/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.6087912]

Do you remember this one? Did you manage to beat it? For me Supaplex was the best game of it's kind, a worthy successor to Boulder Dash. I've been playing Supaplex for almost 2 decades, with shorter or longer pauses. I have something you might find interesting if you liked Supaplex. Are there SP fans on /vr/?

Also: I am looking for good Boulder Dash clones, or tile-based puzzle games in general. Games like XOR, Chips Challenge, Supaplex, etc.

[Anonymous No.6087989]

No idea what this game is OP, looks intriguing. As for good puzzle games, I hope you know about adventures of lolo, because is such an amazing series.

[Anonymous No.6088004]

>>6087989
Supaplex is great, requires both brains and dextrous fingers, check it out: https://youtu.be/8dMF3jU-nwc?t=26661
>adventures of lolo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUU4Jfj9Gjs
I watched a few minutes, cute, seems rather easy.

[Anonymous No.6088057]

It was my childhood dream to one day remake this game and since soon I am turning 30 I decided it's time to do this. I hope to find some players that I could share it with.
Top: original
Bottom: my remake

[Anonymous No.6088065]

>>6088057
>ruining original artist's intent

great

[Anonymous No.6088073]

>>6088065
I could use some help, but you need to elaborate.

[Anonymous No.6088134]

>>6088073
not him but smoothing the pixelation into straight edges is the definition of soul vs. soulless

[Anonymous No.6088238]

>>6087912
Heartlight on dos is similar. In a strange way i prefer it over superlex. Both are classics zoomers will never experence.

[Anonymous No.6088239]

>>6088057
Clean graphics are nice. Can i download it?

[Anonymous No.6088441]

I completely forgot about Supaplex. There was a period when my sisters and I used to take turns playing it all the time.

I don't know if it's nostalgia but it looks so visually appealing. I'm going to have to replay this for old time's sake.

[Anonymous No.6088763]

>>6088134
Then I guess it's one more reason to add "original 16x16 sprites mode". I really tried to keep the original design, just enhance the resolution.

>>6088239
It's a Javascript port, works straight from the browser, go to www.supaplex.online, works well in Chrome and Firefox.

[Anonymous No.6089029]

>>6088763
Looks great but i dont want to register an account. Please make it playable without account.

[Anonymous No.6089053]

>>6087912
I finished the Mac clone/port called Infotron, I don't know if the levels are the same

[Anonymous No.6089212]

>>6089029
Its needed to save progress but I guess I can make an anonymous account. Check this thread later.

[Anonymous No.6089213]

>>6089053
Infotron levels were a bit different, I have them too, so Infotron levelset will be available too.

[Anonymous No.6089235]

>>6087912
>tile-based puzzle
Play Kye or Xye. Though it melts my brain past the tutorials

[Anonymous No.6089413]

>>6089029
>>6089212
Login: [e-mail]
Password: Anonymous

Let me know what you think.

[Anonymous No.6089710]

>>6089029
Also, Boulder Dash has this thing, that every level has different colour scheme. I wanted to transfer this feature to Supaplex. Right now every time you start a level colours are randomised. Bases, hardwares, ports, chips. There are a lot of combinations, literally billions. If you encounter a very ugly scheme then just refresh the page. But sometimes very beautiful colour combinations happen.

[Anonymous No.6089848]

>>6089413
Its good. Definitely has a modern look. It would be nice if you add option to switch between graphics of old and new like they did with the wonderboy dragons trap port Fullscreen in browser and all the levels is a nice touch.

[Anonymous No.6089865]

>>6089413
Graphics look much better actually. Will it be available to download in the future?

[Anonymous No.6089869]

>>6089848
I have a lot of ideas to implement:
- new gfx / old gfx
- custom music / old music (custom music = some of the levels could have custom music, so it fits the level)
- old colors / level colors

I just wish I could get at least 100 dedicated Supaplex fans and form a community. I should introduce some sort of hall of fame / competitive aspect to the game, it always attracts more people. It really would be the best thing ever for me, to make great stuff for people to enjoy. I wonder how many people born in this millenium ever played Supaplex.

