How to adapt Donkey Kong to Speccy mode

[Bubu]

Jarl, torpedos!

Hi, all!

(this thread is for fun only )


I'm thinking on the mods that would need to be done on the original screen of Donkey Kong to adapt it to the Spectrum video mode (256x192, color clash and things that we all know), but without losing a pixel of the real playfield, or the minimum losing.

The original screen is this:



This resolution is 224x256, so the problem is with the vertical resolution, so we need to do serious cuts:




The girl has gone away..., the score, hiscore, lifes, level and bonus is set to the right. Would you think this could be a good position of elements? Where would you put the girl? The girl MUST BE.
Once we put all the elements, we'll talk about the colors and color clash matters...

[Mpk]

Turn your TV sideways, and it's 192x256. Problem solved, you just have to trim the sides a bit now.

[Bubu]

Trimming the sides is not an option, as you would cut the original playfield by 4 characters (32 pixels!!). The only thing is a vertical trimming.

[Mpk]

Yeah, but only this bit.


Who ever goes over there?

[Bubu]

But you must cut 32 pixels, not only 8, as 224 - 192 = 32, am i right?

[Juan F. Ramirez]

I think horizontal plattforms instead of inclined ones would help.

[Luzie]

The girl has gone away..., the score, hiscore, lifes, level and bonus is set to the right. Would you think this could be a good position of elements? Where would you put the girl? The girl MUST BE.

The girl can be somehow "behind" Kong?

Or can´t it be "zoomed in" at all?! Like maybe on this C64-Version (from: http://www.indieretronews.com/2016/11/d ... n-is.html):

There´s also this one (from: http://www.indieretronews.com/search/la ... KEY%20KONG), but I´m sure you know about them:

[Bubu]

Ah, yes, [mention]Luzie[/mention] , I played that Dkong version, but I was a bit desperated with the fast jump, and after 20 coins (60 lifes) I never got to the upper beam...
But I mean now to design a screen with a PERFECT playfield, In that version stairs are all equal to each other, and as you can see it's not that way in the original.

I'm thinking that this could be a good place for the girl, between those 2 stairs, it looks as if she would be trapped in a cage:



And what do you think about the colors, red or magenta?

[+3code]

This resolution is 224x256, so the problem is with the vertical resolution, so we need to do serious cuts:

Umm... what about scrolling the screen up and down?

[mickfarrow]

I did these mock up's a while back...

https://sites.google.com/site/zxgraph/h ... onkey-kong

[Luzie]

And what do you think about the colors, red or magenta?

Hard to decide. Red is "more original" but maybe magenta is "better to the eyes".

To satisfy most people maybe a switch/hotkey to change from red to magenta and back will be the best.

[p13z]

And what do you think about the colors, red or magenta?

Red. Just looks better, and steel beams / girders tend to get red oxide paint IRL, so it fits.

[Art]

I did these mock up's a while back...

https://sites.google.com/site/zxgraph/h ... onkey-kong

Very nice. And this, too:

https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/z/zombi2/

[Bubu]

I did these mock up's a while back...

https://sites.google.com/site/zxgraph/h ... onkey-kong

OMFG !!!!

And is it just a mock up? No program at all?

These screens are veeery very accourate to the original. I'm going to try not a mock up but a real screen generated by an aseembler program, but I think yours borders the perfection!

[Bubu]

Very nice. And this, too:

https://zxart.ee/eng/authors/z/zombi2/

Yesss, nice too,I'd even say that it's better than the original game, but I'm looking for a "clone" screen to that of Nintendo

[Bubu]

This what I've just made with an 1:1 pixel MAME export (into a TAP lfile for the Spectrum):




I'll put the stairs in red, and in cyan, and will see if the color clash is so heavy or not

[Bubu]

Some advances today:




To do:

- More stairs
- Last floor (a single horizontal red line, and let's go)
- Lifes
- Bonus

Note that this image is generated by a program in assembler that I'm doing only to show this, taking the same fonts and bitmaps that original one of Nintendo.

[p13z]

Looking good. I think it would be worth spending some time getting creative with colour / shading for Kong himself - a mix of red / yellow and magenta by someone with the skills (MAC style) to overcome the Speccie's aversion to the brown.

[Bubu]

I agree with you, but you can't forget the worst problem with the Spectrum graphics mode: the color clash. As you know, you can only have 2 colors every 8x8 pixels, so you're talking of 3 colors: red, yellow, and black (for the background). I don't know how to put 3 colors without modifying the original art of Nintendo

[p13z]

I agree with you, but you can't forget the worst problem with the Spectrum graphics mode: the color clash. As you know, you can only have 2 colors every 8x8 pixels, so you're talking of 3 colors: red, yellow, and black (for the background). I don't know how to put 3 colors without modifying the original art of Nintendo

Yeah, I know it isn't easy, and don't let me lead to over complicating a fun project. One example of a decent three colour Kong would be the one posted just above by Art. Not simple to do, and every frame of animation is a few hours work to tweak with stuff like this.
If you posted a .scr or two, with the Kong sprites lined up to the attributes, you might even get someone with the patience, time and skill to have a crack at it for you

[Rorthron]

Donkey King on the Dragon 32 managed to fit the first screen into 192 pixel rows:

http://archive.worldofdragon.org/index. ... e=The_King

[highrise]

I've been keeping this one quiet since 2018 but I guess I might as well post about it now I decided to return to it just recently.

Quite a lot of progress but I need to go back and recode a few things, and of course do proper masking on the sprites. But in general there's quite a lot to work with.

https://youtu.be/Oy1OPhMBTmI

[Art]

I think that in this case, it's not necessary to have a pixel perfect arcade graphics. In any case, it's not possible because of the different screen size.

Concerning colour clash, probably it's not possible to have slanted platforms of one colours and a smoothly moving character of another colour. One solution is to have both of them in the same or similar colours. Another solution is to change the platforms shapes. Another one, which is probably the best, is to use some multicolour engine (like Nirvana).

[Bubu]

Yeah, I know it isn't easy, and don't let me lead to over complicating a fun project. One example of a decent three colour Kong would be the one posted just above by Art. Not simple to do, and every frame of animation is a few hours work to tweak with stuff like this.
If you posted a .scr or two, with the Kong sprites lined up to the attributes, you might even get someone with the patience, time and skill to have a crack at it for you

I like the "Mick Farrow's method":



But that pic is nice cause Kong is in a "rigid" position, but, what should we do when Kong starts moving?




[mention]mickfarrow[/mention], did you think about this? I can imagine if Kong's background would be yellow instead of black, then we can use that yellow fot the face, hands and feet. But I think a yellow background even only on that area would be loosy.

[Rorthron]

I've been keeping this one quiet since 2018 but I guess I might as well post about it now I decided to return to it just recently.

Quite a lot of progress but I need to go back and recode a few things, and of course do proper masking on the sprites. But in general there's quite a lot to work with.

https://youtu.be/Oy1OPhMBTmI

Looks very nice.