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.
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.
Quote from: Dr Tiger Ninestein on 23:03, 31 December 15
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 (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 (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 .
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.
Target Renegade : it's already a good game but with the graphics like Renegade the first, it reached hall all fame action game.
Quote from: Dr Tiger Ninestein on 14:32, 01 January 16
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 :(
Elite with solid 3D?
It was a good game not a poor one, just wandered if solid 3d would be feasible.
Starglider?
Cholo?
Quote from: Dr Tiger Ninestein on 14:32, 01 January 16
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 .
Out-Run ;D
It would be perfect with a chase h.q or le mans engine.
Crystal Kingdom Dizzy
How about a decent version of Burger Time?
Or was I the only one who liked that game on the arcade?
Quote from: Puresox on 22:55, 31 December 15I 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 (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/games/shinobi-gfx-restoration/)
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?
Quote from: Puresox on 12:18, 02 January 16
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.
Quote from: andycadley on 13:00, 02 January 16Unfortunately 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.
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:)
Quote from: andycadley on 13:00, 02 January 16
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?
Quote from: sigh on 13:50, 02 January 16When 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.
Quote from: Puresox on 15:11, 02 January 16Just 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.
Quote from: TMR on 16:25, 02 January 16
[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.
Quote from: Puresox on 16:43, 02 January 16
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. =-)
Quote from: Puresox on 15:11, 02 January 16
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.
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?
Quote from: Puresox on 00:48, 03 January 16
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.
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 .
I think I have probably mentioned this before with regard to 'Spannerman' I think this game would be more interesting if there was a method of altering the rate of Water filling up depending on how many leaks are spraying at a time. At the moment it seems that the water rises at a fixed pace which is unaffected by how well you play the game or not.
Would it be difficult to poke this to alter the rate of water ?
Altered Beast and Double Dragon 3!
There is one thing I would love to be changed in Chase HQ. Well, there are a lot of things I would love to see changed in Chase HQ, but this one may be the least unreasonable?
The game as an option screen to remap the controls, but it only allows for keyboard mapping. Being able to also remap the controller would be fantastic, instead of having to rely on dirty tricks like having different builds for each hardcoded controller mapping. I suppose it's easier said than done, else it would have been done already.
Quote from: khaz on 10:42, 21 February 16
There is one thing I would love to be changed in Chase HQ. Well, there are a lot of things I would love to see changed in Chase HQ, but this one may be the least unreasonable?
The game as an option screen to remap the controls, but it only allows for keyboard mapping. Being able to also remap the controller would be fantastic, instead of having to rely on dirty tricks like having different builds for each hardcoded controller mapping. I suppose it's easier said than done, else it would have been done already.
Have you tried to remap the second joystick?
This has actual keys like r t if I remember correctly.
A proper Shadow of the Beast for the Plus and the normal CPC would make me immensely happy. I think, however, that the game is much better suited for the Plus, considering the fast scrolls and the huge amount of sprites in screen that need to move really quick. I would definitely support the creation of this :-).
Quote from: ||C|-|E|| on 13:20, 21 February 16
A proper Shadow of the Beast for the Plus and the normal CPC would make me immensely happy. I think, however, that the game is much better suited for the Plus, considering the fast scrolls and the huge amount of sprites in screen that need to move really quick. I would definitely support the creation of this :-).
Me too
Removing the fact that was fist a technical Amiga demo, do Beast is a good game?
And, how good it will be if you can't redo all the magic around this game?
There are mixed opinions about Shadow of the Beast indeed. I am one of those that truly believe that it was, and is, an awesome game and not just a demo :). I had it in Megadrive and I enjoyed it a lot, that is why I would like to see the port.
What about Midnight Resistance?
I remember falling in love with it on my friend's Amiga but pissing off when it finally got it on my CPC.
Event the Speccy version was much much better.
Shadow of the Beast, all graphics, no game!
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In Outrun, the basics are there, it's just speed, sound and music. I'm thinking, if you had the code, would it be possible to optimise?
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Quote from: ukmarkh on 00:47, 22 February 16
Shadow of the Beast, all graphics, no game!
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Lot of people seem to feel this way , I think it is a nice exploration game with an element of solving , plus some enemies to stop it being bland trudging around. Nice music in it. The Scenery changes suitably to give you the feeling of progress , not like some of these horrible exploration games where rooms look constantly the same .
Quote from: ukmarkh on 00:50, 22 February 16
In Outrun, the basics are there, it's just speed, sound and music. I'm thinking, if you had the code, would it be possible to optimise?
Possibly, but probably not by enough to make a real difference in the speed. For that you'd probably end up having to completely rewrite the engine.
And I'm not overly convinced that 8-bit machines are really up to a passable version of Outrun. The "continuous" nature of it always makes for a memory heavy game with only marginal options for compression. And the variations in road widths/styles are difficult to pull off.
Quote from: Puresox on 00:51, 22 February 16
Lot of people seem to feel this way , I think it is a nice exploration game with an element of solving , plus some enemies to stop it being bland trudging around. Nice music in it. The Scenery changes suitably to give you the feeling of progress , not like some of these horrible exploration games where rooms look constantly the same .
It might have been a better "exploration" game if going the wrong way didn't just kill you off. Or if you'd more than one life. And the enemies didn't come hurtling towards you with primarily just a measly punch that has to be perfectly timed or you'll take damage regardless....
Honestly the best way to experience SotB is to watch a YouTube video longplay. It always worked better as a rolling demo than a game anyway.
Quote from: andycadley on 09:37, 22 February 16
And I'm not overly convinced that 8-bit machines are really up to a passable version of Outrun. The "continuous" nature of it always makes for a memory heavy game with only marginal options for compression. And the variations in road widths/styles are difficult to pull off.
So ChaseHQ never happened on an 8bit then? [emoji15]
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Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:45, 22 February 16
So ChaseHQ never happened on an 8bit then? [emoji15]
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or Wec Le Mans also by O'brian. I prefer the feel, smoothness and playability of this one. I even prefer it over another of his games, Burning Rubber on the plus.
Quote from: ukmarkh on 00:50, 22 February 16
In Outrun, the basics are there, it's just speed, sound and music. I'm thinking, if you had the code, would it be possible to optimise?
Sound and music would be easier to put in if the code was available.
I have a feeling the way the road was implemented was not the best and probably needs a complete re-write.
Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:45, 22 February 16
So ChaseHQ never happened on an 8bit then? [emoji15]
Chase HQ has distinct levels, which gives the opportunity for multiload (or decompression from the extra 64K), it has the split road effect but not the variable width/side by side roads that Outrun has.
You can do something without those but it quickly descends into something like the C64 port, a nice enough racer but just not Outrun at all.
Quote from: andycadley on 14:45, 22 February 16
Chase HQ has distinct levels, which gives the opportunity for multiload (or decompression from the extra 64K), it has the split road effect but not the variable width/side by side roads that Outrun has.
You can do something without those but it quickly descends into something like the C64 port, a nice enough racer but just not Outrun at all.
Outrun is perfectly viable on the CPC, making the width of the road smaller, to get the speed, with multiple routes is perfectly possible. The PC Engine and lots of other ports, cut bits, and managed just fine. Nobody is talking arcade perfect, but something that resembles Outrun. If Chase HQ and Wec le Mans are possible, then Outrun is too.
I mut be the only one that always felt that all the games similar to Outrun in the CPC or the Plus were slow and difficult to play. I was never particularly happy with any of them, including the "good" ones :-X