Giana Sisters STE - New Game!

[Zamuel_a]

I have been working on a STE conversion of the Giana Sisters game since the ST version is to slow (25 fps) AND has the worst scroller I ever seen. I am more or less finished so it's time for a release to see what kind of bugs and stuff that might be found.

The code in the original ST version was really messy. It only used fixed addresses for all variables and jumps and copied itself to different parts of the memory during runtime so I couldn't touch any of the original code without making sure the number of bytes was still the same. If I found a routine I wanted to change, I needed to make my own code outside this memory area and do a jump to it (and delete the same amount of bytes from the original code that the jump took). All this made it abit memory consuming since I must be able to load the entire game into RAM first at one location to be able to copy it to the correct one later on during run time. I wasn't able to fit this into 1Mb so minimum to run this is a 2Mb machine.

The game runs at 50fps all the time and I even included the clouds that are available in the Amiga and C64 version. I'm not using a double buffer so the sprites are sorted and drawn from top to bottom to be in sequence with the electron beam. (This can produce flicker if to many sprites are at the same lines in the top area of the screen).
The status bar and the clouds are drawn using 2 screen splits. To be able to sync this with the blitter I had to come up with a sync routine (the one disscussed here http://atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=26350).
This works on a REAL STE without any problems (atleast I haven't found any). On STEEM it was not necessary so the blitter in STEEM is faster than a real one (or some other issue). On Hatari It does NOT work to sync the screen like this so the image jumps up and down all the time. I had to make it run on a real machine so for Hatari there must be a bug in the emulation.

To control the game, use a joystick OR a Jaguar Game Pad connected to STE port A.

EDIT - 140305
New version with minor fixes. Should now work in Hatari and be able to run from HD. Will also work on MEGA STE

EDIT - 140418
New version with some minor graphical glitches fixed.

EDIT - 140422
New version there the music should work correctly

EDIT - 140503
New version with DMA samples for all sound effects.

Giana_STE.zip

[Omikronman]

Great thing! Thanks!

[Thorvald]

Thank you!!

[MrMaddog]

Tried with Steem SSE and couldn't pass the title screen. Ran it with TOS 2.06 UK rom for 50Hz and 2-4 Meg Ram. Did I do something wrong?

[Zamuel_a]

Tried with Steem SSE and couldn't pass the title screen. Ran it with TOS 2.06 UK rom for 50Hz and 2-4 Meg Ram. Did I do something wrong?

Hmm strange. I have runned it on several STEEM versions and with TOS 1.6 and 2.06. At the title screen, you need to press the joystick button to get further (but I guess you tried that).

[lotek_style]

Worst Scroller? There was NO scroller at all before THIS ROCKS!!! WOW WOW WOW!!!

[bod/STAX]

This is brilliant!!!

Excellent work!!!

[Zamuel_a]

Worst Scroller?

Well it actually scroll in 128 pixel steps so maybe it can be called a scroller I don't understand why it was done that way. Even a 16 pixel scroller would have been much better.

[AtariZoll]

Worst Scroller?

Well it actually scroll in 128 pixel steps so maybe it can be called a scroller I don't understand why it was done that way. Even a 16 pixel scroller would have been much better.

You just hit the nail what I wanted to place I say that there is much worse scroller, and from same Rainbow Arts - Jinks . It uses 16 pixel scroller, and it is horrible jerk So, I added option to have instead it some 200 pixel jump. Maybe matter of taste, though.
So, when you finished well deserved rest from this to do Jinks

I tried in Steem, and works well. But when STE jagpad is selected can not jump - up works not. Don't know is it Steem problem ?

[Champions_2002]

Thats Great.

Would you mind if we put it on Atarimania with a comment that if anybody finds bugs to contact you?

[Zamuel_a]

I tried in Steem, and works well. But when STE jagpad is selected can not jump - up works not. Don't know is it Steem problem ?

No it's supposed to work this way. I guess I can add up = jump since it's very easy to do. I always hated to use UP on a joystick to jump since that was a limitation of a 1 button joystick. I preferd to use a button for jump as on most video game systems (Nintendo, Sega...) so for the Jaguar Pad you jump with the middle button and fire with the bottom one, but I can always add the up button for jump to in case someone want's that function.

Would you mind if we put it on Atarimania with a comment that if anybody finds bugs to contact you?

No I don't mind, but maybe it's best to add just a link to this page since it's easier to update the file I put here instead of on many different locations.

