[PC] Last-Out - A Z-Out Remake

[Aligarion]

Hi,

After Blazing Wings - A Wings of Death Remake, this is Last-Out, my new shmup project :

http://www.amigachapterone.com/last-out/

Last-Out is a remake of an Amiga game called Z-Out released in 1990 by Rainbow Arts and developped by Advantec.

The remake propose the following improvements :

- a doubled and filtered resolution
- a paralaxed background

For the moment the intro and level 1 and 2 are remade and I am working on level 3.

[Herr Schatten]

Interesting.

Z-Out is a fantastic game, and notoriously overlooked. A remake might bring it to the attention of a wider audience, provided the excellent gameplay stays intact.

I must admit, though, that the upscaled and filtered graphics look considerable worse than the original artwork (which, in places, ain't too hot either). It would be better to either really touch it up and remake it in high res or just leave it as it is and just upscale it without applying any filters.

Do I see an energy bar in those pictures? If so, that's a terribly bad idea. The original game has one-hit kills. It should stay that way.

[Aligarion]

Z-Out is a fantastic game, and notoriously overlooked. A remake might bring it to the attention of a wider audience,

I do agree.

provided the excellent gameplay stays intact.

I don't agree, Z-Out is far too hard and had to be enhanced.

I must admit, though, that the upscaled and filtered graphics look considerable worse than the original artwork (which, in places, ain't too hot either). It would be better to either really touch it up and remake it in high res or just leave it as it is and just upscale it without applying any filters.

Graphics are not only filtered with hq2x, the filtering result is then cleaned up. I am not a pixel artist so I do what I can and I admit it could be better.

Do I see an energy bar in those pictures? If so, that's a terribly bad idea. The original game has one-hit kills. It should stay that way.

If you want to bring Z-Out to a larger audience, I think you definitely have to make it less harder. Cause Z-Out is a hard game and only hardcore gamers can finish it; maybe I'm wrong, but it's what I think of this excellent game.

[Herr Schatten]

Graphics are not only filtered with hq2x, the filtering result is then cleaned up. I am not a pixel artist so I do what I can and I admit it could be better.

I can see that some work went into the remaking of the graphics, but I'm not convinced that the outcome looks as satisfactory as it would have if you'd just doubled the size of the pixels. The way it is, it looks like someone painted the same graphics with a larger "brush", losing crispness on the way.

I'd offer my own pixel skills for a "real" remake of the graphics (I always thought the graphics of at least levels 2 and 4 could have used some work in the original game), but, honestly, I don't know how much time to work on it my dayjob leaves me.
Forum member Shatterhand knows it took me five years to finish the graphics for his new game. Those were all created from scratch, though. Updating existing files would obviously require a lot less time.

If you want to bring Z-Out to a larger audience, I think you definitely have to make it less harder. Cause Z-Out is a hard game and only hardcore gamers can finish it; maybe I'm wrong, but it's what I think of this excellent game.

Well, I don't think I'm an awesome player at all, but even I was able to finish Z-Out on one life. Like many games of its type, it's all down to memorization and proper execution. In comparison, Z-Out is a lot easier than R-Type.

If I'd change anything about the game, I'd actually make it harder in two spots: The midbosses of levels 5 and 6 both consist of multiple "parts", and the fights get easier as you take out more parts, because the remaining ones just follow their routine. I'd make them change their behaviour after you destroy the other parts to keep the difficulty of the fight up.

If you lower the difficulty, you might adress a wider audience, but you'll inevitably alienate the fans of the original game. The difficulty of Z-Out is part of its charm, imo. Clearing the game wouldn't have been all that satisfactory if victory wasn't earned as hard.

Why not leave the choice to the players and add both an "easy" mode for casual players and an "original" or "expert" mode for more advanced shmuppers.

[Aligarion]

I can see that some work went into the remaking of the graphics, but I'm not convinced that the outcome looks as satisfactory as it would have if you'd just doubled the size of the pixels. The way it is, it looks like someone painted the same graphics with a larger "brush", losing crispness on the way.

