Volcabamba

Recently, MSX developer and active forum member Huey brought to our attention that a fresh Windows game has been issued which is clearly designed to resemble the way MSX games used to look. We've seen this phenomenon before with software such as GR3/GR3EX and La-Mulana. The latter may be known to you for being a free-roaming platformer annex tribute to MSX in general and The Maze of Galious in particular, which in the meantime even acquired some cult following.

This new game is especially good news for the folks who did never really get enough of the Nemesis/Gradius series on MSX by Konami, seeing as this 'Volcabamba' is an obvious descendant of these installments. To make things complete, Huey has also uploaded a YouTube video of the game so you can see what to expect in advance. However, we can imagine that you'd want to give this game a go by yourself, so don't hesitate and get the free download at the link below.

Relevant link: Gyonin

Comments (12)

By Sander

Founder (1872)

15-09-2010, 16:41

How does this compare to his nemesis clone "Manesis" that was removed from this page in 2000? BTW: This user also made a Knightmare clone called Tokimeki Knightmare.

By hap

Paragon (2043)

15-09-2010, 17:10

It compares to Manesis like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Im0Hj8qwi7Q
Volcabamba is a bit less like Nemesis, and a bit more like Thunderforce 3/4 (Megadrive).

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5684)

15-09-2010, 18:00

@ sander & @ hap
That's some valuable info, guys. Appreciated.

By jgames

Resident (48)

15-09-2010, 18:26

Can someone please provide Tokimeki knightmare for download, i remember i download it some 6 years ago, but never got to make it run.
Thx

By hap

Paragon (2043)

15-09-2010, 18:39

Not here, please respect the fact that the author removed it from public access.

By PingPong

Enlighted (4156)

15-09-2010, 23:46

Pratically undoable on a real msx machine. There are sooo many situations where you run out of sprites on a single scanline that everything flicker a lot. IMHO one should pay more attention to the limits of original hw.

By JohnHassink

Ambassador (5684)

16-09-2010, 01:24

PingPong, IMHO the point is more about the general 'look and feel', i.e. color scheme, 'rough' movement/scrolling motions, etc.
There are numerous instances where a game sharing a similar focal point, like La-Mulana, conveniently 'cheats' its way out of the MSX1-with-SCC-limitations, GFX wise as well as sound wise.
I think it would be pretty pointless to go as far even to imitate sprite flickering and similar technical setbacks- for me it's more than enough that they attempted very much so to convey the original idea instead of just making a DVDHD64BIT quality game, which could be achieved equally well in the Java setup they used.

By hap

Paragon (2043)

16-09-2010, 06:31

PingPong: prove it, port the engine to MSX and see for yourself if sprite flickering would be distracting.
I see it uses 'software sprites' a lot, so if I had to port the game to MSX, I wouldn't worry about flickering too much. What I would worry about though, is having to update the background pattern set in-game: it uses more than 256 tiles per level. But... nothing could stop me from coding neat tricks if I had a very talented gfx guy like him on my side! Theoretically doable on a real MSX machine.

Anyway, I agree with DemonSeed. =p

By PingPong

Enlighted (4156)

16-09-2010, 09:16

@hap: there is no need to prove it. for example (time 4:24) in the game there is a stage where the player fights with a end boss resembling a dragon. this boss is, for itself made up of 10 sprites, all horizontally aligned. the end boss appear to be made up with sw sprites (moves smoothly and is in one color). There is no need to prove nothing, it's easy to imagine how does flicker.
@DemonSeed: for me the point is not emulating the hw limits (such flickering, color limits etc.). Only a matter to take a bit more into consideration. Otherwise we get only a game of '80 era, running on a generic hypothetical 8 bit system, not a game that resemble what one can do on a msx1 system.

In other words, the developer should have took in account to realize, for example, the end boss mentioned above with tiles instead of sprites.

just my 2 cents

By hap

Paragon (2043)

16-09-2010, 23:35

Yeah, we could discuss about this endlessly, whether or not the game is practically possible on MSX1. =)

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6979)

18-09-2010, 09:20

the best way to say if a thing is doable on msx is to do it on msx ;-)
anyone willing to port it from java or whatever to z80 asm?

By Edwin

Paragon (1182)

18-09-2010, 14:28

It's probably an interesting project for a coder that doesn't want to do anything with gfx design. You can take the content and try to implement the game in asm as far as possible. No doubt you will have to change things because they can't be made to work well (or at all), but who says things should be ease.

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