New WIP underway - 'Dingo'.
Hi,
Prepare for a long post. Perhaps I can even challenge ewgf here. :razz:
Anyway, I've been meaning to get into Z80 programming and making a game at some point - that's what I've been saying for almost 30 years now anyway :lol: ..but I've been plenty busy with all my PC games and didn't think I could find the time I'd guess it would take to re-learn Z80 and get into that again. Well, I guess I found time now. :D
Now, I used to fiddle around with z80 "back then" - cracking games and programming small utilities (usually for cracking and hacking), but never a game...it seemed to hard and impossible, so I'm not a complete "Z80 virgin", but I never felt I was good enough to make a game, and so I haven't touched Z80 at all for 20 years, but I guess that having made a bunch of other games I've learned a thing or two about how to structure a game. 8)
Then two weeks ago I got the idea to remake Dingo for the Spectrum. Dingo, for those who don't know, is an arcadegame made in 1983 by ACG and is credited to Chris and Tim Stamper. I've already remade it for the PC, so I know the game in and out and thought it would be a good idea...and it could be a nice companionpiece to the four 16K Ultimate games (if I don't screw it up that is). :) It's also a pretty simple game and a good choice for a first game.
I know that due to those origins it may not be possible to store it at WOS, and I'd love to write to the Stampers and ask for "exclusive WOS distribution rights" but as I don't know how to get in contact with them, then - if nothing else - it'll be available from my own website instead.
Being originally an arcadegame - and not for the Spectrum - it's in a grey area so perhaps Martijn will allow it to be stored here, but let's see about that once the game is finished.
Here's a screenshot from the original game;
Developmentwise I had a bit of a false start and wasted a couple of days using some tools that just wasn't as good as they seemed on the surface, but I eventually started programming it on july 21st. Now, 12 days later I almost have a complete game. :D
When I say 'almost complete' I mean "all menus done, building levels, moving around, picking up fruit, shooting fruit, level progression, getting scores and bonuses...and probably a few more things".
Things still left to do is, all code relating to the enemies. I've only just prepared the graphics for them tonight, and I'm now ready to get into programming that too.
I'll also need new graphics for the items because - as you can probably see - they've mostly been "borrowed" from other places as I needed something to work with (graphics almost always comes last for me).
...and music too. Since I want the game to stand along with the four 16K Ultimate games I think I'd like similiar BEEP'style tunes. Who can do that?
...I'll probably also remove that TIME counter and replace it with a lives and level counter. Remember, this is only a WIP version.
There's room for a LOT of optimisation though. At this point I haven't cared much about compact and overly efficient code...I think that - for a first game - I'm allowed to slack off a bit ;) ...but things need to a bit run faster because things are slowing down a bit with both the player and a flying fruit going horizontally (as you can guess I'm shifting my sprites as I need them), but they're going in 1 pixel increments right now - which is not really needed, so if I change that to 2 pixels at the time and do a bit of 'load balancing' so movement of player/items/enemies aren't all handled in the same loop through the mainprogram, but split up and done in separately loops, then I'll probably get the speed increase I need.
Since I'm aware of this issue, and I haven't written any code for the enemies yet, I'll probably see if I can figure out how to preshift them at the start of the program so I won't have to do all those shifts during the game itself. Fun fun fun...let's see how it goes. :lol:
Phew.
