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However what I see here is a lot of very talented coders, artists and musicians all with small goals, when you could do something big.

yes they exist. most without an organization leader group. and without direction too.

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Do it before it's too late and give yourself something to talk about for the next 20 years. Go on form some dev groups and make a committment for this new hardware or even the GFX9000. Go on I dare yer, I might even give up on the CPC and join the MSX revolution instead.

my greatest impression of a classic computer user ever.
yup, time's running... and the msx really needs this revolution quicklly.
to get profits, and running in the mainstream again.

Trebmint: there are quite a few groups or individuals who do chose to develop large-scale things. Keep in mind however that ever since the results of MSXdev'04 were published there was kinda a global MSX1 gaming revolution afoot. In the next few years many teams spent their time on MSXdev entries. Meanwhile MRC did the odd challenge, and now Passion MSX joined the ranks with an MSX2 contest. Point is: you can spend your time only once. And in the past years people have been spending their time on MSX1, MSX2 at best. So, this is a bit of a problem: are you going to compete with a fun MSX1 contest, together with 10 other groups? Or are you going to spend that time on a G9k game? People chose the first option..

The content thing *is* a fact, not even a self-fueling prophecy, it's just something everyone has witnessed for over a decade. The G9k is from 1993 or 1994 already, did you know that? That's about 14 years ago!

Big videocards usually invite to do big games (*I* didn't buy a G9k to play a pacman on it!). Big games are not easy to make, that's why there may be less content than expected. I have a G9k, Edwin has a G9k (we bought them together on the same fair), we do plan to use the darn thing, but we more or less enrolled ourself in yet another contest first. Big games require good tools. Not everyone is a toolmaker, while other people try to do the tools on the MSX itself (which costs lots and lots of time).

Making a big game is far harder than people usually think, or thought.. as the promotional articles about the G9k halfway the 90's were nothing but praise about the ease to make games with a G9k. The problem was not the G9k, but us, we, ourselves.

You can give a person a big room full o' LEGO bricks, but would that person then suddenly be an outstanding architect who knows how to construct perfect big houses 'n castles? Same with games..

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Trebmint: there are quite a few groups or individuals who do chose to develop large-scale things. Keep in mind however that ever since the results of MSXdev'04 were published there was kinda a global MSX1 gaming revolution afoot. In the next few years many teams spent their time on MSXdev entries. Meanwhile MRC did the odd challenge, and now Passion MSX joined the ranks with an MSX2 contest. Point is: you can spend your time only once. And in the past years people have been spending their time on MSX1, MSX2 at best. So, this is a bit of a problem: are you going to compete with a fun MSX1 contest, together with 10 other groups? Or are you going to spend that time on a G9k game? People chose the first option.. The content thing *is* a fact, not even a self-fueling prophecy, it's just something everyone has witnessed for over a decade. The G9k is from 1993 or 1994 already, did you know that? That's about 14 years ago! Big videocards usually invite to do big games (*I* didn't buy a G9k to play a pacman on it!). Big games are not easy to make, that's why there may be less content than expected. I have a G9k, Edwin has a G9k (we bought them together on the same fair), we do plan to use the darn thing, but we more or less enrolled ourself in yet another contest first. Big games require good tools. Not everyone is a toolmaker, while other people try to do the tools on the MSX itself (which costs lots and lots of time). Making a big game is far harder than people usually think, or thought.. as the promotional articles about the G9k halfway the 90's were nothing but praise about the ease to make games with a G9k. The problem was not the G9k, but us, we, ourselves. You can give a person a big room full o' LEGO bricks, but would that person then suddenly be an outstanding architect who knows how to construct perfect big houses 'n castles? Same with games..

I understand this, and on the other hand I don't. Personally why write an MSX1 game when you can write something with more colours, more sprites, better sound. Will your MSX1 game be remembered in a year? The simple answer is no because there's several thousand pieces of commercial MSX1 software to compete with. I bet an gfx9000 would be remembered though.

On the CPC forum I'm a member of the most strange thing has happened in the last few weeks. 5 or 6 people have actually got together to write a community type project which is an amazing thing. Unfortunately from my point of view it was to recode an existing and pretty simple game. Now I offered to write the tools for level design/sprite etc so that we could develop a framework for future projects, but they decided it would be better to go down the rip the data from the original route, which fine but it means you end up with one game and that's it.

The point I'm making is that its fine to go off and make your MSX1 games, or even GFX9000 games, but there is so much reinvention of the wheel codewise its absolutely stupid. That's why games take so long and put people off.

Why not write a flexible game level mapmaking tool, and codebase. Surely the easy creation of a map with the code to display, scroll, set collision etc is not rocket science, and is the chasis for a large percentage of games, and you'd save weeks/months of reinvention. You could do the same for front end, and intro's too.

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I understand this, and on the other hand I don't. Personally why write an MSX1 game when you can write something with more colours, more sprites, better sound.

