due to numerous legal changes, we've decided to discontinue sales through this shop. You may contact us at any time via media-net-point.de. We still have a lot of Amiga parts in stock. We ask for your understanding.
...we find this message from probably March 2020 (rough translation):
"
Dear customers,
due to the current situation regarding the Coronavirus we close our shop as of now until April 4th 2020 for the time being. Also we have to take care for our employees.
Open orders will still be processed!
We ask for your understanding.
Your Amistore.de Team
"
About two months later, it seems to have been replaced with the one that currently can be seen there. The Corona virus certainly leaves it's marks all over the world.
Best wishes and good luck to Amistore.de team, hope to see them around (again)!
There wasn't too much noise surrounding the follow-up to AmigaOS3.1.4, but the patience has paid off, and now they're breaking the silence: It's been less than 24 hours since the completion and release of AmigaOS 3.2 has been announced via facebook, and Hyperion's website!
Great news for AmigaOS users: The next updated version of official classic AmigaOS has been released. Here's a quick rundown of some of the changes and new features:
ReAction GUI toolkit is included, with lots of bugfixes, and classes backported from AmigaOS4
"DAControl" and trackfile.device provide near-perfect ADF handling and integration. Amiga disk files can be created, formatted, erased, ejected, etc. and mounted via double-click on Workbench icon.
New help system and reference manual included
Improved AIFF, GIF, JPG, WAV, PNG, BMP, CDXL and ANIM datatypes, and new datatypes for icons (.info files) and ACBM images. AmigaGuide datatype can now display inline images, picture.datatype is much faster, sound.datatype supports up to 32 bit resolution, text datatype adds search functionality.
Workbench updates: title bar with date, CPU and tasks information, windows resizable from any border, windows can be iconified, window contents can be sorted increasing/decreasing, wheel mouse support
a partition mounter, and "find" utility
shell TAB autocompletion, configurable
a "history" command
updates to Early Startup Menu, including optional step-by-step execution of Startup-sequence
...and many more! This is really just a short excerpt from the official announcement. (Of course a new iconset is included, too.) See link below for full list.
AmigaOS3.2 is available on CD-ROM, containing ADFs for emulator use, a ready-to-run AmigaOS environment that can be copied to your harddisk, all Amiga models' disks and kickstart ROM images (oh, wow), and printable labels.
Congratulations to the developers!
Go to Hyperion's website for more details, and AmigaOS3.2 vendors:
Two exciting remakes, two freeware games, and "The nameless platformer". Amiga game developers are busy, and especially many ports and remakes are an impressive display of the technical know-how present in the community - the results often surpass the originals in quality.
Metal Gear
At
the end of January 2021 a port of MSX classic "Metal Gear" to the Amiga
was announced by coder "hOffman". "Metal Gear" was a milestone, and is a
classic in it's own right, as it started the stealth-and-survival genre
in computer gaming. In this type of games it's not just kill-em-all,
but more importantly stealth tactics and strategy.
The game is
still under development, but nearing completion, and already looks and
sounds very good. The graphics are pretty much a pixel perfect recreation of the MSX original. According to the author, it runs at full framerate on
the Amiga (even where the original would slow down due to lots of
on-screen action), and special care is taken to reproduce and possibly
enhance the original soundtrack and sound effects.
"Metal Gear" requires an Amiga 500 with 1MB or higher.
In January 2021 news popped up about turn-based freeware space strategy game "Imperium Terranum 2" by Virtual World Productions. The game has been available on AmiNet since (at least) 2001, but has obviously been resurrected recently.
Coder Rene "fook42" F. is converting the Pascal source code from the AmiNet game version into C code, and adding some improvements. Currently, his new version has no new gameplay features etc., but you can now freely set the game's screenmodes.
This is pretty cool, as it opens up a path for future updates, and portability (maybe AROS?).
Note that if you want to play the new C based version, you need to copy it over the installed previous (AmiNet / Virtual Worlds) version - see GitHub link below for files and instructions.
