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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Looking for C64 programmer [paid]
Hi everyone,
I've been developing a retro throw back game for the PC in the style of the Commodore 64. I'm working on a Kickstarter project to get it finished and I was thinking of having an actual Commodore 64 port as one of the stretch goals.
No one on the team has any live C64 programming experience so I'm putting the call out to people who might be interested in working with us. The artwork will have to be converted. Our artists try to stay as faithful to C64 specs as possible but little things can still slip through the cracks. Also you'll basically be on your own programming wise. If you're interested in the project please send me a PM and we can talk more about specifics.
Since this will be a stretch goal I can't guarantee this will go ahead even if we get funded. But I need to talk to someone in order to know how much it will cost, and thus how much to ask for in the stretch goal.
Thanks for reading my post.
~Disthron |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1335 |
Game would totally rock but I'm afraid characters won't look like this in final port ;) |
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Mixer
Registered: Apr 2008
Posts: 452 |
I found a video of the concept on YouTube. Edelin Portals of Doom I believe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VD-LjUwks
That would be an Ultima-sort of achievement in C-64. Certainly doable, but quite a complex job. I wonder how the random-element works in the game.
I've thought many times that a MUD like dungeon crawl like that would be cool. |
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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Quote: I found a video of the concept on YouTube. Edelin Portals of Doom I believe? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0VD-LjUwks
That would be an Ultima-sort of achievement in C-64. Certainly doable, but quite a complex job. I wonder how the random-element works in the game.
I've thought many times that a MUD like dungeon crawl like that would be cool.
Yes, that's the one.... I probably should have put that in the original post.
Anyway, the over-world is kind of like Ultima. Though it is randomly generated at the start of a new game. Towns and friendly random encounters play out more like a visual novel.
The dungeon sections, and random battles, play out like a side scrolling brawler except you are limited to 1 room at a time. The dungeon layout is also randomly generated.
I realize this might be a big job. If you know anyone who might be interested in doing something like this please direct them to this thread. If the stretch goal is successful it will be paid work. But I can't in good conscience promise it as a stretch goal without having some idea of the cost. |
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Cruzer
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1048 |
The gfx definitely seems very C64-esque, apparently with the right palette and resolution used. But there appear to be some problems, such as too many sprites at the same line, and that the sprites use too many colors.
But of course, in addition to sprites, maybe some of the moving objects could be drawn into the background. It helps that the framerate of the enemies seems to be quite slow. This might require that the background gfx is simplified where the enemies move to avoid color clashes. In other words, most of the gfx might need to be redone.
So yeah, it might be doable with the right compromises. It's just hard to specify exactly which. It also depends on what's most important for the creators - e.g. that the number of enemies on the screen and their movements are the same as the original, or that they look the same.
It seems like a fun project, and it would definitely be nice to get paid for doing c64 coding. But on the other hand I have plenty of other c64 projects going on, including a game. So I doubt that I could keep the motivation. |
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Great looking project!
Extra nice idea to try making C64 port.
2D part, static screens and stuff like procedural generated world look doable. Something like 1-sprite width per character action parts also... Would require hand-redraw of lots of graphics...
Imho larger type graphics action may be doable in slower speed depending on number of colors used in rest of game.
For example grey knight on grey background with couple red lizards is kinda ok (knight as software sprite
Blue-shirt-pirate type character on green background with red lizards doesn't sound that doable in larger size...
All this with lots of extra code complexity.
On the other hand something that would keep the gameplay and style can be made for sure with little extra work on graphics.
I don't remember any game that would represent such action-adventure mix but good examples of what can be done graphics and action wise are:
Bushido:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s87go04e4A4
Narc:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjVr4_gYt5E
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (coin up):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CE6thoYJKDg&t=63
All these games use simple color-style with black (or dark grey) and white as main sprite colors with one additional color to make characters distinguishable.
You can get something like this with scripted color conversion (cut out and converted from that gif above):
Serious looking project, wish you all the best! |
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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
Quoting CruzerSo yeah, it might be doable with the right compromises. It's just hard to specify exactly which. It also depends on what's most important for the creators - e.g. that the number of enemies on the screen and their movements are the same as the original, or that they look the same..
Having the right compromises is super important. A lot of ports back in the day tried to do too much and ended up failing miserably. Take the SMS port of Space Harrier, they tried to port make it just like the arcade and it's choppy, there are strange graphical glitches all over the place. Now look at Cosmic Epsilon on the NES, it's a lot more sparse, but at the same time it feels a lot closer to Space Harrier. The SMS has much better hardware than the NES, but it's not so much better that it could handle a full Space Harrier port.
Space Harrier SMS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGNvs1O5_qI
Cosmic Epsilon NES
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-2t5FPZUKE
For this game, I'd want to have at least 3 characters (1 player 2 enemies) on screen, preferably 4. We could shrink the sprites if need be, and we could probably get away with loosing 1 direction. Though the character moves in 8 directions there are only 5 different animations. 3 of witch are mirrored.
@PopMilo That Bushido looks like just the kind of thing I was going for. It actually has MORE complex level geometry than my game. With it's multiple levels and ladders and such, though it seems to use less animation frames.
About the graphics, the guy who did the artwork for the enemies actually worked with the ZX Spectrum back in the day. So he might be able to help with that, but he'd want to be paid. So maybe if we had the code up and running we could do a kickstarter to have the graphics properly converted?
Here is a link to his Spectrum work.
http://zxart.ee/eng/graphics/authors/i/igor/ |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
@Disthron: Just wondering, what's your role in the project? |
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Disthron
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2013
Posts: 21 |
@Hein: Well, I've worked on a bit of code but mostly I'm the producer/game designer. It feels kind of strange, on my first game I did almost everything. Witch was a big mistake, specially in the art department. |
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ChristopherJam
Registered: Aug 2004
Posts: 1409 |
Yup, looks like a pretty huge project, especially once you add all the other stuff from the trailer to the combat you've shown here.
As for the combat:
I'm seeing up to six characters on screen at once in the youtube trailer, which would all have to drop down to single sprite width (12 multicolour pixels), three colours per character, two of which are shared between all of them. (The T-Rex at 2:06 isn't too big if unaccompanied, but also has waaay too many colours.)
If you stuck to at most four characters on screen they could be twice as wide, but you'd still have the same colour restrictions. That solid circle behind the player for the special attack would have priority issues too, unless it was a flickery every-second-frame thing.
Drop to three characters on screen, and you gain both
-an extra colour on the player character and
-a flicker free solution for the solid circle.
(alternately, never mind the extra colour, and get back some coding time, some memory, and some CPU time)
The backgrounds look more like multicolour bitmaps than character mode, so you'd have to lose either the vertical scrolling, or all of
- the top dozen lines of the display area
- the ability for enemies to walk on from the top of the screen
- a week or three's coding time
- all but two colours of an 8x1 character area somewhere onscreen (perhaps an uninteresting bit of floor?)
Keeping the foreground archway to indicate a door at the bottom of screen would also cost you; at least one enemy would have to stay out of the bottom half of the screen whenever the enemy count's maxed out. |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
CJ, just cut it back some more, instead of fighting too hard, for too little gains.
bushido posted earlyer is excellent for inspiration.
- 1 spr wide characters +1 for sword swing
- charmode with d800 a trained gfxer can do wonders
- no archway
- flash player color instead of solid circle, or flicker, or just 1 sprite for circle ?
I think gameplay is more important here than being faithful for nr of colors, and sprite width, etc.
dinosaur is problematic even with colors cut back, would eat up mem like crazy.
probably it would be wise to use a cart, instead of multiload and fighting 64k limit. |
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