Amiga emulation with UAE4All: first thoughts

I'm quite impressed with the most recent GP2X version available of UAE4All, which is 0.8.0 beta. It seems to have substantial increases in speed over 0.6.4 (which I also tried), has a better interface, and music in particular is fairly smooth: Turrican's, for example, plays very nicely even at 240 MHz. The one really disappointing thing is the lack of any sort of save-state facility. I don't know how hard it would have been to have included, but it's one of only two things about UAE4All that truly irritates me -- the other being the very poor quality of some of the keytop graphics on the virtual keyboard.

I haven't had time to test UAE4All with more than a small handful of games so far. Turrican, as mentioned, runs fine, and so does Rainbow Island. Lemmings I can't get to go past the intro sequence; not sure why. Finally, The Secret of Monkey Island runs perfectly, music and all... but that really is a game where the lack of a save-state facility ruins it as a serious GP2X experience. If only it had passwords, like... er... Lemmings!

Update: Hmmm... for some reason Head Over Heels won't work with 0.8.0 beta, but will work with the older 0.6.4 version. It's not the greatest conversion around (being rather basic for an Amiga game in sonic terms, for example) but it's a game I enjoy so much that I'm relieved it works under at least one version of UAE4All!

200 up

I note that this blog has now had 200 pageviews, not including mine. A tiny number by many people's standards, obviously, but it's nice to know that the odd person is actually reading my ramblings. Here's a little breakdown for you of some of the stats:

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Most viewed posts
Logan = Bunny: 16
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Game review: Knight Lore

Knight Lore
Genre: Arcade Adventure
Author: Digitaljez
OHH download: v1.05 (15/01/08)
Size: 1.8 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Knight Lore is a remake of the classic 8-bit (most famously, Spectrum) game of the same name, published in 1984 by the renowned Ultimate Play the Game software house. In it, you take the part of Sabreman (also the hero of the previous -- but not GP2X-remade -- Sabre Wulf) and must explore an isometric-3D labyrinth full of traps and puzzles in order to retrieve the items you need to bring to the local wizard in order to cure you of becoming a werewolf each night!

It's not as easy as that, of course. There's a time limit of 40 days, and if you don't complete the game by then you've had it. You start with a mere three lives (although a few 1-ups are dotted around the place) and they really are easy to lose. The isometric perspective adds a new dimension (ho ho) but it also brings danger, as it makes it easier for monsters and the like to hide! If you die, you'll be shown a brief, and often rather depressing, summary of how well you've done.

Addictiveness: 8
This is certainly a game you'll want to come back to after you've failed (as you will) on your first attempt. It looks great (more on that later) and has an excellent, immersive atmosphere, with a wide range of fiendish puzzles to work out. So, why "only" an 8? Simply, it's just too difficult for all but the most committed players. It's a good example of why 8-bit games are commonly considered harder than today's equivalents: the Spectrum's "infinite lives" cheat was heavily used... but it's not available here!

Depth: 8
The day/night split leading to human/werewulf switching (which is vital to appreciate if you want to win the game!) is an interesting touch. The 40-day time limit, on the other hand, stops this from being a game you can really stop and think about as you go through, in the way that you can with another 8-bit classic, Head Over Heels.* Another plus, though, is that you don't always start in the same room, and neither do the items you're seeking. Finally, you can choose in the menu whether to require 14, 21 or 28 charms to win. This gives Knight Lore replay value beyond just "finishing faster" even if you've already beaten it.

* For what it's worth, Head Over Heels would rate a 10 here -- as it would in most other categories -- if only a GP2X version had been made. We'll just have to make do with the emulated Spectrum version, which isn't a bad substitute.

Controls: 8
The stick moves you around, then there are buttons: B for jump, X for pick/drop and A for jump+pick/drop. The trigger buttons rotate you. Start pauses the game and offers you the chance to return or quit; sensibly, the first is the default. Y and Select are unused, though I can't see what's missing that they could be used for. Anyway, it all works okay, though remembering the jump/pick/drop combinations can be a bit of a pain, especially at first.

