Bugziacs - "new" game released at Outline 2019

[ggn]

So here's what we (myself, TiNKer, SH3) prepared for the party. It's a port of an old ZX Spectrum game called "Maziacs". Grab it from https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=81412 and have fun! Do note that It's a party version so there are still rough edges here and there.

Also if you're interested in how this came into being, click on this link http://beyondbrown.mooo.com/post/bugziacs/ (warning - long text!)

[dma]

Ah nice, will read that with joy.

[simonsunnyboy]

Nice, I will try it.

Just for the record, on the German ST Computer PD series, disk 66 iirc, there is a Maziacs for SM124 which looked great but it didn't have much sound.

grab0001.png

[ggn]

Someone didn't read the write up before posting!

[Eero Tamminen]

Just for the record, on the German ST Computer PD series, disk 66 iirc, there is a Maziacs for SM124 which looked great but it didn't have much sound.

This looks nice. Shame that the Omikron Basic depends on poking TOS version specific parts in ROM, and works only with TOS v1.00 and from floppy. Is there a fixed version of this, something that would work with EmuTOS too, and from HD?

So here's what we (myself, TiNKer, SH3) prepared for the party. It's a port of an old ZX Spectrum game called "Maziacs". Grab it from https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=81412 and have fun! Do note that It's a party version so there are still rough edges here and there.

I noticed few issues:

• There's no feedback on whether pressing 'G' and level number actually does something
• All keys pressed during the game are buffered and replayed when one gets back to main menu; resulting in help screens whizzing by, question on whether to end game etc...
• In the Omikron basic version, one can win monsters even without sword if one just has enough energy. In your converted version the game is impossible to win as there's eventually at last 4 monsters in row (before getting to treasure), and there are not enough swords around. Having enough energy (from food) letting you to win a monster would make the game IMHO better

Also if you're interested in how this came into being, click on this link http://beyondbrown.mooo.com/post/bugziacs/ (warning - long text!)

Great story and heroic efforts! This description made the game much more interesting, I hadn't realized that Z80 differs so much from 68000...

[simonsunnyboy]

Someone didn't read the write up before posting!

Indeed, i only noticed your nice write-up afterwards No harm done.
Very nice explanation. I wonder if it would be possible to give more Speccy titles this sort of treatment.

[ggn]

There's no feedback on whether pressing 'G' and level number actually does something

Yup I know that, will be fixed in the final. There were only so many things to fix before the deadline! (it's one of the points the basic and assembly listings interface and I never looked into that closely from the Spectrum side. I'm quite possibly do something real bad there)

All keys pressed during the game are buffered and replayed when one gets back to main menu; resulting in help screens whizzing by, question on whether to end game etc...

Hmm, fair enough, I'll add it to my todo list

In the Omikron basic version, one can win monsters even without sword if one just has enough energy. In your converted version the game is impossible to win as there's eventually at last 4 monsters in row (before getting to treasure), and there are not enough swords around. Having enough energy (from food) letting you to win a monster would make the game IMHO better

No, that's not what happens on the Spectrum version either. There you have a chance of beating the monster, albeit a very low one. However, I did have to tip the odds a bit at the party as the player seemed to be able to win all battles (what's the point of having a sword then!)

In any case thanks for trying out the game!

[dhedberg]

Great work, and I especially enjoyed reading the write-up! Thanks!

[swapd0]

Very interesting reading.

[AtariCrypt]

So many times I've been caught close the getting that darn treasure back... arghhh!!! (brilliant work all - i love this!!)

[ggn]

Hi there,

During the last weekend I did some work on the game while on my trip to the UK (to see the 8 bit symphony). Until now I kept forgetting to upload a newer version for people to test, but I remembered now!

It's not a final yet but it contains a few improvements. Here's a small list:

- Random number generator possibly fixed to work a bit better
- Proper level is now passed correctly to the main game (for example on level 4 when you touch the prisoners, they disappear)
- Press 'I' ingame to get back to the menu
- Some small cosmetic bugs fixed
- Clear all keystrokes when getting back to the menu (Thanks for the report Eero!)
- F1/F2 ingame switches to the new and old graphic sets. Just to please the purists!

That's it for now. I'd be grateful if people test it and get back to me about any issues! I'll try to make a final this weekend.

[AtariCrypt]

Sweet!! I'm looking forward to trying this out tomorrow.

[Eero Tamminen]

Thanks, it works fine now. It got stuck once in maze generation (on 3rd play after boot), but I couldn't reproduce that (and unfortunately I didn't save hatari profiler etc output before trying to reproduce).

[ggn]

Hmm I see. This is most likely the way that the levels are generated (if you read the writeup you know what I'm talking about). For the next version I'll try increasing the time limit a bit, see if that helps. Although who knows, maybe this happened in the original game once in a blue moon .