[Anonymous No.6089882]

>>6089865
I thought about an app for mobile phones, so you can play while you are offline and then sync new demos with online account. Would something like this be needed for computers?

My current idea is to create something that will look like YouTube, but with levels/demos in place of videos. Comments, likes, all that social stuff people seem to really like would stay. Even subscriptions would make sense - get notified when your favourite level maker publishes another level.

>pic
Another idea was "skins". Each level or entire levelsets could have their own look and feel.

[Anonymous No.6089892]

>>6089869
>I just wish I could get at least 100 dedicated Supaplex fans and form a community
Are you planning to monetize it?

>I wonder how many people born in this millenium ever played Supaplex.
Very little if any i think.

>>6089882
> app for mobile phones
It would suit the platform with its simple controls.

>Would something like this be needed for computers?
not with a save file unless you want it cross compatible with mobile.

[Anonymous No.6089908]

>>6089882
>skins
Good idea, maybe seasonal / holiday skins like Christmas or Halloween, summer and winter.

[Anonymous No.6089982]

Here's an early test video of new element that I added called "Plasma" – it's basically amoeba from Boulder Dash.
Apologies for low frame rate and quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgnLVO9_v-s

>>6089908
Skins would change entire design. But I also thought of texturing.
>pic
This is a texture test. Level makers could provide a "seamless" (self-repeating) textures to cover game elements automatically. Here's a rust texture (made in 120 seconds). There are some continuity errors, but it was fixed. Maybe it's not great but shows potential.

>>6089892
>Are you planning to monetize it?
It would be really awesome to have a bunch of voluntary patrons, who would donate a few dollars each month or each update. I think the game itself will always be free. Maybe I could create some feature that only patrons would have access to, but for that I would need to have a lot of players. Something like clothes for Murphy, a colorful nickname or other feature that would not alter the game itself (no pay-to-win stuff).

[Anonymous No.6089998]

>>6089982
Your remake shows alot of potential. Fans always know whats best :)

[Anonymous No.6090015]

>>6089998
Thank you.

Another idea that I had: you get killed by a snik-snak. You reset the level to try again. The snik-snak that got you last time gets some blood on it.

[Anonymous No.6090019]

One more before bed.
I really like this colour combination. Found randomly.

[Anonymous No.6090027]

>>6090015
Great idea

[Anonymous No.6090067]

>>6088238
Heartlight is the best. nice short levels and I really like the soundtrack.
Supaplex is way more of a challenge, which is a good thing I guess but it really tests your patience after a while.

[Anonymous No.6090074]

>>6090067
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEqIO3Zet-o

[Anonymous No.6090882]

>>6090074 >>6090067
Another one to the list of games to be translated to Supaplex Online.

>pic
Texture test

[Anonymous No.6090941]

I posted years ago a pic of supaplex here, in a guess the game thread.
Too bad I was dumb and the pic was named supaplex itself.
I never beated it anyway, this thread reminded me of that.

[Anonymous No.6091078]

>>6090882
Looking forward to playing it.
Make another thread when its in a playable state!

[Anonymous No.6091081]

>>6090941
You have another chance now, without DosBox: >>6089413

[Anonymous No.6091083]

>>6091078
Game itself is already playable, it works 100%, tested on over 6000 demo files. It's the website that houses the game that needs a lot of work.

[Anonymous No.6091086]

>>6091083
I meant heartlight.

[Anonymous No.6091097]

>>6091083
The website is good. Simple and clean.
Could you add the anonymous account on the website as option so anyone can play it without registering? Play as guest?

[Anonymous No.6091103]

>>6091086
XOR is first in "porting" queue now, but if I find out that Heartlight requires less work then it might move up. I already saw that grapes explode in a cross shape.

This is another thing – figuring how to graphically translate elements from other games. I want Supaplex to remain within this computer-cyber-abstract style, so grapes need to be hanged to something else, like "drive B" floppy disks, or CD's, or something else.

>>6091097
That was my intent, but for this early release I decided to not include it. It will be enabled when proper website is ready.
Site itself will probably keep its "design", it's functionalities that I want to add. Though I still have not decided if I want a dark/black website or white, like YouTube.

