Hi all
The 128k enhanced version of Star Sabre is finally ready and available at:
http://starsabre.bigblog.com.au/index.do (http://starsabre.bigblog.com.au/index.do)
Enjoy! :)
Paul
great ! going dl that :D
Tested it quickly, that was good, now it's great :D
Fantastic stuff!
What has been added to this new version?
I noticed a few things... some ground emplacements are more colourful and varied (or was that my imagination?), some larger enemy craft, the pickups for points, and of course the excellent music.
Have the power-ups been expanded on?
I can't believe how much stuff you've managed to get moving so smoothly and quickly on the cpc's screen. Very very impressive indeed.
[EDIT] Oh! And the new menu and instruction screens are lovely as well!
Nice work..
Star Sabre even better and with ingame tune!
/Ygdrazil
Yaaaaay downloading right away :) Feel free to add it to the homepage!
Cool Musics! Also nice sprites added!
Play Star Sabre 128k here (http://cpc-live.com/javacpc.php?system=CPC6128&disc=star128.zip&title=Star%20Sabre%20128k%20version&boot=sabre&full=true)
A really great CPC game!
Does anyone knows about cheats in this game?
Quote from: Gryzor on 17:08, 06 March 09
Yaaaaay downloading right away :) Feel free to add it to the homepage!
OK, hopefully I managed that without breaking anything! I guess that would have been the place to put the announcement in the first place? Just didnt think of that. ::)
@ervin : Not imagining things - there are 2 new types of ground emplacement on stage 1. The original was recoloured & redesigned to match one of the new ones, and take advantage of the fact I could now give it some basic 'animation'. (that it glows when firing)
Hello mate, you did break something but it's not your fault, the WYSIWYG editor has a little bug. Don't worry, I'll fix it easily.
The music is spiffy, can we have it in a downloadable format, maybe mp3 files?
A great game, indeed!
Congratulations, Axelay! Keep up the good work!
Well done chap,
I've only just downloaded this, but had a quick go through the Java link provided... looking good thus far, expect a full review soon ;)
Indeed very good. The only real 'criticism' I have myself is that you can only shoot very slowly, thus making it more difficult and awkward. If there was a speed-fire, autofire or if it merely allowed you to shoot faster it'd feel much better.
This is based on my emulated experience, I've yet to load my tape!
Quote from: Gryzor on 18:05, 09 March 09
Indeed very good. The only real 'criticism' I have myself is that you can only shoot very slowly, thus making it more difficult and awkward. If there was a speed-fire, autofire or if it merely allowed you to shoot faster it'd feel much better.
For our grandpa of this forum:
I coded quickly an "autofire" function with speed control into JavaCPC.
Follow this (http://cpc-live.com/javacpc.php?system=CPC6128&disc=star128.zip&title=Star%20Sabre%20128k%20version&boot=sabre&full=true&menu=true&options=true) link to try.
How to use?
- wait until the game loaded
- slide the "Autofire" slider to upper area (about 3-4 ticks before upper end) (look @ attached picture)
- use the Applet-menu in the right upper corner of your monitor and enable Autofire: Settings -> Joystick -> Autofire
Now you can move your ship using right numberpad keys or choose "Q,A,O,P... Joystick control"
Have fun ;D
Man you work fast... :D I will try it!!! How about disabling collision detection too? :)
Hello,
I have played with the new release of Star Sabre, this is now a really great game ! Thanks to the music and the gameplay adds, it has now a real "personnality" and is really impressive. It's a long time since I have played a cpc game with the motivation to go to its end (level 3 now without cheating).
As I am a french guy, I have of course some (little) complains :
- on a CPC Plus, some split rasters are not well synchronized (screen calculating your score at the end of a level). The grey color of the texts should be displayed one NOP before. The problem is the same with the "Alert Message" before meeting a boss.
- AZERTY French keyboard is not detected :-(.
And to end this list, the bigger problem. The end of the game comes too fast : a nice big explosion of the vessel would be nice before the screen Game Over.
Anyway, I think this piece of code is maybe the best shooter for CPC :-). Congratulations for this work !
T&J/GPA
Dunno about best shooter ( /me can't get over R-Type) but it certainly is very, very nice, and that's why I bought the tape...
Quote from: Gryzor on 18:05, 09 March 09
Indeed very good. The only real 'criticism' I have myself is that you can only shoot very slowly, thus making it more difficult and awkward. If there was a speed-fire, autofire or if it merely allowed you to shoot faster it'd feel much better.
Hmm, I guess my feeling is that an autofire would have unbalanced the game, making it too easy. There is an autofire pick up, but it's the last one in the game because it wasnt quite appropriate!
Quote from: TomEtJerry on 20:00, 10 March 09
Hello,
I have played with the new release of Star Sabre, this is now a really great game ! Thanks to the music and the gameplay adds, it has now a real "personnality" and is really impressive. It's a long time since I have played a cpc game with the motivation to go to its end (level 3 now without cheating).
As I am a french guy, I have of course some (little) complains :
- on a CPC Plus, some split rasters are not well synchronized (screen calculating your score at the end of a level). The grey color of the texts should be displayed one NOP before. The problem is the same with the "Alert Message" before meeting a boss.
- AZERTY French keyboard is not detected :-(.
And to end this list, the bigger problem. The end of the game comes too fast : a nice big explosion of the vessel would be nice before the screen Game Over.
Anyway, I think this piece of code is maybe the best shooter for CPC :-). Congratulations for this work !
T&J/GPA
Glad you're enjoying the game! In fact, thanks everyone for the feedback. After spending the time I have on developing it, it's kinda nice to know I'm not the only one playing it!
