An unofficial and unfinished demo bonanza for the Amiga via Scorpion Engine

A rather interesting news story for you all, as looking through the EAB forums for some games to talk about, and we've found out through Earok, who created the Scorpion Engine, that he has made available a basket full of unofficial and unfinished demo projects for the Commodore Amiga. Although he does state while they can be downloaded, aren't really intended to be played! Well that hasn't stopped us, as here's the latest videos and further details from Earok below.







Phew that's a lot of videos! And finally here's what Earok said about all these demos. "I should be clear that the unofficial demos pack aren't really intended to be played by Amigans in their current state. They are all projects with open assets, by a few different people, intended to be used as a spring board for Scorpion developers to learn from or to use as a base for their own projects. Since they were never intended for people to play in their current state, they're not really fair game for review and criticism. But they are there for anyone to learn from or improve on - absolutely anyone can pick up what's been done on Contra or anything else and improve on it until it's a game".

And that's all there is to say, but if you fancy trying out these projects(?) then head on over to the link (here)

26 comments:

  1. Amiga version of Contra and Zelda are long overdue! Glad to see Scorpion Engine being used for these conversions. Hope to see mote of these. Wild Guns look pretty good as well.

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  2. I would love for someone to make a sequel to Superfrog using Team 17's graphics engine!!!
    the time is ripe.

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    1. there's a fan made level editor out since 2008 or such, and noone ever created a new level with it.

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  3. Can anyone tell me how to run these demos on winuae?

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    1. I wasn't sure either, but I asked Saberman and this was his response "To run these games, you need to install the Scorpion Engine, load the game project and from within Scorpion run that game" . Hope this helps :)

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  4. I love Earok and the work he does, but that just confirms that SE is an excellent way of creating stuff that seems to be almost complete, and is never completed. Sends the wrong message like "remaking an existing game is easy". Thumbs up for Scorpion finished projects like Breakthrough, Green Beret and Wonderboy anyway!

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    1. I disagree. It's more that that last 20% of the game takes 80% of the time to develop. Its very simple to make a character jump on platforms or shoot the baddies (and SE makes that even easier), but turning that into a game that's actually fun, unique and complete takes a lot of effort and talent -- That's on the developer, not on the engine. The same would be true if the developer is using an engine like SE or hitting bare metal with 68K assembly.

      Scorpion Engine is totally capable of handling any of these games as a finished, polished product, but that's not what these demos are about, and I don't think the message it sends is that "game dev is easy" but more like "Scorpion Engine is capable".

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    2. I agree. It's just that a lot of people aren't willing to go the extra mile and turn SE demos into real games. We know that Scorpion is a masterpiece, no doubt about that. But unfinished demos create a lot of confusion / pollution.

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    3. True, but also, game development can be a LOT of fun, especially at first when you realise how easy it can be to get things started. It's natural to want to share with the world what what's bringing you joy and show off what you're working on (hell, many people feel excited to share what they had for breakfast).

      I know it's frustrating to get your hopes up about a promising new project, only to have it go nowhere, but I don't think it's particularly fair for people to say "unless you're going to bring this to completion, keep it to yourself." These mostly aren't teams, commercial studios or even seasoned solo devs. They're hobbyists having a go at something they've likely only previously dreamed of being able to do.

      I like to dabble in game dev for fun. I've never completed a full project, but if I make a fun little prototype for something while building my skills, I'm going to share it. I also work full-time and have a family, so I'm not going to promise that anything will be completed to level of polish everyone will be happy with -- that's not my priority in life, and its disheartening when all I see is people complaining about how these projects (or Scorpion Engine itself) is confusing or polluting some perceived pristine ecosystem. It really doesn't hurt you, or stop you (especially you, JOTD -- love your work!) from doing what you want to do.

      Maybe my attitude is a bit different from the norm; I dunno. I spent my teens buying every Aminet collection on CD, going through everything that looked interesting, looking for gold, from games, mods, gfx, demos, animations, etc. Seeing things like these demos pop up interest and encourage me, even if I know they'll never become a finished game.

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    4. JOTD you’re legendary with all the porting!

