Xevious

[Grim]

Back in the day, nobody never used overscan, but some demos.

Late in the day, I played Boogie Woogie (review from Amstrad Cent Pour Cent issue 47, April 1993) which uses fullscreen ingame. But it seems this game is nowhere to be found. Xyphoes Fantasy also uses fullscreen ingame in the Barbarian-like parts (level bosses).

[MacDeath]

Borderless was told to be "Overscan" in many magazine of the time, but of course it is not accurate, yet this meaning for the word sticked on.


Concerning the fine resolution of the speccy :

Well, it's because square pixels are fine.

Yet as we know the CPC let a bigger border with a speccy resolution (or equivalent).

As a result : Amstrad pixels are even more thin/slim then.

Even in Mode0 on the amstrad Monitor, you almost get slimer/thiner (what is the word ?) pixels than with a speccy on some TV.

The horizontal bordeless Mode0 with it's 192 pixels wide is indeed almost not as bad as a Nintendo entertainment system or a speccy.

The shame was mostly that the coders couldn't figure how to put a proper and decent HUD.

For exemple, many vertical shooters got a vertical HUD, while a smaller horizontal one on top or bottom of the screen could allow a better Arcade Feeling.

Perhaps it was too hard to cumulate this with a vertical scrolling...

Xevious is a prime exemple, but slap fight too with it's HUD bigger than the actual playing field...
But also Flying shark or 1943...with even a double HUD...leaving the playing field comparable to a Gameboy...lol.

That's perhaps were an Amstrad PLUS should manage vertical shooterz betterly : you can use Hardwired sprites to do the HUD juste as Fano did for Rick128+.

But HardSprites are perhaps better to be actually used for the game itself in the case of shooterz, as it may be a rare occasion to use them effectively.


Also despite getting a speccy resolution, the Amstrad still often used it's 16Ko video Ram.

As it was said by Goodyer (R-Type porter)...

While Demomakers say that to reduce the screen resolution enable to lower the Video Ram used, Games Coders didn't...(or too rarely)

Another stuff :
to put an horizontal resolution of 256pixels (mode1 or equivalents in other modes) is said to enable some optimisations.
Yet it is still possible to put the space removed on the sides at the bottom or top of the screen.

320x200 = 64000pixels. the normal 16k Video Ram.

256x256 = 65536... 256pixels being the borderless vertical ...

256x240 = 61440... you just have 1 character line (8 pix) border at the top and at the bottom... Actually very decent resolution IMO...
Such a resolution should even enable to reduce the amount of Video Ram needed perhaps.
Yet how many games did use a 256x240 resolution ?

[TFM]

Late in the day, I played Boogie Woogie (review from Amstrad Cent Pour Cent issue 47, April 1993) which uses fullscreen ingame. But it seems this game is nowhere to be found. Xyphoes Fantasy also uses fullscreen ingame in the Barbarian-like parts (level bosses).

Bonjour,
Well, don't know Boogie Woogie. About Xyphoes Fantasy - great game!!! But it was released much late, in 1991 like I know. Was talking about the 80ies ;-)

[Grim]

Was talking about the 80ies ;-)

You old fart!
Never heard of or seen any fullscreen ingame before the 90's too, only title screens or the starfield trick in Arkanoid.

[ukmarkh]

Does anyone have a list of games that used OVERSCAN???

[TFM]

You old fart!
Never heard of or seen any fullscreen ingame before the 90's too, only title screens or the starfield trick in Arkanoid.

Yes, man, will be 40 in july. Have to finish my CPC projects before, afterwards I'll be retired ;-)

If ever they changed the screen proportions in a game, but still used a 16 KB screen RAM, they called it fullscreen, but in fact it was overscan. Well, that's the way I learnt it, but maybe I'm wrong. Anybody has the right to define this for himself.

And why not use 256 * 256 (Mode 1)... or 128*256(Mode 0), it's the damn best mode to be used in a game, all calcualtions are done pretty easy. And the Z80 needs only rarely to use multiplications, because you can use ADD, everything is 2, 4, 8, 16... I love this mode ;-)

However, maybe only Arkanoid look good in that mode ;-)

[MacDeath]

And why not use 256 * 256

Simple fact : the Speccy could only display 256x192...

will be 40 in july

I'll be 32 in july.

Reminds me an Helloween's song : time's marching on.

[TFM]

Simple fact : the Speccy could only display 256x192...

Slowly I begin to hate everything connected to speccy - especially resolutions and gfx!!!

However, what we'll produce now will be way better 

[ukmarkh]

However, what we'll produce now will be way better 

I seriously doubt that, R-Type on the Speccy didn't get much wrong, and plays a mean game. Despite its limitations, everyone agrees it is a fantastic conversion. But hey prove me wrong, by all means   

For starters, and I appreciate the hard work you're doing... it looks like you guys are having to cut stuff from the game to get it to run at anything like the speed on the ZX Spectrum conversion. Then there's the ill fated decision to use the wrong resolution, mode 1 should never have been suggested. Anything other than mode 0 will just feel like a wanna be Speccy clone. Mode 0 would set it completely apart and feel more Amstrad.

If people are gonna do this, they should do it right. I have a terrible feeling about this project, but don't listen to me, no fcuker else does! And I wish you guys the best of luck. Don't take this to heart, as it's just one persons opinion, again the best of luck.

[MacDeath]

Ouch, you hurted my feelings...

No, no problem with your opinion, I heard it a lot recently.



To be honnest, yes R-Type should be released in Mode0.

But as we are simply hacking the existing code, some part are missing to get a proper Mode0 IMO.

Sprites are unmasked.
There is not real background but the starfield.

And the screen is small.


As a result a mode0 would look blocky, and so on.
The pixel scrolling would olso be less smooth because wider pixels.

If we are to get it Mode0 let's just craft a proper brand new engine, and port R-Type2 then.

The thinking behind this modification was simply that Fano wanted to learn how the game was designed so he would get a lot of Idea for his own engine.

So while he is deciphering it, modding it is not such a big deal.


And to be honnest, i already spent a lot of time on those and personally, I like it, so it will wait until this one is finished.

[TFM]

If we are to get it Mode0 let's just craft a proper brand new engine, and port R-Type2 then.

Well, to create an R-Type 2 would be indeed a very interesting idea! If you guys want to start such a project seriously, then I would like to support you as coder - in case you want me.

[fano]

Well, to create an R-Type 2 would be indeet a damn good idea! If you guys want to start such a project seriously, then I would like to support you as coder - in case you want me.

OMG! R-Type II is the shmup i prefer but honnestly that would be a massacre to port it on CPC.

But , isn't that topic for Xevious ?

[TFM]

OMG! R-Type II is the shmup i prefer but honnestly that would be a massacre to port it on CPC.

But , isn't that topic for Xevious ?

Ok, I must confess, I was working toooo long on that microscope, seperating single cells from each other ;-) Right, I posted in the wrong topic.
And no ;-) I didn't know that R-Type 2 exists, because there is no CPC version. However I was thinking about a game similar to R-Type but made for CPC, a game which is using the advantages of the CPC. I should talk about this in the right thread. ... Sorry!

[fano]

I should talk about this in the right thread. ... Sorry!

That was not about you but i noticed R-Type invades all over topics about other games lol
R-Type II is really a game to try as i owns a very special feeling...