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[darkhog]

I didn't know if I should post it yet as I don't have much yet done, but decided to do so anyways.



I.T.E.M. is a game designed to look and feel like old EGA platformer (think Apogee-era platformers). Note that it uses slightly modified palette, in fact two - one for menus and other for actual game and help screens.

It is, however in EGA's capabilities as you could change default palette by choosing one of 63 colors, it is just that most games didn't use that functionality).

Game palette is (almost) default one, except of using, in place of "magenta" (index 13, I think), there's more skin-like color used and all bright colors have been replaced with less "washed" colors, (mainly yellow and green).

I can't give you much of the story yet as:
a) I'm still working out few minor details
b) like to support everything I say with appropriate images and I don't have much things done yet (mainly in tileset department).

As you probably might have noticed, text is blurred in menu. This is caused by a bug in tool I'm using (Game Develop) and there's nothing I can do to resolve it.

[MrAwolf]

GL i loved working in Ega, I always thought of it as when you get a pack of 100 felt tip pens for Christmas, the ones you have left over next Xmas, now that's EGA the ones u never wanted to use, but with some good dithering and some great shapes bam.. least it's not Cga Hercules.

[pelle]

Toned down? Isnt EGA all about hideous saturated colors? Brrr. Went from CGA to VGA so fast I never did much with EGA. The CGA palettes are more fun to try to use (of course the CGA could also do the classic EGA palette... in 160x100... but I never tried to figure out how to use that mode).

[darkhog]

Actually EGA palette is 63 colors of which only 16 can be used at a time. Similar deal like with NES really, only here instead of 4 4-color palettes we have one 16 color palette per screen.

[pelle]

Yes, but as the first post here said, there was still a classic EGA palette that almost(?) everyone used, and if I remember correctly that was identical to the 16-color palette you could have in CGA text-modes (including the weird 160x100 text-mode that was almost like graphics mode). (Also the same or very similar to that classic 16-color MS Paint palette I guess that so (too) often shows up in amateur bitmaps?)

[darkhog]

Working on intro and a basic tileset.

[ollie_r]

So cool, following this. Commander Keen got me interested in games as a kid.

[darkhog]

So cool, following this. Commander Keen got me interested in games as a kid.

Great!

Anyway, I've almost finished designing intro scene (still need to add few things) and then coding will start. Will post a screenshot once scene is fully made.

Intro will be semi-interactive, as in you'll do things to keep it going and will serve as some kind of tutorial.

[surt]

So you define your game as EGA, but drop the key defining trait of past EGA games, the default palette?

It is my understanding that a custom EGA palette required a rare/expensive EGA card with greater than standard memory and was restricted to certain video modes. Hence nearly every EGA game relies on the standard palette.

Most 16 colour video mode games using a custom palette were in fact using a VGA mode.