itch.io

Hi!

Did you know that there is a disease that I didn't make up called leporiphobia/logophobia?

I like these crazy ideas, but I feel a little bit lacking because of the lack of innocent victims... could it be Santa's elves, who can easily be mistaken for rabbits because of their long ears?

Would it be possible to access the original (24bit) background animation? With respect, but I have the feeling that more detail could be brought out.

The NOT A CAVE level is a single continuous full-screen animation. I can't do anything about the "bottleneck", I can only speed it up at the expense of quality. You can find the (try/solution=)result of this attempt in the CD32_Real version. It only differs from the normal version in the quality (=bitrate?) of the animation. VHS quality...not pretty and I wouldn't say much faster either. What would speed it up is a well-timed machine code, but I'm not good at that.

But I have a tip against freezing, which I hope will help. It is not related to the previous fix and not a specific NOT A CAVE level problem.... but since more data is being loaded(processed) in this scene, the error probably occurs more easily. Essentially, I think it happens simply because chip is running out and I didn't check this when loading the speech at the beginning/end of the level (since the problem didn't occur before). This could also be the reason for the black flickering (corrupted display, ect...)... I probably loaded the sound data into an already used memory address+area. So... to avoid freezing, if there is not enough chip RAM, this sound operation is skipped.

New patch is uploaded.

Thank You, donation not needed, but appreciated.

Please try the patch.

Saving the volume works and I tried centering every screen.

:/ I tried to fix it quite purposefully. I don't understand why, but of course I'll watch it again and then adjust the offset if I can (as I see it, unfortunately my emulator doesn't display it that way for me either, and my TV distorts it.) Unfortunately, I'm open for other ideas/solutions but also feel forced to stream the audio from a separate file (if you do not have enough fast ram). The reason for this is that on slower machines, the sound would also be choppy along with the image, and that's quite annoying. I don't jump within a file because it would take more time to position back and forth, and the amos anim handler ignores the audio chunks. This way, I can even switch on the fly, and the file is easily replaceable to any other audio sample.

Hi Torti!

I've uploaded the fix. Feel free to try it out. 

The cutscenes really didn't have sound (my fault). Now they do.

The volume (Music+Sfx) is now saved ...in theory. That's all I can do for 8-bit audio... if I don't want any loss in sample quality.

I'm constantly struggling with "glitches". I don't really understand why they occur either, since I completely clear every frame due to the background animation.

I don't really understand the positioning of the shifted screen though. There are three different versions. All three versions center the screen in the same position for both the game and the cutscreens.
Visually, only the rotate version is different for me, because for technical reasons I can't crop the right side of the image at such an angle and size that it aligns with the left side, so it might look bigger and shift to the right?! Is this the problem?

Sövény Imre

Hello.

I made an attempt to make the game playable on real HW. 

CD32_Real.ISO

With a new technique, I managed to lower the quality of the animation to a level that I hope is still acceptable, but also faster because of that.

Dear player!

The game freezes in the menu for a longer time (not permanently) because the CD32 reading speed is 300KB/Sec. If you have a sufficiently large Fast Ram, it will preload the actual music into the Ram in advance so that it does not have to be read in parallel with the animation. Since the menu music size is 6.3MB, this all takes time. 

So, answering your other suggestion, the game uses Fast Ram if it is available, but I cannot speed up the CD reading speed. If I want the game to be faster and not load while playing, I have to wait for the music to load at the beginning. These qualities go hand in hand. If there is no Fast Ram, there is no loading time at the beginning but the game is visibly slower because it loads everything on the fly from CD (both anim+audio)!

As we have already written in several places (including below), the CD32 disk image was created mainly to make things easier for emulator users.

Hello.

