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A2 #1: The Vaus (II) Awakens

I learned earlier this year that wubsoft - aka Rob Evans - was working on bringing Arkanoid 2: Revenge of Doh to the SAM, as a tribute to the amazing home conversions by Imagine Software, back in 1988. I'd dropped him a line to ask if he was interested in attending RetCon, and it turned out he'd not only already bought his ticket, but that he was hoping to have the game ready to show at the event.

With the conversion based primarily on the Atari ST version - since that was already 16-colour, so most easily adaptable to the SAM - I happened to notice that the Vaus II pod was a whole 1 pixel taller in the ST conversion than it was in the arcade game, though it was also 3 pixels narrower, at 29x9 pixels, versus the arcade's 32x8 pixels. Rob explained that the narrower bat was more convenient for the way the SAM moves the sprite, but that's getting into territory I don't really understand.

As an aside, it always baffled me, as a child, why home conversions of arcade games - particularly those to 16-bit systems like the ST and Amiga - invariably had their graphics entirely redrawn rather than adapting the arcade assets. After all, I know from a couple of high school Work Experience placements that developers (or the publishers, at least) often had the arcade machine on their premises while working on conversions... so why not just... y'know, harvest graphics from the arcade ROMs? Now, as an adult, I know that wasn't as easy back then as it is these days, and there may have been terms in the license that specifically precluded disassembly of the ROMs. That said, one of my favourite pastimes as I was first learning pixel art on the Spectrum was transcribing graphics from arcade screenshots in magazines, and it seems as though very few, if any developers engaged in that longhand approach... Certainly not, going by some of the graphically dire conversions to the Spectrum - and even the ST/Amiga - that hit the market back in the day.

But, getting back to the point, Rob mentioned that he had already gone back to the arcade version to fix a handful of mistakes in the ST graphics so, since I'm pretty much incapable of not interfering when it comes to graphical elements in other people's SAM Coupé games, I offered to adapt the arcade assets to fit the SAM conversion's requirement for a 16 colour, 29 pixel wide default Vaus II, while also returning it to 8 pixels in height and retaining the existing palette. The shrunk pod is 24 pixels wide (same as the arcade), and it extends to 37 pixels wide (versus 48 pixels in the arcade game). The reduced height, coupled with a slight adjustment to the shadow, recovered 2, possibly even 3 pixel rows of vertical space between the bat and the lowest bricks. Probably won't make a massive difference in gameplay terms, but it's there nonetheless.

On the off-chance that it might prove useful later, I also provided him a set of narrower bricks, so the full 13 bricks could be accommodated while still leaving room on one side of the screen for the scores to be displayed horizontally.

Additionally, while the ST and Amiga conversions both use their respective machine's system font, I put together a character set for the SAM based on the font used in the arcade game - a very common arcade typeface, originating in the mid-1970s - supplemented with a set of lower-case characters appended by Namco in the 1980s. 

What can I say? I'm a font nerd, so the use of system fonts in commercially-released software is an absolute bête noire to me, and it will marr an otherwise excellent conversion. Even the Spectrum version of Arkanoid 2 used a custom font and, given the option, I'm sure most people would prefer the SAM version to feature an arcade-authentic font over the Atari ST system font.

While Rob's tribute to Imagine and Taito is still in its fairly early stages, it's looking great so far. What I found particularly interesting is that he's retained the arcade game's 13 brick wide play area, just like the ST version, despite the SAM's smaller resolution (256x192 pixels, versus 320x200 pixels), where other 8-bit versions (ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, NES) reduced it to 11 bricks across. Naturally, some vertical space is lost, as on most of the home versions, since the arcade game runs in Tate Mode (224x256 pixels).

As another aside, I only learned last month that 'Tate Mode' comes from the Japanese, 縦 ("tah-teh"), meaning 'vertical', as opposed to being 'Tate' (tayt), like the art galleries.

I currently have no reason to anticipate any further involvement in this project, but even this is a more positive usage of adapted arcade game assets than those I've been reducing to 16 colours for my own amusement over the last couple of years.

You can follow Rob's progress on his website, and via his YouTube channel.

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