Collection Low-end systems which have still users and software development

[fishy_fiz]

Yes, its just me being pedantic, but gba and amiga (even low res) resolutions are pretty different (amiga low res is more than twice the res of a gba (38400 vs. 81920 pixels).The GBA's very low res of 240x160 is a big part of the reason it appeared significantly more powerful than the snes,.... its simply wasnt moving nearly as many graphics. Yes it had a more powerful cpu too, but that was only half the story.

[Thorham]

Don't know if you've played GoldenSun on GBA, but this is very similar to what it does (it doesn't use a Doom-style raycaster engine, but a simple scaling 360° panorama background, IIRC,) with scaling sprites instead of 3D models for the characters. Works pretty well at GBA/Amiga resolutions.

Yup, played them both Those are actually very convertible, and the graphics for both games are available (I have them). Could be an interesting project.

[commodorejohn]

Yes, its just me being pedantic, but gba and amiga (even low res) resolutions are pretty different (amiga low res is more than twice the res of a gba (38400 vs. 81920 pixels).The GBA's very low res of 240x160 is a big part of the reason it appeared significantly more powerful than the snes,.... its simply wasnt moving nearly as many graphics. Yes it had a more powerful cpu too, but that was only half the story.

Depends on the game. Something that's all-software, like DOOM, certainly is going to have an advantage on a smaller screen, but most GBA and SNES games rely heavily on the hardware tiling. The difference between 80K pixels (Amiga) and 37.5K (GBA) pixels is much larger than the difference between 896 8x8 tiles (SNES) and 600 8x8 tiles (GBA.)

[Thorham]

Also, for games such as Advance Wars where you have four 16x16 aligned tile and sprite layers (only one unit can move at any time), it's petty easy to do an Amiga version because of the low frame rate, and you can do it full screen 320x256 in 256 colors. All this can be done faster than fastmem rendering+c2p. Same goes for the Fire Emblem series.

[commodorejohn]

Quite so. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of doing a tactical RPG/TBS game on the Amiga myself. It's a natural pick for something with a limited number of sprites.

[Thorham]

Quite so. In fact, I've been toying with the idea of doing a tactical RPG/TBS game on the Amiga myself. It's a natural pick for something with a limited number of sprites.

I've actually been working on an Advance Wars 2 conversion (and since I have A LOT of Fire Emblem graphics, I've been thinking about a cross between Fire Emblem and Ultima).

The biggest amount of work is fitting all the in-game graphics in one palette, with fog of war and all five sides playable on the same map (original only allows four). Thank goodness that job is almost finished (required a lot of hand editing using Brilliance and Adpro).

The biggest problem is the AI, I have no idea what to do there. Maybe I should just get a tech demo up and running, and see if anyone wants to help with the AI.

[commodorejohn]

That'd probably be best. AI is all scripting stuff anyway, as long as you've got a capable scripting facility in with the rest of the engine you're good to go.

I'd kind of think you'd ultimately be better off trying to create an original title, tailored to the hardware, rather than a conversion, though. Still, any development is good development

[fishy_fiz]

The amigas sprite hardware isnt nearly as limited as it sounds on paper. Even I managed to get 20 16 color 32x32 hardware sprites moving around the screen happily. This can be extended somewhat too.

[commodorejohn]

True, but you're still limited in the area of arbitrary arrangement - in a strategy/tactics game, for example, you can't have more than four 16x16 16-color sprites on a single scanline. It's plenty flexible if you can flex with it, but that's not always the case.

[fishy_fiz]

The limitation is in the total width of sprites per scan line (which I suspect is what you was getting at, even though you wrote 16x16), but this can be supplimented with bobs. With some proof of concept code I was fooling with I simply read the total width of sprites per scanline and when that exceeded 64 I instead used bobs (or just wrote to bitmap, depending on what the graphic was,... sometime bobs arent needed and overwriting bitmap is quicker).

AGA of course in theory can have 64 pixel wide sprites per channel,  which with multiplexing is enough to have next to no restrictions. Unfortunately the theory and practice here dont match 'cos Commodore screwed the hardware up and instead gave us near unlimited sprite power that is drawn off the physical screen :/

Interesting thread though for my tastes. Im currently on the lookout for what to work on next now that my Jooleem offshoot is nearing completion (graphics and sound are still needed, but its easy enough to add/replace them whenever I feel the urge).
Something Zelda-esque, or some sort of RTS type game are what Im considering, being that they both lend themselves well to the Amigas hardware. I have some skills, but Im no hardcore asm coder, so am on the lookout for stuff that's both a good match for the amigas custom hardware and the sorts of specs that are common these days for classic users.
Probably favoring a RTS type game, soley 'cos its something that could still be playable to the coder (zelda-esque adventure game could be a little boring to play back when you know the game inside out).