https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/ RVG Discussion Board en-GB Sat, 09 May 2026 10:13:48 +0000 wpForo 60 https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/manual-ntsc-or-pal60-selection/ Mon, 06 Mar 2023 14:55:21 +0000
ntscpal60.jpg

]]> Retrodev Chat poundlander https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/manual-ntsc-or-pal60-selection/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/game-art-for-bitmap-soft/ Mon, 08 Jun 2020 21:57:45 +0000
He might even join the RVG Squad

The first is for a Speccy game called Cocoa - And the Time Machine.





The final design is a surprise but you get the idea here.

Reminds me of the Mastertronic days.

Next up is CPC Soccer for the Amstrad CPC.





As above the final design is a surprise but maybe PuttyCAD might talk us through some of this.

]]> Retrodev Chat zapiy https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/game-art-for-bitmap-soft/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/vax-computer-super-robot-remake/ Mon, 18 May 2020 11:28:13 +0000 BlitzBasic.  It was picked up by softpedia years ago and garnered several hundred downloads - even got mentioned in some ancient retro sites. So why not share it here since the softpedia links have gone? I coded this to teach myself BlitzBasic (screen buffering, keyboard reading etc) and I always intended to create a real time version with larger graphics, scrolling maze et al and turn it into a Robotron/Berzerk/2D-Xybots style of game but of course - I didn't!!  :)

This is coded in BlitzPlus which is now a free download (back then I licenced it) and this zip includes the source code for anyone interested. I use arrays instead of object collections and I should go back and re-code it that way but life gets in the way.

I've tested this and it seems to run on my Windows 10 PC just fine - I had to add a couple of DLLs to the zip archive that came with the BlitzBasic environment.



https://www.davykelly.com/robot_v1.24.zip


Readme File for "Super Robot VX Remix"
====================================

Background
==========

Super Robot is a game I played and enjoyed many years ago on a VAX computer running VMS. It is a text-based game and the graphics are purely ASCII character-based. The game was written by an as yet unknown to me German person in VAX pascal.

Gameplay
========

In the original game ,an arena is generated by randomly placed blocks and walls (made of hash '#' symbols) on the 80x24 screen. Robots live in this arena and they are represented by capital 'R's and you are repesented by an asterisk '*'. Numbers are also placed at random in the arena and if you move onto these you score points. There are also mines ('@' symbols) which kill anything stupid enough to move onto them. Some question marks ('?') also appear in the level - some give you points and some are mines. Finally, there is a golden hen ('h') which moves erratically around the arena avoiding you. If you can pick this up you get a large bonus score.

Movement is turned-based. On each move you can either move 1 space in one of 4 directions (North, South, East or West) OR fire in one of 4 directions. Your shot will destroy the 1st thing it hits (except walls and blocks) and then stop.

After you move or fire, each robot will then either fire or move one space. The golden hen will move 2 spaces (if it is still alive!).

The robots are pretty single-minded and a bit stupid - they will naturally move towards you unless they think they have a shot i.e. you are on the same line or column as they are. Each robot will ignore anything between you and it - so they will fire at you and possibly hit another robot or a mine in the way (or of course a point scoring number or the golden hen) and destroy it. Their keenness to track you down can be manipulated so that you can manoeveur them onto mines or into situations were they will shoot each other.

If you shoot a robot (which is easier to do) it may or may not be replaced by 1 (or more!) robots. I was never able to ascertain what the rules were for this. The trick was to make the robots kill each other while collecting points.

You only have 1 life - 1 hit and its game over and your score goes to zero.

When you defeat all of the robots the level finishes - you are deemed successful only if you collect a certain percentage of available points. I can't remember if the value of the golden hen counted towards possible points and am also hazy as to the target percentage required to progress.

If you fail to collect the target number of points, you restart the level again (your score is not reset to zero). If you do collect the target , you move onto a more challenging level. Levels are described as classes in Super Robot. You start at Beginner and move up though Good and Expert. At the expert level, super robots appear ('R's) and can fire at you diagonally.

You could, I suppose, call this game the thinking man's Berzerk!

This was a very addictive little game and I have decided to remake it for the PC using the game-programming language BlitzPlus. It is my 1st BlitzPlus project and my limited knowledge in programming action-based games is another reason why I chose this!

The Remake
==========

I have decided to keep the gameplay as close to the original as possible - filling in gaps in my memory and knowledge (since the source of the original so far is unavailable). It is still a turn-based game and has all of the gameplay features mentioned above.

I have of course improved the graphics using bitmaps for the robots, hero, mines etc. and have even added a little bit of animation onto the robots.

I hope you enjoy it, and , if you are the author of the original - contact me and perhaps I can make this remake more faithful to the original!!

There is a Hall of Fame which holds the best 5 scores. You Must complete the game to be able to register a score. Do you see the tribute to a great retrogaming web-site in the hall of fame when you 1st play the game?

Controls
========

Move using the cursor keys. W=fire up, A=fire left, S=fire right, Z=fire down.

Press ESC to quit.

David Kelly, March 2005.
davy.kelly@ntlworld.com


Update (24th March, 2005)
======

I have implemented a level editor - you can easily create up to 1000 custom levels. I have not implemented the question marks in custom levels yet but everything else is available.

