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From: farren@gethen.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: New Amiga games
Message-ID: <198@gethen.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Oct-87 19:58:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: gethen.198
Posted: Fri Oct  2 19:58:04 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Oct-87 02:35:12 EDT
References: <389@io.UUCP> <6002@oliveb.UUCP> <4091@well.UUCP> <4080@zen.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren)
Distribution: world
Organization: Sci-Fido - Unix in Oakland
Lines: 39

bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt) writes:

>[game] Conversions are a sticky issue.  Only on rare occasions have I ever seen
>a conversion that was better on the destination machine.  In most such cases
>not too much effort was wasted on trying to remain totaly faithful to the
>original.  Instead the effort was spent on "doing it right".  Think about
>it.

Right on!  Some observations based on personal experience:  I did nearly
all of Apple ][ versions of the earlier Epyx games, including Temple of
Apshai and Crush, Crumble, and Chomp.  These were originally designed to
run on the TRS-80 Model I (can you say 'lo-lo-lo-res'?  I knew you could!).
When I converted them, it was specifically with an eye to "doing it right",
and the result were games which outsold the TRS versions by at least 50
to 1.  Not bad games, either, even if they were primarily BASIC :-( 
I felt then (and feel now) that the goal of a conversion should be, not
to generate a copy of the program, but to generate something with all of
the functionality of the original, while using the resources of the target
machine to the maximum.  In some cases, this meant cutting back on the
features some (ever seen the Apple ][ version of Jumpman?), but whenever
the target machine had, say, better graphics capability, those enhanced
capabilities should be USED.

I am rather proud of the fact that I have only done one conversion (out
of twenty or so that I've done) that wasn't better than the original
game I was converting, and even that one can be excused on the grounds
that it involved porting a game tied very closely to the Commodore 64
to the IBM PCJr.  Ever tried doing smooth scrolling entirely in software?
I think I did as good a job as could have been done, and that's where
I part company with a lot of places, Electronic Arts in particular.
I don't think there is ANY excuse for not using the capability of the
machine you are programming for to the utmost, even if that means more
work.  The results will be worth it, I guarantee.  

-- 
----------------
Mike Farren             "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness
unisoft!gethen!farren   that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..."
gethen!farren@lll-winken.arpa             Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"