Windows Roland of Sherwood (No Demo)

Carnivius

Member
I was gonna just post a screenshot in the "What are you working on?" thread but figured eh, now that a demo is not mandatory why not make a thread here in the WIP subforum?

Anyways people probably know I'm big on retrogaming and I have several projects designed with the tech specs of the 1984 8-bit home computer, the Amstrad CPC, in mind with the intention of porting them to the true hardware by CPC coders after I produced the playable PC 'mock ups' with their wide-pixel low resolution and maximum of 16 colours on screen. This here is one of them.

Roland of Sherwood: A fan-game of Amstrad mascot Roland (who appeared in a lot of early CPC games, most of which were ports of totally unrelated games with his name slapped on it to boost the game catalogue on and soon-after launch of the computer) merged with one of my fave TV shows Robin of Sherwood. You play as the time traveller Roland who's found himself in Sherwood Forest during that time and with Robin missing and the merry men imprisoned he grabs his Robin Hood fancy dress costume and takes on the role to save the day. Simple platformer. Nothing fancy. Jump, avoid, shoot things with your bow, find secrets, collect coins and rescue each of the merry men before you take on the mighty sorceror Baron De Belleme (responsible for much of the black magic stuff going on in Nottingham)

Screenshot (shown with optional and configurable CRT filter shader for extra retro-ness)
Ignore the fact that there's a duplicate (pre-rescued) Lady Marion in the HUD, I haven't yet done portrait of the last merry man character. :p

Demo may be coming soon. Made a lot of progress recently.
 
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darthlupi

Guest
Bro, I really want to play this! I feel like I remember this gem. I've missed seeing your sprite work quite a bit.
 

Carnivius

Member
Thanks for nice comments. I realise this is a very niché retro game thingy but it's what I enjoy doing so it's nice to hear other people like it. :D

The artwork looks great - interested in seeing how this looks in motion! :)
Thanks though not sure what you expect in motion. It's flick-screen rather than scrolling but it sure feels nice jumping about shooting arrows at things and I try to put plenty of character and personality in things even while sticking to the memory limitations (this is intended to eventually run on a machine with just 64k of RAM). :)

Bro, I really want to play this! I feel like I remember this gem. I've missed seeing your sprite work quite a bit.
Lupi! I was just thinking the other day that I can't believe it's been so damn long since Legend of Shadow. :O
 

FredFredrickson

Artist, designer, & developer
GMC Elder
Thanks though not sure what you expect in motion. It's flick-screen rather than scrolling but it sure feels nice jumping about shooting arrows at things and I try to put plenty of character and personality in things even while sticking to the memory limitations (this is intended to eventually run on a machine with just 64k of RAM). :)
That's kinda what I mean - you've adhered to the retro look so strongly that I want to see it play/in motion, just to take in the full effect!
 

Carnivius

Member
That's kinda what I mean - you've adhered to the retro look so strongly that I want to see it play/in motion, just to take in the full effect!
Aw ok cool. :) Yeah and it should sound authentic too. I have an Amstrad CPC musician who is doing the tunes & the sound effects which obviously this PC coded version will use sampled versions of while the true CPC sound versions will then be used on the true CPC coded version. :)
 
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darthlupi

Guest
2004 I think was when we took home the gold for Legend of Shadow. :)

That shader is pretty impressive! I really thought I was looking at a photo of a CRT.
Is the number beside the arrows in the top left of the HUD an indicator of how many arrows you have left, or is that lives?
Really wanting to play this!
 

RangerX

Member
That is an interesting project but will I have an option to turn off that horrible CRT filter?
There are aspects of retro gaming that I don't want to bring back you know, like screen related shortcomings that weren't the games' fault...
 

Carnivius

Member
Dear lord that retro shader effect is ****ing amazing. Can you share it?
Yes that is the one, by the shader genius xygthop3. :)


2004 I think was when we took home the gold for Legend of Shadow. :)

That shader is pretty impressive! I really thought I was looking at a photo of a CRT.
Is the number beside the arrows in the top left of the HUD an indicator of how many arrows you have left, or is that lives?
Really wanting to play this!
Arrows (hence why the arrow icon). You have one life but you may resurrect yourself at a cost of gold coins which affects your final amount and obviously can only be done if you still have gold coins.


That is an interesting project but will I have an option to turn off that horrible CRT filter?
There are aspects of retro gaming that I don't want to bring back you know, like screen related shortcomings that weren't the games' fault...
I have it mainly for my own development purposes since these projects are intended to be ported to true 8-bit hardware I need to make sure they look on CRT screens as I intend them to look. And a lot of game graphics of that era were designed with CRT's in mind (dithering was a technique created to blend two colours together to produce a new one on CRT screens and not have the obvious sharp chequerboard effect you often see on modern screens). It's totally configurable and you can toggle it on and off at any time during play. I quite like it myself as it adds that extra nostalgia for me and almost convinces me that I got to make games for this system back in the day. :p

yeah people like to jump in and complain before reading something properly. The internet. :p
 

HighlandCoo

Member
My lord it's beautiful...




Ok Imma gonna stop hijacking your thread now. Bottom line - your game looks great - I'm looking forward to playing it!
 

Carnivius

Member
New screenies. Various things have changed. For reasns.
Also screenies are shown here with the 'cheap scanline filter' rather than the optional CRT-authentic mode cos again reasons. Game is going well and looking more likely it will be eventually ported to the real Amstrad CPC computers at some point. Whee I am the retro duuuude... yeah.





 
S

signal

Guest
Hey, is this an EO reunion thread? We have Carn, Fred, darthlupi and myself (bballer). Btw, screens look great Carn! I think that can be said about any screenshot you post, though :D

EDIT: Ooops, sorry about the bump, this thread came up in a search for "flick"
 
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