Games that made use of the Plus range capabilites non cartridge

[dcdrac]

Games that made use of the Plus range capabilities non cartridge
I know there was Stryker in the Pits of Trogan but other than that what other non cartridge games came out that used the Plus range extra capabilities.

[TFM]

 - Space Gun 1992
- Burger Party 1995
- Fifa World Cup Soccer 2006
- Frogger 2007

[dcdrac]

Thank you all downloaded :-)

[McKlain]

I also remember


Fluff (1994)
Prehistorik 2 (1993)

[Puresox]

I am really impressed of the capabilities of the machine , just had a look at that Burger Party game  which as a game is not much to write home about , but the look and techniques in it are really impressive . It is such a shame that the plus machines didn't come out sooner , some great games could have been developed for it.

[dcdrac]

Amstrad missed a trick with te Plus machines maybe one year earlier might have done it that and looser control over the publishing process

[TotO]

Games that made use of the Plus range capabilities non cartridge
I know there was Stryker in the Pits of Trogan but other than that what other non cartridge games came out that used the Plus range extra capabilities.

Rick Dangerous 128+ - CPCWiki

[Devilmarkus]

D.Day (Loriciels) also took advance of the plus palette at least.


http://cpc.devilmarkus.de/plus.php?title=dday

[attachurl=2]

L'Aigle D'or - Le Retour, too:


http://cpc.devilmarkus.de/plus.php?title=laigle

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[attachurl=3]

[dcdrac]

thank you all downloaded and when the new cable turns up will connect up the HXC and let it rip

[TFM]

... It is such a shame that the plus machines didn't come out sooner , some great games could have been developed for it.

It's still time for that...

[Puresox]

I can only hope!

[dcdrac]

I can just imagine a new plus game, a redoof Savage maybe or Elite or Iron Lord imagine that in a plus version it was good enough before, and Defender of the Crown

[arnoldemu]

It's still time for that...

Plus version of Cyberhuhn???

[dcdrac]

Imagine Starstrike 2 or Starglider redone as Plus game.
All the Freescape games Driller et al

Maybe Space Flight Game

[TFM]

Hmmm.... I didn't even think about it! But the idea is not bad. May be worth being considered

Actually I thought more about a new game dedicated to the Plus - specifically using its new Features. IMHO it makes no sense to bring out Plus vesions of games running perfectly on CPC oG (old Generation) like Savage, Trantor or so on.
For a good game its IMHO needed as a first step to check out what the Hardware can do for you, then you create your Software around it and make perfect use of it.[nb]Which more or less excludes conversions and favours original new games.[/nb]

Imagine Starstrike 2 or Starglider redone as Plus game.
All the Freescape games Driller et al

That's exactly my Point!!! The Plus can not do better in Vector graphics. Both games would be absolutely the same on the Plus - maybe with different Colors. But for this games you can't use the Plus soft-Scrolling or the Sprites or or or....      Soooooooooooo, sorry, a Plus Version wouldn't be a gain at all.

[dcdrac]

The idea is because there are fewer games for the Plus and even fewer that pushed it

[TFM]

The idea is because there are fewer games for the Plus and even fewer that pushed it

What would make sense to be converted to a Plus?[nb]Means: What uses Sprites, Scrolling and maybe a Screen split?[/nb]
- Giana Sisters
- Mario Brothers
- Gryzor
- Street Fighter
All games like this: Using Scrolling, using sprites - but few. That are eligle candidates

[GOB]

Adapting some old games on cpc+ will be a good think...
On Amstrad forum we speak and work on an adaptation of Hero quest.
See this screenshot:



The work is hard because we don't have the original source (i don't know if it's the correct word in english...) of the game...
Originaly it's a fucking spectrum game on old cpc with mode 1 monochrome palette...
We try to adapt it with mode 0 - 16 color with CPC+ palette.
Hard work but we hope to finish it...
Difficult because there is a few automodification in the code and i have to replace all sprites routine...


So, some games will be great with better graphics/sound/hard sprites

[Trebmint]

Its actually rather hard to find existing games that fit with the + as the number of sprites is so limited. If only they'd allowed you to set the memory start address of a sprite hmmm. I do seem to recall Cliff telling me they had planned to do that, and that the top nibble of sprite data was to be an alpha channel.... oh if that had happened the plus would have been a truely awesome beast

[arnoldemu]

Its actually rather hard to find existing games that fit with the + as the number of sprites is so limited. If only they'd allowed you to set the memory start address of a sprite hmmm. I do seem to recall Cliff telling me they had planned to do that, and that the top nibble of sprite data was to be an alpha channel.... oh if that had happened the plus would have been a truely awesome beast

Did he mention anything about there being 64 sprites, perhaps 256 colours per sprite or anything else?

