Prince of Persia

[drfloyd]

should a create the committee for PRINCE OF PERSIA 3.5 compatible ?

[tricky]

It would be nice to have it run on the Compact and also from SSD

[drfloyd]

the committee for PRINCE OF PERSIA "Final Edition" grow up !!!!!

[kieranhj]

Well it seems like I can hardly let the POP fans down now, can I?

This is a Release Candidate for version 1.2 that hopefully works with MOS 3.5 and Master Compact. I hesitate to call it a fix, more a massive hack so any testing on real hardware would be gratefully received before I update the official version on the Bitshifters prod page. Please let me know if you find any problems!

For those interested, it seems that DFS 2.45 does use more of Hazel than the regular Master DFS, specifically it looks at certain values placed in page &DA00 to determine whether DFS is active or not, and therefore whether to bother servicing the call to OSWORD &7F that loads the sprites and level data etc.

[danielj]

Loads and plays on 3.5 on my Master - haven't tried it back on 3.2, mind - and I've just played for a minute or two

d.

[Naomasa298]

*waits for the tears of joy coming from across the Channel*

[Yrrah2]

Works perfect in 3.5!
And I discovered that it also works fine (and fast) in Retroclinic's DiskTrap mode. (an SSD loaded in RAM and the DiskTrap method fools the OS as if the RAM is an actual Disc. (or something like that))

[danielj]

3.2 fine too, just to reassure myself!

[jms2]

...and it also works fine on MOS 5.10 as well.

[Yrrah2]

Found a little bug, using OS 3.5.
Could be a general bug of the game, but didn't experience this before.
In level 2 I got killed by the 3rd guard and fell at the same time in some spears. (killed 2 times in one go.....)
And now the game does not give an end tune and hangs. Only CTRL+A brought me back, not the 'press action to contimue' popped up or worked.

Cheers

[jms2]

It would be nice to have it run on the Compact and also from SSD

Just spotted this post - it does run on the Compact (if you have a DFS rom in it). Maybe you meant it would be nice to have an ADFS version, but it sounds like that might not be possible.

I can't comment on the above bug report though, I have not managed to die like that yet!

[tricky]

I do have DFS in my Compact, ADFS unplugged, but the original didn't work.
Same USB stick, FF version worked on my Master.
Maybe you mean this new version - I haven't tried it yet - my Compact is currently buried in the back of the garage.

[drfloyd]

THANKS Kieranhj !!!!!

It Works !!! (MASTER 128 3.5 with GOTEK)

THANKS !!!!! I can add it in my TOP 10

[jms2]

I do have DFS in my Compact, ADFS unplugged, but the original didn't work.
Same USB stick, FF version worked on my Master.
Maybe you mean this new version - I haven't tried it yet - my Compact is currently buried in the back of the garage.

I’m pretty sure both versions worked for me. I have got DFS 2.45 - don’t know if that makes any difference.

[drfloyd]

I love again my ROM 3.5

[sbadger]

Works on my Compact, MOS 5.10, DFS 2.45

[drfloyd]

LOVE THIS GAME !

We need more games like this for the powerful MASTER 128.

[Stwert]

I’ve admired this work for a while, having never seen it in the flesh I’ve just gone on what other people have said, and the screens and video’s I’ve seen, of course.

It looks absolutely amazing, really great work.
After decades of wanting, but never owning, a Master, the new addition to my BEEB family should hopefully arrive tomorrow.


When it does, you can be sure this will be one of - if not the, first things I try on it. Ohhhhh, it’s like Christmas Eve, which also happens to be my birthday, funny, it doesn’t feel like my birthday though

[oe7twj]

Works fine on my BBC Master loading from Disk or Gotek.

Doesn't run from SD card, I know, PAGE Problem.
Solved using MMFS 1.45 ...


I love this game, really!!!

I have played this when I was a Teen, hundred times ...
After habituation on keyboard input I could reach level 7.


Thank you for porting this great game!!!

