amiga-news.de - Archive

Archive 08/2022

13.Aug.2022
Ko-fi AmigaOS 4: Platformer "BlobWars: Attrition" V1.22r1
The very busy AmigaOS 4 developer George 'walkero' Sokianos - among others aiostreams, Flawfinder, Lite XL or iGame - has ported the commercial platformer "BlobWars: Attrition" to AmigaOS 4 in the latest version of December 2019.

The port of the game developed by Parallel Realities does not include data files. These have to be purchased on the game's itch.io project page - but at a price to be determined by the user.

As the developer writes, the game requires SDL2 and a powerful Amiga including graphics card to play it on Full HD. He himself played the game on his AmigaOne X5000/40 with a RadeonRX 550. To achieve smooth gameplay, he had to set SDL2 to opengles2 and activate the batching mode. He recommends experimenting with these settings, depending on your own hardware.

A test on his microAmigaOne was less successful, because the small graphics memory (max. 32MB) ran out quite fast, so that the game was slowed down very much. He is open for suggestions and possibly tricks to change this.

Anyone who wants to support the author has the opportunity to do so on his Ko-fi website. The author returns 50% of the donations to the community at the end of each month by supporting projects or developers. (dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 17:02] [Comments: 0]
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13.Aug.2022

AmigaOS 4: C runtime library clib2 v1.0.0 beta 5
As standard C librar, AmigaOS officially uses a variant of the Newlib C standard library implementation. A popular alternative C standard library implementation is called clib2 and it is included as an option with the standard Amiga SDK. The clib2 library is particular well suited for porting software from the Unix world (taken from AmigaOS-Wiki).

Andrea 'afxgroup' Palmate has created a fork of the official clib2 library, included in adtools. This library is exclusively for AmigaOS 4 to make it easy to maintain and to be able to add all the missing clib2 functions that are hard to add on 68k Amigas. The goal is to make it POSIX compliant and also fix any C++ problems that exist with newer compilers. All warnings (except for a very few) generated by GCC 10 and higher have disappeared. As the developer further writes, all obsolete OS4 functions have been replaced by modern ones (except for StackSwap, for which he has not found a replacement).

Yesterday he released the fifth beta version with the following changes:

Implemented open() and opendir() and now it is possible to open a directory like open("T:") and use some functions on the returned fd
Changed some socket functions that now use open source code
Implemented new funcions
Fixed a memory leak on fstat
Removed test on check_abort_enabled prior call since it is already checked in the function
Moved rand* functions to prng folder
Implemented syslog (using files)
A lot of other fixes an improvements

(dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 11:17] [Comments: 0]
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13.Aug.2022 Amiga emulator for MacOS: vAmiga 2.1
After five beta versions (amiga-news.de reported), developer Dirk Hoffmann has just released the official version 2.1 of his Amiga emulator vAmiga for macOS, thus ending the beta phase. The minimum system requirement for his emulator is macOS 10.15. (dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 10:58] [Comments: 0]
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13.Aug.2022 Amiga Assembly For Beginners: Let's Make an Amiga Game Tutorial 14
'Prince', founder of the group 'Phaze101', streams the assembler coding course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube (amiga-news.de reports regularly).

In another tutorial Amiga Assembly For Beginners - Lets Make a Game, Prince now explains with concrete examples how to write a game with assembler. Episode 14 is now available. (dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 07:14] [Comments: 0]
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13.Aug.2022
Alain Fontanin Anniversary advertising: 30 years of Cristaline mineral water with Amiga
The French mineral water brand "Cristaline" is celebrating its 30th birthday (history in French) and to mark the occasion has published a picture on its Facebook page showing a young girl playing with a Gameboy and an Amiga in the background. (dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 07:09] [Comments: 0]
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13.Aug.2022

Linux: Update of Open Sonic
Yesterday, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has released a new version of Open Sonic for Linux PowerPC (32-bit) and thus for AmigaOne X1000/X5000. The updated version provides bug fixed graphics and sounds.

alsa-oss and allegro4.4 required. For the installation, Christian listed the commands:

Void PPC

sudo xbps-install -S alsa-oss
sudo xbps-install -S allegro4

Debian (MintPPC)

apt install alsa-oss
apt install liballegro4.4

It also works on old Linux distributions like Ubuntu 10.04 PowerPC. (dr)

[News message: 13. Aug. 2022, 06:57] [Comments: 0]
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12.Aug.2022

AmigaOS 4: Shader player Shaderjoy 1.23
Shaderjoy allows displaying and creating Shadertoy compatible fragment shaders. Fragment shaders, also called pixel shaders, are programs that are executed per fragment (pixel) on the GPU.The ogles2.library 3.2 and Warp3D Nova 1.86 are required. Today Juha "Capehill" Niemimaki has released version 1.23. Changes:

Start using stb_image_write.h to save PNG screenshot.
Add LOAD_PROJECT and SAVE_SCREENSHOT ARexx commands.
Make About window asynchronous.
Add BORDERLESS tooltype.
Remove support for ogles2.library versions older than 3.0
Disable vertical flipping of FBOs when ogles2.library version is greater than 3.1.
Remove workarounds for older library versions.

