Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social

Demonstrating to the world one day at a time that the Atari STE is actually quite a nice machine.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

This is the latest build of the Atari STE game I am now provisonally calling "Cavey Taxi".

Pick up passengers in a tight cave complex and drop them off elsewhere, fighting gravity, time and fuel consumption. With pretty parallax scrolling and particles.

What's not to like? 😀

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

Download the WIP build from https://t.co/CH6JJEXgvd

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

I've been struggling to find time to do Atari gamedev for months, so I've made the decision to release a playable WIP build of my Atari STE game "Cavey Taxi".

Feels marginally better than having it rotting away on my hard drive. 😞

💾 Download link in the comments.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

YouTube gameplay video:
https://t.co/tQjcBWOEGt

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

I've been struggling to find time to do Atari gamedev for months, so I've made the decision to release a playable WIP build of my Atari STE game "Cavey Taxi".

Feels marginally better than having it rotting away on my hard drive. 😞

💾 Download link in the comments.

#AtariSTE

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

Download the WIP build from https://t.co/CH6JJEXgvd

[Jonas Eschenburg @indyjonas]

The world had to wait for 30 years. Here it is, at last: Command & Conquer for the Atari ST!

[Neil Rackett @neilrackett]

Introducing Pico3D Open World Game for #AtariST with SidecarTridge Multi-device.

It's still very much a WIP, but it loads and runs, you can walk, look up (sometimes down 😅), and it even has a day/night colour cycle.

💾 https://t.co/3KK5wXpoEJ

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@indyjonas I wish I was that clever... 😁

The 960x600 bitmap (it's actually 640x600 now that I've checked it) is duplicated in memory and I swap between the two.

UI and sprites are drawn and then erased from each 640x600 bitmap in what I assume is standard hardscroll practice.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

This is the latest build of the Atari STE game I am now provisonally calling "Cavey Taxi".

Pick up passengers in a tight cave complex and drop them off elsewhere, fighting gravity, time and fuel consumption. With pretty parallax scrolling and particles.

What's not to like? 😀

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@indyjonas These pregenerated Blitter code blocks make use of endmask regs to avoid overwriting the foreground layer. The algo attempts to work out which spans are on screen on each frame and only update those spans.

I hoped to get more than 17fps out of this, but there you go. 🤷

(2/2)

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@indyjonas Glad you asked. 😁

The foreground layer is a double buffered 960x600 bitmap that scrolls around using the STE hardscroll.

The background layer is drawn by a series of pregenerated and unrolled Blitter code blocks representing single-line horizontal spans.

(1/2)

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@indyjonas Witchcraft. 😀

Really looking forward to hearing you talk more about how you were able to use AI tools to aid reverse engineer the original code.

I spent about 5 months on manually reversing the Pole Position code nearly 15 years ago but time is more scarce now. 😬

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@indyjonas Nice - great to hear you're making progress. I'll look forward to hearing more about the approach when you're further down the line with things. 👍

[BrewOtaku Homebrew Retro Gaming Magazine @brewotakumag]

🎁 Tunnel Panic by Into The Vertical Blank for Atari ST. Keep on flying as long as possible, slight Flappy Bird vibes here!

Check: https://t.co/EObdXslEyv

#homebrew #atarist #retro #game #tunnelpanic

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@EGVroom I thought it offered a simplified control scheme as well as the weird two stick scheme? Although maybe nobody knows about it.

Agreed that the world needs more arcade racers. Where are the contemporary equivalents of games like Burnout 3?

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@dantemendes See also: the Amiga OCS/ECS WIP port of this game that I hope to finish some day: 😬

https://t.co/qBOy1CVW2O

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

FASTER for #Amiga OCS/ECS: switched over to single pass (rather than 4 pass) rendering for car and scenery bobs, giving a noticeable increase in performance.

Further evidence for any existing doubters out there that this is definitely not a lazy port from the ST! 😄

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@Sut1978 Yes, Lotus STE is my work. 😀

As is the 2017 conversion of Pole Position for the STE if you’ve not yet seen that.

The biggest challenge I’d face with Lotus 2 is getting everything back on a single floppy. Lots of additional binary data on this enhanced version.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

Latest work on my #AtariSTE enhanced version of Lotus 2, now with a sky gradient similar to that featured in the #Amiga version. Still loads of work to do in various areas but it's looking good and performing well. 👍 🚗

I'll probably release as a single stage proof of concept.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@Sut1978 I’ve been meaning to put a frame counter in place to accurately measure fps. The main objective is to increase graphical fidelity rather than increase fps though.

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@Sut1978 I’ll certainly aim to release a disk image that lets you play through an enhanced version of the first stage. I’m a bit daunted by the prospect of enhancing the entire game though!

[Jonathan Thomas @atariste.bsky.social @RetroRacing]

@radres I’m struggling a bit to understand what you’re trying to convey here.

Do you understand the context of this project, and are you aware of my previous work on the Lotus games?