"Space Pilot of Death" - doesn't that sound awesome? Now if a title like that doesn't catch your attention, I don't know what will.
In Jan. 2021 this game by Marten "goldmomo" Wobst was uploaded to AmiNet, as a result of the author reviving his Amiga, and assembler programming skills, after a break of more than 20 years. It's looks similar to Asteroids, but it's a dodge-and-survive, not a shoot-em-up, that runs on any Amiga with 512KB RAM and able to display a 50Hz PAL or NTSC screen. It can be played with joystick or keyboard. (Note: there seems to be a mistake in the readme file: Space key is not needed.)
It's quite a simple game, but it's also quite well done! The title music gets you into the right mood, terrifying red alert messages pump up your adrenaline level, huge asteroids are approaching, and lots of them - pretty much everything about it feels just right. Yes, this isn't Elite or Wing Commander, we are aware of that. But it's a good looking, well done, quick little release with addictive qualities, for kids and casual gamers, we are aware of that, too. The author also has given hints he might be improving the game further. And, heck, it's... "Space Pilot Of Death"! So what are you waiting for?
"The nameless platformer" is a port of a ZX Spectrum game called "Black and White" - but currently the Amiga version lacks an official name, so we'll just call it "The nameless platformer".
It's a three level demo created using the Scorpion engine, in which you control a little wizard on a single-screen playfield, collecting lots of valuable items. This game is obviously still under development, as you can see in the video below there are a couple of glitches, the title screen looks like it will be changed, maybe sound effects will be added, and so on. But it looks promising with it's cute wizard and overall visual style, some music playing along (I think I've heard the tune before...?), and what appears to be quick and fluid playability.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrf6CJqoeQ
The demo was first shown at the end of Jan. 2021, so far there seem to be no news, but can certainly be expected in the near future.
Another update to "Super Sprint AGA": It now goes by the name of "Turbo Sprint" - and you can actually play it, it's finished! Since we last reported about the game, development has made lots of progress, in Feb. 2021 a playable 5-minute demo has been released, and on April 28th author Graeme Cowie announced the finished game on facebook and YouTube.
After a year of development "Turbo Sprint" now really feels like a complete game, with lots of stuff going on visually, everything moving around and interacting reasonably, sound effects that create proper atmosphere, yeah, you almost start smelling burning rubber. Up to four players, hires graphics, 8 tracks, car upgrades, ...you name it - and it runs from Workbench. Very good, congratulations!
The game requires an AGA Amiga to run, and will be commercially released as digital download very soon, with a glossy boxed edition following.
Our third software release is out. It's xiffview v0.2,
an X-windows app for Linux. Xiffview displays IFF ILBM pictures as created with DeluxePaint, PersonalPaint, and many other programs on the Amiga, in a window on your Linux X desktop.
Just a straightforward little image viewer program that was created to simplify the cross-compiling Amiga software developer's daily work. It supports simple palette based (2 to 256 colors) images only - no HAM, no animations, EHB might give weird results - and it's been tested only a little so far, so don't panic if some of your pictures don't look perfect on xiffview. It requires a true-color X screen to run on, is freeware, and the sourcecode is included.
Demo group aBYSs strikes again with another arcade classic remake, Putter gets a physical release, we have an interesting point-and-click adventure from Poland, a beautiful action-adventure platformer, and an addictive arcade puzzler.
Wilcza Buda
"Wilcza Buda" looks homegrown, and very ambitious at the same time. It's a point-and-click adventure by mc Studio from Poland. The game can be played in Polish and English, runs on any Amiga with Kickstart 1.2 or better, and 1MB ChipRAM plus 1.5MB. There's also a HAM6 graphics version that requires a harddisc, Workbench 2.0, and 2MB of ChipRAM.
The storyline roughly goes like this: Move around and meet people, to find your beloved grandma - but beware, you will encounter characters from another world, the forces of darkness...!
Sounds scary, and the game opens with an equally scary title screen. Tasteful, moody - scary? - music plays as you point-and-click yourself through the game, listening to grandpa's stories of times long gone, of soldiers, of werewolves...
