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Our house…..

Well – with the impending release of the project i’ve been spending quite some time on, I realised 2 things:

firstly – damn, i am very bad at updating this blog!

secondly – i needed to crack on with another project!
So with that in mind I decided to attempt to tackle a conversion from another Z80 system, not too far removed in specifications from SAM – in this case an MSX title.

The game in question, is an excellent 3d Isometric game by the name of Westen House – written by the incredibly talented Santiago Ontañón.
More about the original can be read here: https://braingames.santiontanon.dev/

With the assistance of Gordon Wallis, we already have some really nicely designed graphics for this version. And a talented musician has already offered their support for some nice music for the game.

It’s early stages yet – but this link to a Retcon2024 video put together by Rob Evans (Wubsoft) will give you a chance to look at the preview images by Gordon. And I’m hoping for a demo to be ready for the Retcon2025 show.

BTW – keep an eye open for the final version of Rob’s great Arkanoid 2 game – and the also very good game from Andrew Gilley – Abbey de Morte (may have the name wrong!) Both excellent games you can see on the above demo!

Oh a special thanks indeed to Howard Price for coding assistance! Also look out for his Net Cart game also on the above demo video!!

Hoping for another update soon 🙂

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Time for a plug!

Trying to make up for lack of content – and here’s a start… a plug to a very good SAM Developer, by the name of Rob, who operates under Wubsoft:

Check out his site here: https://www.wubsoft.org/ – he’s done some great games, with Samtona and Bubble Ghost being 2 particular favourites!

He also does a set of videos which rather usefully go over some coding concepts. Very handy and something SAM Coupe folk certainly need more of!

Handy link for the above here:
https://www.youtube.com/@wubsoft

Rob’s got an interesting project on the go at the moment, that I was lucky enough to see at the most recent RetCon – for more info please check out his videos!

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Drat – I knew I forgot something…!

So much to do, so little time!

So – what has happened since my last post? Quite a lot of headway with the current project – indeed it is now finished, and should be landing with folk in the very near future!

We managed to show off a nearly done version last year, at the RetCon show – and even had a high-score competition. I believe someone who worked for a magazine won it, although sadly he didn’t have chance to mention the nice trophy (and t-shirt!) he won. Perhaps he’ll get chance at a later date?

More to follow!


S

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Errrr – whoops!!!

Ok – admission… I’ve somewhat forgotten to update this for a while!

Things rather gotten in the way over the last year – moving, illness (yikes!), work and so on. Thats the not-so-nice stuff. However, the good news is that over the last few months we’ve been somewhat hard at work on the game… indeed to the stage that it’s very very near completion!

This weekend, which is slightly longer than normal, i’ve a few graphic updates to finish, a little sprite re-organisting to sort, and then I can start work to get things as they should be.

Now – I dont like showing off things until I’m happy with them …. however if you where lucky enough to go along to the recent RetCon show then you’d have been able to see (and play) the latest build. Also would have had a chance to natter with all of us invoiced (Me, Gordon, Balor and Phil W) as we were located next to the stand for Quazar: which as you can imagine had some amazing SAM Goodies on show.

Oh and while I’m at it…. have you purchased the latest issue of SAM Revival magazine yet?
Issue 26 is out right now – and it is absolutely fecking great!
Some very incredible previews and articles indeed. Including the amazing looking new SAM Dizzy game. (Oh and did I mention our project gets some coverage too!)
If you’ve not purchased it yet – click this link – right now!
I will be incredibly shocked if you don’t purchase this right away!

Anyway – to finish off for now (I’ll be back in a relatively short time – as in days not months – as there’s been some nice Sam games i’d like to blather on about 🙂 ) thanks for reading this – and hope to give you more wonderful words soon!


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You wait…time passes..

Yes – I know – not got round to updating this for a while. Sorry about that 🙁

It’s been a rather busy few months recently – what with one thing and another. Not always “of the good” – but … well that’s another matter.

Anyway – good news is that the current project is growing closer and closer to being finished. I’m at the stage of things now where I am supposedly not touching code, but concentrating on debugging, tweaking layouts, and so forth.

Unfortunately I did end up tweaking some code. Good news is that many of the adjustments worked ok. One feature didn’t – so that’s been left out.

Anyway – a few probs at home have reared their head – so will be back to the keyboard in more earnest this weekend. Fortunately have a day or two off from work – so that’s a good thing.


Onto more fun matters….. BATTLEZONE!!!

That excellent coder Chris Pile – who brought an amazing version of CP/M in ProDos and an excellent version of the arcade classic Defender – has brought out a new project, that he’s been working hard on over some time – a version of the classic Battlezone game.

