Game and demo Debian packages for Hatari

All of these packages:

Work with the free GPL licenced EmuTOS "ROMs" for Hatari (there are many games and demos which work only with original TOS ROMs)
To best of my knowledge, contain only software that is freely distributable (e.g. according to their accompanying documentation) as long as no fee is taken from the distribution (a common requirement over ten years ago)

As a default rule I don't have here commercial or shareware games. Almost all programs here are freeware, currently there's one shareware game and demos of two commercial games. I might later add/package some others if requested and they are documented to be freely distributable.

If you know that something here is not freely distributable (GPL, public domain, freeware...), please mail me (eerott at gmail) and I'll take it away.

Contents:

Game and demo packages
HOWTO for doing the game packages
- Keys not present on the devices
Other games and EmuTOS

Game and demo packages

Most of the packages contain documentations with more information about the game and its author. Docs are installed under /usr/share/atarist-files/gamename/ directory. If you want to extract files in a .deb package on PC without installing it, you can use the extract-deb.sh script.

Demos

Here are some small Atari ST demos. Unfortunately the music (sound emulation) stutters quite a bit on 770/N800/N810, so you probably want to turn it off ('+' button) and most of the real demos don't work with EmuTOS either (although with real TOS Hatari won't have problems with them), so I've left them out. Anyway, enjoy the show!

If you want to know more about the demos, please see the list of classic old demos and the pouet.net demo scene site Atari ST section.

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
20 Years 1473KB Atari Scene Collective 20 years Atari ST megademo (only half of screens work with EmuTOS, but see MjjProd one)

4getful 8KB gwEm 4KB demo with gfx synched to the tune

4kker 8KB Checkpoint 4KB intro by Checkpoint for Outline 2006

Frenchies 88KB Frechies 96KB intro for Outline 2004 demo party

screenshot
Dither 20KB No/Escape Wierd dithering screen

Final 12KB ?? Traditional scroller demo

Dancing fishes 12KB .tscc 20KB demo of dancing fishes with texture mapped skin

Flashback 196KB CareBears 4 old CareBears demos in one screen with nice 3D intro

Invi2006 76KB Lineout Invitation to Outline 2006 multiplatform demo party

screenshot
Pacemaker 192KB Paradox STe-only demo utilizing Blitter to maximum

Paradise 136KB Dune Design French demo

Posh 645KB Checkpoint New school demo

Two in One 194KB DHS New+old school demo

Playable commercial game demos

These are playable demos of commercial games which to my knowledge are are freely distributable (not exclusive to some disk magazines).

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Oids 96KB FTL Playable level of Oids (game FTL did before Dungeon Master)

Turrican II 104KB Rainbow Arts Playable level of Turrican II

Shareware games

These are shareware games. Their documentation contains instructions how the shareware fee can be payed. If you know that the addresses have changed, please mail me (eerott at gmail).

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
STarball 340KB Volume 11 The best ST shareware pinball (better than most commercial ones)

Note: STarball loading screen colors are wrong with EmuTOS, but the game doesn't have any problems, you just need to wait. Do not press "Back" button to pass EmuTOS bootup countdown, it will skip game loading (use "Select" for skipping).

Arcade games

These are the games that don't fit into any of the other categories.

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Alien Blockade 72KB David Scantlebury Clone of Qix game

Battletris+ 196KB New Core Greets/postcardware single/multiplayer STe Tetris

Bombs Away 40KB Terry King Somewhat similar to single-player Dynablasters

Grav 64KB Martin Brownlow Cave-flier

Hacman II 240KB David Baggett A pacman clone

screenshot
Haywire 12KB John Hodskinson Save hamsters, looks like Defender

Nibe 2 35KB Marc Bourlon Guide snake to eat applets, avoid walls and your tail

SuperFly 384KB Reservoid Gods Save your girlfried (and the world) with one button!
(disable music, otherwise too slow)

screenshot
Teserae 44KB The Albanian
Sausage Corporation Tetris in "demo" style
(disable music, otherwise too slow)

Platform games

Platform games were probably the most common games on the 80's end home computers.

