About problems with permission: Sure it would be nice to see the improved version too, but I think the most important part is to get "the original version" working.
Does anybody has some lawyer friend to ask about this "NoDerivatives" clause? I hope this thing could be solved somehow
I think it can be solved just asking the permission to Steve Hales, before putting a lawyer on the subject.
I'll see about that when the time comes.
May I ask, about the improved version, are you planning to make "old time" improved graphics, I mean giving more colour and graphic detail while loyally preserving the original look and style of Fort Apocalypse? I hope so!!
The idea behind the "improved" version is to have more detailed graphics while retaining the "old school" style. For example, the current version is based on the Atari XL/C64 version, which used a multi color graphic mode with 4x8 pixel chars (1 horizontal "block" pixel is always made of 2 pixel of the same color). Of course the MSX does not have that limitation (it has other ones), so I plan to create new graphics that take advantage of that.[/quote]
If you decide to/can make improved version too, you may not have to worry about the size of rom. The price of manufacturing a 64K or 128K cartridge is not a too big problem nowadays.
But sure I can understand if you want to keep "old style" rom size, in that point of view 16K or 24K (32K) game is a nice idea!
I don't know about that yet.
The first step is to have the original version working.
I was always hoping that this game could be converted to MSX using smooth scrolling, even there would be some colour clash "problems" here and there. The first colour clash would happen in first fuel depot, and shoot-able flashing bricks are the second ones, but maybe that would not be too big problem. You can ask help for smooth scrolling problems, there are many MSX gurus who can help you, but I do understand that you probably know what you are talking about.
The problem of a smooth pixel scrolling in this game is that the scrolling is multi-directional. The game background is made of about 30 different tiles. For a smooth multi-directional scrolling it means you would have to build charsets of 30^4=810.000 different tiles !! Even if you optimize the charset by removing impossible combinations it would still require thousands of different tiles, which is impossible to handle. So for the time being, I built a 1 char multi-directional scrolling.
However, I have not completely discarded the idea. When the game is completed, I'll make some researches about a 2px or 4px scrolling, to see if it's possible.
Just for curiousity, are you from the U.S.A.? I am just asking because of "SoCal Studio" name.
No, I'm from Belgium
The "
SoCal Studio" name comes from my early days in MSX. At the time I fantasized about cracking games (but never did) and made up a fancy name : "
Southern California Cracker" (I had a big case of the American Dream - I still have
). I kept the idea but changed one word ...
Please send some screenshot when it becomes possible, unless you want to keep this in secrecy until it´s published.
I will.
I'll try to post some screenshots and a video as soon as possible.
