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Hy jotd666, thanks for the new v1.2.1 and your work. Of course, I tested it at once, because I really like Donkey Kong. Sadly, some of the bugs are still there, like for example the problem with the floppy LED, that don't stopp shining. While in your v1.2.0, this problem was fixed at least when the US level-set was loaded and only the japanese level-set was affected, in this new v1.2.1, the floppy-LED (and I guess also the floppy-motor) stays on, for each of the two level-sets. You can also see this, when using an emulator, like for example Denise or WinUAE and the behaviour is the same on a real Amiga with a real floppy.

And there's another problem, that I had mentioned three months ago, further up on that website here, which sadly is still there, in v1.2.1 and it's this (I copied my old explanation inside here): "At the moment, the japanese level-order is only correct on the first cycle of the four levels. On the second cycle of the levels, after level2, it suddenly goes back to level1, instead of level3. So something doesn't seem quite right here, because it should always be the order lv1, 2, 3, 4, which then repeats endlessly, in exact that order". Seems like, another version is necessary, to have an error-free version.

And I have a question. Was it technically possible for you, to combine the speed advantages of versions 1.0 (faster barrels in first level, when many of them are on the screen, at the same time) and version 1.1 (more speed on conveyor-belts in the second level) in this new v1.2.1 now? 

I’ve only played it twice so far, but that’s certainly how it looks. The speed on the conveyor-belt in level2 seems to be higher now, though I did notice the large Donkey Kong sprite at the top flashing occasionally, in that moments, is this possible? Still, I’d rather have the increased conveyor-belt speed, when I had to choose, because when that Donkey sprite flashes some times, it's easier to cope with, than dealing with gameplay slowdowns (but perhaps, it was just coincidence, that the Donkey sprite blinked a few times, at that exact moment?). The barrels in level1 also seem to move through, quite quickly now, even when there are a lot of them at once. Perhaps you could briefly answer this question, if now both speed-advantages of v1.0 and v1.1 could be combined? Thanks.

Today two friends and I played your game for about an hour and we enjoyed it. Nice work. However, we did have a few suggestions for improvement, that I wanted to mention. Maybe you are interested to hear?

(1) the player can turn off the music in the game, which we did, because we wanted to concentrate on the gameplay. But strangely, when music is turned off, also no soundeffects could be heard, which however, we would actually have expected, because in alot other C64 games, it's handled in a way, that, either SFX or music can be selected. But "Hot Shot Pool" sadly has no SFX at all so far, it seems and this is a bit strange while playing, when you hit the ball and when it strikes other balls and you hear absolutely nothing. It feels unnatural. SFX would create a much better atmosphere while playing, maybe you could add some?

(2) the power-meter fills up very quickly. All three of us felt, this is too fast, making it difficult, to precisely control the power, used to hit a ball, in certain game situations. 

(3) that aiming-line, shown when hitting the ball, isn't bad, but a perfectly straight line, would sometimes be more helpful, for judging exactly, where the played ball will strike next and how other balls will likely bounce off then. Would it be possible, to add a new funtion in the "options" menu of the game, to switch between that current aiming-line and a perfectly straight line? That way, players could choose, which type of aiming-line they prefer to use and I guess, that alot players will also choose a straight line here.

Besides that, it's already a good game, that makes fun. This isn't meant as criticism, just suggestions for improvement, since we’ve played a lot of pool games, especially on the Amiga-500 back then. But there are also a few good ones on the C64. Cheers.

Of course I know "Pinball Dreams" and I had nearly all known Amiga500 pinball-games on disk, back then in the 90's (also "Pinball Fantasies" and "Obsession" and so on). They are all good, but "Slam Tilt" is the best of them all, if you ask me. There aren't many AGA games that interested me back then (I never owned an A1200, either), and the vast majority of my favorite Amiga-games are ECS/OCS titles, but "Bubble Heroes" and "Slam Tilt" I really like alot and they are only available on AGA, sadly. Anyway, let's get back to the nice Adrian C64-game, before we keep drifting off-topic more and more.  :-)

Just to clarify, though, I’m not the programmer behind the Denise emulator, that’s PiCiJi. But I did contribute to some of its features (mainly regarding ideas and really alot of testing) and I was in permanent contact with the programmer via PM for years. Since some of my ideas are incorporated into the emulator, I’m naturally very familiar with it and those mentioned, unofficial manuals for example, are my work too.

