Prince Of Persia

A 16-bit classic gets updated!

Prince Of Persia is incredible but today receives an audio upgrade which uses the DMA coprocessor to play the effects better. They sound much cleaner and without any slowdown because the DMA is a coprocessor, working independently. This means that the gameplay is better than the original. Which is pretty cool :)

Download right now. Yes, now!!

Chaos Strikes Back

Yet more audio clarity

Following on from yesterday's wonderful news of the Atari STe enhanced update of Dungeon Master, Peter Putnik has improved the audio for Chaos Strikes Back. Once again, this news is making me jump up and down with joy!!! So why not make your Atari STe happy and download this DMA audio upgrade now? Enjoy!! :-)

Dungeon Master

Crawling with audio clarity

Peter Putnik has just updated Dungeon Master to use the Atari STe's DMA Audio hardware. This is huge news for fellow adventurers! Playback is much clearer and this won't impact the computer's performance. Peter informs me that Chaos Strikes Back is next in line for the STe treatment - and I cannot wait!!

Download the new upgrade from 8BitChip.

Scott Clifford

As many know, I've been a friend of Scott's for a while, even though he's from Yorkshire I've never held that against him! Anyhow, I'm always eager to know what he's working on, from those humble beginnings with a Turrican music disk to a near-perfect arcade version of Frogger. To think he's not been coding for that long. Quite incredible!

But, then, he decides to take on the immense task of a Raiden conversion for the Atari STe. His plan is to use the Blitter, DMA audio, hardware scrolling, and more. Such fascinating enthusiasm! So, it was bound to happen sooner or later... Yes, I asked for an interview in the hope it would be interesting for those who don't know the guy behind Frogger and the upcoming Raiden project. My thanks to Scott for this interview and I hope everyone will enjoy the read.

- Scott Clifford - the interview -

Tell us about yourself

Where do I start? Heh.. Let's skip ahead to Christmas 1990, that's where the real fun begins with the introduction into my life of the Atari STe. I never really had any 8-bit systems, this was the first for me, bearing in mind my age. I turned on the STE, stuck in a disk and for the first time in my life was immersed in the world of Indiana Jones. (Kids these days... Tsk!)

From then on, I only really used my ST for games and some school work, but soon started looking into other uses as a teen. One thing I will remark on though was the ease Automation disks were very easy to get hold of... That is another story, by that I mean, wait for the Automation/DBUG DVD ;)

Coding hiSTory?

I only recently started “coding” on the ST, about 2 years ago, roughly 2014/2015 I started messing about in STOS and found it really easy to program and soon enough I was writing small routines, asking for help on the Atari forums, and generally messing about. At the same time, I was trying my hand at everything, music, games, art, programming and getting into the hardware side too. I now have an STe (Of which there is a certain unnamed person I should thank!!! - He knows who he is) and started coding in STOS full time before moving onto ASM for Frogger, which gave me credibility or notoriety.

The Turrican Music Disk was created simply because I am a fan of the game. I just wasn't very good at it, to be honest, and found it far too difficult beyond the “spaceship” levels so that kind of put me off... My music demo started because I did enjoy the tunes but didn't fancy loading the actual game disk each time, and what's more impressive is the fact that this is the first time STOS has used SNDH convincingly I might add. A point missed by a lot of people - the player routine was developed by me and might be the first time STOS has ever used SNDH (note big ego trip here!). As far as music disks go, I did have the idea for a UMD style music player but it never went beyond the ideas stage. 

Frogger for the Atari ST is arcade-perfect and possibly the best home computer version ever.

Why the peculiar handle?

A nickname was given by a dear friend who is no longer with us, referring to my overuse of the colour black, right down to the nails and eyes. Yeah, I was a goth, but I'm now more immature than anything. :) I suppose I tend to lean on the darker side of life, metal music, Gothic architecture (Prague is awesome, need to go there!) and other such “out of the light” topics. But there is the bonkers side of me too, the sort of person that is bubbly but not annoying... by that I mean I can jump down the stairs backwards when I'm bored!

You must be proud of Frogger?

Frogger, to me, is the epitome of a decent arcade game - full of colour, noises, damn hard gameplay, and it doesn't involve rescuing a princess or collecting gold. I wanted to write Frogger initially in STOS because as I was playing it on #cough MAME I realised that the ST was the perfect platform for it. The game itself is simplistic enough but not rubbish AND didn't require some glorious technical ability - there is no scrolling, no bullets, and nothing beyond the ST capabilities.

