Finished - C16 Kikstart - Vic 20 16K PAL (& NTSC - new!)

[Victragic]

'Raid on Isram is superb! (Especially for an unexpanded game.) It was sold as "Skramble!" in Sweden and had slightly different colors and graphics. I think there are even more versions out there from different publishers in Europe and the US. I remmber Tial Trading, who had the publishing rights in Sweden, used to push it as their best seller in marketing brochure.

I picked up the tape second-hand back in 1984? for $5 from someone who was getting rid of all their Vic hardware and software.. no doubt after buying a C64.

Honestly, I make these things from an ingrained deep-set longing for software to appear for my machine that just didn't exist and would in all probability never exist. My hometown barely stocked anything other than C64 titles and I felt abandoned as the only kid I knew with this weird white machine with the huge text and no memory. We conveniently forget how uncool the Vic and other machines were once they had been superceded.. how cool it is that these machines live on.

Sadly, Kikstart would never have been stocked in my local store, even if it was on the 1.99 Mastertronic range.. because the only computer in town was that beige breadbox..

[Ola H]

I knew several kids with a Vic 20, but I was probably unique in that I didn't abandon my Vic when the C64 arrived. I didn't even abandon it when I got my own C64. I continued to swap and buy games for my Vic (I remember getting a C64 game for my Birthday and returning it to the shop and exchanging it for a Vic game!) Nothing made me happier than seeing a new Vic game among the C64 and ZX Spectrum reviews in magazines.

I guess I've always been rooting for the underdog and also I felt I needed to stand up for my first computer which had given me so much joy!

[hasseapa]

I just wanted to add some reflections about scrolling. In most horizontal shooters, the scrolling speed is fixed and uncoupled from the ship's movements. This allows for combinations: smooth ship & jerky scroll or smooth scroll & jerky ship.

There are several well-known examples. MSX Nemesis has jerky scrolling, but smooth ships & enemies (and even most shots & missiles). It is held in high regard and many people say that they notice the jerkiness only while merely watching but not while actually playing.

An example of the opposite, smooth scrolling but jerky everything-else, is Spectrum R-Type. Again, it is a very highly regarded game (and there is a great book about making it, "It's Behind You"). This combination makes less sense in most cases, but it allowed for colorful ships and enemies without colour clash, and the original arcade game scrolled slowly (slower than Nemesis and much slower than Scramble) enough do be doable on a Spectrum.

I can't think of any Vic game that combines jerkiness with smoothness? (Yeah, your Kickstart port does it to some degree, but I consider the scrolling to be half smooth rather that half jerky.)

But let's take a look on Anirog's Scramble on the three Commodore machines!

Vic: Jerky scrolling, jerky ship.
C16: Smooth scrolling, jerky ship.
C64: Jerky scrolling, smooth ship.


Thanks, for the game. It plays really well. I adore Frogger '07 and your Pitfall port, so obviously I am thrilled to see yet another game by you.

[AndyH]

Agree about side scrollers. There are some very fine Scramble clones for the Vic, but all have 1 char scrolling I think. Same with Wunda Walter, which looks really good but would look much better and play even better with smoother scrolling.

Pixel's Pulse is one excellent side scroller though

Pulse is an achievement, and would have sold well for the Vic back in its heyday. I only just recently saw Wunda Walter for the first time and it looks solid too, fast enough that the char scrolling doesn't matter too much.

Come to think of it, character scrolling only bothered me once I had seen smooth scrolling on a C64. Before that I was quite happy to play 'Raid on Isram', but it lost its appeal when I'd seen 'Blue Max' on my friend's 64.

Wunda Walter must have been one of the last Vic-20 games that I was able to buy in the regular computer shops. I found it pretty late in the Vic's life but was impressed by the scrolling and large game worlds. Played it to death.

Think the scrolling works better because of the speed and the double sized characters. I was certainly envious of the scrolling on the C64.

[Tony Mokonen]

'Raid on Isram is superb! (Especially for an unexpanded game.) It was sold as "Skramble!" in Sweden and had slightly different colors and graphics. I think there are even more versions out there from different publishers in Europe and the US. I remmber Tial Trading, who had the publishing rights in Sweden, used to push it as their best seller in marketing brochures.

According to this page, which I remember reading a few years ago, Raid On Isram was an illegitimate clone of Skramble, and that there were two different VIC-20 versions of Skramble, an older version released by Rabbit Software and a newer version by Terminal Software.

https://fgasking.wordpress.com/2006/05/ ... -skramble/

[Victragic]

According to this page, which I remember reading a few years ago, Raid On Isram was an illegitimate clone of Skramble, and that there were two different VIC-20 versions of Skramble, an older version released by Rabbit Software and a newer version by Terminal Software.

https://fgasking.wordpress.com/2006/05/ ... -skramble/

Ah the wild west of 8-bit computing. An illegitimate clone of an illegitimate clone.

[hasseapa]

It was reviewed i Retrogamer 188

[Victragic]

It was reviewed i Retrogamer 188

Oh nice! I love that magazine..!

[AndyH]

It was reviewed i Retrogamer 188

A good review and score for a great game

[cbm-warrior]

Nice conversation - but forgot the built-in cheat from the C-16 version?

[Victragic]

Sorry for lack of reply, I only just found where Denial is lurking..

..I rewrote the joystick input routine where the hidden code would have been.. having said that I wasn't aware there was a code!

[Victragic]

Hi all,

I have added an NTSC version of my conversion of Kikstart, and this is within the zip file attached to the first post of this thread.

The screen is 25 characters wide, so my apologies if there is any clipping of the image - it shouldn't affect gameplay though.

Also, am aware of a minor graphic glitch that sometimes causes balloons to flicker or partially disappear - this is caused by timing issues with the raster beam. I have had to reduce the number of sky images that appear as a result of this. The game runs considerably faster in NTSC though, and I think overall it is comparable in difficulty to the PAL version.

Cheers
Victragic

[oracle_jedi]

Hi all,

I have added an NTSC version of my conversion of Kikstart, and this is within the zip file attached to the first post of this thread.

Awesome! Thanks for adding NTSC support. I remember playing this game on an Atari XL, very cool to be able to play this on the VIC.

[Victragic]

Hi all,

I have added an NTSC version of my conversion of Kikstart, and this is within the zip file attached to the first post of this thread.

Awesome! Thanks for adding NTSC support. I remember playing this game on an Atari XL, very cool to be able to play this on the VIC.

Thanks. I'm guessing the Atari version was more like the C64 version - more sophisticated than the C16 version, but still lots of fun.