The New Amiga Thread

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Over the holidays I bought a CF reader for my computer. I am going to attempt what seems to be the best way to get games onto the Amiga:

- Put the CF Reader in my PC.
- Put the Amiga CF card in the CF Reader.
- Use the WinUAE emulator to make a hard disk image
- Copy that to the CF card
- Plug the CF card into the Amiga

I can't recall if Flack said if he got that flash hard drive solution for his Amiga or not. Either way, if I get a solution in place, I am going to put the image on-line.

The tricks involved include needing to run through some horseshit for commercial games.

That said, there are Amiga interpreters for text games. I will be putting those interpreters on the card as well. I have no idea if the Hugo Amiga emulator works, nor if it works with graphics and sound. If all we get out of it is support for text only games, then that is awesome. If I find an Inform and TADS Amiga emulator and manage to get those working, then that's awesome as well, I'll put some of the best Inform and TADS games on the image.

There are some videos on Youtube now explaining how to do all this. When I find them again, I'll link them and get started.

[Flack]

I did not purchase one yet.

For the C64 you (a) plug in a u1541 card, (b) put D64 disk images on an SD card, and (c) then play them on the original system.

For the Apple II you (a) plug in a CFFA3000 card, (c) put ADF disk images on a USB stick, and (c) then play them on the original system.

For the Amiga, you (a) need a fucking engineering degree apparently. Seriously, why is this so hard for us?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I can not FUCKING BELIEVE how fucking difficult it is to get games over to the fucking Amiga. Trying to look at this again today, and HOLY SHIT.

[RealNC]

Get a network card for your Amiga and connect it. A null-modem cable will work too, but it's slow. You can then transfer what you want with Amiga Explorer:

http://www.amigaforever.com/ae/

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The good news! I got Brataccas loaded onto the cf card and my real Amiga!



The bad news! After 3 hours of trying, I was able to get exactly one other game going, Sentinel.

The worse news! The PC version of Sentinel is a million times better than this! Argh!

[Tdarcos]

There are some videos on Youtube now explaining how to do all this. When I find them again, I'll link them and get started.

* 100 Amiga games in 10 minutes. A number of them look really good and some - like Lemmings, l remember from the PC version. Some of the platform shooters (I may have the name of the game genre wrong) remind me of Starcraft 2 fighting the enormous hordes of <s>hungry animals</s> Zerg
* The Amiga on a chip - by the woman hardware engineer who designed the original Amiga. A woman who can read a chip blueprint has definitely got my respect.
* Why use Amiga in 2011?
* How to install games to the Amiga hard drive part 1
* Amiga tutorials, including how to install a CF as a hard drive (as you did), upgrading the OS, and others

[ICJ]

Thanks, Paul.

UPDATE! I tried to get Neuromancer to work in emulation before moving the cf card back to the real Amiga. It did not work.

I don't take "no" for an answer. I took that fucking cf card and plugged it into my Amiga. Neuromancer works.

Roody and I have been talking about my real backlog of games to play before I die. Neuromancer is on the list. I have no reason to not begin this list with Neuromancer on the Amiga now. I, for the second time, am happy with this project.

[ICJ]

ALSO. The "goal" of this thread is to get games going on the Amiga. I will keep it open so that Flack can suggest games for me to find and put on the card. When the thread peters out, I will copy the cf card and send it to Flack so that he does not have to go through all this goddamn horseshit himself.

[ICJ]

Current CONFIRMED working games on the real Amiga:

- Brataccas
- Neuromancer

Current SUSPECTED working games on the real Amiga (in other words, they worked in emulation)

- Sentinel

Current To-Do List:

The Pawn, Scapeghost, Might & Magic II

[The Happiness Engine]

Games I remember spending too much time playing in high school, in two groups:

Supercars 2 - it's a slot-car simulator with weapons. In-between races you have to answer questions about English driving rules for bonus points. Who has priority in the roundabout? Probably Mr. Bean! Banging soundtrack.

