Jens Schoenfeld / Individual Computers says Merry Christmas with an update to P96 (Picasso96) that happens to match AmigaOS's latest version number.
According to the announcement (see link below), it's a bugfix release that addresses many little issues that were reported by users via P96's support forum.
Among the changes are updates to blitter emulation, improved use of hardware sprites (mouse pointer) that increases performance, and added support for the ZZ9000 graphics cards' dual-palette feature, removing artifacts when dragging Intuition screens.
Thomas Wenzel has release a new version of his audio player "AmigaAmp" with a decent set of bugfixes and new features. This is the list of changes, as published on AmigaAmp's website on Dec. 23rd:
Bug fixes:
Pulldown menus now work across all ReAction windows
If a datatype can't load the cover image from memory then AmigaAMP will write it to T: as a file and try to load it from there.
Fixed radio station name taken from stream metadata in playlist.
Up to ten reconnect attempts when shoutcast server reports 'unavailable'.
Fixed handling ID3v2 tags in front of FLAC files.
Fixed loading / adding whole directories.
Fixed initial state of EQ/Playlist buttons in skin mode.
Automatically save current equalizer setting when saving prefs.
Reworked visualisation routines for better synchronicity.
Fixed SSL connections that require Server Name Indication.
New features:
Automatic fallback from MHI to AHI for uncompressed audio and tracker modules (68k version).
Multi-select playlist in ReAction mode.
Snapshot windows directly via pulldown menu entry.
Popup menu for "Add..." button in ReAction playlist window.
ARexx macro support. Macros must have .rexx extension and start with a line saying /* AmigaAMP ARexx Macro */
Automatic adding of .pls to saved playlist filename.
Now using octave-spaced equalizer band frequencies.
Another project I've been working on is slowly taking shape, and there was quite some headache involved to get it going.
In my pursuit of creating... a game! ...I've arrived at VSprites, tiles, and scrolling. The Amiga is a technical marvel, but it has it's pitfalls. So you read the docs, set up your default, low-res PAL display "View", create a "ViewPort", adjust ViewPort offsets, re-read the docs, adjust the ViewPort offsets properly, read the docs again, re-adjust... and it still behaves weirdly. At some point you try a high-res display mode. Either way, in the end result some VSprites are missing, or the scroll offset is wrong. Well, after hours and hours of experimenting, it turns out that ViewPort->RxOffset and ViewPort->RyOffset are indeed the correct variables that need to be changed to move around a larger source bitmap, but they get interpreted differently by different Kickstart/OS/chipset versions - it looks as if KS3.0 on AGA chipset, and KS3.1 SetPatch'd by OS3.9 on AGA chipset, might be messing up VSprites when scrolling, and earlier KS versions always scroll by low-res pixels, regardless of actual display (high) resolution. As a quick fix I'm focusing on what is probably still the most common Amiga configuration: Amiga 500, OCS chipset, Kickstart 1.3. I'll work on compatibility or maybe a separate version of the game later.
Basic screen mockup, to get an idea of object's sizes, and screen layout
And a "bug" in the docs was discovered: When using VSprites, you "reserve" some hardware sprites from VSprite usage by setting/clearing bits in GelsList->sprRsrvd. The docs give contradictory information about what "reserve" actually means - bit set or clear? It has now been proven and confirmed that bits need to be set to allow VSprite usage of that hardware sprite, and bits need to be cleared to "reserve" the corresponding hardware sprite from VSprite usage. Einstein-alike.
Anyway - after overcoming these obstacles it's beginning to look like... a game!
ViewPorts are a great thing, by the way. There are a couple of limitations, but whenever you run low on colors, need a different origin for your drawing coordinates, or maybe are thinking about an alternative to a dual-playfield, a new ViewPort might solve the problem.
So now it's got a scrollable bitmap, separate status bar, sprites, tiles, game map files, and a rudimentary "physics" engine that allows sideways movement and drops. That's a huuuge step forward!
No, that's not the... game! Just an early tileset.
Linux IFF picture viewer xiffview, which was created as a side-product of game development, now really comes in handy. I use it regularly, it has become part of my makefiles, and I add features as I need them.