(dr)

[News message: 12. Aug. 2022, 22:00] [Comments: 0]
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12.Aug.2022
Amiga.org (forum) AmigaKit: ZuluSCSI Mini
ZuluSCSI is a file-based hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulator (amiga-news.de reported). Besides the original, AmigaKit now also offers a "mini" variant, which can be plugged directly into devices with a DB25 SCSI connector. (snx)

[News message: 12. Aug. 2022, 07:45] [Comments: 0]
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12.Aug.2022
Twitter Preview video: Jump'n Run "L'Abbaye des Morts"
The developer 'UltraNarwhal', among others Duckstroma, has released a current snapshot of its extended port of "Abbey(s) of the Dead", which is currently in development (amiga-news.de reported). Like Duckstroma, the Jump'n Run is developed with the Scorpion Engine. (dr)

[News message: 12. Aug. 2022, 07:01] [Comments: 0]
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12.Aug.2022
AmigaLove-Forum

Operating system: NetBSD 9.3
Version 9.3 of the free and open-source Unix-like operating system NetBSD has been released. Ports are also available for PPC (experimental) and 68k Amiga computers. For the 68k port, wsfb(4) based X11 using amidisplaycc(4) was enabled (global changes).

The project page for 68k Amigas also lists the requirements:

Amiga wit 68020 processor or higher with MMU
at least 24 MB FastRAM
at least 250 MB harddrive space

Further information on the PPC port. (dr)

[News message: 12. Aug. 2022, 06:29] [Comments: 0]
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11.Aug.2022

Amiga Blitz Basic Game Jam: Introduction of the game "Settle the World"
At the beginning of June, indie game developer Dan 'zooperdan' Thoresen had started the Amiga Blitz Basic Game Jam, which is running - deadline was extended - until November 1, 2022 (amiga-news.de reported).

In our first article we had introduced the two projects of 'pixelplop'. Today we are talking about "Settle the World" (YouTube video), developed by 'TheoTheoderich'. About his game he tells us the following:

Basically, the game is a turn-based building and trading game in which the goal is to colonize several islands and stay in power for a long period of time. The game is similar to the old DOS/Amiga game Colonization, but has a slightly different approach.

"Settle the World" is a pure multiplayer game without AI, which you play together with up to three other players, one after the other, on one (Amiga) computer. A single player mode is also planned, but it will be even more difficult because then there are no trading partners.

What is "Settle the World" about? The game begins roughly in time with the conquest of the new world. Background of the story:

Two (or up to four) experienced captains feel oppressed in their home country and want more freedom. Without further ado, they organize several ships and gather like-minded people around them to seek their happiness and freedom across the ocean.
he king, however, suspects that his best captains want to defect to his hostile neighboring countries and sends soldiers to arrest the captains and hang them as traitors. Thus, secretly and by night and fog, the group immediately decides to leave the kingdom, knowing full well that they can never return.

After weeks of hardship at sea, the ships reach uninhabited land. Immediately, a dispute breaks out about how to proceed. The group is unable to agree on a leader. Each of the captains involved asserts his claim to leadership. There are heated arguments, and to prevent bloodshed, the captains each decide to find a good place to settle with their ships on their own.

At this point, the gameplay begins:
In order to play at all, the game needs a map. This is calculated using Perlin noise and then provided with (more or less) randomly generated features (bonus fields, such as sheep, gold, wood, etc. and also shipwrecks or abandoned settlements where you can find something). The map is of course not yet revealed to the players!

The map generation takes between 20 and 30 minutes on an unaccelerated Amiga 500. Therefore there will be some included "presets" with appealing maps.

Players can build settlements and field improvements with pioneer units. Settlements serve the production of raw materials and their processing into finished goods. In contrast to "Colonization", the workers of a city are not its inhabitants at the same time. Inhabitants belong to a city. If the food supply is good, the number of inhabitants increases. Increasing population generates additional workers, who can be used on the fields or factory buildings of any own city.
If a city has certain important buildings and "luxury goods", the population can advance in three levels (settler/pioneer class --> worker class --> noble). With each class and a certain number of citizens, higher quality buildings or improved production facilities can be unlocked.

The goal of the whole game is to remain the head of the government for as long as possible. As soon as the first inhabitants of a city have reached the level of the worker class, the citizens demand the establishment of a republic. If you don't set up an electable government, the inhabitants become more dissatisfied with each round until they eventually send the player packing.

The satisfaction of the citizens depends on the ("luxury") buildings available in the cities, such as tavern, theater, marketplace, etc.. And above all according to the availability of ("luxury") goods. Here the settlers/pioneers have the least demand and aristocrats the highest. These satisfaction values are the basic values. In addition, there is how much the citizens trust the president (the players). Trust builds up very slowly, but can be destroyed quickly.

Free elections are held every four years. In each election, there is a competitor who runs against the president. The latter also gains the trust of the citizens with each round. If, for example, the delivery of goods to the city with the most aristocrats falters shortly before an election that was thought to be safe, this has a strong effect on their satisfaction and can be decisive for the election of the competitor. In such a case, it is possible to eliminate the competitor before the election. A new candidate then takes his place, but of course he does not yet enjoy the trust of the population.

Thus, it is still possible to turn the tide shortly before an election. However, eliminating an opposing candidate also has a strong effect on the population's trust in its own president.

Scouts can explore the surrounding area. Abandoned settlements and shipwrecks can be found all over the world. Bandits can be a problem: if they are not defeated, they can roam the land and become a danger to the transport of goods. This whole system is currently still under development. Sound effects or music are missing at the moment, but are planned.

The game is developed under WinUAE with AmiBlitz 3.8 and temporarily on a real Amiga 500+ with FireBird accelerator card. The developer has been working his way into AmiBlitz for about two years. The goal is that "Settle the World" works well on an A1200 with hard disk and 2 MB RAM. As he writes, currently many things are still programmed very simply in the game and therefore very slow. The graphics are all created with PPaint on the Amiga or in WinUAE itself. (dr)

[News message: 11. Aug. 2022, 05:26] [Comments: 1 - 12. Aug. 2022, 08:14]
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