Retro Video Gamer

First retro thingy I went to was at the rugby club in Leamington Spa some years ago. I went with an Atari 800XL in my backpack, along with a CF card reader I'd recently bought from a very amenable Polish chap who still trades on eBay now. Found a telly to plug it into up there and it had a steady trickle of visitors all day. I'd heard that the day before, Archer McLean had been there and was asking whether someone had brought a copy of Dropzone for the A8. Had I been there that day, I may well have ended up meeting the great man and see him play Dropzone on my Atari. As it was I had to be content with Frank Gasking (I think) hammering Blue Max and Shaun Scott (I'm sure!) bashing away at Zybex!

Anyway, I digress. The thread of A8 magnificence. I didn't own one as a youngster so I'm still something of a dabbler, but here are a few of my faves to get us started:

Yoomp! A great game, unavailable on any platform and potentially quite difficult to port at any kind of speed on other machines. Very, very compulsive.

Rainbow Walker An unusual and very colourful arcade game - hard to believe, from the screenshots, that it hails from 1983. Still, I suppose the A8 was a mature platform by that time.

Dropzone Of course

Alley Cat Another very original arcade game with loads of colour and variety.

Recently I tried to get into Necromancer, which I've heard good things about, but it's not the kind of game that makes a lot of sense if you just dive into it. Anyone else played it?

The recently released conversion of Space Harrier is a really impressive effort - it's got the speed and definition, but some of the colour schemes are a bit dowdy. A fantastic achievement though.

I had an 800XL for a while with a 1050 disk drive and a few games on disk but sold it as it just seemed to gather dust. It just never grabbed me as much as the other Atari machines I guess but I don't think it helps that computers take up loads of room and I have just become more of a console man, my ST only comes out when I take it to shows for 4-player Gauntlet 2.

That said the only emulator I actually have on my PC is for the A8, helps me a lot when writing articles for Atari User, and I have found many titles that I enjoy. I do actually really want to get an XEGS at some point because I think it looks just so damn cool!

(http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z280/mrkizza/xegs_1.jpg)

My favourites have to be:

Tempest Xtreem
Dig Dug
Pacman
Star Raiders 2
Bombjack
Dropzone
Space Invaders
Qix
Space Harrier
Xenophobe
Commando
Pastfinder
Missile Command
Pole Position
Joust

Nice to see a starter on the Atari 8bit range of things here..

my favs on the system

1. Alley Cat
2. Bruce Lee
3. Zorro
4. Conan
5. Pole Position
6. Hijack
7. BC's quest for tires
8. Realms of Impossiblity
9. Stranded
10. Miner 2049er
11. Bounty Bob Strikes back
12. Internatioanl Karate
13. Shamus 1 & 2

to many to list , these are just a small few..also loved allot fo the stuff created by English Software Chop Suey and the likes..

Okay, more A8 love is required then!

Here's the well-known Ninja. On the C64, the version I played as a youngster (and one of the few games I completed - only because it was very, very easy!), only 1 enemy ever attacked at once. On the A8, you can be attacked by two enemies.

Ninja 100% Completion Video by Jimmy Lee (//http)

What's remarkable about that video is how little skill seems to come into play. The player's strategy seems to boil down to using the shurikens - if that fails he just wades in with repeated high kicks. I notice also that he really "games" it at one point - going in and out of a room to reset the position of the shurikens so they're easy to pick up rather than taking the chance of getting close in while low on energy - cheeky!

I do like a good demo. I'm particularly impressed by the following one because it is based around ASCII characters - I can't even begin to imagine the complexity of the calculations that are going on underneath. Doing it with bitmap modes is one thing - at least then you're simply calculating values and plotting them to a grid - here, the engine is having to do that and then determine what character to display aswell. The music is interesting - lots of trademark crunchy Atari sounds. Not surprisingly given its low-tech aesthetic it runs on a stock 64k Atari.

Atari XL/XE - Unfused (demo) (//http)

I love that second demo! 

I have been looking for ages for a video of the demo I had on my 800XL and I found it:

Asskicker - A classic Atari 8bit demo by Shadows (//http)

Always found this demo incredible

I am also still amazed by the A8 version of Tempest 2000 called Tempest 2000, the music and speech is out of this world.

Tempest Xtreem (//http)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfouuznWOUA (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfouuznWOUA)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk5TzvLI ... ure=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk5TzvLIUIs&feature=relmfu)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkNpUT2S ... ure=relmfu (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkNpUT2Sf5I&feature=relmfu)

Fantastic to see some A8 love on here, seems criminally neglected in likes of Gamestm Retro section and indeed RG magazine.

Won't post more just yet, in case this thread really is dead.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Fantastic to see some A8 love on here, seems criminally neglected in likes of Gamestm Retro section and indeed RG magazine.

Won't post more just yet, in case this thread really is dead.

You post away mate!

O.K loading from tape was a nightmare and i had to use mail order (good old Silica Shop) or get parents to drive miles to find an store selling A8 games, but, by god fond memories of the 800XL.