[Anonymous No.6091107]

>>6091103
Excellent

>I still have not decided if I want a dark/black website or white,
Both with theme toggle? Personally i like the black theme better.

[Anonymous No.6091115]

>>6091107
Posting very early concepts.

[Anonymous No.6091117]

>>6091115 >>6091107
And black.

These mockups were made before even I finished drawing Murphy.

[Anonymous No.6091121]

>>6091115
>>6091117
Well the white one looks better for youtube.
I like the black website but maybe not suitable for youtube integration.

[Anonymous No.6091125]

>>6091121
Funny thing is that I found that black and orange would work really well but it kinda makes one think of pornhub.

>pic
Current floppy disk design (title added for fun) vs old that can be seen here on the left >>6091117

[Anonymous No.6091127]

>>6091125
forgot pic

[Anonymous No.6091130]

ive beaten this game and i love it

[Anonymous No.6091219]

>>6091103
the exploding tiles are giant hand grenades. not grapes lol.

[Anonymous No.6091237]

>>6091219
Kek, but it kinda looks like grapes.

[Anonymous No.6091257]

>>6087912
oh also check out Baba's Palace on CPC, and Pitman/Catrap on gameboy.
https://youtu.be/ToPZMizdZEM?t=162
https://youtu.be/9fnggh0Qmuk

>>6091237
when I first played this I used to think they were perfume bottles lol.

[Anonymous No.6091910]

>>6087912
Check This:
https://www.artsoft.org/rocksndiamonds/

[Anonymous No.6091924]

>>6091127
Looking good.

[Anonymous No.6092020]

>>6091257
Saved, thanks.
>>6091910
Already aware of it, it's probably the most well known modern Boulder Dash game. It kinda attempts what I want to do – merge multiple games into one. But I intend to keep it all in one style.
>>6091924
Thank you.

>pic
While I think I have some degree of skill when it comes to vector graphics I must admit that raster stuff usually eludes me. Explosion sprites are just enlarged original graphics, with some smoothing done by hand.

[Anonymous No.6092078]

>>6092020
Not quite supaplex or heartlight but i have always liked this game. It plays like a top down block pushing puzzle game and not side scrolling. Great game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF1JKxiu0XU

[Anonymous No.6092087]

>>6092078
Seems interesting. But that beeping is a strange choice for walking sound. I will check it out.

[Anonymous No.6092090]

>>6092087
It's an old dos game.
You can play it in your browser.

https://www.playdosgames.com/play/paganitzu/

[Anonymous No.6092101]

>>6092087
use dosbox online emulation sucks.

[Anonymous No.6092980]

People are registering and playing, I am so happy.

[Anonymous No.6094883]

fwiw I'm trying to reverse-engineer heartlight now to see if I can extract the sfx/art assets. from what I can tell so far all the data is appended at the end of the exe and at least parts of it are encrypted with a simple xor cipher.
the game also has drawing routines for cga, ega and hercules graphics but this is locked out in the setup program.
don't know if I'll get anywhere with this. will post updates if I do.

[Anonymous No.6094913]

>>6094883
I decoded a list with file names and (presumably) offsets and sizes.
those files starting with an exclamation mark appear to be the music files, each file is one bar, then there's this string in the game code that determines the sequence they are played in:


lllljjjkababdedemnmnghgissssttttaaabeeefopopghghmnmnghghscstscstcacbcdceqrqrhhhhjkjkghgisbsbsbstaeaendndncncnnnfsbsjsbskstststsiadadbdbfrqrqhghgopophghistscstscabdeabdfotothhhisssjssskstskstsc


(don't remember if code tags work on this board.)

[Anonymous No.6095065]

>>6094883
>>6094913
Impressive. If you manage to decode level data and figure out the format then contact me. Maybe you could help me to import Heartlight levels to Supaplex Online, of course if you would like that.

As a sidenote: once I needed to extract level data from a compiled game. I figured it's too much work, that is also uncertain (I could fail). Instead I made a screenshot of every level (game allowed me to view entire level on one screen) and then wrote a piece of program that would recognise each tile's sprite and build a level in my own format. It worked very well.