On the points you raise though:
Rasters on plus: Interesting, and unfortunate. They appear fine in Winape, and sadly I have no plus. Is there not also issues with the colour splits on the high score table though? If I've written code that works differently on a real plus to Winape for some reason, I'd have expected that all those splits would be off as well.
AZERTY: I forgot about there being different keyboards. Sorry :-[ I'll remember for next time. Whenever that is.
Game Over: Is a bit more abrupt than it should be. It was pretty low on my list of things I wanted to improve, unfortunately.
Quote from: Axelay on 14:29, 11 March 09
Hmm, I guess my feeling is that an autofire would have unbalanced the game, making it too easy. There is an autofire pick up, but it's the last one in the game because it wasnt quite appropriate!
Well, maybe not autofire, but at least have more bullets on screen. I keep pressing fire and only one comes out every several presses :)
Finished Star Sabre 128K last night... I was amazed to find an extra level, bigger bosses and an under water rocky labyrinth level. The end sequence is superb, much better than the 464 version. You really went the distance here, I thank you for the time and effort.
Gryzor, you can collect an upgrade that allows you to fire at rapid speed by just holding down the fire button, and later on you get rockets and bombs that fire alongside your three way laser.
Amazing game for the CPC, with quite a complex scoring system.
Quote from: Axelay on 14:29, 11 March 09
Rasters on plus: Interesting, and unfortunate. They appear fine in Winape
Quote from: winape whats-new.rtfKnown Issues
- Changes to ASIC registers through the Gate Array occur approximately 6 pixels too early. On the real CPC Plus, changes to the palette using the GA (i.e. OUT instruction) occur 6 pixels after the register is written (approximately 0.375us). Exact emulation of this has not been done since no CPC software currently requires this degree of accuracy, and emulation would probably result in a significant degradation of performance.
There is one now lol
Hello,
There are some other games that use split-rasters. I have faced this "problem" in the introduction screens of two of my games ("Citadelle" and "Le Crime du Parking", french text adventures, so nobody know them :-) ), but as I have all models of CPC (except 664), the programs detect what kind of cpc is used and modify the rasters timing in consequence.
T&J/GPA
I don't mind doing a 'fix' for the plus, but I'm not sure exactly how far out Winape is supposed to be. 6 pixels at what resolution? Relative to an original cpc, or to where winape currently does the GA plus colour changes, which is already 1 nop later than the other CRTCs?
Quote from: Axelay on 12:45, 13 March 09
6 pixels at what resolution? Relative to an original cpc, or to where winape currently does the GA plus colour changes, which is already 1 nop later than the other CRTCs?
This is just from memory, but I think it's 6 pixels at MODE 1 resolution relative to a normal CPC, and WinAPE does the change 8 pixels (1 NOP) later, so it's only 2 pixels out.
Quote from: Executioner on 23:12, 15 March 09
This is just from memory, but I think it's 6 pixels at MODE 1 resolution relative to a normal CPC, and WinAPE does the change 8 pixels (1 NOP) later, so it's only 2 pixels out.
Thanks for clarifying that. Though that should mean a real plus would make a colour change somewhere between where Winape says it will, and where winape says an original CPC would, so the splits I did in sabre shouldnt be an issue as I allowed 1 nop leeway with the colour splits to allow for the both of them. Could some pluses be behaving differently? Perhaps the colour splits are occuring 1 nop later on all CPCs to where I expect them, and I'm just not seeing it on my 6128 because I already had the original CPCs split on the left of my 1 nop gap. I'll have to try to do another test on the 6128.
WOW! This game really needed some music. Glad the 128K version has been released. Superb scrolling and gameplay now made better with bigger sprites and a thumping soundtrack!
Well Done!
This is the must have game for any CPC owner! 8)
I would also like to express my enthusiasm for both versions. The 128k is really lifting the game up to a higher level. Friends tell me that it doesn't look like a CPC game at all, and I agree. Very impressive coding there, great music and graphics. Definitely the best space shooter on the CPC.
I can also report that the 128k version runs nicely on a CPC464 with a 64k RAM expansion from dk'tronics.
Quote from: mr_lou on 06:32, 15 April 09
I can also report that the 128k version runs nicely on a CPC464 with a 64k RAM expansion from dk'tronics.
That is good to know, as I couldn't test that myself. Also means the extra time I put into trying to get the catalog to work on a 464 wasn't in vain! :)
Well i ordered Star Sabre on cassette and just got a MP-1 today so finally been able to fire it up on the big LCD TV and am really impressed.
Very smooth scrolling, quite tough and looks lovely. Shame there isnt a thumping soundtrack to it!
Which you get with the 128k one it seems!! Ooo I like the additions to the 128k one. Really very well done mate
Quote from: khisanth on 13:47, 06 June 09
Very smooth scrolling, quite tough and looks lovely. Shame there isnt a thumping soundtrack to it!
Which you get with the 128k one it seems!! Ooo I like the additions to the 128k one. Really very well done mate
Yeah, wish we could buy it on a 3" disk... wouldn't it be sweet?
I've copied it to 3" disk, and made my own cover... anyone interested??? A bit cheeky I know, but what's a bloke to do, I've pleaded with them to sell it to me on 3" disk, even said I'd provide the bloody disk.
Cover? Cover for what? For a 3" jewel case? :)
Quote from: Gryzor on 17:38, 15 June 09
Cover? Cover for what? For a 3" jewel case? :)
Yep... technically unofficial, but I love this game so much, I wanted a proper cover for it. In fact, I can't wait for new shoot-em-ups for the CPC, I'm a shoot-em-up nutter.