Caren and the Tangled Tentacles - C64 adventure appears!

[Neil79]

After the previous announcement for Oliver Lindau's work in progress C64 adventure title of 'Lindwendture', which then became 'Caren and the Tangled Tentacles'. Has now appeared as an early preview at gamescom, playable at the Return magazine booth - hall 10.2 in the retro gaming area. With a team working on the game such as Martin Wendt and Kamil Wolnikowski, this is an adventure set in a Lucas arts style design that is also available to view through the latest teased footage released today.

Indie Retro News: Caren and the Tangled Tentacles - C64 adventure appears at

[MacDeath]

all those greys and brown... feels like pre-colour sepia 70's...



( dawn, C64 still delivers SCUMM while CPC doesn't...  )

[Neil79]

all those greys and brown... feels like pre-colour sepia 70's...



( dawn, C64 still delivers SCUMM while CPC doesn't...  )

I know, much rage 

[TFM]

Never thought that I will ever say, but... this looks like a really decent game! However, there is not a single tentacle. Maybe the 21+ version is not at youtube?

[MacDeath]

this name made me think about this... thing...

AMV - Magical girls : Creamy Emi Susy Vanessa ensemble - vidéo dailymotion

yumi-chan and the tangling tentacles...


they raped my childhood... again...

[andycadley]

I can't really see any reason you couldn't do something like this on the CPC. It'd be interesting to see what the limitations of the underlying engine are, I've seen this kind of thing come up on the WoS forums before but it always ends up with people trying to recreate Monkey Island and also focusing far too much on the graphics and not enough on what limitations are workable.

The few other pages I've seen mention it's using sprite masking to do foreground objects, but it's clear there is a bit more to it than that as in places there are objects that you can walk both behind and in front of. I'm assuming there must be a few "layers" that the player sprite can be in. It doesn't seem to be scaling the sprites at all, which would certainly make life easier.

[Targhan]

Nice stuff, however the interface seems a bit strange to me... Is it fun to use?


SCUMM has first been created on and for C64, so there is nothing magic about it. I could release the Orion Prime engine and put a nice acronym on it: would people release games with it?
The problem is not about the tool, but making the game itself!

[TFM]

Exactly!


OP machine rulez!

[STE86]

there is absolutely no fundamental reason that games like this cant be done on the cpc.

In fact it would be much more technically straightforward to do on the cpc than the c64, much like doing a low res ST version.

the major fly in the ointment is the c64 version of this and maniac mansion and zak mackracken all use charset mode to save ram ow it would be constantly loading.
ergo the cpc graphics data would be significantly bigger and that in itself is a problem.
also modern tech on the c64 does allow for big cartridge only games now, that can be plugged into old c64s.
has the amstrad got the same sort of modern tech equivalent? or would it have to me on a sizeable amount of disks?

[||C|-|E||]

Nice stuff, however the interface seems a bit strange to me... Is it fun to use?


SCUMM has first been created on and for C64, so there is nothing magic about it. I could release the Orion Prime engine and put a nice acronym on it: would people release games with it?
The problem is not about the tool, but making the game itself!

If the engine is well documented I would try, that is for sure  If I am doing a text adventure right now is because my skills are not enough for a point and click...

The C64 game looks really great to me by the way... 

[arnoldemu]

there is absolutely no fundamental reason that games like this cant be done on the cpc.

In fact it would be much more technically straightforward to do on the cpc than the c64, much like doing a low res ST version.

the major fly in the ointment is the c64 version of this and maniac mansion and zak mackracken all use charset mode to save ram ow it would be constantly loading.
ergo the cpc graphics data would be significantly bigger and that in itself is a problem.
also modern tech on the c64 does allow for big cartridge only games now, that can be plugged into old c64s.
has the amstrad got the same sort of modern tech equivalent? or would it have to me on a sizeable amount of disks?

Various choices on CPC:

a) many 3" discs (178K per side, 360KB per disc).
b) 800KB 3.5" discs (comparable to ST in terms of disc format)
c) X-MASS installable version (IDE interface)
d) Symiface ide version using BonnyDOS or other Symbiface compatible
e) C4CPC cartridge hardware for Plus/GX4000 (max 512KB ROM) - more comparable to modern c64 carts.
f) Perhaps a MegaFLASH/MegaROM version where data is split into multiple 16KB roms (up to 512KB ROM useable as read only filesystem).

