hello

[Brian Beuken]

Hi

My name is Brian, and I'm an old CPC coder...just having a nosey around

B

[Carnivius]

Hello and welcome.

[Joseman]

Hi Brian

It´s such an honour for this forum to have original CPC coders... You guys make 1 or 2 cpc-generations happy !

[MacDeath]

Hi again, and welcome here.   

I see you did DJ Puff in volcanic island.

I tried to check with friends about possible patches for this game in order to turn it into a PLUS version.
I like to check how the graphics are stored in RAM and this specific game used quite some common tricks.



The sprites are in 2bits per pixels (mode1 equivalent) so they can be converted when put into the screen RAM bank, and benefit from some sort of software palette swap.
Sadly the background are also in only 4 colours...

Such things may be hard on CPU time (also the scrollings), but I guess it was a mean to get all those datas to fit into a 64K RAM machine ?
such "Mode1" (actually 2bits per pixels datas) graphics converted into Mode0 with palette swaps was actually quite typical from some British companies.
Palace software did this a lot : Barbarian, Antiriad...

I guess it was also often used when graphics and gameplay were "ported" from C64... as it enabled same sort of graphic specifications as C64 in 4 colours/wide pixel settings.



Just an innocent question : do you still have some source codes ?

[Joseman]

Just an innocent question : do you still have some source codes ?

I make the same question on the other thread 

We are source code hungry!!

[Brian Beuken]

Sorry no, all source codes have long since ended up in harddrive landfills somewhere as I've upgraded machines over the years, I don't think any of my backup 5 1/4" discs survived.

[Brian Beuken]

I will say one thing...the graphics are probably not mode 1 though I don't recall the specifics of DJ Puff Which may indeed have used standard C64 sprites and a colour table

I often used to use a lookup table system for graphics, and limit their colours to 4 or 8 per sprite. The actual graphics data was therefore not intended to be dumped straight to the screen, but the byte would consist of flags and counters that indicated if the byte needed to be masked, or if it was the terminator in a line, also the number of repeat values it had.. When you stop thinking of the data as simple pixels it allows you to do a lot with them what optimises the draw routines..ie knowing you didn't have to mask the byte meant you could put it straight into the screen space, rather than 3 or 4 operations to load the screen byte, mask it, or it with the pixels, write them back. This mean writing compressed sprite data was often faster than trying to dump them straight down, and no unneeded bytes or pointless masks were written.

[MacDeath]

Yeah, checked again, not real "mode1" code for those datas, but "equivalent" in bits per pixels.

Encoding is "Linear", but WinApe enables to find them, somewhat. this enables for a good "Mode0 pixels surface on screen" versus "RAM space to store those datas" ratio.

what about the background tiles ? they clearly are in only 4 colours, without real palette swaps "per tile" sadly the palettes are not always well choosen... I guess it would have been too intensive to get tiles getting palette swaps or even to get colour lookup table for the backgrounds would take more RAM space.
Was a cute game anyway.

a shame CPC was quite short on RAM in 64K config... which was aimed at by devs.
128k config could enable other tricks to ease things, but on the other hand those 64k also created many interesting tricks.

If only Lord Sugar weren't so cheap on RAM chips with this CPC range...


I checked again for the background tiles :
they are stored directly in Mode0 actually, so I guess it was more an issue with deadline and not enough time for the graphic artists to work their  port from the c64 graphics more completely. 

Design : Reflective Designs
Coding : Brian BEUKEN
Music : Allister BRIMBLE
Graphics : Jonathan SMYTH, Brian BEUKEN
Testing : I. HAWORTH

I guess a patch to correct those tiles and get them more colours could be possible.

This game is from early 90's.
what tools did you have under hand for the graphics at this time ? were you working on CPC or on Atari ST/Amiga/anything else ?

Did you have crossdev tools ? I guess the work and tools really evolved a lot from 1984/early 80's to early 90's...


here a mockup...

[Token]

Hi and welcome!
I played a lot Rockford lately. 

[||C|-|E||]

Hello! It´s great to have you around! 

[Brian Beuken]

This game is from early 90's.
what tools did you have under hand for the graphics at this time ? were you working on CPC or on Atari ST/Amiga/anything else ?

Did you have crossdev tools ? I guess the work and tools really evolved a lot from 1984/early 80's to early 90's...


here a mockup...

I usually used Dpaint on the PC as a quick fix graphic tool, but I didn't do the graphics so I just converted them into my own graphic format with a tool I called Grafiz, which was a general conversion tool I came up with.
Code wise I almost certainly used PDS by then, but I am struggling to recall.

[Brian Beuken]

Hi and welcome!
I played a lot Rockford lately. 

That was my all time favourite game on CPC, its not often a coder bothers to play his own games, we did them and forgot them, but the nature of Rockford's mechanic meant you could always find cool new ways to play. I think R1 and R2 are my best games ever,

B

[CPC_Fan]

Hello and welcome to the forum Brian.