"Wilcza Buda" is a very interesting project that seems like a bit of a mixture of Mist and Darkseed. Also it's one of the very few games that utilizes HAM mode. If you like dark adventures, or you're a horror geek, this is definitely one you should check out.
Here's a video of the HAM6 demo version from great YouTube channel Saberman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVX-qiYLuwQ
Go to the game's website (you can switch to English language) to download "Wilcza Buda" demo: http://www.wilczabuda.pl
After the awesome "TinyInvaders", "TinyGalaga", and "TinyBobble", this year demo group aBYSs brings us "Tinyus", a remake of 1986 arcade shoot-em-up classic "Gradius"!
To some, "Gradius" has always been the pinnacle of shoot-em-ups, the one that was just too good to be true on homecomputers. The C64 version called "Nemesis" played really good, but had to omit elements of the original arcade machine. There was never a port for the Amiga - until now.
In February 2021 a beta version of "Tinyus" was released to the public - and just like the previous aBYSs releases it's awesome. This is how "Gradius" should look on the Amiga. It doesn't get much more arcade than this - near-perfect graphics, tons of moving objects on screen, and a well done attempt at reproducing the multichannel soundtrack from the original hardware.
The game requires an OCS Amiga with 512KB ChipRAM and 512KB SlowRAM or better, some acceleration / Amiga 1200 is recommended for fluid 50fps performance. At the time of this writing development is still ongoing (beta testing), a final version is likely to be released in the near future.
...by Michael "Mixel" Dawes is an action-adventure platformer currently under development, built using Eric "earok" Hogan's Scorpion engine.
The game features characters and locations from Michael's comic series "Creeping Me Out", which you can admire at https://www.creepingmeout.com. (The author explicitly states that no knowledge gained from the comics is required to complete the computer game.)
You control a character called Francis (check out the comic series if
you'd like to know more about him) on his search for his friends.
The game is in early development stage, but it already looks gorgeous. Visually, it has lots of elements reminiscent of The Addams Family or The Munsters, as well as 1950s science-fiction in Technicolor, and it's just beautifully drawn and animated. We can already see some interesting little game mechanics, like little bugs that try to attack and stick to Francis. Also there are ladders, scrolls with hidden meanings, things to punch, things that crawl, things that drop, ... lots of things! There will probably be even more things to discover, as the author states he has a strong element of exploration in mind.
The game is planned to require harddisc and/or CD drive. A demo is said to be released soon.
Here's the latest work-in-progress video from Michael's YouTube channel "Mixel's Lab" (2021-03-05):
This is an arcade puzzle game similar to Tetris, and even more similar to 1990 SEGA game "Columns".
You drop pieces in a playfield like in Tetris, and the pieces' tiles must color-match previously dropped pieces in order to remove them from the playfield. One, or two players on separate playfields simultaneously, control their pieces with keyboard or joystick, accompanied by some decent music tracks. There are multiple different playing modes and background graphics, and you can add your own background images. It runs on any Amiga with 512KB RAM.
"Crazy Columns" has a great soundtrack, looks colorful, but clear and polished, is easy to learn and play, yet challenging and addictive - certainly a must-have for friends of Tetris, Klax, Bust-A-Move/Puzzle Bobble, and the likes, as well as for any casual gamer.
You can watch a video of current "pre-version" 0.98 of "Crazy Columns" on Saberman's YouTube channel:
It hasn't been a long time since we reported about "Putter" demo by Jacek "czorny" Nockowski, and we already have an update: Putter has just been released as a commercial, boxed edition with floppy disk and CD.
The game runs on AGA Amiga, and a little bit of acceleration (e.g. overclocked 020) is recommended for optimal performance.
When I last said it'd become hard to keep up with Amiga gaming news, it was a little bit tongue-in-cheek. By now it has become genuinely - and enjoyably - hard, with projects and announcements popping up more frequently than the average "Games galore" hobbyist writer is able to update his articles.
