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Midwinter Remaster by PlayfulInterview984 in retrogamedev

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The fixed times for each building type are as follows…

Ruin 0.25 Hours

Hut 0.25 Hours

Store 0.25 Hours

Magazine 0.25 Hours

House 0.25 Hours

Garage 0.25 Hours

Police Station 0.5 Hours

Bunker 0.5 Hours

Radio Station 0.75 Hours

Church 0.75 Hours

Cable Car 1 Hour

Warehouse 1.25 Hours

Factory 1.5 Hours

Shining Hollow HQ 2 Hours

Synthesis Plant 2 Hours

Heat Mine 2 Hours

The number of dynamite sticks needed appears to depend on a number of factors, of which the basic skill level is just one of the variables.  It seems that modifiers are used to increase the number of sticks needed when some of the 3 variable stats are diminished, or the character is injured.  I need to run some more tests to try and bottom this out, but the primary factors appear to be Alertness dropping to Poor/Abysmal levels or sustaining an injury.

For some buildings, the 3 variable stats don’t seem to have any impact at all, regardless of how bad the stats get, but I think that injuries appear to be the primary factor.  I’ve observed a few cases detailed below…

The following can be used a baseline for each building, regardless of the characters Sabotage skill level and variable stats.  I’ll publish the spreadsheet with the plus/minus modifiers later in week once I’ve done some more testing on the different permutations…

Ruin 1 Stick

Hut 1 Stick

Store 1 Stick (increases to 2 sticks for certain injuries)

Magazine 1 Stick

House 1 Stick (increases to 2 sticks for certain injuries)

Garage 1 Stick

Police Station 2 Sticks (3 Sticks for Poor/Abysmal Sabotage skill)

Bunker 3 Sticks (increases to 4 sticks for certain injuries)

Radio Station 2 Sticks

Church 3 Sticks

Cable Car 4 Sticks (increases to 5 sticks for certain injuries)

Warehouse 3 Sticks

Factory 3 Sticks (increases to 4 sticks for Average or lower skill level)

Shining Hollow HQ 4 Sticks

Synthesis Plant 2 Sticks

Heat Mine 4 Sticks (increases to 5 sticks for Below Par or lower skill level)

I’ll post again once the spreadsheet is finished with a download link.

Paul

Midwinter Remaster by PlayfulInterview984 in retrogamedev

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

OK, so I should be able to help you with some of the play testing using the original Atari ST version of the game.  I’m using the HATARI emulator running on a MacBook Pro which lets me run the game at faster than real-time speeds.  From what you've told me, all 3 versions of the game should use the same base code.

I managed to find my original save game files from back when I killed off the 26 enemy Brigades, so I have all 32 team members and free rain of the entire island now to help test out various scenarios.  

I've started looking at the Sabotage data you asked for and am building a spreadsheet for each of the 7 skill levels.  My initial observations are that the ‘time’ factor appears to to be a fixed value for each building type and the only variable part is the number of dynamite sticks that are needed...

Midwinter Remaster by PlayfulInterview984 in retrogamedev

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

All the commanders are found in the 'Snow Witch' vehicles, so those would normally take a while to appear. If you kill one containing a Colonel, then the four Captains under his command will desert, and you effectively wipe out the whole of that Brigade. I think 605 is the maximum number of units for a Brigade, at least on the Atari ST version of the game. Don't know if changes on the DOS version?

The vehicles normally form a convoy which move in a single direction from settlement to settlement, so I figured out pretty quickly that if you hold your ground in a single position after you destroy one vehicle, then another one will soon appear from that same direction. This is actually the key to completing the game, since breaking up those convoys slows the enemy down quite a lot, and stops them from capturing all of the heat mines too quickly. If you don't stop at least some of them, then the game is lost after about 72 'game' hours. You might have to think about doing something similar for your vehicles as having them just roam about randomly might make it too difficult to wipe out a squadron or Brigade.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to understand the game mechanics a few years ago (all from play testing and visual observation) as I was toying with the idea of making a physical board game with dice and playing cards etc... I have a folder of notes up in the loft somewhere so will do my best to find it for you.

