October 2023 - Castlevania

[NinjaKat]

OCS/ECS Game of the Month for October 2023, is Castlevania!

Good Eeeevening!  Step into the shadows of the deadliest dwelling on Earth.  You've arrived at Castlevania, and you're here on business: To destroy forever the curse of Evil Count Dracula.

Konami released three ports of the original Castlevania for home computer systems in 1990: Distinctive Software (a.k.a. Unlimited Software, now EA Vancouver) developed the MS-DOS and Commodore 64 versions, and Novotrade International (a.k.a. Appaloosa Interactive, now defunct) did the Commodore Amiga version. These included new graphics and art style, but the layouts and gameplay remained mostly the same.

Information:

• Amiga Hardware: OCS
  
• Release Year: 1990
• Disks: 1
• WHDLoad: Yes
• Players: 1 Only
• Publisher: Konami
• Developer: Novotrade
• A500 Mini: Not as standard!

Links to game information:

• Lemon Amiga - Info
• Hall of Light - Info and Manual

Please refer to the 'Game of the Month Rules and Participation' post for information on how to participate!  Good Luck!

* To qualify: play from the beginning (new game, not a continue), on an OCS/ECS machine or equivalent emulator.  Do not use keys, passwords or cheats.

[intangybles]

We progressed much better with this one! But I did find it harder than I remembered! 

Top - 50960

*WHDLoad (Running as A500) on stock A1200 with Ram expansion only.

[IronMaiden]

A1200. ACA1233/40. OS3.2. 1084S. Cheers.

[NinjaKat]

Hi IronMaiden,
To qualify, please state your score and confirm rules - has to be new game, not continue, on OCS/ECS hardware or emulation.  Unfortunately an A1200 spec will not qualify.

Intangybles, also please confirm rules.  An example of confirmation would be:
High score of 50960, new game on A500.  I do not know too much about it but how do you run an A1200 as an A500 with WHDLoad?

I do appreciate the two of you participating, however, so will qualify you both this month.  IronMaiden, I just need to know what score you are submitting!

[NinjaKat]

My very bad attempt at this game...  I found the controls very unresponsive, but perhaps that was just me! 
Score was 45400, from a new game, on my A500 mini running Amiga 500 spec.

[intangybles]

Hi IronMaiden,
To qualify, please state your score and confirm rules - has to be new game, not continue, on OCS/ECS hardware or emulation.  Unfortunately an A1200 spec will not qualify.

Intangybles, also please confirm rules.  An example of confirmation would be:
High score of 50960, new game on A500.  I do not know too much about it but how do you run an A1200 as an A500 with WHDLoad?

I do appreciate the two of you participating, however, so will qualify you both this month.  IronMaiden, I just need to know what score you are submitting!

Hi, my apologies, I thought I had complied with my "*WHDLoad (Running as A500) on stock A1200 with Ram expansion only." but I understand what you are getting at.

So I confirm - "played from the beginning (new game, not a continue), on an OCS/ECS equivalent emulator.  Did not use keys, passwords or cheats." (PS. Control was tricky even with the old Joystick).

Second point, with regard to hardware - I may have had my wires crossed all along! If we are allowing emulation (as I feel we should given that "real" hardware access is limited) then by definition a "WHDLoad" game I would say should qualify as that is in essence what it does - it creates a "software" environment using the required Kickstart, RAM etc - in essence "emulating" the target machine. Please correct me if I am wrong, but my memory tells me that's how it works. If My "hardware" wires have been crossed all this time - very happy to go that way - "like" hardware only.

Lastly, also very happy to do up a "template" we can use for submission - may even be able to make it a form (have yet to look into that through  )

Thank you!
 

[intangybles]

A1200. ACA1233/40. OS3.2. 1084S. Cheers.

Don't forget "IronMaiden" post your game suggestion for this month!

[NinjaKat]

Thanks for the reply Intangybles.

While I am no expert on this topic at all, my understanding is WHDLoad optionally uses an Amiga kickstart rom allowing it to use a certain AmigaOS, but does not do (as far as I know, which is not much) hardware emulation.

The important thing here in my view is the games!  As long as we have fun that should be all that matters.  The rules are really only there to allow a fair playing field.

[NinjaKat]

A1200. ACA1233/40. OS3.2. 1084S. Cheers.

Don't forget "IronMaiden" post your game suggestion for this month!

There is a game suggestions topic for each game category.

I will post scores and close this topic shortly.

[NinjaKat]

Results:

Winner: IronMaiden - from the screenshot I assume the score was 161400
Second: Intangybles - 50960