New Games for 2023:

Next year I have 3 games planned:

1 is a 3D car game called “3D Turbo Boost”, This is scheduled for release at the South West show.

2 is a simpler sort of mega 2D maze game called A-Maze-ing (Releasing at Wakefield)

3 is “Escape from the Light” which is maybe bigger than the other 2. I’m covering this one in detail in a monthly development blog. Please see below.

Yorkshire Games Festival:

I will be exhibiting at the Yorkshire Games Festival at the “Let’s Play! Family Weekend” on the 4th and 5th of February.

https://www.scienceandmediamuseum.org.uk/whats-on/yorkshire-games-festival

The Yorkshire games Festival will be at:

The National Science and Media Museum
Bradford BD1 1NQ

I’ll be running RISC OS on 1 or 2 systems so the public can play games on RISC OS (and also do a bit of RISC OS promotion).
As well as sharing some of the ports to other platforms of Mop Tops and Star Mine.

R D S P Tutorial Series

Click here for Episode 1 * of a new tutorial series on how to use RDSP.

Episode 2 will be released later this week.

Please subscribe to our YouTube channel to catch this upcoming episode

Escape to the Light Development Blog

For a change I decided to blog the process I go through to develop a new game. This includes the initial notes, sketches, inspiration as well as the process of writing and production.

Episode 1 :

Can a mysterious 50 year old audio tape that I found in a charity shop inspire a video game?

The first 10 minutes are some notes and concept art sketches as well as covering what is probably a sound effects tape from the late 1960s for TV, radio or film.

The rest of the video showcases the tape running on a 1964 Phillips EL3548A/15 Reel to Reel tape recorder.

Click here to watch episode 1 *

Episode 2 : Puppet nightmares and composing music

Inspired by a nightmare that came to mind whilst listening to the tape, I try to recreate some of the sound effects.

The second part of the episode includes multi-tracking music for the game, look at synthesisers and then experimenting to create more effects.

Click here to watch episode 2 *

Episode 3 is coming in January and will cover the creation of the initial graphics for the game.

Episode 4 will be released in February and will cover the proof-of-concept for the game running on both RISC OS and other OS’.

Please subscribe to help grow the channel and catch these episodes. It also provides the opportunity to provide feedback and whether something ought to be changed.

Have a great Christmas/New Year and I hope to see you in 2023 at one of these shows:

• Yorkshire Games Festival : 4/5th February
• SouthWest Show : 25th February
• Wakefield Show : 22nd April
• London Show : October 2023.

Thanks and Regards,
Tony
www.amcog-games.co.uk

@ Antony

Yorkshire Games Festival:

That is a great idea! Best of luck with it, it’s a bit far away from where I live, but if you decide to attend any Games and Retro games festival in the South East, I’d love to come and see your new games :)

Thanks Paolo.

I was chuffed when the Yorkshire Games Festival accepted my application. Because retro style is popular in the indie games scene and I have some cross-platform games, I can make it into some indie festivals.

So I’ll keep a look out for another one down south later in the year where I can showcase RISC OS too.

“RDSP for RISC OS Tutorials : Episode 2” is now available to watch on YouTube.

Featuring how to make Dalek voices, sound effects and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt2MBOeAfoQ

Happy new year.

The Juno 6 looks impressive.

Happy New Year to you too.

@ Anthony

“RDSP for RISC OS Tutorials : Episode 2” is now available to watch on YouTube.

Nice!!! Thanks a lot :)

So I’ll keep a look out for another one down south later in the year where I can showcase RISC OS too.

Thank you very much man, really appreciate it!

Happy new year!

The rest of the video showcases the tape running on a 1964 Phillips EL3548A/15 Reel to Reel tape recorder.

You don’t quite have a handle on this steamtech porn stuff do you? Missed an opportunity for some great close-ups. My favourite is the capstan, particularly if it’s nice and shiny (though my usual go-to for great capstan shots is a VCR ;) ).

Reminds me of pre VCR machines – that used Black/white tapes – half the tape for film – half for colour info – sync info in the middle of the tape. – Have a healthy New Year All :-)

Thanks. Yes I’m very fond of the Juno. I’ve had it since 1996. It’s a bit heavy though. Not exactly a portable :-)

“Missed an opportunity for some great close-ups. " Good point. I’ll see what I can do for a future video.

