PC-FX homebrew development.

[Arkhan]

Also a decent Amiga port would go down well.

A decent Amiga port of what?  one of the good adventure/RPGs?  I mean we got Return to Zork going on it.   There are some other point/clicks that would be fun, but, that's not what we need on the thing since the stuff is *already playable* somewhere.

The action stuff mostly has some severe cases of the 'tisms.   Leander was the one that was almost a success.  and Lionheart.

but, they still lack in the "this is awesome" department. 

Valis 5?  That could be a thing.

[wildfruit]

I meant porting super magical ys chaise FX to Amiga!
Also you are I fear correct in your assertion that the Amiga lacks awesomeness.
Also sorry didn't mean to derail the thread too much!

[Necromancer]

I'm thinking that a PCE/PC-FX dual-boot CD would be nice ... either as a free downloadable, or as a pressed CD if the community shows enough interest in that.

I'm sure a pressed disc would be doable.  If you don't care about getting paid at all, it doesn't take many sales to cover pressing costs.

Valis 5?  That could be a thing.

Valis X?  f*ck yeah!

[Arkhan]

I'm thinking that a PCE/PC-FX dual-boot CD would be nice ... either as a free downloadable, or as a pressed CD if the community shows enough interest in that.

I'm sure a pressed disc would be doable.  If you don't care about getting paid at all, it doesn't take many sales to cover pressing costs.

Valis 5?  That could be a thing.

Valis X?  f*ck yeah!

Valis EX

With an appropriate logo for, yknow,

sex

[elmer]

I'm sure a pressed disc would be doable.  If you don't care about getting paid at all, it doesn't take many sales to cover pressing costs.

No, I absolutely do NOT want any money coming anywhere near me on this! It wouldn't be fair to the other guys that worked on the project.

The original artist was a huge PCE fan ... so I choose to believe that he'd have no problem with me using his stuff for this, but having any money involved makes it all ... ugly.

What is it? Aerofighters?  King of Monsters 2?

Nope, neither of those.

But I'll give you all a clue, and see if you can recognize it ...

[Lost Monkey]

Operation Thunderbolt

[Arkhan]

Thank balls.   When I hear Amiga + mouse use, my mind goes to depressing places.   I forgot they even *put* that game on there.   I know Operation Wolf and Cabal were.

5$ says the PC-FX can make a better version than the Amiga one.


Any plans to give the game music during the levels?  That kind of always sucked that it didn't have any.


what made you settle on this game?

EDIT: 

Also, it costs about 1000 bucks to get a game pressed in the US, with a color manual of some variety.

You *might* run into some dicey situations with it though, as they'll have you sign forms stating that you are authorized to make use of the IP on the disc (sound, art, code).

Taito is still around.   They might pee themselves.   It's not likely they give any flying f*cks about PC-FX, but who knows.

So... you might want to avoid hassle and call the game like,  Thunder Mission or something, and change the art even slightly.

as for "money floating around", you can most likely sell the thing to the first 1000$/30$ people (assuming 1000 bucks, and 30$ a pop), to cover the pressing costs, and then just give them out for free + shipping costs.


Though, we are talking PC-FX here, so you might only sell 30 of the damn things.


In all honesty, since this is the case, and the PC-FX is better at CD-Rs, you might have better luck just making them yourself so you aren't sitting on 470ish copies of a PC-FX game.

[elmer]

Operation Thunderbolt

Haha ... you've got a good eye. The SNES version uses a totally different intro to the arcade, so you've got a good memory.

Any plans to give the game music during the levels?  That kind of always sucked that it didn't have any.

No idea. From what I remember, there was only one tune ... so it'd get boring really quickly.

what made you settle on this game?

Errr ... I wrote it ... and it's a simple game.

But still, the 3D sections are going to be ... "interesting" ... to try to do on sprite-based machine. 

You *might* run into some dicey situations with it though, as they'll have you sign forms stating that you are authorized to make use of the IP on the disc (sound, art, code).

"Operation Thunderbolt" was the military codename for the Israeli raid on the Entebbe airport. I'm not sure if Taito ever managed to get a trademark on it. But still ... that's easy to change.

None of the code, art or sound comes from Taito. Back then, all you got was an arcade cabinet that was set on freeplay, and the rights to use Taito's name/logo.

However ... changing the art would certainly help prevent any possible issues ... but would require an artist.