When writing software that's handles data for different architectures, you have to pay attention to a lot of details. The reversed endianness (MSB on m68k vs. LSB on x86) has been mentioned many times. Also different compilers on different CPU architectures may have different data storage types - an "int" on a modern x86 machine is not be the same size as an "int" on Amiga. I encountered this just recently, when adding some code to xiffview that writes Amiga UWORD values to a text file, using something like fprintf("0x%04x", value). The UWORDs written had too many digits, too large for an Amiga 16-bit number. It looks like a bug on first sight, but the Linux x86 compiler is simply made to handle larger numbers (by default) than an Amiga C compiler. The solution is simple: you have to explicitly cast the value to a 16-bit data type, like this: fprintf("0x%04x", (short int) value).
Great news from the operating system side of Amiga things: Hyperion has released AmigaOS update 3.2.1, for registered users, and for free.
In a press release published on 21st Dec. 2021 the availability of the first update to AmigaOS 3.2 was announced, along with a list of highlighted features:
Fixes to almost every single gadget and image class
Fix to clipboard.device that since AmigaOS 3.1.4 would not handle clips above 16KB in some cases
Important fix to locale.library that would convert signed values to unsigned
New IconEdit with support for colorful icons (like the “GlowIcons”)
TextEdit has gained an ARexx port per open document
ShowConfig had its GUI reworked, and can now make reports in AmigaGuide format
The RAM disk linking feature have been changed a bit so it seems more like AmigaOS 3.1.4 while still being copy on read as in AmigaOS 3.2
Dropping files on console will now activate the console window
The screen will no longer remain black if you start up without any attached drive
Once again public health takes precedence over retro computing.
Due to increased spread of the coronavirus in Germany, an in accordance with expected restrictions to public life, the "Interface XXIX" event by Vintage Computer Club (VCC), Amiga-Club Schleswig-Holstein (ACSH) and Computer-Club Klausdorf (CCK) to be held in Kiel on Nov. 27th 2021, was cancelled.
No substitute event (online stream, ...) is planned - but the organisers already promised to create a new event and send out invitations once the situation is back to normal.
Ok, not reeeally Amiga, but then still very Amiga, is Fabrizio Farenga's Easy1541 website.
If you ever considered somehow doing something useful with your Amiga regarding the C64, it might have been to build an Easy1541-compatible cable, connect the Amiga to a Commodore 1541 5.25 inch floppy drive, and modify disk contents using Fabrizio's "Easy1541" software (see links below).
It's been 25 years since "Easy1541" was created, and many Amiga/C64 users have chosen this solution to access their C64 disk drives and images.
To celebrate the software's 25th anniversary, Fabrizio has created a website that takes his creation to the next level: "Easy1541" goes online!
You can upload disk images, and retrieve individual files from it, or upload individual files, and retrieve a disk image created from those files.
Certainly a useful tool everyone should bookmark, and a nice way to keep the spirit alive!
One of the strengths of the Amiga - at the time - was that it generates a "native" PAL/NTSC video signal, compatible with that of any home TV, making it naturally suited for video and broadcasting production.
Genlocking - the inter-locking of two video signals, allowing blending, chroma-keying, overlaying, etc. - was the latest thing, and the Amiga could provide such a video signal without any expansion devices.
Probably completely unknown in Europe, a US company created a TV channel out of this combination. It lauched in 1981 as "Electronic Program Guide" using Atari 8-bit computers for image generation. Until about 1998, moving to several Amiga setups and undergoing several name changes including "Prevue" and "Prevue Guide", it provided TV program information, weather forecast, celebrity interviews, etc. In it's final Amiga version the software called "PrevueGrid" was able to display video feeds on a split screen, and play back audio feeds, while displaying channel programs. After 1998 the company continued under a different name, and the Amiga platform was gradually replaced with PCs.
So what you saw on your TV on this channel at the time was provided by an Amiga computer (together with video feed, genlocking, and other broadcasting devices). Fast-forward to the present day, YouTube, and a worldwide community supplying video content. A seemingly endless amount of original material, digitized footage, and captured broadcast video are freely available on the internet - including hours of recorded Prevue air time. Which is great, both for Amiga enthusiasts, and TV viewers that enjoy the nostalgia.
But the fun part comes with the mishaps. Of course something goes wrong every once in a while, and AmigaOS running PrevueGrid is no exception. As is the person operating the Amiga computer in question. This results in an enjoyable mix of low-res video, genlocking gone wrong, Amiga and PrevueGrid system reboots, and other little glitches, together with oldskool TV programming - a nice look back at 1990s broadcasting technology and content.
