Un nuovo gioco per Atari XL / XE? Una chimera... anzi un remake di "Chimera"
Si tratta di un remake "migliorato" ("enhanced version") dell'arcade-adventure in 3D isometrico Chimera (Firebird, 1985 - http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari...mera_1035.html -).
Questo rifacimento, denominato Chimera+, gira home computer Atari XL / XE con almeno 48 kB di RAM.
Per apprezzare le migliorie del "remake" Chimera+, di seguito un gameplay video del Chimera (1985) per Atari 8-bit family:
Il relativo file XEX, utilizzabile con emulatori come Altirra, può essere scaricato dal primo post del thread http://atariage.com/forums/topic/234...game-released/
"This is my new remake of Shahid Ahmad's classic game Chimera for the Atari XL XE.
Chimera+ is a complete rewrite of the game from the ground up to create an enhanced version with the goal of optimising performance for faster gameplay, changing the controls and, adding the features missing in the original Atari release. The new version works on both PAL and NTSC machines with a minimum of 48k.
Here's a summary of the new features:
The Spaceman (yes it's not a robot!) is now a masked hardware sprite procedure which means it's also independently coloured from the backgrounds.
The room sprites are now drawn and updated dirty rectangle
The game now has directional joystick movement like the c64 version rather than rotate and walk as the original Atari version had
The gameplay maintains a consistant speed regardless of the size of the room or what is occurring within it.
The rooms all have a new colour scheme designed instead of the ubiquitous shades of the same colour monochrome original
The vocal samples are now featured including the famous scream.
I disassembled and ported Rob Hubbard's c64 music player procedures which I'm playing via Święty/Saint's Pokey SID emulation procedures for the title music and game completion music.
There's a new title screen which is a mix of the c64 and original Atari version
The sound effects have been tweaked and there's no longer a clash of effects during gameplay. The walking and life support ECG sound effect have been changed.
The gameplay screen is slightly larger than the original version
Thanks to Popmilo and Phaeron for their support.
Phaeron has kindly tested the game on various hardware configurations for me. With one 800xl equiped with Ultimate1Mb there was a lockup during the sample playback which wasn't reproduced on other machines or under emulation so that might be due to the Pokey installed in that particular machine. Please let me know if this occurs with anyone elses machine.
To fit all the new features in and keep the game within 48k I've removed the broken Kettle of Fish game. My original intention was to retain Chimera+ running under the OS rom so the new game would be compatible with 48k 400/800 machines. The OS VBL takes up too much time however so the title screen with sid music fell down under ntsc and I needed full control for the sample playback so it was pointless in the end working around the OS rom and memory restriction."
Questo rifacimento, denominato Chimera+, gira home computer Atari XL / XE con almeno 48 kB di RAM.
Per apprezzare le migliorie del "remake" Chimera+, di seguito un gameplay video del Chimera (1985) per Atari 8-bit family:
Il relativo file XEX, utilizzabile con emulatori come Altirra, può essere scaricato dal primo post del thread http://atariage.com/forums/topic/234...game-released/
"This is my new remake of Shahid Ahmad's classic game Chimera for the Atari XL XE.
Chimera+ is a complete rewrite of the game from the ground up to create an enhanced version with the goal of optimising performance for faster gameplay, changing the controls and, adding the features missing in the original Atari release. The new version works on both PAL and NTSC machines with a minimum of 48k.
Here's a summary of the new features:
The Spaceman (yes it's not a robot!) is now a masked hardware sprite procedure which means it's also independently coloured from the backgrounds.
The room sprites are now drawn and updated dirty rectangle
The game now has directional joystick movement like the c64 version rather than rotate and walk as the original Atari version had
The gameplay maintains a consistant speed regardless of the size of the room or what is occurring within it.
The rooms all have a new colour scheme designed instead of the ubiquitous shades of the same colour monochrome original
The vocal samples are now featured including the famous scream.
I disassembled and ported Rob Hubbard's c64 music player procedures which I'm playing via Święty/Saint's Pokey SID emulation procedures for the title music and game completion music.
There's a new title screen which is a mix of the c64 and original Atari version
The sound effects have been tweaked and there's no longer a clash of effects during gameplay. The walking and life support ECG sound effect have been changed.
The gameplay screen is slightly larger than the original version
Thanks to Popmilo and Phaeron for their support.
Phaeron has kindly tested the game on various hardware configurations for me. With one 800xl equiped with Ultimate1Mb there was a lockup during the sample playback which wasn't reproduced on other machines or under emulation so that might be due to the Pokey installed in that particular machine. Please let me know if this occurs with anyone elses machine.
To fit all the new features in and keep the game within 48k I've removed the broken Kettle of Fish game. My original intention was to retain Chimera+ running under the OS rom so the new game would be compatible with 48k 400/800 machines. The OS VBL takes up too much time however so the title screen with sid music fell down under ntsc and I needed full control for the sample playback so it was pointless in the end working around the OS rom and memory restriction."