Though, we are talking PC-FX here, so you might only sell 30 of the damn things.

Remember ... I'm talking PCE/PC-FX dual-boot. Larger audience.

[Arkhan]

Ah, right.  Dual boot.

Well, still, 30ish people will cover pressing fees. (I think it took 36 to break even for us).

and then you can just cut loose and hand them out for shipping if it makes you feel dirty making money.

as for tunes, if you're going CD, there's always just putting in 80s action movie themes (Rambo, Commando, etc.), or some sort of almost, but not quite renditions of them.


Anyway, I'm glad you finally came out with "stuff you worked on".   Which machine were you on for this game?   I played the Amiga one maybe a few times (I grew up with an Amiga and thought most of the games were pretty shit compared to the SNES/Genesis/TG/NES that were 30 feet away), and a lot on the SNES.

I don't think the 3D sections will really be too difficult to do on the PC-FX, considering the horsepower and hardware capabilities.

That sort of effect was done on 8-bit machines (SMS, MSX, NES) in a pretty acceptable manner, using sprite/tile based hardware.

IIRC, alot of the 3D effect is optical illusions, isn't it?  static BG/ground (The SNES ground has some animation), animated scaling trees/etc a'la Outrun/Space Harrier, and then a bunch of idiot terrorists with weaponry bouncing around like jackasses?

[elmer]

Well, still, 30ish people will cover pressing fees. (I think it took 36 to break even for us).

Thanks for all the info about the costings ... that's very good stuff to know.

and then you can just cut loose and hand them out for shipping if it makes you feel dirty making money.

I've got no problem at all with money ... just not in this particular case.

Which machine were you on for this game?

Errr ... the machine that you hate! 

I don't think the 3D sections will really be too difficult to do on the PC-FX, considering the horsepower and hardware capabilities.

I hope not ... it's just a question of sprites-per-line with the overlapping 3D objects ... or coming up with a work-around that actually still looks good.

If you look at the SNES video, they put all their background 3D scaling-objects into characters, and everything moves on character boundaries. It looks pretty crappy, to my eye, when compared to the Amiga's pixel-boundary blitting.

[Arkhan]

Yeah.  You can get a smoother visual on the PC-FX than on the SNES.

See: Nirgends

you're not dealing with 360ish degree movement, so you should be all set.

[elmer]

I don't think I've called anything a fact other than Amiga having shit wannabe Japanese arcade games.  I don't think anyone is really going to refute that, though.

Well ... back in the late 80's and early 90's ... every computer/console was judged by the quality of it's arcade ports.

It really didn't matter whether they were Japanese or American arcade games, just that they were arcade games. Gamers wanted to have the "arcade experience" at home ... and that was why the Neo Geo AES was released.

Now it was definitely harder to find good games from the American arcade companies ... so I can understand why you think that everyone wanted to do Japanese games, but it really wasn't about them being Japanese, or even about the quality of the original games ... it was the "arcade" part of it.

As an example ... here are a couple of comparison shots from the arcade and home versions of Op Thunderbolt.  Can anyone honestly say that the home version looks like a "shit wannabe" compared to the arcade?

I think that Black Tiger's stunning work on Golden Axe shows that it's the quality of the artist and their team that makes the difference ... not whether it was a Japanese game, or even a Japanese arcade game.

[Arkhan]

I was commenting more on the gameplay itself than the visuals.  The games might look nice, but often play pretty crappy.  Especially when it's a multibutton game and you're stuck with a one button joystick or some meth-induced control scheme.

Japan just happened to be the ones with all of the powerhouse games that played very well, which is why I mentioned Japanese arcade games specifically.

So often, instead of the western world doing something they were good at, they kind of just tried to (poorly) mimic the Japanese stuff.   Most memorable games on Amiga are originals, or games that originated here.

You'll find exceptions to the rule, but they're generally buried in piles of turds in the form of horrible ports, or crappy games done in the style of Japanese game.

Off the top of my head, on Amiga specifically, I can think of...

Rodland, Op Thunderbolt, Rainbow Islands, and maybe R-Type as being alright on the Amiga.

but then you've got messes like Street Fighter 2, Sidearms, Super C, and they also somehow ballsed up the port of Bonk (not an arcade game, but still another example of Japanese mimickry). 

I'll never understand how they pulled that one off.