Here are a couple of video links to get you started:
Yet another update of IFF ILBM imageviewer xiffview for Linux computers. Now it can double- or triple-scale image, display individual bitplanes, give color information, and a couple of other features have been added.
xiffview is slowly turning into quite a usable tool. In addition to the aforementioned, it also got a brand new status bar for user messages, a rudimentary online help, and it displays pixel coordinates when the mouse moves over the image.
When the mouse pointer is positioned over a color palette cell, color information is displayed on the status bar in RGB8 and RGB4 format.
Using keys F1 to F8 you can disable display of individual bitplanes of the image, which might be helpful for sprite data generation, color analysis, and other things.
The C code generated by command "to-sprite" now contains a placeholder "xSPRITENAMEx" in the variable names used. You can use it to search-and-replace with your desired sprite name - for example, if you replace it with "ship", this will give you varnames like "sprite_ship_newvsprite", "sprite_ship_colors", etc.
xiffview 0.5 displaying one of four ILBM bitplanes
As always, see AmiNet readme file for more information.
Are you not entertained? Don't worry, we have more new Amiga games!
"The Shadows of Sergoth" available for pre-order
We've reported about beautiful dungeon-crawler game "The Shadows of Sergoth" before, when the first demo was released - let's just sum it up quickly: it's a quite polished enhanced version of an 2018 Amstrad CPC game of the same name, it looks and sounds great, is almost 3d, and if you like this kind of stuff you need to have it.
Since Oct. 6th you can pre-order the full game as digital download, and physical, boxed edition. The box contains three floppy discs, a printed instruction manual, a real compass (!), a die with 20 faces, stickers - and you get the digital download on top of that. That's a really nice package.
The full game requires 2MB ChipRAM (as opposed to 1.5MB ChipRAM for the demo), a faster Amiga is recommended (A1200 / 68020), and the release date has been set for Nov. 13th 2021.
1986 Konami arcade game "Jackal" (aka "Top Gunner") gets a remake for OCS/ECS Amigas. "Jackal" is great, it's a bit like "Commando" meets "SWIV", and being an oldskool arcade title, it's got that certain look and feel that just makes you want to play.
After a first demo was released in August, a second one was in September, proving the author's dedication, but this is still work-in-progress. The pictures below are taken from the game's website (see link below), and you can find demo videos on YouTube. The graphics are obviously appealing, and there's a nice rendition of the original arcade music playing along - but being an unfinished product everything is of course still subject to change.
This kind-of-movie-spin-off point-and-click adventure game by Jose A. Gonzalez / Irongate was announced with a preview video early this year.
In quite an obvious reference to John Carpenter, you direct this very Kurt Russel looking guy through various screens, examining objects and talking to people, on your quest to find some important floppy disk.
With nice, detailed graphics, and sprites with big heads, "1987 Rescate..." (or "1987 Rescue in Berlin") features Jose's characteristic visual style, and you get to hear some really decent music, including a cover of Carpenter's "Escape from New York" theme, and everyone's favourite song, "Girl from Ipanema".
Since July the full versions in Spanish, English, Italian, and Czech is available as digital ADF, and boxed edition with printed manual.
Maybe the first "true" next-generation Amiga game is "Jake and Peppy" - it exclusively requires a Apollo Vampire V4 SAGA board to run on.
It's basically a top view shoot-em-up - with an amount of on-screen colors and graphical detail unseen on the Amiga before, and a crisp 16-bit soundtrack. Apollo Core's 68080 with AMMX, and the Vampire's enhanced video and audio capabilities make it possible. This is not your 30 year old floppy disc game - this is shiny and new, super high-res, super smooth, eye-poppingly colorful, dizzying arcade action for those who are not afraid of FPGA.
Some of the new features are an online highscore table, animations, and added sound effects. And it's still 1 or 2 players, keyboard or joystick, multiple playing modes and difficulty levels, and runs on any Amiga with 512KB ChipRAM.
Now this is really pretty cool: Byron 3D Games Studio has created a Lionheart remake - in Java!
Lionheart is among the best known and most beautiful games ever on the Amiga - maybe the most beautiful - and this remake gets it right: it looks pixel perfect identical. There are of course little differences here and there, but overall it's just... Lionheart. Nothing less, nothing more. Perfect.
Even more games, no time to lose: more first person shooting, yet another puzzle game from Simone Bevilacqua, and two point-and-click adventures in this issue of Games galore.
