Team Bomba announce Blox for GFX9000

Team Bomba have just restyled their website, adding information on their products of the past (Bombaman being the most famous one) and announcing what they are going to do in the future.

On the Team Bomba website you can find information on the GFX9000 game they are currently developing: Blox. This game, inspired by the flash game Blox Forever will be developed using the GFX9000 library. The GFX9000 library will, in turn, increase in functionality and performance while the development of Blox progresses. The Blox preview pages of the Team Bomba website show some screenshots of Blox, the editor of the game and an impressive filebrowser.

At the moment it's not clear yet when Blox will be finished. Team Bomba have already announced, however, that they are going to work on a larger GFX9000 production once this game has been finished.

Relevant link: Team Bomba's website

Comments (34)

By Imanok

Paladin (718)

03-12-2004, 09:27

It seems that "Blox Forever" is a clone of "Puzznic".

I remember a MSX1 korean (iirc) clone of it... I can't remember the name.

By Google

By Argon

Paladin (895)

03-12-2004, 11:06

Looks like this will be fun

By W76NearDark

Hero (637)

03-12-2004, 15:31

Ah great! Now is the time to re-discover the potential of the gfx9k and games like this are always helpfull ofcourse. Maybe 2005 could really be the year of games for the gfx9k

By Imanok

Paladin (718)

03-12-2004, 16:21

I don't want to create a great discussion here but... why gfx9k??

I can understand the use of gfx9k if you want to create a game 'impossible' to run at an acceptable speed because of the specifications of a plain MSX2, but it seems this kind of games don't require too much graphical power....

By wolf_

Ambassador (9117)

03-12-2004, 16:38

I think they support g9k so that there's at least a game for it .. it's not that g9k productions are flooding the place here..

By W76NearDark

Hero (637)

03-12-2004, 16:42

Well, I suppose they use the bitmap mode of the gfx9k for this game so you can put extra eyecandy in it because of the larger amount of colours which can be used in that mode.

By Imanok

Paladin (718)

03-12-2004, 16:53

Don't missunderstand me.
It's ok if they want to make a game for gfx9k, I mean it is not the kind of game that needs the gfx9k capabilities.

By msd

Paragon (1034)

03-12-2004, 17:56

In that case a lot of games could just be made for msx1 only,

By spl

Paragon (1230)

03-12-2004, 18:36

As you see people like Karoshi Corp. are making MSX 1 games

By spl

Paragon (1230)

03-12-2004, 18:39

Also, I think Imanok is right... see that his games Bubble Rain or Cat'N'Mouse are more complex that blox. OK, Blox is impressive, but this kind of games don't need really a GFX9K.

Yours,

By sjoerd

Hero (583)

03-12-2004, 19:03

It's also to practice, I guess.

And why gfx9000? Because it looks better. Why make msx1 games when you can make gfx9000 games?

By spl

Paragon (1230)

03-12-2004, 19:51

Because for every 100 msx users only 5 have gfx9000 If you want to be practical, is better to do a game for most of the users... Also if you made a very good MSX 2 game it will be also impressive.

Yours,

By wolf_

Ambassador (9117)

03-12-2004, 20:36

that's one way to look at it .. otoh.. I dunno how many g9k's have been sold.. imagine it being 150.. (?) That's 150 users without much software for their g9k.

By sunrise

Paragon (1090)

03-12-2004, 20:41

spl, your figures are simply incorrect. It's about 20 percent of that 100.
Totally is about 370 copies sold on the total amount of approx 1800 msx-active owners the are in my opinion.
And this figure is increased to this during the last two years.
So, the need for a good game for it is thus a must and not a request.

Sjoerd gave already one good reason.
Second and maybe the most important is that the gfx9000 is always sold as something for a turbo-r and not for a msx2. Later on more msx2 owners understood that it could be used on a msx2 as well.
Also people who owe the GFX9000 never saw anything as e.g. a game.
This together with the fact that open msx will support it also in the near feature it would be very unwise not to create.

