The Sword of Ianna [ZX SPC]

[Joseman]

Hi

i was just surfin' and found this:



it looks really relly well even for a ZX!

wouldn't be wonderful if we had a version too? 

[DanyPPC]

Really !
We hope in a CPC conversion 

[||C|-|E||]

It really looks like an awesome game! I really love it! I have never been an Speccy guy but seeing productions like this one make me consider to own one 

[MacDeath]

can't wait for someone to port a nice Mode0 version on CPC6128...

[XeNoMoRPH]

This game comes in a special format ...

[pacomix]

When will it be available?


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[deepfb]

When will it be available?

AFAIK, the game is finished except for some music they still need for the last stages. They have produced a bunch of prototype boards to check how it fits inside the cartridge shell -in fact, the designer of Dandanator gave me one of these boards and I am currently soldering the components on it :-D





So I quess RetroWorks will be selling the game very soon, although not right now. My guess is after the summer, but take this as my guess, not as an official statement. Besides, as you may know, from the end of September to the end of November we use to have a lot of meetings in the Estado español (RetroBarcelona, RetroSevilla, Parla Bytes and some more), so they will have a good bunch of opportunities to launch it.


Regarding the game, I agree it is great: attribute clash tends to take me off regular Spectrum games, and Sword of Ianna manages this problem not only in a clever way, but with an impressive, artistic attitude. It is a beautiful game -as beautiful as, say, Braid or Limbo (IMO).


...but I would not expect a CPC port of it. RetroWorks showed two ports of the game during RetroMadrid 2017: the original ZX Spectrum game, and a MSX2 version. It seems it has been a lot of work for them to produce both games, so I didn't see they were prone to create more conversions. By the way, I prefer the ZX original graphics! Those of the MSX2 version look very nice, resembling somehow classic Atari ST and Amiga games -but the ZX art is *so* beautiful.


Regarding the gameplay, it is something like Flashback meets Castlevania, with some details taken from Palace's Barbarian or Prince of Persia. The adventure is not as deep as those you can find on a 16-bit computer (it is *not* Flashback, of course), but it may be one of the best ZX Spectrum games ever.

[robcfg]

I'm also soldering one of those boards, they are cool!


Nice and simple design.


[attachimg=1]

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

If there is a custom rom paging mechanism (controlled by the PIC I guess) on that cartridge, I hope the mechanism is shared with the Spectrum Next which comes with 1MB RAM. I'm guessing that this would be present because the default Spectrum memory paging support is rather weak (128KB - additional RAM is not generally available).

[Joseman]

hi Jaime

and the source code can't be open source?

maybe somebody will do it?



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[deepfb]

and the source code can't be open source?
maybe somebody will do it?

Which source code? The game is not yet published neither finished, and I haven't seen RetroWorks use to make their games open source.

If you mean the device where the game is stored, it is actually an open source development by Daniel León. He has been producing these interfaces for some time (he made some hundreds of them), at a very low price (12-14 euro, depending on the model). I think you saw it working last time you were in Madrid, didn't you?

Daniel has announced that he won't produce any more batches of the device by himself, but this is not a problem since a) anybody can built it since the schematics & software are free, b) there is some commercial interest in selling them by small, local vendors, so I guess at the end you will be able to purchase it from eBay.

Also, some people is asking Daniel for a similar device for the CPC -actually, it should be like a very cheap ROMBox, the main attractive being that it costs less than 15 euro and can be used as a storage solution for studios that are still selling physical versions of their games for old computers.

[Joseman]

Which source code? The game is not yet published neither finished, and I haven't seen RetroWorks use to make their games open source.

If you mean the device where the game is stored, it is actually an open source development by Daniel León. He has been producing these interfaces for some time (he made some hundreds of them), at a very low price (12-14 euro, depending on the model). I think you saw it working last time you were in Madrid, didn't you?

But even if they didn't public the source code in the past, perhaps if somebody wanted to port the game... they will send it? (and i'm not talking about me  )

I'm afraid that the last time we were in Madrid i didn't see that interface... but i really don't see why a hardware like this is necessary for a game...