Turrican II: A free and unofficial remake of the PC-DOS version of Turrican 2 for the Amiga
Reading Time: 4 minutesThe Amiga was a computer but also a game machine, and for those who have the original computers still running, or using an emulator, new games are still making an appearance. Such as this update to a 90’s PC game (Turrican 2), which is called Turrican II
The Amiga Was a Computer but also a Video Game Machine
Video games are big business and everybody knows that to be true. But there was a time in the early days of gaming at home where video game consoles didn’t look all that great. Enter the Amiga, which was actually a full fledged computer so far ahead of its time that few even realized it; what with being able to multitask and filled with special chips for video and sound synthesis that made the PCs and Macs of the day look puny.
So we’re here to talk about the Amiga’s gaming abilities — which became full blown amazing for its time in the late 80’s-early 90’s because there was a huge multitude of games with great characters and great sound. So what if there was a computer keyboard — as far as most Amiga buyers thought, ‘This was a helluva game machine.’ And it was. In fact the Amiga never went away, despite the tech itself being well over 30+ years old for those with original machines. And emulation has shown up as well — although it took a while for the emulation to start looking good (we’re talking about the recent appearance of the A500 mini, which emulates the look but more importantly the playability of the best selling Amiga 500). And as noted earlier games continue to be made for the Amiga. Which brings us to Turrican 2, a 90’s game for the PC but is now better. Because it is for the Amiga and called Turrican II.
So we asked the creator, Alastair Murray, to tell us more.
Alastair Murray Responds
‘The Amiga holds a special place in my heart. Although I started with 8 bit computers, the Amiga arrived at an age for me when I would play games with my friends, and started to learn to program my own games for it. I hadn't used one in 20 years but recently felt the desire to revisit it for the memories.The games I made when I was a child were low quality, AMOS games, which did not support AGA. I decided I wanted to make something of a higher quality, specifically for AGA Amigas. I happened to come across the PC version of Turrican 2. It used 256 colour artwork suitable for AGA Amigas. Turrican 2 was one of my favourite games, and so it fell into place that my project would be a rewrite of Turrican 2 for the Amiga, using the PC versions artwork.’
A Career Started With the Amiga
‘I would program Amiga games for myself and a few friends when I was a child. Some of the earlier programs I made for the Amiga were The Turtleminator, and the game making software Backbone. Most of them were not very good, but I enjoyed it and it was practice for what eventually became my career. I then went into making PC and console games for many years. I revisited the Amiga only in the last few years and essentially had to re-learn how to use it, and how to program for it.’
‘I started to learn how the hardware worked, the many quirks of the Amiga including its strengths and weaknesses, and also had to teach myself 68k ASM. It was a very different experience than anything I had made previously, and I enjoyed the new challenges. It was the challenge that was my main motivation.’
Updates and Changes
‘A lot of the changes were just to modernise some elements of the game. The original only supported one button joysticks, and only ran from floppy disk. Modern Amiga gamers want to be able to play with joypads, or multi-button joysticks, and want to be able to play from hard disk as well as floppy.’
‘So a lot of time went on the controller options for the game for example.I also found that the PC version was missing various features of the Amiga original, such as some parallax backgrounds and other special effects. I restored these in order to make my version ‘the best of both worlds’.Finally I added a number of new difficulty levels and game modes, as well as some extra secrets that were not in the original game. The idea here was to give veteran players of the original game something new to try.’
The Appeal of the Amiga
‘There is a simplicity of games from the Amiga era, when they were made by just a few people, and fit on a floppy disk. This makes them more fun to develop than modern games. Additionally, programming for old hardware is a very different challenge than modern programming, something which I found rewarding.The Amiga has many weaknesses compared to the game consoles that appeared a few years after it, but the design of the Amigas custom chips gives it a lot of flexibility, and inventive programming lets you push the boundaries of what is possible.’
For more about Turrican II, go to https://sonicslothgames.itch.io/turrican2aga
Ref: hubpages
MediaDownloader.net -> Free Online Video Downloader, Download Any Video From YouTube, VK, Vimeo, Twitter, Twitch, Tumblr, Tiktok, Telegram, TED, Streamable, Soundcloud, Snapchat, Share, Rumble, Reddit, PuhuTV, Pinterest, Periscope, Ok.ru, MxTakatak, Mixcloud, Mashable, LinkedIn, Likee, Kwai, Izlesene, Instagram, Imgur, IMDB, Ifunny, Gaana, Flickr, Febspot, Facebook, ESPN, Douyin, Dailymotion, Buzzfeed, BluTV, Blogger, Bitchute, Bilibili, Bandcamp, Akıllı, 9GAG