Remember when we announced that Irem's Arcade classic 1980's scrolling shooter of 'Moon Patrol', was coming to the Commodore Amiga as an Arcade conversion by JOTD and n09? Well as of today you can play the very latest beta build! A new downloadable AGA build that has many bug fixes, improvements and from what we can tell, now includes the city scene which was missing in the previous build. To coincide with this news, Saberman has provided some footage of the game viewable below.
For those of you who don't remember this classic that is widely credited for the introduction of parallax scrolling in side-scrolling video games. You drove a buggy across a landscape, jumping over ditches and rocks while also shooting at enemies both above and in front made this such a great game to play! As for when the full version will be released however, going by the posts on the EAB forums, it can't be far off. We can't wait!
Links :1) Discussion 2) Download (Right Click Save Link As)
So is this the same as jotd's MoonPatrol500 for the Amiga on Itch.io?
ReplyDeleteYeh same game, however I wasn't sure if he updated the same file to itch as originally it was just uploaded to EAB(Zone) :)
DeleteLooks arcade perfect, but do we need AGA to do an arcade perfect port of Moon Patrol?
ReplyDeleteDefinitely not..even a C64 can probably do arcade perfect Moon Patrol. I think its either because of the Scorpion Engine contstraints or the Coder is just basically starting out and has not learned how to fully squeeze out the power of a 512kb or 1mb OCS Amiga's capabilities. I mean certainly the 512kb RAM game Sword Of Sodan is way higher spec requirements than Moon Patrol.
DeleteIt is coming to 1MB ECS amiga's. However "I'd love that someone proves me wrong. I'm not an expert coder, but I'm doing the bare minimum of blits, with assembly, so it's probably very close to what a wizard coder could do, unless the color constraints are discarded (merging colors which would be a problem on this colorful game, but AGA dual playfield will do the job)." and "Working on AGA version right now. I expect 1:1 pixel perfect or almost with all layers. Time to work on the hardware scrolling". Finally "ECS version is okay (could not make it 512K either, other than removing the sfx+music which I'm not going to do...), I'm starting a full fledged AGA version which should run 50Hz even on bare A1200, with all layers, and moon city (which was missing from the ECS version due to lack of colors)." This was from JOTD
DeleteAmiga version:
Delete- runs on 1MB ECS 68000 Amiga, 25 fps (some slowdowns to expect at times)
- Uses AGA fast DMA mode if found and runs at 50fps on AGA+fastmem
1MB ECS is too much. There are 8 colors on the screenshot. With some tricks a good coder could do that with dual play field 2 bitplanes. Compare this game to Agony, count colors and parallax scrolling. Only needs OCS+512kb
Deleteto the person who counts 8 colors: it's because that particular screenshot doesn't display rocks, alternate ufos, ufo shots, etc... which ends up using more than 16 colors. In fact, there are 2 colors for blue mountains, 4 colors for green layer, 16 colors for character tiles and 16 colors for sprites. You want to do a better job? please do.
DeleteThis is done by a very competent developer who has already made numerous more or less pixel perfect arcade ports on the Amiga. It's made in assembler and he knows his stuff. He already tried dual playfield and it didn't work, as it messed up the timing of the underlying gameplay engine (which is 1:1 with the arcade btw). These older arcade games are built around the hardware that's totally different than Amiga (usually very hardware sprite-capable boards) and when doing these games, which are as much an emulation as they are ports, you can't always do things that play to Amiga's strengths, as you are not the one designing the game. You have to follow what's already there, as if you don't, it's no longer the same game. In any case, if you think you know better, feel free to offer him some technical advice, or go to GitHub repo and improve his code - it's all opensource.
DeleteWonderfull!
ReplyDeleteCi giocavo quando avevo 12 anni...!!
ReplyDeleteNon sono mai riuscito a finirlo...!
Ottimo porting !!
Ho giocato in precedenza alla versione per Atari XL XE, e credetemi e' ARCADE PERFECT !!
I thought it was going to run on ECS/OCS? Maybe I missed that it was going to be AGA-only.
ReplyDeleteIt's going to be ECS too, but only AGA build in this latest beta
DeleteOh, correcting myself: there is indeed an ECS version, and this is the AGA-only version. So two separate versions.
ReplyDeleteWith all the AGA complaints here and in the YT comments I get that nostalgic feeling like its 1995 again and all the A500 owners are whining about being left behind whilst not realizing that they were actually contributing to its downfall by still thinking that anything they saw an A1200 do must be perfectly fine to do on an A500, and that a 7mhz A500 was going to blow a Playstation away and was in fact infinitely powerful in the hands of a *competent* coder... Good times..
ReplyDeleteI'm glad people are pushing back to the bloated requirements of simple games. I count 8 colors on that screenshot. That's on both play fields combined.
Delete>I'm glad people are pushing back to the bloated requirements of simple games.
DeleteReally? I'm just glad that people are taking time out to do these things in the first place. I think the best solution if someone feels that it should run perfectly accurately on an A500 - and I'm not contesting that btw, is to reach out and maybe contribute to the code to make it happen? Would be more productive than moaning that the AGA got its own version methinks.
Hopefully JOTD releases either the full version or a new beta build for both AGA and ECS! Should calm the nerves somewhat :D
DeleteNewest ECS build of the game is now out on his itchio page. The ADF allows you to select between OCS/ECS/AGA. It's a really nice port honestly, considering that it's running the identical original arcade game logic, so the game plays exact same as the arcade.
Delete> I think its either because of the Scorpion Engine contstraints or the Coder is just basically starting out and has not learned how to fully squeeze out the power of a 512kb or 1mb OCS Amiga's capabilities.
ReplyDeletePretty sure there's no Scorpion Engine going on here (check the discussion thread). Can't wait to see your fully-squeezed version however. :D
>I'm glad people are pushing back to the bloated requirements of simple games.
Nah, probably just the one same sad/sorry anonymous guy pushing back. (Also may not be so "simple" as you allude judging by the generally poor quality of almost all of the original arcade conversions.) It's flippin' sweet to see these near-perfect ports, like a childhood dream come true. I love AGA, happy to see it utilized though it looks like the game will ultimately take advantage of the earlier chipset as well.