial' game for GX/Plus range ?

[fano]

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.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

[tjohnson]

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.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.

[HAL 6128]

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.

[andycadley]

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.

[ukmarkh]

I would pay over the odds for a GX4000 version of Outrun!


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[fano]

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.

[Sacrosanct]

Colour me interested. Specifically, platformers/shoot 'em ups would be particularly good on the GX/Plus machines.
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.

[kawickboy]

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.


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.

[CraigsBar]

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.


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.

I'd pay 40 easily for a physical cart in the style of ghost on the MSX [emoji6]

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[roudoudou]

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, ...

[tjohnson]

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.

[Phantomz]

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. 

[CraigsBar]

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?

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[Phantomz]

It should be fine if we get a version of the tool to convert a 80track dsk image right?

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No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. 

[ukmarkh]

No, the disks have protection for some reason, even though I thought it was a free download. 

Really? That makes me sad [emoji17]


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[Gryzor]

Cartridge; I'd prefer a SD but the original physical form would fetch more on eBay has more sex appeal for me...

[keith56]

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.

[Phantomz]

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.

[keith56]

ChibiAkumas EP1 uses the standard firmware functions, works on 64k, and is 2x180k disks in size, so should fit on a cartridge if you have a cartridge emulator that works with 360k disks.

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.

[ukmarkh]

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


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[keith56]

Yeah, but it sucks not being able to play it on my GX4000

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.

[ukmarkh]

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.


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[keith56]

simply put the cartridge appears as 32 banks of 16k rom, that appear at the &C000-&FFFF... of course this means they're read only.

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.

[Shaun M. Neary]

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.

[fano]

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 =)