A techno music album created with OctaMED SoundStudio (and Camouflage)

"Breathless" is an album of electro/techno music created on an Amiga computer over the latter half of the 1990s. All tracks were composed with OctaMED SoundStudio, using Amiga samples and MIDI sound devices.

I had learned that Amiga computers are great for sound and video. Demos like "Desert Dream" and "Lethal Exit", and esp. the intro music of the game "Epic" had left me very impressed. So I got an Amiga 600 and started playing with OctaMED. A MIDI interface and a Roland Juno 106 analog keyboard were added soon after, then a Yamaha FB-01 synth module, followed by a lot of other devices.  

Over a couple of years, many pieces of synth music were created, all of which were more or less experimental. Until a handful stood out, and I thought it would be nice to put together an album. A few more tracks were created on-the-fly, to give the album more playing time - I just like music to have a little extra time to develop.

Around 1999, when finishing the album, I had expanded my setup to an Amiga 4000 with graphics, network, and Prelude 16-bit soundcard, and added a PC for recording and post-production. I had also upgraded the software in use to the latest version of OctaMED, called SoundStudio, and great audio/MIDI program Camouflage.

The music was initially composed with OctaMED SoundStudio (OMSS), using a mix of entering notes step-by-step, live jamming with MIDI-recording, and a few longer audio samples. Some of the tracks were then played back in OMSS, and recorded as audio tracks in Camouflage, to free up MIDI instruments and add more sounds.

A couple of notes on individual tracks:

Track 1, "Where the sun shines", features the Amiga playing back a catchy synth riff sampled from a Roland Juno 60 keyboard, and some speech samples.

Track 3, "Too hoppin' mad", is a spiced-up remake of an older track called "Hoppin' at the spot", and it has a funny story: The idea was to have some rhythmic chords, played on a Roland JX8P keyboard, enter on the first breakdown, and continue over the groove. But I forgot to switch on OMSS' "chord mode" - when MIDI-recording the chords, all (most) notes ended up on one track in OMSS in near-random order. When listening to the result for the first time, I was pleasantly surprised, and added distortion from a guitar effects processor to intensify the effect. The string/pad segment was mostly created in Camouflage, using OMSS as a "looper" for the MIDI instruments. 

Track 4, "Into the ominous" features some random bleeps: These are created by just some random notes played on a Yamaha DX7 II keyboard: The battery was old, it had lost its memory. The sound is the result of an undefined state of one of the synth's memory slots. (Except for a handful that I had restored or overwritten, they all sounded pretty much the same at that point: random bleeps. lol.)

Track 7, "Breathless" is the most Amiga of the tracks on the album. The idea was to create an "epic" (?) acid track, it was initially called "Hildesheim", and it's a bit noisy. OMSS is playing back sampled synth sounds, and controlling a Kawai XD-5 drum synthesizer. Lots of samples were taken, in an attempt to recreate the filter sweeps of an analog synth. There's also a tiny bit of live filter mixing - you can probably recognize it by the better sound quality.

Track 9, "Farewell" is a groovy, simple track, that serves as a basis for some acoustic guitar solo jamming.

All tracks were recorded and "mastered" on a PC using Samplitude. I'd have loved to finalize the tracks using the Amiga version, but at the time PCs had become so fast, that they could handle a handful of audio effects in realtime, whereas an Amiga would require minutes to do the calculations. EQ-ing, compression, extra panning, and reverb was added, and the final tracks exported, stored, and burnt to CD.

In hindsight, everything could've been done better. The reverb is too much, it makes everything sound quite muddy. But it also enhances the hi-resonance synth sounds on nr. 7, "Breathless". The mixing and mastering has lots of flaws - there's some heavy banging, around 500Hz or so, on some tracks, sometimes created by individual sounds, sometimes by the mix. And so on - but overall, and as an entity of different compositions, I think it turned out somehow listenable, and, in parts, even a little catchy or moody.

The entire album has just been uploaded to YouTube. The videos were created with Blender in 2024, as a little "visualizer" for the music.

"Breathless" CD cover front / inlay / back

"Breathless" album playlist on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Gy7PSuZtfIULzpMRIN2RU_JwjGSheOv

YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@SchwabingDeepSpace

"SchwabingDeepSpace" blog:

http://schwabingdeepspace.blogspot.com

One of the few physical copies of "Breathless"

The Gigahertz-Amiga that never (really) was

When browsing the net, you sometimes stumble upon things that question your beliefs.

About 20 years ago, PowerPC was the Amiga's future. There had been talk about DEC Alpha CPUs, and other quantum-leap high-performance gear, but only phase5 had the guts to deliver: a dual-CPU board with a PowerPC CPU clocked at 233MHz! A quantum-leap it was, but it also came too late, and was too costly for most. Only a few years later the Amiga market would effectively be dead. Then came the retro movement, people brushing the dust off their old Amiga computers, and their assembler coding skills. Nowadays, we have a thriving hardware and software development scene, all rooted in the good old days: pure Amiga, classic Motorola 68k! If you like some extra speed, you can choose from several low-cost 68000 to 68060 accelerators, FPGA based CPU replacements, and a range of emulation setups, all of which are actively developed in recent times, and run M68k code. PowerPC accelerators have become unobtanium, and the few owners still there from the early days are not enough to make a visible impact on the scene.