Putter (demo)
From the author that created "Chicken Coop" comes another good looking game that involves a frog, and what appears to be soccer plus golfing.
Built using the RedPill engine, in this game developer "Czorny" lets you control the aforementioned frog in order to kick a soccer ball around the playfield into a hole - kind-of like golfing, only with a vertical jump-and-run playfield with bonus items, obstacles and enemies.
The word "enemies" is a bit of a stretch here - everything looks really adorable, you'll encounter cute fish and a bird, with minimalistic but very funny and fitting sounds (applause!). This should be well suited for the smaller ones in the family, while still being good fun for grown ups.
If you're an 68000 plus OCS purist, then this is not your favourite game. But if you're into heating up your 68040, or the likes (fast WinUAE counts, too), you're gonna want this.
While the Amiga purist scene is exploding with new releases, fueled even further by modern game construction kits like Scorpion and RedPill engine, it's become comparably silent on the next-generation-Amiga side of things, so high-spec game releases are a welcome sign.
"Heart Of Darkness" is a huge 90s era game ported to the Amiga, that requires some horsepower, and the original PC/Playstation game files (full game, or demo). It's a side-view adventure type game similar to "Another World", but has far more advanced graphics and sound, and truckloads of both.
You control character Andy on his search for his dog Whiskey through the various places of "Heart Of Darkness", avoiding evil shadows, solving puzzles, wild animals, and other obstacles.
Cinematic movie sequences...
In terms of gameplay, "Heart Of Darkness" is a well known concept, but visually it's certainly another world (...pun...), it's been a long time since such highly elaborate graphics were seen in an Amiga game. The 3D rendered characters don't look scary, but actually likeable, the 3D animators did a great job, and the game characters and backgrounds are just beautifully detailed and animated, along with some handdrawn cartoon effects thrown in. It's a cinematic experience that comes pretty close to playing a part in your own animated feature film.
Great job by the original deverlopers, as well as the Amiga porters. If you have lots of harddisc space, and a fast Amiga (or Vampire or WinUAE), "Heart Of Darkness" is a must-have.
NOTE: requires original game files (from PC installed full game or demo, copy entire folder to Amiga), and powerful CPU. see sources below for more information.
Additional sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_of_Darkness_(video_game) https://www.myabandonware.com/game/heart-of-darkness-a4h (PC version download) https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=84905 (Amiga version forum thread / instructions) http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/11/heart-of-darkness-on-amiga-high-end.html
Super-Go-Down-The-Hole
Eric "earok" Hogan has released another game created using his Scorpion engine, called "Super-Go-Down-The-Hole", which is a remake of a PC title by Sergio Cornaga.
Jump, climb, slide, push, run - the game mechanics are a little bit more sophisticated than your average platformer, and you have to "Super-Go-Down-The-Hole" a hole, which means a cave, figuring out the best ways to avoid obstacles and enemies.
Graphics are simple, but nice and effective, as are the sound effects, with a pretty accurate recreation of the original PC game's music playing along (which probably was played by a MIDI soundcard on the PC). The game requires an Amiga 500 with 512KB ChipRAM and 512KB SlowRAM or better.
Note that "Super-Go-Down-The-Hole" was released beta status - by the time you're reading this there's probably an updated version available, see "Additional sources" below (e.g. EAB thread).
Watch a video of "Super-Go-Down-The-Hole" (2020-12-23):
This title sounds familiar, doesn't it? Around December 2020 this new recreation of arcade super classic "Space Invaders" popped up. It's written in BlitzBasic, and the developer's goal is to recreate the original arcade cabinet experience on the Amiga as good as possible.
Meanwhile a couple of updates were made to the game, including "emulation" of the arcade screen overlay that kind-of adds more colors to the game screen.
Well, it's a classic, everybody likes "Space Invaders", and this is a near-perfect implementation. Certainly another entry in the growing list of great new arcade game remakes for the Amiga, created by true enthusiasts, filling the gaps when there wasn't a port before, or surpassing previous efforts.