Feel free to do that, ntpr and mention Denise as well, on your website of the game. I am absolutely certain, that PiCiJi won't have any objections to that after all. Why would he, it’s a good thing. And by the way, HOXS could also be mentioned, as it plays in the same league of compatibility as Denise and VICE and I also know David Horrocks, its programmer. Just like in the Denise emulator, HOXS also allows the user, to freely configure the controller-buttons and map keyboard-keys to them, for example. Therefore this emulator, just like Denise, is also highly recommended for gaming. In this mapping-keys regard, VICE still lags somewhat behind the other two emulators, but on the other hand, it can emulate a wide variety of hardware.

I don't know one single C64 game (and there are thousands), that don't work perfectly in these mentioned three emulators, so you could confidently recommend them all, for playing your games, ntpr. 

Great game in the oldschool style. If you like Pengo (Petch), you will like this game too. Nice work.

Yes I know and I hope, that Amiga-AGA will also come in the future (mostly because of the two games "Slam Tilt" and "Bubble Heroes"). Because of your group - so far, I haven't even signed up for Facebook, because I never needed to. But this would be necessary then, in this case. I'll have to think about whether to do it, therefore.

No problem, I hope that they can also help "ntpr"? And I just saw now, that I had written, the unofficial short-manuals could be found on the Denise homepage, under the menu-point named "MISC" there. But in reality, this menue has the name "WIKI"  :-) And yes, Adrian is really a great game, just like its predecessor Crystian.

Nice, good work!

I think about it.

Well, the functions of the two systems aren't exactly mixed together in Denise. There are two main-menus named "C64" and "Amiga," with the respective sub-menus for each system located underneath them. Incidentally, you can also disable one of the two systems (emulation cores) in Denise, if you don't want to have it visible. To do this, go to "Options/Settings" and then navigate to "Core Selection" and disable that system, you don't want to have, then it's menus won't appear anymore.

Therefore, you can also set it up in a way, that you have two seperate instances of Denise on your PC. One emulator instance running as a C64 emulator then and the other as an Amiga emulator. Additionally, you can detach one of these two instances from automatic-updates, for example, the Amiga instance via "Amiga/Configurations" and then "Undock". This then allows you, to configure both of these instances independently and differently, as undocking causes that instance's settings-files, to be copied directly into its own folder on your PC, while the setting.files of the other instance remain under "Admin/AppDate/Roaming/Denise". When you then eventually update that version sometime, you can simply copy those setting-files over to the new version's folder, manually.

Really alot of things are possible in Denise. You should also read the unofficial short-manuals, in the MISC section of the Denise Sourceforge website. There are good tips to some functions. But okay, this website here, is about the Adrian C64-game, therefore, back to it. :-)

Denise performs better in the VICE testbench than VICE itself and is on first place there. Therefore it would almost be something of a miracle, if any game failed to run perfectly in Denise.

And I say thanks too, for this second video! Good to see, that I am not the only one, that had problems in this sixth level. *lol* And now I know, what mistake I made, all the time, in this level. I started with the movements by the blocks below, but the solution is, to start with the block on the top. Besides, I always approached that sideways move, where you first move a block out of the way and then push it back, in a slightly different way. In the end, I ran out of available moves then.

It’s a great puzzle game and by the way, if you’re planning another puzzler as your next project, Reanth Soft, the C64 is still missing a good Dr. Mario variant, that supports head-to-head play, against another human. That would also be cool.