Some people call it 'retro'. Also keep in mind: NL was much of an MSX2/+/tR country, but for instance Spanish/Portuguese countries were far more bound to MSX1.

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Will your MSX1 game be remembered in a year? The simple answer is no because there's several thousand pieces of commercial MSX1 software to compete with. I bet an gfx9000 would be remembered though.

Perhaps, but for the moment I've yet to see what game people remember most: Nemesis 2 or X-Tazy. I think people remember any game that's good, whether it's MSX1, MSX2, MSX2+, tR or G9k.

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Why not write a flexible game level mapmaking tool, and codebase. Surely the easy creation of a map with the code to display, scroll, set collision etc is not rocket science, and is the chasis for a large percentage of games, and you'd save weeks/months of reinvention. You could do the same for front end, and intro's too.

Yes, and we're working on it, it's called Polka 2, it will be a large game editor that does everything your game probably needs, except coding it and making music/sfx. Code-wise it will be so much more than just a one-shot application, it's a complete environment, expandable with separate DLLs

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Yes, and we're working on it, it's called Polka 2, it will be a large game editor that does everything your game probably needs, except coding it and making music/sfx. Code-wise it will be so much more than just a one-shot application, it's a complete environment, expandable with separate DLLs

Woah! Is it a win32 based app or a .NET Framework one?

crossplatform!

polka 2? never heard of.

That's because it's not ready yet

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....but there is so much reinvention of the wheel codewise its absolutely stupid. That's why games take so long and put people off.

Trebmin does have a point !

I have build the exact same tools Wolf is building with his team.

I've done a screen 2 gfx edt....a screen 5 gfx edt... and now a G9K gfx edt....

if that isn't reinventing the wheel I dont know what is?!?!?

but then I always build my own tools for the platform I'm going to develop for ....

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Quote: ....but there is so much reinvention of the wheel codewise its absolutely stupid. That's why games take so long and put people off. Trebmin does have a point ! I have build the exact same tools Wolf is building with his team. I've done a screen 2 gfx edt....a screen 5 gfx edt... and now a G9K gfx edt.... if that isn't reinventing the wheel I dont know what is?!?!? but then I always build my own tools for the platform I'm going to develop for ....

Cheers. I just believe that specifically aimed but generically open tools is the best way to write new software. Next I'd love Wolf_ to say we're making Polka 2 Gfx9000, or VSU specific. I mean why would it be so hard to even write flexible, reusable, relocatable code for gameplay elements too.

There seems to be a version of AGE which is adapted to the GFX9000.
Maybe it's outdated or doesn't suffice to the needs of contemporary MSX graphic designers?
I wouldn't know since I have no experience with the program or G9K and I suck at AGE5.

Well, the code base is rather solid. For our canceled MSXdev'06 adventure entry we made an editor (1), for another canceled MSXdev'07 entry we made another editor (2), which we rebuilt a little bit to fit Montana John (3), and editor 2 will probably be rebuilt into a new editor for an upcoming game (4) so that our new ideas can be incorporated. Furthermore I have myself made tools over the years as well, small things, like sprite editors (with OR support), particle generators, sc2->polka converters, font editors, a small editor/generator to create Back to the West maps, etc. Apart from that there are other visual editors we use, such as BMP2MSX, Photoshop etc.

I dunno about you, but having these dozens of editors is nothing short of frustrating and it really eats away tons of time. So, Polka2 should for us become the single editor that manages the whole game, of *any* gamegenre, with only Photoshop and such tools left to be external. This would imply ideas like various map styles, event lists, event maps, sketch sections, stamp editors, sprite editors, we can probably also include those flicker-colors from dvik/joyrex in some way, and stuff like those sprite overlays like in Malaika (although MJTT also has them in the title).

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But, can someone explain me why ppl are jumping over the G9k as if it never existed? There are MSX1 games, MSX2 games, a few MSX2+ games, a few tR games, no finished G9k games, and now a new videocard should be made? Is there something wrong with the G9k? It has a user base of, dunno, 350 or so, 250..350..I dunno something like that, and it seems the V9990 chips are easy to come by. Most people who have one haven't even seriously looked at it yet. Try to explain this to other scenes (C64, Atari, CPC, Coleco, heck.. Amiga) and they'll flag us as spoiled brats!

The problem is that the v9990 is OLD ! like the v9958. How many chips are available? using fpga there are no problem at all, because you simply can change the FPGA. Plus there is room for optimization and new versions. With Vxxxx chips you have always the same limited hw.

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The problem is that the v9990 is OLD ! like the v9958. How many chips are available? using fpga there are no problem at all, because you simply can change the FPGA. Plus there is room for optimization and new versions. With Vxxxx chips you have always the same limited hw.

Right, and then say the V9990 is old. Hmm...

I'm curious as to how the FPGA is interconnected in all this -- who can give me the update?