ArtPazz - new game for AGA just released

Hello,

I have just released a new little game for AGA Amigas. It's a simple puzzler where the player has to reconstruct a picture split in a number of tiles - here's a video that clarifies the concept perfectly.
If you feel like, go get it from here - it's free ;)


SOME FEATURES

* Besides the 10 default images, the player can add more images by just dropping them into the appropriate directory (the pictures must be 320x256 pixels and have a depth of up to 64 colors).
* Likewise, it is possible to add more music modules to the appropriate directory.
* Up to 8 local players can challenge one another.
* Joystick/joypad and/or keyboard and/or mouse are all supported; they can all be used at the same time; any single device can control the game entirely (in the joystick case, two buttons are required).
* It comes as an: LHA archive, ADF image, ISO image.


BACKSTORY
In 1995 I made Puzzly, my third little game for Amiga (while, instead, I should have studied for the high school exit exam). It did not look good (although my eyes could not see that back then) and it had a very annoying feature that was even totally superfluous, but it was fun enough and I actually enjoyed it with some friends in a few of occasions. The game was written with AMOS Professional.
11 years later (2006), I worked on a project for the local department of the Ministry of Heritage. I had a technical role and I was surrounded by art experts. The project was called ART-PAST. It was so badly planned, the resources were so scarce, the salaries were so low and the demands on my colleagues were so huge that we soon ended up calling the project ART-PAZZ ("pazzo" means "mad"/"crazy" in Italian, and "pazz'" is the way it is spoken in our dialect), as those people were being driven mad and the overall atmosphere was totally crazy.
Now, 15 additional years later (2021), during a break from the writing of a novel, I found the perfect time for a small project like this. I rewrote the game from scratch using ALS, a graphics engine for AMOS Professional I released in October 2020 (rewriting the game using CSS, the ALS predecessor, is something I had been wanting to do for ages), keeping it as simple as I could.
I chose the name ArtPazz because the game might actually drive crazy, because "Pazz" (in Italian) sounds similar to "puzz" in "Puzzly"/"puzzle", because I threw some paintings in the mix and because it gave me one more reason to have a good laugh with some of the old friends involved in the ART-PAZZ... erm... ART-PAST project.


TECHNICAL NOTES

As indirectly stated above, ArtPazz has been written with AMOS Professional (version 2.00, to be precise). However, thanks to the self-produced ALS engine (https:www.retream.com/ALS), it is a proper AGA game - in fact, it:
* uses 8 bitplanes;
* uses 24-bit colors;
* allows 6-bit images under a 2-bit overlay with partially transparent colors.

Note: the overlay colors are white, gray and black; that is not due to technical limitations, but to ensure that the overlay looks fine regardless of the hues of the underlying images.

wonderful! :)

Bravo!

Thank you, guys!

Nice little game

Thank you, samo79!


@all

In case you're wondering: it's just a coincidence, and, yes, even people outside of Italy are allowed to post here :D

@saimo
Thank you very much!

You're welcome!

@saimo

Do you think you can do a compatible RTG/OS4 version ?

No, sorry, that would be no fun.

@saimo

congrats! fun little game with some nice tunes which I find makes me relax by making me concentrate on the puzzle pieces instead of whatever BS is/was bothering me

Oh, glad to hear it has also such therapeutic use :D
Have you tried playing with your kids (with adequately-sized tiles, of course)?

@saimo

hehe yes stress relief is definitely therapeutic for me

My daughter who loves art enjoyed playing it and she LOVES the fact she can use her own art in the game! My son on the other hand wasn't too impressed as he needs to see some characters moving around or things trying to kill your character before he gives any game a second look..though must admit I was the same at 13 eh

I'm DELIGHTED to know about your daughter! Thank you so much!
And I do understand your son ;)

@saimo

Working on Follix inspired me some changes also for its brother ArtPazz. While waiting for Follix to be released, enjoy this updated version of ArtPazz!

v1.1 (09.07.2021)
· Changed keyboard handling so that the system keyboard speed is not altered after quitting the game.
· Improved font handling.
· Recompiled against ALS v2.0.
· Touched up music (in particular, removed the A#3 and B3 notes crackling, and lots of pops).
· Improved icons.
· Revised manual.

Just released a new version of ArtPazz - it's "just" a minor maintenance release, but, still, go grab it from https://www.retream.com/ArtPazz ;)

v1.2 (18.07.2021)
* Fixed writes to POTGO: OUTLX and DATLX were set instead of OUTLY and DATLY; POTGO is now managed properly by means of potgo.resource.
* Fixed bug that could cause a graphical glitch in the menus.
* Made a tiny optimization.
* Made minor changes to the directories/files tree.
* Improved manual.

@saimo

A quick heads-up to let you know that I released a couple of littles updates.

v1.4 (20.02.2023)
* Changed the conditions of many If, Until and While statements and turned For ... Next loops into Repeat ... Until loops to have the AMOS Professional Compiler produce shorter and faster code.
* Recompiled against ALS v2.3.

v1.3 (19.02.2023)
* Fixed endless floppy drive motor spinning
* Recompiled against ALS v2.2.
* Optimized executable with custom tool.
* Touched up manual.

https://www.retream.com/ArtPazz
https://retream.itch.io/artpazz

@saimo

thanks for another update