NoRecess - News

Fanzine GX #2 & 64NOPs #1 : Impressions

1/20/2023

Si les fanzines pour machines Amstrad 8-Bit ne sont pas une nouveauté, je reste néanmoins agréablement surpris de la qualité des différentes initiatives sorties ici-et-là ces derniers temps. J'ai reçu deux nouvelles parutions dans ma boite aux lettres, que j'aimerais commenter ici-même.

Fanzine GX #2 est sorti. Le premier constat est immédiat: l'impression (sur papier glacé) est de bien meilleure facture que le premier numéro, la prise en main est parfaite, plus agréable. Le contenu, toujours majoritairement orienté "gaming", a cependant évolué dans ce numéro pour offrir quelques articles sur le matériel. Les petites illustrations dessinées à la main sont toujours aussi agréables. Inattendu (et bonne surprise !): l'entrevue "fleuve" de Roudoudou, très intéressante à lire (la passion y est retranscrite fidèlement, merci pour le partage !). Œuvrant dans le monde Amstrad principalement comme programmeur, je reste cependant sur ma faim techniquement ; mais qu'importe, c'est le grand bonheur que de se retrouver plongé "coté joueur" dans la ludothèque de la GX-4000. Donc bravo à Oncle Ced et son équipe, l'approche est bonne et j'ai hâte de découvrir le prochain numéro (dont je viens d'ailleurs de donner un petit coup de pouce avec l'écriture de 2 articles).

J'ai également eu l'honneur de recevoir le premier numéro d'un nouveau magazine, 64NOPs. Ici encore, l'impression est impeccable, le tout accompagné d'une présentation très soignée. Le contenu, écrit dans un français sans fautes, est très axé "demomaking". Eliot propose un article vraiment unique, mettant en valeur l'historique de l'utilisation de sprites subissant un déplacement au scroll hard dans les démos Amstrad. Les programmeurs également y trouveront leur compte, avec des articles techniques variés dont l'approche rappelle le temps des fanzines Amstrad Live, Quasar CPC et autres Another World. Toujours dans ce numéro au contenu décidément très fourni, on y découvre aussi une présentation approfondie d'UniDOS, la nouvelle interface de programmation d'Offset fournissant l'abstraction d'un système de fichiers (avec repertoires) pour la grande majorité des cartes de stoquage du moment. Enfin, les questions posées lors des entrevues de CNGSoft et Mage sont très pertinentes (cette dernière surtout m'a replongé dans l'époque Epsilonienne des années 1995, merci !). Pour conclure: initiative sympa, souhaitons que ce premier numéro soit le début d'une longue série !

Raaaaahhhh - the AMAZING Longshot's comeback

11/30/2021

A new milestone in Amstrad CPC demoscene history has been reached by Longshot / Logon System, and I wished to enlight this effort here on my personal website.

32 years after its original release, a new version of the Amazing Demo has been published ! In all honesty, this demo aged poorly by today's standards but it's still quite relevant from a historical's point of view. This version includes compatibility fixes for CRTC and FDC. But the real interest is its new intro part, featuring for the first time a new CRTC technique called "RVLL". It allows to set, for each scanlines, any location in the first 64KB of RAM. Similar techniques existed in the past, but it was limited to a much smaller amount of RAM. But wait, this demo was only a warm-up...

A new PDF ebook, called the Amstrad CPC CRTC Compendium, was also released. Featuring 171 pages (!) for its French version, it aims to describe all the different behaviors of all the CRTCs integrated into the Amstrad CPC / Plus machines. Several documents on this topic existed in the past, but it never went so far into the exploration of the video-chip. That will be useful of course for demomakers willing to push further the last technical limits ; but that will be also a definitive reference for all emulator writers willing to reach the ultimate 100% CRTC emulation accuracy.

Finally, Longshot released some sort of "acid" tests for the CRTC, called "Shaker". With it, an emulator writer can check how good its CRTC emulation's accuracy is. While I believe most emulators will cover all basic features pretty fine, I expect many failures to be revealed by this program for the most advanced use-cases.

