itch.io

Excellent news, thanks!

Each time I change the Scorpion Engine version, it may add those little glitches that you described. I have a text file list here on my computer with many, which are accumulating. Not actually the engine's fault, that's the nature of game development in general, it's hard and unpredictable. Even more on retro hardware. Also, that's why the majority of Amiga ambitious game projects may never be finished: the motivation wears off as the problems tend only to accumulate towards the project's end!

But, on a lighter note, after this good news, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Crashing like that on world 5 was a serious issue that would harm severely the project, while minor issues here and there are to be kind of expected due to the experimental nature (as an ongoing project) of the Scorpion Engine.

That would be great, difficult because of the IP, but not impossible (afaik Geezer Games was able to get a permit for a limited physical edition of Rygar - which is a IP by Tecmo - and Mauro Xavier is attempting to get one with Capcom for his port of Final Fight to the Mega Drive/cartridge version).

Thanks!

The scoreboard on the regular A1200/A4000 version may be a little better now since it's now set to overlap the game rather than push the screen down, but it's a standard feature of the engine and you can see this happens on other games done with it. It's called a 'panel' in the engine's jargon, and as we speak, that's the only way allowed in the engine to write text or stats on the Amiga screen. But the engine is experimental and is evolving everyday, so you never know, maybe in the future it'll allow to overlay text directly on the play area without that panel or make the panel transition smoother.

The 'run out of picture on level2', now that's something more worrying that I can do something about. Can you tell if that happens before a player death or after, and at what exact point on the stage?

Hi,

I've got multiple reports of crashes on the third level (world 3). It's a high priority issue, so I pinned it in the dev log here.

I don't think it's the TF330 card, but meanwhile, you could try this special version that I did (in this link), it only runs adequately with extra memory (like that on your TF card) but that also means that it's more stable than the normal CD32 version (which has some crazy stuff made to run on the lesser amount of memory of a stock CD32, and that crazy stuff might be causing crashes). Thanks! 

Thanks!

I'll verify that closely, because I've got reports of issues with the continue feature on the 4th boss as well, so, until that, I recommend to use save states (if you're on emulator) for those tougher bosses. :)

No problem, Neil at Indie Retro News wrote that it was feature complete as the main headline, I know it's easy to confuse and just think that it's fully complete. That's why I did that devlog post here on Itch.io, but for anyone who plays it becomes clear that it lacks testing. :)  So, again, thanks very much for your testing, and sorry for my insistence, but here's yet another update for your testing, this time fully concentrated on your world5 problem:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12XoU88mNCO34DtespfZKbW7JCwB_HPZq/view?usp=shari...

What I did this time was profound, I changed for another version of the engine. It adds other minor glitches in other parts, like for example, the character can slide on your knees if you are walking then press down. But the overall performance may be improved and best of all, it's possible that the world 5 crash doesn't happens. The minor glitches will be fixed in time. Scorpion Engine is an experimental, on-going project, it has several versions and is being constantly updated. I was using a stable one, from a while ago, because it was stable for me. But it is obviously not stable for you. So, it was the recommended action by the friends at Discord: to change to another version and see if it works!

Well said!

But about the game status, it's "feature complete", that doesn't means it's "complete" as a full release. Perhaps there's a misunderstanding going on. It's technically a beta (all the content is in it, but it's still untested and has issues to solve). 

Also worth saying, that the internet today is very biased *against* the Amiga. You can see issues and glitches on full-price commercial console games released (search for "Super Castlevania SNES moonwalk" on YouTube for example) but the internet seems to turn a blind eye to that - if that was on a free Amiga game, its author would be harshly criticized! Because there's a sort of herd mentality, mostly negative, regarding the Amiga today (internet "revisionism"), which is very frustrating and disheartening.

Finally, check the status posted on the devlog, your error has been reported there, work continues:

https://danteretrodev.itch.io/akumajou-dracula-aga/devlog/876838/status-and-repo...

Thanks!

Thank you very much!

Valeu! :)

Definitely not your Wb or chipRAM, that were assumptions I took based on the most common errors described. Like an airplane accident, it's generally caused by a conjunction of factors: the limit on number of actors, your play style, and now a new discovery:

The bones launched by the red skeletors were not being removed when they go off screen, so, they were *also* accumulating. So, that was the modification I did on the post edit. But to confirm it further, one more test, this time I removed them completely (applying the Muntzing method):

https://drive.google.com/file/d/15F00WcMoPLme680Ers_JTh0AcENxTuiG/view?usp=shari...