Pinball Dreams/Pinball Fantasies - Angry-man Self-expiring Pinball is better, by virtue of being 20 years newer, but this got me into fake pinball.

Chaos Engine - a good top-down shoot-em-up? The level design on this is pretty good.

SWIV - top down shooter, pretty normal now that I think of it, but it's what we played. Interesting in that player 1 plays different than player 2 (heli/jeep)

~~~

Wings - dog fight / isometric bombing missions with a story. This evolved into TIE Fighter I guess.

Moonstone - Get some friends and fail to time your attacks properly! Heads will ROLL.

Alien Breed - Chaos Engine + Alien IP, I think looking back much worse level design. Kids don't care.

Stunt Car Racer - I can't come up with a single reason to recommend this, but we played the FUCK out of it. Maybe pretend you're 14.

Zak Mckracken - Do you like Monkey Island 1? Enough to use SCUMM?

Beneath a Steel Sky - Do you like Monkey Island 1? Enough to use SCUMM?

Motherfucking POPULOUS, bitchez! - Please tell me everyone has played the crap out of this already? I even tried the clunky DS version. (don't do that)

Hired Guns - A cyberpunk Eye of the Beholder? We sucked so bad at it we never got anywhere.

Defender of the Crown - Pretty much a bad strategy game with a bunch of minigames. Awesome when you're 14 and have never seen that before.

Indy Heat - basically about whether or not you can wiggle your analog joystick better than your friends. Also includes pit stops! Pretty much EXACTLY like being a race car driver. First game I got running on WinUAE before becoming colossally lazy.


(disclosure - I watched the Amiga youtubes for inspiration)

[Flack]

I second Pinball Dreams and Pinball Fantasies. Two fantastic games.

I remember Walker being a lot of fun back in the day.


Any of the Cinematronics games would be worth checking out, and not just Defender of the Crown of the Three Stooges. It Came from the Desert, Sinbad, and Rocketman were all good games.

One of the first games I ever saw on the Amiga was an Asteroids clone that used cubes instead of Asteroids. Stardust, maybe? Ah, nope, Vectoroids.


I'd love to see Shadow of the Beast and/or Flashback running on a real Miggy.

[RealNC]

The games I remember spending most time with were Pinbal Fantasies, Turrican 2, Syndicate, Lemmings and Worms. Another World (I think it was called "Out of this World" in the U.S.) was incredible, but didn't have much replay value.

From the RPGs, I played the Eye of the Beholder and Ishar series.

I played tons more, but those are the ones that immediately pop up in my mind when thinking about my Amiga days.

I hope you have a PAL Amiga, because I've no idea how many of those games would even run on an NTSC one...

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I read The Happiness Engine's post and I laugh. I laugh because of how bad, how irrevocably miserable the gaming press is.

NONE of these games are anywhere near the "best of" lists I have encountered for the Amiga. It's the same goddamn shit every single time. Sensible Soccer and Syndicate and such.

A guy can't take a week, get this shit going, play a few games and write an article? If this was my job I would have had it running in a day.

But no, no present day game journo is going to do that. They are all reprehensible hacks.

Supercars 2 - it's a slot-car simulator with weapons. In-between races you have to answer questions about English driving rules for bonus points. Who has priority in the roundabout? Probably Mr. Bean! Banging soundtrack.

Ha ha ha, more games should teach kids rulesets. I have acquired and will test Supercars 2.

Pinball Dreams/Pinball Fantasies - Angry-man Self-expiring Pinball is better, by virtue of being 20 years newer, but this got me into fake pinball.

Got 'em. They work in emulation.


I will grab the rest of these games next!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

PacMania works. Unfortunately, I never liked the Pac games where you couldn't see the entire maze at one time. Even Jr. Pac-Man bugs me.

Here are some shots. This is mostly me experimenting with my camera, though.









Utterly gorgeous, of course. It was from 1991. PC Games (DOS ones) had gotten good-looking by that point, of course, but PacMania for the Amiga still looks awesome.

(This will not be part of my backlog -- I just wanted to see what it looked like.)

(And it is a shame that all or most Mobygames images seem to come from emulators. They are so much better looking on the real thing.)

