Unknown lead platform:
Batman
First released for Amstrad CPC & ZX Spectrum in March 1986
Released for Amstrad PCW in June 1986
Released for MSX in 1986
The Great Escape
Released for C64 & ZX Spectrum in 1986
Ported to Amstrad CPC in 1986
Ported to PC in 1986
This is mostly monochromatic on any platform, suggesting original Spectrum design.
Robocop
First released for C64 & ZX Spectrum in 1988
Released for Amstrad CPC & MSX in 1989
Ported to PC in 1989 by Astros Productions
C64 seems most likely, as it's the most colorful platform.
Target: Renegade
Released for Amstrad CPC, C64, & ZX Spectrum in 1988
Rambo III
Released for Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, MSX, & ZX Spectrum in 1988
Released for Amiga in 1989
Ported to PC in 1989 by Banana Development
Batman: The Caped Crusader
Released for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, C64, & ZX Spectrum in 1988
Released for Atari ST in March 1989
Released for Apple II in December 1989
Released for PC in 1989
Batman (1989)
Released for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, MSX, & ZX Spectrum in 1989
F29 Retaliator
Released for Amiga and Atari ST in 1989
2D elements (such as the cockpit) in the Amiga version use 32 colors to Atari ST's 16, although the 3D view only uses 15.
Terminator 2: Judgement Day
Released for Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, C64, PC, & ZX Spectrum in 1991
Amiga does 64 colors to Atari ST & PC's 16.
The Addams Family (16-bit)
First released for SNES in March 1992
Released for Amiga and Atari ST in 1992
Ported to Nintendo Super System in 1992
Ported to Genesis in 1993
Epic
Released for Atari ST & PC in 1992
Ported to Amiga in 1992
Ported to PC-98 in 1993
PC version appears to use 256 colors in VGA mode.
Pushover
Released for Amiga, Atari ST, PC, & SNES in 1992.
Weirdly, Amiga is only 16 colors here, while SNES is 32 and PC is 48.
Jurassic Park (8-bit)
First released for NES in June 1993
Released for Gameboy in 1993
Jurassic Park (computer)
Released for Amiga & PC in 1993
Mr. Nutz
First released for SNES in August 1994Released for Gameboy & Genesis in 1994
SNES seems most likely as Gameboy & Genesis credit "sound conversion" to outside sources.
Heart of Darkness
First released for PC in June 1998
Released for PlayStation in July 1998
Select chronology:
| Title | Lead platform | Date | Contemporary ports |
| Hunchback | Oric | 1983 | Initially an arcade game 1984 ports to various microcomputers |
| Top Gun | Amstrad CPC | 1986 |
|
| Batman | ??? | 1986-3 | Simultaneous releases on Amstrad CPC & MZX Spectrum 1986 releases on Amstrad PCW & MSX |
| The Great Escape | ??? | 1986 | Same-year releases for C64 & ZX Spectrum 1986 port to Amstrad CPC by James Software 1987 port to PC |
| Head Over Heels | ZX Spectrum | 1987 | Same-year ports to various microcomputers |
| Platoon | Commodore 64 | 1987 | 1988 ports to NES & various microcomputers |
| RoboCop | ??? | 1988 | Same-year releases on C64 & ZX Spectrum 1989 releases on Amstrad CPC & MSX 1989 port to PC |
| Target: Renegade | ??? | 1988 | Same-year releases on Amstrad CPC, C64, & ZX Spectrum |
| Title | Lead platform | Date | Contemporary ports |
| Rambo III | ??? | 1988 | Same-year releases on Atari ST & various 8-bit microcomputers 1989 release on Amiga 1989 port to PC |
| Batman: The Caped Crusader | ??? | 1988 | Same-year releases for Amiga & various 8-bit microcomputers 1989 releases for Atari ST, Apple II, & PC |
| Batman | ??? | 1989 | Same-year releases for various microcomputers 1990 port to PC |
| F29 Retaliator | ??? | 1989 | Same-year releases on Amiga & Atari ST 1990 port to PC |
| Terminator 2: Judgment Day | ??? | 1991 | Too many to fit here |
| Title | Lead platform | Date | Contemporary ports |
| The Addams Family | NES | 1992-1 | 1993 ports to Game Gear & Sega Master System |
| The Addams Family | ??? | 1992-3 | Same-year releases on SNES, Amiga, & Atari ST Same-year port to Nintendo Super System 1993 port to Genesis |
| RoboCop 3 | SNES | 1992-9 | Same-year port to Nintendo Super System 1993 ports to Game Gear, Genesis, & Sega Master System by Eden Entertainment |
| Epic | ??? | 1992 | Same-year releases on Atari ST & PC Same-year port to Amiga 1993 release on PC-98 |
| Pushover | ??? | 1992 | Same-year releases on Amiga, Atari ST, PC, & SNES |
| Jurassic Park | ??? | 1993-6 | Same-year releases on NES & Gameboy |
| Jurassic Park | SNES | 1993-11 |
|
| Jurassic Park | ??? | 1993 | Same-year releases on Amiga & PC |
| TFX | DOS | 1993 |
|
| Mr. Nutz | ??? | 1994-8 | Same-year releases on Genesis, Gameboy, & SNES |
| Title | Lead platform | Date | Contemporary ports |
| Wetrix | Windows | 6/12/1998 | 1998 port to N64, released before PC version |
| Heart of Darkness | ??? | 6/26/1998 | Same-quarter releases on PC & PlayStation |
| Silver | Windows | 1999-5 | 2000 ports to Dreamcast & Macintosh |
Heart of Darkness…you mean based on the book that’s both stereotypical and slurring other races AND condemning white imperialism AT THE SAME TIME?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure why the game's called that. I can't think of anything particular it has common with the Conrad novel, except that both involve some amount of horror.
