My thoughts on what could be done with the Amiga.

[thomsedavi]

Hi, I'm a sort of long-time Amiga fan of about 24. I've got a couple of A500s in my bedroom, a disassembled A1000 (I took it apart to see the signatures on the inside and haven't got around to putting it back together again), a couple of monitors, a stack of software but no working mice or joysticks, which is a tragedy because I can only play pinball games at the moment. (Though I'm hoping to acquire a joystick soon, but what I REALLY need is a working mouse so I can play Lemmings, my favourite game in the whole world ever).

Anyway, I don't want the Amiga to be forgotten but I'm not really interested in emulation either, unless it can be done in a really convincing way.

I have a couple of ideas. I'd quite like to actually try to program some new A500 games myself as a hobby and mail floppy disk copies to anyone who wants them - is anyone still doing anything like that? I think it would be neat, but I'm not sure if anyone still makes the sort of floppy disks that the A500 used any more. I think there are probably a few people like me who would appreciate having something new for their Amiga, but I obviously don't seriously expect it to make any money, if I even find time for it. Doing software for an A1200 would also be neat, except I don't see the point in excluding the A500.

My other thought is that since technology has become so small, it would be relatively easy to produce an A1200 the size of a mobile phone that could be plugged into a regular monitor. It would be cheap, and there's a huge range of pre-existing software that could be miniaturised - how small could they make a disc with the storage capacity of a floppy? A quarter the size of a postage stamp?

I think they've already done something like that with the Atari, so why not the Amiga?

I have a strong attachment to old computer games. I think it's mostly nostalgia, but partly because, growing up with old computer games as I did, I'm able to see through the shiny modern graphics of new computer games. Old computer games compensated for their basic graphics by having real personality, and being made by small groups of people rather than huge companies helped a lot too. More room for personal expression.

A final question of my long rambling post (you have no idea how much I'm holding back): what software would I need to acquire to program new Amiga games, anyway? And what manuals, for that matter? And I guess I'd need a hard-drive, too... not to mention a MOUSE...

[pjhutch]

i don`t thinkk the hardware idea is a good idea, the biggest stumbling block is the custom chipset the Amiga uses which has to be reproduced 'exactly' to be compatible. No one has the time or money to do it for such a tiny market. Its been suggested and tried before and never got anywhere, I don't think that will change.

As for writing games, C is best best choice although there are alternatives such as Amos, Blitz Basic and Game Making programs. You will need the Native Developer Kit and knowledge on the Graphics library routines to make full use of it.

[SuperTurbo]

I don´t know much about programming on Amiga, but I heard Blitz Basic is a good language to program games in (look at worms for example). Or you can use Amos, but most games programmed in Amos looks like crap.

I think compiling on a bog a500 vill be somewhat slow, so I suggest you get an a1200 with some acceleratorboard and some fast mem plus a HD and a mouse of course

[_yak_]

Don't forget about Minimig, OCS was successfully converted to FPGA.

As for the game you should do it in a system friendly way (no hardware banging) or at least HDD installable (standard OFS floppy, usage of assigns, quit option in the game).

[maffoo]

thomsedavi wrote:
I have a couple of ideas. I'd quite like to actually try to program some new A500 games myself as a hobby and mail floppy disk copies to anyone who wants them - is anyone still doing anything like that?

Just a suggestion - if you do make any games, why not distribute them as ADFs? It would save postage, people could use them under emulation and they could be converted back to physical disks for real Amigas.

[Fransexy_]

No one has the time or money to do it for such a tiny market

Seems that somebody has the time and/or money to do it after all:  Minimig

[thomsedavi]

Just a suggestion - if you do make any games, why not distribute them as ADFs? It would save postage, people could use them under emulation and they could be converted back to physical disks for real Amigas.

The problem with emulation (for me) is that it removes too many boundaries... if I were to make an Amiga game with the intention of having it run emulated on a PC, I'd just think, why not cut out the middleman and write a game directly for the PC? Why not write it in Flash, even?

A large part of the project would be designing a physical manual (probably something very basic, maybe eight pages stapled together) and a box (probably one of the small 133mm x 191mm boxes) and trying to produce the whole thing as a 'professional' product, maybe even try to print the name of the game directly on the disk the way they used to. And I realise that by this I've already lost any profits I might make.

Maybe it's just me, but I think the idea of a brand new boxed Amiga game would be fantastic. When was the last time a boxed Amiga game was available? Eight years? When was the last time a game was sold on floppy disk, for that matter?

To me, the difference between taking a computer game out of a real box with a real manual and downloading the game is the difference between seeing the Mona Lisa in person and looking at it on a postcard.

I imagine someone would put it on the internet rather quickly, but that doesn't bother me much, since the important thing to me would be the box and manual and presentation.

If anyone else would like to see a new boxed Amiga game, let me know because part of me thinks this would be a futile task so I need encouragement. Otherwise I'll just make Flash games.