Chimera, Dropzone, Thrust (friend brought it over, C64 version on 1 side of tape, C64 on the over), Elktraglide, Desmonds Diamonds, Warhawk, (music of) Jet Set Willy, Ninja, Zybex, Blue Max, Ghost Chaser, Red Max, Alley Kat, L.A Swat, Miner 2049'er, Mountain King...so many.

Yet it often seemed to be treated so poorly by software houses:Arkanoid and Green Beret were awful, Elite never appeared, nor did last Ninja.Moving to C64, was quite shocked to see how inferior Dropzone and Elktraglide seemed and how poorly Zzap 64 rated Ninja and Red Max.

Later years, gutted to see the A8 range never being mentioned in likes of Edge or Gamestm Retro pages or indeed being over looked to such a degree by Retro Gamer magazine, a situation that's little improved even now, sadly.

It seems that the video of Tempest Xtreem for the A8 has been deleted and now there is only the video of this demo version on You Tube which is missing a few things like the speech 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODAXAg7u8o (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODAXAg7u8o)

Another A8 homebrew and arcade conversion that has really impressed me is Bomb Jake (Bomb Jack)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfKMnZVN24E (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfKMnZVN24E)

Gob smacked by Tempest Xtreem music.

Not a Bomb Jack fan per say, but have to say Bomb Jake looks superb.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Gob smacked by Tempest Xtreem music.

Not a Bomb Jack fan per say, but have to say Bomb Jake looks superb.

If you look in the downloads section I put the SAP player there that allows you to play POKEY music on a PC, included with it is the Tempest Xtreem music 

1 Virus too many and a deep rooted loathing of Vista! meant PC was sold off, iPad user from there on in.

Any Atari 8 Bit music in MP3 format anywhere? could download that to the other non-PC online device in the house.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"1 Virus too many and a deep rooted loathing of Vista! meant PC was sold off, iPad user from there on in.

Any Atari 8 Bit music in MP3 format anywhere? could download that to the other non-PC online device in the house.

Fair enough. I have some stuff like JSW, Warhawk, Ballblazer and Pacmania in MP3 that I can email you if you like?

PM sent.That'd be fantastic.

My list of Atari Comupter games leans to the arcade conversions.

1. Basketball - Four ports on the Atari 400. Two on Two. Never tried with more than 2 controllers but would have been nice back in the early 80's.
2. Donkey Kong - All four screens and super fast.
3. Jungle Hunt - Great to play this classic with the standard 2600 controller.
4. Krazy Shoot-Out - CBS Games answer to Berzerk
5. Pac-Man - Best version I ever played till I bought a 5200. Great game minus the intermissions.

I had a friend who had a 1200XL. We used to play a lot of Eastern Front, Fight Night, Nato Commander and Conflict in Vietnam.

I was just writing a review for this game and realised that I hadn't posted it in this thread! 

Crownloand for the XE/XL is by far one of the most impressive games I have seen on the machine, a real console quality platformer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRuhcpSvXdk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRuhcpSvXdk)

That is a nice looking game.

Here are a couple of other games I discovered recently:

Firstly Ocean Detox, which is a brilliant take on the old City Bomber games. It has lovely graphics, fantastic music and has a perfect learning curve that keeps you coming back for more:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIU8m0i2ilo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIU8m0i2ilo)

Next up is the amazingly good looking Flowers Mania, this is without doubt the best puzzle game on the 8-bit Atari computers. It is as addictive as it is colourful and has some nice little features of its own too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fvDWCBq-58 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fvDWCBq-58)

I reviewed both these games in full in the reviews guide.

Both really good looking games. The Flowers game looks like it could be my new favorite. Even surpassing Columns.

Oh my god I just realised I never posted Yoomp here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqmyLKG1l-4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqmyLKG1l-4)

Yoomp! is fiendishly addictive. Of all the homebrew games I've seen in recent years I think it's the one I'm most impressed by. It's a winner on so many levels - originality, technically and of course most importantly, playability. It really does play fantastically well.

RGCD's Heavy Stylus interviewed the developers here (//http). Just scroll down to the end of the review, it's right underneath.

Quote from: "Havantgottaclue"Yoomp! is fiendishly addictive. Of all the homebrew games I've seen in recent years I think it's the one I'm most impressed by. It's a winner on so many levels - originality, technically and of course most importantly, playability. It really does play fantastically well.

RGCD's Heavy Stylus interviewed the developers here (//http). Just scroll down to the end of the review, it's right underneath.

I have read that before, good interview.

There is a fairly recent Jaguar homebrew called Tube that was no doubt inspired by Yoomp.

This is another good homebrew game - Hobgoblin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGRcw1Ek4Tc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGRcw1Ek4Tc)

It's a conversion of a BBC game of the same name but improves on it graphically. It is basically a clone of Capcom's Ghouls 'N' Ghosts and is also pretty tough too. I don't much like the flip screen scrolling though, I find it a little annoying. It does look very nice graphically though I think.

