wakres01@pa.usl.edu (Stelly John B) (03/26/90)
I am currently devolping a game for the amiga. I intend on allowing for hard disk and multitasking support. However, the nature of the graphic display of the game prohibits normal multi-tasking. My question is : Would anyone be offended by a game that took over the display , even if it had an alternative way to access the rest of the amiga environment ? The game will happily allow other programs to co-exist in the system, and, of course allocates and deallocates all memory it uses, but it MUST program the copper directly, and therefore cannot share the display with another task. So what I will provide is some "button" or other means of returning to the workbench (or that is my idea at present) NOTE the game does not inhibit the operation of anything but the display, and will not crash if other programs try to program the display as well - everything is handled through the OS.. Any suggestions or opinions (not flames!) would be appreciated. ---------------------------------------- John B Stelly wakres01@pa.usl.edu ----------------------------------------
chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu (Chris Lang) (03/26/90)
In article <5809@rouge.usl.edu> wakres01@pa.usl.edu (Stelly John B) writes: >My question is : Would anyone be offended by a game that took over the >display , even if it had an alternative way to access the rest of the amiga >environment ? Probably not, and I'm offended easily. :-) >The game will happily allow other programs to co-exist in the system, and, >of course allocates and deallocates all memory it uses, but it MUST program >the copper directly, and therefore cannot share the display with another task. >So what I will provide is some "button" or other means of returning to the >workbench (or that is my idea at present) NOTE the game does not inhibit the >operation of anything but the display, and will not crash if other programs >try to program the display as well - everything is handled through the OS.. That sounds fairly reasonable. Since you would most definitely not want the game active while you're off doing something else (tends to be detrimental to your score, y'know ;-), providing some means of "shutting it up" temporarily sounds quite logical. It's refreshing to see someone putting a lot of thought and effort into integrating a game into the multitasking environment rather than assuming "It's a game; ergo, I can take over the machine." (Yes, I know it's not unheard of, but it IS all too rare.) So, my response is...go for it! Since you've obviously been thinking about it a lot, it would seem a shame not to do it, IMVVHO. -Chris > >Any suggestions or opinions (not flames!) would be appreciated. > >---------------------------------------- >John B Stelly wakres01@pa.usl.edu >---------------------------------------- -- Chris Lang, University of Michigan, College of Engineering +1 313 763 1832 4622 Bursley, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109 chrisl@caen.engin.umich.edu WORK: National Center for Manufacturing Sciences, 900 Victors Way, Suite 226, Ann Arbor, MI, 48108 +1 313 995 0300 "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (03/27/90)
wakres01@pa.usl.edu (Stelly John B) writes: >I am currently devolping a game for the amiga. I intend on allowing for >hard disk and multitasking support. However, the nature of the graphic >display of the game prohibits normal multi-tasking. >My question is : Would anyone be offended by a game that took over the >display , even if it had an alternative way to access the rest of the amiga >environment ? Hey, at least you had the decency and concern to ask! That's much more than can be said for many Amiga games, that, usually because of copy protection, have to be the boot disk, and thereby take over the entire machine. If your game does allow multitasking and you can switch back to the workbench with some sort of button (as you suggested in your article) then that's ok (at least by me), and much more than is offered by many other games. -- John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY) sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406 As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error.