Good puzzle game, nice work. The first few levels were no problem for me, but unfortunately, I’m stuck on Level 6. I spent over an hour yesterday, trying to get past it, without success so far. I always get tripped, because I’d need to move two steps further with the last block, than is actually possible. *lol* Today I noticed, that there’s a video of the gameplay here and watched it, but sadly it only goes up to the end of Level 5, haha. But okay, I’ll give Level 6 another shot this weekend.

Hy, thanks for answering. Ah okay, I didn't knew, that a big part of your game needs to be rewritten, that it works, to use the Oscar64 compiler. If so, than I can understand, that it's a problem. But sounds good, that you maybe will have a look at the game again, in the future. I think it's a good Pac-Man like game with nice additions in the gameplay (like the shooting for example), therefore the game would be worth it. Best regards.

In my eyes, this is the best SEUCK game ever, on the C64. With all these enhancements, offered by the Redux SEUCK engine, it doesn't even feel like SEUCK to me anymore. It’s a really good shooter. Unfortunately, the third part of the "Zap Fight" series can't keep up with this Special Edition of the second part here. Maybe someday a good fourth part will come out?

Any news here, when it comes to the point to speed up the gameplay a bit, by using this "Oscar64" compiler. In my eyes, Donutsman is a good game it only suffers from slow gameplay a bit and if this could be improved, it would enhance the entire game, and the gameplay would  be alot smoother.

Great game with a really interesting gameplay concept, especially regarding the player-sprite's abilities, such as the paths the snake can and cannot take. And I also like the gfx. Well executed.

The new V1.1 adf gives a nice speed-boost on 7MHz Amiga500 machines, when comparing it to the V1.0. Good work jotd666. The fact that the game now skips every second frame (25fps mode) is actually not a real problem in a game like this. It's noticeable, but not a real problem for the player. This skip-every-second-frame mode is roughly equivalent to skipping 5 out of 10 frames in the M.A.M.E. emulator for example. The game still don't run in real fullspeed, when comparing it to, how "Galaga500" runs on an A1200, but it's clearly faster than v1.0 and that's nice.

It would also be interesting to see, how playable the game remains, with an even higher frameskip setting, say, skipping 6 frames out of 10, or 7 frames out of 10 (or, if that's technically not possible, a constant 16,67fps mode, which would be "skip 2 out of 3 frames"). Just to see, how it handles, since that should provide another speed-boost. In scrolling games of course, that sort of thing is disastrous and such games become nearly unplayable, due to severe stuttering. But for a game like "Galaga", it might be worth testing. Worst-case scenario could only be, that the result is, that it’s no longer playable, but perhaps it might still work?

Thanks for the info. Then I was right, to go with the standard version. I have an original PAL Mega-Drive and a PAL Mega-Drive 2 console. The DMA-version is presumably only for clone consoles.

Is the full game out in the meantime and available as downloadable digital version somewhere?

Short answer would have been nice, because I am not sure, which version to use, but okay, I'll just take the regular one, not the DMA-safe version.

Many users I know, are still playing on a real C64 these days, but no longer with a 1541-floppy (because real 5.25" disks are hard to come by and also expensive, if you do find them somewhere). Almost everyone I know, uses hardware like the SD2IEC, the Turbo Chameleon or the 1541Ultimate with their real C64s. On some of these hardware, also cartridges can be used, but sadly not everywhere (e.g. on SD2IEC, which is very widespread, because it offers a very good price-performance ratio). Disk-versions however, can be used everywhere, also on SD2IEC (not all fastloaders, but some like e.g. "G.I. Joe" and "Sam's Journey" fastloaders will work) and also all kernal loaders are working there. Sadly the loaders that the preview uses so far, are not compatible.

Great little game with lovely graphics, good gameplay concept (collect items, to jump higher and reach paths, that are otherwise inaccessible) and really cute sprites. I enjoyed playing it. The only problem was, that I finished it in 15 minutes, because it's very easy. The same game again, with much larger levels and some more difficult opponents, would be a great idea for a sequel, "Duckling Rescue 2".