Though I'm sure a creative coder could've made a better fist of it, I'd maintain that Green Beret is a tough ask on the Atari 8-bit because of the way colour and moving objects are handled.

The problems arise from having to use Player-Missile Graphics (PMGs) for the player and enemy graphics. These are in limited supply (4 players, 4 missiles - though the 4 missiles can be combined to create a 5th player). Players are only 8 pixels thick and have only one colour, and missiles are only 2 pixels thick and also have just the one colour, so just for your player sprite alone you're using a player graphic and an expanded missile PMG to add available player PMGs already. The enemies have to be made out of the remaining 3 players and 3 missiles, so most of them are single colour, though the 2-colour ones are made the same way as the player (1 player PMG + 1 missile PMG).

You can see when the character lies down how limited the 8-pixel width is - it looks horrendously blocky because in order for a single player PMG to be that length, it's having to be expanded to quadruple pixel width. On the C64, that problem would be solved by just using two sprites side by side - with 8 sprites, all of which can have up to 3 colours, you have a lot more flexibility (even without multiplexing - which doesn't actually work all that well in games that need all the sprites primarily in one horizontal band - see Target Renegade, for example).

One advantage that you do get with the A8 is that PMG height is the entire screen - so what you could do is paint two enemy characters on the vertical "strip" and instruct the ANTIC chip to change the horizontal position of the strip so that the enemies that are using the same PMG can move independently. I don't know that they took advantage of that with A8 Green Beret - in any case it would cause nightmares with enemies going up and down ladders.

The other option of course is to forget about using PMGs and use "software sprites", i.e. make the sprites out of character blocks. Problem with that is that even in character mode you're limited to 5 colours. By default that's a screen-wide limitation, but thankfully the Atari's ANTIC is set up to very easily allow the screen to be split horizontally so that you can have bands with a different set of 5 colours. So you can get tons of colours on screen for games like Frogger where each row can potentially have a different set of colours. But in a game like GB where you need loads of objects - both background and characters - all on the same row, if you try to create the players out of character graphics you're going to be limited to whatever is behind them horizontally - in this case, black, red, white, blue and purple. So it's a difficult limitation to work with in this case.

All in all, it's the lack of PMGs to work with that accounts for the rather barren nature of the A8 conversion. I have always thought that with games designed specifically for the Atari in mind (Yoomp!, Rainbow Walker, Crownland and Dropzone, for example) the machine comes up trumps. Try to crowbar on to it something that's not designed for it and you've got problems.

Yup, I've played Hobgoblin too. I thought those guys (GR8 software) had a conversion of Cybernoid in the pipeline - but there's nothing about that on their website any more.

Another recent homebrew release is His Dark Majesty. It looks Ultima-esque but is nothing like it really - it's a strategy game.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tAraITwuwQ (//http)

Here's a slightly off-the-beaten track one for y'all: Kult by ASF. It's in the Atari's hires mode, hence the lack of colour. However, it is very responsive and therefore quite playable. There are a lot of A8 games from the late 80s produced by Polish studios - I expect Poland became a bit of a dumping ground for A8s after it was decided that it wasn't commercially viable to support them in Western Europe. Likewise, the Commodore Plus 4 appeared to enjoy a late surge of life in Hungary in the late 80s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcCcaECN5Xg (//http)

Quote from: "Havantgottaclue"Though I'm sure a creative coder could've made a better fist of it, I'd maintain that Green Beret is a tough ask on the Atari 8-bit because of the way colour and moving objects are handled.

The problems arise from having to use Player-Missile Graphics (PMGs) for the player and enemy graphics. These are in limited supply (4 players, 4 missiles - though the 4 missiles can be combined to create a 5th player). Players are only 8 pixels thick and have only one colour, and missiles are only 2 pixels thick and also have just the one colour, so just for your player sprite alone you're using a player graphic and an expanded missile PMG to add available player PMGs already. The enemies have to be made out of the remaining 3 players and 3 missiles, so most of them are single colour, though the 2-colour ones are made the same way as the player (1 player PMG + 1 missile PMG).

You can see when the character lies down how limited the 8-pixel width is - it looks horrendously blocky because in order for a single player PMG to be that length, it's having to be expanded to quadruple pixel width. On the C64, that problem would be solved by just using two sprites side by side - with 8 sprites, all of which can have up to 3 colours, you have a lot more flexibility (even without multiplexing - which doesn't actually work all that well in games that need all the sprites primarily in one horizontal band - see Target Renegade, for example).

One advantage that you do get with the A8 is that PMG height is the entire screen - so what you could do is paint two enemy characters on the vertical "strip" and instruct the ANTIC chip to change the horizontal position of the strip so that the enemies that are using the same PMG can move independently. I don't know that they took advantage of that with A8 Green Beret - in any case it would cause nightmares with enemies going up and down ladders.

