VOGONS

chro.mono DOS port

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First post, by thp

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As second entry for the DOS Game Jame June 2023, I've ported my game chro.mono to DOS. I didn't get the audio working (DMA and DPMI are not my friends) and didn't have time to optimize the rendering to work on older machines, but if you have a fast CPU, I'm sure it will run well (there's a FPS counter you can activate to compare performance).

It uses a custom software rasterizer, but it hasn't really been optimized for retro machines, so this is probably best consumed on a "fast" DOS retro PC. You also need a mouse driver installed.

This uses standard Mode 0x13, and dithering to get the game's content down to 256 colors.

If you like the game, a version with audio and higher-resolution graphics (ha!) is available on Itch.io as well as on the iOS App Store.

Edit: Version 2.4.1 which fixes timer-related issues and should provide much smoother animations.
Edit: Version 2.4.2 adds an alternative circle rendering method that is faster on slow CPUs.

Itch.io: https://thp.itch.io/chromono2

Reply 1 of 1, by thp

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Updated version 2.4.2 in the original post with the following changes:

  • Alternative circle rendering ("Fast circles" option)
  • Add option to enable/disable dithering for fast circles

The default rendering style (slow, but nice) looks like this:

Screenshot from 2023-06-22 11-38-10.png

The "fast circles" option (can be toggled in the lower right corner menu) looks like this:

Screenshot from 2023-06-22 11-38-02.png

And finally, "fast circles" with dithering enabled is like the middle ground, and helps distinguish colors:

Screenshot from 2023-06-22 11-37-52.png

In DOSBox, this allows the frame rate to double in the main menu screen, so it's a worthy trade-off for slow CPUs.

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