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[selur]

Ok here we are 

First thing we need to do is to pick up project. One our project. Ofcourse everyone has other idea so we will vote who's project will be chosen. But first we need to present it here. However i thought about few things and decided that we shouldn't make shot'em ups or platformers with srolling because  games this kind written in AMOS are not fast and smooth so their playbility is rather low.

So anyone has good idea , who want start ?

[SamuraiCrow]

I don't have many game ideas but I thought it would be wise to clarify:  Amos can scroll as fast as any other programming language on the Amiga.  The scroll offset routines are performed by the copper coprocessor as are the computed sprites.

It's the BOB plotting blitter-based functions that are slow.  If we can do something with computed sprites instead of BOBs, that will go faster.  We can have as many as 4 sprites horizontally from each other without over-extending the hardware and as many as we want vertically from each other  (assuming we use 15-color sprites).

My suggestion is to make a look-alike of the Sega game called Shining Force.  That way we can use the dual-playfield scrolling functions and sprites for all of the combat scenes, and use minimal BOB animations for the non-combat movement screen.  As much as I like the AMCAF extension, I think TurboPlus would be better suited for this kind of game.

For screenshots of this game series see http://www.fantasyanime.com/garden/cd_sfcd.htm

[rednova]

Dear Friends:

http://www.feryogi.com/1gallery.htm
that is my online graphic gallery, the 3d art I created with lightwave. I also make beautiful pencil drawings in anime-style. I will be happy to share my graphics for this game project.
Cheers!!!

rednova
-mobilis in mobile-

[SamuraiCrow]

Here's a thought:  If we make the game using robots with box-like features then it will be easy for a 3d modeller like Lightwave to do cut-scenes in HAM mode using ANIMs and still use the same models for the figures in the game!  If we make a limited number of models representing the models of robots used at the time period, we could reuse some of the models by making them shades of different colors to represent different characters of the same model robot.  Also, box-like figures are the easiest to do in 3d.

Another advantage of doing a turns-based role-playing game is that we don't have to be stuck with fixing it to 50 or 60 frames per second but we can make the program run equally well in both PAL and NTSC modes.

[rednova]

Hi all:

I want to add one more thing...I consider my amos-coding skills decent, but for this project I would like to concentrate on just graphics, because that is my forte...and then I can spend all my time to create beautiful pictures/animations. Well, I have no experience making sprites...but I can make nice 3d/2d pictures, both 3d art and manga like pencil drawings, and even 3d animation/cut-scenes.
My website has my 3d art...it  just does not have my 2d art/sketches, but I am fairly decent with a pencil.
Hope I can make a significant contribution to this team, i will be hapy to make nice gfx.
Cheers!!!

rednova
-mobilis in mobile-

[rednova]

Hi again:

I would like to concur with samurai crow. To make a turns-based rpg, and even with robots. but let's see what everyone has to say, before we start. Let's think this well.

rednova
-mobilis in mobile-

[rednova]

Friends:

I think I have a way to make high quality sprites. I need you guys to give me a sprite/frame grabber. I can make a beautiful picture in lightwave. i can the render the still or sequence, in a small resolution, ex. 50x50, it would be very small -like sprites- and look really fine. then I can use a sprite grabber utility, and transform this small pic into a sprite for amos. All i need is that you guys give me a decent sprite grabber for amos with instructions.
Not a bad idea,huh ?

rednova
amos forever!!!

[selur]

I'm surprised because our ideas are quite similar  !


You talking about Shining Force....it's quite interesting
And this is my favourite project, I wish to make kind of clone very cleaver polish game
http://hol.abime.net/4008.
This game is really amazing with some ideas and character. However it's also very bad written (it's looks like none tested beta version - many bugs and it often crashes.)
It's combination of strategy-turn-RTS-RPG  I know it sounds freaky but it has really great potential.