And what can I say – but it’s a really well polished project.
Nice and smooth (and quite fast) 3D, as challenging as ever – and even supports the Trinity interface (see www.samcoupe.com for more info!) too – using it for storing keys and high-score table.

My wonderful video skills (ok don’t laugh at once!) have generated two vids of it in action

https://www.worldofsam.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/Image4_0.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKipYwsm9FA – this is played on Trinity itself (the picture has been adjusted slightly for brightness due to the capture)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l8xnj5KN7M – as played on the SimCoupe emulator – I managed to score a bit better on this quick game 🙂

Anyway – hope you enjoy them, – check out this page for more info on the game!
https://www.worldofsam.org/products/battlezone

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Oh-a, oh-a!

(from Video Killed The Radio Star – from the Buggles – in case you’re wondering!)

Few months back – I was getting a bit in a rut with things – so after seeing some not very good SAM Videos floating about – I decided to finally make my own not-so-good SAM Videos!

Well hopefully a few people will like them!

I did spend a bit of time in making a fancy title sequence for it – with some great funky music (courtesy of an amazing musician – hi Fleeting Shadow!) – but limits in video compression caused in part by my not using an Nvidia graphics card put paid to that.

So I decided to go for the no-frills approach!

Anyway – if you’re interested… check out:

Samsters Videos

Hopefully the odd thing of interest for you! Will add more as and when I get chance – or in the case of my brain getting frazzled on other things!

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Bah Humbug!

Well – I had planned to keep this updated more regularly with progress on the project.
Unfortunately things happen – and recently that involves some very not good things.

I have however continued in more work on the game. It’s progressing well. Still some playtesting and tweaking needing doing – but overall – not doing bad.

I did decide to make an addition recently however. Still in two minds about it – as although when it works (which it ALMOST does ) it’s quite effective – it is causing some issues due to working with the legacy code as I am – so still keeping an open mind about using it .

Hence not talking too much about what it is 🙂

Work has been rather hectic with the 9-8 job however, so that’s sapping a lot of my creative juices at present – and leaving my slightly kernackered to say the least. So doing what I can when I can.

New post following with something else i’ve been tinkering with…!
(two in one day! am I spoiling you? Nah!)

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Feature creep? Or enhancements?

Good question really? If you add a new little feature close to the finish of a project – is it a feature creep, or more of a case of adding something you think improves things a little more?

Well – i’ve added a little feature over the last few days, and I’m fairly pleased with it. It wasn’t essential but it’s something I had wanted in. So that’s my excuse! 🙂

Anyway – back to work!

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Spotty Dogs! aka Plastered Dalmations!

aka Blast and Damnation..

My librarian at school, when I once did a work experience there, suggested coming up with alternative naughty words when frustrated. Another student at the time came up with the above….
… I think in the case of the librarian … her particular alternative naughty words would be Enid and Blyton….. (never understood the hatred – but then again I was a Famous Five and Secret Seven fan as a youngster…. )

But I digress. As ususal.

Contrary to the look a lack of entries here may actually give, I have been busy on the game. I had a bit of a dry spell up to around Christmas – purely and simply due to work.

Then comes B*** S*** Friday of course 🙁 That mentally takes a lot out of me. Whoever invented the concept should be dangled over an ants nest, coated in very sticky honey, and not wearing many clothes. Or something.

But still – I have been working away – a very large percentage (95+ ish) done in the way of screens, almost all code seems to be done. And some lovely graphics inserted. These graphics are really good – and easily the best part of the game I think. A few more screens needed – perhaps the odd replaced.

However in the meantime I’ve started the fun task of transposing the current source and objects into using the combination of Pyz80 + Visual Studio. I’d tried this previously and to be honest, I didn’t have much luck. But I thought it was time I got this done.

I’m glad I did as it’s helped fix a couple of things I missed – which I have to update – and spot areas I can improve on.

I’ve also been able to help (even if not as much as I’d have liked) with a bit of odd playtesting on some other nice looking new projects. Always encouraging to see things taking shape even if not from yourself 🙂

A good and bad thing recently has been some change of hours at work. Now starting later (giving me early starts of 5am rises – and there for about an hour or 2 caffine charged coding time in the morning) and late finishes arriving in at 9pm (not giving much time to do much… but some at least). Side effect is sometimes only sleeping 3-4 hrs – but hey, i’ve never been able to sleep much anyway 🙂

Enough boring stuff – going to get breaky and get back to work!

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More decorating…

Had some nice new graphics for some of the new levels – so in the process of updating them somewhat… looking good so far. Trying to get a few more done today.

Also got a bit more tweaking in the way of level speed – which I can control on a level basis… just got to make sure it feels right on the playback of each level – so that’s going to be fun for playtesting.

Been rather distracted with sales time at work … not my favourite time of the year personally… but at least the worse will be out of the way soon.