'The Making of R-Type' for the ZX Spectrum .PDF

[Ex_Mosquito]

I just came across this earlier today, I'm not sure if it's been posted yet.
It's an online self-published E-Book by the programmer of the amazing R-Type conversion on the ZX Spectrum and his story of how it was made. I havnt read it all the way through yet but it looks like an interesting read. The oldie UK shooter fans will know how legendary this conversion was back in the day, I was personally totally obsessed with it back in the 80's.

It turns out the guy only live 30mins down the road from me! crazy!

http://bizzley.com

[ciox]

Thanks for this, since I love both R-Type and the Spectrum (my first computer), I remember the buzz about the port in magazines and so on even though I never owned it, I had a few simpler shmups to play on Spectrum like Light Force and Xecutor.
Gonna take a while to go through all 138 pages of this but it's already interesting, lots of details about implementing each level, kinda funny how the author remembers the fifth level as being easy in the arcade.

[Bar81]

Was a Commodore 64 guy but downloaded as it looks like a really interesting read.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

C64 version had an interesting history too (they got the licence by first making the well known ripoff Katakis and then developed the port in six weeks) I will give this a read!

[Necronom]

Thanks for sharing this. Quite a good read indeed!

[hermit crab]

This was a pretty fascinating read and also covered the hilarious development of Rampage for the Spectrum.

Gonna watch a longplay of Spectrum R-Type from Youtube now. Or maybe I should play it with an emulator instead, hmm.

[null1024]

This was very interesting, lots of technical tidbits, lots of stuff on game development during the era, etc.
I should fire up R-Type in a Speccy emu now, heh.

[Herr Schatten]

That was a most fascinating read. I find it amazing that neither the publisher nor the programmer of the conversion actually thought that R-Type was anything special. What we consider one of the rare defining games within the genre was mereley "just another space shooter" to them.

[hermit crab]

At the end he mentions working on some Gameboy (and other console) games after the Speccy. Anyone know which ones?

I watched the longplay yesterday instead of emulating it btw. Gotta say after reading all that about it it seemed kinda... crappy. Don't really have much experience with Speccy games though so it's hard to put into perspective.

[ciox]

At the end he mentions working on some Gameboy (and other console) games after the Speccy. Anyone know which ones?

I watched the longplay yesterday instead of emulating it btw. Gotta say after reading all that about it it seemed kinda... crappy. Don't really have much experience with Speccy games though so it's hard to put into perspective.

Yeah, it looks about as good as it could get on a Spectrum, the mass enthusiasm and high marks the game was met with says it all really, not to mention the framed cassette tape prize you can see in the book.
The really cool thing is how the programmer added stuff because he didn't have the actual game close at hand all the time, just the assets. So extra stuff was put in like the R9 flying into outer space for the stage's boss fight (many times), background exploding when the first stage is over, final boss sliding into its lair before the final fight etc, all this despite the extreme size limitations.
I agree the original game doesn't seem to get very much credit, it was being compared unfavorably with emerging genres I guess, with everyone a bit overeager to go "out with the old" and finding faults where there were none.
Also maybe a tiiiny bit of invincibility play, because there's no way stage 5 is "easy" with the loads of force-piercing enemies, speed powerups scattered everywhere like traps and a boss that pretty much requires that you remember to keep a specific weapon from an earlier stage.

[hermit crab]

Yeah, it looks about as good as it could get on a Spectrum, the mass enthusiasm and high marks the game was met with says it all really, not to mention the framed cassette tape prize you can see in the book.

Heh the author didn't seem to think too much of the reviews the game got at the time, or that prize. But of course the later recognition like being chosen as a top 3 game of all time for the Speccy in some vote is undeniable.

[Pinehed]

At the end he mentions working on some Gameboy (and other console) games after the Speccy. Anyone know which ones?

At MobyGames he is credited for R-Type II (GB), R-Type DX (GBC) and three non-shmup titles.

[Herr Schatten]

Gotta say after reading all that about it it seemed kinda... crappy. Don't really have much experience with Speccy games though so it's hard to put into perspective.

Considering the limitations of the Spectrum, it turned out much better than could be reasonably expected. The Spectrum was terrible for this kind of game. The relative accuracy of the port is actually pretty amazing, especially compared to the C64 version which took a lot of freedom with some parts of the game (e.g. the laser circle in stage 1 or the stage 5 boss) and was more of an interpretation than an actual port. It is somewhat understandable, though, as all Trenz could do within the time constraints was trying to shoehorn R-Type level data into his existing Katakis engine. (I'm still interested in knowing how exactly he managed to botch the beam weapon that was working perfectly in Katakis, though.)

I agree the original game doesn't seem to get very much credit, it was being compared unfavorably with emerging genres I guess, with everyone a bit overeager to go "out with the old" and finding faults where there were none.

That might have been just the British gaming press, though. I distinctly remember one of the only two German gaming magazines in existence back then reviewing the arcade version of R-Type and fully acknowledging that there was some revolutionary stuff going on in the game (link).

[ciox]

I agree the original game doesn't seem to get very much credit, it was being compared unfavorably with emerging genres I guess, with everyone a bit overeager to go "out with the old" and finding faults where there were none.

That might have been just the British gaming press, though. I distinctly remember one of the only two German gaming magazines in existence back then reviewing the arcade version of R-Type and fully acknowledging that there was some revolutionary stuff going on in the game (link).

Yeah, that's what I mean, most were blown away by R-Type's huge sprites (see the always present Dobkeratops screenshot), varied weapons, setting and etc.

[hermit crab]

At the end he mentions working on some Gameboy (and other console) games after the Speccy. Anyone know which ones?

At MobyGames he is credited for R-Type II (GB), R-Type DX (GBC) and three non-shmup titles.

Oh he did R-Type II for the GB, cool, I think I've even played that. DX was just a colorized I&II IIRC, he might have not actually had much to do with that release and maybe just got the credit based on his work for II.

[Sly Cherry Chunks]

(I'm still interested in knowing how exactly he managed to botch the beam weapon that was working perfectly in Katakis, though.)

not sure what you mean by this. C64 R-Type had some weird stuff going on, the behaviour of the force, for example. The beam always seemed fine to me though

[Herr Schatten]

(I'm still interested in knowing how exactly he managed to botch the beam weapon that was working perfectly in Katakis, though.)

not sure what you mean by this. C64 R-Type had some weird stuff going on, the behaviour of the force, for example. The beam always seemed fine to me though

If it hits a bullet fired by an enemy, the beam just vanishes. You probably don't really notice it unless you look for it. I guess since Trenz implemented all the bullets and player shots as high-res background tiles, there's something weird going on with his background/background collision.

[Mero]

I used to have Speccy R-Type, defintely a great port given the hardware (which came out in 1982, to be fair). I could get to stage 5 on it.

[thermal_treasure]

Thanks for sharing, will definitely be getting a copy for the kindle. I was always impressed by the GB/Master System ports, but the ZX port looks remarkable given the limitations. Always great reading about R-Type/Irem.