CPCWiki forum

(not sure I should put this here, but...)


ANYONE SEEN THIS?


www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G7JjYY6FTk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G7JjYY6FTk#)


This is by Carnivac, btw. The vid's description:



(I think this is actually my first ever Youtube video upload so apologies if it's bad quality :P )


A fangame tribute to one of my fave 80's movies and my childhood 80's computer.


This is an early video from my RoboCop fangame which is made to the graphic specs of the Amstrad CPC (my favourite 8-bit home computer and the one I spent many an hour playing Ocean's classic original RoboCop game from the late 80's). As you can see the basic player movement and shooting is done though level mapping hasn't begun (it's just a scrolling still shot of some of my tiles, while I get the main code working). Enemies aren't probably done yet (just chucked in there sliding at Robo to test bullet and punch collision). Gameplay is mostly that of the original game but with all new graphics and some new gameplay features and a sort of 'story' and references most screen-versions of RoboCop though it's 'canon' is set after the events of RoboCop 2. Happy with the progress so far. It's mainly a simply project for me to get used to using Game Maker: Studio (though I have experience with previous incarnations of the Game Maker software). Anyways yeah.. Yay for 16 colour 'widepixel' 8-bit graphics. :P Ideally would like to be produced on a real Amstrad CPC someday so trying to not get too ambitious with it. Just good ol' fashioned retro violent shooty fun.

I did! Carnivac has been posting snapshots of his work in process for several months and every new screenshot is a treat.

I exchanged some few messages with him and while his priority is to get the Game Maker version ready, he doesn't disagree with getting it ported to the actual CPC hardware as well.

Looks awesome! I hope it gets finished, I'd give my left arm[nb]hm, wait, how would I hold the joystick then?[/nb] to play a reboot of sorts!

Looks great! I like that when he turns around, the gun is in the other hand.

Quote from: Gryzor on 18:28, 08 February 14
Looks awesome! I hope it gets finished, I'd give my left arm[nb]hm, wait, how would I hold the joystick then?[/nb] to play a reboot of sorts!

Suction cups holding it to the table and erm use your nose for the fire button?

For me, this news is "Other Retro" related as it's a PC game.
The same for Barbarian, Bruce Lee II and Outrun remakes.

Yeah, I was debating with myself on this, but seeing as it's directly CPC-related...

Ok, since Gryzor emailed me the other day about this topic (and the friendly chat I had with cngsoft on Deviantart a few weeks ago) I feel I should come say stuff about the game.

1.  it's not simply a clone of the still very fine and playable original CPC game with new graphics.  While the core gameplay is similar (you don't want to deviate too much from the traditional formula of RoboCop walking about shooting and punching bad guys) there's a bit more 'police work' involved with exploring areas and insides of buildings for clues and interrogating some bad guys for information.   Ideally each area with have a simple crime to 'solve' that will fit into the overall story arc.  Also from the early video you can see he's shooting and punching fine but I'm adding other actions too.  At moment I'm coding the grab action where he will grip an enemy by their neck, lifting them up off their feet which you can then interrogate them, throw them, or just punch them halfway across the screen).  Some enemies will need a bit of beating up before they'll share information (this being inspired by Robo's deservedly brutal interrogation of Clarence Boddicker in the first film) .  Also you can go through doors in the background inside certain buildings.  Some will be heavy and locked and need bashing down (with a simple mini-game meter appearing above the door where you have to get  the punch timing right three times), this being inspired by the drug factory raid in the first film where he bangs the door several times before it falls down.  I've already coded the enemies reacting in different ways to it before the door is smashed.  Some get ready to shoot, some panic.  Got some other ideas in mind.  They may not all make it. Might be I code something in, decide it gets a bit in the way or is more of a hassle than fun and I'll remove it. 

2. for gameplay, level loading, graphic and sound reasons I'm making this with floppy disk and 128k in mind with possibly a cut down version for 464.   I thought long and hard about it and just felt the loading speed of disk and the extra memory would be something I'd need for this project to become a reality on a real CPC.

3. As mentioned in the youtube video description I'm setting it shortly after the 2nd movie but with various amounts of elements of the 3rd movie, cartoon, TV series and Prime Directives mini-series.   While they are inferior to Weller's RoboCop movies in many ways there are things about them I like and feel could work in a game of this type.  I'm going to be seeing RebootCop at the cinema next Monday so there may or may not be elements from that in here somewhere... or digs at it if I don't like it. :P

4. At least one ED-209 will be in the game and unlike the version in the original CPC, this will actually look a lot more like how it should and it will walk.  Already experimenting with the size and ideas about memory efficient animation for his big legs. 

5. There will be a fair amount of violence and bad language.   I kind of miss the nice blocky red gore sprites of games such as Barbarian and Death Wish III and felt the original RoboCop game was lacking in that area, especially given the movie's high level of gore.   There will be an option in the menu to switch it to a somewhat humorous and sanitised version which mocks the decrease in violence and swearing that occured after the second movie.  Also mocks the old ITV broadcasts of the first film which had some very funny censoring going on with the language which had swear words either replaced by other words the character said elsewhere in the film, or had the swear word dubbed over by somebody with a different voice (for example, saying 'baloney' or 'nonsense' instead of 'bulls**t').  The blood effects will also be censored in that mode.  I haven't decided yet how.  Either it turns the red to green like SNES Mortal Kombat or maybe just gets replaced with some kinda fairy dust to really just make fun of it all.  I'll see what works best.




Oh yeah and I probably agree with TotO here.  Probably best not to have this in CPC games until there's the beginnings of actual CPC code for it. I can see it might be a bit tricky to classify projects like this that are at the moment PC based though simulating the lovely old CPC style.

It sounds good! Being able to go through doors into rooms/levels behind the current level will add a whole new dimension to the side scrolling beat/shoot em up.

Ooh goody goody goody! Those ideas sound fantastic, thanks for sharing info outside the video...


Ok, moving it to "Other Retro" then!

... a 128K version... a cut down version for 464... and maybe a"DX" version for the future CTC-AY card ?  :P

As he says, this is made-to-spec with the original CPCs in mind. So... I'd say no, the more so with unreleased hardware.

I've no idea what a CTC-AY card is but I'm betting it's very unlikely I'd have any interest in it.  Ideally am just trying to make the most of the specs of the CPC's of the 80's back when they were actually relevant and not the nostalgic hobby machine of today.   Also a nice bonus of having a real CPC version at some point, would mean the game could then run on any computer, phone or console that can load a CPC emulator.  Still been getting some odd comments like I've no right to make a CPC-style game because I cannot code actual CPC stuff.  Does that mean I should just not bother at all?   I'll keep developing 'RoboCop:Prime' and 'Cosmic Prison Commando' (easy enough since they share most of the same code anyways) and then (when FINISHED, unlike that incident a few years ago when C.P.C.'s graphics were being ripped out of the ancient demo...ugh...) I'll release them as 'development packs' to the CPC community which will contain all the graphics, sound, music, images of all the maps, dialog script and other notes so that if a CPC coder is looking for a project with ready-made resources they can have a go at creating the true CPC versions of these games. 

Oh, that'd be a good idea actually... share all the resources, I mean. Awesomeness!

Eddy turned up today. :)


(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/eddy.jpg)

These are the most photo-realistic sprites I've ever seen on a CPC!!!


PS nice figurines... :)

Hehe.  Yeah.   He's gonna make good reference for my ED-209 sprite.  :)

Do you do it by looking at it, or do you digitise it, down-size it and go from there?

By looking.  Downsizing a realistic looking image to the size of these sprites and in a low resolution (particularly a 'wide-pixel' one such as the CPC's Mode 0) and colour reducing down the available colours of the CPC results in such an unreadable mess you have to end up redrawing the whole thing anyways.   I do it all manually pixel by pixel to try make the most of the size and get in just enough details.  Sometimes I have to exaggerate certain parts slightly for resolution or gameplay reasons (for example the RoboCop sprite in my game has slightly unrealistic proportions so that he seems a bit chunkier for a better feel in the game, and his head is a little bigger in proportion to the body than in real life, which I did so it's readable both with and without the helmet).

(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/roboprime01.png)


Just wanted to do a new screenshot that DIDN'T have that frickin' 'VideoShack' store in it. :P    Also this particular shot is showing one of the other types of optional 'monitor effects'.  Can all be adjusted or turned off in game.   And oh look there's one of those heavy doors you can smash down and enter the building.

Just Emulating... :P

Heh, I was about to post something relevant :) If you're using off-the-shelf filters, a curvature/VHS one would be great to have...


But, it's looking majestic! Do you have a twitter account perhaps? Can't get enough of your teasers :)

Quote from: Gryzor on 11:20, 16 February 14
Heh, I was about to post something relevant :) If you're using off-the-shelf filters, a curvature/VHS one would be great to have...

Was that to me or DevilMarkus?   Cos I don't know what 'off-the-shelf filters' actually means. :P   Also any curving would be a bit beyond me.  Simply overlaying a transparent 'scanline/CRT' effect easy, but actually transforming the shape of the screen is a bit more difficult. 

But thanks.  And yeah I have a twitter.  Is same name as here.  :P

Couldn't get much sleep last night but I keep a sketchpad and pencils by side of the bed and I was doodling some concept ideas.  I think I've got the first ED-209 level planned out somewhat.  Should be fun. 


edit: ah, I take it you found the Twitter then.  Both my laptop and phone started making noises from the notifications (the phone doing double as it makes noises for both the email and Twitter ones)  :)

I just imported Carnivac's screenshot into JavaCPC Paint, made an overscan SCR of it, and then I enabled some display effects in JavaCPC ;)

By "off-the-shelf filters" I meant the algorithms that are used in games and emulators the world over; you know, stuff like EAGLE etc (though I wouldn't touch most of them).


Followed :)

Quote from: Gryzor on 18:40, 16 February 14
By "off-the-shelf filters" I meant the algorithms that are used in games and emulators the world over; you know, stuff like EAGLE etc (though I wouldn't touch most of them).


Followed :)

Oh yeah.  Mostly nasty things.  :P

I did look into a curve 'shader' for Game Maker: Studio but it seems to run quite slow on my laptop for some reason.   I also found one that works very fast for changing colours (simulating the indexed palettes of 8 and 16 bit machines) which makes colour switching in levels so much easier and also for fade-to-black and back again using ONLY the colours I defined in the CPC palette code.  Also this means I can have the user tweak the colour settings if they prefer it the way it is on different emulators (meaning that I use 127 as the mid value and I think one uses 109 and such).

Anyways just got back from audition (second one for the same show).  Eating my burger and chips now.  Yum!

Was doing some colour and shading tests with my choice of 16 colours for RoboCop and ended up doing this.

(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/uridium.png)

I liked Uridium on the 8-bits but felt it could look a lot better especially on CPC and I loved Uridium 2 on Amiga so I had a go at spriting the Uridium 2's manta sprite in CPC Mode 0 and did 3 colour schemes.  The original Mode 1 CPC/Spec Manta on the left obviously.   Added some stars to make the background look spacey.

Robocop... in space?


Looks like what it should've been though :)

Well the first game wouldn't have looked like that anyways cos that wasn't the style they had back then but if they'd done a CPC port of Uridium 2 I'd like to think that's how the manta would have looked.  I loved that lil ship on the Amiga.   Small but so perfectly animated and stylish. 

Anyways still coding away on RoboCop:Prime.  Got that colour changing code nearly all done.  At moment it's working too well in that it's changing the status panel colours along with the main game area (not too bad when doing fade to blacks though would prefer that seperate, but when trying to give the game area an intense firey look of reds/oranges to suggest extreme heat, I don't want the status panel changing to those colours too) so trying to think a way to seperate them.  On CPC of course you can just split the screen in the same way you get Mode 0 games with Mode 1 status panels.   I've got some theories on how to modify my code to achieve the same look.  Will put them into practice soon.

Turns out I'd already coded my 'theoretical' solution before I even had the problem.  The solution was part of my pause menu which deactivates all the objects after taking a 'snapshot' as a large sprite it posts in the place to make it look like the game is paused.   

