Some sort of abstract questions. Speaking about games, oriented for GFX9000 only:

Is such games needed for MSX at all? (how many peoples are owners of G9K?)

What of 'minimal requirements' acceptable for it (MSX model, RAM, other)?

What of other hardware must be supported for such games?

What music hardware is more acceptable (assume that only one variant is possible for one game) - Moonsound, MSX-Audio, MSX-Music?

What type of media is acceptable? (floppy; ROM image; CD thru IDE adapter, with boot program on floppy or ROM image)

What genre of games you want to see for G9K?

Do you want to get games for free, or want to pay some money? If yes, which form (shareware, donate-ware, other-ware) and price is acceptable for you?


Don't consider these questions as solid plans on creation for games for MSX+G9K, or as a market research. It's more a research for finding ways to software exchange between two platforms (MSX+G9K and possible in close future ZX+G9K), and to combine of two communities in some way. Your answers can help to determine, how this can be made technically, how to interest more creators of games for work, and where we can move at all.

Any additional thoughts are welcomed.

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Is such games needed for MSX at all?

Pointless question. MSX is not needed at all. The only thing that matters is if you want to make one.

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What of 'minimal requirements' acceptable for it (MSX model, RAM, other)? What of other hardware must be supported for such games? What music hardware is more acceptable (assume that only one variant is possible for one game) - Moonsound, MSX-Audio, MSX-Music?

Same here actually. Everything is acceptable if you feel like making it.

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What type of media is acceptable? (floppy; ROM image; CD thru IDE adapter, with boot program on floppy or ROM image)

CD is not the most common device on MSX. If it's a small game, a ROM or disk would be a good choice. If it gets bigger, then make files that can be put on HD/CF/CD.

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What genre of games you want to see for G9K?

Any.

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What genre of games you want to see for G9K?

"Guess the number"!


Anyway, emulators are another factor to keep in mind. With an emulator no-one cares about specs. Need more RAM? Select more RAM. Need more sound extensions? Select 'em. Need a turbo-R? Select it.

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Do you want to get games for free,

Of course

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or want to pay some money? If yes, which form (shareware, donate-ware, other-ware) and price is acceptable for you?

Sure, if the software is presented nicely. e.g cartridge with label, or disk with label + manual.
Any kind of payware would be ok. As for price: that depends heavily on the game...
I would't pay more than 5~10 euro's for yet-another-tetris clone; but about 20 for a decent RPG is quite acceptable, I think. Don't expect me to pay 50 bucks or more though, on any game. I'm a cheap bastard

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ZX+G9K

Cool

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but about 20 for a decent RPG is quite acceptable

Cheap .. I think an RPG which could be compared with Japanese RPG's is at least worth double this price, triple perhaps -depending on the quality, tho it has to be -quality then-.

I agree, a good RPG is worth more as 20 euro's and if it is for gfx9000 it should be at least.

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Is such games needed for MSX at all? (how many peoples are owners of G9K?)

Well, a few hundred, at maximum. You should ask Sunrise, who sells them. He knows exactly how many were made.

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What of 'minimal requirements' acceptable for it (MSX model, RAM, other)?

Doesn't really matter, it's the same for any other MSX game. But most people who have a GFX9000 probably also have at least an MSX2 with 128kB RAM. Many probably more than 128kB RAM.

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What of other hardware must be supported for such games?

Whatever you like or need!

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What music hardware is more acceptable (assume that only one variant is possible for one game) - Moonsound, MSX-Audio, MSX-Music?

Well, nowadays, almost everyone has MSX-Music, but more and more people have MoonSound. The latter gives you great possibilities... Most game makers who support MoonSOund also have fall-back music for MSX-Music (often in combination with MSX-AUdio).

A nice gfx9000 game... that would be fun now wouldn't it?

yeah.. but please no 'save the princess from the evil dragon'

A large-scale game is still a lot of work tho on either g9k or 9938. On g9k things get a bit faster/slicker/easier, but that's only the display. An RPG is still an RPG, a platformer is still a platformer, a shooter is still a shooter. It's all still a lot of work, at least 3/4 year for an RPG in a team of 2..3 persons.

A G9K is popular in Europe, and 128K MSX's are popular also, i suggest games do no t require more than 128K Ram but, as G9K is plenty of RAM and is quite powerfull also, think about MSX-1 with only 64K!.
Regarding games generes, i would like an action RPG or a Warcraft style one. A game with lots of video (maybe an intercative film game) could be cool. Consider CD as a good media...

An action RPG like Diablo gets my vote.

Warcraft .. I dunno.. this type o' game requires pathfinding, and a mouse is also kinda required. Pathfinding takes some time, esp. for hundreds of units. I doubt we'll ever see a game of this type.

Video in games, it's not technically impossible, tho a fast storagemedium is required. The main problem is not the technical side of the story, but the artwork. Who's gonna make those videos? What NYYRIKKI did was easy: he picked the Dragon's Lair intro and all he had to do was convert these images to his own format. But who amongst us can actually create such videos from scratch?

If you want to get all out of the gfx9000 there is only one option, namely turbor.
But indeed for most smaller games an msx1 is all you need.

Thanks for answers.