For more information / downloads, please have a look on Logon's website here.
Can you believe that all of that was released in a single day, like that, with no particular advertisement ?! Every 2 or 3 years there is a "special something" popping up into the Amstrad community that redefines a new standard, and this day just happened today.
What an impressive achievement for Logon System. Raaaahhhh !!!!

Amstrad Cent Pour Cent #50 & Fanzine GX #1 : Impressions

11/30/2021

J'ai eu récemment l'occasion de découvrir deux initiatives qui me tiennent à cœur, et je voulais vous faire partager mon ressenti.

Un nouveau numéro d'Amstrad Cent Pour Cent, qui reprend les codes de l'original, est sorti plus tôt dans l’année. Le pari initié par DarkSteph et son équipe me semble efficacement relevé : l’équipe de rédaction est bien renseignée concernant l'actualité de la communauté Amstrad, les articles y sont pour la plupart intéressants et pertinents, avec un bon niveau technique. Au ton parfois volatile que l'on attribuait bien volontiers au ACPC original, le tout est agrémenté de petites illustrations amusantes et décalées (parfois dessinées a la main !) ou parfois même de vraies repompes de publicités d'époque.

Il existe cependant quelques zones perfectibles de mon point de vue: tant qu'à utiliser un véritable service d'impression, plutôt que du papier glacé, j'aurais opté pour un papier plus proche d'un journal. Aussi, j'aurais aimé y découvrir plus de variétés dans les articles : jeux vidéo et démos aux premières loges, il y manque une approche "applications" (un article concernant l'assembleur Orgams serait du meilleur goût !). Enfin, je note l'absence remarquée des articles "annexes" d'ACPC qui savaient nous divertir en dehors de notre passe-temps, au travers de présentations d'albums de musique, d’événements ou de futures techno à ne pas manquer.

CONCLUSION : globalement, malgré les quelques imperfections évoquées, je me montre ici très satisfait de cet effort. C'est gros, c'est pro, je suis un lecteur assuré pour les prochains numéros ! Pour commander le numéro 50, ça se passe ici.

J'ai eu le plaisir également cette année de découvrir Fanzine GX. Cette fois-ci, on entre un peu plus dans l'amateurisme, avec une impression plutôt correcte, tout en couleur, malgré des moyens que l'on devine pourtant limités. A l'heure actuelle, le magazine ne se concentre que sur la console d'Amstrad, la GX-4000. Le contenu est strictement orienté jeux vidéo, en intégrant les actualités, des dossiers, des interviews, des tests de jeux "homebrew" ainsi que quelques jeux sortis commercialement pour la plateforme. En toute sincérité, je me suis surpris de lire en totalité le magazine, qui s'est révélé très fourni et surtout très agréable, alors qu'en tant que programmeur je ne suis pas nécessairement le public cible. Les petites illustrations ici et là rendent la lecture plaisante. Les articles trempent parfois dans un fanatisme / positivisme aveugle, mais sans en être gênant. Les tests m'ont semblé, pour la plupart, plutôt justes et critiques.

Ce numéro 1 m'a permis notamment de voir la GX-4000 sous un autre angle, car elle y est abordée pour ce qu'elle est (une console avec un gamepad), et moindrement comme un espèce de "petit frère bancal" de l'ordinateur Amstrad Plus. Mais, c'est justement ici que vont se porter mes critiques. J'ai été surpris de voir que Oncle Ced (ainsi que son équipe) a volontairement pris le parti d'ignorer les extensions matérielles, qui auraient permis par exemple de parler du C4CPC (un lecteur de miniSD card pour la GX), de Bubble Quest de Roudoudou, ou bien encore de Ghosts'n'Goblins version 128Ko par Golem13, qui tourne(ra) pourtant sur une vraie cartouche pour Amstrad Plus. Avec un premier numéro qui aborde déjà près de 50% de la logithèque commerciale de la console, j'ai bien peur que l’équipe arrive rapidement à court d'idées au bout de quelques numéros.