You can see here the game screen is palette shifted to darker colours while the status panel and pause menu are the original palette.   

(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/robotest2.png)

This ain't really important in CPC terms but in simulating the indexed colours of 8 and 16 bit machines via a Game Maker produced game it's pretty important to me. :)

Just doing more tests with the colour shader.  This time applying it multiple times within the same object to check if it slows down anything much.  But it seems to not slow down noticably at all so yay!

Tested it on RoboCop himself since in my engine he's made up of 3 sprites.  Head (which can turn round and also switch to the helmetless Murphy face), torso (for aiming) and legs (for independent walk animation).
(https://31.media.tumblr.com/4ea566fc35ff334a011ae38f82fd36a0/tumblr_inline_n1jqckCm3N1rkb6bs.png)
Head is using the blue palette, torso in red, legs in a green/grey.   (Shown without and with a cheap monitor-style overlay) 
But yeah doesn't he look so FUNKY!  8)

Nice pixels.
I played a bit and did a little mockup.
(I know, it uses 17 colours :( but I changed a few pixels...)

Perhaps changing just 1 colour to dark green would work fine?

Um yeah but you do know I'm not actually using these colour schemes on RoboCop right?   ;)

And yes there's a dark green in the game's main palette but I didn't want it in that particular sub-palette because the grey (or even the light blue) works much better for what I wanted (that green ramp was a homage to the glow in the dark Night Fighter RoboCop figure from the Ultra Police line which NECA also homaged which the glow in the dark plastic is a very pale yellow/green/grey).  The dark green doesn't work for that effect cos it just makes it look 'too green'.   The Night Fighter homage is just meant to be a hidden extra in the PC game.  I may switch the dark brown to dark blue to make it look a bit more 'neon'.

I have another palette scheme which uses the dark green for various enemies and stuff.

Hehe, you know what?  The dark green version you did reminds me of Aquaman.   :laugh:

Here's what I meant (copy pasted from my Tumblr)
Yeah, basically I'm enjoying putting a lot of lil references and easter eggs to things outside of the main movie series too. :)

Ok the first four colour schemes for Robo himself are set. :P


(https://31.media.tumblr.com/b073b9cc7a76c9ca03fec277ffd39eeb/tumblr_inline_n1k3d12NtE1rkb6bs.png)

RoboCop 1, RoboCop 2, Night Fighter and RebootCop (which also makes use of the red visor thing I had already coded in there for the animated series reference).

Ok I should get back to actually coding stuff.  :D

All the schemes look awesome!

Not a huge fan of the grille overlay, but damn it looks sexy...

grille?  It's the closest thing to a CPC CRT monitor I can do at this resolution.  Really not wanting to go into all that scanline stuff again.  Remember it's all optional.

Oh yeah, I know, don't worry :D I just find it a tiny bit... dirty?

Been working on other characters such as the generic enemy and cops (which all share the same palette swapped legs)

Had to increase Robo's head sprite slightly just to match the other characters (his was looking particularly small when not wearing the helmet and standing near the other folks)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/059/6/6/robocop__prime___wip_26th_feb__14_by_carnivius-d784n9s.png)


(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/roboandfriends.png)
Yeah those last two palette swaps are definitely homaging another popular 80's video game.  :P



Still pondering what I can really do with 128k and disc.   Cos the original RoboCop was pretty impressive running off a cassette tape on a 464.   Were the only differences on 128k just the sampled speech of the directives?


EDIT: Just noticed the 'Hall of Shame' link at the bottom that took me to moved comments by TFM. Can he not understand that I simply cannot code CPC games?  It's beyond me.  But why should that stop me paying tribute to my fave 8-bit computer and provide resources such as these that a proper skilled CPC coder can have a go at creating the CPC version with?  Also I certainly couldn't do all this graphic stuff without having to make my own engine of the game to make sure it all looks and feels right and that's what I do with Game Maker:Studio.   Would help the eventful CPC coder to see how I imagine it to work also and they can use this PC version of the game to compare when coding the CPC version.   But who cares?   I'm having fun with this!  :D

Quote from: Carnivac on 20:27, 01 March 14
Been working on other characters such as the generic enemy and cops (which all share the same palette swapped legs)

Had to increase Robo's head sprite slightly just to match the other characters (his was looking particularly small when not wearing the helmet and standing near the other folks)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2014/059/6/6/robocop__prime___wip_26th_feb__14_by_carnivius-d784n9s.png)


(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/roboandfriends.png)
Yeah those last two palette swaps are definitely homaging another popular 80's video game.  :P



Still pondering what I can really do with 128k and disc.   Cos the original RoboCop was pretty impressive running off a cassette tape on a 464.   Were the only differences on 128k just the sampled speech of the directives?


EDIT: Just noticed the 'Hall of Shame' link at the bottom that took me to moved comments by TFM. Can he not understand that I simply cannot code CPC games?  It's beyond me.  But why should that stop me paying tribute to my fave 8-bit computer and provide resources such as these that a proper skilled CPC coder can have a go at creating the CPC version with?  Also I certainly couldn't do all this graphic stuff without having to make my own engine of the game to make sure it all looks and feels right and that's what I do with Game Maker:Studio.   Would help the eventful CPC coder to see how I imagine it to work also and they can use this PC version of the game to compare when coding the CPC version.   But who cares?   I'm having fun with this!  :D

I like that you have chosen to do your graphics in the CPC style. It helps to show what could have been achieved. I also think it is great you think about a CPC version in the future. I also think it is good that you are having a go with game maker. I do hope one day a coder will make it a reality on CPC.

Tfm has the knowledge and ability to make a CPC version if he wanted.

Keep going there is nothing wrong with what you are doing. Equally there is nothing wrong with people who only make mockups. We are all enjoying the CPC.

Some tips that can help to make it more CPC friendly which may help others.

1. If using mode 0 style graphics ensure the width is divisible by two.
2. If you are making a map with tiles try to use less than 256 unique tiles.
3. If the intention is to use hardware scrolling make tiles day multiple of 4 pixels in width and 8 pixels in height. These are the effective minimum scroll size and makes CPC coding more simple. The unique tiles keeps coding and size more manageable.
4. If using hardware scroll try to keep scroll area keep within 1024 range. This means Something like 8 screens wide. Does depend on width and height of scroll area, it also means sprites can be faster to draw.
5. 128k may seem a lot but if the design is graphics heavy it will fill up fast. Allow for sprites to be flipped horizontally in code, consider reusing bits like legs. Also you may need to reduce screen size and multi load. Consider less enemies and reuse lots in gameplay.

All of these considerations will help to ensure your vision and design do not need to be reduced when a CPC version is done.

Quote from: arnoldemu on 16:33, 02 March 14
Some tips that can help to make it more CPC friendly which may help others.

1. If using mode 0 style graphics ensure the width is divisible by two.
2. If you are making a map with tiles try to use less than 256 unique tiles.
3. If the intention is to use hardware scrolling make tiles a multiple of 4 pixels in width and 8 pixels in height. These are the effective minimum scroll size and makes CPC coding more simple. The unique tiles keeps coding and size more manageable.
4. If using hardware scroll try to keep scroll area keep within 1024 range. This means Something like 8 screens wide. Does depend on width and height of scroll area, it also means sprites can be faster to draw.
5. 128k may seem a lot but if the design is graphics heavy it will fill up fast. Allow for sprites to be flipped horizontally in code, consider reusing bits like legs. Also you may need to reduce screen size and multi load. Consider less enemies and reuse lots in gameplay.

All of these considerations will help to ensure your vision and design do not need to be reduced when a CPC version is done.

Quote from: arnoldemu on 16:33, 02 March 14
1. If using mode 0 style graphics ensure the width is divisible by two.

The sprites as loaded into Game Maker all divisible by 2 as that's how I work (usually in divisions of 4 or 8 such as 8, 16, 32 and such because that's how the video cards worked best particularly on older versions of Game Maker, odd numbered widths on sprites often led to some nasty graphical glitches and other side effects)

Quote
2. If you are making a map with tiles try to use less than 256 unique tiles.
3. If the intention is to use hardware scrolling make tiles day multiple of 4 pixels in width and 8 pixels in height. These are the effective minimum scroll size and makes CPC coding more simple. The unique tiles keeps coding and size more manageable.

The tiles have been 4x8 from the beginning as it meant I wouldn't need too many variations of them as the smaller size meant more unique combinations were possible without needing specific variant tiles.  At moment the number of unique map tiles is about 96 and most have been designed to be quite flexible and used in all sorts of places.  I'm pretty good at tile optimization and design.   Oh and there's about 16 that make up the various menu stuff and status panel parts such as the tubes and boxes.

Quote
4. If using hardware scroll try to keep scroll area keep within 1024 range. This means Something like 8 screens wide. Does depend on width and height of scroll area, it also means sprites can be faster to draw.

Haven't built a proper level yet (just test rooms while I code various pieces) but I was planning to do this anyways and break up the level into smaller pieces (like to go onto the next piece you go through a door)

Quote
5. 128k may seem a lot but if the design is graphics heavy it will fill up fast. Allow for sprites to be flipped horizontally in code, consider reusing bits like legs. Also you may need to reduce screen size and multi load. Consider less enemies and reuse lots in gameplay.

Yep.  Already done this (and that's how it works in this PC version with the sprite flipping).  The legs of the human characters are all shared and palette swapped (which I asked cngsoft on if it were easily doable).  All their parts (head, torso, legs) are horizontally flipped for directions.  Only RoboCop himself has seperate left and right torso sprites (so his gun will always appear in his right hand), his legs and head sprites are flipped.   Even ED-209 is being designed as multiple pieces so that the torso and legs are seperate sprites and the legs will animate independently.   Multi-load was a reason I thought this might be best for disk though I will try to compact all I can anyways.  Screen size is only slightly bigger than the original CPC RoboCop and that scrolled nicely in all directions though I'm not sure I will even need multi-directional scrolling yet depending on how I design the levels.

Quote
All of these considerations will help to ensure your vision and design do not need to be reduced when a CPC version is done.

Yep.  I think I'm being fairly 'smart' with these things but I'm also making note of what isn't absolutely necessary too which is fine for this version or even the 128k CPC version but might be just wasteful if then trying to make a 64k version.  There's some extras that will only probably only be in this PC version for my own amusement though the CPC coder can still attempt to fit it in the CPC version if they want to give it a go.  I'm not saying that anything is off-limits. 

Also if you notice there's a magenta of value (255,0,127) in that skyline.  This colour is not visible on any sprites because on them it's their background colour and what is used for their transparency (I think you'd call it masking on CPC?) .  That was a tip I got from Axelay some time ago.  So yep I'm keeping various things in mind while I design this.  :)

EDIT:
Sample of what I mean with the sprites
Here are RoboCop's legs at this current stage of development.  A series of 16x24 sprites that include the 8 frame walk cycle then standing, crouching, and front and back views of standing.    This is in the normal 1x1 pixel resolution (which I then stretch in Game Maker in real time to look like Mode 0's wide-pixels).  All of these (except the front and back view legs) get flipped horizontally when he turns around. 
(http://carnivac.co.uk/temp/robolegx.png)

I'm also spriting his gun-holster which will be a small sprite that overlays over the thigh section of the standing leg sprite so won't take up much space or memory and is obviously only shown when he actually needs to get his gun or put it away.

Great with all that :)

(https://31.media.tumblr.com/e0136c2882b90ecb515aab9544101d00/tumblr_inline_n1xo2xReJP1rkb6bs.png)

Started doing ideas for interior parts of the levels and came up with the beginnings of a bar.  Thing is this shot uses only 6 new 4x8 tiles (two in the floor, and 2 each for bottles) in addition to what was already in the exterior city tileset.  For example the exterior's wooden fence tiles repurposed here for wall panelling and the bar itself.  Tile recycling is a nice way to get more out of the low amount of memory of a real CPC.

Obviously I will add some more tiles (but not too many) and details but this is just an example.