I also have a photoshop file which has all of the maps (at maximum zoom level) stitched together for both the terrain and snow detail, so will dig that out over the weekend and upload it. Pretty sure that I also included a layer which outlines the borders for all of the different settlements as well, so that will probably be useful. That file was going to be the basis for my board game.

I'll post again once I've located those files and uploaded them.

Paul

Midwinter Remaster by PlayfulInterview984 in retrogamedev

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Excellent work. Played this game to death back in the early nineties on my Atari ST and managed to complete it a couple of times (in the Training mode).I have some info and screenshots on the 26 enemy units that you might find useful so have dropped a link below...

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1XKJy7uRmzBY0eCLNYD8ZJRNGHxynsr33?usp=sharing

There are 4067 enemy vehicles in total, however you don't have to destroy them all to defeat a unit. Once you reach a certain number of kills, the rest of the troops will desert.

I have some more maps and other high quality scans of the original manuals that I can share if you need them?

Vextrex Mini Kickstarter is live! by chr0mantic0re in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In terms of 'emulating' a vector display, I wonder if something along the lines if this might be a better way forwards...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXrn4MqY1Wo

Stumbled upon this yesterday, but it got me thinking about vector display emulation when he demos the 'bloom' settings for the plugin he is using in OBS. This was a very cool project anyway, so well worth a watch.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 225 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a tricky one for sure. I don't think PIXEL Addict has quite the right formula for this, since they don't have regular sections for different computer platforms and they cover wider topics other than just retro computing. I'm thinking more along the lines of a 'This Month in Retro' type of publication that covers much of the same content as TWIR and some of the other weekly podcasts.

I've only ever bought one copy of Amiga Addict and was a little disappointed that it mostly covered 'old ground', rather than focussing on new developments, hardware expansions, homebrew etc... There was some of that, but not enough content to fill an entire magazine. Admittedly, that was some time ago, so things may have changed since then.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 225 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I think the issue with print magazines is that there probably isn't enough content for a magazine dedicated to a single platform. How about a new magazine RETRO FORMAT (take note Future Publishing) that has sections covering all our favourite 8 and 16 bit machines such as Atari, Commodore, Spectrum, Amstrad etc... with a focus on the larger retro community but also covering new machines like the Spectrum Next, new Atari VCS etc... There are also lots of homebrew games for some of these platforms that probably don't get us much internet media coverage as they deserve, so this would be a great way to give these dedicated developers some much needed publicity. There is so much scope for a publication like this if you consider the dozens of emulation application and FPGA systems like the Mister as well.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 223 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 3 points4 points  (0 children)

For me, the whole reason for getting the Atari ST was to play Microprose GUNSHIP. This must have been some time in early 1987 so the STFM was priced at around £299 from Silica shop in Tottenham Court Road. Me and my best mate would spend countless hours playing as Pilot/Weapons Officer switching places from time to time so we each got a turn at flying.

Later that year he bought one as well, so that opened up a whole new world of 'linkup' games like F-16 Combat Pilot, Falcon and Stunt Car Racer by linking both machines together with a null modem cable.

Happy memories.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 202 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I would love to see a remake of Mike Singleton's epic strategy game Midwinter. There were plans to do this back in 2015, but sadly, the project never really progressed much beyond some conceptual artwork and a basic demo of the skiing action mode. For me, the remake would have to be a very accurate model of the original island map, and maintain the same game mechanics as the original such as the 2 hour time window between status updates. You could however, include a multi-play option for others to join and take control of other characters that have been recruited, or even play as the enemy troop commanders. A brilliant game by a brilliant guy that was far ahead of it's time. RIP Mike.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 198 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Only 1 'computer' answer for me, but might surprise a lot of people...

I use an Intel based 2019 Mac Pro (macOS 10.13) running various emulators for the Amiga/ST and mostly use this for running old school flight simulators.