Also in the plane accident analogy, at this point I'm completely exhausted, have put many sleepless hours on this issue, and I'm prone to commit errors at this point. Like exhausted pilots do when under absolute stress. So, I may even put wrong files up for your testing (this time is just the WHDLoad on the link above, to make sure). Sorry, but doing an Amiga game of this scope, for free as a single programmer, no matter how advanced are the current tools, is like swimming against a very strong tide, several miles from any beach on open ocean. All this for a free game on a very niche platform. That's important to have in mind when it's about game rating.

I did another version, this time I increased the actor count. The error message says that the limit of 32 has been breached, so I increased that limit considerably. You'll see the number on the score panel at the top, right next to the word 'enemy' (it's temporary, just to make sure you're on the right version and can see the actor count). Link:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lMJKJFznNUsNJK2sVS4_aVbNBURqVtTc/view?usp=shari...

(Edit: added new modifications around 03:55 AM GMT, please download again if you got it before).

I had reports about other issues from other players, but nothing on that stage. They're more related to CD32 version, which isn't your case. But let's see what happens with that increased number of actors on this new version I'm sending now.

Your WinUAE config isn't needed now, because I was finally able to make it crash on my configuration too. I also recommend that you avoid leaving too much candles and objects behind (you must destroy as much as possible) because they accumulate on the level and cause the limit to be more easily breached. If nothing works, I may try to compile the project on other versions of the engine, older or newer, until we find a version that works for you. Thanks again!

Excellent, thanks, the error message pinpoints exactly what happened.

So, I did a special version for you that should work (let's cross our fingers). In the link below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lj2yn-paqEnqwxW2GmmZuewJ2YmQWWgS/view?usp=shari...

It's a very rare issue! You can check on YouTube now, many longplays and live streams that didn't had that problem, like this one, for example. 

Also, the problem doesn't seems to happen on FS-UAE, it only happens on WinUAE.

So, what I did was to reduce the number of candles and objects on the level by about 10 to 20% (the error message is about that: max number of objects/limit). 

If it still crashes, I'll reduce even more! Don't give up! ;-)

Oh, it was emulation, that's a relief. My focus is on crashes on real hardware. Emulation will never be 100%, for example, you can configure UAE to have 8MB of chipRAM, which is physically impossible on real world (you'll need to redesign the Amiga chipset and add extra addresses).

So, it enables strange stuff like that, resulting in strange and unexpected results that we developers can't manage to foresee.

Bunnito's Feast programmer was clever, I should have done that memory check too.

As the error keeps happening, I would please ask you to test the following:

Download the 'Castlevania AGA HDF' version from this page. Follow this quick tutorial that I just recorded for you on how to load the HDF file on your emulator (it's very simple).

This is basically like the CD32 version, but running on a disk image rather than a CD ISO. Think of it as an ADF floppy image.  Don't worry, it has all the level skip shortcuts that you need to quick test the place with problem.

If that HDF works for you, in the way shown in the video tutorial, I know what's happening. And again, as a disclaimer, we developers can't guarantee to fix everything for all possible configurations around (as they're almost infinite), so, our focus is first in real hardware, then direct emulator configurations (like CD32 or the HDF shown above, getting rid of the Workbench which just jeopardizes things). The best Amiga games from back in the day also removed the system out of the way to squeeze the best performance and to have less troubles!  Thanks.

Edit: my WinUAE is version 3.4.0, installed in 2016, and the game works here from start to end without any issue. As they say, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".  ;-)

Edit: I noticed that you are not playing the latest version. Latest version (January 26) features that instruction text at the bottom of the options menu, like in the picture below. I'm still adding things and fixes (check last paragraph in this post).

I wasn't able to reproduce your issue, it simply doesn't happen with me (check this video, same situation as you, I tried to force the crash).

It may be low chipRAM. Even if your Workbench says "1,800,000" of chip, it isn't always true (as memory gets corrupted due to Wb apps loaded and other stuff). I would suggested to please test the vanilla CastlevaniaAGA_January2025.lha on a higher chipRAM situation: hold both mouse buttons on boot, boot with no startup, then Work:  (or equivalent name of the partition) >> cd CastlevaniaAGA >> game-crunched.exe 

AGA games launched from Workbench are always at risk, even with WHDLoad. Remember that back in the day, Super Stardust AGA had a boot-disk? That's the reason! A similar crash happened a while ago on AmigaBill's stream, and after that, he always used boot with no startup method (just to make sure). And since that, it always worked without problems.

