'Dixel' scrolling... Ghosts 'n' Goblins

[5MinuteRetro]

I can't imagine that this will ring bells with many if anyone here but back in the day I remember reading a quote in some magazine article from the programmer of the ZX Spectrum version of Ghosts 'n' Goblins that boasted of the 'dixel' scrolling technique he'd employed, which was his invented term for side-scroll system that shifted the screen two pixels at a time,

Despite Googling and plenty of manual perusal of magazine PDFs, I've never managed to find this reference. Now, at an increasingly ripe age, I'm beginning to wonder if I Imagined it.

Anyone?

[Wall_Axe]

i've always wondered how that game was made

[5MinuteRetro]

i've always wondered how that game was made

I consider it a great conversion, for sure. No idea why this 'dixel' reference has stayed with me for 30+ years but it has, and I'd love to track it down. Almost certainly in Crash, YS or Sinclair User, as those were the mags I used to devour, but I'll be buggered if I can find it.

(And if anyone *does* find it, they'll be award a private-messaged clue to this week's Friday Night Quiz. Which, incidentally, is going to be *hard*...)

[ZXDunny]

The word "Dixel" is indeed a thing and does mean a two-pixel scroll. I never heard of it in the context of the aforesaid game, but it does crop up in a type-in on page 74 of issue 19 of Your Sinclair.

[Joefish]

I think the name was meant as a joke - 'Dixcel' was a well-known brand of toilet paper at the time.

[5MinuteRetro]

The word "Dixel" is indeed a thing and does mean a two-pixel scroll. I never heard of it in the context of the aforesaid game, but it does crop up in a type-in on page 74 of issue 19 of Your Sinclair.

Hmm... I suppose it's possible that my addled mind got it mixed up and it wasn't in relation to GnG at all, but I'm convinced that it was -- so my hunt continues! But... I'd be interested to see this reference. Where does one view YS back issues now that the once-glorious YSRNRY website is no more?

[5MinuteRetro]

I think the name was meant as a joke - 'Dixcel' was a well-known brand of toilet paper at the time.

Hah -- you might well be right, and I'll confess that back then the reference was obviously lost on me!

[ZXDunny]

The word "Dixel" is indeed a thing and does mean a two-pixel scroll. I never heard of it in the context of the aforesaid game, but it does crop up in a type-in on page 74 of issue 19 of Your Sinclair.

Hmm... I suppose it's possible that my addled mind got it mixed up and it wasn't in relation to GnG at all, but I'm convinced that it was -- so my hunt continues! But... I'd be interested to see this reference. Where does one view YS back issues now that the once-glorious YSRNRY website is no more?

http://live.worldofspectrum.org/infosee ... lair/19#76

Second column, near the bottom.

[5MinuteRetro]

Well... I dunno what changed overnight (apart, perhaps, from being not quite so tired) but by simple dint of this morning putting my "dixel scroll" search term in double quotes narrowed down the results to just three, and I instantly found what I wanted. I'm hardly a computing n00b, so I dunno why it hadn't occurred to me to do that before!

But anyway, for anyone else who might be interested here it is -- on page 37 of the June 1986 edition of YS: https://archive.org/stream/YourSinclair ... 7/mode/2up

[Joefish]

Cobra scrolls two pixels at a time as well. That's done by re-drawing the screen every time from pre-shifted blocks, rather than rotating the pixels that make up the screen.
The trick there is having a small number of scenery blocks, and further limiting which block you can place next to another block, because what you're really pre-shifting is the transitions from one block to another, and the number of those can get out of hand if you're not careful.