[Anonymous No.6095210]

>>6095065
the level data used to be encrypted and embedded in the exe in the commercial release. with the freeware release they moved it to a separate file called LEVELS.HL. it's literally a plaintext file and even has instructions to create your own levels.

I'm mostly after the sound effects and music track. I wrote a program now to extract the files but so far it comes out all garbled. either the encryption key is different for each file or there's still a bug in my code somewhere.

[Anonymous No.6095250]

>>6095210
This could not have been easier then.
I just need to catch the differences elements. I already saw the bomb exploding in a cross pattern, while in Supaplex everything explodes in 9-tile square shape. I guess the best way will be to just play through Heartlight.

[Anonymous No.6095253]

>>6095210
Could you link me to the best version available to play? I already saw on wiki that there are 3 versions.

[Anonymous No.6095280]

>>6095253
I found the freeware release here:
https://www.classicdosgames.com/game/Heartlight_PC.html

[Anonymous No.6095325]

>>6095280
Yea, found it already, I am at level 45

[Anonymous No.6095328]

>>6095325
ha. yeah it's a cakewalk compared to supaplex.

[Anonymous No.6095481]

>>6095328
Just completed it. Around 2h 30 minutes. Really good game. Last level was a little "wtf" at first but got it. There are a few difficult ones.

But what's important is that the elements in this game would make a great addition to Supaplex. Balloons give a whole new dimension of puzzles. Transporting things upwards in unseen in SP.

There are more differences than I thought first. There is no "snapping", so I will have to add a different kind of "base"/"dirt" that can not be snapped. Same thing with infotrons. I will probably make a heart shaped infotrons with just 2 loops.
>pic
Something like this, but more heart shaped.

Music will probably fit Supaplex well, I will use it too. Thanks to >>6088238
who posted it first.

[Anonymous No.6095550]

>>6095481
Something like this perhaps. I would really like to keep "mandatory collectables" in this Infotron style.

[Anonymous No.6095616]

>>6095550
do you plan to mix the supaplex and heartlight levels together in one game? I think it might make more sense to have separate game modes with different graphics.

quick update on the reverse-engineering, I got the encryption sorted out now, all files do use the same cipher. however the files are compressed too, and there is still a bug in my decompression routine somewhere. the audio files sound vaguely recognizable now but still very distorted.

[Anonymous No.6095617]

made me really miss the old (adlib) music
sfx are really loud and bassy, music is rather quiet

[Anonymous No.6095668]

>>6095617
amiga music would be even better.

[Anonymous No.6095959]

Suggestion: For the love of God, do not include Level 2 of Supaplex.

[Anonymous No.6096276]

>>6095959
It's included but I made it more fun by adding darkness and spooky music from The 7th Guest maze. Also with game speed control it can take less than a minute to solve it.

>>6095616
Yes, I want to combine many games under Supaplex. It will still be possible to change Murphy to appear as a gnome, but right now everything will be like Supaplex.

[Anonymous No.6096413]

>>6087912
Pic related was 16 years ago. I was 12 when I beat all 111 levels of Supaplex. Mom made me a cake and we celebrated with my brother and a friend. I remember how realized I felt when I finally did it.
I even remember doing my own "levels" in paper. It was years later I discovered the game editors. But my cat died soon after the very same day I made some playable levels. Felt really sad for days and somehow never touched the editor or the game again.
Anyways, sorry for the blabbering. Felt melancholy for a second and writing it out helped.

[Anonymous No.6096421]

>>6096413
111 at 12? Impressive. Also there is a dedicated website for such stories, it's even run by one of the creators of SP.
>The Children of Supaplex — https://www.supaplex.org/
I hope you will find the time at 28yo to play some more SP. Soon there will be 6000 levels on my website. (if you only read OP then visit www.supaplex.online)

[Anonymous No.6096442]

>>6096421
Took me almost two years. I didn't rush it.
Thanks, I will give it a try! Already sent an email to register in supaplex.online

[Anonymous No.6096452]

>>6096442
Sent, check spam as some mail clients see ".online" domain as suspicious.

[Anonymous No.6096650]

>>6089212
You could put in a password save system and/or save the progress to a browser cookie, for those who don't wish to use an account.

