Do we have some great retro gaming news for you, as that legendary game character Sonic from the Sonic the Hedgehog game series, which appeared on multiple systems such as the Sega Master System, Sega Mega Drive, and Sega Game Gear. Will be coming to the Commodore Amiga 500 1mb, and Commodore Amiga 1200 with the hard work of Reassembler , the same creator who released the vastly superior version of the OutRun Amiga Edition. To coincide with this news, albeit late considering I just found out today.. Yeh, thanks for telling me yesterday! There's some new footage provided below.
According to the creator, after finishing Outrun, his next project is none other than Sonic the Hedgehog. A near perfect version hopefully targeting the Amiga 500 with 1mb chip ram and the A1200. In the video provided above, he will talk you through the differences from the Amiga and Sega Mega Drive version, as well as many other development processes you'll just have too see for yourselves.
I can't wait to see the end result
Typo fixed, no need to get in a hissy fit!
ReplyDeleteI do not think that a perfect version is possible with an A500 1MB, Megadrive has better hardware than A500 for 2D games. One problem is lack of colors on A500 with dual playfield, the other is lack of hardware sprites compared to Megadrive, but this can partially be compensated by blitter usage. These problems are evident in e.g. Turrican 3 A500 vs Megadrive version.
ReplyDeleteThe A1200 version is possible to get perfect, but it's also not so easy, as you run into trouble with horizontal hardware scroll and loss of hardware sprites with 2x and 4x fetchmodes, which are required for more colors. You cant simply renew whole game background graphics without the use of HW scrolling, as then update rate would not be the required 50 FPS.
What on Planet Earth are you talking about? An Amiga 500 with at least 2mb RAM can DEFINITELY do Sonic The HedgeHog MORE than perfectly. Go take a look at these three games...and REALLY take a look at thm and play them on the Amiga 500 or 600 with 2MB: 1. Kid Chaos (this game illustrates both the SPEED an Colors and parallax scrolling needed for Sonic). 2. Zool 2 (this game shows SCALE, Large Character sprite and Console likeness in Level scale as well as Colors) 3. Ruff N Tumble (incase you couldn't notice the amount of COLORS on Screen....most people think this is an AGA A1200 256 color game...but its 64 color Extra Half Brite mode (EHB)). 4. ElfMania (A Fighting Game in the style of Street Fighter thta has not much good about it except it shows off LARGE Characters and COLORS and floor Parallax done in 64 color EHB mode). There are many more games that pull off Amiga tricks like this. NOW go look at Amiga Games that have been ported to the Genesis like: Shadow Of The Beast 1, Sword Of Sodan and a few others...they look pathetic compared to their Amiga Counterparts.....Even he SNES could not do Pinball Fantasies well. The Amiga 500 with 2mb is Definitely more capable. I would personally push for 4mb for less loading and things to be stored in Memory...today there is ZERO reason to lower the requirement 1mb...everyone and their mother has 2mb or more or can EASILY add it. Also I hope this game is NOT done with Scorpion Engine as that limits the resolution... it should be Full Screen Overscan like Arcade games are supposed t be and many Proper Amiga games are. Add to that coded in Assembly language to squeeze all the juice out of theAmiga.
DeleteIn these cases, I always cite Mr. Nutz as an example: fast, good use of colors, parallax... and it works on 500 with 1Mb.
DeletePlooh!!!
DeletePlease, don't just spout off without knowing what you're talking about. An Amiga 500 OCS is perfectly capable of running a 2D Sonic game if done properly and using assembly language, which will really push the hardware to its limits. For a programmer who does what we ask in this scene and uses assembly language, and then you come out with this? You're doing the Amiga 500 OCS a disservice. Programmed in assembly language and with patience, it's perfectly possible on an Amiga 500.
Regards
Come on guys play nice! Even my technical know how is not that great so I just look forward to games like this coming to the Amiga 500 or A1200 :)
Deleteplööh, lets see what the guy comes up with before ruling anything out. Its so cool to finally see this game coming for Amiga. Fernando, "we" - the Amiga scene - does not "ask" or demand anything to made in assembly. We appreciate new Amiga projects, big or small. Including contributions not made by programmers, or those that are not made specificly for OCS/ECS. Its all welcome!