Here's a screenshot from Spectacular. As you can see I've been forced to reduce the playfied by a couple of rows because of the Spectrums lower resolution - and because I wanted to keep sprites/tiles at 16x16 so I could have full-color, but as you can see it has worked out just fine. ;)
Let me know what you think. ;)
Prepare for a long post. Perhaps I can even challenge ewgf here. :razz:
Anyway, I've been meaning to get into Z80 programming and making a game at some point - that's what I've been saying for almost 30 years now anyway :lol: ..but I've been plenty busy with all my PC games and didn't think I could find the time I'd guess it would take to re-learn Z80 and get into that again. Well, I guess I found time now. :D
Now, I used to fiddle around with z80 "back then" - cracking games and programming small utilities (usually for cracking and hacking), but never a game...it seemed to hard and impossible, so I'm not a complete "Z80 virgin", but I never felt I was good enough to make a game, and so I haven't touched Z80 at all for 20 years, but I guess that having made a bunch of other games I've learned a thing or two about how to structure a game. 8)
Then two weeks ago I got the idea to remake Dingo for the Spectrum. Dingo, for those who don't know, is an arcadegame made in 1983 by ACG and is credited to Chris and Tim Stamper. I've already remade it for the PC, so I know the game in and out and thought it would be a good idea...and it could be a nice companionpiece to the four 16K Ultimate games (if I don't screw it up that is). :) It's also a pretty simple game and a good choice for a first game.
I know that due to those origins it may not be possible to store it at WOS, and I'd love to write to the Stampers and ask for "exclusive WOS distribution rights" but as I don't know how to get in contact with them, then - if nothing else - it'll be available from my own website instead.
Being originally an arcadegame - and not for the Spectrum - it's in a grey area so perhaps Martijn will allow it to be stored here, but let's see about that once the game is finished.
Here's a screenshot from the original game;
Developmentwise I had a bit of a false start and wasted a couple of days using some tools that just wasn't as good as they seemed on the surface, but I eventually started programming it on july 21st. Now, 12 days later I almost have a complete game. :D
When I say 'almost complete' I mean "all menus done, building levels, moving around, picking up fruit, shooting fruit, level progression, getting scores and bonuses...and probably a few more things".
Things still left to do is, all code relating to the enemies. I've only just prepared the graphics for them tonight, and I'm now ready to get into programming that too.
I'll also need new graphics for the items because - as you can probably see - they've mostly been "borrowed" from other places as I needed something to work with (graphics almost always comes last for me).
...and music too. Since I want the game to stand along with the four 16K Ultimate games I think I'd like similiar BEEP'style tunes. Who can do that?
...I'll probably also remove that TIME counter and replace it with a lives and level counter. Remember, this is only a WIP version.
There's room for a LOT of optimisation though. At this point I haven't cared much about compact and overly efficient code...I think that - for a first game - I'm allowed to slack off a bit ;) ...but things need to a bit run faster because things are slowing down a bit with both the player and a flying fruit going horizontally (as you can guess I'm shifting my sprites as I need them), but they're going in 1 pixel increments right now - which is not really needed, so if I change that to 2 pixels at the time and do a bit of 'load balancing' so movement of player/items/enemies aren't all handled in the same loop through the mainprogram, but split up and done in separately loops, then I'll probably get the speed increase I need.
Since I'm aware of this issue, and I haven't written any code for the enemies yet, I'll probably see if I can figure out how to preshift them at the start of the program so I won't have to do all those shifts during the game itself. Fun fun fun...let's see how it goes. :lol:
Phew.
Here's a screenshot from Spectacular. As you can see I've been forced to reduce the playfied by a couple of rows because of the Spectrums lower resolution - and because I wanted to keep sprites/tiles at 16x16 so I could have full-color, but as you can see it has worked out just fine. ;)
Let me know what you think. ;)
Post edited by Sokurah on
Website: Tardis Remakes / Mostly remakes of Arcade and ZX Spectrum games.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Comments
Bytes:Chuntey - Spectrum tech blog.
Keep at it, I like these fun sort of Pick up n' play type games, always good to kill a few mins, or if you get good at them several hours.
Now all we need is omeone to convert the LCD game version of Friskie Tom, the arcade version is crap, but the little handheld from the 80's was ace :D
Also we need a Speccy version of Son Son, that's one of Capcoms best games ;)
Incidently, how are you handling the movement of the enemies through the fruit in terms of colour clash?...