It might be other incompatibility related to hardware. I would like to know what is your hardware (specially accelerator model and the KS ROM on the Amiga).

Regarding complete version, in technical terms, the game is BETA, which means that the game is feature complete, i.e., all features and content scheduled for release are in the game, including the full CD soundtrack on CD32. However, as a BETA the game is largely untested and thus has issues that need to be fixed (like what you experienced). This is why companies will do in-house betas, limited release/private betas, and public betas as their games become more solid on the way to full release. To be precise, the A1200/A4000 version is slightly behind beta because its .MOD soundtrack is still not fully complete. Hopefully, all will be finished in time for Amiga's 40th anniversary celebrations.

Thanks for playing, live streaming it and reporting! :)

Edit: regarding your request (up + fire for subweapon), I did an experimental version that does that.  Tested only with knife at beginning, but in theory it should work with all weapons. It's activated by default if up_for_jump isn't enabled. Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12BFGB7o4H1CjYthFyHLb4otyP5rXjij0/view?usp=shari...

Stairs tips and hints: what most people I see playing do (me inclusive) is to just keep pressing right and up at same time a couple of meters before stairs: Simon keeps walking towards the stairs and as soon as you're on the spot, he'll snap on the ladder and go upstairs. To get down, you don't do anything, it just goes downhill like if it's a 45-degree slope down. You can move right and left on a ladder, not just up and down (same as SNES Super CV).

Check picture below, I hope it shows the spot clearly: there's a hard limit regarding spot position (the grid is fixed, it is not flexible, grid size is fixed by the Amiga's blitter at 16x16 pixels in size and you have them at position 0, 16, 32 and so on). I'm afraid I can't do much more in that regard, I did my best.

But I'll check the DS4 controller issue on FS-UAE 3.1.68, and I at some point I may implement the up+fire for subs because it's been requested often. Thanks again!

To answers your questions, it depends on what conditions are you playing. Is real hardware? If so, what spec? Is it on the FS-UAE build? That has notorious issues with two buttons pressed at same time, specially if you use keyboard Z and X.

The stair access hotspots are limited to a 16x16 tile, always the 1st tile and last tile of the ladder. They are like this in most Castlevanias, I never liked stairs handling in most title of the series (no wonder they dropped this on SotN, it's just a slope skinned as stairs there), so I added the ability to just jump on top of it and move ahead.

But it's a valid point, and I can make tests with portals. "Portals" is a feature that I started to use on CD32 and they are spots that are not limited to a 16x16 tile. It's a ton of work to swap all spots for portals and that will likely add further, unexpected issues. So, I have to ponder a lot about it!

Sub-weapons on FS-UAE/CD32 pad: why you couldn't reliably use sub-weapon, what happens? Is it a USB controller plugged on PC? You can edit all button bindings in the file Default.fs-uae located at Game dir\FS-UAE\Configurations

And you can always press and hold (like a charge in MegaMan). It's better than up + fire because you can fire while crouching. ;-) But the ideal and recommended way is to use 3 buttons (attack, jump, and sub-weapon).

Simon taking a few frames to switch back to stand after landing goes down here as low priority, like anything that's just aesthetics. Everything written above was higher on order of priority. Attract mode goes straight into game by design, no frills. Could be readjusted, but again, low priority on the list and likely for 1.1, not 1.0.

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for playing!

You mean, the one shown below?  If so, we had some fun at Discord, asking what was the most "low priority" critic or feedback you guys received about your games. Panel push the game screen down, then up. Nothing serious, it's an engine quirk. But seems that it somehow bothers some people. So I will quote an excellent and flattering answer by Mikael there: "When a game is so polished that it rivals official releases, it is bound to happen that people start viewing it as such, thus comparing it to games of very high standard, and commenting about some features that seem to them a little less polished. Believe me; in it's own way, commenting the screen dropping down is definitely a compliment. They compare your game to the best examples and how things were done in those."