Check what I did for every sprites and walls :

Why not leave the choice to the players and add both an "easy" mode for casual players and an "original" or "expert" mode for more advanced shmuppers.

Yeah, it is a good idea, thanks, I will propose two difficulty modes.

[Herr Schatten]

Check what I did for every sprites and walls :

Yes, I see. That's what I said: I can see that quite a bit of work went into updating the graphics. I'm just not sure it has the desired effect.
What you do, basically, is upscaling the graphics, then removing the jaggies. However, you just smooth out the borders of the coloured areas, which gives the aforementioned effect: It looks like an impressionist painting, where the objects are constructed from blobs of colour. You don't add any detail or re-imagine the graphics, thus making the transition to hd more or less useless, as the original pixelated art looks a lot more crisp and detailed.

Tell you what: Why don't you send me files of, say, three sprites from the game and I'll try to touch them up a bit to illustrate my point?


In the meantime, I have played the current build of the game. May I offer some criticism? I sincerely hope it doesn't come across as too harsh, as I really appreciate your efforts and I think you're on a good way. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but notice a few issues:

- The autofire frequency is far too high. Some shots go right through enemies regardless.
- It's a bad idea to allow the player to charge the beam while he can still fire the normal gun. It totally defies the idea of exchanging security for power.
- The enemies shoot a lot more than in the original game.
- Sometimes bullets just hang somewhere in the middle of the screen without moving.
- The hit detection is off. Sometimes just getting near the background with the top part of the ship (without actually touching it) drains energy. Additionally, you must hit enemies in the middle of the sprite to damage them. The original game allowed you to just scratch their edges and still deal full damage.
- The first boss doesn't work the way it's supposed to. In the original game, You must score some direct hits to the snake, which then opens up the blue eye in the upper right corner, which you must damage to destroy the boss. The snake itself is invulnerable, it's just there to make the eye open up. In the original game, there's a safe spot in the upper left corner. It's not there in the remake.
- The second stage seems mostly accurate. There seem to be more of the UFO enemies in the part with the clouds and the dragons than I seem to remember, though. I'm pretty sure there are just two of them in the original.

[Aligarion]

Yes, I see. That's what I said: I can see that quite a bit of work went into updating the graphics. I'm just not sure it has the desired effect.
What you do, basically, is upscaling the graphics, then removing the jaggies. However, you just smooth out the borders of the coloured areas, which gives the aforementioned effect: It looks like an impressionist painting, where the objects are constructed from blobs of colour. You don't add any detail or re-imagine the graphics, thus making the transition to hd more or less useless, as the original pixelated art looks a lot more crisp and detailed.

I understand what you mean, but do you play the game full screen (with F4) or do you let the original resolution. What's your desktop resolution ?
I play the game with the original resolution in 1680x1050 and GFX looks nice this way. I wonder if I shouldn't remove the fullscreen option...

Tell you what: Why don't you send me files of, say, three sprites from the game and I'll try to touch them up a bit to illustrate my point?

OK, I will send you three sprites.

In the meantime, I have played the current build of the game. May I offer some criticism? I sincerely hope it doesn't come across as too harsh, as I really appreciate your efforts and I think you're on a good way

Please, every criticism give me a chance to improve the game.

- The autofire frequency is far too high. Some shots go right through enemies regardless.

Somebody else told me the same thing and I wasn't satisfied by the shot rate so I have diminished it in the next update.

- It's a bad idea to allow the player to charge the beam while he can still fire the normal gun. It totally defies the idea of exchanging security for power.

I didn't notice I had made this mistake, so I will have to fix it. Thanks.

- The enemies shoot a lot more than in the original game.

Yeah, but it is sometimes difficult to set that kind of thing to be as near as possible from the original game. There are too much things to set in a game and I unfortunately have too few time to achieve them.

- Sometimes bullets just hang somewhere in the middle of the screen without moving.

Yeah, it sometimes happens when an ennemy shoot just before dying (I think it's the reason). The mid-boss for instance.

