Games

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All-time top games

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Software Houses

Games Which use hardware tricks (on old generation cpcs)

Useful if you want to dissect games to work out how they did it.

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Page Flipping

Most good CPC games use the page-flipping technique in order to display sprites and/or scroll the playing area smoothly. In especial, two memory areas (instead of one) are reserved for the screen ram. In each frame, one of the two screens is displayed in turn, by using the hardware (exactly by changing the screen-offset, Reg 12 and 13 of the CRTC). At the same time, the next frame is being drawn in the non-visible screen until the next frame fly back signal. Then, the same cycle continues on and on for (each) next frame.

The big advantage of this technique is that we can use a whole frame's machine-time for our code (with no animation problems that arrise when we alter screen ram at the same time the electron beam displays it on the monitor). On the other hand, page flipping eats up a lot of memory area (which is crucial especially for 64Kb machines). This explains why a lot of games have very small game-areas !

Hardware Scrolling

  • R3 used to make an approximate byte lenght horizontal scroll (not really smooth)
  • R5 used to make smoother vertical scroll (1 line)
Title Year Vertical Horizontal R3 R5 Confirmed
Action Force 1988 No Yes No No Yes
Anarchy 1988 No Yes No No
Axys 1991 Yes No No Yes Yes
Bob Morane Science Fiction 1987 Yes Yes No No
Builderland 1991 No Yes No No
FlySpy 1986 Yes Yes No No
Fusion 2 1988 No Yes No No
Gothic 1988 Yes Yes No No
Ghosts 'n' Goblins 1986 No Yes No No
Jinks 1988 No Yes Yes No Yes
Killer Cobra 1987 No Yes Yes No Yes
Led Storm 1988 Yes No No Yes Yes
Legend of Kage 1986 Yes Yes Yes Yes
Leviathan 1987 Diagonal scroll! No No Yes
Le 5eme Axe 1985 Yes Yes No No
Mission Genocide 1987 Yes No No Yes Yes
Monty Python's Flying Circus 1990 Yes Yes No No Yes
Octoplex 1989 Yes Yes No Yes(?) Yes
Out Of This World 1987 No Yes Yes No Yes
Paraplane 1992 Yes Yes No No
Prehistorik 2 1992 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Prohibition 1987 Yes Yes No No
Rick Dangerous 2 1990 No Yes No No
Roland On the Ropes 1984 Yes Yes No No
Sentinel (The) 1987 Yes Yes No No Yes
Skate Ball 1989 No Yes No No Yes
Skate Rock 1987 No Yes No No Yes
Skate Wars 1990 No Yes No Yes Yes
Star Avenger 1984 No Yes No No
Stryker In The Crypt Of Trogan 1992 Yes Yes No No
Super Cauldron 1992 Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Titan 1988 Yes Yes No No
Ultima Ratio 1987 Yes No No Yes Yes
Warhawk 1987 Yes No No Yes Yes

Rupture (or splitscreen)

A technique to split the screen into more than one block vertically. (independant videoram offset) Used to hardware scroll one part of the screen while another is static.

Title Year Confirmed
Action Force 1988 Yes
Axys 1991 Yes
Dynamic Duo
Enlightenment: Druid 2
Grell and Falla
Mission Genocide 1987 Yes
Octoplex 1989 Yes
Prehistorik 2 1992 Yes
Skate Ball 1989 Yes
Skatewars 1989
Snowstrike
Super Cauldron 1992 Yes
Turrican 1990 Yes
Ultima Ratio 1987 Yes
Usagi Yojimbo
Xyphoes Fantasy
Sol Negro(opera)
Warhawk 1987 Yes
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