Graphics: 9
Hard to fault here. You get the initial loading screen (albeit with "Mutilate Kill and Maim" instead of the original "Ultimate Play the Game" logo; I'm not too keen on that, personally) and the font used in the main menu is just right. The in-game graphics haven't strayed too far from the original's, and anyone who's ever played Knight Lore would recognise it in a second, with the enhancements in terms of colour and resolution (for example, in the sun/moon display at bottom right) not being distracting.

Sound: 7
Pretty decent, all in all, and nothing that feels too overblown for what is, after all, at heart a Spectrum game. The plinky-plonk background tune, though the same as in the original, gets annoying after a little while, and I tend to turn it off. The effects are much better, and the "whoo-ooo" of the ghost is particularly fun. The one exception is Sabreman's footsteps, which drive me mad -- they're somehow much more irritating than the Spectrum's beepier version. As usual, even the lowest volume setting is a little too loud for headphones and the default is deafening.

Documentation: 8
You can access the original "The Mist Tunes" (a pleasantly semi-cryptic verse giving an idea of the object) from the game menu; and there's a reasonably clear, if rather short, summary on the OHH page as well. The score here would have been higher if there'd also been a readme including "The Werewulf" background text (the one that begins "My journey's end is near").

Completeness: 9
As with some other accomplished GP2X games, Knight Lore would have scored a full 10 here if only there'd been just a tad more documentation. Everything else seems to be present and correct, though as I haven't actually finished the blasted thing I can't be absolutely sure about the ending!

Overall: 8
This is a satisfying and well-crafted remake of a game fondly remembered by a generation of Spectrum (etc) owners. Its rock-hard difficulty level makes it rather inaccessible for the casual gamer, however, and newcomers will need to persevere to get anywhere. The graphics are wonderful, the attention to detail is great and the sound... well, it's not perfect, but it's at least good. Fans of the original will lap this up.

Bletchley Park and the start of the road to the GP2X!

This is an Acorn A500 from 1986, the first prototype computer with an ARM 1 CPU -- and therefore in a way it can be seen as the start of the journey that led to the ARM chips that power the GP2X. Only 100 were made, and this one is at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park. Limited resources mean that the museum is only open on Thursday and Saturday afternoons, but if you get a chance to go, take it; it's fantastic. Actually, Bletchley Park as a whole is great, and the rest of the site is open much more often.

Kirby Kirby eep eep

It's just typical, isn't it? I get a nice, modern(ish) console with a bright colour screen and what do I do? Get completely hooked on a monochrome Game Boy game. To be precise, Kirby's Pinball Land, which I remember from days of old. It's not stunningly original or deviously complex, but it is incredibly addictive. I'm not that good at pinball (I've only just managed to reach the 500,000-point mark) but I still enjoy it hugely. It's a shame nobody wrote a native GP2X pinball game, actually.

One of the GP2X's more annoying features...

...is the way that the mains lead sticks out of the right-hand side of the console around halfway up. This means that you have to fit your right hand around it when using the thing. I've found that in the position that's most comfortable for me, it's quite easy to press the side of the jack plug against my little finger, making that go to sleep. Not a major problem, but something a little more attention to detail in the GP2X's initial design could probably have avoided.

Game review: Animatch

Animatch
Genre: Puzzle
Author: Ruckage
OHH download: v1.2 (26/01/09)
Size: 7.2 MB
Licence: Freeware

Description
Animatch is a puzzle game similar to the Nintendo DS title Zoo Keeper. You are confronted with a board full of different animals (well, the heads thereof) and must make rows (or columns) of three or more of the same species. This is accomplished by swapping one tile with the one next to it horizontally or vertically. In the Normal game, you must make a certain number of rows of each animal, which increases as the levels progress -- and all the while a timer is ticking downwards; if it reaches zero, it's game over. To help you, it's green when there is plenty of time left, then yellow, orange and finally red: in the final period the animals themselves will shake! Making rows, however, does give you a few seconds extra time.