Imagine this alternate reality: In 2013, 1Ghz PowerPC accelerators for the Amiga became available. By 2015 prices have dropped, and a transparent M68k emulation layer has been implemented for PowerUP/WarpUP. People are running M68k "Real3D" and "Imagine" on PowerPC, because emulation is faster than any available M68k CPU. By 2020, the 2GHz barrier has been broken, and while your PowerPC-native "Blender" port renders HD images for your new YouTube video, you're playing a round of DREAD. AmigaOS 3.1.4 and 3.2 were never developed, because AmigaOS3.9 and 4.0 have merged into a single product made of a M68k core for backwards compatibility, and PowerPC-native applications.

Well - back to actual reality. That was some nice fantasy, it just didn't happen that way.

...but is was close!

It was called UltimatePPC, and... yes. And yes. And yes. It is what it sounds like. No strings attached. It's the thing only few dared to imagine, because it was just too... outrageous. And it actually got built.

Prototype UltimatePPC card
(source: http://ultimateppc.nl/gallery.php (archived))

Press release of May 22nd, 2012: AMIGA MEETS GIGAHERTZ

Gideon Zweijtzer (of 1541-Ultimate fame) and Rutger Bevaart have teamed up to bring renewed innovation to the Classical Amiga by announcing the UltimatePPC today, the ultimate CPU expansion card for the Amiga 3000 & 4000. This new card will bring unparalleled performance and many great new features to the Amiga series of computers that were not available previously and give current users a viable upgrade path for aging components. It also opens new possibilities for newer versions of the Amiga Operating System or alternatives to run on your classic hardware with great performance. The UltimatePPC puts your Amiga right back on your desk as the most versatile and fun computer that has ever existed!

Right now the UltimatePPC is in active development, we expect to be able to take pre-orders at the end of 2012. Please visit our project website at http://ultimateppc.nl for availability information, specifications and detailed status reports.

Gideon & Rutger

(source: http://ultimateppc.nl (archived))

Oh wow, this sounds so good. The endless possibilities. Hi-res video encoding and decoding, fast rendering of web pages, Doom, Quake, ...and did you see the SATA and DVI connectors in the picture? This is the ultimate thing for your A3000/A4000, no doubt about that. This is the next step after phase5's PPC accelerators, and it's a decisive one. This opens doors.

Prototype UltimatePPC card
(source: http://ultimateppc.nl/specifications.php (archived))

So the project's website was http://www.ultimateppc.nl, and if we do a little digging on the internet, we find an article on "Old School Game Blog" that publishes some more details about the "UltimatePPC" (which are taken from the project's specifications page):

The UltimatePPC provides many new features. The current shortlist of features for “Revision A” is,

• 33MHz 68040 CPU
• 1.0GHz Freescale PowerPC CPU
• 128MB of DDR3 memory for the 68040
• An additional 2GB of DDR3 memory on an SO-DIMM
• USB2 host controller with integrated 4 port hub
• SATA2 controller with two SATA ports
• 10/100/1000 Ethernet controller
• Embedded 2D video with DVI connector

(source: https://oldschoolgameblog.com/2012/05/23/amiga-ultimateppc-accelerator-for-amiga-30004000/)

A 68040 at 33MHz isn't shabby at all in Amiga world, but a 1 gigahertz PowerPC, and an extra 2.1 gigabytes (!!!) of memory on a single board for your Amiga - that puts other accelerator boards to shame. And it has SATA, USB2, ethernet and DVI. And it isn't even built by a big company, but a bunch of guys from the Netherlands. This is just ridiculous. Commodore, Amiga, Phase5, Escom, Gateway, Viscorp, Metabox - what the heck have you been doing?

UltimatePPC beats all of them, by miles. A project status was given on the website - judging from the estimated completion dates, it seems to be from late 2011:

• Initial Design, done
• Building of development boards, done
• Implementing CPU, System and PCI-E busses, in progress (expected Q2 2012)
• Implementing low-level devices, in progress (expected Q3 2012)
• Implementing drivers and OS compatibility, no estimated completion date yet
• Testing, no estimated completion date yet
• Production of boards, no estimated completion date yet

(source: http://ultimateppc.nl (archived))

Did someone just say "PCI-Express on Amiga"? 

We don't know. And we'll probably never find out. In the last post on http://ultimateppc.nl, from September 5th 2019, Rutger announces the end of the project: Priorities of private life have taken over, and friendship needs some care, too. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20200129050452/http://www.ultimateppc.nl/

The last Wayback Machine snapshot of the website domain that shows UltimatePPC information is from January 29th 2020

This is where the short, but exciting story of "UltimatePPC" ends. That's sad. 