      As far as I’m aware *none* of these was ever intended to be a finished game. Just code examples/proof of concepts.

      It’s somewhat in lieu of full documentation, we can keep stock of the example projects and when someone asks “how can I do X?” we can point them at a demo with similar code.

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  5. I think you are on the right track with your comment.
    My personal problem lies more with the kind of public perception SE (and some people) created over the last few years about Amiga game dev.

    It felt like we will be flooded with hundreds of games now because of it. When in reality, those people who are not taking in the amount of work required to learn ASM and create a custom engine on their own are usually not the types to finish a game with a premade engine like SE either.

    It seems that perception is slowly changing now, fortunately.

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  6. Even though they say demo, people in YT comments already expecting a finished version, smh.
    These are for helping newer SE devs see how to do stuff, much like the example games in C64 Game Maker.

    Learn ASM/don't learn ASM, make own engine/use pre built engine, fail to finish game. Game development takes perseverance, no matter what you use.

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  7. There are tons of projects that have started and are more advanced, except we don't talk about them, because there's no point in highlighting if we're not more than 50% WIP. Here, looking the videos, I'd say, they're barely at 5%, not a surprise to see them avorted. Too bad.

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    1. None of them were “aborted” they’re all just experiments with open source so we can learn from them. They aren’t supposed to be games.

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    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    3. mixelmagic, I think it's too easy to say that, in the sense that making an engine isn't an end in itself. When a game is in development, we always expect it to be finished by default, otherwise we immediately present it as a demo.

      I see a recurring pattern of people doing things to get noticed on social media, and for whom the recognition of likes is enough to move on. It's very sad. I hope Indie Retro News will take this into account to limit the promotion of vaporwares in the future.

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    4. It's very difficult to spot what is going to be vaporware in the future, especially when developers say they are working on finishing the game or have a release date, only for the game to vanish off the face of the Earth. Case and point look at NeesoGames " Super Delivery Boy ". It's been in dev for 4 years+ and still stuck on a demo. Do I for see the future and say it may be vaporware?

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    5. Also getting a rather negative overtone when I questioned him about finishing it, while doing a Street Fighter 2 - Amiga (OCS-ECS) Tech Demo and now Vigilante?

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    6. Toto, here's another " Terra Cresta" Amiga port - https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=119449 . You'd think it was coming right? Even played on Amiga Bills stream. No sign of vaporware with that one. 30th December 2024. Any game in sight? NOPE!

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    7. IndieRetroNews, of course, it's not easy to spot. In fact, it's easier to detect when a project is in a too early development stage (most of them here). I think players don't necessarily see it and get overly excited. :)

      PS: Sorry for the previous duplicate message (page refresh issue), feel free to delete it.

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    8. All good man, hope I didn't come across the wrong way. I should've put a few smiles in :D :D

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    9. No worries, I'm just stating my point of view. I hope I didn't express myself badly. I should have smiled a little. ;) ;)

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  8. None of these are vaporware. People shouldn’t assume they’ll be finished when they outright say in their documentation and itch pages etc that they won’t. Working on sideprojects is a really useful way of picking up new skills and knowledge. I have a similar thing going on with CMO and Wizonk. 😁 These micro-projects are absolutely vital for the scorpion community and hugely valued, so when people question the devs making them it’s a bit weird. They’re not so much for end users - they’re for devs. (Though also work as a promotional tool for Scorpion as it shows what is possible.)

    I don’t think anyone is making games (finished or otherwise) for attention or likes. There’d be much better ways to achieve that. 😅 People just underestimate the process, or life gets in the way.

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    1. This confirms that there is no point in talking about them if they are not meant to be completed.

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    2. Strong disagrees. This gets the word out. Anyone can contribute or finish these projects if they like. Anything that shows what’s possible and helps people understand how it could be done is worth the publicity.

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  9. And so it comes down to this... Technical demos that aren't intended for gamers.

    It's important to understand that, this proliferation of unfinished projects isn't new; they're simply getting publicity when they weren't before, because developers had a sense of self-respect and refrained from revealing what wasn't planned to be completed, or wasn't advanced enough to raise false hopes.

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