[MacDeath]

funny typo... 

Yeah, seems like in Britain, CPC games would very rarely get proper dedicated Graphic artist budget... a shame as CPC was actually quite capable in pure graphics.
Very often the coder would be told "just port/ripp graphics from C64/Speccy..."

as a result palette was rarely optimal, or graphics not proper for CPC palette. You can't just put C64 graphics into a CPC without proper re-pixeling/slight re-design as C64 and CPC palettes are very different.

but easier to say in photoshop's age on modern PCs...

[mr_lou]

Hello and welcome!

Code wise I almost certainly used PDS by then, but I am struggling to recall.

For the past 3 years I've been writing down stories I remember from the good old days about retro-computers. The more I have written the more I suddenly remember, and the collection of stories are already much bigger than I initially thought they'd be.
So I'm fairly sure a lot of these things will come back to you. 

[TFM]

Hi Brian, welcome, have fun and enjoy the forum. 

[AMSDOS]

Hi

My name is Brian, and I'm an old CPC coder...just having a nosey around

B

Well feel free to checkout my hair brained tidbits in the programming section. 

[EgoTrip]

Have you thought about making a new game for the CPC?

[Brian Beuken]

Have you thought about making a new game for the CPC?

yes its possible, I've been dabbling in Z80 coding a lot recently, not at all happy with the dev tools available but I guess they are just about usable. The biggest issue really is finance. I am still a pro games developer though as I spend of my time Teaching these days, I do have a lot of down time where I could squeeze in small projects. The problem is, I've discovered due to the lack of tools a retro project isn't always as small is it seems. I need to try to get much better dev tools either written or sourced.

But I could be persuaded to do something if there was enough financial incentive in it.

[Brian Beuken]

Hello and welcome!

For the past 3 years I've been writing down stories I remember from the good old days about retro-computers. The more I have written the more I suddenly remember, and the collection of stories are already much bigger than I initially thought they'd be.
So I'm fairly sure a lot of these things will come back to you. 

You know that alcohol destroys brain cells...
over 30 years...there's been a lot of alcohol

[MacDeath]

and guitar (goes well with alcohol...) 

funny that you said you were teaching...
there is this project by university of Alicante : to get students to code games for a CPC464...

#CPCRetroDev Game Creation Contest | Amstrad CPC game development contest

They dev'ed some tools :
#CPCtelera 1.0. Amstrad CPC game development library official release

CPCtelera: Astonishing fast Amstrad CPC game engine

[Brian Beuken]

I teach at the IGAD program at NHTV in The Netherlands
mADE

We are the only university in the world, that teaches students using hardware for all 3 console makers machines. We teach hardcore game development intended to enter AAA industry. We've been the number 1 tech course in NL for the last 5 years and probably the whole of Europe, if there were rankings, we regularly win or place in organised Game Jams, (came 2nd last week in the Imagine cup) and our graduates are to be found in several major companies all over the world...we're pretty dam good at what we do

[EgoTrip]

yes its possible, I've been dabbling in Z80 coding a lot recently, not at all happy with the dev tools available but I guess they are just about usable. The biggest issue really is finance. I am still a pro games developer though as I spend of my time Teaching these days, I do have a lot of down time where I could squeeze in small projects. The problem is, I've discovered due to the lack of tools a retro project isn't always as small is it seems. I need to try to get much better dev tools either written or sourced.

But I could be persuaded to do something if there was enough financial incentive in it.

I don't think theres much/any money in retro developing any more. Its mostly hobbyists. If you do a new game as a hobby then there would be no deadline and you could go at your own pace. Saying that there is a contest with some good prizes that closes in a couple of months.

[Brian Beuken]

I don't think theres much/any money in retro developing any more. Its mostly hobbyists. If you do a new game as a hobby then there would be no deadline and you could go at your own pace. Saying that there is a contest with some good prizes that closes in a couple of months.

I suspect not, but the question of finance is not so much to make profit, as to ensure the work is backed and there is commitment to get it done, a project which has no incentive to finish often fails. So the carrot of cash, however small is needed, a stick alone won't work

If I'm going to use up my time which would normally be earning, then I need to know that there is something going into the bank... if I could make 2 or 3K on a project and do 2 or 3 a year in my spare time I'd be happy with that..deadlines would need to be flexible due to work commitments but its quite possible to fit 10 hours a week into something like this and get them done in decent timescales. But I just can't work for free, I have no incentive at all to do it when I could be working on my PS4/Vita games.

[||C|-|E||]

It is a point of view, and a very valid one, but I do not know if the money is here. Many of us use the Amstrad or try to make something for it just for fun. In that sense, there is no need to have anyone backing you. You could be doing this or playing a game in the console/computer of your choice. To be realistic, I perfectly know that if I make a videogame for the CPC almost nobody is going to play it. You make it because you like to see it made, it is a bit for yourself and some friends of the scene .