[Flashlab]

I agree that boxed games are cool! I had the original Turrican C64 version on tape with box. Also some System 3 titles but sadly my parents threw them away when they cleaned their home...

For new games I think that making games with boxes could be cool too. I also agree that emulation isn't the real thing.

But distribution of new games through internet is really a good way; especially with Amiga games because you can reach more people that way.

So my advice is to make games and do distribute them in adf files.

If you want to make sure that they are played only on real Amigas maybe you can build in a check that looks if the game is being run on UAE? The program WhichAmiga can determine what machine one has; it can somehow detect uae too.

[Tomas]

have a couple of ideas. I'd quite like to actually try to program some new A500 games myself as a hobby and mail floppy disk copies to anyone who wants them - is anyone still doing anything like that? I think it would be neat, but I'm not sure if anyone still makes the sort of floppy disks that the A500 used any more. I think there are probably a few people like me who would appreciate having something new for their Amiga, but I obviously don't seriously expect it to make any money, if I even find time for it. Doing software for an A1200 would also be neat, except I don't see the point in excluding the A500.

I sure would not mind some new classic games for my Amiga. I think i would be easier and a better idea to release the game as an adf file on the internet instead. Then people can just download the adf image and transfer it over to their amiga and write it back to a real floppy.

My other thought is that since technology has become so small, it would be relatively easy to produce an A1200 the size of a mobile phone that could be plugged into a regular monitor. It would be cheap, and there's a huge range of pre-existing software that could be miniaturised - how small could they make a disc with the storage capacity of a floppy? A quarter the size of a postage stamp?

Someone did make a an amiga clone in the size of a floppy drive, which you could just put into the drive bay of your pc case. This one had similar specs to the a1200 with a tad faster cpu. It was sadly only produced in small quantities..

What i dont understand is why Amiga INC does not do something similar like commodore and release a joystick or similar with built in Amiga. If this device was reasonable priced and had the ability for upgrading games using something like a flash card, then i think it would sell LOADS. The commodore dtv joystick was a huge success, and that one didnt even have the ability for adding more games.

[Tomas]

i don`t thinkk the hardware idea is a good idea, the biggest stumbling block is the custom chipset the Amiga uses which has to be reproduced 'exactly' to be compatible. No one has the time or money to do it for such a tiny market. Its been suggested and tried before and never got anywhere, I don't think that will change.

Why could commodore do this then? You could emulate whatever function that is missing anyways which some hobby developer already managed to do with the minimig and the ocs chipset.

[SamuraiCrow]

If you want to make ECS games for Amiga you can download AmosPro Basic programming language and the compiler from here.  It used to be available on Back to the Roots but that site has since vanished.  The manual is (or at least was) available at Software Hut for $21.95 USD.  If you need help with it you can get help at The Amos Factory website.  And if that weren't enough there is a mailing list on Yahoo that sees a little more traffic than the Amos Factory at Amos List.  It isn't very upward compatible to emulators since it bangs the hardware very much but there's a non-hardware-banging sequel to it coming out called Mattathias Basic that will allow you to compile versions of your game for the PC and newer Amigas with graphics cards, etc.

[Plaz]

@SamuraiCrow

So if I wanted to try a little PD game on Amos, I can rework the same code one day with Mattathias Basic to use on PC or RTG Amigas. Hmmm, sounds like I might give it a try. Is the comment about the crummy graphics true though? Will Amos allow me to splice in ASM or ML? I'm thinking of some things I have done in C already. I could compile that to ML then tag it in to Amos. I inherited a set of Amos boxes a couple of years ago with all disk and documentation for 1.2 and 1.3. I'm guessing it's all still relavent for 2.0

Plaz

[Plaz]

Darn double post

[thomsedavi]

I've been pondering my idea to write a new computer game, and something occurs to me. Amiga game creation is probably the only area in the world in which practically no work is being done whatsoever. Every fifth person in the world is writing a novel, or a webcomic, or painting something. There are an extraordinary amount of PC games, console games, movies, television shows, flash animations, that sort of thing being made.

It seems every creative industry is packed to bursting. What is the only thing in the world almost no one is working on? Amiga games! (And ZX Spectrum games, and Sinclair games, and C64 games, and so on... but you know what I mean).

It's strange, but making Amiga games is one of the very few ways of doing anything 'creatively unique' at this time.

[Heinz]

thomsedavi wrote:
A final question of my long rambling post (you have no idea how much I'm holding back): what software would I need to acquire to program new Amiga games, anyway? And what manuals, for that matter? And I guess I'd need a hard-drive, too... not to mention a MOUSE...

Take a look at AmiBlitz:

http://www.amiforce.de/amiblitz/amiblitz.php

It's the successor of Blitz Basic and is still updated and bugfixed.
This is probably the best choice for game programming.

If you need a mouse, then you should call a Amiga Dealer.
They can sell you an adaptor that helps you connecting a standard PS/2 Mouse to your Amiga.