As well as your quotas, you make a conventional score by completing rows: a row of three gets you 90 points, one of four gets 160 and one of five gets 250. On each level there is a "lucky" animal; rows of this species score double! You can boost your score even further by completing "chains": animals you match disappear from the board and those above them slide down (with more being added from the top to keep a full board); if the new setup makes another row, that will score double its normal points, a third will score triple, and so on. In each game you can ask for three hints: requesting one will make potential rows flash. Occasionally a wildcard will appear: when selected, this stops on a certain animal and all tiles of that type will be removed from the board. If at any time there are no possible moves, the program will detect this and give you a new board -- pausing the timer while it does so.

There are two other modes: Time Attack, in which you must score as many points as possible in five minutes; and Score Attack, in which your task is to score 20,000 points in the shortest time you can. In each of these there is a Normal mode (with seven different animals) and a Hard mode (with eight). Adding those to the Normal game described earlier -- in which there are eight animals, though another one is added if you get as far as level 10 -- gives a total of five different challenges, all of which maintain a top-ten high-score table complete with name display.

Addictiveness: 10
When getting the screenshot for this review, I meant to just take the shots and then quit. Some hope. Animatch is a hugely addictive game, and although it seems like a diversion to fill an idle five minutes you could easily find yourself, after a few goes, wondering where the last hour went. The selection of game modes stops it from getting samey, and getting on the initial high score tables is attainable without being insultingly easy.

Depth: 8
For what on the face of it is a simple puzzler, there's a surprising amount of thought needed to do well at Animatch. You need to think quickly to assess which move is best -- it's not always the obvious one -- and as you progress in the Attack modes especially you'll come to appreciate the importance of chains.

Controls: 10
Simple but effective: the stick moves the cursor around the board, and the B (or Y) button followed by a stick direction swaps tiles. You press A for a hint, and Start to pause. While paused, L+R will quit; this guards well against accidental pressing. Being able to adjust cursor speed in the main menu is a really nice (and unusual) touch. It's all extremely easy to pick up, and there isn't a single place where it gets in the way. In the high-score table you enter your name via a very clear virtual keyboard; one up on the usual three-letter initials selected with the stick!

Graphics: 10
Absolutely gorgeous: the intro screens promise much, and Animatch delivers. The main board is bright and colourful, and the animals are all easy to tell apart. The menu screens look really nice, too, and the high-score entry screen has its own feel (vaguely reminiscent of that for Out Run, actually!) which speaks of a game that was obviously a labour of love. The little animations, with the animals going all wide-eyed or waving tentacles when you make a row, are bound to raise a smile, too.

Sound: 10
Truly superb. The music tracks are by Pat Ferguson, who clearly knows what he's doing. They have a cheerful, bouncy feel but don't get in the way of your concentration at all. The sound effects when you complete a row, level up and suchlike are all fairly simple, but again they're very easy on the ear. I often get irritated by puzzle-game sound; not on this occasion. You can even adjust music and sound-effect volume (independently!) in the menu.

Documentation: 8
There's a brief one-line summary of each game type (and other menu option) as you select its icon, but full instructions are in a readme file. This is a model of its type: clear and comprehensive, but without including unnecessary waffle. A full in-game help screen would have been nice, but this game is so good that I almost feel churlish saying so!

Completeness: 9
Is there anything, apart from that in-game help screen, missing? If so, I couldn't find it. This is a really polished game that has no obvious rough edges whatsoever. You get the impression that a great deal of commitment was put into its creation, and it shows.

Overall: 10
Animatch is a hugely likeable game, and one which every GP2X owner should possess. It says something that the only "bug" I could find was a footling one: the mis-spelling of "amount" as "ammount" on the credit screen that shows when you quit. This is a game you could happily show off to anyone who doubts what can be done on our little console, and it could quite easily have been a commercial title. An absolute must-have.