7 ms·

I love the imaginative, alt-history attention to detail: rather than a derivative clone of Wolfenstein or Doom, this looks like something The Bitmap Brothers mi

I love the imaginative, alt-history attention to detail: rather than a derivative clone of Wolfenstein or Doom, this looks like something The Bitmap Brothers might have produced in 1993 if they'd had access to another 30 years of community knowledge optimizing for the Amiga's great-for-2D but not-great-for-3D architecture.

lttlrck 3y ago
Yes, exactly this. What a masterpiece.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
Look, I don't want to talk down on this beautiful thing...but let's be honest: it's barely more than a doom reskin. It's not trying to be, either.
- badsectoracula 3y ago
  I think the Bitmap Brothers mention is because the 2D graphics feel very Amiga-ish / BB-ish. When i read the comment i wondered "why the Bitmap Brothers reference?" but once i saw the screenshot i thought "ah, i see". Compare the textures/2D artwork of, say, Doom, Duke3D or Blood and then the sprites of something like Chaos Engine, Gods (even the DOS versions) or even some of their 90s PC games like Z and i think you'll see how the visual style of Grind is closer to that of Bitmap Brothers' games than to Doom/Duke3D/Blood/etc.
- whizzter 3y ago
  It's on a Amiga 500, it has about 3 MIPS of performance or about 4x less than a 486sx25 that has about 12 (yes, 68k had a couple of extra registers). On top of that the Amiga500 graphics chip placed all graphics in bitplanes, that was a great move for just copying 2d graphics in the mid 80s with the help of simple hardware acceleration, but it really became a pain for anyone wanting to do 3d graphics. To call it a reskin is quite a disparagement of the amount of work they've probably had to put in to get in running decently (unless they figured out a very clever way to make the hardware do a fair chunk of the work for them, kudos either way). And as others have pointed out, it's that they've chosen a more "amiga-y" artstyle.
  - nxobject 3y ago
    My knowledge of the Amiga chipset is very cursory, but peeking at the source code, there are some blitter routines that look like they're used for texture scaling (i.e. stretching + drawing vertical strips/walls.) I don't know whether that (alone) accounts for the significant speedups needed. A good comparison would be to any bottlenecks the original NeXT engine, which had the 68k, but didn't have any of the accelerators... https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadtool/src/blitter.cpp https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/...
    - whizzter 3y ago
      Hmh, browsing a bit it seems that the Dreadtool part of the source seems to be some kind of editor built with Visual C++. The Dreadmake folders seems to have actual Amiga sources. https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadmake/src/dread_codegen.c https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/... (This feels reminiscent of the "generate-y-fillers" that ID did for Wolf3d) https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadmake/src/dread_asm_draw.s https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/... (Browsing this reminds me of Fabien Sanglard's Doom/Duke3d walkthroughs)
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    > To call it a reskin is quite a disparagement No it isn't! You just outlined all the reasons that a Doom reskin on the Anus is impressive! > And as others have pointed out, it's that they've chosen a more "amiga-y" artstyle. That's great! I wasn't replying to that.
    - PcChip 3y ago
      The Anus... they're really taking this "Doom runs on everything" quote seriously!
    - whizzter 3y ago