Like I said, I grew up with the Amiga, and was rarely impressed by the games when compared to SNES/TG/Genesis that I had sitting right nearby. 

I never understood why some of the games turned out so bad.   Maybe the teams porting it sucked at the games and couldn't recreate the gameplay?

It's an interesting thing really.   You have all the audio/visuals (sometimes the audio goes a little too eurowank for me), but then the gameplay caves in on itself.

Another hilarious example, non-Amiga, is Green Beret on MSX.     Everyone responsible for that one needs to never touch a computer, ever again.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Half the ports I've seen on Amiga make me wonder if the devs had actually ever even seen or played the source material. Most of the stuff just comes across as crap.

[elmer]

I was commenting more on the gameplay itself than the visuals.  The games might look nice, but often play pretty crappy.  Especially when it's a multibutton game and you're stuck with a one button joystick or some meth-induced control scheme.

Japan just happened to be the ones with all of the powerhouse games that played very well, which is why I mentioned Japanese arcade games specifically.

So often, instead of the western world doing something they were good at, they kind of just tried to (poorly) mimic the Japanese stuff.   Most memorable games on Amiga are originals, or games that originated here.

You'll find exceptions to the rule, but they're generally buried in piles of turds in the form of horrible ports, or crappy games done in the style of Japanese game.

I can only agree with you ... taking arcade games with their powerful hardware, multiple buttons, and whatever other gimmicks that they could entice people with ... and then porting them to the very-limited home computers of the day ... was something that was never going to end up well.

But people seemed to want them, and they certainly bought them ... and so companies kept on making them.

I totally agree that the best games of the time were the originals that were specifically designed for the machines that they were released on.

Off the top of my head, on Amiga specifically, I can think of...

Rodland, Op Thunderbolt, Rainbow Islands, and maybe R-Type as being alright on the Amiga.

but then you've got messes like Street Fighter 2, Sidearms, Super C, and they also somehow ballsed up the port of Bonk (not an arcade game, but still another example of Japanese mimickry). 

I'll never understand how they pulled that one off.

There were plenty of low-quality bucket-shop development companies.

And you don't need to be polite about Thunderbolt ... even though Robert did a great job on the graphics ... it was still a simple whack-a-mole gimmick game with little depth.

Like I said, I grew up with the Amiga, and was rarely impressed by the games when compared to SNES/TG/Genesis that I had sitting right nearby. 

I never understood why some of the games turned out so bad.   Maybe the teams porting it sucked at the games and couldn't recreate the gameplay?

It's an interesting thing really.   You have all the audio/visuals (sometimes the audio goes a little too eurowank for me), but then the gameplay caves in on itself.

It's always been tough to find good programmers.

But also ... don't forget that the Amiga came out in 1985, 2 years before the PCE, and 4 years before the Genesis.

Hardware changed a lot during those years, and so did the amount of consumers/money in the business ... which lead to longer development schedules and sometimes larger teams ... which in turn allowed for the possibility of better games overall.

Another hilarious example, non-Amiga, is Green Beret on MSX. Everyone responsible for that one needs to never touch a computer, ever again.

Hahaha ... I just looked at that one on YouTube ... what a disaster.

I thought that you were going to criticise the other home computer versions, which I have little love for, but the MSX one took "awful" to a whole new level.

Stuff like that was one of the reasons that MSX totally failed in the West.

I remember MSX1 machines being clearanced for about $50 ... and they still didn't seem worth it.

I liked the following quote ...

From an interview at MSX Games Box, Konami UK's old PR-manager Dennis Henings:
Q: What did Konami Japan say when they saw the MSX version of Green Beret developed by Konami UK?
A: $%£&**(())++~~ ( or their equivalent) This was much the same as I did!

Half the ports I've seen on Amiga make me wonder if the devs had actually ever even seen or played the source material. Most of the stuff just comes across as crap.

You got no design docs, no source code, no graphics, and no sound.

You were lucky if you got an arcade cabinet set on "freeplay".

Some of the cheaper developers would just video someone playing the game, and "maybe" rent one for a few weeks.

Then 2 guys would get 4 months to recreate it ... from scratch. Let's be generous and say 6 months if you did 2 versions (like the ST and Amiga).

Not a recipe for doing brilliant work ... particularly if the job had been farmed out to one of the porting shops that would hire a couple of teenagers fresh out of school to do the work for cheap.