Chinese Juggler. I remember me and my brothers getting that from the computer shop, bringing it home and my elder brother wanted to go first. He completed it first go, without breaking a sweat. It then just loops the levels again. Oh. Well, that was a thing. After my brother's instant completion of the game, then no-one really wanted to play it, as all the fun and mystery and "new game" sparkle was gone. We've seen it all now. Turned it off and it was never played ever again.
"Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Jr." ...although Huey Lewis might dispute that one. (Huey Lewis was supposed to do the Ghostbusters theme originally and it seems that they used his track as a placeholder, because when you line up his song "New Drug" against the Ghostbusters theme, they're uncannily similar. That's "uncannily similar" of the "they obviously ripped it off" variety.)
At the end of the "That Was The Year That Was - Commodore 64 - 1983" You promised us that there would be a 1984 version. And here we are just 4 years later. Great video. Looking forward to the 1985 video in 2028.
Yeah, Tony Crowther was famous back in the day for the speed he released games. But what seemed impressive back then (and made him a "famous programmer") is, in hindsight, rather less so - he just had a bunch of routines and he re-used them over and over to knock out games as fast as possible. It was a triumph of "code reuse". Not that he was a bad programmer or anything. They're good routines and he did make some games that I really liked. But it was all about cranking out as many games as possible, as fast as possible. So things like "good gameplay that'll stand the test of time" was a bit of an afterthought and the consistency of their quality was all over the place.
For me Andrew Braybrook was about the most innovative programmer of the C64 era. You could certainly cite Uridium and Paradroid as similar in that they were both shooters. But then they weren't similar either. And in fact both had facets similar to Gribbly's. I was never a fan of Minter. And saw his games in the light you describe Tony Crowther. Samey samey. If Crowther did have anything going for him it's the fact that he's almost the exact same age as myself. (he's 2 months older fwiw)
Ooh I've just had a cup of tea! It's 7:30am here though. And I'm mining away on Minecraft on my PS3 on one monitor. So it's nice to have something on the other monitor to watch as I dig these huge holes.
It's definitely interesting that the football home chamionship games stopped in 1984. Because as a Scotsman, you might not be aware that despite England fans becoming somewhat infamous for violence at football games in the years following that. Those games were actually stopped due to Scotland fans wrecking London every year when the Scotland v England games took place. Something the Scots seemed to take great pride in.
Alice in Videoland... great graphics sod all gameplay, and what there is is confusing as hell! I actually sort of know how to play B.C. Bill. Very un-P.C. 😂 Learned how to play Hercules during a C64 high score challenge. Saw a few complete it but I didn't. Only managed to get 489,090 😉 The music used in Kernkraft 400 is the music from the mini-game Stardust 🙂 L.O.C.O. I managed to 1cc on stream a while back. Arcade game is Super Locomotive. Potty Pigeon is ok but very repetitive and gets very, very tricky! Collect twigs to build nest. Raid on Bungeling Bay is awesome and gets more difficult the more factories you destroy. You can complete the game without destroying the battleship. Sheep in Space is probably my favourite Jeff Minter C64 game. I pre-bought it at a computer show and wasn't disappointed. Wheelin' Wallie is based on Snap Jack. I actually played Snap Jack in the arcade so I did buy (and enjoy) Wheelin' Wallie. Nice collection!
17:58 Actually, that's quite impressive, as they're "scrolling" a bitmap screen there. Admittedly, a jerky character scroll, which isn't the smoothest. Most games used character mode because the C64's 1MHz CPU just couldn't shift 9KB of data - which is how much the bitmap mode used - within a frame. Indeed, it only just about shifts the 1KB character mode screen in time. You can just about smooth scroll the bitmap mode - demos do this all the time - but you have to copy over the graphics across multiple frames. Basically, you start copying 1K of graphics into a second buffer. Smooth scroll the screen by 1 pixel. Copy another 1K of graphics. Smooth scroll by 1 pixel... and you should just about (only just, mind you) have copied the bitmap graphics into that second buffer in time for a character scroll (assuming you're not quite copying the whole screen and have a little "score panel" at the bottom, say). This is just about possible, but it means that you've got to commit to scrolling left or right or up or down 8 frames in advance. Once you start, you can't stop - at least for one character - because you can't abort this and have enough time to copy the graphics. And the real big problem for games is that you need to double buffer, as you can't do it within one frame, so you've got to keep the "next frame" in memory as you work. And so that's 9KB of RAM for the screen you're actually looking at, 9KB of RAM for the "next frame" which you're going to switch to. And, like, there's only 64KB of RAM in the whole machine and the VIC-II can only see 16KB of it at one time. Oh, and the reason you're in bitmap mode in the first place is to be able to use all 16 colours (somewhat) freely on the screen, so the graphics themselves are going to take up more RAM. It's barely possible (but, as mentioned, demos do it, so it can be done) and, for games, it's just way too demanding of RAM space and CPU. Like, games also have to do other things besides just scrolling, like moving enemies, doing animations, collision detection, scoring, etc. So most games were "character mode" (4 colours - 3 are set for the whole screen, 1 colour is "per character") or, if they were bitmap mode, it was a flip screen affair. No attempt to scroll it. Therefore, it's actually impressive to see a game attempt full screen scrolling bitmap mode - no matter how jerky it is, because it's still taking up a ton of RAM - this early on in the life of the C64.
Chinese Juggler.
