What Games would you like hacked to turn from a poor game into a great one?

[Puresox]

I don't know the feasibility of this , so I am sure some of you coders could put us straight or not as case may be.
The question arose when I was taking a look at Dragon Spirit, which I quite enjoy as a conversion , but feel that it would be so much more enjoyable if the sprite was smaller, at present it's just too big and cumbersome to get really good with . I know that by changing the sprite it will be changing the game somewhat. But I feel  it could be a brilliant little shoot em up. If altered.
Now this is where I am guessing at how easy it would be to  implement , How hard would it be to alter ? And would there be any issues by doing it? There are plenty of Hacks about Barbarian , Arkanoid etc , so presume it can be done.


Anyway in the ideal world what games would people like to tweak?


Another for me would be Rygar, which I find quite enjoyable but would like it more if the sprite control was not so floaty and did not stop moving when shooting.

[Dr Tiger Ninestein]

Double dragon. Although I got a lot of enjoyment out of it as a kid, it's far too slow. It would be so much better if it could be speeded up.

[Puresox]

Double dragon. Although I got a lot of enjoyment out of it as a kid, it's far too slow. It would be so much better if it could be speeded up.

The big question is , which version are you thinking of? For slowness I would guess the 'Dro Soft Version'[size=78%]ftp://http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=1150[/size]
or the Virgin/ Mastertronic version[/size][size=78%]ftp://http://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&num=750[/size]
I personally liked the Virgin (Aplin) version despite its crap colour pallette. But didn't find it terribly slow .

[Dr Tiger Ninestein]

I just recently purchased this. It's the version I had as a kid, I haven't played it in over 20 years. Looking forward to giving it a try when I can find myself another 464 plus.

[Arnaud]

Target Renegade : it's already a good game but with the graphics like Renegade the first, it reached hall all fame action game.

[arnoldemu]

I just recently purchased this. It's the version I had as a kid, I haven't played it in over 20 years. Looking forward to giving it a try when I can find myself another 464 plus.

Nice graphics, but that is the slow one

[dcdrac]

Elite with solid 3D?

It was a good game not a poor one, just wandered if solid 3d would be feasible.

Starglider?

Cholo?

[Puresox]

I just recently purchased this. It's the version I had as a kid, I haven't played it in over 20 years. Looking forward to giving it a try when I can find myself another 464 plus.

If you think this version is Slow, you ought to try the Dro Soft/Melbourne House version , it is like walking through treacle.


I'm surprised you find the Mastertronic version that Slow I always found it quite playable speed wise, the guy moves about quickly enough the moves are a little slower though .

[VincentGR]

Out-Run 
It would be perfect with a chase h.q or le mans engine.

[EgoTrip]

Crystal Kingdom Dizzy

[mr_lou]

How about a decent version of Burger Time?
Or was I the only one who liked that game on the arcade?

[TotO]

I don't know the feasibility of this , so I am sure some of you coders could put us straight or not as case may be. [...] Anyway in the ideal world what games would people like to tweak?

Close to 3 years ago, fano already allowed to the CPC community to improve Shinobi to make it greatest.
But, nobody was enough involved (understand more than 1 week) to be able to acheive the first step: SHINOBI Gfx restoration

[Puresox]

Just had a scan through  Shame. Looks like these things are not easy to carry out , no matter how small they would appear.


Are main sprite size and hitbox very difficult?
                                                                     
How about sprite control?                             

[andycadley]

Just had a scan through  Shame. Looks like these things are not easy to carry out , no matter how small they would appear.


Are main sprite size and hitbox very difficult?
                                                                     
How about sprite control?                             

The moment you want to change something other than just how the graphics look (and even that if you want to change some internal limitation like no of colours in a sprite) the amount of effort required skyrockets. At the very least some code needs rewriting which means a) finding it and b) changing it in the same amount of bytes or finding free space somewhere else.

For anything but the most trivial of changes, it's questionable whether it would actually be quicker to rewrite from scratch.

Unfortunately this is one of those things that people just don't get, which I why threads like that all too often devolve into a "surely it can't be hard to just...." situation.

[TMR]

Unfortunately this is one of those things that people just don't get, which I why threads like that all too often devolve into a "surely it can't be hard to just...." situation.

Quoted because it's true; sometimes even trivial changes can be quite tricky even with the source code and there's almost no chance of having that for the programs being discussed. Even "just" changing the graphics on R-Type 128K (and ignoring all of the other work that went into it) wasn't a trival task and i'm sure the folks behind it could talk for hours about the effort they put in just for that side of things.

The same is true for releases like Commando Arcade SE or Ghosts'N Goblins Arcade on the C64, a metric bucketload of work went into both to disassemble the original code, overhaul it, rework the graphics and build all of the level data and graphics that were missing.

[sigh]

When I was redrawing the graphics for Shinobi, it was very difficult trying to keep the sprites and tiles in the same order, that was listed when it was ripped. I found ways to add an extra tiles by optimizing, but that would mean obvious code changes.

When I did the first level sprites and tiles for a Rodland remake, I imagined someone using the code of Bubble Bobble as a template, but this was all before I realized that it's not as simple as just swapping a few tiles or sprites around:)

[Puresox]

The moment you want to change something other than just how the graphics look (and even that if you want to change some internal limitation like no of colours in a sprite) the amount of effort required skyrockets. At the very least some code needs rewriting which means a) finding it and b) changing it in the same amount of bytes or finding free space somewhere else.