Thanks to a day of picking up help and tips from Token, mr_lou and Devilmarkus I have managed to combine it all into being able to view my CPC-style graphics on my actual real CPC 464 for the first time and man it's put a big grin on my face.  Like this lil smiley  ;D

It confirms to me that my colour usage is working correctly and looks cool on my real CPC monitor.  Now if someday the actual game could be running and looking like that I'll be very happy but one step at a time, eh?   :)
(http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2014/068/a/e/robocop_prime_screen_on_real_cpc_by_carnivius-d79iv0d.jpg)

That's really awesome!
We really need your game for our beloved CPCs!!!!!

(Who agrees with me?)

Dunno why there's a weird dark to light curve about 2 thirds down but hey that's probably something to do with trying to take photos of CRT monitor displays.   Also the photo doesn't quite show the colours accurately.  The pale yellow and fleshy pink of the skintones looks almost like one colour there but on the real CPC screen every single colour looks perfect.

Olala! Excellent  8) 8) 8)
I'm also glad you use that 464 for real!


Devilmarkus +1 ;)

Quote from: Carnivac on 17:51, 09 March 14
Dunno why there's a weird dark to light curve about 2 thirds down but hey that's probably something to do with trying to take photos of CRT monitor displays.

It's because the CTM only has 50hz. Most photos are taken much faster and also a photo is not often synchronized to the screen.

The darker area is, because the CRT beam already passed this section and already redraws the next half screen.

You still can see the darker area, because the phosphor inside the CRT glows a bit after.

Please do share a file with the screenshot! :)


And, guys, really there's no reason in asking for it to be ported to the CPC, Carnivac has stated his intentions again and again...

Quote from: Gryzor on 18:50, 09 March 14
Please do share a file with the screenshot! :)

File?  Do you mean the CDT? 

Quote
And, guys, really there's no reason in asking for it to be ported to the CPC, Carnivac has stated his intentions again and again...

It's ok.  Nice to know there's support for it even if I won't be the guy who actually will build the CPC code.  I want to see it happen on a real CPC sometime, moreso now I've seen how it actually looks on the actual CPC monitor. 

Quote from: Gryzor on 18:50, 09 March 14
And, guys, really there's no reason in asking for it to be ported to the CPC, Carnivac has stated his intentions again and again...

I ask... Again and again and again ;) :P

Just got the original RoboCop working on my 464 using Tapdancer and my mobile phone and that cassette adaptor.   Nice to play it on a real 464 and see what it actually manages to do. 
Managed to get to the end of level 2 and the last biker killed me, the git.   It's been about twenty years since I played this on a real 464.  Surprisingly I never owned despite my love for the movie.  I borrowed the game off a friend at school enough times.  Just don't get how I didn't have my own one.

But yeah noticing that it's got quite a fair amount of stuff loaded in one go.  Quite a lot of tiles, various characters (with smoothly animated walk cycles for the legs), the motorcycles, the large sprites of the hostage and her captor in that first person bit at the end of level 1, and unusually for the 464 two great pieces of music (the title theme and the main game theme are there).  I didn't finish level 2 so don't know if the photofit thing is part of this load or the next part of the multi-load but overall I'm quite impressed by what they are cramming into the 64k.  So nice to have music to blast the bad guys to.

I just read the review of the original game on CPC GAME REVIEWS - R (http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/r/index7.html)

The reviewer seems to like the game a lot (to get a perfect 10... I'd probably go for an 8 or 9 cos nothing's perfect heh) but what I find interesting is that he enjoyed it that much without having seen the movie apparently (and mistakes the Senior President of OCP Dick Jones as a 'criminal' and the chairman of OCP, usually referred to as 'The Old Man', as the 'President of the United States' though to be fair the game doesn't explain that much and calls the chairman the 'president' on the end screen.  So the characters true identities are only really clear to the player if he's seen the film).   So he found it fun to play as RoboCop when he hadn't seen the film so didn't have that somewhat gamer-forgiveness where some lesser license-based games get by on the 'thrill' of playing as the character you enjoyed in whatever movie or tv show or comic they're from.   It just gave me a new viewpoint when developing this game.   To make sure this game is enjoyable even if you know nothing about the characters.   Of course those who have seen the films will get more out of it and understand a lot more of the backstory and references (and those who are familiar with other media of RoboCop will likely notice even more of those) but I need to make sure it's hugely fun to play without all that too.

Am pondering...


By the way don't my RoboCop figures look lovely in the 'new' cabinet I bought from a charity shop last week?  yay for glass doors to keep dust and potential pets out of and the inside lighting makes them shine nicely (especially the 15 inch metallic Robo at the front there)   8)

(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/066/7/c/robocop_figures_in__new__cabinet_by_carnivius-d7990gv.jpg)

this game is clearly going to be a total piece of shit...

i need a break from it.  from everything really.  pointless crap.

Oh, you really do take your Robocop collecting serious! Some great models there!

I'm just terrified that Jonas will come back with a photo of his My Little Pony Collection now!!

Bryce.

Quote from: Carnivac on 21:40, 10 March 14
this game is clearly going to be a total piece of !@#$%^&*...

i need a break from it.  from everything really.  pointless crap.

What's up Carnivac?
Are things ok?

Your work on this so far is stunning.
What's happened?

Quote from: Carnivac on 18:06, 10 March 14
I just read the review of the original game on CPC GAME REVIEWS - R (http://www.cpcgamereviews.com/r/index7.html)

I wrote that review. :-[ It was probably one of the first reviews I wrote for the site! I have no idea where I got the impression that the last level involved saving the US President! :laugh: I have to admit that I have still not seen the film (I'm just not interested in films in general).

Oh, well, it looks like another of my reviews will need to be modified slightly (along with Cybernoid) - but I still think it's one of the best CPC games ever and the 10/10 rating will remain! ;)

Sorry, had a bit of a meltdown.  I think some people know I've had longterm health issues (more mental than physical these days) and things were just getting real on top of me.  I haven't slept much lately either and there's other things going on.  Sorry for the outburst.  I'm gonna back away for a bit but I'll still be working on RoboCop and Cosmic Prison Commando (despite the fact I feel like my own game tastes are partially opposite to everyone else's these days.   Very few recent highly reviewed games have appealed to me yet I've found a lot of enjoyment in some of the lesser reviewed games)  and come in here when I need tech help or any other kind of advice and support relating to CPC stuff.  Thank you.

Got a bit bored with the gritty, dirty urban decay street tiles so had at go at the sleek and clean OCP building interior tiles.   Think they look alright so far.  Even the fern is tilable for a bit of variety.

Have centered the dialogue bit cos I think it looks better that way and I already had a center text script in there anyways I can just assign text that counts the string length and works out the center x positions.

(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/073/1/3/robocop__prime___wip_13th_mar__14_by_carnivius-d7a0xaq.png)

Wow! Looks awesome! I really like the OCP logos on the wall and the nice colors.

Thanks.  There's some bits I'm not sure on but (apart from the few tiles that were already present in the city street) most of these are first-gos and I usually tweak the hell out of things as time goes on and I figure out other ways of making things fit together.  For the most part though I'm happy with how it's turned out so far.  It's got the shiny, expensive feel that OCP's corridors should have yet using the same exact palette the grimey riot-stricken streets have too.

Hm the image isn't showing up for me anymore.  Not sure if my webspace is down or if my connection is being wonky again. Oh well I'm sure it'll fix itself at some point.

Damn that is some seriously beautiful pixelling right there!
Amazing stuff.

I couldn't pixel my way out of a paper bag!
It amazes me that images like that can be constructed with coloured dots, one-at-a-time!

Thanks.  Am just trying to show that the original non-Plus CPC palette is really quite flexible and lovely and distinctive.  Someone has asked me if I'd do a C64 version... not bloody likely.  The murky palette aside, the colours-per-sprite and blocks and stuff is what really kills the C64 graphics for me.    And my two CPC projects are just designed to look as CPC as they can and cannot be mistaken for Spectrum or C64 ports. 


Thanks again to Devilmarkus for the instructions on making a SCR image and putting it on a CDT file so I could load it through TapDancer into my real CPC.   It's awesome being able to check my CPC-style graphics on the true hardware and especially because it's my actual 30 year old childhood computer that these images are being viewed on.   Makes me smile plenty. :)

Wow, lots of new posts since I last visited. Looking great as always, you can almost taste it :)


-Serve the Public Trust
-Protect the Innocent
-Uphold the Law
-Feed the Kitten


;)

Thanks.  Been experimenting today with some more ideas for exterior tiles.  The shop titles were something that bothered me as there's just not enough memory for every shop to have it's own distinctive logo but after looking up other games with 80's street settings I've noticed some like the Master System version of Streets of Rage end up using the game's standard font and then just has tiled borders around the words to make each shop look a bit more unique.   Ok it means they all share the same typeface for their shop name but that's still preferable than having a bunch of anonymous shops.  The names add a bit more character to a location and give some idea of what kinda places they are.   Plus I can chuck in some cheeky references in the shop names. 

At moment am trying to design an arcade area inspired by the rather Data East sponsored arcade seen in RoboCop 2 where Robo beats up the corrupt Officer Duffy while repeatedly demaning 'Where is Cain?" (man, I love Weller's voice).  Lots of dark blue and neon lights and many arcade cabinets tiling all over the place.  Trying to design an arcade cabinet where the tiles that make up the monitor can be re-used as normal TV's elsewhere.    The tall lights by the office door in that OCP interior screenshot look good in this arcade as do the windows from that door being used as just windows.   yay for memory-efficient tile-recycling!

Decided that the TV's will be able to have a sprite overlayed on their screen.  A simple 8x12 sprite.  I have designed a few that are relevant to the film and locations where the TV's will be used. 

Thinking about it, TV's are pretty important in the first film.  The Media Break segments, the commercials, the "I'd buy that for a dollar!" show, the monitors RoboCop's technicians have that his memories of his murder show up on, the computer screen he uses to check police records and Dick Jones' video shown in Morton's apartment and the confession in the boardroom scene in the finale all to come to mind.

Damn. Wife is away on a business trip and this thread made me wanna watch the films again, but it's too late now. Next time!

Managed to put together a decent looking recovery room for RoboCop using mostly tiles recycled from elsewhere in the game (such as the exterior set's chain-link fences, the OCP corridors walls/elevator, and even the top of the exective office door is being used as just windows, the new TV/VCR comes from the exterior shops and the TV is also the cabinet monitor in the arcade level).  The only all-new elements are the floor tiles, Robo in sitting position, his chair and Dr Marie Lazarus, the techy from RoboCop 3 (and who is in a skirt here because her leg sprites will be shared by the prostitutes... *ahem*)

Bonus points if you can tell what's on the screen of the left TV.


(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/078/7/f/robocop__prime_wip_18th_mar__14_by_carnivius-d7apxjz.png)

Quote from: Carnivac on 22:34, 18 March 14
Bonus points if you can tell what's on the screen of the left TV.

Bixby!

(I am *gobsmacked* that you've managed to represent him so effectively in only 10x5 mode 0 pixels. Remarkable).

Quote from: ervin on 01:55, 19 March 14

Bixby!

(I am *gobsmacked* that you've managed to represent him so effectively in only 10x5 mode 0 pixels. Remarkable).

Yay!  I wasn't sure if it worked but if you recognised him then it did.  I'll be using that and the other tv-overlay sprites at certain points of the game.

I'll buy that for a dollar!


Wow, it's amazing how much you can understand from a handful of pixels. There was a project I saw online once, degrading famous pics down to something like a 10x10 grid, and faces were still recognisable...

Seems Game Maker: Studio will be able to able to make games for PlayStation 3, 4 and Vita.  Seeing as my PS3 is my main gaming system of choice I'm very keen on getting this project running on my console.   Whether the general PlayStation gaming community wants to see an Amstrad CPC style game on their systems is another matter entirely. :P

Also this one probably won't stand a chance cos of movie-license rights but maybe Cosmic Prison Commando.   Several NES-style games have done well on modern consoles but then the NES was more world wide famous.

