Spatterlight, now with colour cycling animations

Technical Development Interpreters
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Animated gif of title screen of Atari ST Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle

Spatterlight release 0.9.7 is out!

This adds support for the Atari ST, Apple 2, Atari 8-bit, and Commodore 64 versions of the Saga Plus games.

There are Atari ST versions of Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and The Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle. These have colour cycling animations in many pictures, pretty or annoying depending on taste.

Apple 2, Atari 8-bit and Commodore 64 have Saga Plus versions of Buckaroo Banzai, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four. As far as I know, there is no Buckaroo Banzai for the Atari ST and no Saga Plus Claymorgue for the 8-bit systems.

Some of the graphics in these games have glitches and artifacts which are hidden by the black background in the original interpreters, so I recommend setting the background to black in Spatterlight when playing them.

In other news, support for the Commodore 64 versions of the TaylorMade games has been added. Note that the C64 version of Blizzard Pass is not a TaylorMade game. It might run in the Quill engine one day, if I ever fix that up.

EDIT: I made a video where I play through the Atari ST version of Spider-Man:

EDIT: I also made videos where I play through the Atari ST versions of The Sorcerer of Claymorgue Castle and Questprobe: Featuring Human Torch and The Thing.

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UPDATE: I just released version 0.9.8 with support for bitmap graphics in the (non-plus) S.A.G.A. games.

Many of these games were extremely slow to play with graphics on the original hardware or even on emulators. Now the experience is a little more comfortable.

The Count Apple II title screen featuring Scott Adams himself as the Count

The Count Apple II castle gate picture, with a skull-shaped castle and a mob of villagers at the gate
The Count Apple II castle gate picture, with a skull-shaped castle and a mob of villagers at the gate1398×1368 190 KB

Voodoo Castle Apple 2 graveyard picture, with a spooky tree and a gravestone with the letters RIP
Voodoo Castle Apple 2 graveyard picture, with a spooky tree and a gravestone with the letters RIP1516×1420 493 KB

The inventory screen of Questprobe featuring the Hulk Apple II version, with an image of The Hulk emptying a sack to the right and a picture for every item in the inventory to the left
The inventory screen of Questprobe featuring the Hulk Apple II version, with an image of The Hulk emptying a sack to the right and a picture for every item in the inventory to the left1223×1110 201 KB

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A new release is out! This one has an updated interface and requires macOS 10.13. Read the full change log here.

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And finally, 1.0!

The Spatterlight library window, showing off the new design inspired by Apple Music
The Spatterlight library window, showing off the new design inspired by Apple Music1854×1224 298 KB

The Spatterlight preferences panel, with its new glorious toolbar
The Spatterlight preferences panel, with its new glorious toolbar1344×992 105 KB

EDIT: How do I add alt-text to images posted here?

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Ooh, I’d never looked that up before. Seems like you can edit the markdown (it defaults to the image filename?) or you can click the pencil icon below the image in the preview panel.

![alt text goes here|690x388](upload://blah-blah-blah.png)

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Thanks! I tried adding minimal descriptions to some of the pictures in this thread.

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I miss color cycling animation in games.

It’s a nifty trick for limited resources and it looks cool.

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It was a particularly common trick on the Atari ST, for some reason. I have fond memories of trying to make my own in the NEOchrome image editor on my ST.

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I remember it being used a lot in the AD&D DOS games Shattered Lands and Wake of the Ravager.

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Since it didn’t get its own thread, I missed when v1.0 came out. Congratulations!!!

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