Welcome to Ash, an ambitious new platformer currently in development for the Commodore Amiga by Thomas Mayer Foss. The game draws deep inspiration from Norwegian folklore, centering on the traditional tales of Askeladden. Players will guide the underestimated youngest brother on a grand quest to win a princess and half a kingdom. To overcome the game's various obstacles, players can dynamically swap between three unique companions met along the way: the Stone Eater, the Light-Footed One, and the One of Thirteen Winters and Seven Summers, each possessing distinct abilities essential for progression. The adventure will span five beautifully detailed worlds, guiding players from dense forests and rugged mountains up into the clouds, ultimately leading to a final showdown at the king's court and the mountain troll's lair.
Built as a passionate hobby project with a commitment to completion, Foss is designing the game specifically to push original hardware limitations without any AI graphics. The custom game engine is written entirely in Assembler code to deliver rich graphics, complex mechanics, and true parallax scrolling on a standard Amiga 500 OCS with just 512KB chip RAM and 512KB slow RAM. Early gameplay footage showcasing the vibrant forest world confirms the title runs at a smooth 50 frames per second on real hardware. While the game's soundtrack remains a work in progress, Amiga gamers can follow regular devlogs, concept art updates, and full world previews directly on the official project page, Ash - a game for Amiga.
[UPDATE] A demo has been released with the following being said " This is an early prototype. The level in this build is a test playground for showing off features, not a real level from the game. Expect rough edges, placeholder content and lots of changes. "
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No Ai, check
ReplyDeleteNo game engine used, check
No Fast ram required, check
Assembly, check
OCS: bonus
That's the original/retro Amiga spirit we should keep alive!
Looks very nice, congrats!
Now this looks interesting. Much better than the flood of AI drivel we are seeing lately.
ReplyDeleteWell done Thomas.
When it is released I will buy it in an instant.
Keep it up.
sprite parallax: check
ReplyDelete50 fps: check
8 way scrolling: check
impressive
It is so nice, well crafted. I only wish they give to the game, the complete soundtrack it deserves. A game like that needs nice in-game music.
ReplyDeleteLooks gorgeous. Video is a little blurry, though! Nice to see a well-crafted 1 MB OCS game that looks a hundred times better than most AGA games requiring 64MB of Fast RAM and a 68060 processor in order to run at 8 frames per second.
ReplyDeleteSorry but those pixels are clearly generated by ai, or the art style mimics the errors AI makes when it tries to do pixel art.
ReplyDelete"Björn Karlsson
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Are the graphics AI generated?
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Thomas Mayer Foss
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Björn Karlsson absolutely not!" " <-
Those are his exact words, of which I have to take as truth :)
DeleteParts of the graphics has that ai-look, or like those generic tilesets you can find many places online. Apart from that, the game looks well done, especially because it runs on ocs - not something we see often. Keep up the good work.
DeleteRetroRic is absolutely right.. And Although you have to take the dev's words as truth IRN.. It doesn't mean they are the truth. I suggested he livestream his process, because he's never going to convince people otherwise. 😅
ReplyDeleteThe title screen is clearly AI. We've seen AI generate 'pixel art' like this hundreds of times by now.
ReplyDeleteI strongly believe that this guy is making it by hand. You can always follow him on FB https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61589693757279&sk=photos
DeleteTo be fair I called out this game as probably AI "enhanced", since the static screen (title + some other on the FB page) definitely have this AI pixelart vibes. Now after looking at the FB page again, and the author showing his draft and workflows, I need to apologize. This looks like a work of love and passion, handcrafted. Really sad that AI has cast suspiscion and doubt on efforts and handmade achievements...
ReplyDeleteYeah, seems like we are going to see a witch hunt for the foreseeable future...
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