Well, we have to put this into context. It was 2011: Amiga companies had been out of business for years. Compared to about 10 years earlier, when phase5's PPC accelerators were released, the price of RAM modules vs. memory size had dropped through the floor. The cellphone market had exploded, pushing for ever more powerful low-cost CPUs. The RaspberryPi was just around the corner, and a modern homebrew/DIY scene, capable of SMD-soldering, started to emerge. From this point of view, it's no surprise the "UltimatePPC" was quite a quantum leap for the Amiga.

And it's also no surprise that it just stopped. Development of such a piece of hardware consumes an awful amount of time. If there's no competition, no audience asking for progress and providing some sort of income, no urging necessity behind it, then at some point it will just come to a halt, one or the other way. Since 2011, a lot of things have happened. It has become even easier to design and create printed circuit boards, FPGA chips have become powerful and affordable, and so on. The retro builder scene, and emulation on fast CPUs, has fully taken over, cementing the M68k heritage and future of the Amiga. "Next generation" Amiga computing is just being swept away by the renewed output of the classic scene.

But then...  

...it's just too awesome. The "UltimatePPC" is incomplete - but it exists, somewhere. Wouldn't it be an intriguing idea to completely restart as if it was 2011, and resurrect the "UltimatePPC" with all the tools and know-how available in 2022?

 * * *

UPDATE 2022-12-26:
Thank you very much, amiga-news.de, for reporting about this! 

And for providing more information: amiga-news.de's post about the UltimatePPC from back in the day: http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2012-05-00055-EN.html

* * *

PLEASE NOTE: "phase5" refers to the company that was developing Amiga compatible hardware from around 1992 to 2000. At the time of writing no new, working Amiga-related hardware products from any later holder of the trademark name are known to exist.

Happy anniversary, Easy1541!

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!

Click the link below to check it out:

https://www.easy1541.com

Happy 25th anniversary, Fabrizio & Easy1541! 

 

 

If you want to know more about Easy1541, it's probably best to take a look at the AmiNet package: http://aminet.net/package/misc/emu/Easy1541

Games galore #25: Shadows of Sergoth (pre-order), 1987 Rescue in Berlin, Jackal, Jake and Peppy, Crazy Columns full version released

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.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FBB0s54VkAQk1RC?format=png&name=small

Go to DOUBLESIDED GAMES' online store to place your pre-order, or download the demo:
https://doublesidedgames.com/shop/commodore/commodore-amiga/the-shadows-of-sergoth/

Additional sources:
https://doublesidedgames.com/the-shadows-of-sergoth-for-the-commodore-amiga-is-now-available-for-pre-order/
https://twitter.com/DSidedGames/status/1445783848839639048

Jackal Amiga port (demo, work-in-progress)

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.

https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTE2Mjg5OS82ODEyMDkzLnBuZw==/347x500/9995Yt.png

https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTE2Mjg5OS82ODEyMDk0LnBuZw==/347x500/lc2XPH.png

Go to NeesoGame's Jackal web page for more details, and name-your-own-price download (currently demo release no. 2):
https://neesogames.itch.io/jackal-amiga-port

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-09-00051-EN.html
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-08-00069-DE.html

1987 Rescate in Berlin / 1987 Rescue in Berlin

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.

Here's a video from Amiga Fan's YouTube channel (2021-08-12):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhAGoa3w5hY

Go to the game's web page for more details and order:
http://www.xente.mundo-r.com/jojo073/pages/1987.html

Additional sources:
https://www.amigafrance.com/forums/topic/1987berlin/
https://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=75264.0
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-08-00048-DE.html

Jake and Peppy, Apollo (Vampire) V4 SAGA game

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.

Here's a video of "Jake and Peppy"'s latest features, from Quetzal's YouTube channel (2021-08-29):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKdIq1qII0A

You can download "Jake and Peppy" demo from AmiNet:

http://aminet.net/package/game/demo/Jake_and_Peppy_0.80B

Additional sources:
http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=3&note=36454

Crazy Columns 1.02 full version released

We've reported about Tetris-style game "Crazy Columns" before, so we'll keep it short and snappy: a new version has been released!

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.

Here's a video from Salvatore Forenza's YouTube channel (2021-08-31):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKSk67zZgmE

Go to...
https://www.crazy-columns.hoffer-industries.com
...to download the game, and support the author with a little donation!

