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[saimo]

Amiga? Nice. Now that you say it, I remember someone is still out there trying to port Splatter to Amiga OS4. Last thing I know is that the GPU drivers are still in a sad state.

I haven't followed the development of GPUs in general nor of the Amiga-specific drivers (in fact, my AmigaOne is still equipped with a Radeon 9000 bought in 2002), but I know that in the past few years A-EON sponsored the development of drivers for modern graphic cards, that various versions have been made available to the public, and that development continues.
Thankfully, for Blastaway also an ancient card like mine suffices: just tonight I've started adding hardware scaling to the AmigaOS version of the game (because the memory bandwidth offered by old AmigaOnes is too little for full speed software scaling to high resolutions) and it works like a charm (now it should be only a matter or polishing the code).

[saimo]

A less traumatic start: previously, the entrance was such that the player had to enter the arena very carefully, a enemies might hide behind the arch, and only their shadows could be seen behind the entrance bars. I decided that it was a little unfair, so I have redesigned everything.
The "only" other notable change here is that the AmigaOS 4 version gets hardware-accelerated scaling. Before, the old AmigaOnes like mine (AmigaOne XE G4 @ 1 GHz + Radeon 9000) had a very hard time coping with zoom factors from 3x and above (e.g. at 4x the frame rate dropped to about 16 fps), but now the game runs constantly at full speed, no matter the zoom factor! (The second part of the video shows precisely this.)





CHANGELOG
* Redesigned entrance so that enemies behind it can be seen.
* Added (experimental) hardware-accelerated scaling to AmigaOS version.
* Added an arena.
* Touched up some arenas.
* Improved manual.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

More noise! Arenas feature now some blocks that can be destroyed by shooting at them: at first, that might seem useful to wander around more easily, but, on second thought, that also makes life easier to wors! In fact, they can destroy the blocks, too...
(Note: in the future, the blast marks on the ground might: a) stay as they are; b) go; c) be extended to affect also the vertical elements like walls. Option c) is the most unlikely.)





CHANGELOG
* Added destroyable blocks.
* Assigned [SPACE], [ENTER], [RETURN], [CONTROL], [SHIFT], [TAB] the shooting function.
* Touched up graphics.
* Added one arena.
* Updated/improved manual.
* Made other internal improvements/bugfixes.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[Bahototh]

Nice! Really liking the 16 bit feel (Amiga) to this.
This is one of the rare games I would like to test out and play.
This does so much more for me than 99% of new games today. Keep it up!

[saimo]

Nice! Really liking the 16 bit feel (Amiga) to this.

Thanks! Indeed I'm doing this game with Amiga in my mind. Just before starting working on it, I've released an Amiga game and, ideally, I should be doing this again for (AGA) Amigas, but I want/need to reach more people (hence, Windows + AmigaOS 4).

This is one of the rare games I would like to test out and play.

Well, you can: just download it and have fun

This does so much more for me than 99% of new games today. Keep it up!

I'm very happy to hear this: thank a bunch!

[saimo]

Improved looks: this update mostly brings cool enhancements to the graphics.





CHANGELOG
* Redrawn wor kill animation (and changed associated sound effect accordingly).
* Improved graphics of tiles, destroyable objects explosion, blast mark, and bonuses orbs.
* Made a couple of other internal improvements/bugfixes.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

A brand-new stage and tons of other improvements! Finally Blastaway has more than one stage (i.e. setting), which means more graphics to enjoy, greater sense of progression (as the stages change every 10 arenas), and more arenas to play (20 in all now, but they will be 50 when, in the end, all the 5 planned stages are done).





CHANGELOG
* Defined the setting of the stages and gave them names (THE CAVES, THE OUTER WALLS, THE CELLARS, THE CHAMBERS, THE LABS).
* Added a new stage (THE CAVES).
* Changed naming scheme of arenas.
* Extended handling of arena clearing: now an arena will be declared cleared only after also all the keys have been picked up (before, killing the Exxwor immediately ended the action and thus the player could miss the keys not picked up yet, which could make facing the following arenas impossible).
* Recalibrated bonuses distribution.
* Made killing the Dmewor easier.
* Made picking up keys easier.
* Improved Exxwor's AI a little bit.
* Halved wors speed increase between arenas.
* Prevented entrance doors from closing if any wor is in the entrance area (otherwise, a wor might get stuck there, thus becoming unreachable by the active soldier inside the arena, which could well lead to a situation where it was impossible clear the arena and continue the game).
* Adapted/improved/fixed some arenas.
* Adapted/improved/extended manual.
* Made various other improvements/bugfixes.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

A new stage and ten new arenas to enjoy!
This build represents a major step as it adds lots of content and brings quite a number of additional improvements.





