GamesTM issue 117 is out

A rather good article on us bods at Sensible... Worth a purchase if I don't say so myself

(UPDATE) An old screen mock up..and my blog is now wider!!

I've widened the width of this blog! Yay let's all have a party! Ok it's not that big a deal but it does mean I can fit some Amiga size screenshots in now without having to scale them down and in the process  losing that retrotastic scanline effect I like to add.

To start it off here's something I found recently from 1994. It's an old screen mock up of a game I was going to do with a couple of old mates of mine called TMR-II for the PC. For those interested the art was drawn using Brilliance on an Amiga A1200.

Paris with or without top?

Looking at the width I still think there's some adjustments to be made but it's better than it was. Only real tweak I've had to make so far was the blog header which needed expanding to cover the extra space.

I almost forgot there was also a female character called 'Paris'. Can't think why I did a lesser clothed version? Hmmm... 
**** UPDATE ****
Me mate Gary Symons just reminded me that the game was based on an old arcade title called 'Search and Rescue' by SNK which I was aware of at the time but due to creeping old age had totally forgotten about.. So to remind me and anyone else who is wondering, which is probably about 3 people here's a youtube clip  of said arcade game being played.

Revisiting 1995: The Sensible Golf level editor

Define new map?

It's screen shot time again folks! I've taken it upon myself to provide a few screen shots for the GamesTM article that's currently being written. 'Yeah no probs' I said thinking I'd load up the old Amiga emulator, take a few screen shots and be out in time for the virtual pub to open.. Nope!

Hang about, go back to the start, what am I talking about 'again' I've not done any for a while, damn I must be getting on a bit as I'm time warping back to 1995 and the many hours, days, months spent designing and editing golf courses for Sensible Golf. Strange.

Anyway as I was saying it took a bit longer than I thought but after several failed attempts to get me USB joystick working,(subject of a later post) I managed to sort out the shots as promised and just as I was about to close down the emulator I saw a disk image of the Sensible Golf map editor. Hmmm.. I wonder if it works? And if it does work will I be able to actually use it again? (cue tick tock music)  It loads! Cool I thought... then.. well.. that's about as far as I got. The memory banks that stored the 'how to use it guide' have become somewhat corrupted so I'm relying on that old favourite , trial and error.

Something is working here...

Unlike Cannon Fodder these tiles are 16x8!

A brief break for some food followed by much clicking and pointing with more clicking and pointing thereafter revealed what can only be described as a light from the heavens. Well actually it was a loaded golf course map but you get the idea. So I'm now seeing a loaded map and those corrupted memory banks have began to self defrag. Result! Joyous triumphant cheering would be heard if I could be bothered.  Strange thing memory, if you had asked me this morning how to use the Sensible Golf editor I would have look bewildered and puzzled, more than I would on a normal day.

So what's the point of this somewhat pointless exercise? Well I was kind of thinking how cool it would be to hack the original game graphics and levels I did back in the day with a newly created one off map and graphics,  as you do.

Then I thought apart from me I doubt anyone would really be that bothered by it, my to do list is quite big and if I was going to do something along the hack route I would suspect Cannon Fodder is a clear winner for this kind of retro tom foolery.

Ah well the idea was good for all of about 5 mins including ad break. ;) That Cannon Fodder idea is starting to linger...hmmm....