      A reskin within games is usually defined as using the same binary with different assets, even a shared source code lineage(Doom source used in Heretic/Hexen or especially Quake to Halflife) would stretch that definition. In this case I doubt there is any shared code at all other than conceptual ideas. If you are willing to go around proclaiming that Rust is just a reskin of Java then sure, I'll give that you're willing to equate wildly different things. (I didn't use C# and Java because those are probably closer in lineage due to J++ than this game and Doom)
- Zardoz84 3y ago
  in a Amiga 500! This is amazing!
- vidarh 3y ago
  Consider that Doom is sometimes blamed for single-handedly causing the downfall of the Amiga's position in gaming because of how long it took to get even a half-decent Doom-like game for it, as a result of how badly mismatched the Amiga graphics chipset was for 3D graphics. That is why is this is impressive. The number of gamers who switched to PC's just because of Doom was huge. After Doom everything was measured against it for a long time. Even many diehard Amiga fans suddenly decided the game was up and switched. That your reaction is that it is "barely more than a Doom reskin" demonstrates why it is incredible. To the extent that if a "barely more than a Doom reskin" had been achieved near the time Doom came out, computing history might have looked quite different (though Commodore was so badly mismanaged at this point that they'd probably still have managed to mess things up even if they'd been handed this kind of reprieve on a silver platter, but one can dream)
- mock-possum 3y ago
  It doesn’t have any of DOOM’s verticality though - this is far closer to a slightly upgraded Wolfenstein imo
KingOfCoders 3y ago
Playing Wolfenstein3D on a friends PC was one of the reasons I thought "It's over for the Amiga" [0]. When talking to Commodore management at conferences back then, they didn't want to see 3D coming [1] (For reference I had a A4000/40 Retina(Z3) around that time). So it is nice to see this :-) [0] Both demo scene coders [1] Funnily I was a Sega Saturn zealot around the time too, which was also 100% 2D focused and Sega didn't see 3D coming (Though I loved Panzer Dragoon, a 3D game squeezed out of 2D hardware, and Daytona was great too). And yes there was Starglider2 for the Amiga (Loved the space whales, was recently reminded of them when watching Ahsoka).
- wiz21c 3y ago
  Sega didn't see 3D coming ? What about Virtua Racing (1992!) ?
  - KingOfCoders 3y ago
    Yes you're right, my wording wasn't exact. I've meant 3D taking over the home market (and arcade market) and killing 2D plattform games and RPGs. Sega was very successful running "3D" games on 2D hardware (that could scale sprites, like Outrun or Space Harrier). So they were aware of 3D from early on. But they've released the Saturn with a main 2D focus, squeezed out some 3D games (Panzer Dragoon, Nights into Dreams, Tomb Raider, Burning Rangers and some arcade conversions) - the takeover was going on, people realized, with Mario 64 and Wipeout for example - and then added 3D hardware to the Dreamcast. But if they had anticipated the taking over of 3D, the Saturn would have been the Dreamcast (or not, I think my first PC 3D card was a Voodoo and that was after the Saturn). The first 3D I remember having played was Major Havoc or I robot - so yes there were "real" 3D games in the market, but 3D completly took over the home market, except handheld like the Gameboy/Advanced/DS/... (I think the 2D revival came with the indy developer movement, but I'm not sure). Also see e.G. the transition from Bards Tale 3D (small window) to Dungeon Master 3D (main window, 3D interaction) and then Ultima Underworld 3D (all in, tilt, up/down) as an example of 3Dification of games and genres.
    - anthk 3y ago
Razengan 3y ago
Loved the metallic palettes of the Bitmap Brothers! Speedball, Z (one of the best RTSs), Xenon (one of the best shoot-em-ups)