NB: If this does turn into a inspired version rather than a straight port, you could add some new features to liven things up... Personally, after about an hour or so of having that damn ditty tune go through my head, Id love to see some blood!!! (Pixel engine driven or just splattered - Im not fussy by that stage)... (Call it an adversion to cute things if you like).. Hey, maybe you could include a bomb in there, a la Bomberman (it could fry your fruit, making it useless for throwing, or something)... Ok..well..maybe that suggestion is just the tune getting to me again... [Ill sit quietly in the corner again]...
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
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Gameplay;
You're the koala and you have to pickup all the fruit on a level to complete it. Naturally you have to avoid the enemies - the dingoes - which will stomp you to death if they catch you (they won't actually chase you - just walk around randomly...also like 3 of the 4 16K Ultimate games).
You can defend yourself by shooting the last picked fruit after them, which will stun them for a short while if you nail them. You can only shoot one fruit at the time and you have to pick up another fruit before being able to shoot again.
However, those dastardly dingoes will also pickup fruit and shoot at you, but the same rules apply to them, but less fruit means fewer points, so the faster you clear a level the more points you get (because you don't get points for the items that the dingoes throw).
...but don't take my word about the rules -here, let the game tell you. :-P
Arjun, this screenshot is from Spin and doesn't have the scanlines that the screenshot from Spectacular has, so you can see that there's just the colors that is possible on a Spectrum (it just looks nicer in Spectacular ;)).
About colors:
Up until yesterday I had the items that are thrown around keeping their colors, but I decided that it didn't look all that good when they flew around, so I've changed so that, when they're thrown, they're either white or colored by whatever item they pass through. It looks good and feels natural.
For a while I wanted to make the koala bright cyan (which it still is on the screen above) but I've chosen to go with white in-game, and colorclash-wise there's no problem as other items dissappear when you walk over them.
The dingoes are another matter. I haven't coded them yet, but I think I'll keep them magenta so they change the color of whatever they pass over, but I need to see how it looks first.
Kgmcneil, if you want blood you should try my PC remake of the game. It has two different ways to die and they're both pretty bloody. I almost laughed my ass off after putting it in and seeing it in action for the first time. :lol:
I won't be making many changes from the original game though - it'll be a pretty straight remake - but again...let's see how I feel once I've got things working as they should.
I have a question for you guys.
The original game has 104 16x16 blocks with 56 of them being pickups.
My remake has 75 blocks with 40 of them being pickups because of the reduced size of the playfield.
The original game has up to 4 enemies on screen at the same time, but since my playfield is smaller - should I keep it at 4 or should I make the maximum amount of enemies 3 instead?
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
For people too lazy to run Mame:
My thoughts:
Don't worry about copyrights. WOS politics are that it won't store original denied game or a crack but is quite liberal about "borrowing ideas" and turning them into your own game. Otherwise all clones of Tetris,Frogger or Arkanoid would have to be removed :)
These dingoes look like little rocking ponies :)
There is a lot of color in the screen maybe even ... too much colour:-o I mean it's a bit of eye hurting (a feature of the original arcade too). How do you think people?
Please don't convert the original arcade tune. It's quite terrible :)
If it's by Ultimate then it's an important game and definitely asks for conversion!
Judging by screenshots you are doing a top quality job !
The original is hard so maybe 3 dingoes would be enough.
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
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There is no way in hell you'll get any sort of response from the Stampers, much less permission to use any of their IP from either them or RARE.
P.S. I love your fruit graphics, and the amount of colour.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
Man, the player in that video is terrible. :lol:
I'd be happy to consider changing items so they don't have colors, but personally I think it looks great the way it does now
...even if it IS going to be problematic once the dingoes start moving around.
For reference, here a picture with all the fruits normal white and bright white (it's two screenshots stitched together). I think this is more eye hurting to be honest (especially the lefthand side using bright). Opinions?