"Blood"
Shortly after "Exhumed" (or "Powerslave") another MS-DOS first person shooter based on the "Build" engine was ported to the Amiga by BSzili: "Blood", originally from 1997, first shown on the Amiga in June 2021, and uploaded to AmiNet in September, goes deep into horror territory, with graveyards, crazy monks, and rolling heads.
It's
an exciting 3d shooting game that requires a powerful AGA Amiga with
FPU - 68040 and higher - Kickstart 3.0 or higher, 32MB of RAM, harddisc,
and, just as "Exhumed" does, game data files from the PC version (see
links below).
(Note: the AmiNet readme says a
68060 is required, but we have seen video of "Exhumed" running on 68040,
so we're assuming "Blood" has the same CPU requirements, thus probably
runs on 68040, too.)
Watch a video of "Blood" running on Amiga 1200 / 68060 @ 66 Mhz with Roland SC-88 MIDI expander music (yay!) on anouk33's YouTube channel (2021-08-03):
"Cybersphere" was announced in June 2021, and by now we can purchase the finished product - see links below.
Being a Hollywood-MAL based piece of software, it requires quite some harddisc space, and is available for many platforms - the game CD contains versions for AmigaOS4, MorphOS, AROS (x86), plus Windows 32-bit (runs on 64-bit systems, too), Linux 32-bit (runs on 64-bit systems, too), and MacOS.
Simone "saimo" Bevilacqua at it again - over the summer of 2021 he's updated his variation of the good old "Memory" card game concept with bugfixes and new features. "MeMO" is actually a pretty old game that dates back to 1996.
What sets "MeMO" apart from the competition is that it's a saimo game, which means it looks great, plus it
has some super laid-back fusion music, allows two players to play simultaneously - a feature rarely seen in computer card games - and it has some AI trickery designed to make "MeMO" a totally non-frustrating experience.
The game requires 68020 CPU, 1MB ChipRAM plus some other RAM, ECS chipset, PAL video, and AmigaOS 2.0 (or higher).
We've reported about the game before so we won't go into too much detail here - but a new (v1.0j, July 2021) demo release of Michael "Mixel" Dawes' beautiful point-and-click jump-and-run adventure "Creeping Me Out: Hex Night" is certainly worth mentioning.
Here's the - pretty impressive - "CMO Hex Night Demo Launch Trailer" from Mixel's Lab on YouTube (2021-06-28):
Actually I don't like the Competition Pro joysticks too much. A kind-of review.
I think the Competition Pro puts unnecessary strain on your wrist, and has some other disadvantages.
Classic red-black color scheme Competition Pro joystick
You'd probably intuitively grab the Competition Pro's stick more or less from above. That position, plus the height of the body, the placement of the fire buttons, that'll make you put your thumb towards the edge of the top casing instead of across (unless you use the fire button on the opposite side), and the small footprint area of the bottom casing, makes the entire construction work kind of like a lever, twisting your wrists in opposite directions. Depending on the individual specimen of Competition Pro joystick, the spring and microswitches involved with stick movement / directions might be pretty strong, requiring unnecessary force, potentially increasing wrist strain. In addition to the sub-optimal way the (probably left) fire-button-hand is placed regarding overall grip and stability, pushing down the button creates an unnatural motion of the stretched out thumb more towards the index finger than towards the center of an imaginary Tennis ball in your hand, quickly exhausting the thumb's muscles. If the fire buttons slightly tilt, and cant, which they occasionally do, exhaustion is even quicker.
And then, while most microswitches are great, they're also sometimes pretty loud, esp. when put into a bulgy casing like the Competition Pro's. Depending on the situation the clicking of the switches can get a little annoying.
I prefer Quickshot I's, which you'd typically grab more or less horizontally, thus typically applying some downward force. Combined with a much wider footprint area, overall lower-profile body, the (body) fire button positioned less close to the body's edges, and suction cups on the bottom, the Quickshot stands much more firmly, esp. on hard, plain surfaces. It's pretty usable even with one hand only.
A 30 year old, heavily used SVI Quickshot I - is it better than a Competition Pro?
The Quickshot I doesn't have microswitches, but you can easily service it's open tin switches, and they're hardly audible when in use. The stick wears out over time, reducing force required. With a stick moving that smoothly, you can put your steering hand's fingers near the lower end of the stick, creating super fast changes in direction, and almost eliminating wrist strain from both hands.