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-08-00055-DE.html

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news:

Lionheart Java remake

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.

https://www.b3dgs.com/v7/page.php?lang=en&section=lionheart_remake

If you're into game development (in Java) you can take a look at the LionEngine that's been created for the game remake:

https://www.b3dgs.com/v7/page.php?lang=en&section=lionengine

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #26"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Games galore #24: Blood, Cybersphere, MeMo, "Creeping Me Out: Hex Night" demo

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):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbC-Tk4QH6o

You can grab "Blood" from AmiNet:
http://aminet.net/package/game/shoot/nblood

Additional sources:
http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/09/blood-classic-ms-dos-fps-makes-its-way.html
http://www.jonof.id.au/buildgames/blood.html (PC shareware / game data)

"Cybersphere"

We take the occasional look at the next-gen Amiga gaming scene with "Cybersphere", a point and click adventure from GDG entertainment, not to be confused with the Breakout-style 1994 OCS/ECS Amiga game of the same name.

"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.

 

Here's a video of "Cybersphere" from AMIGA FACTORY's YouTube channel (2021-06-19):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8rFhIVwJUY

Check out the game's website for more details...
https://www.gdg-entertainment.it/cybersphere.html

...or just directly go to the online shop for purchase:
https://www.bitmapsoft.co.uk/product/cybersphere-collectors-edition/

Additional sources:
https://blog.amigaguru.com/introducing-a-brand-new-game-cybersphere-by-gdg-entertainment/
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-06-00038-DE.html

"MeMO" updated

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).

Here's video of "MeMO" from Simone Bevilacqua's YouTube channel (2021-08-01): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YyQbO4NEw0

Go to MeMO's itch.io page for more information, and purchase/download:
https://retream.itch.io/memo

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-06-00068-DE.html

"Creeping Me Out: Hex Night" public demo

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):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwM-AXMSCck

Go to the Mixel's website to download the demo:
http://mixelslab.com/cmo-hex-night-amiga/

Additional sources:
https://twitter.com/MFDawes/status/1410241306987798532
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-07-00004-DE.html

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #25"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Games galore #19: Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns, Citaldel update, Renegades Deluxe "re-release", Bean Vs The Animator

Again a good round of really nice stuff this time - an arcade remake, updates to OCS/ECS first person shooter "Citadel", some sort of "re-release" on AmiNet, a modern lightgun game ahead of it's time, and a little bonus for fans of platformers.

Pitfall II: Lost Caverns

Yet another remake of an arcade classic, and yet another game built using the Scorpion engine. In Feb. 2021, an early alpha version of "Pitfall II" for Amiga was released to the public!

Activision's original "Pitfall II" for the Atari 2600 was a real stunner upon release, with its huuuuge playing area, context sensitive music, improved graphics, and more. It was later released by SEGA as an arcade game.

Highly active Amiga game (engine) developer Eric "earok" Hogan is working on this new version of "Pitfall II", which is based on the C64 version, and requires an Amiga 500. A little bit of acceleration (e.g. Amiga 1200) is recommended for smooth performance.

The game is in alpha stage at the moment, but it already very much looks like "Pitfall II"!

Watch a video of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" alpha version of Per-Ola Eriksson's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-5Jlkes9g

You can download the playable and completable alpha version of "Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns" for Amiga here:
https://mega.nz/folder/t6QCTTaY#0PvV--pintbZN1y6VyHnhg


Additional sources:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=1459891
https://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/pitfall-ii-lost-caverns-earok-has.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitfall_II:_Lost_Caverns

 

Citaldel update

1995 game first-person shooter "Cytadela"/"Citadel" - from Poland is undergoing some updates by the original authors.

"Citadel" is certainly one of the better first-person-shooters on the Amiga, and probably the best that runs on OCS/ECS Amigas. It received very good reviews when it was first released.

In March 2021 the original authors annouced some updates to the original game. There are no to little gameplay changes planned, but some fixes and enhancements, like optimizations for faster Amigas, better animations, and things like that.

You can watch a video of "Cytadela"/"Citadel" running on a (emulated) high-spec Amiga on Kane's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nu-k4-aK8Zk

It looks as if as of now no updates have been made available to the public, so a little more patience is required.

Meanwhile, you can download the original 1995's "Citadel" from Polish Amiga Portal (Polski Portal Amigowy) (Polish and English version available):
https://www.ppa.pl/rodzynki/cytadela.html

Additional sources:
https://www.ppa.pl/forum/strefa-gier/42682/cytadela-update
https://www.lemonamiga.com/games/details.php?id=1863
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2021-03-00008-EN.html

 

Renegades Deluxe "re-release"

Just a quick note about "Renegades Deluxe" from 2014, which is a new version of 1995 PD classic "Renegades":

"Renegades Deluxe" has recently been uploaded to AmiNet - which is great, because this beautiful 2-player-split-screen-deathmatch "Alien Breed" clone apparently hasn't been available elsewhere for some time.