Cool! I agree that the game is too easy at the moment, specially the bosses. If you check my release of Amiga's Green Beret, I've added difficulty levels, it's probably what I'll do on Castlevania. Think that it's on easy mode now.

The Frank level is designed on top of the original, so it is what it is. It's a continuation of the underground part with the raft, so it is not short nor easy on the whole.

About Simon, I rather not touch that since it's made by a Castlevania specialist and seasoned pixel artist, not by me. So I respect the work of talented people who helped me because he liked the project.  And on top of this, the Simon design was overwhelmingly well received by the Castlevania community so far.

The up + fire to simulated the original NES is a valid request, and you are not the first to ask. It was not added at first because up was originally for jump (yeah we have Amiga purists who want that) so it kinds of getting messy if we add too much workarounds on controls. Consoles tend to control better than the typical Amiga games because they have standardized controls and avoid not tinkering with too much methods to meet the preferences of different people. Having said that, I should have made it mandatory for at least 2 buttons controller, that would have made everything so tidier, control-wise. The best way to play it will be always a CD32 controller or equivalent, where the right shoulder button (or yellow) will be for weapon.

Thanks for playing and for your suggestions and all! :)

Thanks for the video and thanks for playing!

This happens in WinUAE if you use certain settings, specially "fastest possible" and cycle-exact off. But we're not sure of the exact settings that cause this. At the moment I'd recommend using FS-UAE instead, with FS-UAE Launcher, it's the only one so far that got CD32 100% right, as shown in Amiga Bill's livestream from Sunday (the area you're showing starts at 03:12:35 on the livestream link) . But it'd need to convert the MP3 music in the ISO to WAV and edit the .cue file to match the converted file names.

Awesome, here we go:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16KDA0Q_vKulN93qnhwX-s0y0S71pjgBi/view?usp=shari...

I may check how actual Simon Belmont sounds. I used your Alucard's SD_ALK_00004.wav file in the game build above. Thanks for the heads up and many thanks for playing! :)

Thanks, that clip is very cool: by sheer insistence you managed to get on the floor from previous level :D (yeah, it's still there, everything is there, it's just the camera that crops down). That wasn't an issue before CD32, as I was just loading and unloading levels at will. I can't do that on CD32, because 1) it'll wear out your CD reader  2) CD loading times are slow  3) the CD music stops when a loading operation starts (hard limit, no workaround).  So, the whole level or most part of it must be loaded on memory at once to avoid all of the above!

I need to give it some thought. I could just block the way out more consistently, as seems that my little text msg "no backtrack allowed" wasn't enough. ;)

The CD repeat workaround I mentioned seemed to work on AmigaBill's stream, he didn't "ran out of music" and he normally likes to take his time on a level. But making super lengthy versions of the tracks is not a very elegant way. The restart music button that I added on left shoulder button to force it was also meant for early troubles when the music refused completely to start (seems fixed now).

It's was already so much trouble with only the default A1200/A4000 version, why I added so much extra work with the CD32? LOL.

Yes, I think that they were talking recently about this possibility either on EAB or Discord.

I could mod the voice of Simon with the one you want :)

Just send me the sample in WAV format and I'll put it in the game and send you a link of that version! Could be your voice if you wish! ;)

Amazing! Thank you very much for the video on real hardware.  If possible, please inform Neil at IRN to use your latest footage (could be your video of the standard 1200 version) because he's using footage with the older/temporary character which was not the titular Simon Belmont yet. :)  Thanks again for your work covering all the new releases!

To everyone that had problem with WHDLoad version: download again, the icon was not pointing to the correct file, now it is. Thanks!

Hi, thanks for playing and for your message!

The CD audio indeed doesn't loops. You can check Earok's Super Star Wars Holiday CD32, it has the same limitation (and it's a port by the creator of the engine himself). I'd say that it's a hard limit. But, I remember that I did the following "hack": I edited some songs, doing a copy and paste of its whole length at the ending, so it simulated at least one loop. The drawback is that the ISO gets bigger, and our hosting space here is limited. So, this is mostly used on very long stages (such as stage 5). But, I may do the extreme looping like 3 or 4 repeats with total disregard to the ISO sizes and Itch.io hosting space. At the moment it's the only shot we got.