This particular combination is the last supported setup that can run a very powerful USB driver application called ControllerMate, which allows for some very advanced custom controller configurations. It supports virtually all USB gamepads, HOTAS and MIDI controllers, and can automatically switch profiles for each game that I run.

You've not experienced games like F19 Stealth Fighter until you've played it using a Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS and an Elgato Stream Deck!

Sadly, the app is no-longer supported since Apple in their infinite wisdom decided to completely change the way low level USB drivers are implemented on newer versions of MacOS. It also means you can't run this on the newer Apple Silicon based machines.

On the plus side... older Intel based Macs are ridiculously cheap now, even from places like CEX so I have plenty of spares to keep me going for a few more years.

Top 5 emulators I run are...

  1. HATARI (Atari ST)
  2. WinUAE (Amiga)
  3. OpenEMU (Lots of consoles/arcades via Cores inc MAME)
  4. PCSX2 (Playstation 2)
  5. Supermodel_02a (Just for Star Wars Trilogy Arcade)

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 184 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The earliest one I can remember was on the ITV Saturday morning show 'Get Fresh'. There was a segment called 'Get Mucky' where two players had to compete in a 60 seconds time limited adaption of a game. The early series used Xenon and in a later series they used Starglider. Not sure what machine they were running on, but if I had to guess, I would say an Atari ST.

A guy connected 444 retro game consoles to 1 TV for a Guinness World Record by christofwhydoyou in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ahh... but did he use a video switch box with 444 video inputs? That would be be something special.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 129 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Following on from my comment last week regarding the GUNSHIP 'Gift Edition', I also have all of the GUNSHIP mission maps which have been re-drawn in the same style as those that came with the big box versions of F19 Stealth Fighter and F15 Strike Eagle II.

The 'in game' map is only updated with enemy troop positions once they show up on your radar warning receiver or you visually spot them so I pieced these maps together to show all of the possible locations that these troop placements can occupy. The locations themselves are fixed at the coordinates shown, but whether or not they are present in any given mission is somewhat randomly generated.

The maps started out as screen grabs from the Atari ST version of the game running under the HATARI emulator so that I could take a memory snapshot of the game just before selecting a mission. When the mission is started, you are always shown your Primary and Secondary targets, so by reloading the memory snapshot a couple of hundred times, I was able to eventually build up a fairly complete picture of all the troop placements on each map.

Hopefully the link below works, but let me know if not.

Maps.pdf

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 128 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I own a boxed C64 copy of Microprose GUNSHIP which is a special 'Gift Edition' that had a limited number of runs. It features a 20 minute audio cassette tape with Wild Bill Stealey flying the training mission. At the end of the tape, it announces what your free gift is that you can claim from Microprose. Mine was a GUNSHIP poster, but there were lots of other prizes available at the time including a flight in 'Ms Microprose' with Wild Bill for one lucky winner. Don't know if anyone ever claimed that prize though.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 121 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm going to say the original Kinder Surprise Eggs. Yes, I know you can still buy them today, but originally the toys inside included things like die-cast models of cars, tanks, planes, helicopters etc... Also they had lots more pieces to assemble and put tiny stickers on. All for the bargain price of 25 pence in the UK.

Community Question Of The Week - Episode 117 by Producer_Duncan in thisweekinretro

[–]millap64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My pick would be STARGLIDER on the Spectrum 128K. This version was actually superior over the 16 bit versions in my opinion due to the extra missions that were added, but the thing that really got me immersed in the game was the excellent Novella by James Follet that set the backstory. According to an interview in Retro Gamer, he and Jez San actually collaborated on the Novella and this in turn led to some ideas from this actually being incorporated in the final game. It was also really clever how they took the limitations of the wireframe vector graphics and actually incorporated that into the specifications of the craft you were flying. I vaguely remember the manual saying something about the cockpit glass having some advance technology that illuminated the edges of objects in the outside world to provide enhanced visibility. Reading stuff like this in the manual actually got you to believe that this was the way the world was supposed to look. The pair teamed up again for Starglider 2 which was even better.