For anything but the most trivial of changes, it's questionable whether it would actually be quicker to rewrite from scratch.

Unfortunately this is one of those things that people just don't get, which I why threads like that all too often devolve into a "surely it can't be hard to just...." situation.

Thanks , I feared this may well be the case , but better to hear it from people who are involved with the work . It's disappointing, but it is what it is.
Just one more thing compared to doing a Speccy Port is it vastly more difficult? Or is this like comparing Apples with Oranges?

[TotO]

When I was redrawing the graphics for Shinobi, it was very difficult trying to keep the sprites and tiles in the same order, that was listed when it was ripped.

Sure, it was required to improve the existing and not redo them. Not an easy task as expected.

[TMR]

Just one more thing compared to doing a Speccy Port is it vastly more difficult? Or is this like comparing Apples with Oranges?

[Scratches head] We-ell... essentially you're doing the same thing in both cases, taking a piece of code that does a specific job and hammering at the thing until it does what you want it to; under some circumstances a port is a bit less complicated (if the source code is available for example, or at least a good disassembly) but even then there'll be quite a bit of juggling required and probably a bit of lateral thinking when something that's been done specifically to (ab)use a feature of the source machine doesn't work in the same way or as efficiently on the target.

Ports need a good working knowledge of both platforms to do; i'm not well versed as a Z80 coder but have done C16 to C64 porting in the past and, despite the two being far closer than the Spectrum and CPC (the same general video layout and fine scrolling for example) the specifics of getting code from one to the other is still quite... erm, involved.

[Puresox]

[Scratches head] We-ell... essentially you're doing the same thing in both cases, taking a piece of code that does a specific job and hammering at the thing until it does what you want it to; under some circumstances a port is a bit less complicated (if the source code is available for example, or at least a good disassembly) but even then there'll be quite a bit of juggling required and probably a bit of lateral thinking when something that's been done specifically to (ab)use a feature of the source machine doesn't work in the same way or as efficiently on the target.

Ports need a good working knowledge of both platforms to do; i'm not well versed as a Z80 coder but have done C16 to C64 porting in the past and, despite the two being far closer than the Spectrum and CPC (the same general video layout and fine scrolling for example) the specifics of getting code from one to the other is still quite... erm, involved.

Sorry if it seems daft question to you but from my perspective I do not know the workings , thus the question and voila  I need not ask again . And can sort of appreciate things a little clearer .
So I appreciate you  going into details, even if it may feel like you're stating the obvious.

[TMR]

Sorry if it seems daft question to you but from my perspective I do not know the workings , thus the question and voila  I need not ask again . And can sort of appreciate things a little clearer .
So I appreciate you  going into details, even if it may feel like you're stating the obvious.

Nah, it doesn't seem a daft question to me; i've got a silly number of years doing 6502 and still occasionally think"well, it shouldn't be that hard to port X from Y to Z" only to find out that what looked sensible on paper turned out not to be because the difference between the two platforms is more pronounced and large chunks of the code needed a major reworking! That's also happened when it was my own code and i had the source... but i'm also too dumb to learn from my own mistakes. =-)

[andycadley]

Thanks , I feared this may well be the case , but better to hear it from people who are involved with the work . It's disappointing, but it is what it is.
Just one more thing compared to doing a Speccy Port is it vastly more difficult? Or is this like comparing Apples with Oranges?

It's a complex question without an easy answer. With source code it's difficult enough, but without it's obviously more challenging.

In some ways you do get an advantage, going from a 48K Spectrum to a 64K CPC means you've got 16K extra RAM to play with (the Speccy code might be dependent on ROM routines that you'd need to replace though). Some of that will be sacrificed to the display but it does a least give you a bit of wiggle room for "known unused" storage space. Of course the flip side is that the Speccy hardware is very different to the CPC, so you have to spend a lot more time working out what code does and substituting replacements. And, of course, Speccy games will occasionally lean on hardware tricks that are difficult to directly translate to the CPC - for example look at the way graphics "pop" into existence at the right hand edge of CPC R-Type, the Speccy version is doing the same but with attributes set to black INK and black PAPER, making the drawing invisible and giving a much smoother appearance overall.

[Puresox]

I will take a look at R-Type to see what you mean.This answer leads me to another question , you mentioned hardware tricks available on Speccy , Are more Hardware tricks available to the Spectrum than Amstrad , or are there equal amounts on  each machine roughly,I suppose they are  just routines that are machine specific?

[andycadley]

I will take a look at R-Type to see what you mean.This answer leads me to another question , you mentioned hardware tricks available on Speccy , Are more Hardware tricks available to the Spectrum than Amstrad , or are there equal amounts on  each machine roughly,I suppose they are  just routines that are machine specific?

Easily the CPC. By comparison the Spectrum is actually a pretty simple machine, there is very little to it in terms of hardware devices. The CPC is a pretty complex and flexible beast by comparison and all sorts of devious manipulation of the CRTC has been used over the years to get the machine to do things it isn't supposed to do. Even the behaviours of the monitor have been used to get effects that would normally be impossible.

[Puresox]

Not so much a poor game this offering , but certainly flawed . Players 'Miami Cobra' looks and runs very fast and colourful and a great budget game at the time . Sadly the braking/cornering  has no effect according to your speed , so whatever speed you are going the cornering makes no difference making it really annoying . It is a great shame cos this ,even with it's errors is vastly superior too Outrun .