12-31-2022, 08:44 PM
New Year's here... Let's Get Dizzy!
Fast Food
Sadly the game didn't allocate the palette properly so the sprites mix with the background meaning that they are broken (black background that affects Dizzy's sprites because the palette only uses 1 black and the other 7 colours are duplicated twice). Then how come when you look at screenshots Dizzy has a black mouth? A workaround where the backgrounds have a black pattern that happen to resemble his mouth...
Kwik Snax
This time it's like the old arcade games with the black background.
Dizzy
The OG. Weirdly the disk version has only been preserved very recently despite being a well known game. Outside of the animation order and sprite boundaries, the difference between this and some of the later games is that the mouth and eyes are the same colour as the background. It got fixed in later games apart from Spellbound Dizzy where it was decided to be more like the Spectrum version (one of the two Dizzy Amstrad games that actually match the character design on covers, as in white with the red shoes). The engine can also drop animation frames and noticed that when using something like AnimGet/ScreenGet, only used it to verify the animation order.
Treasure Island Dizzy
Sprites are almost identical to Fantasy World Dizzy, even kept the same layout too.
Magicland Dizzy
This is just like a Metal Slug/Mega Man game isn't it? Only thing that I've done compared to the above was rip the Spectrum format appear animation.
Now for some other Amstrad games...
750cc Grand Prix
It doesn't look like it, this rip took over 4 years to finish. I abandoned the sheet a long time ago because WinApe could rip the sprites but suffered from palette problems with the tires on the bikes while Caprice Forever can't because it uses what I call the rarely used "Inverted Linear" layout... basically a different endian. Give it another try on Caprice Forever and found a long time consuming way of ripping moving each 4 vertical pixel strip. Since it only affected the rider and the rival, the rest only had to minorly change the palette and re-rip the loading screen due to the scene group put themselves on the loading screen on the disk version (the game AFAIK was only released on tape). Sadly didn't have much time to do anything but the rider.
ATV Simulator
Street Machine
Also did the enemies and The Ogre King from a certain mascot, said mascot also had an update as I was unaware of the final boss sprites. It's bad design where you only have 3 chances during that scene and if you fail... the game crashes with a message and you have to reset the machine to try all over again... Imagine if you have to do that in modern gaming.
The next push for the Amstrad is going to be on Titus, Microids and a few early Ubisoft games or in other words some French made games then finishing off WEC Le Mans, Renegade 3 (the final Imagine published games as Ocean retired the name) and the last commercially released game Nigel Mansell's World Championship that was only released due to a campaign, no different than Operation Rainfall. Knowing my backlog, it could take 8 months+ to get there...
Spectrum
750cc Grand Prix
Unlike Paris to Dakar, this at least managed to have a preserved tape dump. The gimmick was when turning your bike, the screen turns too a bit like some of the M2 Sega arcade ports on the 3DS. This by comparison to the Amstrad version was quicker to rip. As mentioned on the roadside objects sheet, this game suffers from graphical corruption and there's nothing that I can do. I have checked both the tape dump and the broken Z80 savestates, it's like that in all of them.
007: The Living Daylights
It was considered a British tradition having James Bond on TV in some form around Christmas, this makes it the only somewhat festive rip this year... (Also turns out that the sprites are the same as the Amstrad version only without the extra colour and for some reason duplicated twice in the data...)
Fancied ripping Slicks except that game is considered lost... It was one of the last Codemasters games on the Spectrum, was released as part of the Super Sports Challenge compilation (not to be confused with the NES one aka Quattro Sports) and it got reviewed in the April 1993 magazine of Your Sinclair (so they'll would have got it around February due to the lead time). Was suppose to be released in November 1992 but must have got delayed. Nothing of the game is preserved at all; no tape dump, no Z80 savestate, not even the artwork. All that exists of the game is screenshots in magazines. Oh well... Found a couple of curios that I'll see if I can rip instead.
Anyway was going to have more sheets ready for the festive season (including Operation Wolf, Spellbound Dizzy and RoadBlasters for the Amstrad) but a combination of still going through my gaming collection with the amount of games that I can play/enjoy is rapidly deceasing, the usual problems, some sprite rips are in the "stuck" phase and being busy with other things meant that they couldn't be done. Ironically the past week gave me just that extra time to rip even if it meant ripping at 2AM. Hopefully within the next few months, can focus on finishing more on the sprite rips.
(Was also going to post a couple more WIPs including a certain famous time traveller on the Spectrum that's getting there but again, not enough time to whip up an upload somewhere)
Fast Food
Dizzy
Enemies
Items
Sadly the game didn't allocate the palette properly so the sprites mix with the background meaning that they are broken (black background that affects Dizzy's sprites because the palette only uses 1 black and the other 7 colours are duplicated twice). Then how come when you look at screenshots Dizzy has a black mouth? A workaround where the backgrounds have a black pattern that happen to resemble his mouth...
