You know, you retouch a tile in one place and it spoils all in another place.
By the way Swainy, I'm not asking you for help now because what I currently do is drawing mixed with hacking, searching for data definitions in memory, adjusting data, poking routines to prevent some data switching etc. I'm not sure if you'd like to know it all :)
You know, you retouch a tile in one place and it spoils all in another place.
By the way Swainy, I'm not asking you for help now because what I currently do is drawing mixed with hacking, searching for data definitions in memory, adjusting data, poking routines to prevent some data switching etc. I'm not sure if you'd like to know it all :)
Well I'm more than willing to help out mate :) just give me a shout if you need me.
Well I'm more than willing to help out mate just give me a shout if you need me.
Well, I won't have time to work on it for a day or two so maybe I'll share what I have.
It's not any secret so I'll do it here :)
I've made a PC tool for help
Open .sna file and click on any tile to get TileNr. Other data are unimportant for you at the moment
Then work on these tiles:
Tile colours are unimportant, they will be imported through
Sevenup only like graphics.
The dot on empty sky tile is a temporary necessity, otherwise Sevenup imports this tile inverted and i was tired to correct it each time.
Then import these tiles to Sevenup and export them to .bin with following options:
Then import tiles to emulator with the game to address 37575
Tiles are organized by columns, 1st column are tiles 0-15 2nd column are tiles 16-31 etc. You may wish to create a help picture with columns and row numbers to find the tiles more easily.
I also find it easier to copy an entire screenshot from emulator to editor. adjust graphics on it and the copy the needed tiles to its places in tile sheet.
Just work on graphics of 1st level (between levels some data are shifted in memory) The colours are done separately and I'll try to adjust them myself.
Everybody else is of course allowed to download it too an play with the tool ;)
EDIT: don't touch the right side of this house in the screenshot :), these tiles are used elsewhere and need to be so, I'll later adjust the house definition
This game's graphics were clearly designed for 128x192 resolution.
If you convert them (transforming the dither patterns into half tones) you get this:
Notice that all text and the sprites remain defined.
I've mentioned before having this mode in emulators, since the early TV connections over RF did this sort of horizontal blurring. But unfortunately it's not widely supported.
I think choosing black for the bottom is the right thing to do
Sprites are much more visible this way. Besides i think light colored sprites on dark background makes the sprites look bigger somehow...
- I was fed up with square Amstrad font so replaced it with Pacman style font from another game about Pacman - Pacmania.
- lots of work on graphics and map definitions
The main hack is more or less ready, now I need to do a lot of "boring" ;) job of updating the graphics.
Give me a week or rather two and it should be ready :)
That's looking really nice! Sorry I haven't been able to help mate, I've been really busy with work and with looking after my kids this past week. Glad to see the back of that font too!
And now my question is: how hard would have it been for the authors of the game to implement all these features, Ralf? The game looks now ten times better!
it makes it so much uglier than it needs to be - block colouring would look much cleaner.
or change the type of texture, I think that some kind of light texture over the scenery silhouettes makes player's imagination feel more real, this is a quick filter applied to the hills
Thanks again people. These comments make me feel it's worth to struggle with these old trash games to make them less trash :)
As for dithering - more than one person suggested to make it all plain walls but personally, after a bit of thought I decided to keep it this way. It makes roofs and walls different and it was original intention of the game coder to do it so. After all he used different tiles. So my decision - it stays dithered :)
And now my question is: how hard would have it been for the authors of the game to implement all these features, Ralf? The game looks now ten times better!
Rather easy. In my opinion they lacked about 2 weeks of time to do this game properly.
On the other hand, as you can read in the story linked earlier in this thread, they were working overtime, neglecting their social life and finally didn't get paid for their work. In that case I really wouldn't try to do my best. Releasing a crap game could even be a part of programmer's revenge ;)
Are you going to keep it flip screen Ralf or will you try to get it scrolling? You mentioned earlier in the thread that it looked like they had considered a scrolling approach but is the code there to actually do it?
I'm guessing it would be character block scrolling from what you said earlier?
I rarely, rarely comment here but this is just fascinating work Ralf. It's amazing to be able to dig beneath the code and see what we might have been playing all these years.
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the time you're putting into it.
Comments
a) the original game looks dog awful, and
b) these remarkably improved graphics were actually hidden in the original code.
the whole thing reminds me how shoddy some games companies were, not giving coders time to get the game perfected before pushing it out.
agree. :D
I'll see what can be done.
You know, you retouch a tile in one place and it spoils all in another place.
