Karoshi MSX Community

- Name of the project : Uridium
- Game size: 48K ROM / 16K RAM
- Game genre: side scrolling shooter
- Screenshots and/or other artwork of the game:link (http://www.trilobyte-msx.com/uridium/)
- In action video: link (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9xi5iobIHw&feature=youtu.be)
Name of the group: http://www.msx.org/wiki/Trilobyte (http://www.msx.org/wiki/Trilobyte) + Toni Galvez
Contact e-mail: none for now

Features: smooth horizontal scrolling (50/60 FPS) at any scrolling speed, multicolor graphic, up to 64 sprites on the screen. The game works on Toshiba vdp's with reduced scroll resolution.
The package includes a special out of contest release conceived for real HW and CRT monitors featuring 3 colors per sprite. If you want to see that version on emulators, set perfect vsync between msx and the monitor refresh. On bluemsx the best results are achieved with the option "blend consecutive frames".

NB: refer to files uploaded today 20/06/2014. We had a small fix on the intro music speed.





Look also at the dedicated uridium web page (http://www.trilobyte-msx.com/uridium/) ! Enjoy !

Quite challenging! I'm wishing to see the result with our loved MSX...!  :griel:

Technically impressive ::wow::

:) Thank you in advance! I hope John Hassink can make decent arrangements of title tune and sound effects from Commodore original. :) Sounds like every sprite is actually made from at least two sprites. :) Hope to see some screenshot to make waiting more easier/harder. ;)

Grande Arturo Grande...

It also has a brutal speed and soft smooth scroll moves.

Good luck.

Thanks Pepe! I was expecting some fuzz for not supporting Toshiba clones ;-) Maybe I was too pessimist  ;D
I would post an WIP rom with 6 levels and some enemies but I cannot attach files to my posts.

Is it possible to post here WIP roms (for public testing) ?

PS
In case, Toshiba crappy clones could have a stripped down version of the game with choppy scrolling (x4 steps, neither that bad in the end).
PPS
Organizers, Jon, has the Toshiba version to fit in the same rom of the TMS version ? Can be posted two versions of the game roms?

I was sure I replied a min ago, but still can't see the message around  ???

I was saying... I'm not happy that I can't play the game on any of my 20P's, but anyway if the game itself is good then I'll pretend is like an MSX2 game and then I'll play it happily on my MSX2's  :)

Just in case, would you like to test the Toshiba version ?
I used meisei for this, but tests on real HW are safer.
BTW the quoted post was by Pepe Vila, (I've confused the nicknames).  

I'll be happy to help.  :police:

mail sent with the two versions

Do you want some fuzz? :D Of course it made me sad to read smooth scrolling colourful Uridium will be programmed for MSX and then it´s said that I can´t play Uridium on my Toshiba HX-10. :-\ But I didn´t want to write anything about it, as I was happy to get a chance to play it on some other MSX. Things are a bit different nowadays, one doesn´t need to stick to "just" one MSX like in the eighties. :)

That sounds better, I will appreciate that :) but sure, it´s sad Toshiba cannot run smooth Uridium. After the contest is over, could it be possible to make "double rom" version which has normal and Toshiba versions in the same .rom?

If you can send the files for me too, I would be happy to to check how it works on my Toshiba.

Seems to me another serious candidate to contest winner.

Got it!

Can't wait to see the final version, this promises to be technically very impressive! 

wip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OORh4n-gp54&feature=youtube_gdata&autoplay=1&rel=0&showsearch=0&showinfo=0&fmt=18&fs=1

Youtube videos are bit hard to judge, but scrolling looks good and there are more colour than in Spectrum version. :)

I hope you could add mothership too, from Commodore 64 version. It´s possible, at least when you use tiles too among sprites. Easy way could be to use only tiles and make mothership move fast, so 8 pixel movement won´t look too bad. Or use sprites to make mothership appear smoothly and use tiles when fighter comes visible plus one or two sprites so it looks like fighter comes from inside the mothership and then tile mothership can escape fast, 8 pixel movement. Sure, game works well even without the mothership, but the mothership belongs to those nice little touches which made Commodore 64 games look better than other conversions. Now MSX could have same what Commodore 64 had.

I see, I will try to add mothership (in tiles)
this demo maybe gives a better idea of the scrolling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9r1LqJcJUI

Fantastical.