Just a lil update to say I'm still working hard on this.  Done a lot of optimising of the sprites and adding some new things.  This weekend I've been adding the Cobra Assault Cannon as an overlay sprite to certain frames of Robo and the generic enemy torso.   Doinng my best to make things flexible and memory efficient.   Also ripped apart most of the code of my game now that I'm happy with how certain things work and rewrote it simpler and easier to add to.

In regards to shop signs they won't be tiles anymore (was using up too many of them) but have a few done as sprites instead that will just overlay on the tiled boards above shop windows.  Lets me do a few pretty individual shop logos.

Also still comparing a lot with the original 464 tape RoboCop just to see what else I can pack into a 128k version.  At moment my game's graphic library isn't hugely more than what the original game had but is able to do more.  Will be looking into asking one of the talented CPC music folks if they want to do some tunes of what I'd like (aspects of the original game's level music and mixing in elements of the movie soundtrack). 

Thanks for the update mate :)

(btw this thread has now surpassed the 2k views mark!)

Is that good?  I don't even know. :P

One of the guys in charge of Game Maker, Mike Daily helped me out last night with an improved effect for the loading screen 'simulation' (where the loading image appears in lines like they did on good ol' tape loading).  I had a system for it before but it was buggy and over-complicated.  His is much more efficient.  Also it has the flashing bars of colours in the border like tape loading should have.  He originally did it as a Spectrum tribute but built on it and provided the option for CPC as well cos he's nice like that. 
Obviously this is nothing to do much with a true CPC one in the future but it adds to the nostalgia and authentic feel of this PC version. 

I may actually use the loading sound of the original RoboCop CPC tape played over that fake loading effect.  That would be a weird but nice 'easter egg' due to how real tape loading works.  So perhaps playing the loading screen of my game can actually load the original CPC version if you have it hooked up to an Amstrad tape deck.   Could happen. :P

We are really waiting for it!


Robocop is one of the all-time favourites, and with your art is getting even better. Congrats!

Finally saw RebootCop yesterday.  Wasn't bad but it simply wasn't very fun (and I loathed the Samuel L Jackson parts.. ugh).  Passed the time nicely though anyways and it was interesting to see the concept reimagined for the modern age.   Loved that they referenced the original design as a potential 'Combat Mode'.

Didn't really find much from the film I could reference or use in my game though. Seemed like most notable things had been done before.   He rides a motorcycle, the original briefly did that in RoboCop 2.  Oh it seems he has holsters in both legs now, but so did the original Robo in the TV series (though in the left leg he kept small mines rather than another gun, but 'RoboCable' in Prime Directives wields two guns).  So yeah.  Film was well made but not very imaginative or memorable (I can't even recall more than a few lines of dialogue other than what they took from the original and even then they didn't say it in as effective a way).

Still may do a short level where you ride a motorcycle though.  I already have a bike sprite in progress for the enemies (much the same function as the original game with a couple extras) so could just reuse that and that would be similar to RoboCop 2 where he just takes a general bike rather than have a specifically designed one such as RebootCop. 

Original tape loading sound: great touch :)

I'm quite pleased with how ED-209 is turning out.  Will attempt to do a low frame walk cycle for his leg sprite to walk across the screen and in one particular part chase an injured and weaponless Robo like in the first movie.  Won't be easy.   His arm is a seperate sprite and can aim slightly down to shoot if you're crouching.    The horizontal sprite of it shown there overlayed on the ED body will actually able to be wielded by Robo like a Mega Man style gun-arm in at least one brief scene to use the heavy ammo and rockets.

Simply amazing! This shows how much potential our beloved CPC still has!

Ahhh this is so lovely!

Regarding shooting downwards, wasn't ED capable of crouching, too? So that the "head" could just lower to shoot Robocop?

Quote from: Gryzor on 09:09, 03 May 14
Ahhh this is so lovely!

Regarding shooting downwards, wasn't ED capable of crouching, too? So that the "head" could just lower to shoot Robocop?

Not sure what you mean by crouching.  He's shown there as low as the top half can slide down the leg section (remembering ED doesn't have knee joints at all, it's an unusual sliding mechanism where the legs appear to extend and retract along that metal section at the back as they swing) so technically he IS crouching as he can go as he can raise another 8 or so pixels diagonally up along that metal leg bit.   He could tilt forwards at the 'waist' but that would require a whole new angled top section sprite for something that me be superfluous and the gun arm sprite would still need to be angled pointing diagonally downwards anyways whether I do that or not.    The angled sprites are only really needed if Robo is crouching anyways. 
So yeah the angled gun arm will be done but I'll leave the angled top section as a maybe (doing rotated sprites is enough of a pain in regular pixels, these wide-pixels make it at least times more difficult and tedious).  I cooould skip the angled arm too and just have it so if you're too low to get shot by the main gun he simply fires his rockets at you which can lower as they fly across the screen and come out of the lower part of his arm (that yellow and black bit).   That would save a bit of memory too.  Think I'll do that for now and if towards end of project I can spare some memory I may do the angled bits.

Anyways the legs are much more of a priority or else he won't be able to give chase.   Not looking forward to animating that.  Is likely to be the most difficult animation to do in this whole project and trying to do it in a way that doesn't look too choppy but also doesn't use too much memory.  Times like this I wish he just had wheels or tank treads.  :P

Simple example showing how I don't need to use any more memory just to have ED-209 rise up along those metal back parts of his legs (which form his unusual walking method) by just off-setting the top sprites and keeping the leg sprite in place.   Simple stuff.  The real work comes when I have to redraw the legs swinging for the walk cycle.

Yup, that's exactly what I meant by "crouching". I know he's not technically doing that, but that's the gaming term :)

Hm  yeah.  I like that even with this 'animation' (really just moving the top sprite's co-ordinates) already makes ED seem 'alive' and not just a static piece of scenery like in the original CPC and Spec games. 

copied from my tumblr

QuoteHad a first go at crafting the main reception area at police headquarters using just the tiles already in the tileset (except two new ones for the floor, I had a few tile spaces left and felt the green/grey floor gave it a nice look and accurate to the film).   Obviously the final version will be bigger and fill the gameplay area.  Revised Dr Lazarus' sprites.  Now uses same head sprite as Lewis but with longer hair as part of her unique torso sprite and the 'prostitute' leg sprite.  Made the outfit resemble that of Robo's technician from RoboCop 2 as it works well (I know Lazarus seems to prefer trousers but I can't spare another sprite for it, especially if she needs a walkcycle).
More notable and new addition is Sgt. Warren Reed. His desk torso sprite is unique to him (and includes his papers and those two gold pens. His head sprites can be used with the cop torso and leg sprites (that Lewis and generic cops use) so he can be seen in action too.

Oh yeah I forgot this thing and is the reason I split the gun sprite from the torso.   Will add his small leg opening holster overlay sprite eventually.

I liked Robocop 1 a lot the film, I wish they had looked at the idea of the man in the machine more, but it was an action film not a drama.

Just a lil note to say that development on this will be going a little slower for a while cos I need to 'sell out' for a bit and make a crummy touchscreen game for Android & iOS thingies so I got some kinda income coming in.  There's various reasons why I need to do that such as lack of employment and trying to save up for a car (and the extra cost of my driving test being delayed by 2 and a half months cos the examiner is ill and the earliest they can reschedule my test is in August, grrr).

This really only affects graphics and stuff as most of the code in my projects can be copy/pasted back and forth between them (Game Maker: Studio can do Android and iOS software without too much rewriting 'cept for obvious things like touchscreen controls and screen size options) for speedier development.  Things like basic enemy AI, menu systems, control handling, effects and such.  I just need to have an actual game published that I can make some money from whether giving it a cheap price or have adverts in or what.  I don't want to sully any of my personal interest projects with that sorta thing but yeah I just gotta do something sellable.  Starting with something relatively simple both graphically and in gameplay and see how it goes. 

Hope that is cool.

This is one cool project. It's got plenty of avid followers too.
I look forward to seeing what the future brings.

I'm sure we can wait, but thanks for the update mate!

Thanks.
Just been testing how out Game Maker: Studio works with Android.  I currently own the 'Professional' version which lets me test Android stuff but I need the full Android module to be able to publish it to the Google Play store.  I didn't realise how easy this would be to get it on Android though.   I've actually managed to get the current WIP of RoboCop: Prime running on my Sony Xperia L phone bar a couple of odd graphic issues that I could probably fix in time once I'm used to how this all works.  :) 
When my actual Android game is finished I'll buy the module and publish it and see what happens. 

Just a word of caution: IMHO classic arcade games suck on mobile devices. Controls are just never that good. So, even if I'd love to have Prime running on my mobile, it wouldn't be that playable...

I don't know what your other title is, of course, just saying...

Actually RoboCop:Prime feels very playable on my phone oddly enough (cos I usually hate playing most games on phones too).  There's enough room either side of the 'CPC screen' that the virtual buttons I coded in to test aren't too instrusive or obscuring anything but big enough for my thumbs and it feels very responsive (the fact he doesn't jump helps a bit cos jumping accurately is often a pain on touchscreens).   Aiming isn't even that difficult nor is entering the doors.   The slower pace of a RoboCop game compared to some other arcade styles probably helps here too.

My aaactual Android game is quite different in gameplay though and makes use of the swipe function which I had to learn today and got working well.  The basic engine for this game is already functional and the graphics won't take me too long as it's somewhat simpler than my usual stuff (though still properly pixelled...).  Trying to make this a very 'casual' game in some ways but still appealing to console fans and such.  Also it's very british.  I feel like there aren't enough 'britishy' games these days like there were back on the 8-bits.   A friend of mine said earlier when he saw the screenshot that it reminds him of the old game 'Everyone's a Wally' in general appearance (due to the fact that level is shown to be a british looking street with houses and flats and post boxes and such)

The longtime friend of mine who said it reminds him of Wally has now agreed to do the bulk of the programming for it.  I offered it to him cos he's more experienced with phone games and has the Android and iOS modules for Game Maker: Studio I can't really afford at present anyways and to be fair he's the one who wants to be a full time games developer, I'm not.   So we split any profits and the game actually gets done quickly (cos it actually be coded by someone who knows what he's doing).  We shall see how the next week goes.   It's nice that I can focus more on the actual graphics and design work. Hopefully means we can get this done reasonably quickly and I then have a game out there making some money and I can continue with RoboCop and Cosmic Prison Commando.   And we can add patches from time to time to add new content to the game.  All seems good.

Make sure you keep us in the loop when it comes out :)

This concept pic is nowhere near finished but I'm just brainstorming a memory saving idea for some cutscenes (short ones).

Thought if I did a sideview portrait I could have it appear in dialogue text sections or also re-using background tiles to make it look like he's on his way to a level in his car (ignore the clearly placeholder car bit, it's just to get the idea) in a close up shot.   Also could have that portrait bob up and down in bits without the car bit to have him look like he's walking (accompanied by the same sound effect his actual sprite uses when walking).   Trying to find some good reference pics of Officer Lewis from side on too so she can have a dialogue portrait bit but also appear like she's sat next to Robo in these journey bits.


(http://i.imgur.com/L0PW3WL.png)

Had a go at doing a portrait for Lewis last night as well cos she's important to the 'story' of this game and often gets left out of the video games (and the rebootcop film) despite her importance as Robo's partner and best friend (if he's capable of having such things).   Her portrait will appear in the cutscene bits such as dialogue sections or even 'sat' next to Robo in the car bit like demonstrated above (offset to the left and down a bit) in the intros to certain levels.   Her in-game sprite uses the cop torso (looks the same for both men and women since it's got body armour anyways), the generic human leg sprites (palette swapped into blue and black) and the default female head when not wearing helmet and the generic helmeted cop when she's ready for battle.   Lots of memory saving recycling!

