Timeslip Wannabe Remastered

Hi There,

I just read mentioning Timeslip in a forum. It reminded me that 2.5 years ago I took a screenshot of it and remastered within the limits of TED.

Here is the result:

Original visuals

Reworked version

The gradient background is can be colored in several IRQs. I also changed character colors. There is a tree in upper region which were designed in multicolor mode but somehow it appears in Hires mode in the final product. I changed it back to Multicolor mode and give it a proper color. Enjoy!

New game from us for the Plussy: Pets Rescue

9 months of designing, drawing, repainting, discussing was my contribution to this wonderful Commodore Plus/4 game. You can download a free D64 version (no ads, no shareware, etc) from Plus/4 World. There will be a commercial version later from Psytronik, with some additional bonuses.

It's a Super Mario-like (or Giana Sisters on Commodore 64) run/jump/collect platform game with colorful sceneries, never seen amount of software sprites, delightful music and perfect coding. Enjoy!

Boulder Dash-like Mockup

Hello Dear Follower,

Last days I have drawn a quick mockup. I chose Boulder Dash.

Have a good weekend!

Tutankham Mockup

Here is a mockup of stage 1 of Tutankham from arcade machines.

It is a 320x200 sized mockup. The full map of this stage can be found on VGMaps.

Green Beret Stage 1 Mockup

A few days ago I designed a mockup of Green Beret at stage 1. The color restrictions of char screen mode were applied (3 fixed color + 1 variable per char location). It was build from ~350 different characters. The Commodore Plus/4 can display 256 different chars only, so if a coder wants to recreate this game on +4, he/she has to decide: make the graphics less detailed until it fits into one single character set, or implement some kind of banking system. The graphics of this stage is very well separated into themes (one theme for the bridge, another theme is the trucks, rockets are another one). It is possible the change these sets on-the-fly in the game.

The same image in larger size.
You can found the map of original arcade version here. Thank you, VGMaps!

The (in)activity of last 3 years and Arkanoid WIP video

Hi There,

I'm really sorry for the very long delay in updating this blog. Last years I was very busy with my real life job. I released stuff in slower rate as well.

My releases as coder or graphician...

• Sgt. Helmet Zero - design and code and graphics by me, a ZX Spectrum conversion.
• Memento - a memory game of Skoro; design and graphics by me.
• Ghost Town - an old game recolored.
• Warrior of RAS Volume I - a Commodore 64 game converted to Commodore Plus/4
• Android 2 - another C64 game went to Plus/4
• Xplode Man - a Bomberman clone by Skoro; design and graphics by me.
• Pac-Pac - a Pacman clone by Skoro; design and graphics by me.
• Crackers' Demo V - I made a playable Arkanoid part into this demo. It is based on the original arcade version.

The AIT2 project is not abandoned. It's just a too large project for one coder/graphician, and it overwhelmed me so I put it aside for a while (ahem, 3 years...)

These days I started to develop a full version of Arkanoid. The demo version contains all 32 rounds with the full feature set (pickable bonuses, enemies, shooting, explosions, etc.) and the endgame boss in a simple animation on ending screen. The full game will feature these as well:

• Last round with boss battle. You have to hit Doh 16 times to destroy while trying to avoid its bullets.
• Scoring
• Hiscore
• Two players mode (if possible, perhaps I will run out of memory...)

Current state of last battle in a short video

AIT2 preview available

Hi Guys,

Last weekend a preview version of AIT2 were released on Arok 15 party. You can find it here:

Adventures In Time 2 Preview on Plus4World

The preview contains one map specially designed for the preview. You won't find it in final product. The preview does not show all the features it could, I spared them for later time :)

Have fun playing it!

Bye,
KiCHY

Armadas of Bad Guys

Hi Followers,

In last weeks I made refinements on level1, implemented more types of bad guys so from now they can spread over the whole level 1 map :) They also hurt you if they touch you. On the other side you have 4 hitpoints before you lose a spare life! Naturally, you can refill your HP with potions you find on your way.
Csabo composes the music. We have plans of a never seen (heard) music player feature on the Plus/4 Scene :)
This means a releasing of the preview version soon with an unseen map designed for the preview. I have to implement some missing pieces of software until the preview:

• Animate the water
• Code the pickup event of potions (maximize HP)
• A proper "player dies" animation instead of simply jumping back to last checkpoint.
• Insert the music
• Anything I forgot now...

The snail, the bird and the potion

We are Batmen!

Minor milestones

Hi,

Finally I made some minor milestones in AIT2 development :)
- Spektro designed the very first level of AIT2. Thanks for it!
- Some minor tileset changes, dropped a few ideas and replaced to new ones which fit better in graphics style.
- The first enemies appeared! Still no collision test.
- Picking up coins now earn score.
- The water/lava/spikes finally kills the player.
- Checkpoint system. Instead of the method of original AIT where you respawn in last safe room/location before you died, now you respawn at last checkpoint Perhaps some rooms earlier. This method will irritate some people I know but it gives another strategic factor into level design.
- The negotiation with the music composer is in progress :)

A coin protected by snail

A bird flies over some new graphic elements

Map designers wanted

Hi my dears,

Made some progress in the last weeks:
- some new sprites,
- new minor background elements,
- asked some background animations from Chronos (Wake up, N... err Chronos!) (Remember, that guy who helps in graphics)

The most important thing in this blog entry is that I'm after some talented people who could support me with some maps for levels... (even on scanned hand drawn paper if you wish).