I remember me and my brothers getting that from the computer shop, bringing it home and my elder brother wanted to go first.
He completed it first go, without breaking a sweat. It then just loops the levels again.
Oh. Well, that was a thing.
After my brother's instant completion of the game, then no-one really wanted to play it, as all the fun and mystery and "new game" sparkle was gone. We've seen it all now.
Turned it off and it was never played ever again.
"Ghostbusters, by Ray Parker Jr."
...although Huey Lewis might dispute that one.
(Huey Lewis was supposed to do the Ghostbusters theme originally and it seems that they used his track as a placeholder, because when you line up his song "New Drug" against the Ghostbusters theme, they're uncannily similar. That's "uncannily similar" of the "they obviously ripped it off" variety.)
At the end of the "That Was The Year That Was - Commodore 64 - 1983" You promised us that there would be a 1984 version. And here we are just 4 years later. Great video. Looking forward to the 1985 video in 2028.
Yeah, Tony Crowther was famous back in the day for the speed he released games.
But what seemed impressive back then (and made him a "famous programmer") is, in hindsight, rather less so - he just had a bunch of routines and he re-used them over and over to knock out games as fast as possible. It was a triumph of "code reuse".
Not that he was a bad programmer or anything. They're good routines and he did make some games that I really liked.
But it was all about cranking out as many games as possible, as fast as possible. So things like "good gameplay that'll stand the test of time" was a bit of an afterthought and the consistency of their quality was all over the place.
For me Andrew Braybrook was about the most innovative programmer of the C64 era. You could certainly cite Uridium and Paradroid as similar in that they were both shooters. But then they weren't similar either. And in fact both had facets similar to Gribbly's.
I was never a fan of Minter. And saw his games in the light you describe Tony Crowther. Samey samey.
If Crowther did have anything going for him it's the fact that he's almost the exact same age as myself. (he's 2 months older fwiw)
Ooh I've just had a cup of tea! It's 7:30am here though. And I'm mining away on Minecraft on my PS3 on one monitor. So it's nice to have something on the other monitor to watch as I dig these huge holes.
It's definitely interesting that the football home chamionship games stopped in 1984.
Because as a Scotsman, you might not be aware that despite England fans becoming somewhat infamous for violence at football games in the years following that. Those games were actually stopped due to Scotland fans wrecking London every year when the Scotland v England games took place. Something the Scots seemed to take great pride in.
Bumping Buggies was a top game.
Alice in Videoland... great graphics sod all gameplay, and what there is is confusing as hell!
I actually sort of know how to play B.C. Bill. Very un-P.C. 😂
Learned how to play Hercules during a C64 high score challenge. Saw a few complete it but I didn't. Only managed to get 489,090 😉
The music used in Kernkraft 400 is the music from the mini-game Stardust 🙂
L.O.C.O. I managed to 1cc on stream a while back. Arcade game is Super Locomotive.
Potty Pigeon is ok but very repetitive and gets very, very tricky! Collect twigs to build nest.
Raid on Bungeling Bay is awesome and gets more difficult the more factories you destroy. You can complete the game without destroying the battleship.
Sheep in Space is probably my favourite Jeff Minter C64 game. I pre-bought it at a computer show and wasn't disappointed.
Wheelin' Wallie is based on Snap Jack. I actually played Snap Jack in the arcade so I did buy (and enjoy) Wheelin' Wallie.
Nice collection!
17:58 Actually, that's quite impressive, as they're "scrolling" a bitmap screen there. Admittedly, a jerky character scroll, which isn't the smoothest.
Most games used character mode because the C64's 1MHz CPU just couldn't shift 9KB of data - which is how much the bitmap mode used - within a frame. Indeed, it only just about shifts the 1KB character mode screen in time.
You can just about smooth scroll the bitmap mode - demos do this all the time - but you have to copy over the graphics across multiple frames.
Basically, you start copying 1K of graphics into a second buffer. Smooth scroll the screen by 1 pixel. Copy another 1K of graphics. Smooth scroll by 1 pixel... and you should just about (only just, mind you) have copied the bitmap graphics into that second buffer in time for a character scroll (assuming you're not quite copying the whole screen and have a little "score panel" at the bottom, say).
This is just about possible, but it means that you've got to commit to scrolling left or right or up or down 8 frames in advance. Once you start, you can't stop - at least for one character - because you can't abort this and have enough time to copy the graphics.
And the real big problem for games is that you need to double buffer, as you can't do it within one frame, so you've got to keep the "next frame" in memory as you work. And so that's 9KB of RAM for the screen you're actually looking at, 9KB of RAM for the "next frame" which you're going to switch to. And, like, there's only 64KB of RAM in the whole machine and the VIC-II can only see 16KB of it at one time.
Oh, and the reason you're in bitmap mode in the first place is to be able to use all 16 colours (somewhat) freely on the screen, so the graphics themselves are going to take up more RAM.
It's barely possible (but, as mentioned, demos do it, so it can be done) and, for games, it's just way too demanding of RAM space and CPU. Like, games also have to do other things besides just scrolling, like moving enemies, doing animations, collision detection, scoring, etc.
So most games were "character mode" (4 colours - 3 are set for the whole screen, 1 colour is "per character") or, if they were bitmap mode, it was a flip screen affair. No attempt to scroll it.
Therefore, it's actually impressive to see a game attempt full screen scrolling bitmap mode - no matter how jerky it is, because it's still taking up a ton of RAM - this early on in the life of the C64.