JASPP to release additional Archimedes titles
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
JASPP have agreed with the former owners of Artex Software, Eterna, Minerva and VOTI to freely release their original Archimedes titles through the JASPP project, some of which are now available for download on the JASPP development forum. Along with the public release of some of the titles covered by these agreements, JASPP have also released ADFFS 2.50 beta which allows most of the newly available titles to run on the Pi. In addition to releasing titles in their original form, JASPP are also looking to update some of the titles by Artex Software and VOTI to be natively 32bit, the first of which will be SunBurst by VOTI – a work in progress video will soon be posted on the JASPP YouTube channel. Nathan from Visions of the Impossible had this to say – “It has been a very long time since we have trawled through our VOTI archives. It brought a few sad feelings but also many fond memories of our hey-day. Thanks to JASPP for contacting us and for sorting SunBurst to run on recent hardware. Thanks to our VOTI fans of days gone by, without you it just wouldn’t have been worth it.” Speaking on behalf of JASPP, Jon Abbott had this to say – “I have to personally thank Jan from Artex Software, Frédéric and François from Eterna, Nova and Meryln from Minerva and Nathan and Owain from VOTI for their support of the project and enthusiasm to see their titles working again. I also have to thank the JASPP test team, who have put many hours into testing these titles on the Pi in recent months and finally thanks in particular go to Steve Harrison for his work on the Eterna game music.” Jon Abbott adds this concerning Eterna – “Eterna were one of the few companies developing games for the Archimedes outside of the UK and it’s a privilege to make them available again through JASPP. The games themselves are some of the most devilishly difficult on the platform and will keep gamers frustrated for hours, it’s also fair to say that most are unique in both design and technical accomplishment.” Some of the titles covered under these agreements include: |
Alan Robertson (52) 420 posts |
Awesome work. Truly awesome. I’ll be ‘testing’ a few of these I’m sure. |
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
SunBurst work in progress video is now up on YouTube |
David Feugey (2125) 2709 posts |
Thanks for ADFFS, the games and the YouTube videos :) |
Michael Drake (88) 336 posts |
Did you get the source code to Exodus or Botkiller? It would be really nice to play them natively on modern 32-bit systems. |
Kuemmel (439) 384 posts |
Didn’t check the forum in a while…do you support the Pi 2 also by now ? |
Steffen Huber (91) 1953 posts |
Only classic Pi is currently supported. ARMv7 support needs a lot more work according to Jon. |
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
A preliminary release of SunBurst is now available on the JASPP site. |
Michael Drake (88) 336 posts |
Wow, thanks Jon! Can Exodus get the same treatment? Also what’s the situation with Spheres of Chaos? Is there any hope of seeing that 32-bitted? |
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
That’s the plan, provided Jan can locate the source code. I’m certainly down to look at sorting out the sound Modules and 32bitting the Tracker Module.
Its not a game I’ve looked at yet, I can probably get the original running under ADFFS but don’t have rights to release it. Release 2 IIRC required 12mb so won’t run under ADFFS (it has an 8mb limit) If someone wants to put me in touch with the rights owner, I’ll see if they’re willing to let me 32bit and release it – assuming the source is available of course. |
Michael Drake (88) 336 posts |
Oh, great! Its good of Jan to be supportive of this. :) I liked his games. The first Botkiller was a lot of fun too.
There are contact details for Iain McLeod at the bottom of the Spheres of Chaos website also there are some details in the download archive. Its a game that would be really nice to run natively. I used to play it a lot under Aemulor on an Iyonix, but there were rendering glitches and the framerate grew choppy when there was a lot of stuff on screen. |
GavinWraith (26) 1563 posts |
I used occasionally to play Spheres of Chaos a long time ago on a RISCPC. I do not usually play games (fingers no longer agile enough), so I hope it is a testament to how brilliant its graphics are that I have a Windows version on my XP Notebook. It would be splendid to have it running on armv7 machines. |
Andrew Rawnsley (492) 1445 posts |
The author used to live in Warrington (town where I live) but I haven’t heard from him in quite a few years. At the time he was looking for PC games work, so I suspect he may have moved on from here as a number of the big Warrington-area studios closed during the 2000s. When I have a chance, I can put some feelers out for you, as techically we’re still the retailer for the “current” RISC OS build I think. |
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
I’ll see what the author says and then pick up with you Andrew. It’s a similar situation with some of the Artex titles, re my email on 23rd May. |
GavinWraith (26) 1563 posts |
Thanks. I am the last person qualified to give opinions about games, but I was impressed by a number of aspects of Spheres of Chaos. There was a wonderfully varied bestiary of aggressive nasties to zap; some accompanied by sinister sounds. The game starts easy, giving the gamer time to learn, as the challenges increase in difficulty. I should love to know more about the algorithms behind the swarming activity of some of the nasties. I thought it was imaginative and visually impressive. |
Michael Drake (88) 336 posts |
What do you use to capture the videos Jon? |
Adrian Lees (1349) 122 posts |
It slowed down Aemulor development quite a lot, because I lost hours, er, ‘testing’ :) It got the highest commendation I can award any software, that of wishing that I had been the one who’d written it. |
Jon Abbott (1421) 2651 posts |
I use an AVerMedia Game Capture HD II |
Rick Murray (539) 13851 posts |
Talk about something vaguely on topic (especially being friendly and positive and thanking the person for their hard work), then try to slip in a link to something completely unrelated – it’s a common spam technique. |
Lee Shepherd (435) 51 posts |
This is fantastic. I loved Artex games! |
Colin Ferris (399) 1818 posts |
Any flying Progs planned? |