JASPP to release additional Archimedes titles

JASPP have agreed with the former owners of Artex Software, Eterna, Minerva and VOTI to freely release their original Archimedes titles through the JASPP project, some of which are now available for download on the JASPP development forum. Along with the public release of some of the titles covered by these agreements, JASPP have also released ADFFS 2.50 beta which allows most of the newly available titles to run on the Pi.

In addition to releasing titles in their original form, JASPP are also looking to update some of the titles by Artex Software and VOTI to be natively 32bit, the first of which will be SunBurst by VOTI – a work in progress video will soon be posted on the JASPP YouTube channel.

Nathan from Visions of the Impossible had this to say – “It has been a very long time since we have trawled through our VOTI archives. It brought a few sad feelings but also many fond memories of our hey-day. Thanks to JASPP for contacting us and for sorting SunBurst to run on recent hardware. Thanks to our VOTI fans of days gone by, without you it just wouldn’t have been worth it.”

Speaking on behalf of JASPP, Jon Abbott had this to say – “I have to personally thank Jan from Artex Software, Frédéric and François from Eterna, Nova and Meryln from Minerva and Nathan and Owain from VOTI for their support of the project and enthusiasm to see their titles working again. I also have to thank the JASPP test team, who have put many hours into testing these titles on the Pi in recent months and finally thanks in particular go to Steve Harrison for his work on the Eterna game music.”

Jon Abbott adds this concerning Eterna – “Eterna were one of the few companies developing games for the Archimedes outside of the UK and it’s a privilege to make them available again through JASPP. The games themselves are some of the most devilishly difficult on the platform and will keep gamers frustrated for hours, it’s also fair to say that most are unique in both design and technical accomplishment.”

Some of the titles covered under these agreements include:
Ballarena
Battle Tank
BlastOn
Botkiller
Botkiller 2
Bubble Fair
Bug Hunter & Moondash
Bug Hunter in Space
Cartoon Line part one
Casino
Caverns
Exodus
Fine Racer
Freddy’s Folly
HoverBod
Ibix the Viking
Jet Fighter
KerBang!
The Legend of the Lost Temple
Maddingly Hall
MICE
Minotaur
Missile Control
Orion
Poizone
Prime Solver
RedShift
Rockfall
SunBurst
Tactic
Talisman
Thundermonk

Awesome work. Truly awesome.
I dread to think how you managed to get software from the Halycon days of Acorn to work on the nice new modern RISC OS 5.

I’ll be ‘testing’ a few of these I’m sure.

SunBurst work in progress video is now up on YouTube

Thanks for ADFFS, the games and the YouTube videos :)
Soon more game on RISC OS 5 than on Raspbian (not very difficult)…

Did you get the source code to Exodus or Botkiller? It would be really nice to play them natively on modern 32-bit systems.

Didn’t check the forum in a while…do you support the Pi 2 also by now ?

Only classic Pi is currently supported. ARMv7 support needs a lot more work according to Jon.

A preliminary release of SunBurst is now available on the JASPP site.

Wow, thanks Jon! Can Exodus get the same treatment?

Also what’s the situation with Spheres of Chaos? Is there any hope of seeing that 32-bitted?

Can Exodus get the same treatment?

That’s the plan, provided Jan can locate the source code. I’m certainly down to look at sorting out the sound Modules and 32bitting the Tracker Module.

Also what’s the situation with Spheres of Chaos? Is there any hope of seeing that 32-bitted?

Its not a game I’ve looked at yet, I can probably get the original running under ADFFS but don’t have rights to release it. Release 2 IIRC required 12mb so won’t run under ADFFS (it has an 8mb limit)

If someone wants to put me in touch with the rights owner, I’ll see if they’re willing to let me 32bit and release it – assuming the source is available of course.

That’s the plan, provided Jan can locate the source code.

Oh, great! Its good of Jan to be supportive of this. :) I liked his games. The first Botkiller was a lot of fun too.

If someone wants to put me in touch with the rights owner, I’ll see if they’re willing to let me 32bit and release it – assuming the source is available of course.

There are contact details for Iain McLeod at the bottom of the Spheres of Chaos website also there are some details in the download archive.

Its a game that would be really nice to run natively. I used to play it a lot under Aemulor on an Iyonix, but there were rendering glitches and the framerate grew choppy when there was a lot of stuff on screen.

I used occasionally to play Spheres of Chaos a long time ago on a RISCPC. I do not usually play games (fingers no longer agile enough), so I hope it is a testament to how brilliant its graphics are that I have a Windows version on my XP Notebook. It would be splendid to have it running on armv7 machines.

The author used to live in Warrington (town where I live) but I haven’t heard from him in quite a few years. At the time he was looking for PC games work, so I suspect he may have moved on from here as a number of the big Warrington-area studios closed during the 2000s. When I have a chance, I can put some feelers out for you, as techically we’re still the retailer for the “current” RISC OS build I think.

I’ll see what the author says and then pick up with you Andrew. It’s a similar situation with some of the Artex titles, re my email on 23rd May.

I can put some feelers out for you

Thanks. I am the last person qualified to give opinions about games, but I was impressed by a number of aspects of Spheres of Chaos. There was a wonderfully varied bestiary of aggressive nasties to zap; some accompanied by sinister sounds. The game starts easy, giving the gamer time to learn, as the challenges increase in difficulty. I should love to know more about the algorithms behind the swarming activity of some of the nasties. I thought it was imaginative and visually impressive.

What do you use to capture the videos Jon?

(I am the last person qualified to give opinions about games, but I was impressed by a number of aspects of Spheres of Chaos….)

It slowed down Aemulor development quite a lot, because I lost hours, er, ‘testing’ :) It got the highest commendation I can award any software, that of wishing that I had been the one who’d written it.

What do you use to capture the videos Jon?

I use an AVerMedia Game Capture HD II

Tree Trimming, Electricians? Talks about the games, then link to completely unrelated.

Generalised nature of comments, are these real people and really about RISC OS?

Talk about something vaguely on topic (especially being friendly and positive and thanking the person for their hard work), then try to slip in a link to something completely unrelated – it’s a common spam technique.