By the way Swainy, I'm not asking you for help now because what I currently do is drawing mixed with hacking, searching for data definitions in memory, adjusting data, poking routines to prevent some data switching etc. I'm not sure if you'd like to know it all :)
I didn't know about this game until a few weeks ago I saw the link below. The zx version comes off worse.
As you have shown its more to do with programming than the limitations of the machine. But will knew that of course :D
www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCZPoWt1Vzs
Well I'm more than willing to help out mate :) just give me a shout if you need me.
Well, I won't have time to work on it for a day or two so maybe I'll share what I have.
It's not any secret so I'll do it here :)
I've made a PC tool for help
Open .sna file and click on any tile to get TileNr. Other data are unimportant for you at the moment
Then work on these tiles:
Tile colours are unimportant, they will be imported through
Sevenup only like graphics.
The dot on empty sky tile is a temporary necessity, otherwise Sevenup imports this tile inverted and i was tired to correct it each time.
Then import these tiles to Sevenup and export them to .bin with following options:
Then import tiles to emulator with the game to address 37575
Tiles are organized by columns, 1st column are tiles 0-15 2nd column are tiles 16-31 etc. You may wish to create a help picture with columns and row numbers to find the tiles more easily.
I also find it easier to copy an entire screenshot from emulator to editor. adjust graphics on it and the copy the needed tiles to its places in tile sheet.
Just work on graphics of 1st level (between levels some data are shifted in memory) The colours are done separately and I'll try to adjust them myself.
The download (tool, tiles and modified .sna):
http://www.sendspace.com/file/0fanpj
Write if you have any problems
Everybody else is of course allowed to download it too an play with the tool ;)
EDIT: don't touch the right side of this house in the screenshot :), these tiles are used elsewhere and need to be so, I'll later adjust the house definition
Great! Haha.
For each game that you modify do you make a tool?
Yes :)
It may seem like a big job but actually you can make such thing in 3 hours or so.
I read Spectrum memory to an array and do basically calculations like:
These are specific things for each game so yes, I do it each time. But as I said it goes fast
Then I have some ready procedures like drawing Spectrum screen which I copy/paste between projects.
If you convert them (transforming the dither patterns into half tones) you get this:
Notice that all text and the sprites remain defined.
I've mentioned before having this mode in emulators, since the early TV connections over RF did this sort of horizontal blurring. But unfortunately it's not widely supported.
- IONIAN-GAMES.com -
The recent changes:
- bottom part made black
- now every empty tile has yellow attribute
- I was fed up with square Amstrad font so replaced it with Pacman style font from another game about Pacman - Pacmania.
- lots of work on graphics and map definitions
The main hack is more or less ready, now I need to do a lot of "boring" ;) job of updating the graphics.
Give me a week or rather two and it should be ready :)
Sprites are much more visible this way. Besides i think light colored sprites on dark background makes the sprites look bigger somehow...
Looking forward to play this
G
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1694367894143130/
That's looking really nice! Sorry I haven't been able to help mate, I've been really busy with work and with looking after my kids this past week. Glad to see the back of that font too!
it makes it so much uglier than it needs to be - block colouring would look much cleaner.
Well done mate, great progress :-)
It looks great on original hardware over an RF connection ;)
D.
or change the type of texture, I think that some kind of light texture over the scenery silhouettes makes player's imagination feel more real, this is a quick filter applied to the hills
JSpeccy-win32-portable
Can't stand to see final version ! :D
Spectrum 48k+ / 128k+ / 128k+2 / +2A (2) / +3 with Multiface3
SpeccyPi 128k+3,14...
Yes, I only love the + versions !!!
JSpeccy-win32-portable
As for dithering - more than one person suggested to make it all plain walls but personally, after a bit of thought I decided to keep it this way. It makes roofs and walls different and it was original intention of the game coder to do it so. After all he used different tiles. So my decision - it stays dithered :)
Rather easy. In my opinion they lacked about 2 weeks of time to do this game properly.
On the other hand, as you can read in the story linked earlier in this thread, they were working overtime, neglecting their social life and finally didn't get paid for their work. In that case I really wouldn't try to do my best. Releasing a crap game could even be a part of programmer's revenge ;)
now there is colour it seems quite pointless...and very ugly!
and kudos to Ralf - you are a spectrum wizard.
If only programmers like yourself and einar were around in the heydey...the things you make the little computer do are amazing
I'm guessing it would be character block scrolling from what you said earlier?
Fascinating stuff. Thanks for the time you're putting into it.
I'm progressing with Pacland mod, actually the 1st level is ready:
The download for playing:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/qq0o2c
Don't play later levels, everything is messed up there ;)