As is so often the case, best laid plans and all that, time has been precariously short this month again for my work on Splat. I’ve had some amazing help from Ian Andrew, providing full BASIC listings, map sketches, etc. from his archives, which has meant that this game is far more true to the original than the previous ones.
In the previous games, I’ve basically played the original game a bit, with some POKEs where available, and then tried to recreate that feel as much as possible, but with updated graphics and sound. This time around, I’ve been able to recreate the actual logic, the carefully thought out algorithm that Ian came up with nearly 40 years ago, has been recreated pretty accurately, so the movement of the map is as close as possible to the original. Also, as I described in an earlier post, I extracted the map data from the map .png image available online, and while doing so extracted the original tile artwork. I initially intended this to be a starting point only, something to get me going while working on the game logic, and had every intention of creating new artwork when I got a chance.
However, this has not panned out quite as planned, it took a bit longer and more digging through dusty corners of my failing memory, to translate the intent of Ian’s original BASIC code into GDScript; who’d have thought not having a GOTO instruction would make things so complicated? So, as a result, I’ve decided to take a slightly different tack this month. I’m going to aim for a faithful remake, rather than a modern remake. I’ll keep the original artwork as much as is reasonably possible, and focus on making the game as faithful to the original as I can, given the time left. It may still be that there are some missing elements, as I’m fast running out of time, but it should be playable, and enjoyable all the same.
I’ve said before I may return to some of these games at a later date, to polish and finish up where I haven’t had time to. This is a perfect example of one that is likely to be revisited. I’d like to keep the classic look, and perhaps add an option to play with a modern look on top.
Anyhoo, bit more work to be done, and only a couple of days left, so back to the grindstone.