Wonderboy Remake?

[Shaun M. Neary]

Great!!!

If you need a beta tester for upcoming releases, feel free to count on me!

Me too if you need a second beta tester! With Ireland in it's third poxy lockdown, I could do with something in the evenings!

[gurneyh]

If you need a beta tester for upcoming releases, feel free to count on me!

Me too if you need a second beta tester! With Ireland in it's third poxy lockdown, I could do with something in the evenings!

Great!
Of course, we'll have to wait a few weeks now. There is still a lot of work to do.
But it's well noted, thank you.

[lmimmfn]

Me too if you need a second beta tester! With Ireland in it's third poxy lockdown, I could do with something in the evenings!

Lockdown in Ireland is brilliant, i can spend my time with my family by the sea and enjoy retro in the evenings

[Shaun M. Neary]

Lockdown in Ireland is brilliant, i can spend my time with my family by the sea and enjoy retro in the evenings

Delighted for you, tell em over on the Covid forum on boards.ie, they'll love you.

Speaking for myself. I'm bored off my gourd!

[odiesoft]

Hi GurneyH,


I watched Xyphoes Amstream on January 8th where Xyphoe presents your one level demo of the Wonderboy Remake and complains about the flickering scrolling.


I briefly chatted with you on the stream and I wrote you a message about how to avoid the flickering of the scrolling. I'm not sure whether you read it or not because you didn't respond to it.


So I've created a short demo of how to remove the flickering border when using a CRTC register 3 scrolling with a regular 80 bytes by 200 lines resolution on the CPC. Essentially you have to sacrifice two byte columns, one on the left side of the screen and one on the right side of the screen in order to remove the flicker.


You can see a demo and an explanation in the attached ZIP file. Just open the DSK file and type run"st" and then you can switch between the smooth scrolling by pressing the "s" key and go back to the flickering scrolling by pressing the "d" key.


I didn't include an example on how to stop the scrolling, but I assume you will be able to fix this in a similar manner. Just add the black byte columns to both sides of the screen in both screens when stopping the scrolling using double buffering.


best wishes and carry on the good work,
Odiesoft

[gurneyh]

Hi odiesoft

I briefly chatted with you on the stream and I wrote you a message about how to avoid the flickering of the scrolling. I'm not sure whether you read it or not because you didn't respond to it.

I didn't see it. Sorry.

So I've created a short demo of how to remove the flickering border when using a CRTC register 3 scrolling with a regular 80 bytes by 200 lines resolution on the CPC. Essentially you have to sacrifice two byte columns, one on the left side of the screen and one on the right side of the screen in order to remove the flicker.

I know how to avoid flickering using r3.


https://youtu.be/p1ynZ4fyrCc

or


https://youtu.be/6yYrSYp7zFQ

What I don't know how to do is to avoid this flickering with a variable speed scroll (1 or 2 bytes) as it is the case in Wonderboy.

I will take a look at your demo. Thank you!


edit:
I watched your demo. Nice! But unfortunately it won't solve my problem.

[XeNoMoRPH]

are you going to finish this game? @gurneyh ? , Crownland .. ? 

[gurneyh]

are you going to finish this game? @gurneyh ? , Crownland .. ? 

Yes!


After Wonderboy, I promise

[odiesoft]

Hi GurneyH,


Changing scrolling speeds is also no problem with this anti-flicker method. When scrolling with 2 bytes per frame you need to add black one byte columns to both sides of the screen, so that the screen width doesn't suddenly change when switching from one byte to two byte scrolling.


For the transition between the scrolling speeds you need to write short routines to remove the additional black columns you had to add for the according scrolling speed. But that is also possible with very little code.


I've attached a demo of the scrolling in two speeds and also included a no-scrolling option where you can stop the scrolling altogether. Type run"tsp" to see this demo.


best wishes,
Odiesoft

[odiesoft]

... and by the way:


the Crownland and TokiMap Demo look amazing! I'm looking forward to play the game of Crownland once it's finished (and the Wonderland Remake is done)!


best wishes,
Odiesoft

[gurneyh]

hi odiesoft,

First thank you for the help !

I have just tested the demo, which works perfectly. It's going to help me.


As I explained, I have no problem stopping the scrolling even when I display black stripes, it's the change of step that I have a problem with. But yes, the solution is to rewrite over the black strip. I'll see if it doesn't penalize too much in time.