Respond here with your comment or at Plus/4 World Forum. I'll give you more details about requirements, specifications, etc. later.

A caped ghost

Unnamed robot

Bird

See ya next time!

Back to digital life

Hi There,

I've been really busy in the summer months and I had almost no time to work on AIT2. I hope I can reheat the project and work on it regularly.

What happened in these months? I sent emails to several guys on C64 scene asking for help. Most of them were afraid of the unusual platform (C64 vs Plus/4), the others simply had no time for this project. The "funny" fact is that the graphics mode and its restrictions are the same (character screen, multicolor mode) on both computers.

Finally found a Plus/4 graphician who helps me to draw animations (I'm not so talented in small sprite animations). Thanx Chronos! :)

WIP versions of some sprites:

Player

A blob

Ghost

Rotating robot head

Snail

Screenshot Galore

Hi,

I made several screenshots which you can reuse anywhere you want (at least some credits please).

Screens from a medieval world:

Use the crates, Luke!

Turrets and cannonballs

Greenhouse

Spikes everywhere

More spikes

Screens from a natural scenery:

A flower...

...with a butterfly

The first coin

Use the jumpers in the cave to get out

Look for secret places even in the air

Nice stripes, eh?

Treasure awaits in "deep" of the cave

Hi!

Here's another proof that I worked on AIT2 in last 4 months (in silence). I made various "engines" for different tasks: one of these is the Objects (or Actors, nevermind) engine which handles all kind of objects in a room: the switch, the pushable crates, and from now: turrets and bullets!

The turrets are - in fact - invisible objects which only spawn bullets in given position and direction. Those visible turrets built in the wall (lower video) are simple graphic elements of background.

Each turret has various properties in room definition: speed, shooting pattern (explain soon), shooting direction and bullet type.

Each shooting pattern is a byte (8 bits we know) and the turret rotates this pattern byte bitwise by a determined speed. 1 bit means "shoot" and 0 bit means "wait" in this pattern. So how it works:

For example, turret speed: 10, shooting pattern: "01100101".
1. The turret waits 10 times.
2. The turret checks bit #0, now that's "1". That means "shoot", so the AI of turret spawns a bullet and puts into the object list.
3. Rotate this pattern 1bit to the left, now the pattern is "10110010".
4. The turret waits another 10 times.
5. The turret check bit #0, now it's "0" so the turret does nothing.
6. Go back to step 1.

The bullets are really simple things. After they were created start moving to a given direction (not only left or right but up and down directions are also possible) until they collide with a wall then they disappear (future plans: instead of simple disappearing perhaps some kind of explosion, smoke, etc?)

Two new features

Hi,

I finally finished the implementations of two features: slideable objects and switches (only from ON to OFF direction). I made a short video which show these two features.

I'm still experiencing YouTube video uploading features, this time I learnt putting annotations on video :)

Another video of gameplay

Hi,

I made another video from a different world. Let's go medieval! :) The gameplay currently lacks enemies, swithes + doors, spikes can't hurt you and so on.

This time I tried to improve the video quality.

Early gameplay video

Hi,

In last months I worked on AIT2 on and off. I made a short video of current state. You can watch it here:

I made this level for testing purposes (but its graphics will be used in final version, or else it'd be a waste).
A short feature list you can see in the clip:
- A butterfly for eyecandy (tests sprite-sprite collision, sprite-gamearea collision)
- Two tile types which slide you left/right - like when you stand on a conveyor belt. You can see it on very first room.
- Rotating coins as collectible items - it disappears from game world, won't reappear again when you enter the same room again.
- Hidden passages.
- Jumper platforms which make you jump higher.

Hello Followers,

Another post, another mockup...

This time it is about a Forest/Cave scene, plus a cute statusbar.

Entering the cave

Here comes the statusbar as a separated image.

The statusbar

The first row shows the static elements of the bar. When the player has 0-3 lives it shows little heads. Later when the player gets extra lives it changes to a different display because there are no rooms for 4+ little leads.

Overhauling the Cloud theme

Hi again,

I found some talent somewhere again and I used that to overhaul the cloud theme because I weren't satisfied with the old one.

I tried to play with color scheme as well and made 3 variants of the same scene.

The night in the clouds

It snows!

A terrible weather

The snow and rain will be animated (well, at least, that's the plan).

New mockup about space theme

Hi there,

I just drawn a nice mockup about space level of AIT2. There are some guns (+ fire bullet), gravity lift, minor background elements.

Space level

In the festive time I thought about the title screen and I got these ideas so far:
- A nice big bitmap logo on top of screen
- Various textual contents will replace eachother: credits, toplist, etc.
- A "press fire to start" text.
As you see, there will be nothing fancy. Gray background, some texts and a nice logo. That's all.
- I don't upload title screen mockups yet, the logo is still missing...

The Time scrambing machine

After several weeks/months I finally back. I had to find motivation, a family loss happened, lots of work, etcetcetc...

I pixeled a nice time scrambling machine, dropped into a scene, put some sprites (from Adventures in Time) into the mockup and here's the result:

The time scrambling machine in action!

This new graphics eats lots of characters from the maximum 256 chars so perhaps I'll need to implement some kind of "banking", and replace some non-used graphics with the machine's tiles on the selected screen.