Kwik Snax
Dizzy
Percy the Penguin
Martin the Mouse
Willy the W.A.S.P.
Micky the Monk
Jimmy the Jester
Ricky Rain-Cloud
Lenny Lightning
Roger the Ram
Objects
This time it's like the old arcade games with the black background.
Dizzy
Dizzy
The OG. Weirdly the disk version has only been preserved very recently despite being a well known game. Outside of the animation order and sprite boundaries, the difference between this and some of the later games is that the mouth and eyes are the same colour as the background. It got fixed in later games apart from Spellbound Dizzy where it was decided to be more like the Spectrum version (one of the two Dizzy Amstrad games that actually match the character design on covers, as in white with the red shoes). The engine can also drop animation frames and noticed that when using something like AnimGet/ScreenGet, only used it to verify the animation order.
Treasure Island Dizzy
Dizzy
Sprites are almost identical to Fantasy World Dizzy, even kept the same layout too.
Magicland Dizzy
Dizzy
This is just like a Metal Slug/Mega Man game isn't it? Only thing that I've done compared to the above was rip the Spectrum format appear animation.
Now for some other Amstrad games...
750cc Grand Prix
Rider
It doesn't look like it, this rip took over 4 years to finish. I abandoned the sheet a long time ago because WinApe could rip the sprites but suffered from palette problems with the tires on the bikes while Caprice Forever can't because it uses what I call the rarely used "Inverted Linear" layout... basically a different endian. Give it another try on Caprice Forever and found a long time consuming way of ripping moving each 4 vertical pixel strip. Since it only affected the rider and the rival, the rest only had to minorly change the palette and re-rip the loading screen due to the scene group put themselves on the loading screen on the disk version (the game AFAIK was only released on tape). Sadly didn't have much time to do anything but the rider.
ATV Simulator
Rider & ATV
Street Machine
Car
Also did the enemies and The Ogre King from a certain mascot, said mascot also had an update as I was unaware of the final boss sprites. It's bad design where you only have 3 chances during that scene and if you fail... the game crashes with a message and you have to reset the machine to try all over again... Imagine if you have to do that in modern gaming.
The next push for the Amstrad is going to be on Titus, Microids and a few early Ubisoft games or in other words some French made games then finishing off WEC Le Mans, Renegade 3 (the final Imagine published games as Ocean retired the name) and the last commercially released game Nigel Mansell's World Championship that was only released due to a campaign, no different than Operation Rainfall. Knowing my backlog, it could take 8 months+ to get there...
Spectrum
750cc Grand Prix
Bikes
Road
Roadside Objects
Unlike Paris to Dakar, this at least managed to have a preserved tape dump. The gimmick was when turning your bike, the screen turns too a bit like some of the M2 Sega arcade ports on the 3DS. This by comparison to the Amstrad version was quicker to rip. As mentioned on the roadside objects sheet, this game suffers from graphical corruption and there's nothing that I can do. I have checked both the tape dump and the broken Z80 savestates, it's like that in all of them.
007: The Living Daylights
James Bond
It was considered a British tradition having James Bond on TV in some form around Christmas, this makes it the only somewhat festive rip this year... (Also turns out that the sprites are the same as the Amstrad version only without the extra colour and for some reason duplicated twice in the data...)
Fancied ripping Slicks except that game is considered lost... It was one of the last Codemasters games on the Spectrum, was released as part of the Super Sports Challenge compilation (not to be confused with the NES one aka Quattro Sports) and it got reviewed in the April 1993 magazine of Your Sinclair (so they'll would have got it around February due to the lead time). Was suppose to be released in November 1992 but must have got delayed. Nothing of the game is preserved at all; no tape dump, no Z80 savestate, not even the artwork. All that exists of the game is screenshots in magazines. Oh well... Found a couple of curios that I'll see if I can rip instead.
Anyway was going to have more sheets ready for the festive season (including Operation Wolf, Spellbound Dizzy and RoadBlasters for the Amstrad) but a combination of still going through my gaming collection with the amount of games that I can play/enjoy is rapidly deceasing, the usual problems, some sprite rips are in the "stuck" phase and being busy with other things meant that they couldn't be done. Ironically the past week gave me just that extra time to rip even if it meant ripping at 2AM. Hopefully within the next few months, can focus on finishing more on the sprite rips.
(Was also going to post a couple more WIPs including a certain famous time traveller on the Spectrum that's getting there but again, not enough time to whip up an upload somewhere)