The other option of course is to forget about using PMGs and use "software sprites", i.e. make the sprites out of character blocks. Problem with that is that even in character mode you're limited to 5 colours. By default that's a screen-wide limitation, but thankfully the Atari's ANTIC is set up to very easily allow the screen to be split horizontally so that you can have bands with a different set of 5 colours. So you can get tons of colours on screen for games like Frogger where each row can potentially have a different set of colours. But in a game like GB where you need loads of objects - both background and characters - all on the same row, if you try to create the players out of character graphics you're going to be limited to whatever is behind them horizontally - in this case, black, red, white, blue and purple. So it's a difficult limitation to work with in this case.

All in all, it's the lack of PMGs to work with that accounts for the rather barren nature of the A8 conversion. I have always thought that with games designed specifically for the Atari in mind (Yoomp!, Rainbow Walker, Crownland and Dropzone, for example) the machine comes up trumps. Try to crowbar on to it something that's not designed for it and you've got problems.

I'd also mention likes of Rescue On Fractalus, Ballblazer, Koronis Rift, The Eidolon, Encounter and Elktra Glide really showed of the strengths of the A8 range as well.

As an A8 owner, it did often seem as if the best programmers seemed rather thin on the ground, recal Atari User printing a reply to a reader asking about Elite on the Atari 8 Bit range and saying Firebird wanted it to happen, just needed the right people to write it.

Guess Green Beret was always going to be tricky, but do you think likes of:Arkanoid+Gauntlet could have been done 'better'?.These were another 2 i felt dissapointed with.

(Not that C64 Gauntlet was work of art...)

Quote from: "Havantgottaclue"Here's a slightly off-the-beaten track one for y'all: Kult by ASF. It's in the Atari's hires mode, hence the lack of colour. However, it is very responsive and therefore quite playable. There are a lot of A8 games from the late 80s produced by Polish studios - I expect Poland became a bit of a dumping ground for A8s after it was decided that it wasn't commercially viable to support them in Western Europe. Likewise, the Commodore Plus 4 appeared to enjoy a late surge of life in Hungary in the late 80s.

I believe that the 8-bit range did well in Poland because the Tramiels were Polish and they made a big deal of that. They even made a model specifically aimed at the Polish market.

Hobgoblin looks alright, but yeah, push scrolling i'm not a huge fan of, plus, even just watching the video, my eyes kept being drawn to the HUGE Hobgoblin wording at top of the screen, assume it's there as a kinda border on playing area, but i'd find it very off-putting playing the game.

Is there a decent G 'n' G clone for the A8?.

First of all, Merry Christmas!

It's interesting to note from your list of games that they're all 3D in some way. Add to that one of the ones I mentioned - Yoomp!, and the recent conversion of Space Harrier, and a picture is beginning to emerge. It seems as though the Atari is really good at quick, responsive games in 3D. My educated-ish guess as to why that is is that it has that really useful 2x2 pixel mode which, while a little disappointing for 2D games (such as Draconus and Zybex), does wonders for 3D games where you're effectively halving the amount of screen real-estate the machine has to handle, improving speed.

Bearing in mind that my knowledge of the Atari comes not from programming but from what I've learned from books like De Re Atari and from a programmer on TMR who posts (very occasionally nowadays, sadly) on RetroGamer, I can only really speculate as to whether Arkanoid or Gauntlet could've been done better.

With Arkanoid, you have the 5-colour limitation as mentioned, and you can see this from Round 2, where you have a light green and a dark green, yellow and black as your main colours, with either grey or white. The programmer has done a colour split for the bottom line. Both the player and enemies are done in software too, with only the ball and power-ups being done with PMGs. And that's where I think the programmer has missed a trick. You could potentially do nice player and enemy sprites with PMGs; albeit that the bat is "long", which is tricky with your 8-pixel width limit, but you could just do a super-chunky plain PMG and use a missile each end to smooth off. You could do enemy sprites using 2 players - if you mask two player PMGs you can get a third colour where the pixels overlap, so they could have been done quite nicely. You could do more than one enemy with 2 PMGs so long as they don't overlap horizontally. That could be tricky to manage but not impossible.

You can see multiple colour splits elsewhere - Round 1 has sky blue, royal blue, yellow and black as its main colours, with the 5th colour being either pink, purple or grey depending on the line. The main problem is that you've got the background using up colours that might be better used on bricks, to make it look a bit more colourful. You could dispense with the background pattern altogether (maybe replace it with a nice starfield on a black sky or something?) and make the sides of the arena out of PMGs, and then you've got all 5 colours available per line to play with for bricks; the bat can be character graphics too and it can have its own colours too as it's on its own row. I suppose then it wouldn't look like Arkanoid.