Deleteplööh, lets see what the guy comes up with before ruling anything out. Its so cool to finally see this game coming for Amiga. Fernando, "we" - the Amiga scene - does not "ask" or demand anything to made in assembly. We appreciate new Amiga projects, big or small. Including contributions not made by programmers, or those that are not made specificly for OCS/ECS. Its all welcome.
DeleteIt's not possible to do the same on A500, no. Future will tell, but at some point you'll realize that the machine only has 8 colors on each playfield on dual playfield. No dual playfield = no parallax. On AGA Earok proved that Scorpion can handle fake dual playfield using wide sprites but that's way harder on A500. People mention amiga-taylored games all the time (Jim Power being one, reusing colors using copperlists, and using hardware sprites for the main character) but porting Sonic is a different story really. Get real guys.
DeleteOn the other hand, the A1200 would be capable to cope. So let's wait and see.
Replying to "What on Planet Earth are you talking about?" The only good example regarding to Sonic in Amiga enviroment is Kid Chaos.The game Ruff 'n' Tumble has little bit jerky scrolling and 32 colours only, it's not EHB as i know.But very good game though pushing A500 limits.
DeleteI've always felt that the A500 could, with enough time spent working around its limitation, get fairly close to what the Megadrive can do. However, it takes a lot of time and effort overcoming the limitations. It might take a year to make sonic on the Megadrive, but 3 years to make a 'perfect replica' on the Amiga, and even then something will have to be sacrificed - either frame rate, colors , character size or number of things happening on the screen. The more time worked on the Amiga version, the less the trade off but there will have to be some trade offs.
DeleteMy thinking is that for the A500 version, the author will probably trade off colors for speed - because really that's the core premise of the game. Sonic using 64 colors or more but running at 25 FPS and having fewer stuff on the screen would feel terrible. Sonic using 16 colors but everything else is the same as the MD version would feel pretty good.
The A500 can't replicate Sonic 1:1 but to be fair, the megadrive can't redo Kid Chaos 1:1, just because the second layer uses copper to adjust vertical bitplane position in the background, giving more parallax in the parallax. 2 different machines, one dedicated to those titles and our miggy able to do all genres, but painstakingfully each time.
DeleteKid Chaos may look impressive on A500, but it uses likely same style as Lionheart, or dual playfield, and a lot of parallax layers with different colors in background. But problem is that front playfield is then only 7 colors, and that needs to be shared with enemy objects when using blitter. Sonic itself needs at least 4 hardware sprites for 15 colors and 32 pixel wide, and then you got 4 left for something else, not much. You could also use copper for front playfield to get more colors, like in Lionheart, but then object colors could get screwed when objects move vertically, and that happened in Lionheart sometimes, and thats why enemies had limited move patterns and very limited colors in swamp level. Not likely to work with Sonic, but some levels could work better than others. Some compromises have to be made, but a decent version is maybe possible on A500, with less colors.
DeleteHELL YEH 11111111!!!!!!! Thanks indie for turning anonymous back on saves messing with accounts
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome, if people abuse it again I'll turn anon back off :)
DeleteNice 👍
ReplyDeleteAlways nice, when original A500 is supported. Look at the C64 version. Nothing is impossible
ReplyDeleteSince that Shadow of the Beast on a stock Amiga 500 had 128 colors with 12 levels of parallax while running at 50hz/60hz I don't see why this can't be done
ReplyDeleteBecause Shadow of the Beast is designed around the amiga limitations. Parallax are small strips done with the blitter. But it's possible to cut down the graphics and get a good version (and an almost perfect version on A1200). Assembler helps with speed but won't do magic with colors.
DeleteSuper interessantes Video
ReplyDeleteSonic on A500? Bring it on! Even if it's reduced to 16 colors if the game can run at 50 FPS then it's all good!