Come on tease us with more "what could have been".

[Trebmint]

Actually I think my memory must have been at fault, as I was under the idea that the alpha channel was placed on the upper nibble of the sprite data. Having looked at the docs again Im sure that was me either getting the wrong end of the stick or forgetting. Was a phone call 15/16 years ago and my memory sucks
There's 3 spare bytes in each sprite header, which Im fairly sure was to be allocated initially to be a 2 byte memory pointer to the start of sprite data, and 1 byte which was 3/4 bits alpha, and 1 bit foreground or background display. I assume the background would just be ink 0??? certainly there's no data table allocated for anything different.
I think the maximum number of sprites was 32, but I guess for cost and lack of gates that was never done.
As for 256 colours, I dont think that was ever the plan, but I guess its a possibility given the top 4 bits of sprite data isnt used, plus there is room to add palette 17-255 in the memory address.
At a guess I think they were leaving spaces for future proofing so the Plus 2 could keep backward compatability but have 32 multiplexed sprites with 256 colours (which would have been utterly awesome)
Does anyone know what happened to Cliff Lawson??

[arnoldemu]

Actually I think my memory must have been at fault, as I was under the idea that the alpha channel was placed on the upper nibble of the sprite data. Having looked at the docs again Im sure that was me either getting the wrong end of the stick or forgetting. Was a phone call 15/16 years ago and my memory sucks
There's 3 spare bytes in each sprite header, which Im fairly sure was to be allocated initially to be a 2 byte memory pointer to the start of sprite data, and 1 byte which was 3/4 bits alpha, and 1 bit foreground or background display. I assume the background would just be ink 0??? certainly there's no data table allocated for anything different.
I think the maximum number of sprites was 32, but I guess for cost and lack of gates that was never done.
As for 256 colours, I dont think that was ever the plan, but I guess its a possibility given the top 4 bits of sprite data isnt used, plus there is room to add palette 17-255 in the memory address.
At a guess I think they were leaving spaces for future proofing so the Plus 2 could keep backward compatability but have 32 multiplexed sprites with 256 colours (which would have been utterly awesome)

Cool. Yes I understand it's from memory.

Does anyone know what happened to Cliff Lawson??

http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&p=949503

He is frequently on the AVR Freaks forum (AVR microcontroller).

And within the post is a picture of him.

This is the same Cliff Lawson from Amstrad.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

"1 bit foreground or background display" - surely that means whether the sprite appears in front of or behind the standard graphical output.

The CPC Plus would have been far better if it had pointer based sprites, especially 32 of them. At least it could show all 16 on the same scan line.

I presume that this early plan would have used an off-ASIC memory for sprites, as the bandwidth sharing with main memory was an issue. That memory bus could have been directly wired to the cartridge slot even. Obviously that increased the pin count of the ASIC and also the cartridge slot beyond a reasonable expectation (additional 4-bit data + 16?-bit address bus), and that memory was shrunk and dragged onto the ASIC itself.

[Trebmint]

Yes as I understand it the sprite would be made to appear behind the background except for ink 0. Im not a hardware guy at all, but I dont really understand how this can be true (due to memory contention issues), but I definately remember it being mentioned.
Also due to memory contention the sprite data would always be held of on the ASIC, but at 32 sprites rather than 16 (Thats an 8k bank of memory). Being to allocate address of the 8k/4k memory the sprite started I guess on the surface might not appear that useful, but given the powerful line interrupts it could have been used very cleverly I reckon IMHO
Im sure there were other features they discussed putting into the ASIC, but I cant remember what

[arnoldemu]

Yes as I understand it the sprite would be made to appear behind the background except for ink 0. Im not a hardware guy at all, but I dont really understand how this can be true (due to memory contention issues), but I definately remember it being mentioned.

I see, currently all sprites are over, so this would allow it to also go under, but show through where ink 0 in the background was used. That would have been quite nice.

Also due to memory contention the sprite data would always be held of on the ASIC, but at 32 sprites rather than 16 (Thats an 8k bank of memory). Being to allocate address of the 8k/4k memory the sprite started I guess on the surface might not appear that useful, but given the powerful line interrupts it could have been used very cleverly I reckon IMHO

I agree it would have been very powerful and useful.

Im sure there were other features they discussed putting into the ASIC, but I cant remember what