As for Gauntlet, well the mind boggles. The problem is that with games where the whole screen moves, using colour splits makes life more difficult; besides, you need the colours on a character by character basis really, as the Spectrum shows - it's perfect for the Spectrum's colour attribute system, as it happens. TMR once explained to me that you can use PMGs to colourise parts of the screen - I think this is a masking operation not dissimilar to the PMG to PMG masking used to create 3-colour sprites. TMR uses it for colouring the status display in his game Reaxion, and a similar thing is done in another homebrew game, Flowers. Those are both puzzle games on static screens, however; whether you have enough PMGs to do it in an action game is not something I can comment on - I reckon it would be pretty complex in any case. If only we had TMR over here to discuss it. I reckon he'd like this forum, too.

Dark Chambers is an impressive-looking Gauntlet variant: I think I have the cartridge for the 7800, actually. This video of the A8 version evidences the same colour limitations as Gauntlet, but as the backdrop is black, it's considerably less garish.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00DliQ3J9mE (//http)

Quote from: "The Laird"I believe that the 8-bit range did well in Poland because the Tramiels were Polish and they made a big deal of that. They even made a model specifically aimed at the Polish market.

Ah, so he was. I didn't know about the special model either. Very interesting.

:-) Well, you'd already mentioned Dropzone and Crownland, guess i could have also gone with Bombjake and thing's like Ninja on A8, had more characters on screen than C64?.

But, no, reason i mentioned the 3D games:these were my fav.games on the Atari and when i moved onto the C64, i purchased them again and were quite surprised by the differences.A8 really did seem to come into into it's own often with 3D and colour potential etc.

Elktra Glide seemed very murky by comparison, but then C64 versions of things like Beach Head 2 had the speech, Thrust looked messy on A8, but lot sharper on C64.

Lot of the A8 games i'd buy would be budget fare, know Zzap 64 slagged the C64 versions, but i loved Red Max at the time, Ninja was fantastic, big fan of Ghost Chaser, Blue Max.

Seemed so few software houses really 'bothered' with the A8, Red Rat, English Software, Codemasters, Sparklers?, Mastertronic, Firebird, U.S Gold, Zepplin and Microprose seemed to be the ones i was buying games from the most.

Oh, don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that it's a simple case of 3D good, 2D bad, and in any case I don't have the depth of experience with the A8 that you do - I didn't have one back in the day, I'm just a recent convert to the system who has dabbled a bit. It's just that there are specific problems to resolve on the Atari with respect to colour, and developers had to account for it cleverly. When they did, the results were very effective indeed.

Dropzone is a good example. There, you've got a simple colour split between the main playing area, where you've got blue, white, grey, green and black for the enemies. I think the player is two 2 PMGs, or possible a player and a missile. The ground is a totally different set of colours - yellow, orange, brown, grey and black. I suspect (though I don't know for sure) that Archer used PMGs to colour the status bar.

You mention Ninja as well - a really good game that I enjoyed on the C64 but is undoubtedly superior on the A8 due to the amount of enemies and the use of colour. With Ninja, because there's no background in the same horizontal row as the enemies, all the colours - grey, yellow, black and pink (and there is probably a fifth that I've missed) can be used on the sprites, whereas for the backdrops they can just go crazy with colour splits. With Crownland, one colour is split several times down the screen to create colourful backdrops.

Sorry I've gone way off topic now, but it's fun

Please keep the technical explanations coming, i find them fantastic.Knowing what limitations faced someone trying to bring a C64 or Arcade game to the A8, really does help explain why things turned out the way they did.

Rampage was another game that looked awful on A8, always wondered IF more could have been done with it.

Laird:IF you can find the video for comparisons, i'd love to see following games covered on 8 Bit formats, as be interesting to see how the A8 versions stack up:

Elktra Glide, Thrust, Zybex, Joe Blade, Spy Vs Spy+Boulderdash games, Draconus, Rampage, Druid and IF we are talking U.S Only A8 releases:Pitstop 2, Master Of The Lamps and Infiltrator.

Plus, think things like Star Wars would be good, 2 versions released on A8? Original by Parker Bros on Cart, then Zepplin released a ver. years later?

And..IF possible, i'd love to see Tiger Attack, which i'm led to believe IS A8 conversion of Flying Shark!

2D games wise, things like Winter Olympiad'88 and Phantoms i seem to recal were pretty good.

Trouble with the software support on A8 was piracy was rife, slow tape loading (disk drives far too expensive) and publishers would often say they wanted to put out more A8 games, yet were struggling to find high quality games to release, yet things like Hawk Quest struggled to find a publisher!.

I've rooted out Tiger Attack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPnT0l1U6S8 (//http)

Interesting video, this. I've never played the game but it looks like it's fairly responsive. Judging by eye alone, I'd say the four player PMGs are used by the player aircraft and enemy aircraft. The player aircraft is two PMGs, one next to the other, each 8 pixels wide. The enemy aircraft are essentially constructed the same way, using two more PMGs, again side-by-side - but of course, there are three of them! This is possible because each PMG is the height of the screen, so if you can imagine the enemy PMGs are plotted on two invisible vertical strips sat side by side, and using the ANTIC chip to adjust the horizontal position of the strip between planes. As you can see, at no time do any of the enemy planes cross horizontally - if it's as I explained above, that would cause total havoc (possibly flickering or maybe some other kind of glitch, I'm not sure).