(http://media.tumblr.com/305788bab6091756664f68e1daa4ae12/tumblr_inline_n87jobXi0r1rkb6bs.png)

Not sure how many more portraits I will do for this.  Robo and Lewis are important so they get one each.   I maaaay do one each for Sgt Reed and Dr Lazarus depending on how much of the story they're involved in and if it justifies the memory usage (if not, then they'll just stick with their simple animated sprites).  I want one for the main villain but I haven't yet decided who that's going to be.  It's unlikely to be someone who's actually in the real movies as this is an 'original' story and the movie villains always die.  So I'm likely going to invent a new bad guy (I'd like perhaps someone who's a capable fighter himself with at least military training but also with enough authority that he can logically send out militants, ED-209's and Robo-clones) and when doing his portrait perhaps pick an actor I feel would be suitable for the 'part' to use as reference for the portrait to make sure he looks as realistic as these ones do.

Please, SyX, Axelay or arnoldemu please! Spend all your time making THIS happen! PUHLEEEZE!
Robocop Prime NEEDs to happen on CPC! I will even BUY a copy when it's released... I don't even own a CPC anymore! ^_^

Quote from: Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship on 16:43, 05 July 14
Please, SyX, Axelay or arnoldemu please! Spend all your time making THIS happen! PUHLEEEZE!
Robocop Prime NEEDs to happen on CPC! I will even BUY a copy when it's released... I don't even own a CPC anymore! ^_^

Heh, thanks for that and all the 'likes' you just did.  Should really be shouting at me to get the game done first and then hand over the files to one of those guys (or whoever else has the skills and time and wants to have a go).  I hope you will enjoy the game when it is done and that it hopefully lives up to that enthusiastic comment. :)

Quote from: Carnivac on 14:30, 05 July 14
I want one for the main villain but I haven't yet decided who that's going to be ... when doing his portrait perhaps pick an actor I feel would be suitable for the 'part' to use as reference for the portrait to make sure he looks as realistic as these ones do.

And it just hit me when thinking about several criteria when picking an 'actor'. 
1. Has to be someone who was in their prime around the time these films were made so he may have been an actual contender for a role in them.
2. Has to be someone with some connection to the original series even if not directly involved.
3. Has to be someone with experience of violent sci fi movies.
4. Has to be someone who has a distinctive and interesting face and can look like an intimidating villain.
5. Has to be someone who could have convincingly played an intelligent executive type or a badass military type (or perhaps both at same time).
5. Has to be someone who is damn cool.   8)


So basically I reckon I'm gonna go with Michael Ironside's 'likeness' for the villain in this game as he fulfils all of those and appeared in two other Paul Verhoeven movies (Starship Troopers and of course in Total Recall alongside Ronny Cox who played Dick Jones in RoboCop)
(http://www.wearysloth.com/Gallery/ActorsI/8529-30532.jpg?iact=rc&uact=3&dur=986&page=5&start=108&ndsp=28&ved=0CCkQMyghMCE4ZA)
  Also he has a cool voice (not that this game has any speech samples except maybe nabbing the prime directives samples from the original game).  I might put a beard on him cos he has one in later roles and it looks pretty cool.  Will consider it once I've decided on the character's appearance and clothing.

Also this:

Quote from: RoboCop_Wikia
Paul Verhoeven initially considered Rutger Hauer, whom he had worked with on most of his films, as well as Michael Ironside, for the role of RoboCop. Ironside was also originally considered for the villainous part of Clarence Boddicker; he later portrayed a similar villain in Verhoeven's Total Recall (coincidentally, Kurtwood Smith (who portrayed Clarence) was considered to play the villain in Total Recall, but passed the script to Ironside). Allegedly Arnold Schwarzenegger was suggested by the studio, but the film makers eventually dismissed all three on the basis that the bulky RoboCop costume would require an actor of light build to work with while producer Jon Davison quipped on the Schwarzenegger suggestion that it would look like the Michelin Man. Peter Weller, a method actor known for playing everyman characters, was subsequently cast as Murphy/RoboCop.

We've seen Robocop quite a few times by now, but Lewis is spot-on!

Quote from: Gryzor on 19:43, 05 July 14
We've seen Robocop quite a few times by now, but Lewis is spot-on!

quite a few times?  Heh, not sure what that means, he was only posted twice here since I pixelled it a couple days ago and one of those was with the concept backdrop thingy and I wanted to show him 'clean' of that with Lewis.   But thanks.  :)

Quote from: Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship on 16:43, 05 July 14
Please, SyX, Axelay or arnoldemu please! Spend all your time making THIS happen! PUHLEEEZE!
Robocop Prime NEEDs to happen on CPC! I will even BUY a copy when it's released... I don't even own a CPC anymore! ^_^

WHAT HE SAID!!!

Pressure.  :)

At least with this one people have some idea of what to expect as it's mostly the same sorta gameplay as the original game (which most CPC folks seem to enjoy) but with new additions.  Basically an unofficial sequel.

Quote from: Carnivac on 20:57, 05 July 14
quite a few times?  Heh, not sure what that means, he was only posted twice here since I pixelled it a couple days ago and one of those was with the concept backdrop thingy and I wanted to show him 'clean' of that with Lewis.   But thanks.  :)

No, I mean Robocop is a very familiar image, whereas you don't see her that often...

@Carnivac (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=50): Your new forum avatar is really cool.

Heh indeed it is!

Quote from: arnoldemu on 17:15, 06 July 14
@Carnivac (http://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=50): Your new forum avatar is really cool.

Thanks! Figured it was about time I had an actual CPC-related avatar rather than my usual one and the RoboCop portrait seemed ideal.

Will this ever get released on the actual CPC?

Quote from: Jonah (Tasteful Mr) Ship on 16:43, 05 July 14
Please, SyX, Axelay or arnoldemu please! Spend all your time making THIS happen! PUHLEEEZE!
Robocop Prime NEEDs to happen on CPC! I will even BUY a copy when it's released... I don't even own a CPC anymore! ^_^

So does somebody actually plan to make a CPC version?

 ::) As I have already said several times there will hopefully be real CPC versions made when I have finished these PC coded versions where I will then hand over all the resources in packs and any one of the talented CPC coders can have a go at porting them.    And if I get one more stupid and somewhat abusive email like the one I got the other day I may just not bother. 

Quote from: Carnivac on 11:50, 21 August 14And if I get one more stupid and somewhat abusive email like the one I got the other day I may just not bother.

If only i got a cent for those :P... the number of idjits in retro world is getting frankly stupid, better ignore them and add the address to the spam filter ;)

Quote from: Carnivac on 11:50, 21 August 14
::) As I have already said several times there will hopefully be real CPC versions made when I have finished these PC coded versions where I will then hand over all the resources in packs and any one of the talented CPC coders can have a go at porting them.    And if I get one more stupid and somewhat abusive email like the one I got the other day I may just not bother.

Well, in this forum there are hundreds (ok, dozends...) of posts every day. Not everybody can read all of them. And at least I can't always remember everything. Also sometimes there are similar topics (CPrisonC and RoboPrime f.e.), so things can get confused. Also not every one does know if somebody else may have stated working on something. So take it easy.


It won't make any sense if two persons/groups work on the same project and finally the same work get's done twice - but be such a waste of time. That's my general POV about that.


Nobody want's to bother here, in contrast.  :)

Quote from: my tumblr
I was never happy about simply scaling up the smaller logo (that is also used in the status panel of the game) for the title screen.  Not a fan of mixed resolutions.  So I pixelled a larger version which I think looks much nicer. Still not a hundred percent happy with the styling and position of the word 'Prime' but it'll do for now.
Also improved the buildings to look more like a city (same tiles that are also used in the backdrop of the exterior locations of the levels) and then I felt a bit silly and moved the scrolling buildings up a few blocks and pixelled tiny vehicles of police cars and criminal vans/bikes to chase each other across the bottom for fun.

Comparison between the old one and this new can be viewed here

1920x1080 please... :D

Quote from: Gryzor on 17:30, 23 August 14
1920x1080 please... :D

Waahhh... what be that?  I only know resolutions up to 640x480.  Anything higher is like REAL LIFE surely?  :P

Heheh ok, sure. I just meant something clear enough to scale for use as a wallpaper. Even 320x200 if they're clean - the shot above has some banding apparent in the scanlines...

'clean' version cropped to 320x200.
(http://i.imgur.com/DHZdvT3.png)


Though I've done a little more coding since that shot was taken.  There's now a sort of road in the space under the cars that scrolls towards to the left to help give the impression they're moving along it and the background buildings now scroll much slower for a parallax effect (though they look a slightly jumpy cos there's really only so much you can scroll slowly with wide-pixels especially).   The effect looks nice though.

You see the houses from a side angel (look at roofs), but the lights are all in one horizontal line. That's not the right perspective. Or I'm wrong all all that sky scrapers have a strange kind of roofs.

Some of the skyscrapers have slanted roofs (some have flat) cos that's how many sci-fi things often pictured what 'futuristic' buildings looked like.  Those tiles are from the backdrop of the exterior levels in the game and are meant to represent the flashy new Delta City that was built (a plot point in the movies).   In-game those tiles represent the big shiny modern buildings far in the background where all the rich folk live and 'work', while you patrol in the crappy, dirty, crime-ridden Old Detroit in the foreground trying to save the less fortunate types. 

Ah! Sounds very atmospheric.

Small cropped sample from the current build that shows some updated tiles (for more variety in the exterior street scenes) and RoboCop himself has been getting some tweaks.   Now uses the blue-green (0,127,127) in place of the dark green (0,127,0) cos it looks similar enough places I was using the dark green in but also now blends better in various hue ramps such as with the blues or purple so it can be used in many more areas to smooth out the pixels a bit.  RoboCop himself now uses this colour (in addition to what the sprites already contained) as well for a lil bit of hue variation to try and get closer to the way his armour was very reflective of the lighting in the films with the range of blues.  Reduced the amount of purple I was using on his black areas and his gun to make them look a bit more black and just using the purple and grey to suggest a focal point of light on those areas.   Been optimising some of this sprites to fit more within tighter size limits to save on memory.  Had already got all his torso sprites to fit 24x16 (48x16 in real pixels) except for the two that show him firing his gun left and right cos the way he held up his free hand made those sprites taller, but now I've repositioned the hand somewhat (which turned out to be more accurate to the film anyways) and they now all fit within those sizes.  Nice and tidy.
(https://31.media.tumblr.com/e86ca783b804b2add4f406e7739a4d81/tumblr_inline_nbbz3ngUvM1rkb6bs.png)

Hm.  I think I need to change that tile on the road.  The one that has some 'rubbish' on it.  Cos it was meant to be two random little bits of paper but for some reason I keep seeing them 'connected' and looking like a tiny origami swan.  ???

Really good pics.... ;)

Love it. Absolutely fantastic stuff Carnivac.

i really wanna show off the melee combat but it not finished yet.   Mainly the move where you grab an enemy and lift them up by their throat while they try to struggle to get free and you can interrogate them (if they have info) or just punch and throw them around a bit or simply walk about while holding them using them as a shield from their buddies bullets.

Oh and yesterday I followed Nancy Allen on twitter and today I find she followed me back.  Geeking out a bit that Officer Lewis is following me.  :o 8)

Quote from: Carnivac on 08:29, 04 September 14
i really wanna show off the melee combat but it not finished yet.   Mainly the move where you grab an enemy and lift them up by their throat while they try to struggle to get free and you can interrogate them (if they have info) or just punch and throw them around a bit or simply walk about while holding them using them as a shield from their buddies bullets.

Oh and yesterday I followed Nancy Allen on twitter and today I find she followed me back.  Geeking out a bit that Officer Lewis is following me.  :o 8)

Lewis! Come over here when you've finished f***ing with your suspect!

Sold my big ol' desk for £20 on eBay to make some room and some money, and now using my art desk as a computer desk but also then realised I could also just have my small bookcase as a shelving unit to it as well so I can finally put stuff up behind the desk for easier reaching (and figures for playing and reference).   Here my NECA RoboCop figures watch me working on RoboCop: Prime.  :)
The Robo in the middle seems to be aiming his gun right at me, ok ok I'm coding the gaaame.  No need for threatening behaviour...