I would like to improve gameplay by introducing new elements into an enhanced mode such as :-
* shields - could be picked up by you (or the robots) that would enable you to take a hit without losing a life
* decoys - would attract the robots away from you for a limited time.

I hope to also allow customisation or tweaking of the "engine" rules - more details on this will appear in the next release.


Update (11th July, 2005)
======

Have been neglecting this for some time now.Back to it!

When creating custom levels you may now place shield icons in the level. These can be picked up (by the hero and the robots - but the robots will only stumble into them by accident) and are good for 1 hit. You (and the robots) can also walk onto and destroy a mine when shielded. You can pick up as many shields as you want. The super robots cannot use the shields and will destroy them if they walk onto them.

This change moves the game toward being more of a puzzle type game and I hope to include a nice challenging set of custom levels in the next release .

Update (25th Feb, 2006)
======

Stil neglecting this - but I've fixed a couple of little bugs:

Restart of custom levels was not resetting the shield level of the hero.
The target score was appearing in CLASSIC mode after playing a custom level with "target score display" activated

2nd Update (25th Feb, 2006)
===========================

Found big bug in supposed fix for instant death on respawn! Fixed in v1.22 beta

3rd Update (22nd Feb, 2013)
===========================

Fixed bug that was affecting level select screen (up and down cursor keys moving very slowly) Fixed in v1.23 beta


4th Update (29th Jan, 2014)
===========================

Set to run in windowed mode to retain original screen ratio of 800x600.
Tidied up some text messages in the instruction screen and edit menu that somehow got messed up.
Removed test level from custom level pack and added spiral level - not game tested - this one might be impossible(!)  :)





]]> Retrodev Chat davyk https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/vax-computer-super-robot-remake/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/private-area-for-the-rvg-squad-admin-assigned-access/ Tue, 28 Apr 2020 13:24:37 +0000 Retrodev Chat zapiy https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/private-area-for-the-rvg-squad-admin-assigned-access/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-the-lowercase-ninja/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 12:46:38 +0000
As usual, the source code and all data files are included in the zip archive and you can find the actual PETSCII screen on the disk image, along with an SEQ version.

If you're wondering, it's called 'Lowercase Ninja' because it was pixelled using the C64's lowercase ROM charset...

Download: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=190295

]]> Retrodev Chat aNdy/AL/Cosine https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-the-lowercase-ninja/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-creatures-petscii/ Mon, 20 Apr 2020 11:23:11 +0000
Download contains a disk image with both a .prg and .seq version of the PETSCII, along with the display source code and all data files.

Grab from CSDb here: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=189982

A comparison gif animation between the PETSCII and the original can be viewed here (not posted because of large file size): https://i.ibb.co/vYLQJbw/comparison.gif

]]> Retrodev Chat aNdy/AL/Cosine https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-creatures-petscii/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-outrun-petscii/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 17:29:58 +0000
This was done as a tribute to Shine/G*P who has pixelled some great PETSCII's over the years.

The zip file contains the 'demo' itself as well as the display source code and screen in it's original ChillED format.  The disk with the demo on also contains an SEQ version of the image which in theory should be able to be displayed on a BBS.

Download from CSDb here: https://csdb.dk/release/?id=189844

]]> Retrodev Chat aNdy/AL/Cosine https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/c64-demo-outrun-petscii/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/lets-make-a-game/ Tue, 05 Nov 2019 20:51:10 +0000
There will be lots of details in this, fees and all that but who is interested in discussing the foundations of a game and we see where it leads, there is loads of you in here now, please have your input in here.

regards

Jamie]]> Retrodev Chat zapiy https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/lets-make-a-game/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/anything-we-can-completely-develop-manufacture-and-publish/ Wed, 23 Oct 2019 16:58:18 +0000
Are there any platforms we could do all everything for?  Another important question is: what is hot / selling?]]> Retrodev Chat poundlander https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/anything-we-can-completely-develop-manufacture-and-publish/ https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/zapiys-attempt-at-a-zx-speccy-game-dev-thread/ Tue, 03 Apr 2018 18:42:14 +0000
Yep thats right, I am having a bash at making a game using the AGD system, so far I am running with a couple of ideas, one it a standard platform game with the aim being to rebuild Retro Video Gamer, a nasty modern gamer has come along and smashed the RETROVIDEOGAMER name up and all the letters have spread far and wide, the aim is to collect all the letters and bring RVG back..

A small video

https://youtu.be/hD_pUKzd87M

What you think?

Secondly

I am doing a maze type game or maybe a better description is pacman, its called Tyre Collector, basically its a utopian world and rubber is at a premium so you are hunting for all the old tyres as they equal points and points mean prizes.  Collect them all if you can lol.

A early dev pic




So with that in mind and the fact we have a few coders in here, I'd like your input as well if possible guys and maybe start a half decent thread on developing a game from scratch (AGD wise lol)

]]> Retrodev Chat zapiy https://www.retrovideogamer.co.uk/community/retrodev-chat/zapiys-attempt-at-a-zx-speccy-game-dev-thread/