ReplyDeleteKid Chaos, Zool 2, Ruff N Tumble.... Yes an A500 can do Sonic FULLY if it has at least 2MB RAM
ReplyDeleteThe games you're mentioning are great but don't have parallax background. So no. Not with parallax, it's not possible, not with all those colors, no.
Deletewow just checked Kid Chaos and I stand corrected. the parallax are massive and all, colors are great. Also designed with the amiga limitations in mind, for me this game stands out as one of the best Sonic "clones" out there. Reassembler is probably one of the best people able to try to reproduce the magic with this time a port like Sonic. Good luck!
DeleteMany times in the 90'es, we've been surprised what the Amiga 500 could pull off. I think it's way too early to rule anything out here, even if the task seems difficult. Lets see what reassember comes up with!!
Delete@JOTD Yes...Kid Chaos is amazing in a Technical viewpoint (the game itself is repetitive but that is perhaps for lack of more creativity and ideas). Picture if someone had thee sourcecode for Kid Chaos and replaced the blond caveman kid with sonic amongst other things. Combined with the techniques some f the other games I mentioned do and it shows it is definitely possible. One of the programs on the Amiga that show what an A500 can do is Broadcast Titler 2 which was a Movie Credits and Video Titler type of Program that did amazing things even on a 1mb Amiga. it could have multiple resolutions on the same Screen (Hires Interlaced and SUPER HiRes Interlaced and I believe 128 colors) these types of techniques which require thinking outside of the box about what on Paper We are told what the limits of the Amiga are. The Limits go beyond what we were told. The Intro Title of Brian The Lion, Obitus from Psygnosis (Shows Scaling like the SNES), Lion Heart and Ruff N Tumble (Show palettes changing in real time right on the screen giving the appearance of more colors. Check out Fightin Spirit ECS version on the Amiga... it is 64 colors.
DeleteRemember Brian the lion on A500, Its show the tunnel effect that was used in SNES Castlevania IV
ReplyDeleteRemeber Brian The Lion on A500 1 mb, it showed the tunnel effect that was used in SNES Castlevania IV, so yes the A500 has power to do Sonic, maybe better than Genesis.
ReplyDeleteA500’s can easily, sometimes at no cost (if you already have a 512K trapdoor expansion) be upgraded to 1MB Chip RAM (see https://archive.org type amiga shopper 27 in the search bar on the site then take a look at page 20-21 & 24-25). Fast RAM upgrades are cheap, so if a version of a game like Sonic would end up being better if it needed 2MB (1MB Chip + 1MB Other RAM) why make a poorer 1MB version instead in 2025!?
ReplyDeleteI think the 1MB challenge has to do with what the standard was back in 1991. Most A500 owners would have had a 1MB A500, so it would be interesting to see what could be done with that standard.
DeleteI can see the appeal to devs of "the 1MB challenge" but at the end of the day sometimes Amiga gamers end up with new games that would have been significantly better with a very modest 2MB RAM requirement. Expecting most Vintage ECS owners to have 2MB Chip RAM is unrealistically but not 1MB Chip + 1MB other RAM. I also would find it more interesting to see what can be achieved with 2MB on ECS machines which we have yet to see.
Deletelookiing foirward to the end result, an RTG version would be good as well
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that every single time there's a new post about an Amiga game there's always this silly drama between AGA vs OCS/ECS? Just let the programmer do its work and enjoy whatever comes out of it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not particularly interested on ports like this, but I'm curious to see the end result. The guy did a great work with OutRun so he has enough credits for me to think he will pull it off.
This drama has been going on for years across Facebook, Amiga sites and IndieRetroNews... It used to be Amiga versus Atari, now it's Amiga versus Amiga ;)
DeleteWay back, when monthly computer user groups were a thing in the pre-Internet era, I would go to both the Amiga and Atari ST user groups in my area. Everyone would talk smack online between the Amiga and Atari groups in the local BBS scene, but if you showed up in person at said user groups all of the sudden everyone would become very polite. LOL Man I feel old.