Okay, I understand and up to a point, it’s also understandable. Well, let’s wait and see. Assuming, it doesn’t fall through, due to technical problems (like for example the C64 version of "Prince of Persia" does, where a diskversion simply isn't technically feasible), then perhaps we’ll eventually see a cracked version of the game sometime, that runs from diskimages? It would certainly be useful, e.g. for users of SD2IEC hardware and the like. Cartridges are superfast in loading and you can fit a lot on it, but sadly they don’t work on every setup. We will see. Definitely a great game and good work.

Wow, really great new game. Very nice graphics, combined with good music and great playability (good jumping-mechanics for the playable character and great animations etc.). I read here, that it's 'only' a preview at the moment, therefore I hope, the game will be completely finished and perhaps it’s worth reconsidering, whether a diskversion of the full game might be released after all, because it would be a bit sad, if it only came out on cartridge.

Thanks for releasing the update and yes, I like the changes. It's much better now, because the ball don't come from the center-line anmore, when a point was made. Looking forward to these other improvements, you mentioned. 

Maybe it could be implemented in one of two ways:

(1) The specific section you are currently on, could blink back and forth between its normal color and black,, so that it should remains clear, where on the cube you are located.  Black could be used here, because it's not one of the cube's standard colors.

Or (2) only the outline of the section you are currently on, could be displayed in black (instead of the normal blue). Even that alone, should actually be sufficient, to make it visible to the player, where on the cube he is currently located.

Perhaps one of these two approaches could be implemented somehow? Unfortunately, I am not a programmer myself, so I cannot say exactly what's technically feasible and what's not. But I do think, that at least one of the two, should technically be possible.

Not bad and interesting idea, but this game needs a joystick control additionally, for rotating the cube. Besides that, I like the idea, to bring the Rubiks-cube to the C64. One could, for example, combine the joysticks four directional keys with the firebutton and since the steering directions could then always be mapped to the cube's rotation directions, it would naturally be more intuitive, than keyboard controls and likely easier to remember.

One could have a controllable cursor e.g., directly on the cube (a small blinking sign), that the player can move back and forth, through all the single visible parts on the cube, by using the joystick's four directions. Then, depending on, where the player has positioned this cursor on the cube, the user could then rotate that specific section of the cube, by holding down the firebutton and moving in one of the four directions. Then, the player could release the firebutton again, place the cursor somewhere else on the cube and then rotate this part of the cube, and so on and so on.  Of course, just a suggestion  :-)

A good variant of Pong, nice work so far. There's just one thing, I don't really like and it's this - whenever the player or the CPU-player scores a point, a new ball suddenly shoots in, from the center-line immediately afterward and sometimes it's nearly impossible to catch this ball. It would be better if, after a point is scored, the ball always originated from the backline-side of that player, whose backline it had just crossed (i.e. the player who didn't just score).

That way, you would always have enough time to catch this first ball. At the moment, the ball comes flying in, from the center-line rather than the backline and sometimes the reaction window is too short, to respond quickly enough. Otherwise, I like the game. Support for real paddle-controllers would also be a cool addition, by the way. At the moment, it looks like only joysticks/gamepads are supported.

Great game with nice gameplay. One question. Does this DMA-safe version of the game, have any disadvantages, compared to the standard version? I assume it does, because if not, then there would be no need for the standard version anymore, if the DMA-safe version runs without issues on all Mega-Drive models while the standard version doesn't. Can you, therefore, say something about the differences?

Cool, nice game. By the way, your newly released games are working on alot of retro-systems, but they are only shown here as "for Windows and for Linux" (I understand, you mean because of the emulators that one has there), but I can also imagine, that some users of these retro-systems could get the impression, that these games are only for PC and because of this, then even don't look inside of the site of each of these single games here, on itch.io. 

Maybe also all these retrosystems, on which your games work on, should directly be shown, besides the game-name, on the general website here, where all new games can be seen (if it's technically possible, to show more than two systems? I don't know, but it could make sense).

