In 1992, Psygnosis with development by Art & Magic, released the gorgeous owl flying shoot em up of AGONY, for the Amiga system. It was a very impressive game for its time using features such as scales of colors done with raster lines, halfbrite graphics mode for the between-level pictures, three layers of parallax scrolling using dual-playfield mode, in-game palette swapping, and continuous flashing of the background palette to simulate additional colors. In fact was such a good game, that a creator by the name of Lionagony is now working on his own spiritual sequel for the Amiga called 'Anguish'.
And here's the full details from the website. "Anguish - First Level Demo for AmigaGameJam 2024 (Now Updated) developed using Earok's Scorpion Engine. Anguish is the spiritual sequel to Agony for AGA Amigas. Guide Myletes, a Gyrfalcon through his enemies in this side scrolling shooter featuring 3 layers of parallax and copper infused backdrops".
- Minimum requirements: stock Amiga 1200 or Amiga 4000
- Recommended for best gameplay: 1 MB or more of Fast RAM
cheers to dev /s/ .. the scorpion engine is a beast.
ReplyDeletePsygnosis games sure looked pretty 👍
ReplyDeleteLooks great as a proof of concept. Needs some more polished gfx. Overall idea is good.
ReplyDeleteyeah the gfx needs alot of work!!
Deletespiritual sequel to agony , this ? sorry but now you understand why scorpion engine its just isn't build for some things. Many thanks for the Devs for amiga support and the effort but it is just a demo of parallax. Anything else needs a lot of work....
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of work to do. And that purple font on .the grey background should have been changed because it's illegible.
ReplyDeleteThat's an easy fix and can be improved no bother.
DeleteThere's a lot work to do, in example - the purple font on the grey background should have been changed or added some light outline because it's illegible.
ReplyDeleteScorpion Engine is in fact built for these kind of games, and the demo obvioulsly runs well with a good framerate. While I agree that the graphics needs a lot of work, I don't understand why many people are so negative towards homebrew games. It might just kill the motivation for many devs. It is what it is, and if you don't like it, you don't have to comment. And if you must comment, please be a bit more contructive.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I did the art, animation and many game design aspects. It's folly for anyone comparing my work to art and magics. I'm confident my art and animation is good enough though. I also prefer to encourage other game devs with constructive criticism as you say.
DeleteThe problem is the statement "spiritual sequel" to Agony. That game has a top-notch art work from Franck Sauer, and is widely considered to be one of the best looking Amiga games of all time. When you consider that context, it's a huge shoe to fill!
DeleteIf this was another generic flying animal shoot-em up then I think it would not have garnered this many comments, though probably also not as much interest.
Honestly though, any comment is better than no comment. The author has clearly caught the attention of a lot of people by submitting this post - both good and bad, now he has to prove that the community that he can fill those big shoes by Art & Magic.
Amen to that my friend. It's wonderful and wild to see Amiga games being developed in 2025, and there's a lot to enjoy here. Clearly a passion project with reverence for the original. Keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteI actually quite like the graphics overall, apart from two or three things that currently, really let the side down IMHO.
ReplyDelete1.The flying skulls just look odd, flying skeletons maybe could work, but not those large skulls.
2a. The very large moon (probably the worse looking of all the graphics) which you can’t avoid looking at, seems way too large.
2b. Better to loose the five bats (perhaps birds) flying in front of the moon too; a bit like the skulls they just look odd (as they are in a fixed position).
Otherwise good to see this progressing nicely.
Since this is AGA only, expectations will be high - even if you're using Scorpion Engine (and we all know Scorpion Engine has performance limitations)
ReplyDeleteThe first gripe that most people seem to have is pixel art. Of course, you don't need to copy Agony's pixel art style - but there are plenty of pixel art tips and tricks available on Youtube these days that it shouldn't be that difficult to bring it up to modern standard (you can probably even use AI to help). Fix the pixel art and half of the complaints will be gone. If you wan tan example of good Scorpion Engine game pixel art, see this game from Basement Ape: https://www.indieretronews.com/2025/04/a-beat-em-up-platformer-is-in-works-by.html
Another problem with graphics is the lack of color variety which shouldn't be the case as it's AGA. I would expect at the absolute minimum 16 color palette for each moving objects (after all, the original OCS agony used 16 color sprites just for the Owl alone).
The animation is not smooth to be honest. The original OCS Agony had 16 animated frames per second for the owl flapping its wing https://amiga.lychesis.net/updates/2013-10-29.html. While this sounds like nit picking, you're making a spiritual successor to Agony so people are bound to compare the animation.
The parallax scrolling is good - but if possible see if you can make it more animated.
What are these "Scorpion performance limitations" we all know about exactly?
Deletepromt any LLM, you ll find enough limitations, thanks earok for the amiga support
DeleteCreating a game like Agony requires a lot of work and refinement at every level. In comparison, the current version is closer to The Great Giana Sisters, while the goal is Super Mario Bros. Good luck!
ReplyDeletewe hope eerok updates scorpion engine to be able to use dual playfied although his work is great , it feels it cannot take full advantage of OCS/ECS
ReplyDeleteGreat job with the parallax scrolling, but calling it a spiritual sequel to Agony is too pretentious...
ReplyDeleteThanks, the reason it was dubbed a spirtual sequel is because it was initially started for AmiGameJam 2024 which had the theme of "the sequel that never was".
ReplyDeleteAh, you see if that was explained straight off, then half these comments would have never occurred. Too many people are concentrating on the "spiritual sequel" (possibly bad wording), rather than just enjoying another Amiga game created that is available to enjoy.
ReplyDeleteYes, that tagline "Spiritual Sequel" got picked up by websites and youtube channels. In reality it's a homebrew homage to Agony and was an entry in the Amigame jam. I'm not Franck Sauer. No illusions there-lol. With each project my art improves a lot though- this is my first time creating something on this sort of scale.
DeleteWell it says " Anguish - First Level Demo for AmigaGameJam 2024 : Anguish is the spiritual sequel to Agony for AGA Amigas " on the developers itch io page. So not sure it got picked up by other places. I still think the game looks great... Wasn't a fan of Agony myself, prefered Apidya :D
DeleteThe problem is that there have been some "sequels" that have absolutely no affiliation with the original, company, artists, programmers, etc. Some people for some reason like to piggyback on other peoples' IP to possibly get more notice. It doesn't appear that that's what's happened in this case but some people obviously must have thought that. Those sequels I'm referring to are Xevious 2 (C64) and Battle Squadron 2 (Amiga) both of which have absolutely nothing to do with the originals and drew the same sort of criticisms as a result. I write my own games and have done for a long time and I would never consider piggybacking on someone elses' IP. Amazingly, I'm capable of coming up with my own ideas.
DeleteDactylus for MS-DOS is spiritual sequel of Agony.
ReplyDeleteYeah,great and almost unknown shooter! Good graphics and playability but i remember it was only in german! Maybe a conversion of Dactylus for Aga will be possible someday!
DeleteYes, As Indie retro news says it was written by myself as a description but I didn't give it much thought. If you read the game intro text then you know I like to write flowery text. Bad habit. 😅
ReplyDeleteNothing wrong in being inspired by a classic game, and making the influence known to those who like the game. Come on peeps. Lot's of passion poured into this!
ReplyDelete