I know I'm reviving a 3 years old thread here, but I made an improved version of RATillery! And with Coté Gamers (a French publisher) we're trying to make a high quality boxed version, with a color manual and making-of, the game on a 3.5" floppy and more. Here is a quick summary of what's new in this version:

• VGA 256 color suport (320x200)
• VGA 16 color support (640x480)
• AdLib, OPL2LPT and Tandy sound support
• In-game timer (those who thing too much loose their turn!)
• Training mode (get better through challenges)
• A much stronger AI adversary (for playing alone)

For a few screenshots of the new version as well as a link to the Kickstarter page, please have a look:
https://www.raphnet.net/programmation/ratille … /index_en.php#1

The game is now available in a budget edition (Box, game on floppy and post cards only) from Côté Gamers: http://cotegamers.com/shop/en/accueil/48-ratillery.html

raphnet wrote on 2019-04-20, 02:32:

[*] AdLib, OPL2LPT and Tandy sound support

I apologize for completely missing this. What did you use for this extra support, if you don't mind me asking? Any specific trackers? A conversion? Pre-existing libraries?

MobyGamer wrote on 2020-02-20, 22:22:

raphnet wrote on 2019-04-20, 02:32:

[*] AdLib, OPL2LPT and Tandy sound support

I apologize for completely missing this. What did you use for this extra support, if you don't mind me asking? Any specific trackers? A conversion? Pre-existing libraries?

As in the free version, the music was tracked with MONOTONE! (Actually, the music has not been changed at all, so it's still very basic).

For playback, I wrote a small tool to convert native monotone files to a more memory efficient format (which I called tinytone). I wrote my own 8088 playback code which interprets the tinytone format and sends note events to specific drivers (PC Speaker, Adlib and Tandy) which I also wrote. To further save space, the tintone format is also compressed with LZ4, and decompressed at runtime using your 8088 LZ4 routine.

Since MONOTONE does not support OPL2 instruments and percussion, I used hardcoded (per song) instruments and added a very simple (harcoded too...) beatbox for Adlib and Tandy.

That's awesome! 😀 Thanks for the details!

For your future projects: I wrote the speed-optimized decompressor for the LZSA1 and LZSA2 formats; LZSA1 beats LZ4 in every way (same speed but smaller files, or same size files but faster speed). https://github.com/emmanuel-marty/lzsa if you'd like to check it out sometime.

Yes, I know 😀 I'm already using it in my current project! Very useful!

So of course you know my next question: What's your current project? 😀

MobyGamer wrote on 2020-02-21, 17:10:

So of course you know my next question: What's your current project? 😀

It's a game called StellarRoads, I released it yesterday: https://www.raphnet.net/programmation/stellar … ds/index_en.php

Actually, I grabbed it a few hours before you sent this, finding it on a youtube video. So much for my plans to port Canabalt 😀 Had my son play it, he liked it.

MobyGamer wrote on 2020-03-15, 22:42:

Actually, I grabbed it a few hours before you sent this, finding it on a youtube video. So much for my plans to port Canabalt 😀 Had my son play it, he liked it.

Why? I think Canabalt would still be worth porting 😉

Yes, but a massive undertaking. The code isn't directly portable; the C64 port is really a remake, and it's amazing, but took 2+ years or something. I haven't got the time 😒

MobyGamer wrote on 2020-03-19, 02:00:

Yes, but a massive undertaking. The code isn't directly portable; the C64 port is really a remake, and it's amazing, but took 2+ years or something. I haven't got the time 😒

I agree, a DOS version would be a remake/adaptation of the original. Actually, coding a proof of concept is very tempting. I wonder if I could make the screen scroll horizontally by 4 pixel intervals on CGA using the CRTC start address register...

But for now, I want to finish StellarRoads. But thanks to your reference to Canabalt, I've taken a small detour and added an endless level! Now I just need to add a distance counter and a way to display the best score... coming soon.

CGA CRTC only lets you scroll a word at a time, so it jumps 8 pixels in 320x200 mode. Overcoming that somehow was part of the challenge I envisioned when I thought about porting it 😀

My son enjoyed playing the game for a couple of minutes, he also asked about an endless mode.

MobyGamer wrote on 2020-03-19, 03:22:

CGA CRTC only lets you scroll a word at a time, so it jumps 8 pixels in 320x200 mode. Overcoming that somehow was part of the challenge I envisioned when I thought about porting it 😀

Ah, that's too bad. 8 pixels jumps are fine at full speed, but the acceleration wouldn't be very smooth... not that it would have been that smooth with 4 pixels jump anyway...