The use of colour splits is very effective, obviously having to move with the scrolling at points. To start with, you've got greys and greens to draw the ground and trees with. Notice that when you get the enemy tank along, there are no trees or any other features on the same horizontal stripe - that's basically so that all the colours available in that stripe, apart from the grey colour which is retained for the ground, can be reserved for the tank itself. If you wanted to put trees either side, the tank would probably have to be green as well (which wouldn't be a major problem, but it does at least introduce a bit of variety). Of course, the water works well, because there's a clear vertical cutoff point again where the colours can just be changed, and of course the greens aren't needed any more.

It looks good actually, I must try it out at some point.

EDIT: typos

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Rampage was another game that looked awful on A8, always wondered IF more could have been done with it.

Laird:IF you can find the video for comparisons, i'd love to see following games covered on 8 Bit formats, as be interesting to see how the A8 versions stack up:

Elktra Glide, Thrust, Zybex, Joe Blade, Spy Vs Spy+Boulderdash games, Draconus, Rampage, Druid and IF we are talking U.S Only A8 releases:Pitstop 2, Master Of The Lamps and Infiltrator.

Plus, think things like Star Wars would be good, 2 versions released on A8? Original by Parker Bros on Cart, then Zepplin released a ver. years later?

I have actually done Rampage, go check the thread listing for 8-bit wars. There is also a Star Wars one too but I think it's a Let's Compare in the main games forum with every version featured. I will look up the others in due course.

I moved this discussion into the Atari 8-bit thread as it was so A8 focused it makes more sense here 

Quote from: "The Laird"I moved this discussion into the Atari 8-bit thread as it was so A8 focused it makes more sense here 

Funnily enough I had a very similar thought practically at the same time! LOL

Apoligies for de-railing any threads, and as i explained in other thread, think i must have missed the earlier A8 versions in comparison vids done early on, as i was with Talk Talk then, watching youtube vids was a no-no, sadly.

Anyway, fantastic to see the Tiger Attack video, seems to have smooth, fast scrolling, some odd colours used for enemy aircraft (Gay Pride wing-pink planes? lol) though this may have been for technical reasons, seems more like a remix version rather than true arcade conversion, but never seen anything on it until today, so great result.

Music appears to be A8 version of Hubbards Phantoms Of The asteriod, nice track, but odd choice for this game.

Has everyone here seen the early prototype of Shadow Of The Best for the A8? Such a shame it was never finished as it shows real potential.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzWEpMl_kro (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzWEpMl_kro)

Nice to see this one again mate.

Looked really promising, never saw anything more on it-Know why it was never finished? too demanding or people/person behind it just not have the time/resources etc?.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Nice to see this one again mate.

Looked really promising, never saw anything more on it-Know why it was never finished? too demanding or people/person behind it just not have the time/resources etc?.

The company that were making this and a load of other conversions like Pac-Land and Ghost 'N' Goblins went bust.

Thanks for the heads up.Crying shame that.

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Nice to see this one again mate.

Looked really promising, never saw anything more on it-Know why it was never finished? too demanding or people/person behind it just not have the time/resources etc?.

The company that were making this and a load of other conversions like Pac-Land and Ghost 'N' Goblins went bust.

Would the company be:

Harlequin (The Entertainments) by any chance?

Seen page ad.in old Page 6 magazine proclaiming SOTB+Meance as coming son.

Plus news snippet on them, talked of them and Last Ninja 2 and Paperboy, coming to A8.

Anyone know how A8 versions of:

Infiltrator+Joe Blade fared next to the C64 versions?.Owned both on C64, but never tried on A8.

Also, Bop 'n' Wrestle, Mindscape, 1 of the only commercial releases to use the extra Ram on the 130 XE (for smoother animation)?.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Anyone know how A8 versions of:

Infiltrator+Joe Blade fared next to the C64 versions?.Owned both on C64, but never tried on A8.

Also, Bop 'n' Wrestle, Mindscape, 1 of the only commercial releases to use the extra Ram on the 130 XE (for smoother animation)?.

I already posted an 8-bit wars for Joe Blade with both version in it

Here is the Atari XL/XE version of Infiltrator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LuU8_luS0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LuU8_luS0)

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Anyone know how A8 versions of:

Infiltrator+Joe Blade fared next to the C64 versions?.Owned both on C64, but never tried on A8.

Also, Bop 'n' Wrestle, Mindscape, 1 of the only commercial releases to use the extra Ram on the 130 XE (for smoother animation)?.

 

I already posted an 8-bit wars for Joe Blade with both version in it

Here is the Atari XL/XE version of Infiltrator

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LuU8_luS0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5LuU8_luS0)

Sorry, my bad, i meant Joe Blade 2, commented in your splendid 8 Bit wars /Joe Blade a while back.

