| ★ GAMES ★ GAMES - MAKINGOF - WILD WEST SEYMOUR (BIG RED SOFTWARE) ★ |
Read about seymour (1/5) (Amstrad Action) | Graphics detail (2/5) (Amstrad Action) | Taking shape (3/5) (Amstrad Action) | Code & chips (4/5) (Amstrad Action) | Finishing touches (5/5) (Amstrad Action) |
Last month we featured part three of our How a Game is Made series. This month, in a controversial move, we're going to feature part four. As ever, it's ADAM PETERS tapping the words in... Computer games programmers fall roughly into two categories. There's the shy and withdrawn sci-fi geeks who go for weeks without ever speaking to anyone, and have "computer programmer' stamped on their foreheads. Then there's the totally ordinary types whose profession you wouldn't be able to guess, even if they passed you in the street waving a copy of PDS (Programmer's Development System) in the air. Jon Cartwright is definitely one of the latter type A jolly, laughy, cheery young lad who the rest of the Big Red posse get to make phone calls for them ('cos he's good on the phone, like). Like most programmers. Jon uses PDS on the PC to write the code. Once assembled on the PC , the code goes 'down the line' (via an RS232 comms interface) into the CPC. The games are usually written on the Spectrum first though. Both the PC and the Speccy are permanently switched on , with Jon hopping from one to the other to test out if the animations and so forth are working. An average Big Red game for the Amstrad will consist of around 96K of code, including extra frames (eg loading screens). The vast majority of this is taken up with graphics, with only about 2K for the 'map' (which specifies what sprite goes where) and another 2K for the sound (title tune and in-game effects). The actual program (the bit which pulls everything else together) is usually only a few K big. Three months have been set aside for programming Seymour's Wild West, though Jon hopes to finish it a lot sooner. “The bare bones of it should be finished in quite a bit less. We then have to spend time making the map look pretty, getting the scrolling smooth and sending it away to be playtested.' Work starts with 'grabbing' in the sprites (frames for animated characters, backgrounds etc) that Pete has designed over the past couple of months. Map editing is the next stage, where a rough approximation of the map is put together. Jon needs to make sure that Seymour can move from screen to screen unhindered. Initially most screens will just consist of the floor and a couple of objects in the room. More detail is added as everything else (the animation, puzzles etc) comes together. Once the game is programmed on the Spectrum, converting it to the Amstrad only takes about a week (!). The two computers use the same (Z80) chip and there is a special program to convert the graphics. Extra colours are added, and a little jigging around is necessary to suit the CPC's screen format, but it really is that quick and easy. Pete Ranson proudly shows off a draft sketch for the Seymour's Wild West inlay. "We want camp stoves dangling from the sides of the wagon, loads of arrows and all that." >> As we've mentioned earlier in the series. Wild West is to be broken up into separate sections (or 'Acts'), each a separate game in itself. There will be five acts, though only the first two have been fully planned out at this stage. Both consist of eleven rooms, with some extra graphic bits in-between. Another act, the so-called 'train level', is only going to be six screens in size. A problem that Pete was mulling over when this series began has now been solved. The Seymour sprite has been re-sized, and made wider so the cowboy hat can be fitted on. There was talk of possibly having a separate sprite for the hat. but that would have slowed things down a lot. Having a bigger single sprite seemed the best solution. But what about problems that are still to come? Jon reckons that the hardest thing is going to be trimming down the animation. “There's 255 frames of animation at the moment, which is a hell of a lot." The problem-solving continues, but so too does me innovation. As well as speaking, Seymour is also going to start thinking. Thought bubbles will appear above his head. "He can start being sarcastic,' enthuses Pete, “and the other characters won't be able to hear what he says.' << And here's the bloke wot's programming the whole shabang, one Jon Cartwright. Some evil person called El Bandito will be trailing There's no How A Game Is Made next month, but we rejoin the posse in two months to find out how the programming is going and how the artwork on the inlay cards is put together. You'd be a soft-boiled egg to miss it. We'll leave the last words this month, though, to Pete Ranson and Jon Cartwright. Tell us a secret, each of you. Pete first: "I buy colouring books from Sainsbury's to relax. I get a new one every lunch time.' Hmm, not much of a secret really Can you do better than that, Jon? "Yeah. I can't play these Seymour/Dizzy games. I'm not clever enough. I tried to play Seymour goes to Hollywood but gave up.' Crikey, and he's the programmer! "You're not going to print that though, are your Er... no. Of course not. Us? We'd never do anything like that. No way. Er...
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There are no time limits in this game, in the way there were with Seymour Hollywood, but something complicated involving a town hall clock is being planned. Progress is marked by the passage of a dot (representing Seymour) across a map of the USA at the top of the screen.