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

03-12-2004, 21:13

Maybe spl doesn't want to get this nice piece of hardware to get out of the vicious circle it's in for years now.

By Jorito

Ambassador (788)

03-12-2004, 21:20

I only want to add a 'goodbye 80s, welcome to the new era' here

By wolf_

Ambassador (9117)

03-12-2004, 21:33

progression! My point exactly, regarding opl4 640k ^___^

By snout

Ambassador (13688)

03-12-2004, 22:26

Team Bomba are taking the first step on developing a GFX9000 game with Blox. A game that could be done on MSX2 as well, but making the game for GFX9000 gives them enough experience to be able to create other GFX9000 games with effects and speeds that simply are impossible on MSX2.

Being the proud owner of a GFX9000 I'm delighted to see that there finally are coming more and more GFX9000 products as well. I also think it's great that, anno 2004, the MSX community are both developing high-spec and low-spec software.

By Grauw

Paragon (1797)

03-12-2004, 22:40

I'd love to see a Gfx9000 game . On a sidenote, I agree with Imanok for a little bit, in the sense that had I been working on such a game myself I think I would've gone for the v9938, but then again eye candy is cool. Anyways, I'm looking forward to this, and already to the 'bigger project' after that too .

P.s. I wonder, what screenmode will this game be in? 512x212, 32628 colours? 512x424 would also be cool (I think that if one optimize the graphics for it, like making soft edges and not putting a single white line right above a black one e.d., there won't be that much flickering, right?).

~Grauw

By msd

Paragon (1034)

03-12-2004, 22:42

well it could not be done in 512*424 with 64 colors, but frankly I think it's a non statement.. a lot of msx2 games could have been done on msx1.. why on msx2 , for the better graphics.. why on gfx9000 , better graphics.. and ofcourse, because we can

By msd

Paragon (1034)

03-12-2004, 22:49

everything is in 512*424, menu's in yuv mode.. game itself in 64 color mode

By [D-Tail]

Ascended (8204)

04-12-2004, 15:35

msd, you rule so much

Potential buyer no.1 announces himself!

By [D-Tail]

Ascended (8204)

04-12-2004, 15:37

Another thing: the Blox principle seems to be much like Ryu no Chie (or was it the other way round? ). In any case. Ryu no Chie is much more difficult 'cos there is a fixed number of moves per round. You'll have to complete the stage within that number of moves. Ryu no Chie rules big time as well!

Great artwork on your site, by the way! Up the (GFX9K-)work!!!

By Jorito

Ambassador (788)

04-12-2004, 16:17

Hey... Ryu No Chie... another game I forgot to add to the 'portfolio' thread! I forgot I lent Tobias my Music Module for that and he returned it quite molested afterwards

By DarQ

Paragon (1038)

04-12-2004, 17:38

openMSX team!!! Implement GFX9000 PLEAAAAAAASE

By turbor

Champion (264)

04-12-2004, 23:05

We, the openMSX team, are working on GFX9000 emulation (or to give credit where credit is due, Aurora is working on it :-) . If MSD is willing to tell us which exact possibilities of the V9990 the program will be using, then development might be more focused towards those specs...

By Grauw

Paragon (1797)

05-12-2004, 00:30

MSD: whoa, kewl .

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

05-12-2004, 08:39

Didn't GuyveR800 ask for Gfx9000 emulation in openMSX first with his snowfall demo?

By MSX Resource Center

Paladin (986)

05-12-2004, 12:48

That demo runs perfectly in the Dragon Engine

By spl

Paragon (1230)

06-12-2004, 00:25

OK, I didn't want to attack anybody, it is only my opinion. But actually the GFX9000 is impressive, remember that the 3DO console had the V9990, for example.

Yours,

By snout

Ambassador (13688)

06-12-2004, 00:49

The 3DO having a V9990 is quite a myth... unfortunately it's not true, though

By spl

Paragon (1230)

06-12-2004, 09:29

It is NOT a MYTH:

CPU: ARM60 12,5 MHz
VPU: 2 V9990 25 Mhz each

Yours,

By spl