Here's a video of "Renegades" and "Renegades Deluxe", including some background information and awesome prototype cover art, from CaptainNow Creations' YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50mrcqfYU40

Go to AmiNet to download "Renegades Deluxe" (2014):
http://aminet.net/package/game/2play/Renegades_Deluxe

If you're looking for the original "Renegades" game (1995), you can download it from myabandonware:
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/renegades-6sx

 

Lightgun game "Bean Vs The Animator"

Have you ever held a lightgun in your hands? I bet not everyone did, because most lightguns we know depend on the cathode ray of a CRT (cathode ray tube) TV. Many CRT screens, especially millions of home TVs, have been replaced with LCD flat screen ones over the last 20 years, so lots of lightguns became useless.

But with the help of increased CPU performance, HD video, kickstarter, and indiegogo, the Sinden Lightgun was created, or is still being created - a lightgun that works with LCD displays. Somehow, it wouldn't be long until Amigans picked up such a thing - and here we have it: near the end of Feb. 2021 the first new Amiga lightgun game in a looooooooooong time was shown to the public, Terminator-style shoot-em-up "Bean Vs The Animator"! (You can also play it with a mouse.)

The Sinden Lightgun doesn't seem to be widely available yet, and the game is currenly just an exclusive pre-release (see video below), no release dates or further updates have been published so far. But from what we can see there's some great artwork here, some serious atmosphere and level of difficulty, and a lot of shooting. Plus it's a game you can play with a lightgun, plus it supports a lightgun device so modern it's not even available - yay!

Watch a video of Amiga Bill from "The Guru Meditation" reviewing his exclusive edition of "Bean Vs The Animator" (2021-02-25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nel33AfkPd4

Additional sources:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-sinden-lightgun/
https://www.sindenlightgun.com/
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2021-02-00057-DE.html

* * *

...and some bonus gaming news:

Minkey

In Feb. 2021, this new platformer was announced via great and well-known retro scene website indieretronews:

http://www.indieretronews.com/2021/02/minkey-high-quality-amiga-platformer.html

(Out of respect for the author of the game and indieretronews - the game's preview video is set to "unlisted" on YouTube - let's just leave it here with this little note. Click the link for more details and game preview video. By the way, the game looks great.)

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #20"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles -
click here!

* * *

Support Amiga game development! Buy a game!

Amistore in Germany has closed its doors

We've just taken notice that German Amiga online shop Amistore.de has become a victim of the Corona virus pandemic.

Finding out today is especially sad as Amistore.de is currently still listed on Hyperion Entertainment's website as a vendor of AmigaOS, and just yesterday the latest release of AmigaOS3 for classic Amigas was made available to customers. Also this week in Germany a lot of restrictions introduced to fight the Corona virus have been lifted.

Amistore.de's website currently says (rough translation):

"

Dear customers,

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.

Your Amistore.de team

"

amistore.de as of 2021-05-15

Looking at the history of the website at...

https://web.archive.org/web/20200513043211/http://www.amistore.de/

...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 its marks all over the world.

Best wishes and good luck to Amistore.de team, hope to see them around (again)!

How Amiga is a NEC Multisync LCD1970VX monitor?

Whenever a LCD monitor comes around, it's worth testing if it's suitable for Amiga use. According to sources, this one partially supports Amiga screenmodes - I gave it a try, or two.

Let's quickly run down the features of the monitor. This is the "partial support" information gathered from famous website 15khz.wikidot.com: 'No practical evidence. I kindly ask author to provide more information. Support is considered "Partial" for now. "Full" can be after test.'

Here's what the device looks like on the outside, and some specifications:

The NEC Multisync LCD1970VX has a nice front panel with four buttons and mini-joystick (sorry, bad picture)

The stand has room for cable routing, can be rotated, and is height adjustable (spring supported). Display can be tilted. Cable installation and position adjustment is smooth and easy - great stand!

Mains switch and input, and type label

DVI and VGA video connectors - an adapter for Amiga RGB video output is required

It's a 19 inch display, picture aspect is 5:4, and here's a 1280x1024 pixel screen from a Linux laptop:

Linux laptop VGA output, 1280x1024 pixel display mode

How does it perform with the Amiga?

For testing we're using an Amiga 1200, Commodore RGB to VGA adapter (DSUB23 to DSUB15), and VGA cable (DSUB15 to DSUB15), which is connected to the monitor's VGA input. On boot, the Amiga's Workbench is set to "PAL:High Res" 640x256 pixels, default overscan / screen size. For now, we won't change monitor settings manually, and let the monitor do all sensing and adjustments.

There's a picture!

Well, not bad! A (halfway) modern LCD monitor displaying some Amiga-native screenmode is a rare sight. There seems to be something a little off about the pixel clock or phase or something, the screen has slight vertical stripes. Also fonts look a little distorted, maybe due to scaling. Setting some background color, it becomes visible that Workbench screen size doesn't fit display size:

For "PAL:High Res" screenmode, the monitor chooses 640x240 pixel display mode

Ok, let's go through some more screenmodes - "PAL:High Res Laced" next. It shows up quite like the previous mode, but interlace flickering is strong. This might be acceptable for some games, but it quickly gives you nausea when using Workbench and fonts, and is probably completely useless for graphics work with DeluxePaint or the likes. 