CHANGELOG
* Added stage THE WAREHOUSE (previously THE CELLARS/JAILS).
* Added 8 arenas.
* Added milestone bonus (a soldier is awarded every 20000 points).
* Reduced number of wors to kill per stage.
* Refined rendering of blast marks, so that they follow the irregular borders of the nearby vertical tiles.
* Reduced shadows to 2 bits to make them sharper and stay more faithful to 16 bit machines.
* Touched up / redrawn a few tiles.
* Updated/improved manual.
* Made a couple of minor bugfixes.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

A small but key change: the soldier weapon is now centered relatively to his body, so it is easier to hit wors especially when the soldier is pointing west/east. Also, the HUD should be less intrusive and more readable now.







CHANGELOG
* Centered weapon with respect to the soldier body, so that it is easier to aim.
* Made HUD smaller and easier to read.
* Optimized tiles coordinates handling.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[Beastboy]

Wow, i like how this game is evolving, the enviroments seem very exotic

[saimo]

Thanks!
I never thought of the settings as exotic, but I'm glad if that's the impression they give

[saimo]

Gameplay improvements: this update improves some key gameplay aspects and, in particular, fixes the bug that made beams pass through fast-moving wors without killing them (the so-called "tunneling bug").





CHANGELOG
* Fixed tunneling bug.
* Increased maximum soldiers (i.e. lives) number to 7.
* Changed a parameter in the Exxwor AI.
* Touched up some graphics.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Wizard of Wor, the game Blastaway inspires to, has a DOUBLE SCORE bonus: if the player manages to kill the Worluk before it flees, the next dungeon will award a double score. Blastaway just had to have something similar: it has it now, and it has even a TRIPLE SCORE bonus! If the player kills the Dmewor and Exxwor with the first shot, he achieves, respectively, the DOUBLE and TRIPLE SCORE bonuses, which, as their names suggest, double or triple the current arena score.



CHANGELOG
* Extended arena end screen report.
* Added DOUBLE and TRIPLE SCORE bonuses.
* Reduced wors speed increase.
* Added specific tune during the fight against the Dmewor.
* Added 5 arenas.
* Updated manual.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[UmutD]

There are not many new games around that evokes classic amiga feeling. Looks great!

[saimo]

Thank you! I'm happy to hear that the game succeeds in conveying the Amiga feeling

[saimo]

New features added and a few bugs squashed! This releases puts together a few new nice features and some bugfixes.





CHANGELOG
* Added M.I.A. bonus - clearing an arena without losing a soldier awards 1000 points.
* Increased milestone step to 30000 points.
* Reworked texts colors.
* Implemented DOUBLE/TRIPLE SCORE bonus assignment exactly as specified in the manual (i.e. when the Dmewor/Exxwor is killed with the first shot, whereas before it was when the Dmewor/Exxwor was killed when only one laser beam was shot).
* Ensured that the MILESTONE bonus is assigned immediately also when the milestone is passed thanks to the bonuses assigned after an arena has been completed (otherwise the bonus is assigned after the beginning of the next arena, which was not that nice and could also make SOLDIER bonuses useless).
* Fixed bug in laser beams initialization (which might cause erroneous collision detection).
* Updated manual.

Latest build download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Lots of new content ready! THE CONTROLS ROOM (formerly THE LABS) stage is finished, and so are all the 50 arenas!





CHANGELOG
* Fixed some shadows of stage CAVES tiles.
* Added 31st color and improved graphics with it.
* Added THE CONTROL ROOMS (formerly THE LABS) stage.
* Added all the missing arenas.
* Improved/fixed a few arenas.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway (please note that since I'm considering launching a Kickstarter campaign, for the first time the demo is limited to the first 3 stages / 30 arenas).

[saimo]

Stage-specific wors! This feature remained in the queue for a long time, but it finally made it to the game! At the moment, code aside, there is only one new wor (shown in the animation) that makes use of it, but three more will come in the future.



CHANGELOG
* Implemented addition of a new wor on each stage after the first one (consequently, the names Dmewor and Exxwor are assigned to new enemies, and the enemies that carries those names are now called, respectively, Hodwor and Ikuwor; the wors names are now: Akrwor, Baqwor, Czywor, Dmewor, Exxwor, Frowor, Gjawor, Hodwor, Ikuwor).
* Created Gjawor (AI and graphics).
* Written AIs for Dmewor and Frowor.
* Touched up a couple of arenas.
* Touched up some graphics.
* Renamed THE CHAMBERS stage as THE MACHINE ROOMS stage and swapped it with THE CONTROL ROOMS stage.
* Updated/improved manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Dmewor, the wor specific to THE OUTER WALLS stage, is done! (So now only two remain to be done).



CHANGELOG
* Added Dmewor graphics and sound.
* Changed behavioural parameters of Czywor and Dmewor.
* Added temporary AI for Exxwor.
* Updated manual.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway

[saimo]

Yesterday's northward-moving sprites were totally wrong and I had also forgotten to give all the sprites their own shadows. What a failure. Hopefully, I've fixed everything now.



CHANGELOG
* Improved Dmewor's graphics.
* Given Dmewor its own shadows.

Demo download: https://www.retream.com/Blastaway