(http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/252/8/5/neca_robo_s_watch_me_work_by_carnivius-d7yjuqf.jpg)

I think you must make a strip poker... And I want to see your figurine collection for that ^^

Have had a bit off a problem with the game this week.   Three aspects of the player movement (turning, aiming and walking up/down through doors) are all related to each other but are conflicting all messily in certain situations.   I think part of the problem was I constructed them all seperately at different times of the project then tried to merge them where needed wheras now I think I better rewrite them all as a whole that is naturally integrated now I know more about what I need them to do.  Frustrating but needs to be done.  Bleh. 

Quote from: Carnivac on 09:32, 12 September 14
Have had a bit off a problem with the game this week.   Three aspects of the player movement (turning, aiming and walking up/down through doors) are all related to each other but are conflicting all messily in certain situations.   I think part of the problem was I constructed them all seperately at different times of the project then tried to merge them where needed wheras now I think I better rewrite them all as a whole that is naturally integrated now I know more about what I need them to do.  Frustrating but needs to be done.  Bleh.

Yes, that sort of thing is amazingly frustrating.
A few years back I coded (but sadly never fully completed) a Sabre Wulf remake (for the retro remakes 2008 competition).

And I had major problems with the animation when sabre man changed directions.
It was done in the "paper" style of paper mario on the N64, and I got all sorts of weird stuff happening as the flips when changing directions didn't seem to have much to do with the direction changes themselves!
Was a right mess to sort it out, and in fact I had to sit down and rewrite all the movement stuff as one carefully planned block of code. It was probably one of the main reasons I didn't finish the remake in time... sigh...
Learned a lot from that one.

For the last couple of years I've been working on a fairly hefty CPC "game" (it's not really a game, more of a "gallery"). The sprite routines have had 4 *complete* rewrites!
What with the clipping, flipping and scaling I've implemented, the problems were very very difficult to solve.
The version I have now IS the final version of the sprite code, and really just needs to have the content (i.e. sprites and sound) pumped in.
But the difference with this latest version is that the clipping, flipping and scaling are integrated together beautifully, whereas in the previous versions they weren't!

Can't wait to show you all what I've been working on!
But by cripes it has been a hard slog!

Yeah it's not been easy (especially for my extremely non-logical brain) but I'm getting there. 
Sometimes I think it's good to just comment out '//' the troublesome bits and start afresh up top using the old one as reference where necessary (like if it had the correct co-ordinates worked out for something).  To me it's like when I do a drawing, no matter how many times I try to correct a faulty piece with the eraser, those marks are still there making the overall picture look a bit crappy and so I then just decide to redraw the whole lot using the previous attempt as a guide taking from it what worked well and leaving out or replacing what didn't.  Then it looks nice and clean with no previous pencil or eraser marks making it look untidy.

Quote
Can't wait to show you all what I've been working on!
But by cripes it has been a hard slog!

Looking forward to seeing the results!  :)

Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far. :)

Quote from: Carnivac on 11:03, 13 September 14
Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far. :)

this sounds better by the post! One question. Is the finish code going to be portable to Linux or osx?

Quote from: CraigsBar on 15:37, 13 September 14
this sounds better by the post! One question. Is the finish code going to be portable to Linux or osx?

This version is made in Game Maker: Studio which has export options to all sorts of things.  Things like Android and iOS required modules for more money.  Mac and Linux I think were included in my purchase of the main program last year.  So should be.

And of course when a true CPC version is built later on that should work on anything that has a CPC emulator.  In theory.  :)

Quote from: Carnivac on 11:03, 13 September 14
Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far. :)

Loving these design ideas! It is sounding fantastic!

Thanks.   It's going ok so far.  I've got the new door code in.  Now I want to try coding the bashy-door 'mini-game' bit into it and hope it works as intended. :)

By the way if you have twitter and want to follow updates about the game without following my main twitter (thereby sparing yourself from all my depressing crap) I have made a new account for the game RoboCop_Prime (RoboCop_Prime) | Twitter (https://twitter.com/RoboCop_Prime)

Quote from: Carnivac on 22:37, 17 September 14
Thanks.   It's going ok so far.  I've got the new door code in.  Now I want to try coding the bashy-door 'mini-game' bit into it and hope it works as intended. :)

By the way if you have twitter and want to follow updates about the game without following my main twitter (thereby sparing yourself from all my depressing crap) I have made a new account for the game RoboCop_Prime (RoboCop_Prime) | Twitter (https://twitter.com/RoboCop_Prime)

Followed!

An animated gif of me testing some bits of the engine particularly aiming/shooting and entering/exiting doors.   Excuse the clearly broken things (like the enemy, and the pause menu and the way the status bar drops one block during the fade out).   Was annoying to record this but someone demanded (in a polite way) to see some action of it running today.   Still not quite happy with the simplistic front/back walking when using doors but it'll do for now.

Linking to it cos it a bit over 1MB.
http://i.imgur.com/6iSC7K8.gif (http://i.imgur.com/6iSC7K8.gif)

Looking great - the turning animation is particularly nice.

I also like that Robo isn't just flipped when facing in the opposite direction.
Details like that matter.
8)

Quote from: ervin on 13:58, 20 September 14
Looking great - the turning animation is particularly nice.

Thanks.  I always do turning sprites cos I feel it makes them look so much more solid.  I think I was originally inspired to do that by SwitchBlade.   Reason RoboCop turns his back on the player though is cos he does that when shooting upwards too and there was some messy glitchiness when having to turn through forward frames.   I'm likely having him turn forward when he has no gun though as he won't need to aim up.   Was a pain to code it so the head turns first before the rest of the body.  Sounds simple in theory but god it took a few attempts to get glitch-free.   Is done now though.  I also like how it looks with the helmetless Murphy head sprite too.

Quote
I also like that Robo isn't just flipped when facing in the opposite direction.
Details like that matter.
8)

Original game did that too even on the 8-bits, I think I just made it more noticable cos mine poses more dynamically. The turning frames again help with that.    :)


The gif animation is a bit lower frame rate than the actual game.  You'll notice in that animation the muzzle flash sometimes doesn't appear when he shoots a bullet.   That doesn't happen in the actual running game, it always appears when supposed too and the back of the Auto-9 flicks back after every shot too as it does in the film although that's listed as a superfluous extra on my design notes (just means it's not essential to real CPC version as it wouldn't be that noticable if missing).


Strangely enough the TV screen worked better than I expected.   Was supposed to do static then pick a random image for a bit and then do static again, but I messed it up and it does static and then picks a random image for a bit and then flicks between static and that image before going on off again and picking a new random image... which I actually feel looks more natural than what I intended.  Like it's having trouble keeping the image tuned in.   Funny how things like that work out.   It's technically 'wrong' but I like it doing it so much that I'm likely not going to 'fix' it.   :)

The static TV screen is lovely :)

Only one comment on the otherwise drool-inducing sample: when Robo goes in/out a door, his legs seem to move just a tiny bit, like he's shuffling in an out. I think movement should be more exaggerated than this...

Also: followed new account as well!

Quote from: Gryzor on 10:26, 21 September 14
The static TV screen is lovely :)

Only one comment on the otherwise drool-inducing sample: when Robo goes in/out a door, his legs seem to move just a tiny bit, like he's shuffling in an out. I think movement should be more exaggerated than this...

Also: followed new account as well!

Yeah the legs are something I'm still working on.  Have changed the movement of the y-positioning a bit though so it's chunkier rather than the smooth which has helped.   But yeah front and back view walking animation in Mode 0 where you can't use too much memory is a tricky thing.  The middle frame is simply the standing still bit which while inaccurate for a true walk cycle, is very much how RPG's do it.   The legs apart frame is the same for both feet just flipped over.   Anyways it's something I hope to 'perfect' as time goes on.  For now I want to move onto more gameplay specific elements so I can work towards getting a demo ready.

Ah, I see what you mean, I recognised the RPG bit in games I've seen. Others have more pronounced movement, but only, say, one frame to do it.

Had someone ask me about doing a C64 version earlier.   I spent a few minutes thinking about how that might work from a graphical viewpoint.  I just can't see how it would.  This and Cosmic Prison Commando are being done so much with the CPC's particular graphical specs in mind I just really can't seem them working on C64 very at all.  The drab palette is one thing but the attribute issues and colours per sprite really just kill it.   One reason I been doing these is cos I was sick of the C64 ported graphics on CPC games with the low colours when I know the CPC was capable of so much more.   It just doesn't really work the other way.  The sprites would have to be simplified so much it would be like the life and character was sucked right out of it all.   

Still, I find the idea of attempting a Spectrum version oddly appealing. 

Have been tinkering with making the ED-209 playable (in short bursts on specific levels).  I still haven't animated the legs yet but it's already got a nice sense of power blasting the enemies away with it.  :laugh:

Am just wondering if any of the talented CPC coders have some free time coming up and would like to do a basic test prototype thing just to get RoboCop walking along the city road and such?

Can you do a tile set in MODE 0, 16 x 16 pixel? I would take the engine from my Giana Sisters clone.
Which are the dimensions of the Sprite?
I could send you my IDE for grabbing tiles from OCP screens (or any 17 KB screen) and making tile sets. And using these tile set's you could create levels. However, it all runs on the CPCs.

PM me in case you're interested.

The tiles are 4x8 (that look 8x8 cos of Mode 0).   The RoboCop object is made up of 4 sprites.  Legs (16x24), Torso (24x16), Head (8x10) and whichever gun he is using (default Auto-9 is 12x24 as it has diagonals and up/down).

Will go more into that in the coming weeks.  When I said 'free time coming up' I meant not right away as I'm still very busy with stuff (the play I'm rehearsing for is this coming week 6th til 8th.  Eep).    :)

New screenshot.  Finally coding and animating the standard enemy properly.  (looks better in motion, quite smooth).  This shot shows the mostly random head and palette swaps.

Am bit sick of that test backdrop.  Will start tiling a proper level sometime soon.

You did an awesome job till now. Time is always a problem, but keep it going. The result will be great at the end.  :)


I will try to overwork my engine to use 8x8 pixel tiles and cut it a bit down, so that it will run under Amsdos/Firmware. However this will take a decent amount of time. I let you know as soon as I have something working in my hands.
Maybe somebody else can help you more quick though.

Thanks.  :)   Yeah, anybody who wants to pitch in is welcome.  I'm sure everyone's got their own lil tricks regarding speed, scrolling, memory usage, sprite compression and all that other stuff that can get the most out of the CPC.   8)

And what most of us sadly miss is... time  :o

Quick question for disk users.  How much can a CPC disk contain?   And do games make use of disk swapping for more capacity (sounds like a silly question I know but the Amiga was my first disk based computer so I have no experience of disks for 8-bit formats).

Way I'm thinking now is that the full version may be for 128k disk based CPC's that makes the most out of being on a larger capacity file format where the data can be accessed at any point and in seconds (for what I'm thinking that I'd like to try)  but I'd really like a smaller 'remix' version for my 464 afterwards that's probably closer to the original game in content and gameplay.

Quote from: Carnivac on 00:08, 04 November 14
Quick question for disk users.  How much can a CPC disk contain?   And do games make use of disk swapping for more capacity (sounds like a silly question I know but the Amiga was my first disk based computer so I have no experience of disks for 8-bit formats).

Way I'm thinking now is that the full version may be for 128k disk based CPC's that makes the most out of being on a larger capacity file format where the data can be accessed at any point and in seconds (for what I'm thinking that I'd like to try)  but I'd really like a smaller 'remix' version for my 464 afterwards that's probably closer to the original game in content and gameplay.

Not as easy as it sounds. The max capacity under amsdos is 178k each side regardless of disc type (3, 3.5 or 5.25) with an extended disk os then the 3 inch discs can be pushed to 203k each side and 3.5 or 5.25 to 796k. Generally games stick to the 178k format for maximum compatibility. But some also release a 3.5 inch double sided version (orion prime for example) in the 178k format disk swapping is becoming increasingly common.