"PAL:High Res Laced" screenmode - interlace flicker

"PAL:Low Res" and "PAL:Low Res Laced" screenmodes work as expected: same Workbench area visible, same screen position, same monitor display mode, just pixels double wide.

Same results with "PAL:Super-High Res" and "PAL:Super-High Res Laced", just pixels half as wide, here's what it looks like:

"PAL:Super-High Res" screenmode

"PAL:Super-High Res Laced" screenmode - interlace flicker

We go a little bit more into PC and VGA territory with "MULTISCAN:Productivity" screenmode, with "VGAonly" put into "Devs:Monitors". The monitor almost gets it right, with just a few lines missing at the bottom.

"MULTISCAN:Productivity" screenmode

Most other screenmodes are displayed quite similarly. "NTSC" screens are fully visible (no missing lines at the bottom) and there's very little vertical striping, but position is off. "EURO:72Hz Productivity Laced" looks pretty good: interlace flickering seems to be far less noticeable here. Without "VGAonly", display of the respective screenmodes is a bit off, and in case of "DBLPAL" the monitor complains about frequency range and tries to auto-adjust. Overall, sometimes a message would pop up notifying about the monitor's native resolution - indicating that the signal received isn't perfectly within limits.

"NTSC:High Res" screenmode - fully visible, but not centered

"EURO:72Hz Productivity Laced" screenmode - less interlace flickering compared to other interlaced modes

Some screenmodes are not working at all:

• "EURO:36Hz" non-interlaced: no picture, frequency out of range
• "A2024" modes: picture corrupted
  

"A2024" screenmodes - umh, nope...

So far, so good. So the monitor works when connected to the Amiga, but "out-of-the-box" pretty much none of the screenmodes are displayed flawlessly.

But then... surprise!

Surprisingly, when switching back to "PAL:High Res" from some interlaced screenmode, the entire Workbench area is now properly visible, both horizontally and vertically.

"PAL:High Res" screenmode - now with 800x300 pixel display mode!

I couldn't figure out what precisely causes the change in display mode. There seems to be some sort of limit, which if exceeded causes the monitor to adjust itself differently. Is it the interlacing of some other modes, or some specific higher vertical resolution?

"PAL:Super-High Res Laced" screenmode, 800x300 pixel display mode

Manual tweaking - better results

Until now there was no manual interference with the monitor settings involved. Certainly better results can be achieved with some tweaking. Using the monitors menu button and mini-joystick, the picture's vertical position, horizontal position, and horizontal size can be adjusted. (And colors etc.)

This is the best result I could achieve with "PAL:High Res" screenmode - vertical size adjustment would be nice:

"Best possible" in "PAL:High Res": display resolution switch trick, horizontal size, horizontal position, and vertical position adjusted

"Best possible" in "PAL:High Res", detail from the same screen as above: due to horizontal stretching the vertical stripes become less noticeable, but uneven pixel scaling becomes more visible
(Moire effect caused by photo camera, not display)

And here's a big Workbench using "EURO:72Hz Productivity Laced", which misses only two or three lines of pixels at the bottom:

"Best possible" in "EURO:72Hz Productivity Laced": horizontal size, horizontal position, and vertical position adjusted

The NEC LCD1970VX seems to remember size/position settings, but these apply to all display resolutions, so the picture will probably be off again when switching screenmode.

So is it usable?

Yes and no. It really depends on how you use your Amiga. Amiga-native screen modes' picture quality is average to acceptable. Of course the monitor displays true VGA modes from a PC or Amiga graphics card perfectly. ("MULTISCAN:Productivity" with "VGAonly" and size/position adjustment). The main issue is the switching of monitor display resolutions - depending on what you want to do, this might give you an oddly positioned picture, maybe bad flickering, and spoil the fun. Imagine if you're a gamer, and need to change Workbench screen resolution a couple of times before "PAL:High Res Laced" becomes fully visible, ready to display your game's title screen. Certainly not a desirable setup.

But one can imagine two scenarios where this monitor might be quite welcome:

One is, if you're a Workbench-only Amiga user. You can choose and save some "MULTISCAN:Productivity" screenmode, or "EUR:72Hz Productivity Laced" as shown above, adjust monitor settings, and have a very usable picture on boot and for working. Even better if you have a graphics card with a pass-through connector, this monitor will at least display something when you occasionally need to show some Amiga-native screen.

The other is "lab" work - experimentation, multiple, and different computers. This is where this monitor could be really helpful, as it obviously accepts quite a wide range of signals, and has VGA and DVI inputs. It might also save some serious space on your desk. Unfortunately, composite video / SCART / S-Video inputs are missing - with these, it would really be versatile.