Of course the Competition Pro is still a great product. It has a lot of advantages - it's die-hard construction and build quality, iconic looks, comfortable ball-stick, and more. Many people got used to it, and rightfully love it.
Certainly not everyone will agree with the above analysis of the Competition Pro's construction and handling. And to be honest it's not 110% serious - it's based on very little test data, and heavily biased. ;-)
But one day it just had to be said: The Competition Pro is not necessarily the best, the only usable joystick in the world. This is just an example where personal experience differs from widespread opinion. Why not try a different joystick? Computec has some not-so-fancy-looking, but really well-working models. Quickshot I and II are great microswitch-less designs. And there are many others.
Computec Quick Gun Turbo Pro - a great Competition Pro alternative
There's no short cut, we gotta get them all: an updated racing classic, and lots of work in progress.
Supercars II AGA
Top-view racing classic "Supercars" gets a new release in AGA shape that goes by the name of "Supercars II AGA". This actually isn't a new game, but more like an updated version of "Supercars II". You still drive around a course on a scrolling map, still try to outmaneuver, or simply blast away, your opponents - and it's still great fun, or maybe now even more, with 256-color graphics and some other little enhancements.
Coagulus' "Chases of Death", "Swapped Arts", "JetHuntERS"
Early this year, developer Coagulus published previews of three games he's working on:
Chases of Death
A remake of a simple, but highly addictive 3d-racing-and-shooting game, that was released for the ZX Spectrum in 1983 as "Deathchase" and got very positive reviews. You drive your motorbike through some sort of stylized forest, avoiding crashing into a tree, and hunting for some other motorbike.
...for AGA Amigas looks like some sort of puzzle game involving some of the painting masterpieces of the old masters - but this is really just an early preview, currently one can only guess what the actual gameplay and appearance of "Swapped Arts" might be when it's finished.
JetHuntERS
This is a sequel to Coagulus' own "JetHunt", which was very much inspired by side-view cave-exploration classic "H.E.R.O." released in 1984. But gone are the days of quiet and calm cave rescue missions - it's the JetHunt "Elite Reconnaissance Squad". The game preview looks like a straightforward horizontally scrolling shoot-em-up with nicely drawn imagery, and some demo-ish visual effects.
JetHuntERS (wip) title screen
Keep in mind that all three games are work-in-progress, lots of changes are to be expected, and so far no release dates have been given.
In June 2021, developer and 3d-artist Dante Mendes shared a video clip of his upcoming game "Primal Blade" on twitter.
It shows a really beautiful looking side-scrolling fantasy jump-and-run, hack-and-slash game with parallax scrolling, Copper effects, sound effects, and some decent music playing along. If you liked "Gods" and "Shadow of the Beast" you'll certainly like this one, too.
Over the last few months I've looked into several different subjects with no particular focus, but I got some results nontheless.
You might have seen the latest release of xiffview (v0.4), my little IFF ILBM picture viewer for Linux. It's a side product, created to simplify development for the Amiga, but I have a couple of further ideas to turn it into a really useful tool, e.g. add cropping, bitplane manipulation, etc. Anyway, for now it has learned something about palettes and sprites - see AmiNet readme file.
Another side product of some hardware changes happening in my workplace is a CLI controlled .gcode 3d-printing program written in quite Amiga-ish C code, which I call "reprint". It's currently very beta, and for Linux, but it successfully sends g-code to the printer - maybe another brick in building 3d-printing support for the Amiga? Some day I'll try to wire up something, then recompile "reprint" for Amiga, and keep my fingers crossed. ;-)
And then there's this little question that's been nagging me for years: when writing C code, is it good practice to copy stuff to local vars?
Here's what I mean by that: I have a tendency to create a large struct that holds my program's data, settings, pointers, etc., then access that data as members of that struct, e.g. in (inner) loops. I always wonder if this creates a complicated set of CPU instructions when compiled to assembler, esp. when accessing "deep" members - thus if it would be better to copy member data from global struct to a local variable, then use that variable e.g. in (inner) loops.
For single access this is obviously not an issue - but what about repeatedly accessing such member data? So I did some actual testing.
Looking at this piece of repeatedly struct-member-accessing (pseudo) C code...
for (loops) { n = some_pointer->some_member.some_number; }
...and comparing it to this piece of (pseudo) C code, which first copies to local var, ...
my_n = some_pointer->some_member.some_number; for (loops) { n = my_n; }
...one would probably assume it's obvious the latter version is faster, because the code inside the loop looks vastly simpler. On the other hand someone somewhere suggested it wouldn't make a (noticeable) difference due to compiler optimization.