Yes, the v1.1 is a bit faster on A500 machines. Good work. While you don't quite get fullspeed, like you would on an A1200, the game is at least playable on 7MHz Amigas.

Indeed, that's exactly what I had in mind, when making this suggestion, a mix of Snake/Worm and Tron elements.

Nice Worms/Snake clone with good and precise control for the player-sprite (which is important in that kind of games). Good job! Do you have any plans, to expand the game further, perhaps by adding a simultaneous two-player mode, or something similar? Regards.

Sounds great, looking forward to this new game!

Very nice. I tried the new version in WinUAE and in Denise emulator and also on my Amiga600 (2MB Chipram + no Slowram) and also on my Minimig without Slowram. It worked everywhere without a problem now and so far, I haven't been able, to make it crash anymore, no matter what configuration I set in the Minimig menue. Good work, thanks for the update.

Hy. Any news on a version of the game, that no longer relies on Slowram?

That sounds good, thanks. By the way, I have a Minimig in my parents house (sadly have not used it around two years because of time-problems, but I will change this again soon) and I completely forgot, that the Minimig can be set to Turbo Mode (about 48MHz) in the Minimig-menu. I must try this out, in such of your ported games, that are a bit to slow on Amiga500 machines (like for example "Track & Field"), because I can imagine, that the slowdowns will then be gone, when they run in this Turbo Mode.

And this mode also doesn't mean, that everything runs to fast then (that happens only in a handful of games, mostly vector-based ones), the vast majority of gamesjust hold their normal game-speeds, when the Minimig runs in Turbo Mode, just things like slowdowns in some games (like for example in the Amiga game "R-Type 2", when alot enemies are on the screen at the same time) are completely gone then and such games hold their normal fullspeed to 100% then, in such moments. This thing could especially be very interesting for your ported games, such as Galaga500, Phoenix500, Pooyan etc. I must try this out.

@jotd666, I want to ask one thing more. First of all, I want to say, that I really like your "Donkey Kong" version, otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time on it. Really a good game. The new question is this - currently the game's highscore is only saved, when the player exits the game by pressing the ESC key before. If the player forget to do this, as recently happened to me, right after I had set a new highscore, then this new highscore is not saved in the scorelist, sadly.

Most other Amiga games save directly to their highscore list, immediately after a match and it's not necessary, to leave these game with ESC key before, because it's also easy, to forget this and then the score is always gone. Maybe it would be good, if the player didn't has to do this ESC thing at all. Would it actually be possible, to change the score-saving behaviour to someting like direct saving, here in "Donkey Kong 500"?

Nice, that you've hidden the loading commands now, it looks more professional than before now. I thought about, what you had written about the fastloader-thing and it's understandable. By the way, I tried the game with a speeder-kernel, to see, if the reloading-process in this case, is also accelerated then and it luckily is. This also works with fastloader-cartridges like the FC3 or the AR6 etc. That's good. If a AR6 is used, the load-commands are visible again, I found out, because the AR6 changes the BASIC color for text into white, which is probably the reason for that.But that's tolerable.

By the way, I've also noticed, that unpacking the reloaded parts takes quite a while. Are they packed with "Exomizer"? This packer has a very good compression-rate, so it makes the programs very small, but it takes a relatively long time, to unpack them. If you pack with "NuCrunch", for example, unpacking only takes about half the time and the files aren't much larger. But it must be tried out, to see, if the whole loading and unpacking process is shorter with "NuCrunch" or with "Exomizer" here in these cases. It could be worth a try. But it's always difficult to predict exactly, without testing it. If you always load the game with a speeder-kernel or a fastloader-cartridge, the unpacking-time naturally plays a much bigger role, since the reloading-process itself, is relatively fast, regardless of the filesize. Without a fastloader, the situation is quite different, as the filesize then becomes a much more significant factor, because loading a larger file then naturally takes noticeably longer and the unpacking-process is then only a small part, in terms of time.