I can say that under emulator with Rom 3.2.2, despite the slower ECS chip, a 50mhz 68000 can ran the game at an acceptable speed. The language in which it is written does not contain any HW specific things. There were no problems with any of the factory or well-known ROMs I tried (1.3-3.22, Aros, Coffin).
Besides... the devil can hide in small places... unfortunately I don't have the hardware you mentioned to try it.
If it's about the game, you don't have to buy it... it's FREE to download.

If there is fast ram in the machine, the game is currently using it! These things don't work in such a way that if I have fast ram, I use it for anything.  On the one hand, the sounds and the images to be displayed must be stored in the chip RAM, in this case it makes no sense to copy these things in and out of the fast RAM. On the other hand, Amos also uses RAM for things that are not a matter of choice on my part, and believe it or not, this 512 chip limit can be reached very quickly, so the need for 1mb of chipram comes from this, and yes, it can be quite annoying if it is only a few kilobytes, but there is no way to cut it down! I would also like our ideas to fit in 512Kb chipram, but this is not possible without sacrifices. Despite all this, I dealt with the request and as an intermediate solution I shortened the game by a couple of sounds, so now it starts with 512c+512f config.I don't consider it an "update", but now it works. You are welcome.

Hi! That's why I chose the player in two. In one case, the target would be the movie type, so I fix it to 25fps and it's also faster because it doesn't pay attention to anything other than decoding (not the palette). The "proper" version is slower but it handles changes (palette, sounds, fps...etc). If there is a delay between successive frames in the animation file (because without it it would just spin all the way through and that's it), then in principle the player uses it. Changing the palette also works, but it is problematic. The problem is that the palette is not done simultaneously with the decoding of the images. Unfortunately, there are two separate commands for this purpose in AMOS and both of them appear as immediate results, so either the image appears with a wrong palette and then the palette is updated, or the palette changes first and then the image. Regarding the sound, if it is integrated with the animation, you need so much more RAM. the audio rate/volume/ect is handled but I did not care to handle stereo files, sorry. if we load it from a separate file, could be streamed from hdd, it saves ram. In that case the audio limit is: mono 8bit max 22khz, basicly it is one audio chanel since I don't have the resources for mixing real time. I'll just send it out to an audio channel. Since animation editors sometimes use unique descriptors (chunks) within the file, playback problems may occur. If I have the appropriate description, I can incorporate what the development environment allows. The description is what I usually miss... or I can't find it. I am willing to continue modifying/experimenting with the player, but in this case it would be advisable to experiment with the animation in which the problem occurs.

(EHB) Extra Half Bright=64 colors.

It would require a very fast HDD and in the absence of other HW that we could test it on, so I can say that it will definitely run on Vampire. You can find it under the name StarDustWarsVampire, but before download...."Look at The Size of That!" :)

I know about the frame drops. Unfortunately, unnecessary operations also run that it would be good to skip or run in a different order. I consider this a disadvantage of programs coded in basic. It's easy, but it has its drawbacks... and we work with what we know and what we have.

Thanks for the info. Which version are we talking about? Just to clarify.... the previous 16 color version or the newer 64 color version? The firs one I think.

Based on my experiences with AMOS programs, what can cause freezing is either custom ROMs (unfortunately sometimes even AROS) and the libraries used alongside them. If you have a factory ROM, the problem is not with that, nor with your HW config. 3.2 also works for me. What the game needs is 1 MB CHIPRAM (FREE!). If you have this, then in the absence of more information, my guess is that it could be the mathtrans.library used by the program.

If you started from HDD, there may be a problem with your library, but it is also possible that the one I attached does not match your system.

Try replace the library.

AMOS... on which this game was developed contains a bug...or limitation. The problem is that in the case of anim files, I cannot display frames whose data size (ANIM DLTA chunk) exceeds 32kb. This limit almost been crossed by the current game... In the case of AGA with 256 colors, we are talking about twice this, even with the same image size! I have already tried to solve the problem by manipulating the original AMOS source code, but unfortunately I was not successful.

