I think a lot of interesting (if blocky) games are possible in Mode 2 in fake 64 x 96 mode.
I reckon a horizontally scrolling Zynaps style game might be quite possible. I think I'd treat 0 - 7 and 8 - 15 as two separate palettes, maybe have four common colours (including black and white) between them, and four unique colours. The unique colours could be used in some of the scrolling scenery, assuming of course that there's at least one pixel of one of the common colours horizontally between uses of the two sets of unique colours. Working within those restrictions, I reckon some cool stuff is possible. And yes, I had thought about Wolfenstein myself, too. I always feel that porting Wolfenstein is a tech demo, more than anything. The game itself isn't really that much fun anymore and feels dated. (Whereas lots of classic 8-bit games feel timeless...) Anyway, just some thoughts if anyone ever has the time. I don't, sadly; I've got too many of my own non-SAM projects already. I do feel that we, as a community, spent too much time during the SAM's heyday trying to emulate 16-bit graphics and sound when we could have created some highly entertaining software by lowering out expectations and finding unique ways of working within the limitations of the machine. On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 6:16 PM, Thomas Harte <tomh.retros...@gmail.com>wrote: > I guess it was easy to put in something like an optional shift right > by three to compose scan line number and column number when fetching > attributes, hence to allow Mode 1 and 2, but would have been harder to > have alternative attribute interpretation logic? I'm unsure why they > decided to go bright + flash in the Spectrum, to be honest. Was > flashing a must have feature of the 1982 computer market? > > I think I'm right to say the American Timex machines have the > equivalent of Mode 2? > > A pretend 64x96 mode could allow for some neat effects. I'll wager you > could do Wolfenstein in it, based on the CPC seemingly being to cope > in its 64-bytes-for-128-pixels mode, per YouTube. Following that line > of logic through, anything on the CPC that isn't using a hardware > scroll should be an option. > > 2012/4/24 James R Curry <8...@itdoesntsuck.com>: > > The strangest decision regarding Mode 2 is keeping the BRIGHT and FLASH > > attributes. Without those, the Ink and Paper colours could each be any > of > > the sixteen colours. As it is, the select colours have to both be in the > > range 0-7 or 8-15, not one in each range. > > > > Incidentally, has anyone thought about clever use of Mode 2 and > attributes > > to create a game that runs at a super low resolution, like 64 x 96 (using > > 4x2 pixel blocks)? > > > > It could run at a high frame rate... it might be an interesting > experiment > -- James R Curry 8...@itdoesntsuck.com