Hope that lot is clear [emoji4]

178k per disk seems like enough.  Thank you.  :)

Hi!

Let me suggest you to use 3.5" Discs. Because:
- Everybody has such a drive in these days, else you can get it cheap
- Discs are cheaper and more easy to get
- The can take up to 700 KB at once (no swapping!)
- Using VaraDOS with Vortex Format reaches IMHO the most people
- You don't need to provide two 3" instead of one 3.5" disc
- If you compress data, then you can put more than 1.5 MB on it!

Also, don't count with data loading during the gameplay. Data loading from disk is a very CPU consuming process in the Amstrad so it should be done only between levels or at puntual moments where no activity (or at least very little) is taking place in the game.

That depends on your disc routines.


Let's say you would need to load 10 KB, then this would take my routines a maximum of 0.5 seconds.  :)  And it works even better from 3.5".  ;)

Mmmm, yes, but you can't trigger this load when you have the screen full of enemies and the main sprite jumping and shooting, or you'll notice the pause, this is what I meant. I know that some games like Orion Prime manage to reproduce music while loading, and even this is a challenge. Am I wrong?

Quote from: opqa on 17:33, 05 November 14
Mmmm, yes, but you can't trigger this load when you have the screen full of enemies and the main sprite jumping and shooting, or you'll notice the pause, this is what I meant.

That's right of course, therefore god gave the CPC6128 128 KB of RAM and TotO gave us X-MEM.  :laugh:

Does anyone else get days like I had yesterday where there's one tiny little annoying thing happening in the game (in this case RoboCop's gun flipping too early for a half second when he was turning) and most people probably wouldn't even notice it and yet you spend hours ripping out a big part of the graphics handling code and redo it from scratch making it work much better, be more efficient, easier to read and you feel really proud of how much 'better' it all is, only for someone to ask what's new and you basically just say "uh.. that half second where the gun looked wrong?  That's fixed now".  And they're like "oh..." having expected something new and amazing...

Oh heck yes.  :laugh:
I hear ya bro.

I've spent DAYS getting my program to run 1.5% faster... most people wouldn't notice the difference (in fact probably no one would), but I'm really proud of myself because I KNOW that it's more efficient.

Yep, I think programming has a lot of 'self-satisfaction' about it.  Where you just have to accept that you're the only person who really gives a crap about some of it.  Unless it's something really fancy it's just not as easy to impress people with the coding like you can with graphics or music which are much less 'invisible' to the player.    They don't often praise you much for the smooth control and glitch free engine... but they'll sure as heck complain you if you get any of it wrong.

top tip that, dont get anything wrong , people love to have a good old moan!
i think that when you play a game you can tell pretty much straight away when a person/group has invested a lot of time to get the best out of whats possible, its them games that stand the test of time.
anyway so no pressure, just make it really top notch!

Sometimes is even worse, as when your code has grown too much and without much order and it needs some re-arrangement before proceeding to add new features to keep it maintainable. I can spend quite amount of time just cleaning and re-organizing the code with minor changes that take little or no effect in the program, just to make the code look prettier.

Well, IMHO people are watching / playing too much on non-CPC hardware. So they forget how hard it is to get things done.

We probably have to live with the fact that real good work is scarcely appreciated. It may be a bit better in the GFX section compared to the coding section.

I remember that "Technical Achievement" election in the ROM competition. But of course I'm biased in this case. However it may serve as an good example that people probably (more often) only appreciate the obvious.

I think that you guys do it damn right to try to make things as good as possible. If gun slingering or coding - doesn't matter. I appreciate what you do and the time you invest!!!  :) :) :)

Quote from: opqa on 19:52, 06 November 14
Sometimes is even worse, as when your code has grown too much and without much order and it needs some re-arrangement before proceeding to add new features to keep it maintainable. I can spend quite amount of time just cleaning and re-organizing the code with minor changes that take little or no effect in the program, just to make the code look prettier.

Yep that was part of why I decided to finally fix that ever so slightly glitchy gun.  That whole part of the code (that decides which sprites to build RoboCop and which way they should be facing) is much cleaner now.  Most of the time when coding my first attempts are a total mess of experimentation trying to figure out what I'm doing and later I come back to it and rewrite much better now I know exactly what I want from it. :)

Quote from: TFM on 22:16, 06 November 14
I think that you guys do it damn right to try to make things as good as possible. If gun slingering or coding - doesn't matter. I appreciate what you do and the time you invest!!!  :) :) :)

I'm very perfectionist-like about these things.  I want it to be the best I can do it.  And even little tiny bits nobody else would notice are important to me.    :)

Ok I just got home with some chips on my way back from the first performance of this comedy musical show I was in.  Two more nights to do of it.   :)

Ok I HATE coding even basic enemy AI (that is more than just moving left & right or up & down like you get in all those Manic Miner type of platformers).  It's tedious and it gives me a headache.  I'll get there.  Basically trying to do similar to the original CPC game but with some added features to give the enemies a bit more character and life.   Once it's done that's obviously a huge part of the gameplay finally in place. 

Very true! AI is the most consuming part. If you start caring about that then other things just look trivial.  ;)

Mentioned in another friend that I sometimes hook my laptop up to the TV to test out my games and I like the chunky pixels so here's a photo. Some of the colours are too bright but that's just due to the camera taking the photo itself.  The actual TV's display looks correct in person.   For some reason the words at the top get a bit cut off but that just needs a resolution tweak in my monitor settings for the TV there.  That's a new thing by the way.  The name of the current location is at the top of the screen so you know where you are cos it's possible to go back and forth (the gameplay is less linear than the old games).   This meant pushing the gameplay area down by 8 pixels but I like that it now fits more snugly above the status panel.    Short dialogue bits still appear just above the status panel but now overlaid quickly on the bottom row of tiles and disappear after a couple seconds. 
And that keyboard (despite the light being on) isn't for playing the game.  That's connected to my PS3 and yet just because it was in front of the TV I kept pressing the keys on it to play the game forgetting I was meant to use the keys on the laptop and then wondering why the game wasn't responding.  Duh. 

A beauty :)

Thanks.

Can't believe it took me ages to figure out how to get a 'grab' function working from a one button joystick with all his aiming, shooting, crouching and all that.   But then I realised it's easy as heck.  To do the grab you simply hold up at same time as you press fire (which makes logical sense since you are lifting upwards) and since if you're close enough to an enemy for the fire button action to switch from shoot to punch, then the punch is replaced by the grab.  And then that could lead on to another control fork.  Treating the held enemy as new weapon in a way.  Could then use fire button to punch the grabbed mook to get him to talk, or hold up again while pressing fire to throw him (knocking back other mooks in the way) or just press down to put them back down on the ground safely.  Also it best to grab them once the others are all dead or unconcious in case they shoot at you in effect Robo using the grabbed guy as a shield.

The grab sprites for RoboCop in that screenshot are simply the exact same sprites as he uses when aiming his gun diagonally up but with the gun sprite not active and the enemy repositioned so it looks like Robo's got him by the throat.   Yay for fun new features that don't use up much more memory.  :)


Something else I wasn't sure about was in regards to enemies respawning or not.  Not an issue in the original game since it's very linear whereas in this you can go back and forth and through doors and such.  Way it was was that the enemies were respawning back in place when you went in or out of a new 'room'.  And that wasn't very realistic.   I know many 8-bit games simply respawn the enemies anyways (and often have them appearing as if teleporting which obviously wouldn't work here).  And I thought that may be a limitation in 8-bit games to not keep track of who's dead.  But then I realised SwitchBlade seems to keep track as you're usually going back through rooms.    So what I've done now is write a bit of code which does 'tick off' which enemies are already dead but so that it's not too boring walking back there is another enemy respawner object which spawns the odd enemy or two randomly now and then.  Just so you know there's always the possiblity of a wandering crook but not the big riot you've already cleared out.

Great solution about respawining; as I was reading your post i was thinking the exact same thing - respawning all enemies always seemed kind of stupid to me, but then again leaving the play area empty is too plain...

Instead of respawning, you could leave the bodies on the ground and some of them might not be dead, they could grab or shoot you if you come back that way or tend their wounds and re-enter the fight.

Quote from: steve on 22:33, 23 November 14
Instead of respawning, you could leave the bodies on the ground and some of them might not be dead, they could grab or shoot you if you come back that way or tend their wounds and re-enter the fight.

Nice idea though I don't really want bodies cluttering up the screen on what is to hopefully be on a real CPC sometime.  There's good reasons why they used to blink out of existence on 8 and 16 bit games. :P   Also anybody half-dead and then tries to grab onto RoboCop is just too stupid to live. :P   Still, I like how on the Death Wish III game (which is also an influence on this one) the bodies get dragged off screen by a guy in white (presumably a paramedic or some other medical person) but that's easier to do on a flick screen game like that (in a scrolling game you'd be perhaps too tempted to walk after them to see where they end up).  Still it's something to consider when I get round to proper enemy deaths (at moment they simply disappear when out of energy as I haven't done their death sprites yet.   So much to do!)

Unintentionally but amusingly the grab works on the window crooks as well. As if he's pulled them out of there. :P

Give us a shout when it's ready and we will feature it :)

Cheers.
Just trying to nail the script that does arcs at moment.   It's a general script that is called (with whatever x velocity and y velocity values the object assigns) that makes an object move in an arc motion whether it's a grenade being thrown across the screen, Robo throwing after grabbing him, or things being knocked back from an impact or explosion.  I think I've just about got it working correctly. :)   Had a funny moment where the ED-209 object (still currently being read as a crate for collision testing til I do his animation and AI) got knocked across the screen by one punch from Robo.  Was awesome.

Then I'm gotta make some control improvements (mainly because he's instantly throwing them after grabbing them because both use the Up+Fire but it should wait for the player to let go of either of those first before checking for the second Up+Fire to throw)

Then get the enemies shooting and aiming properly and do their hurt, fall and dead sprites.

And then the game's gonna feel pretty playable (though it is still using a looped sample background rather than actual proper tiles cos I haven't got around to the actual level design yet.  Want to get the core gameplay components feeling just right first)

Bugs can be fun.

Was tweaking the grab move code and somehow the enemies got positioned too high and it looked like Robo was lifting them up by their right ankle.  Still able to walk about and turn and everything.

Some odd collision thing with the enemies when thrown meant they were somehow able to stand on top of each other.  And so as RoboCop I was having a bit of fun trying to throw one on the other, then one on top of that one like stacking them up high.  Was what you may see in a circus. :P

Started coding basic AI stuff for ED-209.  Detecting if a 'threat' is near, then the upper half raises up and the guns start shooting.  Simple enough?  Well, my first attempt I got the maths wrong and the entire upper half (torso, guns, thighs) detached from the lower legs and actually swam (like a fish, it even had a weird glitchy graphical 'shimmering') right off the top left of the screen.   Was very surreal to watch. 

Was improving and refining Robo's punch code now I understand it a bit better.  But I made a mistake and when he punched a crate it was HE who exploded, and the crate was unharmed.   And then bizarrely he walked on by himself from the left of the screen all ready to have another go (some odd bug that detects if his object has been destroyed it creates another one and was using the automatic walking on he should do when he gets out of his car but there was no car this time).

Some strange thing when I was fixing up the head code (negating the need for seperate left views of the heads cos they look identical to right so I just flip those now) meant that everybody (Robo and the crooks) was spinning their heads around and around like they all posessed like in the Exorcist.  Looked kinda terrifying.

They're entertaining enough that I was almost tempted to leave them in, but nah.  I'm not Ubisoft.  I actually like to fix huge bugs and glitches before releasing a game.

Quote from: Carnivac on 12:08, 01 December 14
Bugs can be fun.

Was tweaking the grab move code and somehow the enemies got positioned too high and it looked like Robo was lifting them up by their right ankle.  Still able to walk about and turn and everything.