About the ladders and the animation, I always remember that Wayne's World movie scene with the guitar shop and the poster pinned in the way where it reads "NO starway to heaven". I mean, I gotta pin a poster here "no reports of ladder animation"! :)   The whole ladder is actually a bit of a hack on top of engine's "slope" physics (ie a thing that wasn't meant to be used that way). It may improve for v1.0 (we're at v0.9), but you will ALWAYS be able to moonwalk or do other funky moves there!  Bottom line: you can moonwalk on SNES Super Castlevania too, and I'm sure that it was not done by just one programmer like me on his spare time. ;)

Watched the clip from your stream, that's very interesting. It didn't freeze, technically speaking, the camera just lost focus on the player character and wandered all the way to the left (for no reason). This happened once on the same place and you can see a screenshot of the exact same place and issue taken by Jimmie.s80@gmail.com a few comments below, 7 days ago. I issued a hotfix for that and it never happened again. But I'll check that spot again, thank you very much for reporting!  I was a bit overwhelmed by the massive issue of CD music that refuses completely to play, which was completely unexpected so I put a lot of effort attempting to solve it (which fortunately seems to play correctly for you as far as I saw in your clip) and so I didn't had time yet to check more closely that fateful spot on world2.

Thanks for your detailed report and have a great Sunday!

It's a valid suggestion but low on priority list.

Still a ton of stuff to do ahead of this, bear in mind that I started this when I was 47, now I just turned 50, but at least we're seeing a possible 1.0 on the horizon. Which doesn't matter that the support will cease after 1.0, with Green Beret, I added many features such as difficulty level and more.

Good, thanks!

The color issue: uploaded a new ISO today, changed that background window to black instead of dark blue, let's see if that helps. Also forced the CD music on that part.

Ok, added music triggers for the other bosses, try latest ISO. May have fixed the the background colors issue too. Do you have a TF card on your CD32?

Thanks for all the testing and reporting, I just uploaded a new ISO fixing this.

Ok, I've reverted back the changes. Will keep trying until this is fixed. QUESTION: did it play the music in all boss fights or just the first one? Is music test options menu working? Thanks.

Just uploaded a new attempt, red book too, now using for in-game the same method used for boss fights that seems to work.

I'm working on it. I've asked Hoffman (who did Shinobi on Neo Geo CD) and he suggested Red Book audio specs, which was needed also for music to work on the Neo Geo CD. So, I just added a new version (last one on downloads list) which describes Red Book audio on its screen name. I still don't know if it will work, it's also suggested to record the CD at the slowest possible speed.

I'm working on that. I will upload a fixed WHDLoad version in the next hour. Thanks for playing and reporting!

Try this guide: https://www.retro32.com/gaming/amiga-cd32/0401202029-amiga-cd32-games-iso-downlo...

Also, check this image. Not sure if useful at this point but it's regarding CD tracks.

I've just put the opening music back again, it was deactivated for test purposes when I was troubleshooting the CD music issue with user Eric H on X (the music that was failing to play was just Vampire Killer, the first level track, others seemed fine). There must be a way for you guys to test an ISO on real console without having to waste a blank disk or wear the reader (and thank you very much for the help, the experimental nature of the project and engine calls for a lot of trial and error until things are fine).

User Eric H on X/Twitter burned 2 CDs and both worked, sent me video of running on real console, he got the music issue (possibly 192kbps to 128kbps export like described on the other reply) but like I said, those issues are expected, since it's one of the first CD32 games released with a experimental engine (Scorpion). To be honest, I'm surprised and pleased that it worked at all. It's just the music issue to fully solve and we're off to a great start! Have a great 2025 and thanks for playing.

Try downloading again, I've did "hotfix": some music was at 192kbps, that one seems to be tough for the CD32 player to deal, changed all to 128kbps. It's all trial and error, there is no manual for that. :)

Isso é NTSC, no A1200 real em PAL fica como nessa foto abaixo.  Só pra garantir, vc tá ligado de segurar os 2 botões durante o boot e selecionar o botão PAL né? Não só apertar a barra de espaço (que só muda temporariamente). E vale lembrar, o modo PAL que salva nas preferences do Workbench não afeta jogos.

Algumas TVs (mesmo modernas) não suportam e acho que jogam de volta pra NTSC, que é o que pode ter acontecido aí. Como último recurso, vc pode tentar programas que forçam PAL no sistema mais incisivamente (resistem soft reset), como o Degrader (https://aminet.net/package/util/misc/Degrader). 

It does. You must start it with the controller already plugged in.