I agree with you, it's definitely possible on CPC, the data could be stored in a kind of charset on cpc and drawn to the screen and coloured (with a slight pause between rooms). I think for this there is quite a bit of programming to be done before art and music should be considered because making the engine would take longest I believe.

I don't have the time to work on a project like this. I am already working on another game.

[andycadley]

there is absolutely no fundamental reason that games like this cant be done on the cpc.

In fact it would be much more technically straightforward to do on the cpc than the c64, much like doing a low res ST version.

the major fly in the ointment is the c64 version of this and maniac mansion and zak mackracken all use charset mode to save ram ow it would be constantly loading.
ergo the cpc graphics data would be significantly bigger and that in itself is a problem.
also modern tech on the c64 does allow for big cartridge only games now, that can be plugged into old c64s.
has the amstrad got the same sort of modern tech equivalent? or would it have to me on a sizeable amount of disks?

The C64 has hardware support for a tiled display, but it's easy enough to replicate in software and it's not like it's using the kind of tricks that scrollers used to get cheap parallax etc. Worrying about storage at such an early stage seems like the wrong thing to do to me, you build the engine and get a feel for what the limits would be within the context of what that requires. Then you either build small enough games to fit or you investigate options for bigger storage. At the end of the day you're as likely to be constrained by the amount of work needed to develop massive game worlds as you are by the capabilities of the machine.

[Joseman]

c) X-MASS installable version (IDE interface)
d) Symiface ide version using BonnyDOS or other Symbiface compatible

Symbiface is 100% compatible with x-mass, step C & D are the same! 

[arnoldemu]

Symbiface is 100% compatible with x-mass, step C & D are the same! 

I didn't know if they used the same I/O ports or not. So this is why I listed them seperately. 

[TFM]

Why to invent the wheel again? We got the 8 bit world's best engine for that already. Just sacrifice some goats and beg Targhan. I mean... it wouldn't be the first time to sacrifice goats for CPC projects. 

Seriously (even if I personally have no time), get in touch with @Targhan ! He may share his engine! And since some of you always tell that they would fund such projects... just give HIM the  money. 

[||C|-|E||]

As I said, I would definitely try to make a game using an engine like that, provided that it is documented and it does not require tons of knowledge to make something that works. If it is PAWs like (in terms of complication) I would be 100% in.

[Neil79]

 

[Joseman]

a Scumm v1 & v2 IDE? anyone for a kickstarter? should we start with something like this?

[Trebmint]

a Scumm v1 & v2 IDE? anyone for a kickstarter? should we start with something like this?

I dont actually think there is a Scumm IDE, so writing one would be hard. There arent actually as many details on the Scumm system as you'd think.
Was discussing Point n Click adventures with Prodatron last night and this is definately something we plan to implement for Symbos at some point in the future. Its just a genre the CPC lacks completely and is very very feasible

[Joseman]

I dont actually think there is a Scumm IDE, so writing one would be hard. There arent actually as many details on the Scumm system as you'd think.
Was discussing Point n Click adventures with Prodatron last night and this is definately something we plan to implement for Symbos at some point in the future. Its just a genre the CPC lacks completely and is very very feasible

Is not how hard would be, it is how much money is necessary to do it...  and once the money is clear, then start a collect to achive it!

Projects of this calibre its clear that nobody will do it for free, unless the project will last 5 or 6 years!

[enthusi]

There is further video footage as well now:

Enjoy 

[MacDeath]

great graphics that clearly suffer from the palette/attributes limitations... for the moment, I guess this is a heavy work in progress demo only and most elements are far from finished. looks very promising and the players character is quite well designed and cute.

a 6128PLUS with big RAM/ROM could clearly show its greatest potential here... even a mundane CPC6128 actually.

[Neil79]

There is further video footage as well now:
Enjoy 

Hate to tell ya but, that's old footage :p

[enthusi]

Yes, this is more recent and I just heard that Ron Gilbert played a round this afternoon at Gamescom 

[MacDeath]

! No longer available

this one then...