On the reel to reel home video recorders – I’ve heard of those in relation to recovering early lost TV shows (e.g. Steptoe and Son via a Shibaden SV-700 1968 half-inch reel-to-reel) I understand those tapes didn’t transfer well between different machines. But a really cool technical achievement, none-the-less.

Another cool technical achievement… the BBC, a long time ago, transferred colour video of stuff like Doctor Who to monochrome film (for export to places that had not yet moved to colour broadcasting). Then, as we all know these days, the original videos were erased and recycled.

Some really clever nerds have been working on not only recovering the film back into video form, but recovering the colour from the black and white film.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/mar/06/research.bbc

It’s a bit heavy though.

Would you be referring to the weight or the price? I googled it and nearly lost a mouthful of tea.

that used Black/white tapes – half the tape for film – half for colour info – sync info in the middle of the tape

What was this? I’m only aware of two ways of laying a video signal into tape, and that’s the transverse scan in the original Ampex recorder (why it needed 2" tape) and helical scan in just about everything else.

The mechanical problem is that tape moves far too slowly to have any sort of useful bandwidth for video signals, which is why the record head spins at an angle. It’s actually traveling across the tape surface at around 24mph (only slightly slower than my car can manage at full tilt!).
If there was a system that split the tape in halves like that, surely it would have had to feed the tape through at a speed of at least a metre per second, no?

Some really clever nerds have been working on not only recovering the film back into video form, but recovering the colour from the black and white film.

Using software developed by someone whose name should be familiar around these parts, I think.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2008/dec/11/digital-video-restoration-dad-s-army

(and also the last paragraph of this article – although not mentioned by The Graun, I’m fairly sure that at the time some of the press were mentioning a programming language which might also be familiar hereabouts).

“Would you be referring to the weight or the price? I googled it and nearly lost a mouthful of tea.”

The price seems to have gone up a lot in recent years (I paid about 180 pounds in ‘96). I couldn’t justify buying one now… But I guess the lesson is, it’s worth hanging on to old gear.

I have a general interest in film and TV restoration (e.g. The Dr Who restoration team: https://web.archive.org/web/20160424051345/http://restorationteam.impossiblethings.net/ )

The Chroma dot recovery is a very interesting process exploiting PAL artifacts. There are some links that detail the process in this StarDot article including source code snippets:
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16161

https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=16161

Fighting words in that thread!

Bad Taste which was also a low budget aussie film

I wonder if this black/white film came from the machine I was talking about – made by I think Bush – that had a B/W picture one side and was scanned for TV output.
Sync from clear dots in the center.

The other side could be colour info or another B/W film.

Ships at sea used this system – after colour films and before Video Recorders.

Can’t find any info on the web about the machines – all forgotten :-(

that had a B/W picture one side and was scanned for TV output.
Sync from clear dots in the center.

Ah, so it’s actual film, not some sort of magnetic?

I don’t get why the mono and colour are split like that. One can use a mono scanner for colour film perfectly well – if it can’t “see” colour it’ll just pick up the difference in brightness.

Two different films on one reel, I can see that being useful on, say, ships as you mention.

I spoke to a friend who used to work on the Canberra (lovely ship) but he wasn’t involved with that sort of thing, so no leads there.

Something has just popped into my head…

…are you thinking of Double 8 film?

But I guess the lesson is, it’s worth hanging on to old gear.

An argument I used to have with mom when she’d point out that it was pointless hanging onto something thirty years out of date.

You know, somewhere I have a bag with a bunch of Econet interfaces in it. At one time, like the FileStore and the MDFS (mine sadly blew itself up), you couldn’t give them away. Now? I think second hand interfaces cost more now than when they were new.

Fighting words in that thread!

I’m more surprised at all the posts by “Deleted User 9295”. Seems like he gave up and left definitively.

At least all his posts didn’t go with him.

somewhere I have a bag with a bunch of

Somewhere I don’t have a bag with a dozen RiscPCs in it…I may still have the 32MB memory sticks out of some of them. Somewhere.