And another problem... AGA support also available in unofficielal AMOS version only ...or as  an extension. :/

Hi! I don't know, because there are several extensions (could be used) in it and I can't identify it based on that. But I have uploaded the source code in ASCII format, which can help You identify the command and thus the required extension as well.

I didn't think the details mattered so much. Personally, I think the first solution is better, but since I didn't do it to myself and I've heard this objection from several places, I recoded this part. Try it now. ;)

It's hard to set the difficulty level... we don't know who the majority of downloaders will be. But we'll take that into account next time.
The appearance of the pumpkin heads was a bug we didn't pay attention to, but it has now been fixed.

Your controller is our first victim :)
You know that you can also use the arrow keys?

Continuous how?
Yes,different in many things because this is a Pumpkin.

Interesting. The problem do not occure at my side (even without fastram), but I modified something. Try now.

You are right. Last time I modified the part that handeling the path ...and I did not checked these sides. Sorry. Fixed.

Done.

I do not own one. But our other projects are not so different and I saw a few on A500 mini, so it should work.

Done.

I'm sorry for the end, even though in the current testing, no error occurred at the end. :( Would You let me know what could have caused it if You have any specific error message or something? If there is any closer clue, I would be happy to know.

Also, thanks for the videos, I was able to filter out a couple of mistakes from it (e.g. the eyeballs shouldn't move, but it still happened ) And although it wasn't a mistake, Olívia won't attack mice from now on. And the rain at the end, you turned it off when you went back to the portal, even though that shouldn't have happened.

Sonic Mania :) Sadly not enough colours left for the rotation.

PS: Bombs coud damage those precious eggs... can I suggest bear traps? :)

Adf version does not even use ram for music so it needs less. I tried with 2mb chip only and all 4 map worked... But i had to wait a few secs after swap, even  on winuae.

Ohhh.... at start, AMOS opens a screen  by default, but   on the same system, HDD and CD is OK, but it is different when I start from ADF?!
Same EXE but missing  the lower part of screen!?
"One of life's greatest mysteries."

I did somnething what I hope will work. Try now.

It's strange, but I don't have an A500 mini, so I can't test it. If it helps... I uploaded an ADF that doesn't test the RAM.

...For the greater good :)

I just saw it. Sorry. I'm glad it's running, but except for the music and the intro animations, the contents of the ZIP and ADFs are practically the same. If these files are there, then there is music and intro, if they are not, then the game is silent.

The answer to this is yes and no. The base is the Tome, but it has limitations. On the one hand, it only handles byte values, which is not yet a problem, but narrows down the possibilities. Another limitation is that the editor assigns the same value to each tile, so I cannot manage multiple events for the same tile. The game uses only two layers. The first layer (standard TOME MAP) displays the Tiles. The other (not standard VAL) layer handles figures, walls, animations and basically all other events present in the map.

The twist in useage is that I work with TOME, but I use Turbo Scene for draw tiles, because it's faster, and I use the tome map command to query the value map. So I don't use TOME for what it was designed for... but it serves the purpose.

You can believe that if there weren't enough reasons for it, then it wouldn't need the chipram. But even if it could fit into 1 megabyte, the owners of 2 megabytes would hiss that it's a shame the game don't use it, even though there's an extra megabyte?

I wanted to include as many graphics as possible and unfortunately, this is the consequence.

I don't want to publish my email address, but you can find me on the EAB forum under the name "sovenyimre", you can also send me messages there.

I  will answer any questions.

I still do not know, butI replaced the file with a new one that contains the source in asci format. Maybe that coud help to identify.

By default, I can't put a blitter object on top of an iff animation, because AMOS automatically updates the surface underneath to a previous state when the blitter object is moved.

That's why so far I could only move sprites over it, because it didn't spoil it, but in that way I could move one "large" sprite over it.

In the new upload, however, there are several large blitter objects above it. It's slow, but worth a try.

23 extensions loaded....but tome, amcaf, turbo, craft what i think i use the most. which line is it?