CONCLUSION : là encore, je suis conquis. C'est loin, très loin même, de mes lectures favorites sur Amstrad et pourtant, "la sauce prend". Le tout me rappelle la bonne ambiance des fanzines de 1994, qui s'essayaient coûte que coûte de maintenir à flot les machines Amstrad, pourtant mortes et enterrées depuis longtemps. Pour commander le premier numéro, cela se passe ici.

cpcec-gtk: a native Debian-based Linux front-end for CPCEC

11/13/2021

In order to improve my development workflow on Linux, I decided to implement a GTK3 front-end for CPCEC, an accurate Amstrad CPC / Plus / GX-4000 emulator from Cngsoft.
Project details can be found here.

Sonic GX for the Amstrad GX-4000: JUNE 2021 UPDATE

6/20/2021

Today I'm sharing with you an update on Sonic GX's development !

What was done since the last update:

The game now features 4 unique zones, with their own set of visual styles, each made of 2 levels: the Green Hill Zone, the Bridge Zone, the Climb Zone and finally the Sky Scrap Zone. This was made possible thanks to newer technical approaches and reorganizing data. All of that remains perfectly coherent with the game story.
The complete game-through of the game is achieved ! Yes, you read it: the game is now fully playable from Level 1 to end of Level 8, without any blockers. Of course there are many remaining things to tweak, but this represents a major step for us that we finally reached.
Because of level-design restrictions (the Climb Zone required a vertical layout, while the Sky Scrap Zone features a labyrinth in DrEggman's bunker), we had to upgrade our tile engine to support squared-maps, vertical-maps... this means the engine is not stuck anymore to horizontal levels only.
We also added a new enemy - Spike - and added few new screens (a new dedicated "Act Screen" for the Sky Scrap Zone, the Scoring Screen that appears at the end of each levels, etc).
Our musician Targhan delivered all the audio required for the game: levels (including the newer additions), act screens, bonus level, end screen, game sounds and more. What I can say is that his work completely match the game theme as we know on Sega consoles !

Remaining work:

We are still good regarding our development plan. Our target is to get the game "feature completed" end of this year (major work to focus: implement the Bonus Level + the End Screen of the game).
Next year will be the year of the bug-fixings / game improvements. Since we don't want to disappoint, we won't release the game till we don't consider it's good for shipping -- or, in other words: till TotO is not satisfied with :)
Hopefully End of 2022 as Release Date, if everything still goes OK! :)

Find here attached some new screens (that completes the ones in previous update). Please keep in mind all of that remains a work in progress: many things can change.

"Spike" is a new enemy that moves slowly: if you jump on it, Sonic dies !

The game now features some jungle-based visuals (Climb Zone)

Beginning of the Climb Zone

A challenging jump

Danger is everywhere

The DgEggman's entry to his bunker (the Sky Scrap Zone)

Run Sonic, run ! (here in the DrEggman's labyrinth)

The Sky Scrap Zone has its own dedicated Act Screen

Score management is now real in Sonic GX

Sonic GX - Some updates on the project !

11/28/2020

I realize I did not give major updates regarding progress on development of Sonic GX (our game for the Amstrad GX-4000) since the Alchimie Treize (held in November 2019 in France). So today after months of silence (and some published articles), I would like to share with you an official update regarding the project.

What was done since PREVIEW 1 ?

