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CPCRetroDev 2018 – results and 41 new games

Amstrad CPC, Development, Game 2 Responses »

Nov 102018

Wow… what a great game development competition – again! And the best of all: I was allowed to be in the jury which was a great honor for me. But let’s talk about the games… I guess that this competition has rised the bar of the quality of the entries again and the students used ASM instead of C. Finally the games Operation Alexandria by 4MHz (1st), Jarlac by Retrobytes Productions (2nd) and Legend of Steel by TOD Studios (3rd) won the competition. And they really, really, really deserve it, but download them (download link below) and you can see it by yourself.

My personal 2nd place (I had to vote for the playability), the game Taulellets by Vicente Jimenez, was finally ranked 17 – anyway, I still like it very much and I will play it from time to time for sure. It made me come back during the test of the other games to play a short round to get past the next level :-).

If you want to participate on the CPCRetroDev next year, be sure to download the games and have a look at the documentations in the games folder. All the developers wrote a small “Making Of” and all games contain the source code. So this is obviously a great learning resource for everyone who wants to code for the Amstrad CPC.

But enough from me… here are the results of the CPCRetroDev 2018 game development competition:

Position	Game	Group	Result
1	Operation Alexandra	4MHz	(393) Best Game, Carlos Abril Mention, Gominolas Mention, Relevo Mention
2	Jarlac	Retrobytes Productions	(380) 2nd Best Game, Pablo Ariza Mention
3	Legend of Steel	TOD Studios	(283) 3rd Best Game
4	The Adventures of Timothy Gunn	CNGSoft	(278) 4th Best Game
5	OPQA vs. QAOP: The Final Battle	Manuel Sagra	(261)
6	77 Attempts	Unknown Design	(202) Best Student Game
7	Foosball F3	Quique Miquel	(180)
8	Deeper Warrens	Arnoud Bouche	(162)
9	The Rookie Thief	CPZenon Games	(145) 2nd Best Student Game
10	Crimson Knight Adventures	Nibble Games	(134)
11	Harvest Day	Pixel Productions	(129)
12	Redsea	Gameroid	(114)
13	Earth Defender	Carlos Perezgrin	(113) Best Opera Prima Additional Mention
14	Snake Bubble	The Bubble Club	(106)
15	The Last Debt	Retrojam Games	(105)
16	KimoHiyoko	SarayCow	(103)
17	Taulellets	Vicente Jimenez	(99)
18	The Spirit Of Halloween	Lab16Devs	(98)
19	The Crypt	RetroGamma	(97)
20	Cannon Duels	David Asta	(96)
21	Space Cowboy	VoxelTower	(94)
22	Indigo	Indigo	(87)
23	BringRGBack	Dead Pixel	(74)
24	Overheap	BastaCPC	(70)
25	Turtle Slam	TurtleSlam	(68)
26	Space Ball	Altered Vision	(67)
27	Elfo Saves Christmas	Ninja Pointer	(66)
28	Two Finger Death Now	Spherp08	(62)
29	Cat Pang	Lady Cats	(61)
30	Cuchara Voladora	CucharaVoladora	(60)
31	Fitzroy And The Infestation	awergh	(60)
32	Bank	ACReturns	(53)
33	Hacktank	Retroleto Games	(50)
34	Lunatic	Lunatic	(45)
35	Invade Space	Proyecto Red	(41)
36	Tank	ARDAD	(41)
37	Disassembler	Machine Gun	(40)
38	Killing Machine	PizzarT	(40)
39	Penalty Kicks	Sakis Kaffesakis	(40)
40	Crocker	Merienda	(20)
41	18th Century Invaders	LYSGames	(3)

You can download the games in one package directly down below or from the download section of this site. More information about the game development competition can be found on the CPCRetroDev homepage.

CPCRetroDev2018 All Games
CPCRetroDev2018_all_games_.zip

105.4 MiB
291 Downloads
Details

Rasm v0.57 – Z80 cross-assembler by Roudoudou

Amstrad CPC, Development No Responses »

Jul 242017

Roudoudou released a new version of his Zilog Z80 cross-assembler called Rasm. Of course it supports all the undocumented opcodes, but beside of that, you can use conditional macros, a floating point engine and several mathmatical functions. A special feature is the possibility to create a cartridge for the Amstrad Plus or the Amstrad GX4000 directly by assembling your source code and you can automatically add an AMSDOS header to your binaries. It also supports crunched sections (the coded will be loaded and crunched on the fly) for LZ48, LZ49, LZ4, ZX7, and Exomizer. It has also a compatibility option to support the widely in the Amstrad CPC used MAXAM syntax. You can download and discuss it at the CPCWiki forums and at the end of this news.