So what's the point of it ?
There is a map with land where are the villages and fortress. There is war between nations green,yellow,blue and chaos troops. U are command a groups of legion (few characters) and u score is to defeat chaos lord or occupy most of the villages. So your troops are groups of trolls,amazons,wizards,elfs... they have skills, equipment and gains experience. U task is to earn money to creating hiring new troops. U can hunt,pillage, do quests, search for herbs to sell and earn money.
In each village u can visit some places like bakery,shops,temples,merchants... to equip your troops. You can ask villagers for news or quests.... and others things.
So u can do many things and u can win in many ways. The game is none linear so it's biggest advantage.
Here it is a short movie of this game in action...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ipU0KwWHC5I

However this project is really huge and requires very skilled graphician. I can try make mockups but animations of characters can do only skilled artist.
Just tell me what you think about it ... then I can tell about my innovations for this game.

[selur]

I forgot to mention that this game is written in AMOS Pro and we have source code for it.

[SamuraiCrow]

I've played an English translation of Legion.  I'm not sure if we have a good enough artist to do something like this.  I am sure I wouldn't have enough time to put into it unless it was just bug-fixing and improvements.

Shining force was strictly a turns-based RPG/Strategy game with tile-mapped graphics for everything except the combat/cut scenes.  It was also heavily scripted with a story line.

[selur]

I know this is really huge game and it requires skilled artists that's way i'm still looking artist (I thought even to hire medium skilled animator).I know some of us don't have enought time  but if you and rednova decide to support us I'm sure we can do that. Ofcourse first we could pick other very small project but I know that is the group which started develop Legion 2 and also guy who is porting legion from Amos to PC. I wish to make   it before they will. Then more people will be interested in playing Amiga version (i know this is some kind of rat's race.. but it happend).
Ofcourse if I will not find artist then we can't be able to do this.

So Samurai do you agree to support us (mostly in solving programming problems) in free time or you are not interested in this anyway?

And what Rednova thinking about it ?

[SamuraiCrow]

I can certainly help in my spare time if it's needed.  I know how to program in C and Assembly also, in case you find something too slow in the AmosPro compiler.  Also, I am familiar with AmigaOS so I can fix things to run more system-friendly if you decide to go that route.

My main concern is that I'd like to be able to port Amos sources to other platforms such as Linux when Mattathias Basic is complete.  Do we have a license to port this to other platforms?  Are you interested in an AGA chipset version?

Also, if we decide to port our game to the PC, I know that RedNova has DarkBasic and I can buy it easily enough if you decide to use that.  DarkBasic is a DirectX based sequel to Amos Basic written by an avid AmosPro user.

If we make it a futuristic wasteland RPG with robots then the graphics get considerably easier and RedNova could probably handle the graphics on LightWave 3d.

Also, is this for profit sharing or for hobby work?  If I were to be paid for my time, I'm sure I could be much more help than if not.  I'm currently unemployed.   

[selur]

LoL... some ideas we have identical... but some of them not.
This discussion is gettin new dimension. We definitive need to talk about it all, but in some other way than posting it (how about use chat ?).

However It's late... so I'm going to sleep now but I think we can discuss it tomorrow (I mean today but for few hours ).

[selur]

I've noticed that were some problems with site today. I coudn't get here. 

I think that Assembler is not good idea it's hard to make a game in asm. Also it is very time-consuming.
Porting from AMOS to other platforms in my opinion is senseless because it's port form worse to better platform so quality of port will be rather bad.
It seems that best way is to use BlitzBAsic or C as u wanted. Unfortunetly in this case i wouldn't  help much .
Also future AMOS projects will be rather hobby at the most chip sharware....

...but let's talk about it on chat ok ?

[SamuraiCrow]

Update
So far in the chat room we've kind of decided on a turns-based strategy with different robots acting as different units in armies of competing factions.  Some units can move further than others in one turn.

The target system will be an ECS system with 1 meg chip and some fast ram.

We'll need Rednova's input regarding the 3d modelling but I think we can do it fine with just 32x32 tiles and models.  I can make the units different colors depending on the faction.