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New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:05 am
by Sokurah
I think we all know that the Spectrum version of SQIJ from 1987 is one of - if not THE - worst game for the ZX Spectrum, but lately I've been working on a new version.

So this is a remake of the original C64 version (complete with same map and item placements) so it's actually playable, unlike the official Spectrum version.

Dare I say it - even better than the C64 version. That version is so fast - that while technically a lot better than the official Spectrum version - it was just unplayable due to its speed, but I've slowed the action down a lot here, to make it more playable.

Well, this was a fun project. I hope you will enjoy it :)

Read more about it - and download it - here.

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Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 11:23 am
by Ast A. Moore
Ha! I can’t make heads or tails of it, but congratulations! :P

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:04 pm
by R-Tape
Well done Sokurah et al. You really are a 'finisher'!

Plays well, great graphics and sound, it works, and I'm playing SQIJ on the Spectrum. This feels weird.

Not a big deal but is there a little graphical glitch on the wing when the bird is moving right?

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:04 pm
by Alessandro
Well, at least you managed to make a decent game out of it :lol:

I would have liked the tree pieces to be placed in semi-random positions at the start of the game (a la Sabre Wulf), but maybe that feature is not present in the C64 original version, is it?

Do my ears deceive me or the sound effects are taken from Quazatron/Ranarama?

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:14 pm
by Sokurah
Haha, thanks guys.

[mention]Alessandro[/mention] - the positions in the C64 version are always the same, but I did consider setting up different positions for the items here (as I did in Vallation too), but thought "Nah, people are only going to play through it once - and every little bit helps" ;) , so I skipped that this time.

And yes - the familiar sounding sfx are because I'm using a ripped Hewson "sound engine" I found on WoS forums once.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:08 pm
by R-Tape
Paraphrasing the instructions:

You are the mutant bird SQIJ, and you have to gather fragments of the Ener tree from a lethal underground cavern, and assemble them on a special platform to gain eternal life.

The sheer crapness of the original blinded me to the fact that everything about SQIJ is completely insane!

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 5:54 pm
by Wall_Axe
i will try to SLAM this on my ZXDS and try it out

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:05 pm
by R-Tape
The cyan platforms don't perform a function do they?

This is good fun, and once the player learns the map inside out it shouldn't be tooo difficult. Can you complete it easily Sokurah?

And would you rather I held back on posting an immunity POKE? :mrgreen:

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:34 pm
by Spud
R-Tape wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:05 pm And would you rather I held back on posting an immunity POKE? :mrgreen:
Mr-Tape, Have you swallowed ANDREW RYALS?

Good effort, Sokurah, it plays plenty quick enough as it is, I can't imagine how tough going it would be if the pace was increased. It is somewhat frustrating but I guess that is down to the original game design rather than a slight against your skill.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:20 pm
by pavero
infinite energy
Spoiler
48719,0 (infinite energy)

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2018 9:36 pm
by PeterJ
[mention]Sokurah[/mention] Thank you for giving Spectrum Computing the agreement to include the game for download in our archive. Its appreciated. We will add it to the next update.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:48 am
by Sokurah
R-Tape wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 1:04 pm Not a big deal but is there a little graphical glitch on the wing when the bird is moving right?

The cyan platforms don't perform a function do they?

Can you complete it easily Sokurah?

And would you rather I held back on posting an immunity POKE? :mrgreen:
To answer your questions:

Graphical glitch on the wing? There might be. I haven't noticed it myself though.

The cyan platforms don't do anything - they're just decoration and is treated in the same way as the landscape.

Too late - I see Pavero has already posted a POKE. Damn cheaters :lol:

Personally I've only played through it by cheating a little bit, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much ;) :lol:
Spud wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:34 pm
R-Tape wrote: Wed Jan 03, 2018 8:05 pm And would you rather I held back on posting an immunity POKE? :mrgreen:
Mr-Tape, Have you swallowed ANDREW RYALS?

Good effort, Sokurah, it plays plenty quick enough as it is, I can't imagine how tough going it would be if the pace was increased. It is somewhat frustrating but I guess that is down to the original game design rather than a slight against your skill.
Yes, I'm sure I could have made a much better game out of it ... but then I'd be moving away from what the original game was. I decided to just make it very close and not change it too much (the whole "carrying items" mechanic has been slightly changed though ... but it makes more sense this way ;) ) so it does have some of the same weaknesses as the C64 version. I'll save my creativity for the next title.

Slightly off-topic. There still hasn't been a POKE for Vallation 128K and I think that's a bit fun. I'd expected MR. CAPS to be on it ... but perhaps he decided that finding pokes for the 48K version twice was just as good :lol:

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:09 pm
by R-Tape
There's the map sorted Pavero.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:06 am
by Sokurah
R-Tape wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2018 10:09 pm There's the map sorted Pavero.
Haha, love it. Really old school :lol:

This remake actually started with me playing the C64 version ... and I didn't know how big the game was, so I mapped it using screenshots. Turns out the map is 64 screens big - arranged in an 8 by 8 grid. But oddly enough the map has 2 "holes" in it and 2 rooms "sticking out". You can actually see that on the map above. I wonder why it's made that way? Anyway, the small map is one of the reasons I thought "That's not too bad ... I should remake it" :)

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 4:04 am
by R-Tape
Sokurah wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2018 12:06 am But oddly enough the map has 2 "holes" in it and 2 rooms "sticking out".
I'm glad you said, I worried I made a mistake!

