Pixel Artist :)

[invent]

Hello Everyone,


Thought I would take the time to log in and say Gday.


Been a big fan of the Amstrad (first computer was the CPC 464) for a long time and enjoyed the following games the most:


The Covenant (wished that this game could of been completed), or had sequels
Movie (had thought about doing remakes of this game on other platforms)
Mutant Monty
Fruity Frank
Batman
Heartland


and others...


Busy pushing a few pixels and converting some current game concepts to the Amstrad Mode 0 or Mode 1.


Can still hear some games in my head after all these years (such as Galivan)


On my blog work on various projects such as a game using the C64 colour palette on an Amiga/other system.


The Amstrad conversion is based of this fairly simple game (will post screenshots of Amstrad concepts soon, both Mode 0 and 1 tests), I'm not a coder so these are just concepts.
AMIGAoneX: Game Concept - BoTrannis

[Carnivius]

Welcome! 

Always good to have more pixellers join the forums and produce some nice looking CPC games. 

[invent]

Thanks Carnivac, look forward to the challenge.  You have great design work by the way, really enjoyeing your work

[TotO]

Welcome!

Yes, Carnivac is probably the best tiles & sprites designer on CPC. 
Sadly, he don't share his high skill level for creating real games. 

[mr_lou]

Yes, Carnivac is probably the best tiles & sprites designer on CPC. 
Sadly, he don't share his high skill level for creating real games. 

- and he's as short on time as the rest of us.

When do we win the lottery so we can quit our jobs and focus on the CPC like God intended us to do?

[Carnivius]

Real games?   Seriously?  Then what have I been spending all that time doing? 

[||C|-|E||]

Hello!! 

[MacDeath]

Sadly, he don't share his high skill level for creating real games.

Please shut up or he will go see if greens are greener and more numerous at the ZX speccy scene... 
(or greys at C64s)
This wouldn't be cool for CPCs.

[invent]

Hello Again,

Thanks for the welcome.
As mentioned I have been playing around with a design for a game called Botrannis.
This image shows two versions Mode 0 and Mode 1.  Both designs need refining but I thought I would show a work in progress.
The idea of the game is simple.  You fly around the maze shooting bugs and collecting jewels before exiting (exit will show once all enemies/jewels are gone)
The game is possibly a hybrid of ideas from (thrust and boulderdash)




Please note that this is just a few quick concept.  I probably need to ask a lot more questions but for the moment thought I would share this

[||C|-|E||]

I would say that, for this kind of game, Mode 0 looks beautiful in CPC  . I usually prefer resolution over colors, but it is not the case this time.

[Carnivius]

I generally always prefer Mode 0.  Colours and chunkiness appeal to me and it adds some vibrancy here without losing much of the detail the Mode 1 version has (though I can see you simply rotated those green/purple enemies which won't work in reality     ).   The Mode 1 version still looks good but a bit drab.  Though rotating sprites is much easier.  Anyways yeah Mode 0 is my vote.

[invent]

Thanks for your quick response Carnivac / ||C|-|E||


I will focus on the Mode 0 design, I think I prefer Mode 0 also.


Your right the butterfly sprites are rotated 90 degrees, ideally I would like a few frames for smooth rotation.  The player ship might change to an orb type ship if It's too tricky to rotate a small triangle type object.


I'm looking forward to adding a nice shimmer effect to the jewels. 

[TotO]

Look more lovely in mode 0 than your Amiga concept. 

[sad1942]

I think that mode 0 should be a flagship for all future Amstrad productions, It is what distinguishes it from other 8bits machines. Making a game using mode 1 it´s not bad at all but it´s like a spectrum game.
The color palette of the Amstrad is magical 

[Axelay]

Hi invent.  My vote would be for Mode 0 as well.  Something I just noticed in your blog update, in mode 0 you can use 16 of the 27 colours, not all 27.

[Carnivius]

I think that mode 0 should be a flagship for all future Amstrad productions, It is what distinguishes it from other 8bits machines. Making a game using mode 1 it´s not bad at all but it´s like a spectrum game.
The color palette of the Amstrad is magical 

Well... I dunno.  I like Mode 0 for reasons I already stated but it depends on the game itself in some cases. 

And Mode 1 on CPC can still do a lot more than a Spectrum can.  Ok the colour count is less but you can still use those 4 colours ANYWHERE you want thus having the potential to provide far more detail, shading and depth to an image than the Spectrum ever could.  Which is why it's so damn disappointing when they often just simply ported over the basic Spectrum graphics. 

[robcfg]

I'd like to add that if you make use of rasters, you can have more than 4 colours in Mode 1, but might be trickier to use that in a game.


As long as it's a nice game, I don't care the screen mode.

[MaV]

Very nice work!

IMHO, the MODE 1 screen does look a bit better, but MODE 0 is just as good. If MODE 1 only had a couple of colours more ...

[||C|-|E||]

I think that mode 0 should be a flagship for all future Amstrad productions, It is what distinguishes it from other 8bits machines. Making a game using mode 1 it´s not bad at all but it´s like a spectrum game.
The color palette of the Amstrad is magical 

Although I quite like Mode 0, I still prefer Mode 1 for something like adventure games . I somehow love Mode 1 because, as Carnivac said, you can put your 4 colors anywhere and it looks really great in some productions (I am remembering Iron Lord). We are also using it in the text adventure we are making because it allows us to add a great deal of detail to the images. However, although we have some great arcades in Mode 1 (Myth) I would never use it for something like Savage, AMC or Turrican  .

[Carnivius]

We are also using it in the text adventure we are making because it allows us to add a great detail of detail to the images.

I like the look of your game cos it has that vintage sci-fi comic strip feel to the in-game artwork.

[||C|-|E||]

I like the look of your game cos it has that vintage sci-fi comic strip feel to the in-game artwork.

That is actually the idea! 

[remax]

I like both Modes...














































... but please stop with these scanline who looks nowhere near a real CPC 

[McKlain]

Yep, scanlines are an arcade thing.

[Carnivius]

Yep, scanlines are an arcade thing.

My Amiga monitor had them.

And I like scanlines.  Breaks up the huge pixels somewhat.   A more accurate CPC monitor look is much harder to do and for accuracy requires the screen to output at a much higher resolution than a simple scanline effect requires.    And I use scanlines on all my emulators including WinApe.  In my own projects on PC (including my CPC-styled stuff) I include them as an option.  They can be configured and even turned off compeltely.  I'm always annoyed with retro stuff that DOESN'T have them as an option. 

[invent]

Hi invent.  My vote would be for Mode 0 as well.  Something I just noticed in your blog update, in mode 0 you can use 16 of the 27 colours, not all 27.

Hi Axelay, thanks for the error, I have corrected the graphic and blog text
Thanks for everyone's feedback in regarding screen preferences. I will do a bit more research and improve the both designs.