SquallStrife wrote:

I think VVVVVV's music has some post-production transforms on it that are outside the scope of trackers.

I think you could do that with Renoise for example, which has VST integration among other things... I just haven't used it much because I'm too lazy to adjust to non-IT-like interfaces.

kao wrote:

http://www.vogons.org/files/diggersprites.png […]
Show full quote

Nice - it would probably be better to avoid the "stretched" look on the low-res sprites by sacrificing horizontal detail, though I'm not sure how much can really be improved (not that familiar with C64 hardware limitations).

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

But the most fun I have with higher level programming languages like Game Maker or Construct 2 because it makes things much more accessible and you can focus on the game WHAT and not so much on the HOW.

These days it's entirely possible to create perfectly playable games with tools like that. Death Worm was created with Game Maker, and depending on your mileage it may look like crap, but it's still one of the most original (and fun) simple arcade/action games that I've come across in recent years.

Nice - it would probably be better to avoid the "stretched" look on the low-res sprites by sacrificing horizontal detail, though I'm not sure how much can really be improved (not that familiar with C64 hardware limitations)

You have 8 sprites. These are either 24x21 (hires) or 12x21 (multicolor). Hires are monochrome while multi are 3 colors, but two of those them are global and must be shared by all sprites. Note that I made the gold bag and cherries hires and the characters multicolor.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

But the most fun I have with higher level programming languages like Game Maker or Construct 2 because it makes things much more accessible and you can focus on the game WHAT and not so much on the HOW.

This is actually what I recommend to people who wonder how to get into making games until I can be certain they're very serious about it, since coding a game from scratch is a massive undertaking, even when using extra libraries to make everything go faster.

Game Creation Studios have all kinds of quirks, limitations, bugs, etc., and for that, they're not a good choice for serious development, but for casually making games or learning the design process, they're the best choice. ;)

I thought perhaps it would also be cool to make Pooyan or Donkey Kong Jr for PCs because they never got on it back then.

You could rip the sprites and background graphics mostly from the arcade game since PCs do not have the color/resolution restrictions that 8-bit machines have. The only thing is that the graphics would have to be dithered down to CGA 4 colors (whereas on systems like the C64, you have to totally remake the graphics to conform with the screen geometry)

Sound would be poor though with the speaker.

kao wrote:

I thought perhaps it would also be cool to make Pooyan or Donkey Kong Jr for PCs because they never got on it back then.

About that... I came across this 1983/84 Datasoft catalog just the other day: http://www.atarimania.com/catalog-atari-datasoft-_198_8.html
check out page 4 - Pooyan is listed as "coming soon" for the PC/Pcjr (alongside some other "future projcets", of which at least a few did come out). Wouldn't surprise me if it was released, then barely sold at all and just became extremely rare over the years. A few obscurities like that still turn up from time to time (see M.U.L.E).

The only thing is that the graphics would have to be dithered down to CGA 4 colors

or go 16-color composite... the mode 6 "palette" could work nicely.

check out page 4 - Pooyan is listed as "coming soon" for the PC/Pcjr (alongside some other "future projcets", of which at least a few did come out). Wouldn't surprise me if it was released, then barely sold at all and just became extremely rare over the years.

I don't think it did get released. If you read old Usenet posts from the early 90s, there's a number of references to PC M.U.L.E. The existence of that was known for years, but no copies surfaced until recently. Same with Conan Halls of Volta. That game somehow seems like it should have been on the PC. Out of that list, it appears that only Bruce Lee and Zaxxon got released on PCs.

Incidentally, Datasoft's ports of Pooyan needed more work. For one thing, the cutscenes from the arcade game are missing. I checked and the C64 port is only 12k in size. Could the programmers have been any more lazy? You couldn't round it out to 16k? (which should be enough to include the cutscenes). That is in comparison to the arcade-perfect NES version (which was Japan-only though)

Datasoft went bankrupt sometime in the mid-80s, possibly a victim of the video game crash and that may explain the large number of unreleased titles.

or go 16-color composite... the mode 6 "palette" could work nicely.

If I did it, I would have the game be CGA-only (maybe PCjr as well) to be appropriate for the 1984 time period.

In some regards, the PC is a lot easier to program games for than 8-bit machines because of not having the memory and graphics restrictions of them. Also the latter are just frame buffers and you don't have to deal with the confusing jumble of modes on the C64 and Atari. On the other hand, trying to do animation in software is tough.

The PC/Apple frame buffer graphics won out in the end though since the Amiga proved that LSI chips just aren't suited for a modern multitasking GUI.

kao wrote:

Out of that list, it appears that only Bruce Lee and Zaxxon got released on PCs.

at the very least, Lost Tomb and Juno First exist as well (see the links for info), and Genesis is listed as already available, despite the fact that it has never turned up anywhere as far as I know.... so I wouldn't rule out the rest of that list. Some of them are mentioned in this piece too (June '84).

When it comes to PC games of that era, I get the feeling that many remain unknown today just because they never got the attention of the two or three warez groups that existed on the PC scene at the time.
And vice versa: consider how almost every pre-386 PC owner has played Alley Cat at some point - yet I've never seen a boxed copy of Alley Cat, never came across anyone who has owned or seen one anywhere, and haven't turned up even a single photo of it on the web, _ever_. For all I know, Alley Cat for PC is rarer than MULE. Wonder how much it would fetch on ebay?