- The hit detection is off. Sometimes just getting near the background with the top part of the ship (without actually touching it) drains energy. Additionally, you must hit enemies in the middle of the sprite to damage them. The original game allowed you to just scratch their edges and still deal full damage.

I don't see, could you illustrate that with a screenshot please.

- The first boss doesn't work the way it's supposed to. In the original game, You must score some direct hits to the snake, which then opens up the blue eye in the upper right corner, which you must damage to destroy the boss. The snake itself is invulnerable, it's just there to make the eye open up. In the original game, there's a safe spot in the upper left corner. It's not there in the remake.

You mean that the snake trajectory doesn't allow you to "sneak" in the upper left corner ?

- The second stage seems mostly accurate. There seem to be more of the UFO enemies in the part with the clouds and the dragons than I seem to remember, though. I'm pretty sure there are just two of them in the original.

I have to admit that I lost the count during this phase, I will try to fix that.

Thank you for all these constructive comments, I sure will study them to make the game better.

But, yeah there is a but, I would like to insist on one important think : Last-Out will never be a perfect PC conversion of Z-Out cause I am making it as a remake, sure with flaws but with improvements too (the parallaxe for instance).


I hope you understand my point of view, it is this way I have created Blazing Wings ie with new weapons, and a new stage.

[Herr Schatten]

I understand what you mean, but do you play the game full screen (with F4) or do you let the original resolution. What's your desktop resolution ?
I play the game with the original resolution in 1680x1050 and GFX looks nice this way. I wonder if I shouldn't remove the fullscreen option...

I play it in windowed mode, on the small display of my girlfriend's laptop. I wouldn't say the game doesn't look good, maybe it's just that, as a pixel artist, I prefer sharpness over resolution. Other people might feel different.

- The hit detection is off. Sometimes just getting near the background with the top part of the ship (without actually touching it) drains energy. Additionally, you must hit enemies in the middle of the sprite to damage them. The original game allowed you to just scratch their edges and still deal full damage.

I don't see, could you illustrate that with a screenshot please.

On the Amiga, hit detection on enemies seemed to be pixel perfect, while the hitbox of the player's shots seemed to extend beyond the visible part. So you could just barely hit the edge of an enemy (the small cannons in stage 1 come to mind) and still deal full damage. In Last-Out I feel I have to hit them in the middle of the sprite to make an impact.

On the issue of collison detection with the background: I can get close to the ground with my ship and everythings fine, but when I get near the ceiling my energy starts to drain even when I'm still a few pixels away. It seems like the hitbox of the player ship is higher than the ship.

- The first boss doesn't work the way it's supposed to. In the original game, You must score some direct hits to the snake, which then opens up the blue eye in the upper right corner, which you must damage to destroy the boss. The snake itself is invulnerable, it's just there to make the eye open up. In the original game, there's a safe spot in the upper left corner. It's not there in the remake.

You mean that the snake trajectory doesn't allow you to "sneak" in the upper left corner ?

Well, the snake would allow me to do so, but I can't get near enough to the ceiling due to the aforementioned collision issues.

But, yeah there is a but, I would like to insist on one important think : Last-Out will never be a perfect PC conversion of Z-Out cause I am making it as a remake, sure with flaws but with improvements too (the parallaxe for instance).

I hope you understand my point of view, it is this way I have created Blazing Wings ie with new weapons, and a new stage.

Yeah, I can see where you're coming from, and I applaud your efforts.


One more thing I noticed you might want to think about: Do you really want to keep instant respawn? I know a lot of people hate checkpoints in games, but Z-Out has them for a reason: To make sure you always have the minimum weaponry to survive the next scene. With instant respawn, you can end up being severely underequipped.

[Aligarion]

On the Amiga, hit detection on enemies seemed to be pixel perfect, while the hitbox of the player's shots seemed to extend beyond the visible part. So you could just barely hit the edge of an enemy (the small cannons in stage 1 come to mind) and still deal full damage. In Last-Out I feel I have to hit them in the middle of the sprite to make an impact.

On the issue of collison detection with the background: I can get close to the ground with my ship and everythings fine, but when I get near the ceiling my energy starts to drain even when I'm still a few pixels away. It seems like the hitbox of the player ship is higher than the ship.