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Are you masking the creatures and the fruit, or are you just ORing them together? If you're masking them, whichever goes in front should set the colour. If you're combining them with OR, I think the fruit colour should dominate.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
No, even worse. ;) I decided that since this should stand along with the four 16K games I'd do the graphics the same way, so I'm "just" XOR'ing them. No masks, no backscreen...just what it takes to get it as fast as possible. Sure, I'd like a slightly more fancy sprite routine, but I'll do that in a future project. This means there'll be a bit of flickering though, but that was present in the Ultimate games too. I'm just hoping it won't be worse than that.
Hah, the strawberry is actually the only item that comes from the arcade game...all others are pinched from somewhere else. :lol: But like I said in my first post - they're all going to be replaced...hopefully (too bad I may have to give up the grapes...they're a work of art :-)).
Ohh, cool. One of my friends told me he wouldn't mind doing it, but he's started on the loading screen so I'll send you a couple of spritesheets for the koala and the dingo...I'd love to see a seasoned artist work his magic on those smalll images. ;)
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
The character in the original doesn't move with a fixed speed. That sort of movement probably makes the game more fun to play.
Well, since the player is controlling a koala so I could possibly call it 'Koala'.
And since they sleep 18-22 hours a day I won't have to worry about a slow framerate either...
...I can just claim it's a simulation instead of an arcade game. :lol:
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Shouldn't take much time to just draw something similar from scratch, as I do like the way they're done.
For anyone who watched Neighbours in the 80s, I'd suggest 'Drongo', although that's actually an Australian species of bird that might not fit so well.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
Yeah I think thats the best idea! After all, the whole point I thought was to be putting on the Spectrum the missing ACG game that only came out in the arcades.
Ex-Ocean Software graphic artist -
Download my FREE PDF 'LOAD DIJ DIJ' (180,000+ words): https://ko-fi.com/i/IG2G3BEJZP
ZX Art page: https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/m/mark-r-jones/
https://twitter.com/MarkRJones1970
https://www.facebook.com/OceanSoftwareLtd/
https://www.facebook.com/ultimateptg/
Yes, most of my remakes are pretty close to the original ones as I think you have to be careful not to add or change so much that the game becomes something else. Sometimes it works though...but not always, so that's the route I'm going here.
Joe, here a screenhot of the "scores" screen with all the items on it.
I'll detail where I've pinched them from, below. :)
- Strawberry > from the Dingo arcade game
- Pudding > from Atic Atac
- Fish > Cookie
- Diamond - Underwurlde
- Tomato > Kosmos
- Grapes > Kosmos
- Yellow thingy > Kosmos
- Magenta diamond thingy > Underwurlde
..so, like I said - all sto...borrowed. :lol:All the original sprites - except for the strawberry - ended up pretty bad when I tried to make them look better (in a hurry), so I gave up quickly and took what I needed from somewhere else so I could get on with the programming. I've kept the descriptions from the arcade game though...in case anyone is wondering. :D
Technical question:
I've gotten my enemies running around now...currently 4 of them (but only one line needs to be changed to allow less or more). So far they're just following simple up/down or left/right paths, but I need them to navigate the labyrinth, but the question is: what would be the most efficient way of doing that on a Spectrum?
I can think of several ways of doing it.
I'm not a big fan of any of them (but y'know..whatever it takes ;)).
Anyone got some better ideas? ;)
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
2) I also second the notion of giving it a different name and labelling it as Dingo inspired, as it may simply be too much hassle to get permissions and faff around with all that...
3) I think you should design your engine with the capacity to have 4 (or more?!) enemies on screen, but actually use 3 for most of the game for speed reasons (you might want to add enemies in later levels or if tweaking the project later - its easier to add them later if you already designed the engine with them in mind)...
4) Change the bloody tune!!!!! (10+)!!!!
5) Having Mark contribute to your graphics is a great idea - he'd be a good asset, even if he did do stick men!!!! ;)
6) Im probably talking rubbish now, as Im no expert, but wouldn't Way points be the fastest routine for directing AI here... It will likely cost you in memory though.. (but not much!)...
