Making ArtPazz (a remake of my third game ever, done in 1995) spurred me to remake (for the... erm... 4th time!) also my very first game (originally made in 1994): enter Follix, another puzzler for all AGA Amigas! The game has been in the works only for a couple of days now: the core is in place, but of course all the rest still needs to be done.
The original game was heavily inspired by Atomix, and so is Follix, although it introduces some gameplay changes. The "ix" at the end of the name comes precisely from "Atomix" - "Folli" instead, comes from "Follia", which is the Italian for "madness" (which links the game to ArtPazz also name-wise).

PREVIEW #1

The video shows the basic gameplay mechanics and these visual effects:
* 24-bit translucencies;
* 24-bit fading from/to black;
* 24-bit cross-fading;
* 8-bit alpha-cycling*;
* 8-bit alpha-cycling and 24-bit cross-fading at the same time*.

(*I genuinely wonder if this has ever done before on Amiga.)

Please note that the graphics are temporary: probably they will change completely (in fact, I'm going to experiment with something totally different right after posting this).
Technical note: like ArtPazz, also Follix is written entirely with AMOS Professional 2.00 and the in-house ALS library.

P.S. And, yes, now I'm dying to remake also my second game ever, but that's just one more entry in my TO-DO list for the moment being.

Last edited by saimo on 23-Mar-2021 at 05:12 PM.

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RETREAM - retro games for Amiga, Commodore 64 and PC

@saimo

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c64-2sids, A1000, A1200T-060@50(finally working!),A4000-CSMKIII
! My Master Miggies- Amiga 1000 & AmigaOne X1000 !
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X1000 I BELIEVE

@klx300r

Thanks :)


@all

PREVIEW #2

In this preview you can see that the core of the game is completely implemented now. In fact, the game can be played from the beginning till the end: all the 30 levels are in place! However, the most important thing to be done before the release is to add some nice gameplay feature. I have omitted the time limit and bonuses that were featured by the original game, as I don't want the game to be stressful (the same choice I made for ArtPazz), but I also want the experience to be richer than it currently is. Of course, there are also other things to do: graphics and sound effects have to be finished, music has to be written, the options menu has to be implemented and a nice story (which will unveil as the puzzles get solved) has to be penned. And I haven't decided yet whether to have a score and/or per-level scores (like the original game).

Last edited by saimo on 08-Apr-2021 at 08:32 PM.

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Curious about how Follix is progressing? This new preview should quench your thrist...

PREVIEW #3

Latest changes:
1. added options menu;
2. added loading/saving;
3. added option to restart from any of the levels previously completed;
4. added trail graphical effect;
5. added music and mute options;
6. added title screen information overlay;
7. improved graphics;
8. improved sounds;
9. made various internal improvements.

Notes about the changes:
1. I decided to keep it minimal and stylish, adding new colors and - of course - more transparencies;
2. the game tries to load the data from both a local file and through nonvolatile.library, and then uses the best data found; the game tries to save the data to a local file and, failing that, tries with nonvolatile.library; at the moment, the only piece of information loaded/saved is the number of the highest level completed;
5. the music is the one I made for ArtPazz and, therefore, just a placedholder;
6. at the moment, it is used only to show the "about" page, but I plan to use it to show also times/scores/records (if I ever decide to add them - I haven't made my mind about this yet); technically, it adds a 75% opaque layer on top of the background and of the alpha-cycling logo;
8. in particular, I have improved the quality of the speech samples, but still they are affected by a light hiss due to quantization, so I'm thinking to use 14 bit playback for them.

General note: the sudden game-overs in the video are not due to a bug or a mistake, but are simply the result of pressing [ESCAPE]

Last edited by saimo on 08-Apr-2021 at 08:35 PM.

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@saimo

Looking good - coming to an A1200/A4000 soon I hope.

The name is a little sus in English as Follix spoken by the female voice on the preview sounds a bit like bollocks.

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@saimo

Really nice!

@A1200

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Looking good

Thanks!

Quote:

coming to an A1200/A4000 soon I hope.

A1200, A4000 and ACD32.
It shouldn't take ages.

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The name is a little sus in English as Follix spoken by the female voice on the preview sounds a bit like bollocks.

A friend told me the same. Yesterday I reprocessed the samples with different reverb settings and I have also implemented 14-bit playback. Hopefully this will reduce the similarity.


@pavlor

Thanks!

Last edited by saimo on 10-Apr-2021 at 11:11 AM.

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@saimo

It's great to see the process as your project matures. Many in Amiga land moan and groan about not having new titles to play but you are making stuff which is admirable. Keep going, looking forward to the alpha/beta if you release it

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Amiga A1200, 3.1 ROMs, Blizzard 1230 MKIV 64MB & FPU, 4GB DoM SSD, Workbench 3.1

@A1200

Quote:

It's great to see the process as your project matures. Many in Amiga land moan and groan about not having new titles to play but you are making stuff which is admirable.

Thank you, much appreciated.
To be fair, though, there are a lot of games being developed nowadays (some of remarkable quality). Lemon Amiga has a nice list in the games forum (I'm not posting a direct link as I'm not sure whether that would break the TOS).

Quote:

Keep going, looking forward to the alpha/beta if you release it

No alpha/beta: I'll simply release the finished game once it's done

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@saimo

Looks awesome.
Actually got really curious to try it out, which is not the normal reaction I get on new Amiga games.

Good work!

@saimo

You just keep doing it, making brilliant games!! You are amazing!

Last edited by Yssing on 12-Apr-2021 at 11:35 PM.

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@Cav

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Looks awesome. Actually got really curious to try it out, which is not the normal reaction I get on new Amiga games.

Much appreciated, especially considering that in the last few years the quality (and amount) of Amiga games has been increasing.

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@Yssing

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You just keep doing it, making brilliant games!! You are amazing!

Now, that's just too much ( ), especially considering that Follix and ArtPazz are only mini-games. Of course, I'm glad you like my games so much - and, to be honest, I prefer getting this kind of feedback than seeing the 3/10 scores ArtPazz got on Lemon Amiga or the 1/10 scored by SkillGrid

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