Game Maker uses a pixel perfect detection of collisions for each sprites, but something strange can happen : when a sprite moves on a straight line for instance, I think that it doesn't run all the points of the line but jump from point to point even if you can't see the jump cause it is too quick for your eyes. So if two small sprites (like a bullet and a turret) collide, I think it is possible that sometimes some bullets cross a turret without colliding it because it actually jumped from a point in front of the turret to another point behind.
I know, it is weird, but I it is possible, cause it is the way the player sprite moves : each time you press an arrow key, you make it jump from 14 pixels in the direction you chose, but you can't see it jumping and you think it has moved on a straight line...

Well, the snake would allow me to do so, but I can't get near enough to the ceiling due to the aforementioned collision issues.

I fixed this problem cause actually it was not a ceiling collision but a collision from a wall on the left out of the battle screen. Actually, when you moved left your ship, a part of the ship was outside the screen and could collide with little vertical wall.
Now, it can't.

One more thing I noticed you might want to think about: Do you really want to keep instant respawn? I know a lot of people hate checkpoints in games, but Z-Out has them for a reason: To make sure you always have the minimum weaponry to survive the next scene. With instant respawn, you can end up being severely underequipped.

I don't know how to do that cause I would have to reinitialize the map one screen before you die, maybe it is possible but I don't know how.

I would say that the underequipment problem you mentioned is balanced with thehealth bar which allow you to survive longer.

Don't worry, I didn't forget what you suggested me, I am thinking about three difficulty modes : an easy mode identical to the one you already played, a medium mode with half the health of the easy mode and an Amiga mode with na health at all (actually one point to make player die each time it collides something).

[worstplayer]

You can simply use savestates as checkpoints, just don't forget subtracting one life after loading and re-saving it again.

[Herr Schatten]

I just wanted to quickly post what I did with the sprites you sent me. (Left = original, right = touched-up version). This is how I would re-imagine the stuff in higher resolution. (No time today for the third one.)

I think it really takes just slightly more time to do something like this compared to "just" smoothing out the jaggies, but the effect is much better. What do you think?



*


I don't think I've anything to add at the moment. I'm looking forward to new versions of your game.

* I always wondered whether the orange enemy is supposed to look like Garfield.

[EddyMRA]

*

Wow, those are excellent revamps of those sprites. Seeing this, I agree that updating the graphics for high-resolution would be the best way to go.

[Aligarion]

What do you think?]

What you did is tremendous.

I wish I had half of your graphic skill.

[lilmanjs]

high-res is the way to go after seeing those "touchups"

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Yeah the only proper way to redo traditional pixel art is to redraw them at the desired resolution. Upscaling and smoothing is usually your least appealing option. Smoothing causes a loss in sharpness (due to excessive colors) and also smudges small details out. Herr knows his stuff. However, high res traditional work may take extensively longer to animate.

[Aligarion]

Version 0.4.1 online with a graphically updated level 1...

Thanks to Herr Schatten for the upscaled sprites.

http://www.last-out.fr.tc/

[Lloyd Mangram]

I had a quick go of this...

First off, to let you know where I'm coming from, I don't think the original Z-Out was too hard and for hardcore gamers only. I managed to complete it, yet when it comes to modern shooters, I'm usually one of these 'Die on level 3" kind of guys.

Anyway, so... you mentioned that f4 will make it go fullscreen. For me, pressing f4 doesn't do anything.

I agree that redrawn graphics look much better than rescaled+filtered+slight touching up graphics. If you lack the talent to redraw them, and if Herr Schatten lacks the time to do them for you, then consider at least including an 'original version' option which would be the original graphics rescaled in whole units without filtering (eg, x2, x3, or x4 depending on screen res)

Also, Herr Schatten already mentioned the 'stuck enemy bullet' glitch but it happened a couple of times to me too. I suspect you might need to check the order of the code regarding when enemies spawn bullets and when enemies are killed, as it does seem like it might be a case of an enemy that is set to die spawning one last bullet with zero movement variables.