After a few test runs (pretty much using the pseudo code above), I think it can indeed be considered good practice to copy to local var. Results vary strongly, esp. on my 8-core Linux machine, but on the Amiga the latter version of the code is near-consistently about 25% faster than the former. With the struct member inside the loop, the compiler, or someone else, obviously didn't see we're accessing the same data over and over again. There are probably a hundred things to keep in mind, e.g. loop-size vs. CPU cache, size of struct, location of member, amount of data, compiler abilities, etc., - but it looks as if copying data to local var should indeed be preferred. Under certain circumstances it executes faster, and in most cases it's much more readable and saves a lot of typing.
Amiga game development is moving fast - so are we: this time we have two first person shooters, a port of an 8-bit platformer, a new fighting game by the author of "Invyya", and another new jump and run game.
Exhumed
Recently, a couple of PC games based on the "Build" 3d engine were ported to the Amiga - on of which is 1997 PC first person shooter game "Exhumed", also known as "Powerslave".
Well, what can u say - great stuff! Ancient Egypt is a nice subject for a game, and from an Amigan's point of view this is next-level first person shooter gaming finally making it's way to the Amiga (along with DREAD, Blood, and others) on a regular basis. It requires a fast CPU (68040/68060/FPGA/Emu), AGA, 16MB RAM, harddisc, Kickstart 3.0 or higher, and some data files from the PC version (see links below).
Additional sources: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106747 http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/05/exhumed-powerslave-egyptian-themed-fps.html http://www.jonof.id.au/buildgames/ps.html (PC demo / game data)
Dread demo released
Yeah, you heard the news, it's on facebook, it's on YouTube, it's pretty much everywhere: DREAD demo is out!
Now
you can more or less play Doom on your 7Mhz OCS 512KB Amiga 500. It's
amazing, and not much more has to be said about this great project by
KK/Altair.
Here's a video of DREAD running on several different Amiga configurations from 68010 to 68040 (2021-09-27):
...is a conversion of an 8-bit (C64, Atari) platform game from 1984 that got very positive reviews.
You control Little Henry, climbing ladders, jumping around, collecting things, and avoiding obstacles. The game has some visual similarities with maybe Donkey Kong, or titles like that, and adds a couple of nice effects on top.
Thanks to coder Marecheck / MC Studio it's now available for the Amiga.
Go to MC studio's website for more information, and download of "Henry's House": https://www.mcstudio.pl (you can click the UK flag for English language)
In May 2021 the author of Inviyya announced a new project for OCS Amigas that goes by the name of "Krogharr". It's a fighting game in development, that seems to sit somewhere near Golden Axe and Barbarian II. Only static graphics have been shown so far - but these look pretty amazing, with detailed, manga-esque game characters, somehow watercolor-style background graphics, and a lo-fi, atmospheric color palette. Judging from the reviews Inviyya got, this will be another great game by Tigerskunk.
Remarkably detailed sprite graphics, and a seriously groovy soundtrack are two of the features of upcoming, work-in-progress jump'n'run game "Polar Panic".
Not too much is known about this project so far - the game uses the Scorpion engine, an early video has been released around mid-May 2021, and it looks quite promising!
It's been quite a while, we've got some serious catching up to do, let's go: Turrican returns to the Amiga in AGA colors, Simone Bevilacqua is developing some slick puzzlers with cool graphics, Luigi Recanatese goes full retro-racing, and as always we have some beautiful platformer.
Turrican 2 AGA
Yeah, it's Turrican, the legend. At the end of April 2021 a ("back"-)port of the MS-DOS conversion of Turrican 2 was released to the public. It's still work-in-progress, but judging from user comments it's already really good.
Not much needs to be said about this - everyone has played Turrican, it's one of the best action-shoot-em-up-platformers on several platforms, Amiga included. And now it looks even better!
As expected from an AGA game, "Turrican 2 AGA" runs on Amiga 1200 and 4000 (and emulators, of course), some FastRAM is recommended for best experience.
Updated AGA graphics and Turrican gameplay - you certainly don't want to miss this. A third demo version has just been released. A very exciting project, very much looking forward to further progress.
Here's a video from Saberman's YouTube channel (2021-09-29):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0CVwbn-mI
If you want to try the latest demo of "Turrican 2 AGA" yourself, you can find a dropbox link in the forum thread (as of now latest release is on page 8): http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=106735
Developer Simone Bevilacqua from Italy - creator of games BOH, SkillGrid, and many more - always comes up with nice new ideas, and gives his productions a recognizable, polished style.
He's been working on "Follix" and "ArtPazz", two arcade puzzle games, which introduce some technical marvel that goes by the name of ALS (AMOS Layer System), allowing for some visual effects rarely seen anywhere else on the Amiga.
In both games you move tiles to restore the proper order of things and advance to the next level, but the presentation is very different. While "Follix" is more fast paced, and feels very arcade, "ArtPazz" with it's recreations of famous historic paintings and laid back music creates an entirely different atmosphere.
And here's another video from Simone's YouTube channel, showing "ArtPazz" gameplay (2021-03-17):
Now we're getting reaaaally retro. So you think an Atari 2600 is an old gaming platform? You have no idea. We're talking b/w TV game consoles retro here, the ones with built-in games and a switch. Or just a built-in game, no switch.
"Knight Rider 77" by Luigi Recanatese, uploaded to AmiNet in April 2021, is one of those good old, very simple, quick and fun to play arcade games.
It's a straightforward racing game, looks super fun, and requires an Amiga with 1MB RAM.
This is a platformer featuring simple, beautiful, smartphone style graphics, some cute abstract dudes, nice music, and all the game mechanics that make platform games fun. Does that sound good to you? Demos have already been released for you to download (see below), and a physical, boxed version is planned with a release date tentatively set to some time near end of 2021.
IFF ILBM imageviewer xiffview for Linux computers has a couple of new features, one of which is a command mode that allows you to extract image data as C code for sprite creation.
If you're a C programmer and want to create sprites with your program, this might be interesting for you. xiffview now has a command that takes a couple of arguments, namely x and y coordinates, height, bitmap numbers and color indices, and saves image data from that region of the image to a C code file for use in your program.
xiffview v0.4 with test pattern image
Also xiffview now includes a "contrib" folder with a test pattern image for you to play with, and a generic Makefile kindly contributed by S. Haubenthal (thanks!).
And it now shows the image's palette below the image display.
IBrowse has received another update, increasing it's version number to 2.5.5.
According to the release announcement, not much has changed visually, this is a maintenance release primarily addressing bugs, but also bringing a couple of new features - here's a quick (incomplete) overview of the changes in version 2.5.5:
Note: The installer script from the demo archive seems to have some small bugs - read below on how to fix.
Bugs were encountered installing IBrowse 2.5.5 demo (downloaded 2021-08-15 from ibrowse-dev.net) on a Amiga 1200 / KS3.0 / WB3.1, choosing "68020-030" version in installer dialogue. Line numbers in the screenshots below might be slightly inaccurate (e.g. due to additional comments).
Error "GETENV: String too long!" is probably caused by a "getenv" that doesn't properly evaluate under AmigaOS3, you have to make a little change to this "if" statement (near line nr. 1640):
Error "Unterminated string literal" might be a quoted string that has to be properly terminated on the same line (near line nr. 1507):
Hyperion and the team of AmigaOS 3.2 developers show their dedication with an updated release of the Native Developer Kit.
The new NDK was released on June 30th 2021. According to the file description, it improves compatibility with different compiler environments. Also there seem to be "strategic" changes, simplifying future updates (see "ReadMe" picture below).
Probably not directly related to the NDK's contents, but also mentioned in the file details is what appears to be a new strategy of distribution with wider availability through additional sources.
An odd feature of this latest release (just like rel. 2) might be that it's incomplete by design (see "ReadMe" picture below), and it speaks of a "worthwhile endeavour" of "seeking out on earlier NDKs" - umh, maybe not exactly "worthwhile". (But we've done the work for you, see link at end of article.)
Whatever the case, this is certainly another welcome update, and a must-have for all Amiga developers.
If you don't have one of the earlier - complete - NDKs, you can get the "Amiga Developer CD 2.1" with NDK3.9 (yes, 3.9 comes before 3.2 in Amiga land) and lots of other stuff from your preferred vendor, or download NDK3.9 from Haage&Partner's website - here's a link: https://www.haage-partner.de/download/AmigaOS/NDK39.lha
The "Amiga Art Contest 2021" has begun! There has never been a shortage of creativity on the Amiga, and once again this year Amiga artists can submit their work to 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast's art contest.