Thank you! I watched your second video and enjoyed it a lot! I had to check Commodore 64 video after that just to see how much more colour it had. I must say that I am sorry, I remembered mothership came to the screen before dropping out the fighter, that´s why I asked the arrival of the mothership. So it appeared that the mothership is just sitting there when game starts and then runs away fast, so it´s easy to do, if memory allows that. :)

Thank you a lot already, artrag, toni and john, for the code, graphics and music/sound! :) I like that "loading screen", it has less colour than on Commodore 64, but it looks like what this game could have looked like at it´s best in the eighties. :) Uridium logo looks really cool! And thank you john, for the really decent psg arrangement of the well-known title tune. :) I am sorry for complaining about this, but  I would appreciate it, if you just could have some time to make samelike enemy ship explosion sound what Commodore 64 had. :) It´s doable on MSX too and MSX conversion could then sound like Commodore original! :) As it´s not the eighties anymore, this time we have capable musician, you! :) And thank you for coding all this artrag, to make this possible! :) Thank you!!

As there could be max 64 sprites, I guess monochrome enemies will be turned to multicolour too? :) Also, will there be that cool looking star destroyer destruction sequence, as it gets ripped apart at the end of the stage? I hope you can do it! :) (another sound effect to do for the john too!) And what about that different coloured sky for each new stage? :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRiYqM4yJ2o

It's looking better and better !

there was just one problem... That mothership in Commodore 64 original doesn´t have as many colours as mothership in MSX conversion. But I don´t mind that at all..  :D Thank you!

I'm starting to think it is better to stop posting previews ...
:)

Yeah, people may get too excited about this great conversion!   :) No, please keep posting, it´s nice to see how it´s going on. :) Keep up the good work! :)

http://www.remix64.com/track/jason-and-emma-page/uridium-oneforthebossmix/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YukREHUrsJY

 :o :o :o :o :o :o

Its like... it doesn't appear to be... i have no words!

 https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113965918171158552513/albums/6023348648317601425/6023348642693242226  (https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113965918171158552513/albums/6023348648317601425/6023348642693242226)

The packaging design si EXCELLENT.... I love it
The stuff I dont like its the plastic case for the cartridge... the other stuff is superb, really :D

The ingame video its  really impressive too.  Hope you finish the game in time!

Makinavaja

final version online
 ;D

Jon we can close thid entry

i tried on Mess emulator, it falls on basic, showing "Syntax error in 0" - i really wonder the reason of that... - on OpenMSX it seems to run fine (but i actually can't play it, i can’t run Catapult for disabling the joystick, or to disable it on Linux, it is always forcing the move to the up-right direction, making it impossible to play)

btw, is this situation at Mess emulator related to memory paging system? which one is being used?

Sorry, I dropped Mess long time ago, as it is by far inaccurate and incomplete for msx.
Under Linux openmsx works perfectly, use that.
Catapult works there too, just run  it from commandline

i have to enter "unplug joyporta" in the OpenMSX console - now i can play it fine! :)

and yes, it's a great Uridium remake (perhaps far better playable than the ZX-Spectrum version), and the 5th sprite flickering trick seems great (i never knew how to do that and how it works, even from those Daniel Bienvenu tutorials! :D )

about Catapult, or it is not on the Debian/Ubuntu repositories anymore, or it is now having library incompatibility errors, or having segmentation fault errors (i don’t know exactly which ones are), i think Bifi tried to help me to install via irc, compiling sources and everything, and that was a huge headache, specially considering that i was very dependent of the neatness of Catapult for running OpenMSX (for example, using Catapult was how i used to try V9990 emulation, and without that i'm struggling hugely about adding V9990 support on Boriel’s ZX-Basic Compiler - i only have the libraries started, in "theory", i never could try if they work or not... :S )

Fantastic port! I always wanted to have an MSX version of Uridium, since I played it a lot at my neighbour's back in the eighties. It's here at last and I like it very much. That smooth scroll is really sweet! :)

Nice gfx and intro music (great cover!). The sprite flicker routine maybe should include the player's spaceship, because sometimes it's hard to see enemies'shots.

About the Toshiba's vdp issue... is there any way to detect it by software?... I think it would be cleaner to select the version automatically instead of forcing the player to do it.

Regarding adding an ingame music (and using PSG+FM) at the cartridge edition, I only agree to do it if the game doesn't loose softness ;)

I have no idea on how autodetect the toshiba chip. AFIK all the difference is in the way VRAM data are rendered, so no detectable effect is present. You just see another thing....
Not having a real Toshiba vdp, I have no means to do experiments, but if you have any clue and a way to do tests on real HW, it will a pleasure for me to implement a detection routine.

About the FM music, the game has plenty of free CPU time, at least at easy level.
At normal level there are some peaks of CPU load according to the number of enemies and bullets on the screen, but I can optimize many things and I am confident we could find the way.

Only considers that now the meta-tiles for ground obstacles and ground destructible targets are not ordered: the code uses a bunch of cpi in order to spot background collisions for the manta and manta's bullets.
Ordering meta-tiles, all that stuff would be replaced by a couple of CP X.

I neither have an MSX with a real Toshiba vdp. About how to autodetect it... do they have also issues with sprite flags??... maybe it could be a way to detect them.

Glad to hear that  :)