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View topic - Is anyone working on a SMS Attack of the Petscii Robots port?

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  • Joined: 23 Dec 2022
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Is anyone working on a SMS Attack of the Petscii Robots port?
Post Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 7:57 am
I know a bunch of platforms are getting ports of the game and the author is giving out the source code freely, just curious if anyone is tackling that project or not?
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Post Posted: Fri Dec 23, 2022 9:29 am
I dont think that he is giving "freely" the source code. He is taking the control about releases of game.
So:
1 - You can ask for port it;
2- He will do a agreement with you and will give the source code;
3 - You will must return to him the game finished;
4 - He will turn it commercial via cartridges or virtually.

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Post Posted: Sun Jun 04, 2023 9:15 pm
Well, now the author uploaded the source code here:
https://github.com/zeropolis79
Unfortunately, there is not a source code for ZX version that is more close to our SMS, so somebody interested will have of port it from 6502.
Edit: There is a Z80 source code from C128 but i dont know how much it is close to Sega 8 bit.
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Post Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2023 12:17 am
segarule wrote
Well, now the author uploaded the source code here:
https://github.com/zeropolis79
Unfortunately, there is not a source code for ZX version that is more close to our SMS, so somebody interested will have of port it from 6502.
Edit: There is a Z80 source code from C128 but i dont know how much it is close to Sega 8 bit.


The C128 has both a 6502 and a z80, but, since the port was based on the C64 versio, it uses 6502 assembly. An alternative would be to use the Amiga an/or SDL versions as starting points, since they are made in C (obviously, the graphics routines would have to be rewritten from scratch, no matter what).
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Post Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2023 2:17 pm
segarule wrote
Well, now the author uploaded the source code here:
https://github.com/zeropolis79
Unfortunately, there is not a source code for ZX version that is more close to our SMS, so somebody interested will have of port it from 6502.
Edit: There is a Z80 source code from C128 but i dont know how much it is close to Sega 8 bit.


That repository must be the author of those ports.
The author of the game is David Murray who lives in Texas (in the USA).
David just made a long video on his youtube channel ("The 8-bit Guy") announcing he's basically done with the game. IIRC he said he might be willing to do a little bit of bug checking but he's otherwise not interested in new ports.
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Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 10:37 am
Game ported to MSX 1 with some better conf.
https://www.msxdev.org/2023/09/19/msxdev23-18-attack-of-the-petscii-robots/

1 step for our SMS.
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Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 1:36 pm
"Hardware requirements: MSX1, V9990, OPL4"

Wow, those are some ridiculous requirements for MSX1. Maybe the 4 or 5 people in the world with one of those will be able to play the game.

best regards,
- dink
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Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 4:21 pm
segarule wrote
Game ported to MSX 1 with some better conf.
https://www.msxdev.org/2023/09/19/msxdev23-18-attack-of-the-petscii-robots/

1 step for our SMS.

And you want to tell me the Master System will be able to handle graphics and sound like that? No way in hell
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Post Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2023 6:27 pm
Cris1997XX wrote
segarule wrote
Game ported to MSX 1 with some better conf.
https://www.msxdev.org/2023/09/19/msxdev23-18-attack-of-the-petscii-robots/

1 step for our SMS.

And you want to tell me the Master System will be able to handle graphics and sound like that? No way in hell

Easy friend. I mean that game is in hardware close to our SMS. Maybe with the author (ROBOSOFT) giving the source code. But im also just speculating...
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Post Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 1:03 pm
Cris1997XX wrote
segarule wrote
Game ported to MSX 1 with some better conf.
https://www.msxdev.org/2023/09/19/msxdev23-18-attack-of-the-petscii-robots/

1 step for our SMS.

And you want to tell me the Master System will be able to handle graphics and sound like that? No way in hell


Why not? It's only 16 color graphics. The colors will be slightly different on the SMS. You probably want to use blues in stead of greys, due to the lack of greys.
The main character has a lot of animation so you will have to stream the tiles. I believe it's 24x24 pixels, which is smaller than i.e. Sonic. It doesn't even have to be a sprite, it can be background too, as everything is on a 8x8 pixels grid.

Drawing the character behind the background might be problem but there are different solutions for this. Background prio when the character is a sprite. Drawing a sprite on top might work. When the character is bg, then it needs to be draw in software anyway.

A hud like this is only a problem on the SMS when combined with smooth scrolling of the play field.
But there is no smooth scrolling in the original game even on snes and Mega drive ports. Some ports scroll by each 8 or even 16 pixels. Without smooth scrolling, i believe it will no problem to draw hud like this on the SMS.

The sound on this MSX port is extremely well made, and sounds much better than other ports. This will be hard match no matter what system. But don't underestimate SMS FM either, it can sound great when in good hands.

The amount of buttons is a problem on a lot of ports. At least the SMS has a 3rd button, although it is on the console itself. A Mega drive controller might be a good solution.
Many other older systems have even less buttons, so the game comes with a snes gamepad adapter.
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Post Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 1:40 pm
Made a SMS mockup of the title screen by combining the Amiga and Snes art :)

I didn't count the tiles though.