If I did it, I would have the game be CGA-only (maybe PCjr as well) to be appropriate for the 1984 time period.

In some regards, the PC is a lot easier to program games for than 8-bit machines because of not having the memory and graphics restrictions of them. Also the latter are just frame buffers and you don't have to deal with the confusing jumble of modes on the C64 and Atari. On the other hand, trying to do animation in software is tough.

True.... too bad my knowledge of assembly is still basic at best, or I'd be all over that. Wouldn't even try that with C or Pascal of any variant. 😀

When it comes to PC games of that era, I get the feeling that many remain unknown today just because they never got the attention of the two or three warez groups that existed on the PC scene at the time.

That is true. PCs were rather inconsequential in the home/educational market pre-1986. I know that Alley Cat, Dig Dug, and Digger must have been released by pirate groups early on because they've been all over the net since forever, but many have only turned up in the last decade.

yet I've never seen a boxed copy of Alley Cat, never came across anyone who has owned or seen one anywhere, and haven't turned up even a single photo of it on the web, _ever_. For all I know, Alley Cat for PC is rarer than MULE. Wonder how much it would fetch on ebay?

I've also noticed the strange absence of original Alley Cat copies.

Master Miner (one of Michael Abrash's games) remains lost for the time being 🙁

True.... too bad my knowledge of assembly is still basic at best, or I'd be all over that

The hardest part of programming is sound and music because unlike graphics, it's not a visual medium. I'm not really good enough with asm either for the various C64 projects I've contemplated.

Some of the real shareware / public domain games of the 80s are lost into obscurity too because of their lack of commercial presence letting the scene skip them. Same for the freeware games of 95-98 before there was that casual game craze starting in 2000 bumping the rest off and before Newgrounds' rise to popularity. (the games of 1991-1994 are for the most part, well "circulated" thanks to huge amounts of shovelware that repeat their inclusions)

The game Funky Pong 98 was only saved because one lame group decided to make (and "crack", despite being a completely unprotected freeware KNP game) for the first warez release of 1998. Even then, this rip recently surfaced this year and seems to be the only thing left besides references on archive.org.

leileilol wrote:

Some of the real shareware / public domain games of the 80s are lost into obscurity too because of their lack of commercial presence letting the scene skip them. Same for the freeware games of 95-98 before there was that casual game craze starting in 2000 bumping the rest off and before Newgrounds' rise to popularity. (the games of 1991-1994 are for the most part, well "circulated" thanks to huge amounts of shovelware that repeat their inclusions)

The game Funky Pong 98 was only saved because one lame group decided to make (and "crack", despite being a completely unprotected freeware KNP game) for the first warez release of 1998. Even then, this rip recently surfaced this year and seems to be the only thing left besides references on archive.org.

A lot of old shareware games also survive only as crippleware because you can't get the fully functional versions anymore due to the author dying or no longer being interested in supporting their old software. Fully functional versions may not even exist anymore for them to give out even if they were interested.

In addition to that, applications are in danger of being lost like for example the early versions of AutoCAD. Pirate groups generally didn't care about that stuff and many copies were sold to businesses who just threw them out when it became obsolete.

seems like unreal was pretty well optimized...for being as sophisticated as it seemed to be pretty lean

kao wrote:

Master Miner (one of Michael Abrash's games) remains lost for the time being 🙁

True, I've tried turning over a few stones myself and came up with nothing, other than a single post with a description and screen mockup at https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/alt.gam … Gk/rjNa9414Hc8J.
By the way, despite the Funtastic label, I don't know if Abrash was really involved (the Mobygames credits only mention Dan Illowsky).

On the upside, those 5.25" DD floppies were hardy beasts and seem to have amazing survival rates even 30 years later, so if a copy does turn up, chances are it could still be saved. Contrast with the "reliability" of 1.44MB HD media... most of those things curled up and died if you just looked at them funny.

leileilol wrote:

Some of the real shareware / public domain games of the 80s are lost into obscurity too because of their lack of commercial presence letting the scene skip them.

Fortunately a lot of them still live on at cd.textfiles.com, just hiding in plain sight because sometimes you only get an 8-char .zip or .arc filename with no description.
I've been submitting some '80s BBS fodder to Mobygames lately, just to have the existence of those games documented somewhere... already received a PM about one of them, from some guy who remembered playing it 25 years ago but could never find a download link anywhere online. Checked cd.textfiles.com and naturally it had a copy or ten.

Another bonus with the pre-Apogee era is that many of the shareware titles were distributed as 100% functional and cripple-free. Whether or not they were any good is an entirely different question, of course.

ncmark wrote:

seems like unreal was pretty well optimized...for being as sophisticated as it seemed to be pretty lean

modern ut3 based games do well, except for the few exception to the rule like borderlands 1, while Alice madness returns and batman AA/AC and border lands 2 run rather well with the a few exceptions (slow donws) to Alice madness returns due to DRM and poor coding.