The fact that I got really close (using STOS) to releasing it just goes to show how easy, in terms of computing, the game was handled by the ST. Unfortunately, like all simplistic programming languages, BASIC was eventually thrown out and I started (with the huge help of Xia!!!) the process of writing the game in assembly - faster code, closer control over the ST and I could use the computer more reliably. STOS is great, but not for this due to too many things on the screen.

I'm so proud of Frogger. It might not be F1 by Geoff Crammond or Anarchy by Psygnosis but it's mine, and it's my first assembly program that works. At this point, I must thank all the people involved in its creation, there are so many who gave support, ideas and actual assets I could use, like music and SFX from Zerkman and Dma-SC. Immense support and patience from XiA too .. I did get some criticism for not making it 21st-century, but I always wanted to replicate the original and never to out-do it.

You gotta check out this music disk, especially using the Atari STe!!

Raiden is humungous

It is!! I had the idea again from playing it on mameUi64 (Plug right there folks!) and looking at it, I wondered if it was possible. I wrote some routines, originally in STOS, and found it far too slow (this is before I started with assembly language and Frogger). So, after Frogger and after I'd gained some knowledge in ASM, I went back to it. I wrote some routines in assembly language and started to learn about the STE specific hardware scrolling. 

All of the music and sprites you see in Raiden are taken directly from the arcade but, because of the 16 colour limitation, I've had to look at the Megadrive version for the level's graphics. This means the levels are quite dark in colour and maybe a little too washed out - at the moment. As far as technical difficulties go, the oddest thing... the tanks are actually the most complicated, after the player, to write code for.

What games do you play?

I'm kind of notorious for it in my house haha! Although I've recently been putting myself through the Forza experience on the Xbox One (a close second to pride and joy, the Atari STe). I do love the ST and Shadow Of The Beast 2 I have been playing a lot of lately, cant seem to get very far though lol. I'd say I'm not a huge fan of RPGs or fantasy stuff like Ishar, could never get into it, although it's very pretty. But certain consoles for me hold certain games, so for instance, Shenmue on the Deamcast, the Lotus Trilogy (yeah I have the actual boxset) for the Atari ST. I need to get some friends with STs and have a four-way … hahahaha obviously in Lotus :P

Raiden, a WIP conversion for the Atari STe... Will it ever see the light of day?

Who inspires you?

This is a strange one because most of my inspiration for coding comes from, not the current scene but from the days gone by. People like Wayne Smithson who, at the time, were cutting edge and mostly “on their own” releasing games like Anarchy. Even its title “it cant be done” says it all lol. The bedroom coders also hold a certain nostalgic feeling too, like the guys over at DMA or even some of the pirate groups like Automation and the Pompey Pirates, what they DIDN'T do for games, they did FOR the ST … if that makes sense? 

I think nowadays it should be looked back on as part of the ST and not the reason for its downfall, Atari did that themselves. I also like niche programmers, those that don't tend to conform to whats expected, Excellence in Art is a prime example of what I'd consider coding for yourself and NOT for the masses. It's probably one of the reasons me and the leading guy there get on so well, even if we do disagree about binary - haha (in-joke)

Any future plans?

Haha, where Do I begin... Flashback (Delphine) is another do-able game, despite reservations from the “scene” ;) I'm also thinking Mortal Kombat... However, whatever I do, I think it will definitely be game related. I don't consider myself a demo writer and although I've put some code into demos I don't think I'd actually write my own. I'll leave that to the pro's like DHS, their “Sea Of Colour” demo is awesome!! Games require a slightly different process to demos and I feel like I'm more suited to the games really.

Everyone's A Geek

Top Of The Pops!

I've just been contacted by Robin, of Robberie, an acoustic indie group. Their latest record is about retro gaming and features numerous devices like the Atari ST and ZX Spectrum. In fact, an Atari ST even played a role in the production using VideoMaster and this alone is very cool. I was extremely fascinated by their ST's role in the production so he kindly sent pictures of his setup that went into making the video.

Check that out above and clickety-click to visit the Robberie website!

- Chatting with ROBIN -

"My 1040 STE plays a starring role in the robberie video for Everyone's a geek, helping to create the pixellated monochrome shots. To do this, footage was recorded on a video camera, which was then fed through a Microdeal Videomaster cartridge.

The software has a live preview mode which displays a quarter-screen feed of whatever you play in 16 shades of grey. So the recorded footage was played back and then I recorded the output from the computer's screen on my smartphone in order to get into a format compatible with editing software on my Mac.

