PCE Golden Axe

[nodtveidt]

Is there any chance of buying pressed copies of the game when it's done or it won't be possible due to copyright issues?

(I also wonder how the hell did that swiss(?) guy pressed a ton of sapphire discs without trouble)

It'd probably have to be done by a Chinese replicator, since the Chinese have absolutely no respect for copyrights. I could, however, also look into a license to replicate the game.

[Punch]

Is there any chance of buying pressed copies of the game when it's done or it won't be possible due to copyright issues?

(I also wonder how the hell did that swiss(?) guy pressed a ton of sapphire discs without trouble)

It'd probably have to be done by a Chinese replicator, since the Chinese have absolutely no respect for copyrights. I could, however, also look into a license to replicate the game.

I smell a fundraiser...

[spenoza]

Would you mind sharing the rationale as to why you chose not to use the PCE's 320 mode?

Style issues, mainly. Doing the title screen in 320 pixels would have made it pretty much impossible to do it nicely, since we have such limited amount of sprite pixels and only one background layer to work with... that alone is a VRAM nightmare even at 256 pixels. Also, the HUD looks nicer in 256 pixels, since the life bars stretch a bit... looks more like the arcade that way. Little details like that add up.

If I may be so bold... I wouldn't mind a lack of background effects to get the full 320 width. But since you are likely to stick to 256, since most of us will likely play this on real hardware, would you consider thinning some of the sprites just a little so that when they stretch to fill a 4x3 TV screen they don't become overly plump looking? A fat dwarf just won't have the same impact.

[BigusSchmuck]

Would you mind sharing the rationale as to why you chose not to use the PCE's 320 mode?

Style issues, mainly. Doing the title screen in 320 pixels would have made it pretty much impossible to do it nicely, since we have such limited amount of sprite pixels and only one background layer to work with... that alone is a VRAM nightmare even at 256 pixels. Also, the HUD looks nicer in 256 pixels, since the life bars stretch a bit... looks more like the arcade that way. Little details like that add up.

 A fat dwarf just won't have the same impact.

But its a fat dwarf with a big golden axe!

[A Black Falcon]

We'll add the thief as the 3rd player as a compromise!

Why the thief?

In regards to the cinemas, those would take a lot of work.  Besides voice acting, we'd need to translate it, rip the gfx, probably need to recolor them, & add more frames of animation.  But what I think would be the greatest hurdle, is the fact that the original PCE Golden Axe relies on it being only 1 player.  In it, whichever character you choose, has specific cinemas for that character at the beginning & end.  With this being 2 player, we'd have to somehow re-write the cinemas & combine them so that they match up for multi-players.

That does sound like it'd be a huge amount of work, yeah.  I don't think anyone would expect all that... it would be very cool if done, but doing all that would surely take a lot of time...

[vestcoat]

It'd probably have to be done by a Chinese replicator, since the Chinese have absolutely no respect for copyrights. I could, however, also look into a license to replicate the game.

Licensing will be a can of worms if you're taking music from different sources. Anyway, best not even talk about copyright stuff on the forums or people will freak out and this project will go the way of the Marble Madness prototype and Virtualboy Faceball.

[Keith Courage]

This project looks so freaking awesome!!!!!

[Tatsujin]

I wonder why the programmer/creator in the old days couldn't use these kind of method/techniques more often to port over games from the arcade?

On the PCE I know that they did it for games like Monsterlair, bikkuriman World and partially in games like chicky chicky boys, forgotten worlds, rainbow island etc. but most of the ports were redrawn from very srcatch, and in few cases even very accurate (like R-Type, mr. heli).

sure there were licensing issues, and in case of using hucard, also storage limitations.

[nodtveidt]

I wonder why the programmer/creator in the old days couldn't use these kind of method/techniques more often to port over games from the arcade?

Because back then, they didn't have geniuses like Charles MacDonald, Black Tiger, or Paranoia Dragon on their teams.

[Tatsujin]

I wonder why the programmer/creator in the old days couldn't use these kind of method/techniques more often to port over games from the arcade?

Because back then, they didn't have geniuses like Charles MacDonald, Black Tiger, or Paranoia Dragon on their teams.

you think this was the only reason? yet they were able of creating some of the finest 2D games of all time on their very own?

It's not that they were't able to do it, since they already did it as mention above. but many of 'em choosed the rocky road of re-drawing everything rather than porting it over on the ease.

[Punch]

I'm not sure about console ports but for the home computer ones the company who had a digital video capture device for sprite ripping was king... they received very little support from the original game creators.

[nodtveidt]

Well, in terms of home ports and such, it might have been just space limitations. In this game in particular, there are a *lot* of tiles. I imagine they just did new tiles that were "close enough" in order to not have to deal with that.

Most of the sprites in the Genesis conversion are taken from the arcade version, but some are missing and many are recolored... some are just simple recolors (like Gillius) and some are literally repixeled but use the same base sprites (like Bad Bros). One particularly obnoxious omission from the Genesis version is the total lack of enemy "moving up" frames... also, the player characters have two frames missing from their walking animations. Some of the enemies that can run are missing their run frames... the Bad Bros base set and the Death Adder base set in particular. Bad Bros and Knight are also missing entire attack sequences, and there's also the aforementioned lack of proper movement.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I wonder why the programmer/creator in the old days couldn't use these kind of method/techniques more often to port over games from the arcade?

Because back then, they didn't have geniuses like Charles MacDonald, Black Tiger, or Paranoia Dragon on their teams.

Awwwww shucks, tweren't nuthin'!

[awack]

Damn, I didn't even think about  license and copyright issues when I opened my big mouth about buying this game, most people would say there is only only one high quality brawler for the pcengine and that's Double Dragon 2, this would make two, I just played the Genesis port like three days before I saw this thread....pressed CD, nice looking back insert and manual, and of course a spine card:) I use to pay between $70 and $100 for pce imports back in the early 90s, I would pay a similar price for this, I really want this in my collection and yeah, Black Tiger did an amazing job on the colors, wow.

[pixeljunkie]

I want to throw my entire wallet at this!!!