DeleteI remember here on Indieretronews a very interesting Sonic clone for A500, called Blaze https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDlr4BGI4HY&t=67s
ReplyDeleteNuxelia full version WANTED !!!!!! Please!
ReplyDeleteRETROBIT
ReplyDeleteSonic 1 on Amiga AGA ? Interesting project and seems good even if i seen scrolling uncertainties.
I'm an Amiga Fan from always, honestly i'm starting to get really tired to always hear that speech or better ILLUSION that on Amiga OCS can do this, can do that and even that other !
PLEASE STOP !
Clearly you don't have an idea of what are talking about, it doesn't matter how much you believe and hope, an Amiga OCS CAN NOT compete with a Sega Genesis, for the simple reason that OCS has not enough hardware resources to do it, numbers never lie !
Talking about Sonic 1 port : with what mysterious force a 32 colors video mode can compete with a 64 colors one ?
You have any idea what this means manage all those assets on screen and move them at that speed ?
On Amiga AGA is doable with a good programming, NO on OCS.
In future i'm expect someone to say something like "why not port Pulstar (NEO GEO) on Amiga OCS ?" .. LoL ! (^_^)
I think most people would'nt expect a 1:1 port. The people who believe it's possible will get disappointed. But take a look at the Amiga game Kid Chaos. And imagine what a decent Sonic port could look like. That would be the best outcome, but it would take a very good programmer to get there.
DeletePulstar on Amiga ocs? Well...why not! Just play the incredible "Disposable Hero" for ocs then you will change your mind.Of course the parallax scrolling will be put aside and so 1/4 or 1/3 of the sprites on screen of neo geo version but we'll got a better shootem up with a more readable action on screen an without slowdowns!! As for Sonic just take a look at the third world of Amiga "Mr Nutz"...i'm sure they can code (on asm 68k,of course..) a perfect version of Sonic but with half the colours and half the fps.And the "magic" of tranforming 32 colours on 64 it"s just a matter of how you use that colours,just think about Desert Strike and the better use of colours of the Amiga conversion from the Megadrive one.Or,for example,imagine a shooter like "Lethal Xcess" on Atari st-f with only 512 kb ram,and think about the fact Thalion coders did the trick to visualise 128 colours on screen from a machine only capable to visualise 16 colours...
DeleteI watched the video announcing the port and after seeing Outrun come out so well I feel confident this version is in good hands. I look forward to hearing about the challenges and how it ends up working out. I think it's right to target AGA first and then work towards an OCS/ECS version too. One challenge I think some have overlooked is the sound.
ReplyDeleteNot much of a coder here. Based only on intuition from moving to A500 and then to A1200 back in the day, I wouldn't expect a 1:1 A500 version, though I'm sure whatever Reassembler comes up with will be incredible. I'm really happy to see technical wizardry that targets AGA, since the hardware generally wasn't exploited as much due to the platform's demise. LiqMatrix said it best above about the smack talking... just part of the scene, and when you met even the worst trolls in person, it was usually still a good time.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Reassembler, JOTD, and other code mages for keeping the spirit alive. Nostalgia aside, I'm not sure there's ever been a better time to be an Amiga owner! Instead of turning on their Switch, my kids are choosing to be upstairs with me playing OutRun, Pacman, and Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja, making awesome new Amiga memories 35 years later.
A few people mentioned Ruff'n'Tumble... *incredible* game that brought some shine back to the platform in its waning years. An A1200 version with smooth scrolling and more colors would have been killer!
What will be interesting is the overall look. Sonic is fast and colorful, but uses those chunky graphics, which always looked.... well, chunky. The Amiga's 2D graphics always looked cleaner... smoother. So it will be interesting to see what Sonic really looks like in the end. I have a feeling, still shots will look much better than Genesis still shots... it remains to be seen when it is actually playing :)
ReplyDeleteSorry, I rerally don't know what you means by Amiga graphics being cleaner? I think in this case, "chunky" only refers to they way graphics are displayed on screen, like, VGA cards use "chunky" mode while Amiga use bitplanes "Planar" mode...
