Hi everyone,

This new web site looks like a fantastic idea.

As a teenager in the 1990s, I spent a lot of time with a friend designing a top-down car racing game for the BBC Microcomputer, which was to be in mold as the Atari 'Super Sprint' and 'Badlands' arcade machines. We planned to feature three super cars - the Lambourghini Diablo, Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40, and designed sprites for at least two of them (using the Computer Concepts graphics extension ROM). I also spent a lot of time with an AMX mouse and 'Super Art' package, painstakingly drawing graphics in mode 1 (2 bpp). Because of the large memory requirements of mode 1, I was hoping to use sideways RAM in order to fit the game code and data into memory.

The results can be seen here:
http://www.starfighter.acornarcade.com/ ... metal.html
http://www.starfighter.acornarcade.com/ ... metal3.png

There might be a copyright problem with the large (incomplete) picture of the Porsche 959 and the game's logo, because I copied both from a large wall-poster. However, it is just as likely that nobody remembers the poster any more!

Unfortunately, I didn't spend as much time coding as I did drawing, and as a result the game was never finished to a playable standard! The source code, which I still have, was only about 10 KB, and the assembled code much less. I always intended to write the game in 6502 assembly language, and the experience gave me a basic grounding in assembly language programming, if nothing else.

Now that I am a professional programmer, I am toying with the idea of reviving this project (just for fun). However, any further development work would have to be done on an Acorn RiscPC, which is still my main computer system at home. Unless I fetch a real BBC computer out of my parents' attic, that is!

In any case, I thought people on these forums might be interested to see the retro graphics for the game. In 2004 I wrote simple utility programs to convert the BBC format mode 1 screen dumps into RISC OS sprite format, and thence it was easy to convert them into PNGs and other formats.

Hi Christopher, and welcome

Have to say those screenshots (which I hope you don't mind me reproducing below for the benefit of other forum visitors) look absolutely mouthwatering ... so much detail on the sprites and backdrops (and like you say, I don't really think you'd need to worry too much about the Porsche copyright issue!).

Obviously I really hope that you do end up resuming its development ... it would be great to have an alternative to "Stock Car" (though going by the images, I think Hot Metal has the potential to run rings around it!)

And it does look as if a RISC OS binary for BeebASM might be making an appearance in the non-too-distant future.

Anyway, if you do start tinkering with the code again, and wish to use this site (Wiki and Forum) to log development and perhaps even release it ... you just have to ask ...

That does look - frankly - awesome.

Sam.

Yes, looks wicked, Mode 1 produces such crisp graphics. Nice job. Hope you complete it

Looks very nice!

Any RISC OS-BBC screen/sprite utilities I'm sure would be a great bonus to anybody wanting to develop from the platform for the BBC.

Welcome to the forum - and what an entrance!

I would dearly love to play this - it looks stunning. It looks like a long lost 4th Dimension game, but with better graphics.

Excellent, good work.

If someone gets BeebAsm compiling on RiscOS you'd be able to use that platform to develop on quite nicely. I use a Mac for mine so I develop with Emacs, BeebAsm and BeebEm (with Exmon as a rom for examining memory etc)

Keep it up!

aaagh this not being released back then is a crime!

one of my first real projects was something a bit like this but mine sucked

I guess much of the stuff people would have liked to have put out which would run in MODE1/2 was constrained by marketing.

"Dear sir, that game looks great but we'd really like an Elk tape version of it before we'd consider releasing it."

The Beeb PD scene had some diamonds to be sure. Hell, there were even products like 'Pantheon' where the author had included a 'tape maker' utility. It's just fantastic to see all these backroom projects being considered for revitalisation with the knowledge that the gloves are once again off with regards to cross-platform compatibility

Your game looks impressive, I didn't start playing MicroPowers Stock Car until it appeared on one of the SAM compilations. And then there was _Nitro_ for the Atari ST, with one of the players images resembling Roger Moore.

This looks very nice. Does it play as well as it looks? Are you working on finishing it now? I'd be happy to spruce up any images, loading screens, backdrops, etc, if any help is needed to make it look tiptop!

Just discovered this thread, this game looks absolutely brilliant, graphically this is up there with full commercial releases from the 1980s. Be excellent if it could be finished off and released, but looks like it's a dead project now.

I did actually contact Chris Bazley a couple of weeks ago, so I also asked about Hot Metal too; but he explained that it was very low on his list of priorities at the moment.

Fair enough, i'm guessing this is the same Chris Bazley who has done an excellent job updating and maintaining the brilliant Star Fighter 3000.