chyron wrote:

Boston Bomb Club

boston_001.png

Yes, I mentioned it in one of the posts on the first page:

Found out that many Silmarils games support Hercules natively: Boston Bomb Club, Wind Surf Willy, Crystals of Arborea. If you have problems with them, try versions from Silmarils Collection by DotEmu. There is plenty of versions on the internet that don't work on CGA and Hercules.

Still, quite fun for what it is.

Adding a new one to the mix! Planet X3 😀. It runs in various modes including Hercules and CGA. I enjoyed playing the game for a while and it runs really smooth on an XT. Excellent piece of programming (in assembly!). Also nice to have a game that can utilize the Adlib soundcard which really improves the game.

Planet X3 running on my ARC 8088 8MHz, CGA + Adlib.

Screenshots by David Murray himself; CGA:

And Hercules:

It also supports composite CGA and since recently Plantronics CGA 16 color modes.

root42 wrote:

It also supports composite CGA and since recently Plantronics CGA 16 color modes.

Sounds cool! I hope the the author will also to add support for Olivetti/AT&T/Toshiba 640x400 mode at some point if he hasn't already! 😀
(Since we're at obscure modes, there's also that 800x600 mode of the Sirius 1/Victor 9000. And the 16c mode of the popular PC 1512. And Hercules InColor..)

Will not happen soon. But eventually Dave is planning to release the source, so people can contribute such mods. The Plantronics mode was also implemented by a Kickstarter contributor. So if you really want it, you can make it yourself. 😀

I was actually one of the Kickstarter backers for this. Didn't have the time to take the game for a ride on my Hercules hardware, though. Hopefully, some time later this year.

Shamus (1984)

Jet (1985)

How could you guys not be talking about The Ancient Art of War in it's CGA glory ?

Technically this game has fantastic effects that I never saw on cga on any other game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygD93F95js

I'm surprised no one has mentioned text-based games. For some reason, I really itch to play Infocom with that green or amber glow.

It might be fun to try to get Telnet games working, too. MUD2 is free these days 😉 (Though I vastly prefer it in color.)

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-03-21, 08:52:

Technically this game has fantastic effects that I never saw on cga on any other game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygD93F95js

PopCorn is awesome. The colour is wrong, though. It's supposed to be red, not pink, I believe.
I found out by checking several emulators and on an old OAK card in CGA emulation mode.
https://youtu.be/cu88uKmqlEU?t=164

Unfortunately, even its own game designers got it wrong.
They simply forgot, I suppose. 🙁

I don't think anyone mentioned Korean Dungeon Boy yet. Some of the cleanest, well drawn Hercules gfx you'll see this side of the Milky Way. Fun too! (kind of important I guess)

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-03-21, 08:52:

Technically this game has fantastic effects that I never saw on cga on any other game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygD93F95js

What effects in particular are you thinking of? I didn't notice anything particularly technically interesting about the game, but I'm always on the lookout for new CGA tricks so wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything!

liqmat wrote on 2020-03-21, 15:51:

I don't think anyone mentioned Korean Dungeon Boy yet. Some of the cleanest, well drawn Hercules gfx you'll see this side of the Milky Way. Fun too! (kind of important I guess)

Thank you for mentioning this one. It looks interesting and well drawn, indeed. That's how things should have been more often.
Kinda makes me sad that Hercules was missused as a second-choice among CGA. It really should have been the reverse.
By doing proper programming, the HGC was able to run in 640x400 pels also. Same as the hi-res CGA did in the Olivetti M24 and similar computers.
And by doing a integer divide through factor 2, someone would end up at the usual 320x200 CGA resolution.
I'm speaking under correction, but I think this wouldn't have been necessary even.
The memory dump of a 640x400 bitmap in M24 format would have been compatible with CGA's hi-res mode, albeit with only ~ half the data/lines being displayed.
Oh well, if only the 8088 wasn't such a lame duck, down-scaling from 720x348 on-the-fly by the game's engine would have been more feasible on XTs also.

Edit: Edited. Sorry for the bad wording. What I tried to express, was, that drawing high resolution artwork for 640x400 -as once common in the east- wouldn't have been a waste.
A drawing for the semi-popular Olivetti/AT&T mode of 640x400 pels could also have been displayed on tweaked Hercules and normal CGA, even.
The latter could have been supported with little to no effort (skipping lines, cross-loading etc).

reenigne wrote on 2020-03-21, 15:55:

dr.zeissler wrote on 2020-03-21, 08:52:

Technically this game has fantastic effects that I never saw on cga on any other game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SygD93F95js

What effects in particular are you thinking of? I didn't notice anything particularly technically interesting about the game, but I'm always on the lookout for new CGA tricks so wanted to make sure I hadn't missed anything!

to bad that he does his reviews only in emulation so it's not stutterfree-scrolling
the "rollover effects" that you did while changing the screen in 8088mph.

for a cga game it's really awesome.

Yes, Popcorn is very fun to play, in terms of gameplay it's one of the best Arkanoid variants ever.
However, technically, there's nothing impressive about it - quite contrary, it pretty much requires 8088@4.77 and true CGA, which would be perfectly OK in 1983 - but this game is from 1988!

He is one of my all time favourite games and it works a treat on Hercules and it's officially been released for free by the original makers also, double bonus!
https://streetrodonline.com/downloads/

Get the Street Rod SE version as the hercules files seem to be missing from the original, anyhow no reason to go for the non SE as you only lose content but don't gain anything.
My slowest PC is a 286/12 with 1MB RAM and a clone Herc card, it runs perfectly on this machine, give it a go and tear up the streets in your vintage American hot rod!

liqmat wrote on 2020-03-21, 15:51:

I don't think anyone mentioned Korean Dungeon Boy yet. Some of the cleanest, well drawn Hercules gfx you'll see this side of the Milky Way. Fun too! (kind of important I guess)

That screenshot is 640x400 - so it must be using the undocumented 640x400 interlaced mode.
Fascinating, I didn't know there was some software actually using that mode...

We should split the thread. Hercules native+cga-emulation...and real cga.

Oh. 🙁 I liked the way it was, personally. Hercules&CGA are like brothers/sisters. They are essentially based on the same CRTC, the HD46505. And most cards can be jumpered to either mode.

Edit: I hope it wasn't my fault that causes that wish. My sister alswasy complains that I'm too chatty and do drift away from a topic quite soon. If so, I'd lilke to apologize. 😅