Portal To Xenithor

Another STosser!

Portal To Xenithor is a flick-screen platformer currently under development by Michael Keenleyside. The adventure begins with us having survived a crash landing on a monster-infested moon colony. Our job is to kill the nasties and search for a replacement spaceship before piloting through to a victorious escape.

It's early days, but the storyline and map designs are taking shape. End-of-level cutscenes are planned to be used as the adventure unfolds. The visual style is dark and moody, and soon to be enhanced by eerie music. Michael is about six months into the project and is considering the possibility of a different engine for other parts of the game. These will use the hardware scrolling and DMA Audio of the Atari STe.

Michael is nuts about STOS Game Creator and wishes to pay homage to Francois Lionet, so development will be done using this and Missing Link/Maestro. The estimated requirements are a 4MB Atari ST with support for hard disk installation. Personally, I'm reminded of Stryx and Baal and can't wait to see it completed!

Update: Michael has started a STOS Coders group with Francois Lionet

Zaptastic

Crazy gaming time!

When I first loaded Zaptastic, I assumed it was a cheap Robotron rip-off, but it's actually based on an old Jeff Minter game called Ancipital. Lee Burrows not only coded this conversion but also did all the graphics and sounds. It runs on both models of ST but is intended for the Atari STe, as it uses the Blitter for the sprites and DMA effects. Sadly, I couldn't get it to work on my STFM without getting two nasty bombs popping up!

We're in control of a Dolph Lundgren dude with spiky hair and shades who must frantically clear 64 rooms infested by an array of nasties. He gets around using the screen's four sides and can escape the horde by leaping to the opposite side - but be careful because your shield won't last forever! Firing is constant and in the direction last used, but can be temporarily frozen by holding down the fire button <cough> Llamatron.

Visually, things are amateur, but it works great with lots of silly sprites filling the screen. The audio is insane thanks to the DMA coprocessor pushing out funky samples to keep everything loud and exciting. Overall, this is one incredibly addictive and psychedelic shoot 'em up, and I loved every zany minute of it!!

Zaptastic can be downloaded at ST Format (disk #81)

Half-Life II Slideshow

Half-Life 2 on Atari ST!

No, but this is the next best thing. Well, maybe! You guys might like this if you appreciate slideshows of digitised/pixel art? After last year's mega-hit, ZombieCrypt [sarcasm], I've made another slideshow. Of course, this time for the Half-Life II games using the slideshow engine created by Peter Jørgensen.

I've added a superb chiptune by TAO called Line of Fire, which suits the theme perfectly with a fast upbeat feel. Each picture is a screenshot from my gameplay - I converted these to Degas format using Imagecopy 4. The entire process took me about six months to compile. I hope you enjoy my lame release. [download]

If you wanna see more of my Atari ST creations, then there's a link on the right and also back there 👈

- A Few Sample Images -

Sadly, a couple didn't make the cut as I ran out of floppy disk space... Doh!

PP's Enhanced Games

New game updates!

Everyone knows Peter Putnik has adapted hundreds of games for hard disk installation. These include extras, like bug fixes, TOS compatibility, 4MB patching, Mega STe/Falcon support, etc. However, some are also super-charged with cool coding that utilises the Blitter coprocessor and DMA for audio that will blow your mind.

Are you interested in games being better on your Atari STe? You should be!

I thought it would be a nice idea to compile a brief overview of his enhanced games here on AtariCrypt. Oids and Uridium are particularly impressive as they significantly improve on their original versions. I also enjoyed playing my own music during a game of Xenon 2 (you can convert your own music).

There is something here for everyone, and I hope you find this useful. Let me know what you think.

Let's play.

Let's take a look at some of these enhanced games that you can download and play right now...

• Xenon II - updated for the Atari STe and features DMA-streamed music. Turn up the volume!
• Cannon Fodder - enhance this lame port with your own DMA-streamed music.
• Prince of Persia - the DMA hardware is used to replay the game's sound effects.

  

Did you enjoy that? Well, here are three enhanced FTL games that are nicely improved...

• Dungeon Master - far cleaner samples are heard thanks to the DMA hardware.
• Chaos Strikes Back - again, the DMA hardware allows cleaner sample playback!
• Oids - double framerates deliver a smoother experience when rescuing the stickmen.

  

Let's take a peek at three more that aren't exactly favoured well by the average ST gamer...

• Jinks - this jerky game is weird, but at least it now uses the smoother STe scrolling.
• Menace - I cannot thank Peter enough for replacing that horrendous yellow ship!
• Uridium - Blitter-boost that sluggish ship and add DMA-streamed background music while you're at it!

  

Now let's take a little run-around with these three you might never have expected to boot up...

• Giana Sisters - this Zamuel_a enhanced game now comes with optional DMA streamed music!!
• Hard 'n' Heavy - gone is that embarrassing flip-screen, thanks to the Blitter.
• Road Runner - Improved and Blitterized for faster scrolling, but it's still a silly game!

  

Okay, let's end in style! Here are two ST classics and a PC classic, too! Ooh, nice...

• Goldrunner - Some might not like this, but I hit the F3 key to disable the fuzzy speech!
• Gauntlet - this sluggish hack 'n slasher gets big improvements, but still needs extra CPU grunt.
• Wolfenstein 3D - Ray's jaw-dropping FPS now has bugs removed with decent save game support.