lttlrck 3y ago

Yes, exactly this. What a masterpiece.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

Look, I don't want to talk down on this beautiful thing...but let's be honest: it's barely more than a doom reskin. It's not trying to be, either.

badsectoracula 3y ago
I think the Bitmap Brothers mention is because the 2D graphics feel very Amiga-ish / BB-ish. When i read the comment i wondered "why the Bitmap Brothers reference?" but once i saw the screenshot i thought "ah, i see". Compare the textures/2D artwork of, say, Doom, Duke3D or Blood and then the sprites of something like Chaos Engine, Gods (even the DOS versions) or even some of their 90s PC games like Z and i think you'll see how the visual style of Grind is closer to that of Bitmap Brothers' games than to Doom/Duke3D/Blood/etc.
whizzter 3y ago
It's on a Amiga 500, it has about 3 MIPS of performance or about 4x less than a 486sx25 that has about 12 (yes, 68k had a couple of extra registers). On top of that the Amiga500 graphics chip placed all graphics in bitplanes, that was a great move for just copying 2d graphics in the mid 80s with the help of simple hardware acceleration, but it really became a pain for anyone wanting to do 3d graphics. To call it a reskin is quite a disparagement of the amount of work they've probably had to put in to get in running decently (unless they figured out a very clever way to make the hardware do a fair chunk of the work for them, kudos either way). And as others have pointed out, it's that they've chosen a more "amiga-y" artstyle.
- nxobject 3y ago
  My knowledge of the Amiga chipset is very cursory, but peeking at the source code, there are some blitter routines that look like they're used for texture scaling (i.e. stretching + drawing vertical strips/walls.) I don't know whether that (alone) accounts for the significant speedups needed. A good comparison would be to any bottlenecks the original NeXT engine, which had the 68k, but didn't have any of the accelerators... https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadtool/src/blitter.cpp https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/...
  - whizzter 3y ago
    Hmh, browsing a bit it seems that the Dreadtool part of the source seems to be some kind of editor built with Visual C++. The Dreadmake folders seems to have actual Amiga sources. https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadmake/src/dread_codegen.c https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/... (This feels reminiscent of the "generate-y-fillers" that ID did for Wolf3d) https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/dreadmake/src/dread_asm_draw.s https://github.com/Krzysiek-K/Dread-source-drop/blob/master/... (Browsing this reminds me of Fabien Sanglard's Doom/Duke3d walkthroughs)
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  > To call it a reskin is quite a disparagement No it isn't! You just outlined all the reasons that a Doom reskin on the Anus is impressive! > And as others have pointed out, it's that they've chosen a more "amiga-y" artstyle. That's great! I wasn't replying to that.
  - PcChip 3y ago
    The Anus... they're really taking this "Doom runs on everything" quote seriously!
  - whizzter 3y ago
    A reskin within games is usually defined as using the same binary with different assets, even a shared source code lineage(Doom source used in Heretic/Hexen or especially Quake to Halflife) would stretch that definition. In this case I doubt there is any shared code at all other than conceptual ideas. If you are willing to go around proclaiming that Rust is just a reskin of Java then sure, I'll give that you're willing to equate wildly different things. (I didn't use C# and Java because those are probably closer in lineage due to J++ than this game and Doom)
Zardoz84 3y ago
in a Amiga 500! This is amazing!
vidarh 3y ago
Consider that Doom is sometimes blamed for single-handedly causing the downfall of the Amiga's position in gaming because of how long it took to get even a half-decent Doom-like game for it, as a result of how badly mismatched the Amiga graphics chipset was for 3D graphics. That is why is this is impressive. The number of gamers who switched to PC's just because of Doom was huge. After Doom everything was measured against it for a long time. Even many diehard Amiga fans suddenly decided the game was up and switched. That your reaction is that it is "barely more than a Doom reskin" demonstrates why it is incredible. To the extent that if a "barely more than a Doom reskin" had been achieved near the time Doom came out, computing history might have looked quite different (though Commodore was so badly mismanaged at this point that they'd probably still have managed to mess things up even if they'd been handed this kind of reprieve on a silver platter, but one can dream)
mock-possum 3y ago
It doesn’t have any of DOOM’s verticality though - this is far closer to a slightly upgraded Wolfenstein imo

KingOfCoders 3y ago

Playing Wolfenstein3D on a friends PC was one of the reasons I thought "It's over for the Amiga" [0]. When talking to Commodore management at conferences back then, they didn't want to see 3D coming [1] (For reference I had a A4000/40 Retina(Z3) around that time). So it is nice to see this :-) [0] Both demo scene coders [1] Funnily I was a Sega Saturn zealot around the time too, which was also 100% 2D focused and Sega didn't see 3D coming (Though I loved Panzer Dragoon, a 3D game squeezed out of 2D hardware, and Daytona was great too). And yes there was Starglider2 for the Amiga (Loved the space whales, was recently reminded of them when watching Ahsoka).

wiz21c 3y ago
Sega didn't see 3D coming ? What about Virtua Racing (1992!) ?
- KingOfCoders 3y ago
  Yes you're right, my wording wasn't exact. I've meant 3D taking over the home market (and arcade market) and killing 2D plattform games and RPGs. Sega was very successful running "3D" games on 2D hardware (that could scale sprites, like Outrun or Space Harrier). So they were aware of 3D from early on. But they've released the Saturn with a main 2D focus, squeezed out some 3D games (Panzer Dragoon, Nights into Dreams, Tomb Raider, Burning Rangers and some arcade conversions) - the takeover was going on, people realized, with Mario 64 and Wipeout for example - and then added 3D hardware to the Dreamcast. But if they had anticipated the taking over of 3D, the Saturn would have been the Dreamcast (or not, I think my first PC 3D card was a Voodoo and that was after the Saturn). The first 3D I remember having played was Major Havoc or I robot - so yes there were "real" 3D games in the market, but 3D completly took over the home market, except handheld like the Gameboy/Advanced/DS/... (I think the 2D revival came with the indy developer movement, but I'm not sure). Also see e.G. the transition from Bards Tale 3D (small window) to Dungeon Master 3D (main window, 3D interaction) and then Ultima Underworld 3D (all in, tilt, up/down) as an example of 3Dification of games and genres.
  - anthk 3y ago

Razengan 3y ago

Loved the metallic palettes of the Bitmap Brothers! Speedball, Z (one of the best RTSs), Xenon (one of the best shoot-em-ups)