Because I draw the sprites in sync with the electron beam there might be cases with flickering sprites if there are several at the top of the screen, so this is not a bug, but the way the game engine works. There might be other graphical issues that comes up (but I think I have solved most of them) that are just part of how the game engine works and not easy to solve.
The sprites can be drawn in two ways. Either they are BEHIND animated tiles or they are INFRONT of them, so first I draw all sprites that might be behind tiles and these ones get sorted in relation to the electron beam (most sprites are drawn this way). After this I draw all animated tiles and last the sprites that should be ontop of everything. Giana should always be ontop of all other sprites so she should get drawn last, but that created problems when you were at the top of the screen since it was now to late draw her, so there is a check that if Giana is hitting any other sprites, when she is drawn last, otherwise she get's drawn first.

[Cyrano Jones]

Brilliant!

[sh3-rg]

Amazing work. Very well done. Giana Sisters was the only reason I switched on my Amiga for quite some time.

[Grazey / PHF]

First post by me on here in 7 years.

But Zamuels release deserves this. Giana is In my top 10 ST games (even taking Into account the flip screening). Your version adds a totally new dimension. Well done.

Grazey/phf
Http://SNDH.atari.org

[Zamuel_a]

I tried to make it as close as possible to the Amiga version but I didn't change the title Giana image. I had liked to replace the ST 16 color image with a Photochrome image of the original Amiga HAM image. I got that working, but I couldn't run the title music at the same time since it's not a YM tune, but instead some kind of digital tracker music and it didn't like the CPU intensive Photochrome image. I tried to convert the original Amiga title MOD to a sample instead, but it would have increased the disk memory with about 0.5 - 1.0 Mb and I don't know if it had been worth that. It wouldn't fit on a 720kb floppy and I didn't like that.

If someone can make a STE palette version of the title image or a 256 color version there you flip between two images (not cpu intensive), when I will be pleased to add it. Or if someone makes a real YM tune of the music, but that's probably to much work.

The clouds are abit funny. You can't see them on all Amiga versions and it all depends on who cracked it. From what I read, it is because the clouds are sprites and some sprite registers are not restored correctly by the crack screen so they are not shown in the game.
I didn't use sprites for mine since it would take to much CPU power, but instead split the screen here.

The screen is split in 3 parts. The status bar, the clouds and the game screen. Since there can be sprites up here (Giana can jump outside the top of the screen) the sprite drawer needs to cut the sprite into several parts that get's drawn on each of these screen splits.

[AtariZoll]

STE DMA audio works fine with Hi-color pic. presentation. Even if horizontal overscan is used - tested by me.
So, I think that conversion to STE DMA compatible format is what you need. After that is easy.
Surely such title, intro music will take several hundreds of KBs on disk. But for hard disk users it is not problem this days.
I can do picture conversions - cover pic to STE palette, with some dithering, or/and to Hi-Color - in fact later is already done.

[Zamuel_a]

STE DMA audio works fine with Hi-color pic. presentation.

Yes this is not a problem and I already implemented it, but removed it later on since it took so much memory. A STE enchanched picture of the original Amiga one had been nice to add

[purpleeagle01]

Very Good Work Thanks !!
I played it on my real STE with TOS 1.6 works fine.
Cheers
PS:Never Give Up STAY Atari

[AtariZoll]

A STE enchanched picture of the original Amiga one had been nice to add

It is with 256 colors, and reducing to 16 colors (with even 24 bit palette), 320x200px gives best this:

ggsta16.png

Hi-color STE, from cover scan, using Cyg's converter, 320x273px :

GS273_preview.png

Later needs 70KB + 2 KB for code (packed) - so can fit on 800K floppy, even 2 of such.

[catmando]

Very good, looks pretty solid.

[Zamuel_a]

It is with 256 colors, and reducing to 16 colors (with even 24 bit palette), 320x200px gives best this:

Well that looked worse than the ST image I guess it's not so easy to just convert it. It needs to be redrawn. A Highcolor image is best ofcourse, but when I need to play a sample in the background so it would take alot of space and wouldn't fit on a disk, so maybe not worth it for something you look at only one time and after that try to pass as quick as possible.

[AnthraX]

Awesome job finally the ST version can stop hiding its head in shame

[Marcer]

Really great work! Thanks alot for this!

[bennyroger]

Will have to dig out my STE now!

[dhedberg]

Ah, cool stuff! Great work! Thanks a lot!