Santa Cool is a pet project of mine which I started a long time ago and haven't really done much on since. The idea was for it to be a PD game for the RiscPC that could be released around Christmas time, for obvious reasons. I can't even pretend that I can program and the coding is very bad basic, but I feel that it could be a very playable public domain platformer. You can see 4 snapshots down this page from the only four levels that are yet in existance (click on them to load the full size picture). I have spent a lot of time creating all
the pre-rendered graphics in 3D and the result is a set of high quality graphics.
 

Shows are the best places for companies to announce new products, and with all the special offers and the opportunity to "try before you buy", they're not too bad for punters either.
 
The annual Wakefield event, organised and run by the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club under the careful leadership of Chris Hughes, is one of the best. Although this year it's only taking place for one day there's plenty to see, and as can be seen from the companies exhibiting, attendance is a great way to show your commitment to the platform.
 
There's lots going on so for your convenience we've split things up into different categories. The stand numbers are in bold. If this is just the preview, just think what the after show party - I mean report - will be like.
 

 
Iron Dignity is an action game with an impressive 3D engine and movie cut scenes with real actors. Both a RISC OS and PC version were to be produced, but sadly the PC publishing house originally chosen went bust which has set things back a bit. It does appear to have reached beta test stage on the PC however.
 
 

Preview
 
It doesn't seem so very long ago that we first sampled the delights of Descent; but the date stamps on my hard disc say it's been nearly two years since my first install and so it's probably long past due that we saw an update to this classic full 3D shooter. Well, our sources tell us that not only is work taking place on bringing Descent II to RISC OS, it's already up and running, although in need of a little spit and polish before release. Hopefully you'll be able to badger R-Comp at the Southwest show this weekend and sneak a peak, but if not here's our guide to what to expect.
 
 

 
 
The best real-time strategy game available for RISC OS at the moment is probably Dune II. Dune II's one of my favourite RISC OS games, but it's old. It was originally released on the PC way back in 1992, and is considered by many to be the "big-daddy" of the real-time strategy genre. However, the genre has matured since then - Westwood Studios followed Dune II up with Command & Conquer in 1995, Command & Conquer: Red Alert in '96, Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun in '98/99, Red Alert 2 last year, and now they're working on Emperor: Battle for Dune. From other companies the PC platform has had classics like Warzone 2100, the Age of Empires trilogy, Ground Control, and many more less popular titles. And what have we had in the way of RTS since Dune II? Nothing.
 
 
Enter Artex Software. Artex first hit the RISC OS gaming scene in 1997 with their turn-based space strategy game Exodus. Shortly afterwards they announced that they were working on a real-time strategy game - TEK 1608. This game was originally planned as a joint venture between Artex and Acorn, aiming for a RISC OS and NetStation release. However, Artex lost their contact at Acorn, Kevin Lingley, when the company restructured; and then Acorn themselves folded.
 
 
Since then Artex have been focusing more on Iron Dignity (which incidently is also a real-time strategy game, but will be different from TEK in many ways), but TEK development has been continuing on and off in the background. A little while ago they switched 3 of their staff members soley to TEK development, and they're now talking about release this Spring.
 
 
So that explains why TEK has been in development for so long, but will Artex be able to make the leap to bring real-time strategy on RISC OS up-to-date? The big jump in the PC titles listed above was the first - from Dune II to Command & Conquer, so the question everyone seems to be asking is "will it be better than C&C?" We put this to Artex front-man Jan Klose, who replied:

When we started programming TEK, we intended to make it better than C&C. The world has seen many more titles of this game. In my personal opinion, our graphics are better than those of C&C 1, and can still compete with the later versions of the games. [...]
 
 
In terms of gameplay I can only say that we have very different functions than C&C, and the player will have to decide which game he likes more. But TEK certainly offers some very interesting features which have not been seen in other 2D RTS so far - at least not in this combination.

You'll have to make up your own mind from the details below (which is of course the most comprehensive TEK preview anywhere), but personally I think we could be in for another RISC OS classic.

Game plot

TEK is set in the near future (the year 2025 according to the TEK feature in the January 2001 issue of Acorn User). The world has been devastated by wars and ecological disasters, most animals have died, and the human race can only survive by consuming a drug called "Shock". There are only two corporations who know how to produce this drug, one in Europe and one in Japan. These corporations both have private armies to defend the Shock development and transports, and to attack and sabotage the opposition.
 
 
You start the game as a young general sent to head-quarters to fight the enemy. Mission objectives will include things like patrol, search and rescue, and espionage (these are not finalised yet).
 
 
There will be one or two training missions in "training camp" style which you can play to become familiar with the interface and in-game features, practicing things like sending units around, using their special functions, creating groups etc.

The units

The types of unit you find in real-time strategy games have always been pretty standard, and Artex have been focusing on how the units behave rather than trying to think up a new set of whacky vehicles of destruction. However, there will be a few special units such as a worm-like unit that travels underground, and huge robots.
A full list (with pictures) is available on Artex' website.
 
 
The main spin on the idea is that all these units can be equipped with different weaponry, armour, and engines; so you have to start thinking about the specific requirements of your current mission. Warzone 2100 on the PC had a similar idea to this (where you designed units from various components), and having played that quite extensively it certainly adds a welcome level of thought to the production process.

Artificial intelligence

Unit AI is an area Artex are paying special attention to. I'm sure fans will agree with me that this is one area in which Dune II was quite poor. It was extremely frustrating when you found out one of your harvesters had been destroyed as it had happily carried on harvesting whilst and enemy tank sat right next to it pelting it with shells. Similarly, when you told one of your tanks to attack one of the enemy units, you didn't expect it to follow it all the way into the enemy base when it decided to retreat.
 
 
Units will have individual characteristics which affects the decisions they make. They'll become more skillful as they gain experience, so rather than sending army after army to the enemy base it'll be worth your while saving at least some of your units to aid your next battle. Units will also have differing levels of loyalty, so when in battle they'll evaluate if their enemies are stronger, and the 'brave' ones keep on fighting while the cowards may flee back to base.
 
 
In Command & Conquer, most of the AI is hard-wired, i.e. after 10 minutes the enemy units attack from the east, 5 minutes later the reinforcements arrive, and 5 minutes later another unit will enter the battlefield from the north. In TEK, the units have no such pre-defined behaviour. They have their mission objective and try to achieve it by evaluating the player's moves.

Commanding your troops

The gameplay in Dune II often required you to tell a large groups of units to attack an area, but unfortunately you couldn't command more than one unit at a time, so you had to select each unit individually and tell it where you wanted to attack (a great way to wear out your mouse mat). Westwood rectified this in Command & Conquer, and you'll be able to group units in the same way in TEK. It's basically the same idea as grouping objects in Draw - you drag a box containing the units to select them, and then when you give an order it applies to them all.
 
 
Originally the ability to 'group groups' was planned, but apparently this proved quite irritating in testing so the feature was removed. The AI has also been programmed so that the units will try and think as a group, so for example when travelling they'll wait for the slower units, and use the faster units to seek out the enemy in the surrounding areas. Grouped units will benefit from their leader's experience and increased morale.
 
 
You'll be able to set way-points to give your units routes to patrol along. These can either be looped routes (e.g. patrol around your base), or linear routes (e.g. to patrol a border which is under regular attack).

Terrain

The terrain will play an important part in TEK strategy. Ground units won't be able to see behind hills, so you have the option of a hide-and-seek approach rather than just "my army's bigger than your army". Similarly, small units will be able to take cover in forests, and certain units such as the jeep will be able to jump over gorges.

Resource management vs. All-out battle

One of the problems with the RTS genre has always been getting the balance between the building-up-your-base aspect of the game and all-out combat. Consequently whilst the true RTS games have started to focus more on the combat aspect, there's been a spin-off genre with games such as the Settlers series which are 80 resource management. TEK goes down the former route, focusing on battle strategy and tactics. You'll start missions with most of your base already built - the only buildings you'll be able to add will be additional factories and defence structures such as gun placements.

Sound

The music is one of the areas not finalised yet. Rather than having full tracks played off the CD most of the time we'll probably only be hearing atmospheric sound effects with the odd short burst of dramatic music during "big battles".

Network Play

The low-level network code in TEK has not been implemented yet, but the whole TEK code is written network-ready. Any computer will be able to act as a server and host a local LAN or modem/serial session. Internet games will also be possible - you'll be able to connect to a server running a TEK game. TEK supports network play with up to 8 players, but it remains to be seen whether this will be possible with the current RISC OS machines. However, the support is there.

Requirements

TEK will require a RiscPC with 8MB RAM and about 5-10MB hard disc space. StrongARM computers, RiscStations or other more recent hardware will be recommended, especially for network play.

Cross platform

If TEK is successful on RISC OS then it's quite possible versions will be produced for other platforms. Artex are especially keen to do a Linux port, as there aren't many games available for the platform. A Mac version is also a possibility, as well as a version for Windows which would be the easiest platform to port to. If a Windows version was produced then Artex would be aiming at TEK making up part of games collections or bundle offers, which seems sensible when recent PC titles such as Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun are now available on budget for a tenner.

Release

TEK will be supplied on CD, and priced somewhere in the region of £25-30. If all goes to plan then we should be seeing the game before this year's Wakefield show, although obviously this depends how many problems are identified during the testing phase. A level editor may be released at a later date as an add-on if the game is well received.

Screenshots

Below is a selection of screenshots that have been released through TEK's development.
 
 
From the film trailer:
 
 

A selection of screenshots from the film trailer released on a recentish Acorn User CD-Rom

 
 
Rendered scenes:
 
 

 
 
Older in-game shots:
 
 

 

A trilogy of flight sims from RCI has been on the cards for around six months, first heralded in public by a posting to the newsgroups asking for programmers, but it's only in the last couple of months that a coder has been found that was willing to take on the job. Given some of the technical information released by RCI in the last few days this is hardly surprising - the code is multithreaded, and although at the current state of play the 'plane flies, the camera pans and so on, it is currently running at about 7fps on a StrongARM machine which obviously needs to be worked on. This complexity means that the game will be StrongARM only, running in 640x480; according to Andrew Rawnsley, head of RCI, this looks "awesome", and once the framerate is up to speed the game will be "the definitive flight sim for RISC OS full stop".
 
 

 
King & Country is to be a medieval war strategy game for Risc os computers. Unlike Exodus, King and Country will feature realtime rather than turn-based play. The game will support single and multiple human player modes with support for internet/ethernet multiplayer games nearly finished. In single player mode, the player selects one of two opposing armies and then plays through a campaign of 12 levels (with the possibility of one or more hidden levels).
 
Unfortunately, this project is at the moment on hold due to a number of circumstances beyond the team's control. We'll keep an eye out for further developments but don't hold your breath!

 
An early game screenshot
 

Gameplay:

In multi-player mode, players connect two or more computers together using serial cables, modem+phone lines or ethernet cabling and battle head to head, or co-operatively against the computer (or another team of humans). Special multi-player scenarios will be provided which have objectives (this is a feature we believe to be unique to King & Country ATM).
 
The game relies largely on realistic style warfare using conventional means but includes some fantasy elements to add some 'spice' to battles (not overdone as in WarCraft II though).

Planned units include:

Both single and multi player success reply upon successful management of resources (gold, wood and stone) which are harvested by peasants, in order to construct and maintain working bases and defences. All bases centre around the castle, which in early levels is small and weak but progresses to a mighty palace, for training soldiers and overseeing everything. Other buildings like blacksmiths, watch towers, temples and guard towers are added to provide defence and other services.

Technical:

At present K&C is only being developed to run on the Risc PC, support for slower machines with less memory etc. will be included as soon as possible (hopefully before release, or shortly afterwards). The game runs in an 800x600 screen mode with 256 colours, and as such requires 1MB+ of VRAM. About 8Mb of conventional RAM will be required. The game will probably ship on a CD ROM (or a huge collection of floppies).
 
The game uses a fixed update system locking the framerate and updating as many units and structures as possible each frame. This leads to
a very smooth and consistent fell to the game.
 
The networking is based on a client-server protocol so that if the game leader is running an SA RiscPC or RiscPC II then other players only using basic RiscPCs will still enjoy a fast game.
 
A map editor will be supplied with the game to enable creation of custom
multi and single player maps.
 
Introduction and cut scenes will feature high quality rendered video scenes and there's also a possibility of digitised video clips.
 

Acorn displayed the prototype of their new machine, the succesor to the RiscPC, at the Wakefield show. Although only Clan members were allowed to see the machines, we've managed to get hold of these pictures.

A new picture, notice the new icons on the screen!
 

Phoebe topless!
 

Phoebe, click to see the bigger picture
 

As can be seen from the picture, the colour scheme is, to say the least, a little bold and has come under much criticism. Perhaps it's not too late for Acorn to change the colours but whatever happens, the RiscPC 2 (aka: Phoebe 2100) will be a great games machine!
 

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So what're the specifications?

• 233MHz StrongArm processor as fitted to RiscPC's - until a faster one is released: this could happen before the machine's release date, in which case all Phoebe's will be shipped with the faster StrongArm, and hopefully at no extra cost.
• 64MHz main bus speed - four times faster than a RiscPC
• New IOMD2 controller chip, multiprocessor capable
• 32Mb SDRAM memory as standard (much faster than the DRAM used in RiscPC, or the EDO DRAM used in A7000+)
• Video support:
  
  • New VIDC20+ graphics controller, twice the speed of the VIDC20 chip on the RiscPC - this can drive even the biggest monitors to their limit and beyond, supposedly
    
  • 4Mb EDO VRAM supplied as standard with all machines - this should allow displays such as 1600x1200 in 32,000 colours and 1024x768 in 16 million colours, as well as faster refresh rates
    
• Sound support:
  
  • (IIRC) 4 channel, 16 bit sound
    
  • Soundblaster and MIDI support in hardware
    
  • Line In and Line Out sockets at front of the machine, so you're not groping around the cables at the back!
    
• Storage space:
  
  • 32-speed CD ROM drive
    
  • Improved EIDE interface, takes up to 4 devices, capable of transferring data at much higher rates than the RiscPC's interface
    
  • Hard disc size? Whatever's available!
    
  • And of course the ubiquitous floppy drive!
    
• Expansion capability:
  
  • 3 DEBI slots ('podules', same as on a RiscPC backplane)
    
  • 4 PCI slots @ 33MHz as standard on PC's and Macs
    
  • PC compatability? Through the PCI bus... Read on!
    
  • Joystick port
    
  • Twin serial ports
    
  • MIDI interface
    
  • Infra-red data transfer link (what?!)
    
• RISC OS 4 - Yes at last! including:
  
  • Long filenames and up to 80,000-odd items in a directory
    
  • Revised, better and less complex Boot sequence
    
  • Improved configuration
    
  • Better 'look and feel' (and no, The Xperience's iconset wasn't chosen but they did consider it)
    
  • The list goes on... but it's not too relevant to games! We'll still get you a screenshot of Risc OS 4 as soon as we get our mitts on one!
    
• And the price has been set at £1499 ex VAT, without monitor.

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So what will it do for games?

Current RiscPC games?

Well - almost anything that could go faster, will go faster! Okay, the processor's the same (until StrongArmII comes out). But the RiscPC had a huge bottleneck - the 16MHz main bus, there are A3010's out there with a bus faster than that, honest! Most of the games out there - and RCI's huge releases Doom and Quake are both cases in point - have their speed limited by the 16MHz bus not the processor. With a memory system over four times faster we're in for some big speed increases... and of course bigger, more colourful screen modes as well. We'll be playing Doom in Super VGA res, 24 bit colour, and it won't crawl either!
 
And - all you people who've been suffering in silence, unable to hear the MIDI music on these new releases - well you'll be able to hear it now, and without paying any extra!
 
Of course, as ever when new hardware, and new versions of Risc OS are released, there'll be compatibility problems. Let's hope that somebody will write some patches to get over these without too much loss of speed - and above all, that Starfighter 3000 will run!
 

 

Phoebe only games?

A lot of games written for the basic machine ought to be backwards compatible, since Phoebe as supplied is basically a turbo-charged RiscPC - but there is one area...
 
Yes you've guessed it - hardware 3D! Phoebe doesn't have AGP (Advanced Graphics Port - standard on most new PC's) but that won't affect us: AGP is used for the 2D cards all PC's need (Phoebe of course, has that stuff on the motherboard itself), but all dedicated 3D cards plug into the PCI bus. Some of these are really amazing devices, and if nobody writes drivers for at least one then I'm a donkey! This could open up a new era of Acorn games: look in a PC magazine at the 3D card only games and you'll see what I mean.
 
Incidentally if you're wondering which card to buy, and which one to write drivers for, the only ones to look at are Voodoo2 based 3Dfx cards. They may be expensive but they really do knock the socks off the competition (and the games consoles), and from what I can gather neither the new generation PowerVR cards or Intel's own I740 chip will beat their performance. One of these cards can run QuakeII on a PC at 100 frames/second and over, in 800x600 resolution - and if you're rich, you can plug two together and get the same performance level in 1024x768! (And no, 3Dfx haven't got anything to do with that comment!)
 

 

PC games?

Okay - this is an Acorn games site, but I'm going to say it anyway, because it's true. (And I write the demos section of the site so I have less of a problem with it! ;-) Most commercial Acorn games look dated and/or pants compared with their PC counterparts. (With some notable exceptions, of course). And the Acorn games market will never be big enough to produce more than a small number of good games.
 
So, we want to play PC games as well, don't we? Well - we were told RiscPC had PC compatibility. My foot - I shelled out for a 100MHz 5x86 PC card, flippin' expensive, and it has all the games performance of a 486DX-33 PC.
 
This time Acorn aren't doing anything themselves about PC compatibility - but fear not, the wonderful PCI bus is there to rescue us! PCI cards exist, which take an x86 based processor (usually a Pentium, but PentiumII dedicated cards are of course available), some memory, often even video and sound hardware - a PC on a card! I've searched the net a bit and found a couple of dealers' sites that contain some more details about these cards - try here, or here (yes I know this one is a Mac site, but Macs are ahead of Acorns in a couple of areas ATM...).
 
AFAIK Aleph One are developing driver software for these cards, and plan to sell their drivers on along with a range of cards they will supply. I couldn't wheedle much out of Matthew Bloch on what spec the cards will have, except that the processor speed will be 200MHz and over, which is rather to be expected nowadays...
 
Will it run fast? Of course it will. The PCI bus won't be a bottleneck except for disc accesses and stuff (which are slow anyway), because the cards have their own memory, and often their own video hardware, on board. There's already cards that support PentiumII's up to 333MHz and I'm sure the 400MHz model including 100MHz SDRAM on card will be available before Phoebe is launched, if it isn't already with us (I couldn't see one with that high a spec). It won't run everything as fast as a real PC, but games it ought to... and of course you'll be able to use 3D hardware with the PC card - you'd even be nuts not to!
 

 

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So is it worth it?

The price of a basic Phoebe2100, inc. VAT and 15-inch monitor, is set at abut £1950 ATM. I've flicked through PC Plus magazine to see what sort of PC you'd get for that price, and here's what I've come up with: (this is from Dell, incidentally)

• 350MHz PentiumII processor
• 100MHz main bus speed
• 64Mb SDRAM memory
• 8.4Gb hard disc
• nVidia graphics card (AGP based) with 4Mb SGRAM (whatever that is)
• 3x PCI, 1x ISA, 1x PCI or ISA, 1x AGP expansion slots
• DVD ROM drive (what do you want that for?!)
• 17-inch monitor
• and the usual Windows 95 and related bundled software.

All for £1830 including VAT. The processor is twice the speed of Phoebe's and the bus speed is also much faster, but let's face it: this is a PC, Phoebe isn't. If you want this grade PC performance, you'll be able to plug in a similarly specced PCI card for a much lower price than this PC. The nVidia graphics card is not bad but Phoebe's built-in hardware isn't bad either and I'd add a Voodoo2 card for playing games, anyway. And if you want processor speed - well StrongArmII ought to beat this machine's CPU by a fair margin, really - after all SA1500 can already bit-bash over three times faster than the PII.

 

To sum up? Phoebe 2100 will be a big boost to the Acorn games market: its capabilities go far beyond anything RiscPC has ever been capable of. But only so long as people buy it... For once, the amount of power us Acorn users have at our disposal depends on the size of our wallet, not the machine's limitations!