I like the look of A8 Infiltrator!.

Anyone know anything on:

Opeartion Blood' on A8 (A.N.G Software), unoffical? port of Operation wolf? Looked pretty good from still shots i saw in mag. snippet.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Anyone know anything on:

Opeartion Blood' on A8 (A.N.G Software), unoffical? port of Operation wolf? Looked pretty good from still shots i saw in mag. snippet.

Here you go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs3Xknb-HJQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs3Xknb-HJQ)

Cheers yet again Laird.

Assuming here that likes of operation Blood and Barbarian were a case of the Poles thinking that if no-one else was going to convert the games to A8, they'd do it themselves, guess by porting C64 code?.

Could have sworn i saw Anco's Kick Off being reviewed in an old Atari mag (but cannot find it again), did my eyes decive me?.

Also, thinks like Infiltrator (disk only?) and Airball (cart only?) on Atari * bit systems, US Only releases? as again, the sort of games i was crying out for as an Atari 800XL owner, but i never saw here in UK.

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Could have sworn i saw Anco's Kick Off being reviewed in an old Atari mag (but cannot find it again), did my eyes decive me?.

Nope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rispzk_4zUw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rispzk_4zUw)

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Rogue Trooper"Could have sworn i saw Anco's Kick Off being reviewed in an old Atari mag (but cannot find it again), did my eyes decive me?.

Nope

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rispzk_4zUw (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rispzk_4zUw)

Blimey, that looks like it belongs on the 2600! Makes the C64 version look good.

Learnt a lot about what games i missed out on, A8 wise, good few i'd have loved, but others no loss what so ever.

Here is another game that went unreleased by Atari although it was finished, like Commando it is also very similar to the 7800 version, the XL/XE version of Xenophobe. It's since been released and sold on a cart.

Again I think this is a really impressive conversion and its a real shame it wasn't released back in the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSiZAmfH08 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSiZAmfH08)

Quote from: "The Laird"Here is another game that went unreleased by Atari although it was finished, like Commando it is also very similar to the 7800 version, the XL/XE version of Xenophobe. It's since been released and sold on a cart.

Again I think this is a really impressive conversion and its a real shame it wasn't released back in the day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSiZAmfH08 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWSiZAmfH08)

Love the look of that.Really gutting to see so much A8 stuff over the last few days alone, that would have been a real shot in the arm for the system, yet was either never released or USA only, so much wasted potential at the time....

Did you know there are actually 2 versions of Jet Set Willy for the XL/XE?

The original but rather poor version by Tynesoft that has the amazing Rob Hubbard music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdh4PO7aT68 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rdh4PO7aT68)

And this conversion of the ZX Spectrum version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsCP7JlXY1A (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsCP7JlXY1A)

That Jet Set Willy music is one of my favourite game music tracks ever

It's still being worked on but here is an early build of the Atari XL/XE version of Silkworm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRyvf6jsKb4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRyvf6jsKb4)

Thought this might be the XE version...

(http://i70.servimg.com/u/f70/17/65/85/95/airbal10.jpg)

It is indeed!

I'll be interested to see how the programmers manage to put background graphics in behind the sprites in that conversion of Silkworm. It won't be easy ... maybe some imaginative use of PMGs will help.

Check out some of the amazing Atari 8-bit art in this thread on AA! (//http)

Simply stunning!

(https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/942554_10201156796345771_752859720_n.jpg)

That really is pretty amazing.

One of the few 128k only games for the XL/XE:

T34 The Battle [Atari XL/XE] (//http)

Cool, this reminds me of Incoming! for the 2600.  That game is itself inspired by Artillery Duel.

Quote from: "The Laird"One of the few 128k only games for the XL/XE:

T34 The Battle [Atari XL/XE] (//http)

Nice.Looks like an Artillery Duel clone, never heard of it before and always wondered what games made use of the 128K A8 hardware.

This is very impressive but needs at least 320k of RAM to run 

NUMEN by TQA - Atari XL/XE Demo - 320k - (//http)

That was awesome!

Gobsmacked...

Quote from: "The Laird"This is very impressive but needs at least 320k of RAM to run  :10:

It's a long one, but also a very awesome one:

Atari 8bit computers 800XL 130XE - Large demos compendium (//http)

I for one am far from being impressed by most of the demos...there are some that are rather interesting but I think
the texture mapped cube has long worn out it's welcome and is hardly a programming feat, even for the old 8 Bit's
anymore. Yeah when you first saw it, that was kinda neat but why every demo team/guy thought much of it was
way beyond the scope of my understanding.

My new XEGS has given me a lot of fun so far, this game is already a real favourite of mine:

Atari 800 - Necromancer gameplay Bill Williams 8-bit games (//http)

This looks like one cool game.  I'll have to see if it is available on another format...one that I have! 

Quote from: "TrekMD"This looks like one cool game.  I'll have to see if it is available on another format...one that I have!

It only came out for the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64, of which the Atari version is reputedly better.