Additional sources:
http://15khz.wikidot.com
https://www.cnet.com/products/nec-multisync-lcd1970vx/specs/

The Kickstart switcher from hell

or: How not to build an electronic device

Learning from this little case study might save the beginner some hours of mistakes and wasted experimentation. A Kickstart switcher for an Amiga 500/600/2000 computer is not a complex device, so for many aspiring hardware developers it's one of the first projects to try. I was one of these.

A couple of years ago, my intention was just to build something usable for the Amiga, and not waste a lot of time on research and obtaining material. A Kickstart switcher quickly came to mind, and it looked as if - with some extra manual work - my initially very limited set of tools and components would be sufficent to get the job done. All I used for the Kickstart switcher is: some drilled circuit board, 2x DIP IC sockets, wire, single-row pin headers, 2x jumpers, and a resistor. I think I got the schematics from AmiNet.

Cutting a lot of short pieces of wire, and using tweezers to put them into place didn't scare me - here's what I came up with:

Well, it's undeniably a Kickstart switcher.

Let's start with the positive aspect:

It cost very little, and any electronic components dealer probably has the required components in stock at any time.

But that's really about it - and this is where the "hell" part comes in:

Using a single sided drilled circuit board doesn't make planning exceptionally easy. A Kickstart switcher requires a lot of signals to be passed from one IC to the next, which using plastic-coated wires requires an unusual amount of space on the circuit board. 

I figured out I had to do the routing on both sides of the board, and have lots of wires cross lines of IC pins and solder pads. Also there would be a certain order required which part to solder before adding the next one.

I was ambitious and wanted to build a compact, small board.

Which turned out to be... interesting.

I started having doubts about my design when pulling the wires under the first IC socket, and soldering them to the second one. This was extremely tedious: the wires are a little too stiff for such short lengths, and needed to be soldered almost underneath the second IC socket. So there was very little room to work here, with stubborn hot wires and hot solder slipping around. I frequently touched plastic parts or wire insulation with the solder iron, leaving ugly markings.

After the doubts came the hate. 

When I accidentally dropped some solder on one of the inner wires I had already done, and wanted to remove the excessive solder, the wire came loose. I quickly realized this was near impossible to fix without either damaging plastic parts, or touching solder nearby, which would make one of the other wires come loose. My morale was sinking, but I went on, and after some serious fiddling I managed to fix and finish the solder work. 

Or so I had thought...

This looks quite tidy. But it's the devil's work.

 

 

Then I checked with a multimeter for shorts. Everything looked flawless from visual inspection, but then... BEEP! What? I really wasn't expecting this. You'd probably expect a short to happen with solderpads next to each other, but I had accidentally touched opposite sides of IC pin rows, and the multimeter had beeped... ?!

It took me a little while to find out what was going on. 

And I hated myself even more.

With all the space saving considerations, all the wires were now in-line with all solder points. I had been soldering the bottom side wires to the board first. So what was happening was: When I soldered wires from the top side of the board, the hot metal wire would stick through the drilled board, and melt the insulation of the bottom side wire below it, creating a short.

Great. Quality design.

Well, eventually I finished the damn thing, and tested it.

Today, I still don't know if it works properly, and I don't want to. It might have fried the 2.04 ROM chip you can see in the first picture - it creates a red bootscreen on the Amiga.

It was a little, interesting journey, but I'm through with this Kickstart switcher.

Now it sits here on my desk, as a grim & funny reminder of how not to build an electronic device, especially not a prototype. 

It all comes down to basically one important lesson learned: Leave some space! If you build such a thing, always add a couple of extra millimetres here and there as working space, for corrections, unexpected wire, or just to simplify visual inspection. Being a little generous with space might save you a lot of time, and from getting unusable results.

"Kickstart switcher from hell"

Merry Christmas everyone!

Stay healthy, and have a peaceful time.

Xmas Lemmings, 1991

  Merry Christmas!

Games galore #8: Lala Prologue, Hydra Castle Labyrinth, Aztec Challenge CD32, Tiny Invaders & Tiny Galaga, Amigo the Fox

COVID-19 is still spreading, but that doesn't stop Amiga game development, new games keep popping up. Here's another snapshot of what's going on: 8-bit ports, arcade ports, and platformers all over the place! 

 

Lala Prologue 

 

In April this year arcade platformer "Lala Prologue" was announced. Inspired by "Lala The Magical" (by The Mojon Twins) for NES and other 8-bit platforms, created for the C64 / VIC40 / Plus4, "Lala Prologue" is now making it's way to OCS plus 512KB memory equipped Amigas.

A spooky theme throughout, in this game you'll evade enemies, negotiate moving platforms, avoid traps, and collect power-ups and keys to make sure Lala safely progresses through her adventure at the Great Witch Academy.

"Lala Prologue" looks good in 8 bits, and it surely looks at least as good in 16 bits - it's still work-in-progress, so far we know that it uses a 32 color playfield with two layers, and some bitmap tricks to get more detail on screen. There will certainly be updates, little changes in appearance, and so on, as it's still work in progress, but this is going to be another fun release for the Amiga!