7) LOL.. just played your PC version and love the death scene.. For those not in the know, the PC version graphics are better and it really emphasises how the Dingos bounce up and down on your corpse using pixelated blood effects and something that sounds like a cat meowing sound... Classy... ;)
8) Love the way that thrown fruit can be used to neutralise any fruit that is also thrown by them at you...
Makes me think about all the marketing blurb for their early Spectrum games - especially "arcade standard" - when they said it they really meant it.
Personally, I'd love to see a warts-and-all (including horrible tune) 16K port!
1) Well, that'll what I'll do first. Probably a straight remake with a name change. Let's see what happens.
3) Already done. ;) ...funnily enough, I just noticed in the video posted above, that there only seems to be 3 enemies to begin with. I've not noticed that before...I think.
8] Yes, I noticed that in the video as well and wondered "hmm, did I put that in to my PC remake?" ...I honestly can't remember. :lol:
7) Doing those deathscenes were great fun and I only did them a couple of days before the game was finished - when everything else was done too.
I don't have a screenshot of any of the deathscenes, but here's one from the game itself if anyone wants to see how it looks.
...man, I had to endure a lot of comments for having transformed the koala into a panda because suddenly "it didn't make sense that a panda eats fruit" so it stays a koala this time. :D
I'd hoped I could do that, at first, but I'm not doing things that effciently so that's not going to be possible. I think the only optimisation I'll be doing once everything works will be for speed - not size.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Just a quick heads up: While Dingo was A.C.G.'s closest arcade game to the subsequent titles released on the Spectrum under the Ultimate label, it wasn't their only arcade title. I had some communication with Leigh Loveday on this subject around 1999 and apparently A.C.G. produced at least two other arcade games: Blue Print and Zog. There may have been more...
Thanks. :)
I've played Blue Print but it's a pretty awfull game IMHO. I've never heard of Zog though.
I think they did a car game too, but I can't remember what game it could be.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Hi Sokurah,
Looks great but just an FYI - the descriptions against the sprites seem to be wrong e.g. you have the strawberrry listed as a cherry and so on.
Paddy
Oh, come on. I've already explained the the reason for that above...several times.
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
There's an easy way to prevent flicker, and that is to delete the old sprite line by line (or byte by byte) and redraw it at the same time. It's the method ACG used. It may sound complicated, but it's actually really easy, especially for a pre-shifted XOR routine. Just set up the registers for the old sprite, then use EXX to flip them into the alternate register set. Then set up your registers for the new sprite. Draw a byte or line of one sprite, then use EXX to toggle to the other and draw a bit of that. You don't have to worry about where a sprite is because if the scan line catches up with where you are the only bit that flickers is the line you're drawing.
If you have any CPU time left at the end of each frame you can also move the sprites around the table so they're drawn in a different order each time. Assuming you're using an interrupt routine which increments the FRAMES system variable you can keep checking the byte at 23672 to see how many interrupts have occurred since the last frame. If you have time left, move your sprites along one position in the table.
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I'm currently moving the player at 2 pixels at the time, flying objects at 4 pixels at the time, and enemies at 1 pixel at the time (should really be the same speed as the player), and it runs at a pretty decent speed with 6 moving objects at a time (1 player, 1 flying item and 4 enemies). I need a few more objects moving around though, but after I'm done optimizing it should run even better.
My graphics aren't pre-shifted, but if I don't get the speed I want I'l look into pre-shifting them when the game starts. Your suggestion about deleting them and redrawing them at the same time is something I'll look into though. I'll see if I can work out how to do it with my on-the-fly-shifted sprites. Thanks for the idea. :)
My games for the Spectrum: Dingo, The Speccies, The Speccies 2, Vallation, SQIJ.
Twitter: Sokurah
Hi Sokurah,
Sorry, came in to the thread late - did not mean to cause you pain. Just trying to be helpful.
Paddy