4-6 months following the Alchimie party, I spent most of my time rewriting some parts of the game, with better technical approaches. The tile engine got a major refactor, providing better performance and a reduced memory footprint.
This summer, I had lots of fun adding the support of sprite multiplexing into the game engine. It can now manage up to 40 rings on screen !
The game engine now supports multiple ground positions for the same horizontal position in the world ; in other words, the Level 2 is featuring tunnels. :)
Gameplay improvements: new sprite animations bringing more life to the game (a small "smoke" animation is now displayed when Sonic jumps onto an enemy, and a set of tiny "stars" is displayed when Sonic takes a ring) ; the sky (made of horizontal lines) in background is now always slightly animated vertically ; enemies can now fire projectiles (that Sonic must avoid); when Sonic jumps too high and gets hidden from the game's viewport, a small arrow is now displayed to determine what will be the position of the landing ; added support of water (Sonic walks slower in it)...
Levels 1 & 2 are now finalized. They both feature new visuals. Level 3 is a WIP. CeD did a great job by providing new visuals for the tiles, new enemies too!
Audio improvements: Targhan did an amazing job by translating new musics and sounds.
Various bug-fixings / other internal optimizations / improvements..

Remaining work to provide / the future

With the help of TotO, we now have a better idea of the game content. We focus on providing a coherent game experience, featuring a progressive difficulty for the gameplay and finally -- a game fun to play.
There are still some low-level stuff that bothers me in the game engine..
More enemies, new levels.. it's actually bigger and more ambitious from what we initially envisioned during the Alchimie Treize. Right now the original direction did not change, the game still features a completely new level design, taking a large inspiration from the SMS/GameGear versions -- so it's not a remake, but clearly a new "episode".
We are planning a Bonus zone!
I estimate that we reached approx. 50%-60% of what should be the final game. So it means we still have a long way to go before releasing this game..
Consequence of the above point ; as you could expect, the game won't be released this year. 2021 will be a very intense year for me on the professional side, I plan to be more exhausted than usual. So, the new target for release is 2022 (in other words: "it will be ready when it's ready"). I know this will be a disappointing news for some ; but really, there is no rush here.

The first preview of the game shown on Youtube was quite popular. Based on that success, I initially planned to release this today's update as a video. But we finally decided to keep this private to avoid revealing too much the game. So instead, I'm releasing here some exclusive screenshots of the game. Please keep in mind this is WIP -- the final version of the game may be slightly different.

I want to thank a lot my friends (they know who they are) that are helping me to keep the motivation on this project !! And I also would like to send a special mention to Novabug and Xyphoe, they made a great job on Youtube to advertise the game and bring general interest to the Amstrad GX-4000.

The game engine can now display up to 40 rings

Level 2 is located inside tunnels

Multiple paths are possible, and that one is particularly dangerous !

Fly is a new enemy in SonicGX that launches a fireball

A smoke animation is displayed when jumping onto enemies

The bridge zone is a completely new level

This level features bridges & water

Here, Sonic jumps to reach the bridge

The visuals are completely different from levels 1 & 2

BLAST ANNUAL 2020 Vol.2 (with pages featuring SonicGX in it !) finally available

11/21/2020

I'm glad to announce you that BLAST ANNUAL 2020 Vol.2 is now available.

It features numerous articles related to the Amstrad's 8-bit machines : programming tutorials, game reviews, Batman Group interview and finally, pages related to the making of SonicGX (what motivated us to create the game, what were the challenges, how it compares to other versions of Sonic on Sega platforms, some details about development processes, etc).

Finally, as a reminder to people that did not follow SonicGX's development from the beginning ; know that BLAST ANNUAL is also an amazing sponsor to us. They gifted me the flight Montreal (Canada) <-> Paris (France) last year to attend Alchimie 2019 and that allowed us present there our game in person for the very first time.

But this does not alter our judgment on this Vol.2 ; it's great and cheap with nice content, so make sure to grab your copy right now !

Link: https://blastannual.com/product/blast-annual-2020-vol-2/

Discussion about the Amstrad GX-4000 and Sonic GX updates on Xyphoe's AMSTREAM

9/12/2020

I had the honour and the privilege to discuss 1 hour about the Amstrad GX-4000 and bring some updates on Sonic GX (our conversion of Sonic the Hedgehog for the GX-4000) during the AMSTREAM held on Youtube by Xyphoe !

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