[Anonymous No.6096779]

>>6096650
Perhaps I will use registration without mandatory email. Just any login any pass and you are good to go. It's convenient for the user but very bad for both me and user if user loses access. How can user prove to me that this account is really user's? How many "please reset my password :( it's totally me!" emails I will have to get to enforce email?
Email registration is a standard nowadays, solves many problems and will not be a problem for average player. Also I am doing this for fun, I wont spam anyone with dick pills. Here on 4chan I understand this sentiment not to use email. But I totally accept registrations from a throwaway email addresses like Mailinator dot com. If you are sure you will remember your password and email then it's ok to use a throwaway email.

[Anonymous No.6096789]

>Supaplex
Based

I played it as a kid but I never quite completed it, I had all three skips used and reached the final level with the insane maze of rooms full of rocks, but I didn't manage to beat it or the ones I had skipped.

[Anonymous No.6096808]

>>6096789
That would be "Brainman!".
Murphy blinked, but level is there.
Try online version in on guest account >>6089413

[Anonymous No.6096881]

>>6096779
To be clear, by "password save system", I meant how old games without battery saves/memory cards/etc would give you a password at certain points, which you can enter next time you play the game to return to the point you received the password.

[Anonymous No.6096913]

Heartlight extraction tool now works, get it here:
https://pastebin.com/M5RtbRZa

load sound files as 8-bit unsigned, 8523hz, mono.
I haven't figured out how to read the graphics files yet.

[Anonymous No.6096934]

>>6096913
in case anyone figures out the graphics format, here is the palette (normalized for 8-bit color)
https://pastebin.com/v5yfasar

[Anonymous No.6096950]

>>6088763
I think the graphics could be a lot better without much effort if you toned down the obvious gradients. The orbs and coils, in particular, need a revamp, I think. And the grey dots on the circuitboards. A lot of the other graphics, like the microchips, look good, though.

[Anonymous No.6096997]

>>6087912
I beat all 111 levels.

I hope this thread is still here when I get home. I have stories for ya.

[Anonymous No.6097005]

Literally
Took
Years
To beat this game
Tried custom levels and ragequit

[Anonymous No.6097027]

>>6096913 >>6096934
Saved, might be of use in the future, anyway to reach you if it comes to it?
>>6096997
Please do share, I will make another if needed.
>>6096950
Thanks for input, I will make sure to get better with the gradients. It's all made in Flash CS6 (i love the fact that I can use "object oriented" approach to design, also Flash is more familiar to me than Illustrator and I am yet to use Adobe Animate). If I gave you a .fla file with the "coils" (you mean ports? the red things with metal caps?) would you try improve them?
>>6097005
A lot of custom levels require insane precision and knowledge of game glitches (like zonk cloning and many many more). But there are a few very good levelsets that keep original SP difficulty.
Also I've been playing Supaplex for 20 years now, with pauses not longer than 2 years. As I mentioned there are 6000 levels, and 2000 of them do not have a solution yet (they lack demo files).

[Anonymous No.6098207]

>>6097027
you could email me I guess but I don't want to post my address on a public board.

[Anonymous No.6098614]

Uploaded a gameplay video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2Wd5c5fL0w

>>6098207
Well you can send me an email (on website) or just watch for SP thread here.

[Anonymous No.6098885]

>>6087912
My dad brought this home from a computer show in 1994 and since then my life has been ruined.

[Anonymous No.6099816]

>>6098885
Which level hurt you, anon?

[Anonymous No.6100642]

>>6098614
Heh, I remember showing off with this level a lot to friends. Though my game played faster. Is this how it was supposed to play?

[Anonymous No.6100652]

>>6087912
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U_n8sn_pJaE

[Anonymous No.6100701]

>>6100642
It should work on 35 frames per second. It takes 8 frames to pass through 1 tile. But on a newer hardware it works too fast. That is why a "Speed Fix" was created which makes the game run on proper speed everywhere. A lot of people played on insane speed without knowing it. Read more here: http://www.elmerproductions.com/sp/history.html

Supaplex Online runs at 40 fps by default but any speed can be assigned. But remember that it's a "logic" frame, not a "screen" frame.

