Black Raven (Чёрный Ворон) in colour

[Alone Coder]

Original game by Vyacheslav Mednonogov/Copper Feet, 1997.
Colourized by Alone Coder, Sashapont, Kotuk, and Louisa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD2Sw9VZmVQ
Full playlist (9 more levels to go): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... WQSIUFOnun

The game was dedicated for Russian clones of ZX Spectrum 128K with Beta 128 disk interface, such as Pentagon 128 and Scorpion 256K. It was released on two protected floppy disks and required an extra disk for saving states. The colourized hard drive compatible version requires ATM-Turbo 2 clone or higher: http://nedoos.ru/
This is a Warcraft-like game in medieval Russian setting.
The game was a commercial product. Later the author made the game freeware and released the source codes.
The game had a cult following, with mission editors and extra missions by other authors.
The sequel named Black Raven 2 (set in the future) has not been finished, its sources are also available...

[Ralf]

Very nice!

Dungeon levels could be improved however, currently all background is monochrome there.

And please notice huys if you missed it, it isn't some recoloured version running in PC emulator. It runs on a Russian Spectrum
extended clone from 1992 or so, something similar a bit to Sam Coupe. So it's RETRO

Alone Coder, maybe one day you would try to finish Black Raven 2?

[llewelyn]

Nice looking screen with some great details.

[Alone Coder]

Thanks! I've completed the walkthrough (level 8 for Kungs was crazy!). As for the extra levels, I postponed them because of small audience of these videos. Maybe this is because the game is unknown in the West? (I fear it doesn't even work at the original Spectrum 128K, because it uses I=#41.)
Sadly Vyacheslav's e-mail is not responding. I know there were General Sound samples for Black Raven 2, but I can't find them. We also need a level designer, because Black Raven 2 sources contain only one map.
There are some 55 games for this hardware (ATM-Turbo 2), most of them are uploaded to Maksagor's site:
http://atmturbo.nedopc.com/load_cpm.htm
http://atmturbo.nedopc.com/load_trdos.htm
Some of them also support Pentagon 128 + 16col add-on.
They are also mostly unknown, unlisted in archives, not reviewed on YouTube etc. Maybe because of that, hardware guys continue to make incompatible devices.

[moroz1999]

They are also mostly unknown, unlisted in archives, not reviewed on YouTube etc.

The only reason for them missing on ZX-Art is that nobody uploaded them. ZX-Art supports uploading from users, but nobody has time to add them.
There is also JSON API available, so everybody would be able to copy and spread the software without manual work.
I will upload them one day by myself, but I'm still overloaded with merging the various databases, fixing countless bugs and writing new features.

ATM-2 also has a lot of authentic digital art. I've added a basic support of one of the formats into ZX-Image, but I've met a problem: I dont have the memory dumps of images. I've extracted the memory dumps from disk images, but they dont store a palette, which can be unique for each image.

So to add ATM-2 software to ZX-Art archive, I need some volunteer help or some spare time (which will appear one day for sure). To add images, I only need extracted images as memory dumps with palette. Storing PNGs is not something I want to discuss for numerous reasons.

[llewelyn]

Nice looking screen with some great details.

Also if you go over to the play list at YouTube, the intro is just amazing! Back in the day I'd have been well chuffed to see this as an example of what the Amiga is capable of, never mind the Spectrum.

How does he get all that processing speed out of it? The waving flag and moving waves in the foreground running under a bridge, the light and shade, the hidden detail such as the log mill, between the rolling logs you catch a glimpse of the mill wheel turning and later the rotating spoked wheels of the catapult cart are revealing the road surface it rolls along.

I mean there's no real need for such detail and yet its there and doesn't seem to affect the speed of the processor despite everything else it has to do. There's some very clever task allocation going on in the background, maybe making the ULA behave like a graphics co-processor? Just guess work on my part, it's well beyond my knowledge level which is pretty abysmal.

Absolutely top hole piece of programming with artwork and sound second to none considering the chip responsible.

[Alone Coder]

ATM-2 also has a lot of authentic digital art. I've added a basic support of one of the formats into ZX-Image, but I've met a problem: I dont have the memory dumps of images. I've extracted the memory dumps from disk images, but they dont store a palette, which can be unique for each image.

So to add ATM-2 software to ZX-Art archive, I need some volunteer help or some spare time (which will appear one day for sure). To add images, I only need extracted images as memory dumps with palette. Storing PNGs is not something I want to discuss for numerous reasons.

Demige has invented the following format for the pictures in Everlasting Summer:
.16c
32800 bytes
The first 32768 bytes are memory dump of pages 1 and 5.
Last 32 bytes are the palette in NedoOS format:
;DDp palette: %grbG11RB(low bits of colour, inverted),%grbG11RB(high bits of colour, inverted)
(16 colours like this)

The support in NedoView was very simple:

load16c
call setEGA ;keeps hl
ld hl,0x8000
ld de,0x8000
call readstream_file
ld de,TPAL
ld hl,32
call readstream_file
call closestream_file
ld de,TPAL
OS_SETPAL
jp waitkeyquit

This doesn't allow pictures of arbitrary size.

- Catdemo (320x256 pictures) and slideshow_ipv2014_evolutiongfxcompo (320x200 pictures) use 4bit .bmp
- Eric and the Floaters uses 8bit .bmp for tile gfx.
- Pang16C (256x160 pictures) and Ball Quest (256x160 pictures) use packed column-wise bitmaps (without palette) converted with 16CCON (TR-DOS utility written in ALASM) http://alonecoder.nedopc.com/zx/pangsrc.zip
- Good Old Dihalt (320x200 pictures) and IVP2014 (320x200 pictures) use packed memory dumps (palette at #1F40) converted with convega (Windows utility also named mkspr.exe) http://alonecoder.nedopc.com/zx/gsslideshowsrc.rar
- Super Mario uses NES cartridge dump for tile and sprite gfx.

I prefer .bmp for future game development, because I can edit such pictures directly in NedoOS. However, its gfx editor (Scratch) doesn't yet support the 17th colour (sprite mask).

[Alone Coder]

Also if you go over to the play list at YouTube, the intro is just amazing! Back in the day I'd have been well chuffed to see this as an example of what the Amiga is capable of, never mind the Spectrum.

How does he get all that processing speed out of it?

These are animations created in 3D Studio and converted to screen byte sequence. The scenes in .MAX format are included in the source archive: http://opensourcezx.untergrund.net/file ... br_src.zip

[Alone Coder]

I prefer .bmp for future game development, because I can edit such pictures directly in NedoOS. However, its gfx editor (Scratch) doesn't yet support the 17th colour (sprite mask).

Now it does

[Lee Bee]

There are some 55 games for this hardware (ATM-Turbo 2), most of them are uploaded to Maksagor's site:
http://atmturbo.nedopc.com/load_cpm.htm

Cool. Magi Squares looks good! Is there an emulator anywhere?

[Ralf]

The sequel named Black Raven 2 (set in the future) has not been finished, its sources are also available...

@Alone Coder
Did you consider finishing it yourself?
I know your works and believe you have the skill necessary for it

[Alone Coder]

I haven't still finished adding music and colour in UFO-2.
For Black Raven 2, I tried to ask some people for maps, including the famous Metallurg, but haven't succeeded. The sources don't contain any actual levels. I also tried to find the GS sounds, but they are lost.