DeleteYes, we use the word "chunky' to describe earlier 3D raycasting games like Doom, which were "chunky' and also needed a chuncky to Planar routine to work on Amiga and is the reason Carmack stated that it would be "impossible" to bring Doom to the Amiga, which was partially proved wrong...actually, Amigas missed the raw power needed for Doom besides the graphics mode getting also in the way...
ANNND I'm pretty sure Megadrive uses Planar graphics modes too and I read somewhwere that AGA does support some chunky mode (it was probably wrong)
Bottom line, I failed to see Amiga graphics as being "cleaner" than megadrive's... quaite the opposite, specially if it's OCS...
Genesis does indeed use chunky bitmaps for Sonic. The Genesis VDP uses chunky 16-color bitmaps.
DeleteVery interesting and technical aspects of the video aside: Is it just me or why does it look like the voice is never in sync with his lips moving and why does he sound exactly like Richard Ayonade , down to the little details in his speech patterns? Or is Youtube again experimenting with AI optimizations?
ReplyDeleteThe hard part is done for him, he has the source code, so really all he's gotta do is find clever ways to use the sprites, copper and blitter to display the graphics.
ReplyDeleteHe's already got a system to crunch music into 4 channels so we know the music will be fairly close also.
The parallax in sonic isn't that important, he can prolly do the game in single play field mode and use the copper for parallax effects.
so to have the usual, horrible Amiga platform (most of them) with garish and squalid copper backgrounds
Deleteif I got it right, he's using Chunky to Planar conversion for this exact reason, to overcome Amiga parallax limitations, leaving some of the heavy lift to the CPU...
DeleteI'm just not sure if the 68020 without Fast RAM is enough to the task.
Perhaps we could have a 25/30 FPS on a stock A1200 and the full 50/60 FPS on an accelerated machine.
Because, if he uses the blitter for the task, it's completely IMPOSSIBLE to have a 1:1 Sonic on an A1200, it simply cannot handle dual playfield the way the Megadrive does.
Luis Carlos, are you serious? A c2p is too slow on a 68020 with fast ram (even a 68030/50 MHz is too slow). An A1200 can do the job with blitter and hardware sprites, it has enough colors and enough bandwidth when using faster fetchmodes (2x and 4x). You can look at newer productions, like Rygar AGA, which uses 32 colors for front playfield and 8 colors for background. It has also a ton of enemies that keeps attacking the player, from above, below, and sides.
DeleteAs the description says, he's targeting A500 and A1200 with this port. Converting anything on-the-fly would completely kill the speed on these machines. It must be done "the Amiga way".
DeleteRunning Sonic on an a500 is relatively easy
ReplyDeleteMaking it look good and run at 60fps will be way harder
To get the best out of the Amiga, you have to use the copper and blitter, and make the whole thing work in an Amiga fashion. Saying the A500 version will be in 32 colours without thinking about palette swaps using the blitter is not good.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's possible to port Sonic to the AMIGA 500 with parallax. Perhaps with 1 MB of fast RAM. A good idea is 5-bitplane mode: 32 colors for the foreground and 16 colors for the background. This saves bandwidth for parallax blitting. When you have fast RAM, the CPU is always accessible. You don't have to wait for the blitting to finish. It works in parallel. I would use a double or triple buffer. I would multiplex the sprites for some parallax lines. I would opt for 60 fps/hz for the first layer and 30 for the parallax.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's possible to port Sonic to the AMIGA 500 with parallax. Perhaps with 1 MB of fast RAM. A good idea is 5-bitplane mode: 32 colors for the foreground and 16 colors for the background. This saves bandwidth for parallax blitting. When you have fast RAM, the CPU is always accessible. You don't have to wait for the blitting to finish. It works in parallel. I would use a double or triple buffer. I would multiplex the sprites for some parallax lines. I would opt for 60 fps/hz for the first layer and 30 for the parallax.
ReplyDelete