Retro Nanny

My Coding/interest projects around Amiga, retro gaming and "stuff".


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   Rebelstar 2 - some initial developing info
 

In the early days I started exploring what I could do on the Amiga. 

After getting some assets in PPaint, PNG image Map in RED Mapeditor and a few documentation from the  Rebelstar series from the web - I started taking a stab at it. 

I started doing the map in RED Map editor from the Amiga Blitz Basic packages. With the assets and my surface go with the map on the side, I used my old Laptop with my Amiga WinUAE setup.

It gone well, so I decide to do the fonts in the original FED from Workbench 1.2/1.3. Later I got an improved version from Aminet to finish it. Did the raiders and rebelstar fonts and they didn't look bad.
With all this done I felt I could go further.

In January 1st 2025 I started coding with no real end in sight, just for the fun. I was trying to mimick Colonization with Windows GUI and Menus, as I was more experienced in that AmigaOS compliant (AGeo-CAD and Entities were my last Amiga devs). Apart from that added the keyboard support, not really changing much of the original ZX layout (that in my mind it worked well and was comprehensible enough).

It went well, but I started to realize that while Amiga OS 3.0+ would work nice for these games, the 1.3 would put some limitations. Even when trying to keep all under 1.3 compatibility, it was clear that it was not working the same. Some exceptions had to handled, and some memory leaks would become more apparent on the early models. Flushing IDCMP events was something I had to try a lot until got it right (mostly at least). 

Rebelstar 2 on Amiga with original ZX gfx

Still, in early Febuary, I was able to get a 2 player proto-version up and running, and the next step was to actually remake the ZX graphics in 32 colours. Took me a week and half of pixel pushing, but it got to a point I was satisfied. Added a new mode, and it fit well with minimum changes I could use the new gfx. I could finally say that there was an Amiga remake on my hands.

Rebelstar 2 with early Amiga 32 colour gfx


The movement was fully working, I added Double-buffering for smooth animation of movement of units as well as firing. It was tricky and several iterations of those routines went and gone and I started to play in what could I use to make this version stand out from the original, without being something diferent or that felt different.

 

The graphics also took some stabs from time to time, the early version of the "Swamper" unit had the colour sheme I liked, but it clashed heavilly with the water, almost becoming imperceptible. I could change the water colour or the unit colour. 

Hmmm... 20 tiles vs 1 sprite - there's just one reasonable and pragmatic decision.  The diference can be spoted in the first ECS screenshot and the last.

It still had Intuition compliance but I was starting to ditch the windows and pretty soon the pull-down menus were for Dev and debug purposes only.

It became apparent that I needed help, specially with the music. I used a few place ins to inspire, specially the ingame tunes from Reunion game. But I needed someone to help. I asked Dante (Dev of Castlevania AGA and he suggested JMD). Also he said it would be better to post in EAB and then ask for help in there. I was hesitant, so far I had no pressure, once I would go public it might be more complicated.

In febuary I posted on EAB in the following post: Remake of ZX Rebelstar 2: Alien Encounter - English Amiga Board

After that AcidBottle offered to beta test and was major source of morale support. His emails kept me going.

Next post I'll add more info on this ongoing project...

Labels: Amiga, Rebelstar

Thursday, 2 October 2025