Changes in v0.57

more flexible preprocessor with macro parameters
new label prefix tag {BANK} to get the bank where is located a label

Rasm v0.42 – new Z80 assembler by Roudoudou

Amstrad CPC, Development 4 Responses »

Mar 202017

Roudoudou released a brand new Zilog Z80 cross-assembler that targets the Amstrad CPC. Of course it supports all the undocumented opcodes, but beside of that, you can use conditional macros, a floating point engine and several mathmatical functions. A special feature is the possibility to create a cartridge for the Amstrad Plus or the Amstrad GX4000 directly by assembling your source code and you can automatically add an AMSDOS header to your binaries. However, it currently does not support the Maxam assembly syntax.
The latest version contains a lot of bugfixes (local labels, macro, label tree, alias, …) and a documentation in french and english. You can download and discuss it at the CPCWiki forums and at the end of this news.

Update 21.03.2017
Roudoudou released a new version v0.42 with the following changes:

allow old style label declaration with a starting dot
allow useless A, register form with ADC, ADD, SBC, SUB
extended syntax for 8bits index registers
documentation FR/EN updated

Update 31.03.2017 – Rasm v0.48

bugfix of label calculations when placed after a LZ48/LZ49 block (there is a buf left with more than one LZ section in the same ORG)
directives SWITCH/CASE/DEFAULT/ENDSWITCH added

Rasm - Z80 assembler
rasm_v040.zip
Version: v0.40

234.8 KiB
407 Downloads
Details

Rasm v0.42 - Z80 assembler
rasm_v042.zip
Version: v0.42

237.4 KiB
383 Downloads
Details

The Amstrad CPC story – Youtube video by Nostalgia Nerd

Amstrad CPC, Common, System No Responses »

Mar 022017

Did you ever asked yourself how the Amstrad CPC was developed back in the 1980s? What was the intention of its design? Why did they change the main CPU from an MOS 6502 to a Zilog Z80 during the development? Why did they chose Locomotive BASIC instead of an other BASIC dialect? …
Nostalgia Nerd uploaded two great videos to Youtube where he had a closer look at Amstrad and the CPC development. Enjoy them!

ORGAMS – Z80 assembler for the Amstrad CPC

Amstrad CPC, Development No Responses »

Aug 232016

Madram, Drill and Hicks have released a new version of ORGAMS – an assembler for Z80 assembly language, which runs on the Amstrad CPC. It is a ROM based assembler, so you should use it with a ROM expansion like the X-MEM board by TotO or the Amstrad WiFi. It also features a very detailed english and a french user guide. You can download the latest version from the CPCWiki forums.

ORGAMS assembler

New features

Trace: Source visualization while debugging (imperfect, Orgams can be lost with conditional or repeated blocs)
Trace: Memory visualization while debugging
Trace: CONTROL UP/DOWN for faster navigation
Monitor: Binary display with ‘?’ command
Monitor: Display restored zone when returning to BASIC
Assembler: Can assemble up to #BF80, and in #C000-#FFFF page
Editor: Free cursor
Editor: TAB to repeat previous search (text or label)
Editor: ESC to stop current search (only works with CONTROL F)
Editor: CONTROL-ESPACE put/remove BRK
Editor: CONTROL-C to display CATalogue
Editor: Can join lines (DEL at first column). Corollary : ‘DEL’ after ‘RETURN’ cancels an unexpected split
Editor: Use ‘&’ for hexa, like in BASIC and MAXAM.
Editor: Allow (IX) as shortcut for (IX+0)
General: Use RAM from very last bank (&FF) to alleviate conflict with 256k RAM-DISC.
General: Extension and Monogams ROMs can be burned everywhere (i.e. ROM 1 to 127)
General: Allow |o,”source” (no need to write “.o”)

Bugfixes

Bloc repetition was corrupted when corresponding source was overlapping 2 banks
Division with MSB set in divisor (e.g. &240/&C0) was corrupted
Sign was lost with sub-expression (e.g. -1/[1/1] or -1 mod [4 mod 5])
Negative values for FILL, ORG and repetitions raise error.
Bad expression for repetitions (e.g. undefined label) raise error.
Proper binary save from 9800-HIMEM zone
Returning to basic won’t reset 9800-HIMEM zone anymore
‘ORG &100’ now correctly parsed (not as ‘OR G AND 100’)
Assembling in RSX workzone (e.g. A6FC+) won’t corrupt firmware (Orgams-wise) anymore
Reset CRTC in RESTORE
Mute AY in BRK/RESTORE
At first invocation of BRK/Monogams, select RAM by default (lower & upper)
Robuster memory detection
Fix stack going down at each assemble / editor access.
Numeric pad is active when invoking |m
Block markers properly corrected when importing file
LD B,(IX) doesn’t crash anymore
LD H,IXH doesn’t crash anymore
Miscellaneous search bugs (CONTROL F) corrected.

Older Entries

Author:	Various Authors
Platforms:	Amstrad CPC
Category:	CPCRetroDev 2018
License:	Freeware
Date:	November 10, 2018

Author:	Roudoudou
Platforms:	Amstrad CPC
Category:	Programming
License:	Freeware
Date:	March 20, 2017

Author:	Roudoudou
Platforms:	Amstrad CPC
Category:	Programming
License:	Freeware
Date:	March 21, 2017