Games that made good use of FLASH

[worcestersource]

All this talk of palette colours got me thinking about games that exploited the FLASH flag. Having just enjoyed a blast of Project Future, it struck me how many scenery tiles are animated in this way. It works pretty well.

There's also obviously Manic Miner's loading screen, and Moon Cresta's.

There must be other games that use FLASH to good effect.

[Swainy]

There was an old type in game from Your Spectrum called Ground Attack that used the flash command and looked alright. Trouble is it gave the impression that you were moving forward even if you wasn’t.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... und_Attack

[R-Tape]

I think it'd be easier to have a thread of 'bad use of FLASH', and pick the least naff tbh!

Don't get me wrong, I like it when used in loading screens, but as part of a game I've only seen it done badly (e.g. The Prize).



That said, I quite like the way it's used for the cigar and eyebrows in Uncle Groucho.

[zup]

I only remember FLASH being useful Chip's Valley. The goal of this game (playable, not bad not good) is fixing your computer by getting those FLASHy bugs? hardware errors?

They could have been marked using a special GDU, but instead they are marked with FLASH. Very easy to spot but not annoying.

[Pobulous]

There was an old type in game from Your Spectrum called Ground Attack that used the flash command and looked alright. Trouble is it gave the impression that you were moving forward even if you wasn’t.

https://spectrumcomputing.co.uk/entry/2 ... und_Attack

That's a blast from the past. I found a badly typed in version of that on a C60 BITD, nothing about it worked properly, graphics were all over the place, moving ship left trails, only one of the directions worked, flashing blocks where they shouldn't have been. First time I've seen what the screen is supposed to look like!

[Swainy]

I added a few machine code routines to it when I found the listing in one of my mates old copies of Your Spectrum around 1991. I remember that I added a nice fade effect when it was game over and I added a title page which spun the text around in a cylinder style effect. Pretty sure I’ve still got the tape somewhere.

[AndyC]

From a programmers point of view, you can almost always replace FLASH with software effects and get a better result. Loading screens might be the only exception, because then the CPU is busy elsewhere and so CPU time is more limited.

[Lethargeek]

From a programmers point of view, you can almost always replace FLASH with software effects and get a better result. Loading screens might be the only exception, because then the CPU is busy elsewhere and so CPU time is more limited.

Sword of Ianna uses animation for water surface and flash for waterfalls - not as good as the animation but passable

[Swainy]

Just remembered, didn’t Continental Circus use flash on the wheels of the car instead of the wheels being animated?

[PeteProdge]

Just remembered, didn’t Continental Circus use flash on the wheels of the car instead of the wheels being animated?

It wasn't FLASH, but quite similar. An 8x8 cell on each back tyre blinking in INVERSE according to the speed you drove. It was awful and really put me off the game.

[Oloturia]

Nothing made good use of FLASH, nothing. And it's not limited to the Spectrum. Blinking text is featured also in terminals but no one really uses it fortunately, and was one of the most deprecated HTML tags along with marquee (which I think it still works). Why people still thinks that is a good idea to make blinking text a thing? Why?

OK jokes apart:
I remember a pinball game that had an animation during loading screen of the flipper hitting a ball. The pinball was walrus shaped and there were fruits. That was cool.
A few BASIC games used the FLASH, like Battle of Britain where it was used to mark engagements between RAF and Luftwaffe.

Semi OT: is the FLASH interval immutable or is it possible to speed it up? I have some memory flashes (pun intended) of something blinking at faster speed, but perhaps it was a software flash.

[PROSM]

Semi OT: is the FLASH interval immutable or is it possible to speed it up? I have some memory flashes (pun intended) of something blinking at faster speed, but perhaps it was a software flash.

The FLASH interval is fixed in the ULA - the paper and ink colours are swapped every 16 frames. Anything which needs it to be faster, slower or precisely synced with other animations has to be done in software.

[Pobulous]

One issue with Flash on real hardware is there are vertical edges when inverted. So if something became green when flashing and was next to something non-flashing green, there would be a thin dark line between them less than one pixel wide. I think it was a ULA bug, but could ruin some effects. You could actually tell something was flashing even if paper and ink were the same colour.

[Lee Bee]

Grongy shows everyone how to use FLASH well:

[Grongy]

Grongy shows everyone how to use FLASH well:

Thanks! UriS recently did SPECScii art, his work is more impressive imo:

[Evil Genius]

The game Motte and Bailey was mentioned in another thread, great loading screen

[PeteProdge]

I just remembered that there is a good use of FLASH. I can't remember the game, I wouldn't be surprised if it came up in more than one game, but I've recreated it here in BASIC (unoptimised for ease of understanding it with even needing to type it in):

Code: Select all

   10 POKE 65368,BIN 11001100
   20 POKE 65369,BIN 10011001
   30 POKE 65370,BIN 00110011
   40 POKE 65371,BIN 01100110
   50 POKE 65372,BIN 11001100
   60 POKE 65373,BIN 10011001
   70 POKE 65374,BIN 00110011
   80 POKE 65375,BIN 01100110
   90 REM The letter As in the next line should be typed in GRAPH MODE (caps+9)
  100 PRINT AT 0,0; FLASH 1; "AAAAAAAAAA"

[Einar Saukas]

My own examples from the 1980s...

[J. Pirés]

I don't know any game that utilizes flash in a way I like. However, there are some clever designs for loading screens.
A few examples:

Kantxo Design


Al-Rado


Tufty and Grongy

[Lethargeek]

shame on me, how could i forget this guy

[5MinuteRetro]

Thanks! UriS recently did SPECScii art, his work is more impressive imo:

These are indeed spectacular. And the disco one is hilarious!

[kokkiklhs]

IIRC, the game "Go to Hell" had a good use of flashing graphics! Very amusing and interesting game!

[PROSM]

Just found another one - the Hong Kong level from Travel with Trashman.

[worcestersource]

Just found another one - the Hong Kong level from Travel with Trashman.

Best use of them, I reckon!

[Dr beep]

Manic Miner is the first I saw.

Screen from Moon Cresta rocketfire.