Here's a work-in-progress video (2020-04-04):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOju2pX8iGE

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2020-04-00013-DE.html
http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/04/lala-prologue-charming-platformer-is.html
https://readretro.com/lala-prologue-coming-to-amiga-500/
https://majikeyric.itch.io/lala-prologue (c64, plus/4, VIC20 versions)

Hydra Castle Labyrinth

"Hydra Castle Labyrinth" is a Metroidvania style game, ported to Amiga 68k by Artur "Arczi" Jarosik. 

Basically another platformer, but this version supports CD32-gamepads, which itself makes it something special. Of course you can use a joystick, too. A (very) fast Amiga - namely: Vampire board - is recommended to play the game.

"Hydra Castle Labyrinth" has already been available for many platforms - including MS-DOS, SEGA Dreamcast, AmigaOS 4 - and is a welcome addition to the range of 68k titles.

"Hydra Castle Labyrinth" 68k running on AROS m68k (2020-04-05):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRtcwMtM9ZA

Read more about Hydra Castle Labyrinth on ARTIGAMES' blog website:
https://artishq.wordpress.com/2020/04/10/hydra-castle-labirynth/

Click here to download "Hydra Castle Labyrinth":
http://netsurf.baderman.net/hydracastlelabirynth.lha

Support Arczi via his Patreon page:
https://www.patreon.com/ArtiGamesAmiSoft

Additional sources:
http://amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2020-04-00017-EN.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroidvania
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_(video_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_(1986_video_game)

Aztec Challenge (Amiga CD32)

It's still a rare, and always exciting sight when a new Amiga CD32 game pops up. This one is new, yet old, and we get only one level, but beware, it's friggin' "Aztec Challenge" from the Commodore 64 and Atari 800!

A massive update to the original, "Aztec Challenge" certainly never looked better - this one plays butter smooth, has nice sprite animations, even cinematic 3D rendered cutscenes, and an impressive soundtrack. Yeah, of course, 16 bits can do more than 8 bits, but the attention to detail and overall love for the source material and the target platform is obvious.

Literally everyone who watches the video below and likes "Aztec Challenge" even in the slightest bit will be craving for the full game on CD32 - very, very nice work!

"Aztec Challenge EP01" for Amiga CD32 (2020-05-17):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWgRdyssDRM

You can download "Aztec Challenge EP01" for Amiga CD32 from AmiNet:
http://aminet.net/package/game/actio/AztecChallenge_E01_CD32

Additional sources:
https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=102240
http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/05/aztec-challenge-cd32-1982-challenging.html

Tiny Invaders & Tiny Galaga

Two arcade action super-classics ports by coder "Abyss" have been released for the Amiga, in pocket size: "Tiny Invaders" is a remake of 1978 Taito/Atari classic "Space Invaders", and "Tiny Galaga" is a remake of 1981 Namco classic "Galaga".

Well, they're not pixel precise ports, but lovely little interpretations of the original games. Obviously they're not feature-packed, but both games play smoothly, look great, and they're so tiny you can put both together on a single floppy disk, or easily send them over a (null)modem line.

If you need a quick round of arcade action these are perfect for you!

Tiny Invaders (by Abyss) (2020-04-27):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrNXGgJ7uJA

Tiny Galaga (by Abyss) (2020-05-25):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQQkWxQsj8I

You can download both games from Abyss' website:
aYS_TinyInvaders.zip / aYS_TinyGalaga.zip

(Note: there are two games titled "tinyinvaders" on AmiNet, none of which are related to this "Tiny Invaders" by Abyss)

Additional sources:
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=85458
https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=85720
http://www.indieretronews.com/2020/04/tiny-invaders-small-space-invaders.html
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=101924

Amigo the Fox

Around June yet another platformer was announced, that goes by the name of "Amiga the Fox". Jump, run, collect coins - just by looking at a screenshot it almost spells out "Mario!", and that's a good thing. This is clearly inspired my some other well known game, and is perfectly tailored to fans of the genre, probably esp. the younger ones.

Erik "earok" Hogan is creating the game using his "Scorpion" game engine, which means it's framerate is 50Hz, and it runs on OCS equipped Amiga 500s and upwards. For "Amigo the Fox" some extra processing power is recommended.

 Amigo the Fox WIP alpha 2 (2020-06-21):

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7_0sMdKfUY

Additional sources:
https://twitter.com/earok
http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2020-06-00056-EN.html

* * *

...again, we have some Bonus gaming news:

Boss Machine new preview video

Since we last reported about "Boss Machine" a couple of testing/preview videos have been uploaded to Daniel Stephens YouTube channel. The game looked great from day zero, but it's really starting to take breathtaking shape, see for yourself:

Boss Machine : New Scroll Delta (2020-05-05)

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjsPLE06qys

* * *

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for "Games galore #9"!

Check out "Games galore" main page with all articles - click here!

* * *