Some comments.

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Pointless question. MSX is not needed at all. The only thing that matters is if you want to make one. ...

I can't speak about other people, but I personally not like to spend months and years in making of game, and then play in this game only by myself. Also, it's not very fun and interesting to develop games, when you do it many years (12 in my case), because most part of that work is very boring. It's always fun to begin make a new game, but absolutely not fun to finish it. So understanding that other people will play in my game, is most important reason and inspiration to still do it.

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"Guess the number"!

You get it just for 5-10 euro, on CD, with Moonsound support (key feature: two different sounds when you guess and when you not!)

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Anyway, emulators are another factor to keep in mind. With an emulator no-one cares about specs. Need more RAM? Select more RAM. Need more sound extensions? Select 'em. Need a turbo-R? Select it.

In this case we have only one one problem - what for we need to use this emulator? If we take emulator as a target platform, we must do last logical step - remove emulator as unneeded fetish. And just make game for host computer instead, which is much easier - because we can use HLL, native gfx/sound formats, and so on; for multiplatform projects (one possible reason to use emulator as target platform) more acceptable solutions exists.

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Sure, if the software is presented nicely. e.g cartridge with label, or disk with label + manual.

OK, I got idea. There is some problems to solve. It's not a problem to make label, manual, and so on (this practice exists even on russian ZX scene). But it's be some difficult to ship game in that form to other countries, and it will be cost additional money (I think, even more than game itself). So, for such form of distribution regional 'publishers' will be needed.

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Cheap .. I think an RPG which could be compared with Japanese RPG's is at least worth double this price

I think, you can want to pay much more than twice, just to realise, how can look Japanese RPG, made in Russia, in English language

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yeah.. but please no 'save the princess from the evil dragon'

I always wanted to use reverse conceptions - like 'save dragon from evil princess'

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Warcraft .. I dunno.. this type o' game requires pathfinding, and a mouse is also kinda required. Pathfinding takes some time, esp. for hundreds of units. I doubt we'll ever see a game of this type.

We already have Warcraft-like game for ZX (standart 128K clone with 3.5MHz Z80 and TR-DOS disk system), made in 1997 by one man, legendary person on our local ZX scene - Vyacheslav Mednonogov (Copper Feet). It's best russian ZX game without doubts. It looks and plays very close to WC2, with good speed. This game can be controlled by keys or joystick, but mouse is really recommended (and supported, of course). After BR, Copper Feet started to make BR2, which is a Starcraft-like, but not finish that, because ZX came out of mainstream, and also sales of BR1 was low (due to strong computer piracy in Russia, not because game quality). Before BR, he made UFO1 and UFO2 games, which was not very close, but anyway clones of that games from PC. All this games was written on PC, with a cross-assembler, which was written by Copper Feet too. BR1 & BR2 also contains some short rendered animations in intro and outro parts.

Why I do this MSX-unrelated history brief: full source code of BR1 is freely available now (even with .MAX files for animations), with tools and so on. So, we sometime thinking about possible remade of this game for modern ZX hardware (in case with V9990 card - remade to MSX+G9K also possible, as you understand), but by present time it's difficult even to figure, how compile all that code (it really BIG project).

There is also some finished attempts to make RTS games on ZX, but they not so playable and famous. Also we have RPG-type games (more adventure, but with some RPG-features) on ZX - 'Viking Quest', in three parts (2004,2005,2006). All they, except last one, maden by one man. It has very simply gfx (slightly better in 3th), no scroll, but peoples say, it has good gameplay.

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Video in games, it's not technically impossible, tho a fast storagemedium is required. The main problem is not the technical side of the story, but the artwork. Who's gonna make those videos? What NYYRIKKI did was easy: he picked the Dragon's Lair intro and all he had to do was convert these images to his own format. But who amongst us can actually create such videos from scratch?

Another famous guy from current russian ZX scene - Alone Coder, with some of my help, made remake of FMV game 'Time Gal' for ATM Turbo 2+ (ZX clone with Z80 @7MHz, built-in IDE adapter and videomode with 16 colors per dot) in 2006. It was made more for demonstration, how that possible on ZX, than to really port this game (because it looks not so good, as original, of course). This port shows about 15 fps (depends from action) in 224x160 window, with digital sound 8bit ~15KHz (unfortunately, jitter was not fully eliminated, but quality is acceptable for this game). In case with G9K it will be difficult, because ATM has video memory in main address space of Z80, and G9K does not (so frame update will be slower). But it possible, without doubts.

Artwork is really problem for such games. I think, it's impossible to enthusiast to make hand-drawn animation for this game. More possible alternative is make 3D animation, but it a lot of work too. Another idea is use digital video, but who interested in FMV game, filmed on usual city background, with creators, which plays all roles?

Oh come on, whats so wrong with saving the princess from an evil dragon

If you browse around this forum, you'll find more ideas for games, also for V9990.

Whatever you do, make MSX soft for fun, not for money. You won't make any money But OK, I think you understand that.

There are several MSX clubs around the world who would be happy to act as a publisher or distributor. E.g. Bitwise sells Matra and Kralizec software in the Netherlands. Sunrise sells Spanish software there too.