[Coco] Suggestions?

[Mark McDougall]

On 22/06/2014 12:11 AM, Bill Loguidice wrote:

I'll respond in general to this thread here in Bill's post...

Firstly, thanks for the suggestions!

> Karateka, as mentioned, is a good one. It was ported to countless computers
> and consoles, and a good martial arts-style game is definitely missing (as
> far as I know) from the CoCo's catalog, particularly since The Last Ninja
> was never completed. Prince of Persia is another one (it recently received
> a stellar port to the C-64).

Karateka and Prince Of Persia are popular requests, and for good reason. 
They're both certainly iconic games, though I'd venture to suggest that 
Kareteka is more remarkable for its cinematic quality than its gameplay. 
None-the-less, it would be an impressive port. Truth be told, I have 
considered both of these already.

Didn't someone already start on POP for the Coco?

Defender. Another, perhaps obvious choice. Iconic, with the advantage of 
already being in 6809, similar graphics, and somewhat compatible memory map. 
A few technical hurdles, but definitely a contender.

Chip-8 - not my cup of tea, sorry. :(

> with the Apple II theme, it would be great to see something like Rescue
> Raiders ported over, which was kind of like a mix of Choplifter and an RTS.
> Going over to the Commodore 64 side, one of my favorite games (which did
> receive MSX and NES ports) was Raid on Bungeling Bay.

I'm not familiar with these, though Choplifter I've also considered. Bolo 
I've never seen before, and I know nothing of the gameplay but I have to 
admit that graphically, for me, it's a little underwhelming. The Apple 
starts getting tricky when they use 5 or 6 colours - it means 4x the Coco3 
video memory and graphics data moving around.

> I guess it would help to know if source code needs to be readily available
> or what other restrictions there might be.

Obviously that would be a bonus but no, source is not necessary. For Lode 
Runner I disassembled it from scratch, commenting every line. Certainly a 
hard slog, but well worth it in the end as it is something I've wanted to do 
for over 25 years now!

That aside, the restrictions are that - obviously - it is doable on the 
Coco3 and my personal criteria is that it should be pixel-perfect (which 
means compatible graphics) or at the very least perfect gameplay, even if 
the graphics must be scaled slightly, for example. I've got a Spectrum game 
in mind that would be a fantastic port, but I'm yet to do a proper 
feasibility analysis on it (3.5MHz Z80 vs 1.79MHz 6809 for one).

> Personally, I'd err against classic arcade ports because if there's one
> thing the CoCo does already have, it's clones of arcade games. With that
> said, any good new addition is welcome.

True, perhaps, but keep in mind I'm not talking about a clone, but a 100% 
accurate port. There's a big difference between a clone and a direct 
translation - and Sockmaster's Donkey Kong is a good example. Donkey King is 
a fantastic game, but there's nothing like being able to play the real thing.

If something else springs to mind - anyone - let me know!

Regards,

-- 
|              Mark McDougall                | "Electrical Engineers do it
|  <http://members.iinet.net.au/~msmcdoug>   |   with less resistance!"