Author: admin

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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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Patreon… Not ising.

Was introduced to patron recently by a good friend and have signed up for a couple of interesting produces content providers and not sure what the proper term is

Anyway really pleased to see that the excellent writer David gerrold yes the bloke that created the Tribbles is serialising part of his most infamous science fiction series the War of the Chtorr.

Definitely recommended if you like your science fiction a bit bloody and well interesting

Back to resting and trying to get rid of this bloody cold I have might get a few more bits of graphic work done before I have another nap

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Lets get jiggy…

Bit of a new year break – had a bit of illness… but despite all that – ready to go!

Have now got my SAM armed with Trinity (WOW!) and SID Interface.. and am really planning to jump on my work with being able to test on a Live SAM 🙂

More later !

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Update

So to recap…

Been working on my own utils for the game. Not pretty but work well enough.

Currently replacing original graphics with the new redesigned ones.. ready for the first and second sets of levels. The third set aren’t far off.

Some improvements made on the main animation – which is looking “
Schway” to say the least!

Lots of other bits coming along… but still more to do – so back I get to it… when is my music starting Spotify?