Alien: New Atari Lynx homebrew!

[108 Stars]

GadgetUK from AtariAge just announced today that he has almost finished porting the classic C64/Spectrum/CPC-game based on Ridley Scott's movie "Alien" to the Lynx.

All that is left to do is some of the menu navigation and a few screens and animations.

The game seems to be kind of an adventure-strategy mix, and has the look of the green motion trackers from the Alien movies.

GadgetUK hopes to present more (maybe even the finished game) mid-week.

[TL]

Oh wow! This is brilliant!  :38:

[DreamcastRIP]

I'm assuming the ROM will be distributed for free as I'd be very suprised if this GadgetUK person has acquired the license for both the game and for Aliens itself. Cool anyway!

[108 Stars]

It will be a free ROM as I understand it, although GadgetUK is a person that probably wouldn't be too scared of legal troubles. He was very vocal about how LX.NET's Pitfall should keep the Pitfall name and have no alteration.

But anyway, a free ROM is just as illegal as if he sold it I understand. Being non-commercial does not affect copyright and trademark infringement. Not that anybody will take notice.

I'm very much looking forward to it, he also announced another game called Jack Attack, a tribute to the late Mr Tramiel; no further info yet, but here's the Wikipedia article on the original game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Attack

[TL]

I'm very much looking forward to it, he also announced another game called Jack Attack, a tribute to the late Mr Tramiel; no further info yet, but here's the Wikipedia article on the original game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Attack

Fitting tribute! That is great to hear!!!!

[DreamcastRIP]

Yep, still illegal.

I'm not so sure that whoever owns the Alien/Aliens IP (the name, not the game per se) would not take any notice though.

I'm delighted to see games still being released on Lynx though even though I've no interest in supporting illegal ventures such as this myself.

Here's hoping the guy will put his hand to creating something legitimate and also original on the Lynx in future. 

[108 Stars]

Well, I will certainly play the game, licensed or not. Spending money on it would be a different story, but as long as it's freeware and the game is not on sale from the original publisher anymore I have no moral issues playing it on the Lynx.

[AmigaJay]

Yeah chillout DC! He's only porting it as freeware to play on an emulator or flashcard,  doesn't say anywhere if he's planning to sell it...though I suppose I'm gonna have to stop watching all those gangnam rip off videos on youtube for violating copyright!  :106:

[TrekMD]

Very cool!  Looking forward to this. 

[DreamcastRIP]

Yeah chillout DC! He's only porting it as freeware to play on an emulator or flashcard,  doesn't say anywhere if he's planning to sell it...though I suppose I'm gonna have to stop watching all those gangnam rip off videos on youtube for violating copyright!  :106: :24:

[108 Stars]

So here it is; just a beta now, sadly, as GadgetUK was ill this week. So there's still some stuff do do, as well as including an enhanced graphics mode, bu you can try it out now.

Have fun!

http://www.c5software.co.uk/downloads/Alien0.3.zip

And here's what GadgetUK has to say:

OK, i've been pretty ill the last few days - right now I feel like I am dying...  I've hardly touched it during the week, well not since Monday night when I was last well.

 Please note this is NOT complete.

 These are some of the things I will try and do over the weekend / next week, depending on healthP-

 1) Android serves not real purpose atm, I will make him / her open airlock if more than one person is in the control room - so you dont know which did it.  Make jones scared of the android, also allow android to turn rogue at some point in the count down so he starts attacking people, starting fires or setting self destruct / fight with other crew etc.
 2) Cosmetics - a lot of crap visuals in there atm, allthough some are from original and wont chance in the standard mode - 108 may do enhanced gfx when I've finished. Thanks =)
 3) Ending animations - ship exploding, arrive at earth etc - all possible as there's plenty of rom space yet left.
 4) Some extras for enhanced mode - crew profiles etc.
 5) Morale and hear beat indicator - not implemented yet, wil do that next.
 6) And whilst code is there to handle vents ive had no time to rip the vent images yet.
 7) Probably more stuff and bugs - my list is about 30 items long....  Oh, and change music - it's using a convenient one from Karris sample code atm.
 EDIT: Sound effects to be added.
 9) Final scoring at the end.

 If anyone can tell me htf  to export music in from Chipper, or modify the ASM to work with the CC65 comiler please let me know.  I am clueless as to why none of the export methods work from Chipper despite having 'CC65' in the names etc.


 There are 3 versions as a few people have had v0.1 and v0.2 already, so class 0.1 and 0.2 as protos or something.


 Please test what you can see there so far, try the different modes and difficulty and see if you can kill the alien via different methods and please report any bugs.

 This has been one hell of a difficult learning curve by the way... I've ended up segmenting code as well as images and shifting init routines in and out of RAM to swap with game logic or main menu music etc etc.

 EDIT:  Balancing needs a lot of work btw - you may find it easy, or hard, depending on what you do.

 The item in the first slot is the one you are 'using'.  If you 'use' a consumable in slot one it will disappear.  If you have tracker in slot 1 that should detect jones or alien i nearby room.

 Depending on mode and difficulty things change, extra / more / less items, different weapon, different alien behaviour etc etc.

[TL]

Nice one!

I will give this a try! 

[TrekMD]

Awesome!

[zapiy]

Thanks fella.. will have a bash asap.

[TrekMD]

Hopefully, when this is completed, it can be released in cart format.