Energy bars encourage sloppy play. I understand you want to add it, but consider an option to cater for those who'd rather not have an energy bar. (oops, I just noticed you've already agreed to have an option. Well, I second the motion!)

Personally, I'd ditch the clouds in level 2. They looked dumb in the original and they look dumb now. But if you keep them, you need to know that if you spend too long killing the end of level boss, a cloud will eventually wander onto the screen from behind. You need to check your off-screen object removal function (or whatnot) as clearly at least of those clouds is still cruising along happily long after you've left the cloud section. Also, if you keep them, consider making them some sort of wispy alpha blended sprite object instead of the solid-looking cartoony clouds they currently are.

As HS mentioned, the collision detection seems a bit iffy, both in terms of player bullets to enemies and player to background. It's crucial to get the collision detection right.

I think it is possible that sometimes some bullets cross a turret without colliding it because it actually jumped from a point in front of the turret to another point behind.

This is a common problem in games with fast-moving objects, and it is commonly overcome by calculating the movement of the relevant objects as vectors and then running a function to check if two vectors intersect. This way, collisions can be detected even if the collision would have occurred between frames (eg: in frame 1, a bullet is to the left of the target; in frame 2, the bullet is on the right of the target).

Finally, I don't want to sound too critical, but what framerate is this running at? 30fps? 25fps? Less? I'm not sure about the idea of taking a game that originally ran at 50fps on a 7.14mhz machine and remaking it so it ends up running at a noticeably lower framerate on a 3ghz machine, but maybe I'm just fussy.

Having said all that, I really liked the parallax. I always wished z-out had parallax scrolling. And despite my criticisms, I still enjoyed playing this remake!

[Aligarion]

Anyway, so... you mentioned that f4 will make it go fullscreen. For me, pressing f4 doesn't do anything.

I disabled this option, it is enabled again.

I agree that redrawn graphics look much better than rescaled+filtered+slight touching up graphics. If you lack the talent to redraw them, and if Herr Schatten lacks the time to do them for you, then consider at least including an 'original version' option which would be the original graphics rescaled in whole units without filtering (eg, x2, x3, or x4 depending on screen res)

Level one sprites have been redrawn, I will progressively work on next level.

Also, Herr Schatten already mentioned the 'stuck enemy bullet' glitch but it happened a couple of times to me too. I suspect you might need to check the order of the code regarding when enemies spawn bullets and when enemies are killed, as it does seem like it might be a case of an enemy that is set to die spawning one last bullet with zero movement variables.

Yeah, some ennemies don't detect the presence of the player object before shooting so when you are dead they have no direction to shoot in. I am repairing that.

Energy bars encourage sloppy play. I understand you want to add it, but consider an option to cater for those who'd rather not have an energy bar. (oops, I just noticed you've already agreed to have an option. Well, I second the motion!)

As already said before, I will had a difficulty mode.

Personally, I'd ditch the clouds in level 2. They looked dumb in the original and they look dumb now. But if you keep them, you need to know that if you spend too long killing the end of level boss, a cloud will eventually wander onto the screen from behind. You need to check your off-screen object removal function (or whatnot) as clearly at least of those clouds is still cruising along happily long after you've left the cloud section. Also, if you keep them, consider making them some sort of wispy alpha blended sprite object instead of the solid-looking cartoony clouds they currently are.

They will be alpha blended in the next version, and the cloud wandering issue should be fixed now.

This is a common problem in games with fast-moving objects, and it is commonly overcome by calculating the movement of the relevant objects as vectors and then running a function to check if two vectors intersect. This way, collisions can be detected even if the collision would have occurred between frames (eg: in frame 1, a bullet is to the left of the target; in frame 2, the bullet is on the right of the target).

I wish I would be able to do that...

Finally, I don't want to sound too critical, but what framerate is this running at? 30fps? 25fps? Less? I'm not sure about the idea of taking a game that originally ran at 50fps on a 7.14mhz machine and remaking it so it ends up running at a noticeably lower framerate on a 3ghz machine, but maybe I'm just fussy.

