Hi, I remember it had isometrical view, in a medieval environment you are a knight and most of the game was in blue(yourself, walls, doors etc) and black(streets and the floor mainly), you are able to enter buildings and fight enemies in all places... anybody remember it?

Regards,
ronin

Perhaps NIGHTSHADE, from Ultimate? It is a FILMATION-2 game, that is, isometric view with 4 direction scroll. A really good game, but too similar to GUNFRIGHT, and I prefer this one.

Hope that this helps!

Ed Robsy

Yeah! that`s its name , thanx a lot Ed Robsy you helped much . I also tried Gunfright, i didnt know that one, and you are right its quite similar but better, other environment different color scheme, more colours on screen plus a mini game with different point of view among levels, so as I said better, guess its because they released it about a year later so they improved the engine... they are from the same company, right?

Regards,
ronin

... ah! Gunfright ... that's the game. I remember when I bought it (cassette). I couldn't stop playing and playing and ...

Yes. ULTIMATE -PLAY THE GAME- was the name of the company. UK freaks specialized in Spectrum games. Some time later they created another well-known company: RARE.

They developed two isometric game engines: FILMATION 1 and FILMATION 2. The main difference is that the second one allows 4-direction scrolling, but limits 3D action (you cannot jump, pick up objects or push them).

There were lots of FILMATION 1 games, being the first and the best KNIGHT LORE. PENTAGRAM is also cool. In FILMATION 2 were developed GUNFRIGHT and NIGHT SHADE. And other 3D alike games were also developed, like BUBBLER.

I love KNIGHT LORE and GUNFRIGHT, but I still prefer Jon Ritman's BATMAN and HEAD OVER HEELS, the true classics of isometric games. There are many others, but...


Kind regards and good luck to beat Billy the Kid!

I have the japanese ROM boxed version of Knight Lore and I could kill for getting Gunfright, but I don't think it exits. My two favourites isometric games; this one and Alien 8.

Ah I see, I didnt know Rare starting point was like that, and also I havent heard about those engines FILMATION 1 and 2, in fact I had a wrong idea, I thought at that time games were developed by very little teams or a single person, who did all the work from the scratch (or almost) every time they had to develop a game.

You really have great knowldge about the gaming industry, are you into game development?

Thanks for sharing your knowledge , I´ll try my best against Billy the Kid

Regards,
ronin

Dioniso, I think sadly you right, its like impossible to get one of those jewels nowadays and if you by chance find one it will be really expensive i guess, anyway i wouldnt lose the hope there are always those shops featuring some gems from machines such as MSX, and from time to time a user go there and sell his/her full collection in perfect condition, so keep an eye on those special shops . By the way, yeah Knight Lore as the first and original seems to be one of those we wont forget

Me? No, I just code games for fun! I do love videogames in general and I have been playing with my MSX since 1985. Once I had the opportunity to become "pro" in the GameBoy Colour industry, but I prefered to continue with my "real life".

About ultimate, I have find all this in I-net:

Ultimate Play The Game was the publishing name of Ashby Computers And Graphics Ltd (ACG), a company which was formed around the team of brothers Chris and Tim Stamper, and John Lathbury. The roll-call would later include the Stamper's sister Louise, and Tim's wife Carol. ACG were based at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire.

Look for more info in www.ultimate-wurlde.com/editorials/history.shtml

They were great! It is a shame that they published few games for the MSX system: Knightlore, Pentagram, Alien 8, Martianoids, Bubbler, Cyberun, Nightshade and Gunfright.

The remaining question is why they published their games in tape format (for US Gold) and in ROM cartrige. Perhaps to enter to the japanese market?