Thank you again.




edit: @odiesoft

Wonderboy is now flicker-free thanks to you.


I don't use the same principle, but seeing how you wait until r3 is in a compatible position to stop the scroll gave me an idea.
And without penalty. Many thanks!

[odiesoft]

Hi gurneyh,


I'm happy I could be of service!


Some while ago I spend a lot of time on an (yet unreleased) project with different scrolling speeds that was a lot more complex than this. So I have some experience with this kind of stuff.


Waiting on the correct value in r3 is a nice trick and the players will barely realise that they sometimes have to wait for one more frame before their character changes running speeds. The players don't need to know everything all the time :-)


I'm looking forward to see the next flicker free Wonderboy demo!


best wishes,
Odiesoft

[Gryzor]

the players will barely realise that they sometimes have to wait for one more frame

Damn now you have ruined it for me😁

[odiesoft]

Damn now you have ruined it for me😁

As an Amstrad CPC fan you are most likely so old now that you wouldn't see the difference without wearing your bifocal glasses! 

[Gryzor]

The joke's on you, not only do I not wear bifocals, but my short-sightedness does not show signs of regression GIVE ME BACK MY FRAME RATES!*




*also, the ability to play on my CPC till early morning and then go to work like nothing has happened.

[Mr. DVG]

It is absolutely not my intention to rush the programmers, but since it's been months since the first release I would just like to know if the project is moving forward and if I can encourage even more the good programmers who are doing the excellent conversion! 

[BSC]

https://youtu.be/6yYrSYp7zFQ

TokiMap looks incredibly beautiful! Among the best gfx that I have ever seen on the CPC. Who did those?

[Targhan]

Among the best gfx that I have ever seen on the CPC. Who did those

The graphics are from Barjack.

[gurneyh]

It is absolutely not my intention to rush the programmers, but since it's been months since the first release I would just like to know if the project is moving forward and if I can encourage even more the good programmers who are doing the excellent conversion! 

The second level is almost finished.
However, the project is not progressing very well at the moment due to a lack of time and a small lack of motivation.
Only a problem related to the developer.

[Targhan]

a small lack of motivation

Strange, as many people praised the game and are eager to play it!

[Shaun M. Neary]

Strange, as many people praised the game and are eager to play it!

The motivation thing could have meant anything though. Developer could be going through something unrelated to the game, or just needed a time out.

[Targhan]

The motivation thing could have meant anything though.

Yes of course. But I was merely trying to motivate the developer by highlighting a positive thing .

[Shaun M. Neary]

Yes of course. But I was merely trying to motivate the developer by highlighting a positive thing .

As good a reason as any!

[OneVision]

Hello,


nearly one year later, I wanted to give some news about our WonderBoy Remake.


The level 2 is still work in progress. Some screenshots were published in the #50 issue of the french magazine Amstrad 100%.


Here are those shots and hopefully we'll have some more news in 2022.


In the meantime, enjoy the holiday season !


Best,
Ben OneVision Yoris

[OneVision]

It's been a while since we gave news about the Wonderboy Remake project for Amstrad 128K.

Sadly, the project is now on hold, because life has its priorites and the coder on this project must tend to them.

I wanted anyway to share what we've done so far. You'll find a CPR that you can run on your M4 or your favorite emulator. If you hit 2 on the title screen, you'll be able to play approx. 3/4 of the level 1.2 with some bugs and the impossibility to finish it (because at some point 2 clouds are too distant to reach the end of the level). You'll nevertheless be able to enjoy and see by yourselves how far we've gone.

I wish I could tell you when we'll be able to complete this project. As you can imagine, such retrogaming projects are very demanding both in time and motivation. And we all have lives to live.

Anyway, I think we made it clear that a better version of WonderBoy is possible on "old" Amstrad 128K, without needing the features of the PLUS series.


For the moment, I'll let you enjoy this and I just wanted you to know that, along with some other people, I'm working on another Amstrad project, which could bring something "magical" to the Amstrad game collection...

Take care,
Ben *OneVision* Yoris

Gif Anim available on Twitter :
https://twitter.com/BenYoris/status/1536800480688586752?s=20&t=JGQlLQwySKwEOJlkVoxV0A