[oe7twj]

We need more games like this for the powerful MASTER 128.

Yes!
I would like to see a port of "Spacxe Taxi"

https://www.c64-wiki.de/wiki/Space_Taxi

[nekroskop]

Great! I've just loaded pop-beeb-version1.2-RC2
PoP works fine on my Master Compact MOS 5.10, DFS 2.45 from Gotek - FlashFloppy
Thanks

[lovebug]

A work of outstanding artistry and programming skill

Well done

[kieranhj]

Thanks for the kind words everyone!

In case you hadn’t seen it, the Bitshifters port was used as the basis for the recently released Atari 8-bit port of PoP.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/29891 ... or-the-a8/

[Mince]

In case you hadn’t seen it, the Bitshifters port was used as the basis for the recently released Atari 8-bit port of PoP.

https://atariage.com/forums/topic/29891 ... or-the-a8/

I did see that but didn't realise yours was the basis for it. Excellent stuff!

I was thinking recently it would be nice if RGBtoHDMI in band palette or VideoNuLA palette could be supported, to soften the colours, or maybe even add a 16 colour version (which might look more like the Atari one, if they've now converted the graphics).

[bob147]

I'm a little bit late to the party but this really is a marvellous conversion. It looks great, sounds great and the feel of the controls really is spot on. Playing it on real hardware is definitely worth the effort just to reassure myself that it really has been done on a stock BBC Master without a secret cartridge stuffed with memory or something Almost makes me want to get hold of a proper floppy disk drive and CUB monitor for the full sense of disbelief.

At the moment, I can beat the game if I cheat past the guards but I just can't get my head around the combat at all. First couple of levels are fine, then the guards really start going for you and my reactions are too slow. I also found a very silly bug/feature. If you drink the upside down potion on level 9, and instead of being sensible and finding the second potion to undo the spell you stubbornly finish the level upside down your reward is... starting the next level upside down! You can keep going until you hit a level with a cutscene and then it crashes (serves you right for doing something so daft). When I say keep going, I of course mean level skip cheat.

I wonder if the game is close enough to the Apple II version that an Apple II speed run could be 'converted' over to BeebJit. Hmm...

[Diminished]

There is a way to cheese the guards trivially on all versions of this game.

I discovered it playing on DOS in about 1990 or so.

[kieranhj]

At the moment, I can beat the game if I cheat past the guards but I just can't get my head around the combat at all. First couple of levels are fine, then the guards really start going for you and my reactions are too slow. I also found a very silly bug/feature. If you drink the upside down potion on level 9, and instead of being sensible and finding the second potion to undo the spell you stubbornly finish the level upside down your reward is... starting the next level upside down! You can keep going until you hit a level with a cutscene and then it crashes (serves you right for doing something so daft). When I say keep going, I of course mean level skip cheat.

Thanks for the kind words. The guards do get quite brutal quite quickly after the first couple of levels, that's why there's an EASY guard mode cheat - IIRC it halves the probability that they will strike, thus making them much more passive. (Or just use the ZAP cheat).

Nice find with the upside-down potion bug! I'm sure this would be an easy fix to reset the upside-down 'flag' at the end of a level but hey, you're the first person to find it in all these years. Speaking of the upside-down feature, it was a right PITA to implement on the Beeb - on the Apple II the screen buffer is arranged linearly, so flipping the screen is just a matter of inverting the table that points to the start of each line. For the Beeb, I had to come up with a way to invert all of the tile & sprite drawing routines using self-modifying code. I almost didn't do it, as it was a lot of work for a small thing that nobody would repeat after the first time, but in the end I relented to be as complete and authentic as possible...

[bob147]

Definitely not worth fixing that's for sure, it kind of works in that it's basically punishment for not figuring out how to undo the effect. The game is saying 'did you really think you were supposed to just finish the level like this!?'

It occurs to me that the game actually has quite a few one time gimmicks like that (floating potion, mirror, skeleton etc) which must have been really tough with the memory constraints you were working with.