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "TrekMD"This looks like one cool game.  I'll have to see if it is available on another format...one that I have!

It only came out for the Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64, of which the Atari version is reputedly better.

Does the game need a keyboard during gameplay?  Or would this be amenable to conversion for the 5200?

No keyboard, I have the XEGS version. The problem is that I think it needs 64k RAM.

Quote from: "The Laird"No keyboard, I have the XEGS version. The problem is that I think it needs 64k RAM.

Oh, so the only way to play it may be on an Atari computer or through emulation.

Quote from: "TrekMD"

Quote from: "The Laird"No keyboard, I have the XEGS version. The problem is that I think it needs 64k RAM.

Oh, so the only way to play it may be on an Atari computer or through emulation.

Or get a XEGS and an Atari Max flash cartridge like me 

Is that Atari Max Flash Cart a multicart or one where you copy the game ROMs to?

Quote from: "TrekMD"Is that Atari Max Flash Cart a multicart or one where you copy the game ROMs to?

One that you copy your own ROMs onto and can organise into libraries and everything:

http://atarimax.com/flashcart/documentation/ (//http)

Very smart bit of kit!

Cool!  That's from the same folks who make the 5200 Multicart.

Quote from: "TrekMD"Cool!  That's from the same folks who make the 5200 Multicart.

Yep, I ordered an Atari Max 8-meg plus programmer a few days ago 

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "TrekMD"Cool!  That's from the same folks who make the 5200 Multicart.

Yep, I ordered an Atari Max 8-meg plus programmer a few days ago 

Nice....

Holy shit, this is bloody amazing!!! 

TIP animations on the Atari XE (//http)

These are pretty cool!

Quote from: "TrekMD"These are pretty cool!

Did you notice that quite a few of those were taken from Jaguar CD games?

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "TrekMD"These are pretty cool!

Did you notice that quite a few of those were taken from Jaguar CD games?

Yes, which makes it even more amazing. 

I was playing Mirax Force by Tynesoft the other day, a really nice rip-off of Uridium but absolutely rock hard!

What impressed me the most about it though was the terrific speech:

Atari 8-bit - Mirax Force (//http)

[size=120]Triple Threat by Noice^Agenda^Mystic Bytes

A new demo for Atari 8-bit computers (Atari XL/XE) with at least 128k RAM.[/size]

Triple Threat/Noice^Agenda^Mystic Bytes (Atari XL/XE demo) (//http)

Some pretty good animations in there

It's been some years now since I fired up my 130XE though I always admired the skills of those making demos. The polish are particularly good. Nice find Laird, thanks for sharing.

This is great, I really do love the POKEY chip:

Atari 8-bit Music Power (//http)

Pretty nifty music!  Thanks for sharing the video!

It'd be nice to see these demo guys put their efforts into making a killer game for these old systems. After three decades of this same shit over and over, I'm a little dried out.

Quote from: "Gorf"It'd be nice to see these demo guys put their efforts into making a killer game for these old systems. After three decades of this same shit over and over, I'm a little dried out.

Most of the A8 demo guys make games too.

Some Lovely Pokey there ...I have to say can't get enough of this stuff..

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Gorf"It'd be nice to see these demo guys put their efforts into making a killer game for these old systems. After three decades of this same shit over and over, I'm a little dried out.

Most of the A8 demo guys make games too.

I'd be interested to know which demo crews have made which games.

Quote from: "Gorf"

Quote from: "The Laird"

Quote from: "Gorf"It'd be nice to see these demo guys put their efforts into making a killer game for these old systems. After three decades of this same shit over and over, I'm a little dried out.

Most of the A8 demo guys make games too.

I'd be interested to know which demo crews have made which games.

XXL, Avalon, Gury and Cosine spring to mind.

For example, Cosine have made these demos:

Greetz0rz (A8) :: small demo for Forever 13 (//http)

Axelay-style scroll test (A8) (//http)

But have also made these games for the XL/XE:

callisto for Atari 8-bit (//http)

Battle Eagle (Atari 8-bit) :: final game (//http)

As there are some Atari XEGS with Stereo Surround Sound (not the pokey solution which requires additional programming) in the wild I'll bet it may sounds finally even better on these machines.

[align=center:ifn4gd61]Great new demo just released for the A8!!!! 

Arsantica final by Desire - Atari XL/XE demo - Revison 2014 (//http)[/align:ifn4gd61]

That was nice!  That animation of the planet as the ship orbits looks fantastic.

Quote from: "TrekMD"That was nice!  That animation of the planet as the ship orbits looks fantastic.

It does indeed and the music is also good

Quote from: "The Laird"[align=center:2mksi48t]Great new demo just released for the A8!!!! 

Arsantica final by Desire - Atari XL/XE demo - Revison 2014 (//http)[/align:2mksi48t]

Great demo!

ravard

[align=center:2gpq7tf4]Atari 8-bit RGBA Demo (//http)[/align:2gpq7tf4]