>>6100652
Never seen this one before, thank you.

[Anonymous No.6100895]

>>6098614
I'll keep an eye on the threads here.

I worked out how to read the sprite data. it's pretty clever. the image files are laid out in 24x24 pixel blocks, each individual block has only 16 colors, then at the end of the block there are lookup tables to convert it to the right colors for vga/ega/cga modes.
also it's interesting to see how they wasted so much space on the useless minimap sprites. I'm thinking they originally planned to make larger levels where having a minimap makes sense.

also incase anyone wants the music track:
https://a.uguu.se/tu1vqm7o3CL1_heartlight.flac

[Anonymous No.6100915]

>>6100895
Amazing work. How do you even figure this out when all you see is a stream of bytes.

I wanted to ask for music but thought "nah, I will find it somewhere, I won't bother him". Downloaded. This will play in the background on Heartlight levelset.

>pic
Also the mini sprites are used in the game but are kinda useless anyway. Press F1 during game to enter this mode.

[Anonymous No.6100919]

>>6100895
Also I was supposed to ask:
Is there some collection of fan-made levels? A website maybe?

[Anonymous No.6101016]

>>6092980
Well done, it's a nice website. Keep it simple and fast. My only suggestion is that I think you should add "[SPACE] + Arrow keys" tip on the Start screen. It took me a while to figure out level 3 because I didn't know this.

[Anonymous No.6101040]

>>6101016
Already done anon! Thanks!

[Anonymous No.6101073]

>>6101040
Thanks. Websites need to be idiot-proof for people like me. First time playing.

[Anonymous No.6101074]

>>6100915
yeah if all you have is a string of bytes then I wouldn't know where to start either.
the trick is to disassemble the game's exe and figure out how the game itself reads these files. then you can rewrite the algorithm in c++ and re-encode the data with libpng and libflac.
there is some extra data attached to these image blocks though. the game loads it all in but most of it is ignored. probably animation sequences and things like that.

>>6100919
not that I know of. then again, as far as I'm aware, the level data was only added with the freeware release in 2006. actually I'm not sure if the commercial release included this or not. the demo version didn't, for obvious reasons.
if there's a fan site out there then it's probably in Polish.

[Anonymous No.6101223]

>>6101074
I know very little of assembler. I guess there is a simple way to locate blocks of assembler code that contain references to file system. If those are easy to find then that would be the first chain link that I would need to start such task. If "here" the exe reads files then the decoding must be close.
Fascinating stuff.

I asked about fan levels because that would expand the set of levels I need to test in order to properly transfer Heartlight logic to SP.

Fun fact: guy that made Heartlight also worked on Electro Body / Electro Man. This game became legendary in his homeland. It also has some nice music.

[Anonymous No.6101232]

>>6101074
Addendum to >>6101223
Is it "int 80h"?

[Anonymous No.6102153]

>>6101223
typically you'd start by looking at ascii strings in the executable. if you see something that looks like a filename, or a string like "failed to load this and that", then you look up where that string is referenced from and you know that that procedure deals with reading files.
also usually IDA can identify standard library functions like open(), close(), read() etc. then seeing where those functions are called from can point you in the right direction.
in this case the game appears to use the C library functions to read files. then at one point during initialization it changes those function pointers to different procedures that load from the encrypted exe. that threw me off for a while because it looks just like it's loading each file separately from disk without encryption.

>>6101232
int 80h is the syscall interrupt on unix systems. the equivalent for dos is int 21h. if you don't have any ascii strings or standard library then yes, that would be the next best thing to look for.

[Anonymous No.6102591]

>>6100895
>music track
Thanks

[Anonymous No.6103150]

>>6087912
Supaplex was THE best logical-puzzle game from DOS era, period. The Incredible Machine can suck its ass.

[Anonymous No.6103932]

>>6103150
That is why I believe Supaplex deserves to be ported to Javascript, so it works in a browser. I also intend to port other games to Supaplex engine. Supaplex is truly great in style, dexterity, puzzle. What it needs now is larger sprites and easier access – just one click in the address bar.