How is the map stored in memory & each screen drawn btw?

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2018 9:31 am
by Sokurah
R-Tape wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2018 4:04 am How is the map stored in memory & each screen drawn btw?
Since the map isn't constructed from "obvious tiles" - and I decided that I wanted to keep the exact look of it - each screen is constructed from 8x8 tiles. That means that a screen is built from 640 tiles. As there are less than 256 tiles each screen then takes up 640 bytes.

BUT all screens has been LZ compressed. So the smallest compressed screen takes up 12 bytes and the largest 215 bytes. In total the entire map takes up just over 10 KB.

The map is stored as a 9x9 grid to allow for those 2 screens "sticking out". Screens are fetched by finding en entry in a table that points to the data for each screen. That table is then 81 WORDS big. Those 17 extra screens (81 instead the actual 64 used) aren't stored though - their table entries point to the smallest screen (the one taking up just 12 bytes), so doing it this way actually only wastes 34 bytes.

When a screen is needed its data is unpacked into a 640 byte buffer. Then the screen is drawn one 8x8 tile at the time from that buffer. That buffer is used for other things too, so it doesn't just "sit there" after it's been drawn ;)

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:32 pm
by R-Tape
Oh yeah! A suitably bonkers final screen.
Spoiler
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I really enjoyed this, it seemed impossible to start with but the main challenge was getting used to a map in which many screens appear similar.

Now someone just needs to convert our 1987 version to the C64 and we can call it quits.

I actually feel sorry for the author of the Speccy original, who did what he felt was necessary to fulfil a contract and will never be allowed to forget it (I guess I'm not helping with the latter). Maybe it was justified, every indication is that programmers were being horribly exploited by the software houses. The real villain here must be whoever had the audacity and disdain for the public to actually release the bloody thing!

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:59 pm
by Sokurah
R-Tape wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:32 pm Oh yeah! A suitably bonkers final screen.
Spoiler
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Now someone just needs to convert our 1987 version to the C64 and we can call it quits.
LOL, take that you terrible C64 users :lol: :lol:

And damn - I hadn't noticed that typo. Doh!
... I'll make sure to fix that for the cassette release ;)

Speaking of that - does anyone have suggestions about anything I can change for the physical release?

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:03 pm
by Ast A. Moore
Old Mr. Starvarion is a powerful and cunning foe and is not to be trifled with.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm
by R-Tape
Sokurah wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:59 pm Speaking of that - does anyone have suggestions about anything I can change for the physical release?
The only thing I'd like from a cassette version is more replay value (as Alessandro mentioned) by not having the same placement of objects every time. Totally random might spoil it given that there are locked areas, perhaps a choice? 1 - original placement, 2 - random pick from some preset placings known to work, 3 - random placing with some rules.

Just a thought, it's nearly perfect as a remake and good enough for release as is, anything else would be icing on the cake.
Ast A. Moore wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:03 pm Old Mr. Starvarion is a powerful and cunning foe and is not to be trifled with.
Exactly! And if we're bandying crazy terms like the 'Enertree' and 'Pylpapa' about, noone's going to notice Starvarion is a typo.

It'd be a great name for a shmup actually...

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:37 pm
by Ast A. Moore
R-Tape wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm It'd be a great name for a shmup actually...
Dibs! I call dibs!

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 8:27 am
by Sokurah
R-Tape wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 1:29 pm
Sokurah wrote: Sat Jan 06, 2018 12:59 pm Speaking of that - does anyone have suggestions about anything I can change for the physical release?
The only thing I'd like from a cassette version is more replay value (as Alessandro mentioned) by not having the same placement of objects every time. Totally random might spoil it given that there are locked areas, perhaps a choice? 1 - original placement, 2 - random pick from some preset placings known to work, 3 - random placing with some rules.

Just a thought, it's nearly perfect as a remake and good enough for release as is, anything else would be icing on the cake.
Alright, good idea. For this release I stuck to the original game's way of doing it, but I'll add more item locations and do it the Ultimate way - by randomly select set of predefined locations for the items when the game starts.

I'll also fill out those holes in the map and add screens up to a total of (perhaps) 81.

... obviously this is going to delay the cassette release a bit ;)

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 11:15 am
by Ralf
I played it a bit.

Now it became a smooth, fast, fun shooter. Maybe it's a long shot but it seemed similar to Atic Atac for me :) You know, you travel from screen to screen, some baddies are generated in random places and you shoot them like crazy.

These caverns are unfortunately a bit dull with all locations looking the same but it guess it's being faithful to the original. It also means that you probably must be mapping the game or using existing map. I tried to play it without it and ended walking i circles.

Generally a great job!

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 12:38 pm
by hikoki
One idea would be using a gameplay inspired in Mojon Twins' Tenebra Macabre. You could illuminate caves in the dark by defecating fluorescent excrements (there would be a crap-o-meter since you cannot find food to recharge your bowels).
So all the caves would be in the dark and you turned them on to get oriented. One advantage of flying in the dark is that enemies cannot follow you unless you start firing. Also you could use your bullets like a bat-ecoradar. Procedural generated caves and explosives to get them connected could be interesting to make your own way out. Perhaps instakill for some kind of enemies would make the lighting/ecoradar/bombs mechanics more challenging.

Re: New Game: SQIJ 2018 - the worst Spectrum game remade.

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 12:49 pm
by R-Tape
I've found you an avatar hikoki :-p

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