DeleteBatman (1989) was bundled with Amiga 500 with the extremely influential Batman Pack, so I would suggest considering Amiga the lead platform for that because of the importance of the bundle.
ReplyDeleteOn Pushover - Amiga doesn't always use its full colour palette for technical reasons (or it's made to match lowest common denominator with ST, which was very common so you could use the same graphics files on both).
Amiga uses a planar display where all the first bits of the display are stored as one chunk of RAM as one bitplane, second bits are stored as one chunk, third bits are stored as one chunk, etc. So more bits you have the more bitplanes you need and slower all drawing operations are (because you need to do them to each bitplane). Additionally if the game uses "dual playfield" mode (for hardware parallax scrolling for instance), it can't use the full number of bitplanes for the two playfields, but it's limited to 8 per playfield for 16 total.
(Of course this is further muddled by Amiga's hardware sprites having semi-independent/semi-shared colour registers and Amiga having hardware support for changing its colour palette on the fly mid-frame. So Amiga games when they want can be much more colourful than their palette nominally allows. Colour on Amiga is complicated.)
Limited to 3 bitplanes that is for dual playfield, so 8 colours per playfield, 16 total with the two playfields. (Actually one has to be transparent, so 15 visible.)
DeleteWas Batman developed with the understanding that it would be bundled with the Amiga 500, or was that something negotiated afterwards?
DeleteAny idea why Pushover might have been limited? I do get that artists might have done that to save themselves the trouble of an ST conversion (or because ST was the lead platform), but the PC/SNES versions are more colorful. So it seems strange to me that Amiga only had 16 when other platforms had more. Use of dual-playfield mode doesn't seem to be the case here, though for other games would suggest to me that Amiga is the lead platform, or at least that the programmer went the extra mile to ensure a quality port.
I don't know if the development of Batman was started with the bundle in mind, but the game launched with the bundle right from the start.
DeleteLooking at Pushover in detail now and comparing it with the PC version on youtube, I believe it's not taking any advantage of the Amiga hardware. It has significant slowdown in the Amiga and ST versions compared to DOS even in situations that the Amiga should be able to cope with easily using the Blitter to draw the moving objects which leads me to suspect it's doing everything with just the 68000 CPU. So I suspect this is a case of lowest common denominator Amiga+ST port from the PC.
As sidenote, SNES isn't usually useful for comparing graphics, since the console graphics have to be majorly redrawn anyway. SNES has unusual pixel aspect ratio, since the screen is 256x224, 256x239, 512x239, or 512x448 at 3:4 aspect. If you use the PC/Amiga graphics on SNES they would look squashed and vice versa. Sega Genesis/Megadrive though has approximately same pixel aspect as the computers.
Hmmm. Actually looking further. PC is using its extra colours so poorly that I'm actually not sure it's the origin platform for the graphics. PC could be a marginally enhanced port and the baseline was Atari ST. If you study the PC screenshots carefully, you see the extra colours come from the PC having rectangular areas of the level background tiles where the palette is darkened by a shade or two. It's not even done subtly, it's very obvious where the seams are once you notice them.
DeleteSorry for spamming the comments, I can't edit since I don't have an account... One last discovery: the pattern of darkening in the background tiles seems to be the same for all levels in the PC version, so that's not even something they've added by hand to the levels. So it's very minimal automatic enhancement.
DeleteOutside that darkening effect the PC version graphics are pixel identical with Amiga & ST.
No problem, and thanks for that deep dive and info!
DeleteRegarding SNES aspect ratio, it looks like the graphics weren't really redrawn, per se. All of the versions seem to look "correct" at square-pixel aspect ratios - squares appear as squares, circles appear as circles. Amiga/ST level layouts are somewhat modified to use the wider space available, but for the most part this just means more background tiles.
I'm actually inclined to guess that this was developed for SNES first (there's no way it isn't using the sprite layer for the dominoes), then ported to Atari ST and the Quavers branding added, and that version used as the basis for Amiga/PC.