There are some other Atari relics in the video. There are some shots of Roadblasters on my Lynx, which is modded with the brilliant replacement LCD colour screen. The shot of Pong is I'm afraid not original hardware but comes from an Atari classic tv games joystick.

And the Powerplay Cruiser joysticks are the ONLY ones that I could properly play Kick Off 2 on! You can find out more about the other retro hardware to be found in the video on the robberie website."

Raiden

Grab your joystick!

It's been almost a year since I first mentioned news of Raiden's development for the Atari STe by none other than our favourite Frogger dude, Scott Clifford. Sadly, his commitments forced the project to be temporarily put on hold. Thankfully, he has restarted and is making good progress (I'm keeping my fingers crossed).

The initial work behind the scrolling, backgrounds, and sprites is coming together. Also, the enemy sprite routines and placements are now being coded. Quite incredible for a one-man effort and it's a very exciting project to see in progress. I wish Scott well and eagerly await the next update (hurry up mate - I can't wait).

Watch this space, and the plan is rolling around inside Scott's head...

- Hardware scrolling is used for the entire screen - no status panel.
- DMA hardware for the playback of authentic arcade music.
- The Blitter will be utilised for the larger sprites.
- YM chip will be used for the sound effects.
- Support for the JagPad controller can be implemented.
- Please note that my video was recorded using emulation (better on my Atari STe)

Operation Garfield

Wolves are better than cats!

I've been browsing through the Floppyshop archives and stumbled upon a game called Operating Garfield by Dave Brankin. As you might imagine, it's inspired by Operation Wolf but sparked my curiosity because its an Atari STe game. The Blitter pushes the 8-way scrolling and sprites. Not only that but the audio is played using DMA stereo hardware.

Okay, so how is this different from Operation Wolf? Well, it's a shameless ripoff and is also a crosshair shooter using the mouse. The story is different! Time, aliens are invading Earth but they have been watching and figured us easy prey if they disguised themselves as Garfield. Yep, that lazy cat from the TV, so I think they made the wrong assumption!!

The action takes place over a cityscape with its skyline littered with invading Garfield's heads firing rockets. Using the mouse for control, blast the rockets and Garfield heads. It's that simple but, while you're frantically blasting away in this pseudo-3D missile command, look out for ammo caches and smart bombs that will aid your progress. There is also a Defender-style map of the enemy at the top/left but I found that near-useless if I'm honest!

This game is good and a bundle of fun for a few plays. Sadly, the difficulty is extraordinarily high so rarely did I get the chance to see later levels. I also thought the scrolling (framerate?) could have been smoother considering the hardware. It's better when using a real computer but nothing like Asteroidia, and this would have helped tremendously. However, the worst are those T2 samples which are ... good ... but grate after a short while. Gimme chip any day!

Operation Garfield isn't to be taken seriously and provides a few minutes of stress-busting action! Just take it as a cheap Op.Wolf ripoff with loads of pointless yet gratifying Garfield-killing. Not great but a good game worth playing.

- DOWNLOAD -

GEM Desktop

When wallpapers weren't a standard

DeskFX is a GEM utility I thought was pretty cool and entertaining, if annoyingly flawed. It replaces three parts of our beautiful GEM desktop - the default font, a choice of wallpaper, and an animated mouse pointer. As you can see, above, the wallpaper feature only updates every 2/3 seconds which is lame compared to DeskPic. However, the new fonts are superb and (like a big kid) I loved playing with various animated pointers!

It appears the author had an STFM and DeskFX worked fine on my computer in both resolutions. Sadly, I couldn't get it to work on my Atari STe in LOW resolution - only in medium res. Not in the sense of available colours but in terms of functionality, who uses low to work? Who still works on their ST? ;-)

I thought this was a nice utility to share; grab the download on disk UTL-4410 over at Floppyshop.

Grap

Atarimania's Marko Latvanen sent me a game developed by Tangram programmer, Mark Luthe, for the German magazine ST Magazin. Grap first appears as a Tempest clone but is actually a puzzler which I'm sure will appeal to the brainiacs? It was originally sold through the publication as a "budget" mail-order back in 1990 but hasn't been available since. I am very excited by this rare and fascinating find and I hope you enjoy playing it :-)

The only place you shall find Grap is on the excellent AtariMania website.