Kind regards,

Ed Robsy

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Dioniso, I think sadly you right, its like impossible to get one of those jewels nowadays

Yes, it is. By the way, I could get some of those jewels in ROM that in Europe we just saw in cassette:

-Knight Lore (Boxed ROM): Japanese.
-Decathlon (Boxed ROM): Japanese.
-Decathlon (ROM): Japanese.
-Pitafall (ROM): Japanese.
-Pitfall II (ROM): Japanese.
-H.E.R.O. (ROM): Japanese.
-River Raid (ROM): Brazilian.
-Beamrider (ROM): Brazilian.
-Zaxxon (ROM): Brazilian.
-Moon Patrol (ROM): Brazilian.

Regards.

I see, so you like the way of the lone coder, well I havent ever met a "pro" but by what I have read in mags and such its a hard life, you have to live to code I think and your social life tends to dissapear. By the way since you code games maybe you can tell me, well I assume you code for the MSX, am i wrong?, what I was wondering is, what language/tool you use to code for MSX? because I must admit I coded very little things with Basic (1.0 the one in MSX I) but I think there should be better ways, I have read somewhere that this is done in C or maybe assembler or maybe Im totally wrong... well Im just a bit curious about that . Oh and since you said you had the oportunity to become pro in GameBoy Colour industry, I assume you can also code for GameBoy? I heard it is really hard to code for any GameBoy´s, because its quite like coding in assembler, and coding a full game in that has to be way too hard.

About Ultimate, yes they were great, despite I just know like half of their master pieces I can say I agree, its a shame they did few games for the MSX, guess its all the time like this, recently Rare changed their target and left Nintendo to start developing for Microsoft, it was such a shame for Nintendo users too.

But what I didnt know is that the japanese market worked that way, I mean I thought the same formats were used all over the world for the MSX, but looking at what you said I think they use more the Rom cartridge format? or maybe it was the only format available there?


Regards,
ronin

Dioniso, how would you get those gems? I mean I thought it was pretty hard nowadays, and I think I havent seen any Msx stuff in a shop for a couple of years, so probably those are from another user personal collection maybe?

Regards,
ronin

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Dioniso, how would you get those gems?

Through eBay and some users, like Loose-Logic, from Japan.

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I see, so you like the way of the lone coder, well I havent ever met a "pro" but by what I have read in mags and such its a hard life, you have to live to code I think and your social life tends to dissapear. By the way since you code games maybe you can tell me, well I assume you code for the MSX, am i wrong?, what I was wondering is, what language/tool you use to code for MSX? because I must admit I coded very little things with Basic (1.0 the one in MSX I) but I think there should be better ways, I have read somewhere that this is done in C or maybe assembler or maybe Im totally wrong... well Im just a bit curious about that .

I code just for the first generation MSX, and that requires assembler. Perhaps you could do something in C, but that will be too slow for the poor little MSX1 and its raw VDP.

Quote:

Oh and since you said you had the oportunity to become pro in GameBoy Colour industry, I assume you can also code for GameBoy? I heard it is really hard to code for any GameBoy´s, because its quite like coding in assembler, and coding a full game in that has to be way too hard.

Again: all in assembler. I even developed my own assembler, GAL. GameBoy, GameBoy COlor and Super GameBoy were programmed in asm. Gameboy Advance is fast enough to be programmed in C (with a good library coded in asm, of course).

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About Ultimate, yes they were great, despite I just know like half of their master pieces I can say I agree, its a shame they did few games for the MSX, guess its all the time like this, recently Rare changed their target and left Nintendo to start developing for Microsoft, it was such a shame for Nintendo users too. But what I didnt know is that the japanese market worked that way, I mean I thought the same formats were used all over the world for the MSX, but looking at what you said I think they use more the Rom cartridge format? or maybe it was the only format available there?

They also had cassettes, but most of the games were published in ROM format: fast load and reliability.

Kind regards,

Ed Robsy

If you want to see something coded in asm, have a look at http://www.robsy.net
GURU LOGIC and PSG SAMPLER are some examples.

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Again: all in assembler. I even developed my own assembler, GAL. GameBoy, GameBoy COlor and Super GameBoy were programmed in asm.

Most GameBoy Color games were programmed in C. Then again, most GameBoy Color games were total crap.