Pixel graphics, 3d rendered graphics, photo retouche, sound modules, animation - pretty much everything "creative" is accepted as long as at least the final result has been created on an Amiga computer.
You can take a look at the 2019 and 2020 submissions to the contest for inspiration, if you like.
This year, a couple of nice little prizes for the winners in each category have been added, for extra creative motivation.
As always: good news on the Amiga gaming front, lots of stuff going on. A refreshing, very cool looking, almost-3D soccer game, an arcade driving game, a new clone of a very notorious modern classic, a point-and-click adventure, and the release of a new shoot-em-up.
Souverän Soccer, work in progress
Daniel "Daytona675x" Müßener, aka GoldenCode, is working on "Souverän Soccer", which is a remake of SNES game Super Formation Soccer (1992), aimed at stock Amiga 1200 and CD32 machines.
Next-Gen-Amiga gamers might have heard the author's name before, as he's also the creator of "Atomic Bomberman Fan Remake" for AmigaOS4/AROS/MorphOS.
"Souverän Soccer" is an attempt to recreate the bitmap-scaling, 3D-scrolling visual experience known from SNES graphics hardware on AGA Amigas, and from what we can tell so far it's a successful one. Low-res full screen graphics, redrawn at 50hz, with distance shading and copper gradients for hundreds of colors - not bad at all!
A very exciting, and promising, project, and another proof of the seemingly endless capabilities of the (AGA) Amiga, we're very much looking forward to some sort of public release.
Here's his latest work-in-progress video, published May 18th 2021, on his YouTube channel Dän Bänän:
From the people who brought us the awesome TinyInvaders, TinyBobble, TinyGalaga, and Tinyus, comes another nice production by the name of "Wrong Way Driver". It was released around April 2021, and works on all Amigas, no expansions required.
It's a simple, but great looking, great sounding, and well playable mini arcade game, in which you control your car along a six lane highway, driving the wrong way. You have to avoid oncoming traffic, and take care of your fuel supply by collecting fuel tanks. As all aBYSs productions, it looks polished and is technically flawless - you just have to admire the beautiful multi layered parallax scrolling, and smooth scaling of the player's car.
Now this is not a "full" game, more of a demonstration of parallax scrolling done with the Scorpion engine. And it's a clone of the most played, and most dangerous game ever, the one that must not be named. And it looks even more difficult and frustrating than the one game that must not be named.
(Well, of course it looks really good, and sounds as good. As far as "playability" goes in the-one-game-that-must-not-be-named type of games, this one is top notch, too.)
So for your own safety, we'll just leave you with a moment of silence here, to enjoy the beautiful parallax scrolling and music of "Flighty Fox" from the safe distance of your YouTube player, in a video from Saberman's channel:
In April 2021 substantial news were published about upcoming point-and-click adventure "Athanor 2" by Eric Safar and Francois Gutherz, a conversion of Safar's Amstrad/Schneider CPC game of the same name released a couple of years ago. Shortly after first screenshots from the Amiga version had been presented, a pre-release video was uploaded to YouTube.
A point-and-click adventure isn't about a complex physics engine, but all about graphics, storyline and atmosphere. And "Athanor 2" has tons of graphics, the very beautiful, handdrawn type.
An Atari ST version has been released previously, from which we can guess the Amiga physical release package contents: game floppy disks, a booklet/manual, some sort of coins with runic writings on them, a vial, a little octopus amulet, ...
The very promising "Inviyya" horizontal shoot-em-up game is delivering: With final versions released you can now experience it in it's fully polished glory, on your own Amiga and CD32!
Here you can watch a video from YouTube channel "Amiga Fan"...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx3SwMbf9Rc
...but of course you're much better off purchasing the actual game:
Boxed "Collector's" and "Budget" editions for Amiga (1MB RAM required) and Amiga CD32 are available at: https://www.polyplay.xyz
The boxed "Collector's Edition" features awesome stuff, including 3.5 inch floppy disk, MicroSD card with disk image and bonus material, a "mission patch" to iron onto your shirt, a booklet with short story (by Constantin Gillies), game manual, poster, and sticker!
The CD32 version media is an exclusive visual CD-ROM with transparency effect in Digipak, instead of floppy disk.