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Post Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 7:35 pm
slogra wrote
The amount of buttons is a problem on a lot of ports. At least the SMS has a 3rd button, although it is on the console itself.

How about using the second controller for extra buttons?
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Post Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 8:07 pm
slogra wrote
Made a SMS mockup of the title screen by combining the Amiga and Snes art :)

I didn't count the tiles though.


Diggin' your palette choices, that screen seriously pops hard.
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Post Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2023 9:29 pm
gallos_11 wrote
How about using the second controller for extra buttons?


Yeah, that is a great solution too!

xfixium wrote


Diggin' your palette choices, that screen seriously pops hard.


Thanks!

The tile count is very high though. So many details will have to be removed. Like the moon, the whole street, and buildings will have be repeated or removed.

I was thinking it might be possible to use more tiles by using 3bpp tiles, instead of 4bpp tiles. The green text can even be 1bpp. It should work, right?

The title picture will look like this when using 8 color tiles and 4 palettes. Still very nice imho.

Edit: made mistake in the previous picture so replaced it

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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 4:15 am
gallos_11 wrote
slogra wrote
The amount of buttons is a problem on a lot of ports. At least the SMS has a 3rd button, although it is on the console itself.

How about using the second controller for extra buttons?

You could do that on an emulator or FPGA device but that's not really a pleasant thing to do on original hardware. Having to hold and operate two controllers at once is rather awkward, isn't it?
Also requires players to own and connect two fully working controllers, which can be slightly more of a demand these days.
(though that didn't stop some Famicom developers from doing that, utilizing it had two permanently attached controllers.)
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 10:21 am
Wouldn't the main issue for a port be the RAM usage? The original game on Commodore PET was designed with 32KB in mind I believe. The SMS's got 8 by default...

https://www.the8bitguy.com/product/petscii-robots/ (the system requirements are in the description)
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 11:29 am
armixer24 wrote
Wouldn't the main issue for a port be the RAM usage? The original game on Commodore PET was designed with 32KB in mind I believe. The SMS's got 8 by default...

https://www.the8bitguy.com/product/petscii-robots/ (the system requirements are in the description)


Yes, it would need plenty of refactoring and memory relocation to separate the mutable parts from the immutable ones, that is, assuming that, in the end, the remaining mutable parts happen to be small enough to fit 8kb, which may not necessarily be true.

Since there exists a NES port, it would be interesting to see if it has such relocation in place, or if it is simply using a mapper with extra RAM.

Then again, there's always the option to create a SMS mapper with 32KB or more of extra RAM on the cart, wich would greatly expand the possibilities for porting games from other Z80 platforms.
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 12:41 pm
Quote
Edit: made mistake in the previous picture so replaced it

WOW. Nice screen. It need a "SMS" in building replacing MSX.


Quote
Having to hold and operate two controllers at once is rather awkward, isn't it?
Also requires players to own and connect two fully working controllers, which can be slightly more of a demand these days.

A 6 button genesis controller could solve this problem.



Quote
Yes, it would need plenty of refactoring and memory relocation to separate the mutable parts from the immutable ones, that is, assuming that, in the end, the remaining mutable parts happen to be small enough to fit 8kb, which may not necessarily be true.

Since there exists a NES port, it would be interesting to see if it has such relocation in place, or if it is simply using a mapper with extra RAM.

Then again, there's always the option to create a SMS mapper with 32KB or more of extra RAM on the cart, wich would greatly expand the possibilities for porting games from other Z80 platforms.



In fact, this would be a BIG problem in port it. Most systems requires 48/64KB. So is almost impossible.
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 1:09 pm
Usually in microcomputers you need a lot of RAM because you need to load the graphics there, but this is not needed for consoles. Looking at the game, I don't think it needs more than 3-4 kbs....
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 4:48 pm
slogra wrote

The tile count is very high though. So many details will have to be removed. Like the moon, the whole street, and buildings will have be repeated or removed.

I was thinking it might be possible to use more tiles by using 3bpp tiles, instead of 4bpp tiles. The green text can even be 1bpp. It should work, right?


Actually i don't think 3bpp will work. It will still be 4bpp in memory, so it doesn't save memory.
So the title screen needs to be simplified to get the titlecount down.
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 5:10 pm
haroldoop wrote

Since there exists a NES port, it would be interesting to see if it has such relocation in place, or if it is simply using a mapper with extra RAM.


Many games use 8KB on-cart RAM (only sometimes with a battery for saving) which effectively raised the total to 10KB.
Then again, these days it seems the homebrew community has just started inventing their own mappers, so what is on an original cart is irrelevant these days.

Though SMS can do on-cart RAM but perhaps is not as useful since it would need to be bankswapped with ROM under a standard Sega mapper? (Cart RAM would still occupy the 8000-BFFF space, yes?)
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Post Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2023 9:13 pm
Hey, friends, maybe dont be impossible. There is a Atari 7800 version:
https://atariage.com/store/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1282

The Atari 7800 have only 4KB of RAM and the game is good. Good sound and graphics:
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