Computer Magazine Archive has more on ST Magazin (you'll need Google Translate)

Thinkers might wanna check out our "Puzzle" section right here on AtariCrypt :)

Falcon

Game changer

It's satisfying to finally complete a favourite collection of something we love. I have just managed to complete the Falcon trio. Sure, there is a compilation release that bundles the lot together, but I've never been impressed with many like that. I want the original, individual, games. Now I finally have 'em all! :)

I still remember when I first saw this game. A game-changing moment in my history that my old ZX Spectrum heart couldn't believe. The visuals, the audio, and the feeling of flight. Wow, Falcon is a brilliant flight sim with awesome graphics and many interesting locations to fail its many missions! So here is my special 3x cover feature for our Box Art section. Why not take your own F-16 for a spin today?

AtariMania features every Falcon release within their ST database...

     ~ Falcon
     ~ Mission Disk 1 Operation: Counterstrike
     ~ Mission Disk 2 Operation: Firefight
 - 8BitChip has done it again and adapted a Falcon bundle for hard drive installation.
 - Old Game Finder has the floppies for those poor souls without the original disks or a hard drive! :p

Harris Went Skiing

Horace?

Let's rewind the clock to 1982 for a skiing adventure with an 8-bit hero, Horace. Developed in STOS by a couple of brothers calling themselves OllySoft and released a decade after the ZX Spectrum original. However, for his Atari ST appearance, he didn't want to upset Psion and changed his name to Harris to avoid confusion!

Anyone old enough to remember the original will feel at home with Harris who is once again looking to enjoy a skiing trip. However, it's not started off well... Harris finds himself in a pickle as he didn't bring along any skis so must hire replacements from the resort - who built their shop on the wrong side of a busy highway.

The Frogger part is way too easy in comparison to what I remember! Simply waiting for a large gap in the traffic allows Harris to run all the way across the road! The skiing part is great with many obstacles to avoid. Once the skiing is finished, somebody robs your skis so you head back to the hire shop to repeat everything.

OllySoft has done a great job with Harris Went Skiing and "Horace" brought back lots of warm and fuzzy feelings of nostalgia. The Atari ST game is simple and very silly so is highly recommended if you're bored.

Grab the download of Atari Legend and play like it's 1982!! But hold on, cowboy. There are more OllySoft games, but looking at these makes me think that the boys had serious issues! Or a belting sense of humour?

I'll go with the latter, so let's take a quick look at each one...

Who Maimed Roger Rabbit

Imagine Operation Wolf but set in President Trump's backyard which is overrun by rabbits! Aka lefties. Grab a gun and let's fix this problem once and for all. Gameplay is as you might imagine; successful hit turns the rabbits into a bloody mess of gore. I'm sure animal lovers will appreciate this game! Overall, it's a humble take on the famous title but quite enjoyable, if repetitive.

SubHunt

A pointless two-player game without much enjoyment. Playing solo is even worse and I didn't like this game whatsoever. However, it does feature a fantastic hidden easter egg and that's worth the download!!

 

Ayatollah Invaders

An endless supply of ayatollah chaps running down your screen - straight into the path of your tank. It's actually mind-numbingly repetitive but, I gotta admit, darn good fun. Very enjoyable for a couple of games but boring afterwards. It's worth booting up once just to witness the superb somersault deaths.

Motorway Death

Perhaps we can lower the bar even further? Hmm, how about a game of hit and run? Yep, you heard me right!! And, on this road, people appear glued down so drive into them and watch their bodies turn into blood splatters. It's a sick Carmegeddon and so funny... well... for a few minutes!

Head Over Heels

Heading back to my Your Sinclair days

I stumbled upon Head Over Heels by pure chance today. It's been donkey's years since I played this on my old ZX Spectrum and seeing it again is a heartwarming reminder of my 8-bit days. Ocean released this tough isometric adventure in 1989 for the ST but I don't recall ever booting it up. Perhaps an 8-bit game wasn't appealing to me back then?

Head Over Heels is more complex than it first appears - solve puzzles using two characters who have their own skill sets. It's superb to see this game again and anyone who loved the "filmation" genre will surely be in heaven. The graphics are Spec-tacular with superb details and more colour than my old rubber Speccy could ever have dreamt of.

Head Over Heels is a huge and intriguing adventure offering many sleepless nights! Highly recommended.

AtariMania features this in their ST database including an interesting tidbit! Download Head Over Heels from 8BitChip as this supports a trainer and hard drive installation. Also, here is an interesting website for the ZX Spectrum version with maps, videos, and more which prove helpful.