Some odd collision thing with the enemies when thrown meant they were somehow able to stand on top of each other.  And so as RoboCop I was having a bit of fun trying to throw one on the other, then one on top of that one like stacking them up high.  Was what you may see in a circus. :P

Started coding basic AI stuff for ED-209.  Detecting if a 'threat' is near, then the upper half raises up and the guns start shooting.  Simple enough?  Well, my first attempt I got the maths wrong and the entire upper half (torso, guns, thighs) detached from the lower legs and actually swam (like a fish, it even had a weird glitchy graphical 'shimmering') right off the top left of the screen.   Was very surreal to watch. 

Was improving and refining Robo's punch code now I understand it a bit better.  But I made a mistake and when he punched a crate it was HE who exploded, and the crate was unharmed.   And then bizarrely he walked on by himself from the left of the screen all ready to have another go (some odd bug that detects if his object has been destroyed it creates another one and was using the automatic walking on he should do when he gets out of his car but there was no car this time).

Some strange thing when I was fixing up the head code (negating the need for seperate left views of the heads cos they look identical to right so I just flip those now) meant that everybody (Robo and the crooks) was spinning their heads around and around like they all posessed like in the Exorcist.  Looked kinda terrifying.

They're entertaining enough that I was almost tempted to leave them in, but nah.  I'm not Ubisoft.  I actually like to fix huge bugs and glitches before releasing a game.

:laugh:

You didn't take vids of any of that did you?
Would be tremendous to see it in action.

But yes, the crazy things that can happen with bugs...
Back in 2008 I wrote (though sadly didn't fully complete) a Sabre Wulf remake for the Retro Remakes comp.
I was using Blitz3D at the time (WONDERFUL language by the way), and I was trying to get sabre man's collision with the jungle working with B3D's built-in collision features.
No matter what I did, he would get stuck in some scenery, walk through others, etc etc etc.
In the end I just rolled my own collision code. Took a bit longer but it was well worth it in the end.

I'll complete that remake one day... (probably in Unity).

No videos, sorry. Bugs all fixed now (well those ones are.  New ones will obviously occur during further development).

I'm wondering if I'm gonna get abuse for putting prostitutes in the game.  Obviously you can't buy their services (Robo probably doesn't even have the equipment) and they simply hang around the street til combat occurs and they run away.  It's just a lil extra thing to add a bit more 'life' to the outside levels (and they use the same leg/skirt sprite as Dr Lazarus except her labcoat covers some of it) but in this recent wave of craziness in the gaming press I don't know if I'll get some hate.   Oh and they are positioned a bit higher up (to look further back on the sidewalk) so makes sense that bullets just pass by them and they cannot be killed (no violence towards them here).

I have more 'positive role model' females such as Lazarus (brainy scientist) and Lewis (tough badass cop).  We'll see what happens...

Was that sort of stuff in the films?
Yes so put them in the game.
tired of this forced positive female rolemodel nonsense.
usual end up with a tripe cliché just to apease whiners who have no interest in what they are demanding changes in.

Stick them in and any more crazy glitches record them for us even if it's just a gif.

Would be fun to have a glitched version to  play as well but that's not possible

Well, they're in (they don't run off yet as I haven't done the leg animation so they simply slide off when bullets are fired or punches occur).  Also a new head type for the enemy object to randomly pick.  Gotta have the 80's punk if it's an 80's style violent game y'see. 

That looks so very awesome!
I am *really* looking forward to playing this!

I'd give that 100 Likes if I could!
8)

What happened with this game?Shame not to see any development...

As far as I remember, Carnivac was doing the awesome graphics and waiting for a coder willing to program it.

Quote from: robcfg on 21:35, 04 March 15
As far as I remember, Carnivac was doing the awesome graphics and waiting for a coder willing to program it.

Still in development (I did quite a bit of PC code today in fact) but am mainly working on a phone game at moment as I am unemployed and need money to retake driving test and get me a car so progress on Robo is a lil slow at present. :)    That also why I'm not very active on here at moment as I haven't had much to come show and I don't feel like I'm much good at contributing to topics otherwise.  ???

Hope the phone game goes well :-)

Oh, nice thing you still work on it!
Robocop is my favorite movie and game on CPC!

Quote from: Sykobee (Briggsy) on 23:14, 04 March 15
Hope the phone game goes well :-)

Thanks.  Took me ages to come up with a good game concept that would work well on touchscreens aaand that I would enjoy developing/playing myself (I generally dislike touchscreen controls).   Thankfully I got inspiration from an early CPC game. :)

You're making a touchscreen Roland game?
Fantastic  ;D

Kind of.

Quote from: Carnivac on 19:30, 08 March 15
Kind of.

hopefully not 'Roland in tap-hell of android monsters on eye-os'
Or worse still...... 'Flappy Roland' Arrrggghhhhh.

Do let us know of the mobile game :) What platform will it be on?

Quote from: Gryzor on 21:49, 23 March 15
Do let us know of the mobile game :) What platform will it be on?

Android to begin with cos Apple are greedy.  Already paid my $20 lifetime developer fee to Google months ago to publish on Android.   Apple want $100 per year and to compile the finished product on an Apple Mac...  blargh.


Anyways been doing some RoboCop stuff lately too.  I really wanna show off some stuff but they're not quite ready yet.  I will say though it's not totally linear like the original games and there are also automatic scrolling shooty sections involving him in his car (since the majority of graphics are already used in the main levels themselves why not re-use them in different gameplay variations?).  And I'm using the photofit concept but within main gameplay areas (instead of it being a completely seperate mini-game level) so you will occasionally have to track down and interrogate suspects and follow clues to find the right guys and evidence to close certain cases.

I have a newer PC since I last posted in this topic and I'm gonna be making a new video of the game so far too.  Just want to clean up bits and make it as bug free as possible to show off.

Love it.

Don't forget to record any glitches you come across  ;)

Now this bg idea may work better for the car sections. Black area for big sprites & can do simple parallax.

Yes I know it kinda looks like Robo is just shooting innocent bikers from behind. Just go with it for now. :P

I like that.
Looks like a whole new level and he's on the motorway not in the city centre.

This is looking great!

Quote from: seanb on 21:16, 04 July 15
I like that.
Looks like a whole new level and he's on the motorway not in the city centre.

Right.  And the only new tiles are the orange-tinted road tiles and the only new sprite is the lamppost (which would scroll in time with the lampposts over the top of the far away backdrop for a nice sense of depth).  And the road layer would scroll the fastest (which is why the road lines are useful there to help with the impression of speed, cos the regular road tile is only 4 Mode 0 pixels wide and wouldn't look like it's scrolling at all if it was scrolling the same speed of the width of the tile... if that makes sense).

I was having trouble thinking what could be shooting at RoboCop from higher up (need some reason to not be shooting horizontally) cos the window bad guys won't really work on that highway looking backdrop but I thought ehhh... let's have some lil flying drone things eh?  Simple to do, takes up hardly any memory since not much if any animation is needed and gives RoboCop a reason to fire directly up or diagonally too while in the car and I can re-use them in the walking levels too.

Also gonna use the car highway'level' in a couple of different ways.  Regular full shooty/drivey levels like what you see there but also very brief transition scenes just showing the car driving from the left to off the screen at the right (with some scrolling) with it then changing to a walk level with the car pulling up at the start of the level and Robo getting out to walk as it has been shown since the very first video I did.    Got a few other ideas for variations on it too (for example the black area means ED-209's walk sprites, which take up a fair amount of space, would be easier to do there than on a more busy background as it wouldn't have any varied background tiles to keep redrawing as he moves)

How about a helicopter to shoot at.
It could come in take a few hits and fly off.
could come back with battle damage on.

I understand memory constraints but if during these bits you remove the bikers could it work or is it too ambitious for our beloved cpc.

Quote from: seanb on 10:57, 05 July 15
How about a helicopter to shoot at.
It could come in take a few hits and fly off.
could come back with battle damage on.

I understand memory constraints but if during these bits you remove the bikers could it work or is it too ambitious for our beloved cpc.

It might be possible but at what size?   A helicopter would be a pretty huge sprite if in scale with the cars and bikes and would be up in the sky where the background tiles are rather than in the more simple black lower section.    I coooould have just the very bottom section of the helicopter appear with the bottom half of enemies standing on the landing skids shooting at Robo and before jumping down onto Robo's car (or the back end of an enemy car that's mostly off screen to the right before they use the Cobra Assault Cannon to try take out Robo's car.  And have a noisy sound effect to signify the unseen rotor blades and you just shoot the bottom of the copter to make it start exploding at which point it moves off the top of the screen and the helicopter is then represented by a small sprite in the background crashing.  That could be cool and certainly a lot easier than having a huge helicopter sprite taking up all that space and slowing the game down to a crawl.    Definitely an option, thanks for the idea.  :)

You read my mind  :D

I thought of a heli as an end-of-level boss...

Just a few pics to show it's still in development.

Stunning work as always.
:)

The unnamed villain looks like a younger version of Clarence!

The portrait of Robocop is full of lovely goodness.

Quote from: ervin on 00:28, 29 September 15
The unnamed villain looks like a younger version of Clarence!

It was supposed to look like another actor but looking at it with fresh eyes today I'm not sure it was all that successful.  :doh:   Oh well, it's still a decent portrait and you can tell he's not a particularly nice guy so it'll do.

Excellent work Carnivac, thanks for the update :)


I'm enjoying looking at how you have used the CPC colour palette.

True art as always  :)

This game looks more exiting everytime I take a look at whats going on.
Like the idea of a bad dude sitting on the helicopter skids to shoot at , or drive away from (attempt to!!) if you are out of ammo!

Well, we all know that the bad guy is the good guy in reality, because RoboCop serves a corrupt blood-sucking system. So it's a great idea to help the 'bad guy' a little more. It also makes the game more fun.  ;)

Just splendid !

Quote from: Carnivac on 20:12, 04 July 15
Now this bg idea may work better for the car sections. Black area for big sprites & can do simple parallax.

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CJF6bgmWgAADd2j.png)

Yes I know it kinda looks like Robo is just shooting innocent bikers from behind. Just go with it for now. :P

just an idea, what about the odd street lamp thats not working. Would break up the repettetive backdrop and you could loose a few of the shaded buildings for a bit.

Quote from: Lazy Dude on 11:17, 30 September 15
just an idea, what about the odd street lamp thats not working. Would break up the repettetive backdrop and you could loose a few of the shaded buildings for a bit.

The light sprite for the lamps covers up the fact there is no actual lamp tile and it's placement there also makes it appear like the streetlamps overlap the city backdrop which is scrolling slower than the next section (the lamppost part below the street light sprite down to where those bricks/arches fade to black.

The background city looking repetitive is just for now so that the parallax is working.  I can make it a bit more varied but it's not going to look spectacular as it's mainly just window dressing for the large sprite action lower down.  If, when porting to a real CPC, more variety can be done then I'll look into it then.  Just want to know the CPC can run that level type at a decent speed. :)

yeh, you totally got to love a decent cpc game that can have tons of baddies on one screen without slowing down the action. It means I can spend more time shooting and less time swearing at them!!

Yeah.  As for the 'on foot' stages it's not really doing much the original CPC game didn't (roughly same amount of sprites on screen).  Trying to use it as a reference for what I hope I can eventually pack in when the true CPC coded version is produced.  I expect the CPC coders on this forum know enough tricks to do various things that weren't commonly known back then in regards to sprite movement, scrolling and compression.   
:D

Theres a few games that handled the sprite traffic well. I still find Operation Wolf a beast of a game when it starts packing in platoons of squaddies and multiple choppers. Speed wise on the original hardware it does well, so you can expect to be able to pack in plenty of action.
Lets not discuss the sad arse games that wilt under too much action!!!

So i guess this is dead and buried?

Nope.  Don't assume things like that please.  Is a lil rude but thank you for the interest.  I'm very busy with a lot of things and learning much as I go. :)

Good to hear you're still at it!

The graphics on the screenshots I've seen look somehow better than the ocean game - and considering how good that version was that's really something!

I look forward to hearing more updates!

Any update on this?