[Flack]

I'm so jealous of that monitor -- I've always wanted one.

The problem I have at the moment is that I have three old computers hooked up (Amiga, C64, Apple) with 3 separate monitors, and I was thinking about hooking up a fourth (an old DOS machine). The Amiga needs a VGA monitor, the C64 and Apple are fine with old composite/RCA monitors, and the DOS machine also needs a VGA monitor. I'm considering plunking down some change on a flat screen that has both RCA and VGA inputs, but I still don't know that it'll meet the Amiga's needs.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I'm so jealous of that monitor -- I've always wanted one.

Let me know if you'd like me to ask the guy who sold me one if he has any left. He definitely did at one point. I paid him $100 shipped.

The problem I have at the moment is that I have three old computers hooked up (Amiga, C64, Apple) with 3 separate monitors, and I was thinking about hooking up a fourth (an old DOS machine). The Amiga needs a VGA monitor, the C64 and Apple are fine with old composite/RCA monitors, and the DOS machine also needs a VGA monitor. I'm considering plunking down some change on a flat screen that has both RCA and VGA inputs, but I still don't know that it'll meet the Amiga's needs.

I would imagine that like anything else, the Amiga will make it a PAIN IN THE ASS.

So, I have that Amiga 500 I bought from you. I had to use its monitor cable and power supply for the 1200. Do you want the 500 back?

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

More games:

Captain America and The Amazing Spider-Man in Doctor Doom's Revenge:



It was so fast it was unplayable. I had this for DOS, so I didn't feel too bad about this not being a thing I'll be able to realistically try out. I died on the first screen which led to this:



Really, Doctor? You're going to nuke New York City??


In other news, I got Adventure Construction Set going. Realistically, if I were to make a game in this style again I'd use ACK. I am going to see how this port handles the fact that I am not sticking a real disk in the drive right now....



But it must be said. We did a LOT of good work growing up with four color Adventure Construction Set. ACS has an attract mode for the Amiga and having 32 colors is soooo nice. I was seriously jealous growing up. Part of me wants to make a game with it anyway.

Corruption by Magnetic Scrolls IS on my backlog. Dunno if I will play it on the Amiga though. I seem to have to flip between graphics and text windows:





Not a problem if the game said, "Hey! New graphic!" Maybe there is a way around this. I really want to like and love Corruption. Maybe because it is the only commercial game I can think of that had an office setting and now I work in an office. Part of me wishes that I had my career in place where I had the corner office on the 20th floor of some building with a big desk and leather chair... and could sneak my Amiga up during the week between Christmas and New Year's and get nothing done but play this game.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Nnnghh, Adventure Construction Set seems to think it wants a disk in the disk drive - maybe - to make an adventure disk. Argh.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I figured out some things about ACS tonight.

(I know I have a zillion other projects. Sorry.)

First off, it doesn't need a formatted disk in the disk drive. Anything with room works. Cool!

Secondly, it may SEEM like the game is whigging out when it is preparing an adventure disk: it's not. Everything is OK. There is no reason to be upset.

Thirdly, I was playing some Adventure Construction Set!



I have a few current projects I have a lot of passion for, and I really can't justify making an Amiga ACS game. But man is it fun to futz around in the ones that are included.

(I think what probably will happen is that I will get the desire to make an Adventure Construction Set-style game in ACK in my spare time.)

[Tdarcos]

Part of me wishes... I had the corner office... and could sneak my Amiga up during the week between Christmas and New Year's and get nothing done but play this game.

A place I worked at more-or-less solved the problem of low productivity during that period. Back around the end of 2000 I was working for a software developer named Avectra, and our company had a policy that we were open until the last business day before Christmas, then we were closed until the first business day after January 1.