You can watch a video of "Space Invaders" on Saberman's awesome YouTube channel:
And here is yet another good looking platformer game, from Dec. 2020, created by Amiten team from Spain.
The "Inca Man" has to collect diamonds in the numerous single-screen levels of the game, while avoiding enemies and collecting bonus items. When all diamonds in a level have been collected, a little door opens through which the neat looking player sprite can escape to the next level.
Inca Man title screen - you should see it moving
This has quite a BoulderDash-esque appeal, and indeed not only the diamonds, also the pacing is reminiscent of the classic. In other words: "Inca Man" plays great. But of course it's a different game - a side-view jump-and-collect platformer, with it's own really nice visual style. It looks fine, and has a really fitting soundtrack with epic title theme, and driving arcade-style in-game music plus soundeffects. A password system helps you save your game progress, and there are two two-player modes: cooperative and versus.
"Inca Man" requires an Amiga with 1MB RAM to run. The game is nearing completion, and should be available soon.
This is the first in a loose series of developer logs about projects I'm working on, from little experimental or example code, to more complex ideas. On my quest to create some proper Amiga software - a game! - I have encountered, and will encounter, lots of challenges.
After a steep learning curve and endless hours of failure, finally there is some usable success - yay! ;-) Over the years I've started many ambitious projects, but all of these turned out to be quite a mess. I realized I needed more basic knowledge and better testing of individual code sections, along with improving my concepts of software architecture. So basically while learning more details about how to use C and AmigaOS, my main task was to scale down my ideas and get stuff to work together properly, so I don't end up with countless individual functions each doing only half-way what's required - in other words: a mess.
Ok, long story short, with "a little bit" (cough) of prior training, I'll just share some of my experience, starting with something I created recently, over a couple of days:
First version of "stl_info" for Linux and AmigaOS
It's called "stl_info", prints out information about an STL 3D file (binary format, as exported by e.g. Blender), and works on Linux and AmigaOS. For Linux, gcc is used for compilation, for Amiga it's vbcc (on Linux, cross-compiling). Currently the number format printed out is a bit weird (for debugging) - just think of the comma as a ".", and omit the "0." (zero integer part of float fraction).
Nothing too spectacular, but maybe a first step towards 3d printing on the Amiga? Anyway, apart from reading some header bytes from the STL file, then some 32bit numbers, etc. there were two slightly more interesting things about developing the program:
First, long numbers and the endianness thing. To make sure number storage would be identical on both my 64-bit Linux computer and the Amiga I've created a header file called "amigatypes.h" that defines e.g. ULONG as 32 bits like on the Amiga, WORD as 16 bits, etc. Still the byte order is incompatible: my Linux computer is an Intel x86, so it looks at it's bytes least-significant-first, called little-endian, or Intel-byte-order. The Amiga is a Motorola M68000, and looks at it's bytes the other way round, most-significant-first, called big-endian, or Motorola-byte-order. I tried to get around this somehow, but I ended up adding some separate code that swaps bytes around (see picture: bytereverse.c), and is activated in source code by a compiler define "AMIGA".
And then, IEEE754 numbers. In an STL binary file, Vertex coordinates are stored in IEEE754 floating point number format. (LSB first, part of the file format definition.) If you want to use this number format on AmigaOS as a float datatype, you'll probably be fine with the conversion function "SPFieee()" provided by mathtrans.library, but I wanted to be able to decode IEEE numbers to some custom format, something fixed-point, maybe for a future... game! IEEE numbers are made of three sections of bits: sign, exponent, and mantissa. I won't go into detail here, you can look it up (see links below) if you like. It looks a bit complicated on first sight, but once you work yourself through the individual steps of decoding, you realize: the exponent is just the bit-shift of the mantissa. It looks complicated when expressed as decimal-based math, but is pretty obvious in binary, and probably creates a useable fixed-point fraction. That's nice. Yes, there are more bits involved, you have to do a little bit of fiddling, but the exponent-bit-shift is really neat, feels super binary. (Well, it is.) :-)
If you're interested in IEEE754 here are some links:
