Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

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desin
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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by desin »

you can play the games in your browser

https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/msa2/msa2.html#close

and copy the enhanced pictures as gif 240x149 pixels to your computer


Silvester
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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by Silvester »

desin wrote:you can play the games in your browser

https://msmemorial.if-legends.org/msa2/msa2.html#close

and copy the enhanced pictures as gif 240x149 pixels to your computer
Ah, but I'd have to be able to make progress into the game to do that :oops: I'm still trying to move the boulder blocking the North path in Pawn :lol:

It would be easier for me to study tech_txt and extract from GFX file.

I was only interested in what the source image was that gave such good MODE 8 dithered results as produced by tofro.


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by tofro »

Sparrowhawk wrote:Any chance you could add the release zips to the github Releases section of the repo's pages? Saves lazy people like me having to trawl through forum posts to find the latest ;)

And... fabulous work. Thank you.
There's a zip-file with the newest binary in the source repo (which you should use - It's the only one out there that does the dithered MODE 8). Any follow-up releases will be published in the releases section.
Last edited by tofro on Tue May 10, 2022 5:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

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Silvester wrote: Ah, but I'd have to be able to make progress into the game to do that :oops: I'm still trying to move the boulder blocking the North path in Pawn :lol:

It would be easier for me to study tech_txt and extract from GFX file.

I was only interested in what the source image was that gave such good MODE 8 dithered results as produced by tofro.
You might be surprised that each of the original pictures uses a palette of only 16 unique colours.

I found the original pictures here - there's a whole gallery of all of them, complete for all games (the high-colour-version of the game, which can be run on QXL, QPC, SMSQmulator and Q40/60 shows them exactly as they are, while the very same ones are dithered for MODE 8). I'm using the Amiga pictures as source for the QL. But be aware the pictures contain hints that may spoil the game for you.

Generally, if you play the games: Don't ever try to use a walkthrough. This gives away a lot of the fun. The MS games contain a lot of bizarre humour that is only triggered when you fail.

With regards to the boulder: The castle toolshed has a number of tools that might help. If hou haven't got those yet, ask again. Generally, you want to go to Kronos first, then to the castle.

(May be it's obvious I've played the game way too often during testing my code.... ;) )


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by Silvester »

tofro wrote:You might be surprised that each of the original pictures uses a palette of only 16 unique colours.

I found the original pictures here
Thanks

I recall now that one of the problems I encountered with FS dithering was it over brightened JPEGs. So I added option to restrict dithering (\d0 to \d4), with default for mode. I notice that your mode 8 images use full dithering, making them much brighter than originals, but in this case I think it makes for a better rendition because of the restricted palette (error diffusion works best for continuous-tone images like JPEG, pattern dithering best for GIFs). The late Carlos Delhez got some impressive results using pattern dithering with his unGIF program, but you had to choose best pattern for each image. Same with FS on low palette images, some look quite good, others less so. I tried converting original 16 colour images to JPEG but Photon rendition at mode 8 was poor - until I wound up dither brightness also.

The images look good in high-colour mode. I had a quick look at Ubuntu version running Pawn, but your version looks better on SMSQmulator :-)
tofro wrote:The MS games contain a lot of bizarre humour that is only triggered when you fail.
Not being familiar with vocabulary I did start getting some sarcastic responses to 'Move boulder'? 'Blow up boulder'? :lol:

Edit: corrected vocab phrases soliciting curt replies.


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by Sparrowhawk »

tofro wrote: There's a zip-file with the newest binary in the source repo (which you should use - It's the only one out there that does the dithered MODE 8). Any follow-up releases will be published in the releases section.
I missed that - thanks!


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by ppe »

Tested on Q68 in disp_mode 2 and 3, works perfectly!


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

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ppe wrote:Tested on Q68 in disp_mode 2 and 3, works perfectly!

Great! Thanks for the feedback!


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Re: Magnetic Scrolls Interpreter - Christmas Edition

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi,

Great update.

I have included Magnetic Scrolls and all the games on the Q68 Distrubution SD Card, since 2019.


Regards,

Derek
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