20... but the game run just fine on my computer... no lag at all, but I will try to increase the frame rate to 40.

Having said all that, I really liked the parallax. I always wished z-out had parallax scrolling. And despite my criticisms, I still enjoyed playing this remake!

Thanks for your criticisms, it will definitely make the game better.

[Aligarion]

This is a snapshot of level 3 :


http://www.last-out.fr.tc/

[Shatterhand]

This is a common problem in games with fast-moving objects, and it is commonly overcome by calculating the movement of the relevant objects as vectors and then running a function to check if two vectors intersect. This way, collisions can be detected even if the collision would have occurred between frames (eg: in frame 1, a bullet is to the left of the target; in frame 2, the bullet is on the right of the target)

I wish I would be able to do that...

This is doable on Gamemaker. I would have to check what functions you would need to do that, but it's doable.

But if you don't want the extra work, there are some ways to avoid this problem with hit detection.... one is to run the game at 60 fps... this way the objects move less pixels per frame, and if you make sure a bullet never go faster than its size + other object size, they will never pass through this object.

There's really no reason to make the game run with such a slow framerate. It's so easy to make it run at 60fps on Gamemaker, and with the current computers, you can throw a lot of shit on screen and the FPS keeps steady.


Also, making a checkpoint system is very easy.

Do you need help with gamemaker? I've been using it for like 8 years, I've been teaching programming using it, so I have some experience with it. Send me a PM if you need some help

[Shatterhand]

I tried out the game.

Its looking pretty good inded... but the low framerate is a serious issue IMHO. Because of it, your main ship move in big "chucks", making the control of the ship a lot more annoying than it should. That part in level 3 where there are lots of small green enemies is "EXTREMELY" annoting, as I feel I can barely move in the small spots where you must be "waiting" for a gap to pass through the enemies. Any little tap on the stick makes the ship crash in the background (At least I don't die instantly )

You really should think about making the game running at 60 fps. You can make everything moving in a much smoother way.


Also, don't go too happy with the room transitions, or your game may end up looking like a piss-poor power point presentation

[Aligarion]

I have worked on the frame rate and now it is 60 FPS in each stage.

I had to change a lot of things to achieve it (object speed, image speed,...)

Now it looks much more playable than ever !

About room transitions, do you mean I should be sober ?

I think I could need some help with scripts I didn't succeed in creating like objects flashing when hit... I will PM you when I will be back at home.

[Shatterhand]

if you use MSN, add me there: shatterhand hotmail com

edit: I think the pre-made room transitions in GM are a little unkward, they don't feel very natural to me. Everytime I see one, I feel it's completely out of place .

But that's just me. You don't have to make a game that *everyone* will like

[Aligarion]

if you use MSN, add me there: shatterhand hotmail com

I will be back home in four weeks so I won't be able to contact you before.

By the way, the level 3 is completed, I just wait coming back to release it.

[Aligarion]

A new version of Last-Out (0.4.2) is available !

- The frame rate of the game is now 60 FPS.
- Level 3 playable.
- 7 crystal-made paralaxes for the background of level 3.
- Press J+K on the title screen to toggle the Amiga difficulty mode.

http://www.amigachapterone.com/last-out/

[Lloyd Mangram]

Nice work. Looking forward to trying this out. Very pleased to read that it runs at 60fps now.

[Aligarion]

Hi,

A new version of Last-Out (0.5.1) is available :

- Level 4 playable.
- Soundtracks remixed by Marco MAROLD.
- Level 2 sprites enhanced (filter removed).
- One more parallax in level 2.
- Sprites flash when colliding.
- Highscore available.

Have a nice game !

[SunSpire]

Hi shmup fans !!

Just registered here to let you all know that I started work on the level 6 music
and the ending credits for Last-Out

"SunSpire"

[Aligarion]

Hi,

After several years, Last-Out is again available here in 0.5.4 beta with level 5 partialy playable :

http://amigachaptertwo.wordpress.com/last-out/

Have a nice play !

[Aligarion]

Hi,

New download link added.

http://amigachaptertwo.worpress.com/last-out/