If you remember the 1980's hit game of Tetris then you'll be pleased to know that as of this morning, we have been informed that JOTD has released an update to the 1988 Arcade version of Tetris for the Commodore Amiga 1200. As in the words of the creator "A transcode of Atari Tetris arcade version for 68020/AGA amiga, music is kind of emulated, missing some drums & sfx but it's still really good!". To coincide with this news, not only can you play this rather decent looking port via itch io, but Saberman has also provided some new gameplay footage too.
Here's what JOTD said about why he created this version for the Amiga, back when it was first announced (Skip this part if you've already read it before). "I consider Tetris Arcade version by Atari the best Tetris version around. It's colored and the music is great. The game used a 6502 CPU and not a Z80. I wrote a converting source tool for 6502 to 68000 as well. Thanks to MAME I could workaround the nasty protection (constant bank switching caused by "slapstic" chip) and unlike my other ports, the project is more a fast emulator than a re-coding. It requires AGA because the original game has 16 banks of 16 colors and a 256 color palette which is - added - dynamic. So ECS port would be quite tricky without rewriting the whole game".
UPDATE : While the game was released over a year ago, the newest 1.03 version however is listed with the following changes.
- sounds are less noisy
- Also should be slightly faster due to optimizations
Links :1) Source
A perfect port, of a great arcade classic! I never thought such a level of perfection was possible, it practically feels like playing it on the Mame, and instead it's my Amiga 1200! Congratulations on a magnificent job, I look forward to the next miracle!
ReplyDeleteI wish IRN would show ingame screenshots on all releases.
ReplyDeleteIn a world where there is more RTG users on classic Amigas (thanks to PiStorm and Vampire's) than AGA users (AGA never was success globally and is less than 5-6% of all Amiga's) AGA game development is just waste of time ...
ReplyDelete*citation needed. You really think more people have fuctional RTG setups than AGA?
DeleteVampires, Misters and the various amiga emulators all support AGA so I don't think your argument is valid. If anything I would prefer support for the OG A500(ocs/ecs), because when I think Amiga it's the rock lobster A500 I grew up with and the period in between 8-bit and Doom when the little Amiga could do impossible things when the hardware was pushed to it's limits.
DeleteMaybe this was true in the 1990s, but in today's retrocomputing niche, where most users are no longer kids and are buying an Amiga again, they would definitely choose a 1200 over a 500, or even both. And anyway, they don't stick to just the Amiga 500 with floppy disks, but choose to use games on HD, in whdload, and this usually involves AGA + an acceleration card and a lot of RAM. Not to mention those who rely solely on emulation or products such as the MINI, which are in fact AGA as well.
ReplyDeleteNot sure to whom you're replying. I'm no kid myself, but sold my 1200 couple of years ago, because it's simply no fun. You'll be using it to run amiga 500 software 95% of the time anyways.
DeleteAlso looking at this Tetris.....can't see why it's 1200 exclusive and it looks like it could have run on a stock 500. Maybe it's written in basic and only uses the extra cpu speed to make it playable. But to me not best reason to support 1200.
Amiga 500 simply rules and with a gotek drive it's super easy to use!
I couldn't agree more about getting all games running on A500. This case is not about the CPU but the palette and the fact that the game uses the original arcade code, which uses a 256-color palette (16x16 color palettes actually). So it's extremely difficult to adapt to 32 colors, specially when dynamic dithering is not a thing on a lowly 68000. Of course, when recoding from scratch, this issue can be avoided, but then you don't have the game running the original code.
DeleteDon't forget all the other ways one can emulate a high end amiga far superior than what would be possible back then, like using Pimiga...
ReplyDeleteAmiga deserves most of the retrogames, as it is the best retrocomputer. However, there is also a good tetris clone that also works on a plain A500, and its called super twintris, it also has better music, with 3 nice pieces, and a possibility for 2 players to play simultaneously
ReplyDeleteAnother nice game! Although I find the spinning letters distracting :D
DeleteTwintris is great. For me 2 things are a problem though: first the shapes move in a continuous movement, which is upsetting. Arcade uses moves shapes 8 by 8 pixels in X or Y. Second difference: the shape colors are inverted/different, for instance the L shapes are purple and yellow all right, but mirrored. This is inexcusable :)
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