The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga

Classic Amiga Games in Action

Imbedded below are YouTube-hosted playthroughs of a few classic games given prominent mention in Chapter 8.

Defender of the Crown

Wings

Shadow of the Beast

Lemmings

The Menace reconstruction:

If you wish to explore further than the video samples below using a real or emulated Amiga, you may download an archive containing the commented C source code of the reconstruction along with the executable and its associated data files.

Stage 1:

The first stage of the reconstruction use a loop scroll to present an endless scrolling background texture.

Stage 2:

Using dual-playfield mode, we add another scrolling playfield to contain the foreground vegetation and other scenery. We scroll the foreground at twice the speed of the background, producing a realistic parallax effect.

Stage 3:

We add the status panel to the bottom of the display, implementing it as a separate virtual screen.

Stage 4:

We add the player’s ship, which she can control using a mouse or joystick. It is implemented as two attached sprites which we move in lockstep.

Stage 5:

We add the alien enemies. They are drawn into and erased from the background playfield using the blitter and a double-buffering technique.

Stage 6:

We use some unique features of the blitter to detect collisions between the player’s ship and the aliens, destroying the former when its shields are depleted.

Stage 7:

We give the player the ability to shoot back. We once again use the blitter to draw the ship’s laser bolts and to detect collisions between lasers and the aliens.