Hello,

I have just released a new little game for AGA Amigas. It's a simple puzzler where the player has to reconstruct a picture split in a number of tiles - here's a video that clarifies the concept perfectly.
If you feel like, go get it from https://www.retream.com/ArtPazz - it's free ;)


SOME FEATURES

* Besides the 10 default images, the player can add more images by just dropping them into the appropriate directory (the pictures must be 320x256 pixels and have a depth of up to 64 colors).
* Likewise, it is possible to add more music modules to the appropriate directory.
* Up to 8 local players can challenge one another.
* Joystick/joypad and/or keyboard and/or mouse are all supported; they can all be used at the same time; any single device can control the game entirely (in the joystick case, two buttons are required).
* It comes as an: LHA archive, ADF image, ISO image.


BACKSTORY

In 1995 I made Puzzly, my third little game for Amiga (while, instead, I should have studied for the high school exit exam). It did not look good (although my eyes could not see that back then) and it had a very annoying feature that was even totally superfluous, but it was fun enough and I actually enjoyed it with some friends in a few of occasions. The game was written with AMOS Professional.
11 years later (2006), I worked on a project for the local department of the Ministry of Heritage. I had a technical role and I was surrounded by art experts. The project was called ART-PAST. It was so badly planned, the resources were so scarce, the salaries were so low and the demands on my colleagues were so huge that we soon ended up calling the project ART-PAZZ ("pazzo" means "mad"/"crazy" in Italian, and "pazz'" is the way it is spoken in our dialect), as those people were being driven mad and the overall atmosphere was totally crazy.
Now, 15 additional years later (2021), during a break from the writing of a novel, I found the perfect time for a small project like this. I rewrote the game from scratch using ALS, a graphics engine for AMOS Professional I released in October 2020 (rewriting the game using CSS, the ALS predecessor, is something I had been wanting to do for ages), keeping it as simple as I could.
I chose the name ArtPazz because the game might actually drive crazy, because "Pazz" (in Italian) sounds similar to "puzz" in "Puzzly"/"puzzle", because I threw some paintings in the mix and because it gave me one more reason to have a good laugh with some of the old friends involved in the ART-PAZZ... erm... ART-PAST project.


TECHNICAL NOTES

As indirectly stated above, ArtPazz has been written with AMOS Professional (version 2.00, to be precise). However, thanks to the self-produced ALS engine (https:www.retream.com/ALS), it is a proper AGA game - in fact, it:
* uses 8 bitplanes;
* uses 24-bit colors;
* allows 6-bit images under a 2-bit overlay with partially transparent colors.

Note: the overlay colors are white, gray and black; that is not due to technical limitations, but to ensure that the overlay looks fine regardless of the hues of the underlying images.

Last edited by saimo on 09-Jul-2021 at 02:41 PM.
Last edited by saimo on 09-Jul-2021 at 02:35 PM.
Last edited by saimo on 09-Jul-2021 at 12:59 PM.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

@saimo

Looks good and really interesting background story!

@pavlor

Thanks!
Glad you appreciated the story :)

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

@saimo

You are amazing!

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@Yssing

Thanks, but not really... also, definitely not for so little

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

Working on Follix inspired me some changes also for its brother ArtPazz. While waiting for Follix to be released, enjoy this updated version of ArtPazz!

v1.1 (09.07.2021)
· Changed keyboard handling so that the system keyboard speed is not altered after quitting the game.
· Improved font handling.
· Recompiled against ALS v2.0.
· Touched up music (in particular, removed the A#3 and B3 notes crackling, and lots of pops).
· Improved icons.
· Revised manual.

Last edited by saimo on 09-Jul-2021 at 01:04 PM.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

Just released a new version of ArtPazz - it's "just" a minor maintenance release, but, still, go grab it from https://www.retream.com/ArtPazz

v1.2 (18.07.2021)
* Fixed writes to POTGO: OUTLX and DATLX were set instead of OUTLY and DATLY; POTGO is now managed properly by means of potgo.resource.
* Fixed bug that could cause a graphical glitch in the menus.
* Made a tiny optimization.
* Made minor changes to the directories/files tree.
* Improved manual.

Last edited by saimo on 18-Jul-2021 at 03:30 PM.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

A quick heads-up to let you know that I released a couple of littles updates.

v1.4 (20.02.2023)
* Changed the conditions of many If, Until and While statements and turned For ... Next loops into Repeat ... Until loops to have the AMOS Professional Compiler produce shorter and faster code.
* Recompiled against ALS v2.3.

v1.3 (19.02.2023)
* Fixed endless floppy drive motor spinning
* Recompiled against ALS v2.2.
* Optimized executable with custom tool.
* Touched up manual.

https://www.retream.com/ArtPazz
https://retream.itch.io/artpazz

Last edited by saimo on 21-Feb-2023 at 12:29 PM.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

New version of ArtPazz released. It benefits from the recent improvements to ALS and to the AMOS executables optimizer originally developed for Ring around the World.

v1.7 (18.03.2023)
* Fixed 'I' and ']' of big font.
* Removed involuntary dependency on AMCAF (the cleanup code included an Open Workbench command).
* Saved some memory by tweaking the AMOS Professional Interpreter configuration.
* Recompiled against ALS v2.4 (which eliminates the dependency on mathtrans.library).
* Reprocessed executable with improved optimizer tool that optimizes also Exit If ... and While ... Wend.
* Embedded version string in executable.

v1.6 (02.03.2023)
* Fixed 24 bytes memory leak due to the AMOS function Dir First$() by replacing it (and Dir Next$()) with direct calls to dos.library.
* Fixed 24 bytes memory leak due to the new font handling code.

v1.5 (28.02.2023)
* Changed font handling so that diskfont.library is no longer needed.
* Made minimal changes to the startup and cleanup code.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

Just released a minor update.

https://retream.itch.io/artpazz

v1.8 (07.06.2023)
* Recompiled against ALS v2.5.
* Reprocessed executable with improved optimizer tool that optimizes also multiplications and divisions of variables by powers of 2.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

Other updates followed...

https://retream.itch.io/artpazz

v1.12 (9.10.2024)
* Recompiled against ALS v2.8.
* Reprocessed executable with a fixed version of APEO.

v1.11 (15.7.2024)
* Reprocessed executable with a largely improved and extended version of APEO.

v1.10 (12.5.2024)
* Recompiled against ALS v2.7.

v1.9 (24.4.2024)
* Touched up manual.

v1.9 (8.1.2024)
* Reprocessed executable with a better version of APEO.
* Touched up manual.

v1.8 (23.6.2023)
* Changed contact email address.

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RETREAM - retro dreams for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC