Speedball 2

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danboid
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Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 12:14 am

Speedball 2

Post by danboid »

One of my fave games for the Amiga and Atari ST and no doubt one of yours, if you played it, was and still is Speedball 2.

Someone known as Kroah RE'd it from the ST version, remade it in C# and released the source code some time ago. I've got this remake to build fine under Linux using the mono libraries.

http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/Speedball2/remake.php5

Of course, there is no C# compiler or mono libraries for the UB so it would at least require a rewrite to port it but do we think the UB might be able to pull off something close to a faithful port with its limited resources? There was a C64 port of Speedball 2 which has closer specs to the UB.
CunningFellow
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Joined: Mon Feb 11, 2013 8:08 am
Location: Brisbane, Australia

Re: Speedball 2

Post by CunningFellow »

The Uzebox might look similar to the systems like the C64 or Amstrad CPC on paper with being 8 bit and similar sound and TV resolution.

However internally they are quite different beast to do things with.

With the general purpose home computers of the 80s you had 64 kilobytes of RAM. The Uzebox has 4 kilobytes of RAM.

Compared to the NES the Uzebox is probably a lot closer. The NES only had about 4K of RAM. 2K User and 2K Video. However the NES has the huge advantage of hardware sprites. Any "Sprites" on the Uzebox have to be done in software with RAM in current video modes.

Something like Brutal Deluxe - that has huge sprites and lots of them on screen is just not going to be doable on the Uzebox with current video modes.

The kind of games you can do on the Uzebox without having to get into hairy ASM and custom video modes is going to be things that are mostly tiles and maybe a few sprites.

I guess if you look at all the past uzebox titles here https://uzebox.org/wiki/Games_and_Demos

Off the top of my head look at

Alter Ego
BC Dash
Bugs
Flight of Dragon
Joy Rider
Lode Runner
Toorums Quest

If the game you want to make exceeds the state of the art there - it is going to be a challenge.

I'd compare what you are wanting to do with similar games in the Games_and_Demos list.

Also look at the bottom of the list for games that are WIP. In quite a few cases that meant the game was too challenging to complete satisfactorily on the Uzebox hardware.
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danboid
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Joined: Sun Jun 14, 2020 12:14 am

Re: Speedball 2

Post by danboid »

I was aware of the 4K RAM limit etc so I expected a negative response. Its certainly not something I'd be capable of trying.
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