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Entombed 48KB Nick Concannon Platform game set in Egypt

Hang About 8KB John Hodskinson 4KB mountain climbing

Hector 172KB Pete J. Whitby Hector vs. the Mutant Vampire Tomatoes from Hell

Punt II 108KB ?? Kick the animals into cages

Robert in the Fire Factory 152KB Von Harald Siegmund a clone of Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, works both in color and monochrome

Puzzle games

IMHO the most suitable category of games for 770/N800/N810 along with the strategy games.

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Flip'em 4KB ?? Turn all stones to given pattern in 4KB

Rockfall 24KB Jason Brasier Boulderdash-like puzzle game

Shoot'em ups

Just kill the bloody bastards...

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Bellum 16KB M Goss-Custard Shoot'em up with just the essentials

Yak 8KB Jeff Minter Gridrunner in 4KB

Two-player games

These aren't really playable on the 770/N800/N810 because only one player can play at the time, but at least you can test them. You can use the device Decrease (-) key to switch between joystick 1, 0 and no joystick. You can play them on PC too with two (USB) joysticks or using cursor keys joystick emulation for the other joystick.

Package: Size: Author: Description:

screenshot
Archon 8KB Delta Force Two-player Archon game in 4KB

Snowball Fight 196KB DC Software Two-player snowball fight

Spacewar 60KB Howard Jones Two-player space war game

Tanx 24KB Martin Brownlow Two-player tank (artillery) game

Troubleshooting

Problems with the device SDL library

When you switch to Desktop and back to Hatari, Hatari screen is and remains black. Just switch again to Desktop and back to Hatari and it starts working. This happens also in some other SDL programs so I think the problem is specific to the 770 SDL library. It doesn't happen on newer devices (with newer SDL library).

Sometimes the Hatari screen loses focus even in fullscreen mode and keys don't seem to work. Just tap the screen and keys work again. I think this a maemo platform (SDL library?) specific problem.

The music sound skipping happens probably because rest of the emulation takes 100% of the device CPU (i.e. device is a bit too slow).

Possible problems with the (above) game/demo packages

All of the games should be playable with Hatari keys, but sometimes you need to switch the joystick emulation to the other joystick (in two player games) or off for a while to input Return key etc.

Many demos are on a disk image instead of in a directory (some games require also to be run from a disk image). If the demo/game doesn't start at all, go to the Hatari Disk options and "eject" the (previously used) harddisk and disable booting from HD.

Note: Most of the above games are not on disk image, just files in a directory which Hatari can mount as a harddisk. That saves a bit of memory because then Hatari doesn't need to store the (uncompressed) disk image into RAM. Also, that way it's easier for you to read the documentation coming with the games.

HOWTO for doing the game packages

It's really quite simple to do these packages once you've tested that the game works with Hatari and EmuTOS. Just:

Get the example files and extract them
Create an empty directory, put my Makefile there, change the EXAMPLEDIR to point to where you extracted the example files and run "NAME=gamename make stubs"
Modify the copied example Debian control file suitably for the game (Name and Description)
Put the binaries under usr/share/atarist-files/gamename directory that the Makefile generated
Either:
- Put the game binary (with .prg extension) into an auto -folder under the gamename dir so that it is started automatically, or
- If the (rare) game requires the GEM UI services, copy into the gamename directory the example *.inf file(s). They tell the ROM to start the game after GEM Desktop has finished loading:
  - Example emudesk.inf file for EmuTOS
  - Example desktop.inf file for original TOS
Modify the created usr/share/applications/hildon/example.desktop (Hildon desktop .desktop file) suitably for the game

After all this you should have a directory hierarchy similar to this:

tmp/
- control
- Makefile
- usr/
   - share/
     - applications/
        - hildon/
	  - gamename.desktop
     - atarist-files/
       - gamename/
         - auto/
	   - game.prg
	 - game.txt

Or:

...
       - gamename/
	 - game.prg
	 - game.txt
	 - desktop.inf
	 - emudesk.inf

Then you can do just "make" and a Debian package is created from the contents of usr/ according to the control file. From the above you would get now:

- atarist-gamename_1.0_all.deb
- md5sums

Keys not present on Nokia 770/N800/N810

Some of the games might require pressing some key that isn't available on the device (like Space, F1 or 1) before the game starts. For those you can use a keyboard mapping file to map for example the Back/Escape or 5-rocker Select/Return button to the required key(s).

With the examples comes keys.map example keyboard mapping which you can modify to your needs and then in the game's .desktop file tell Hatari to use that keymap with the -k /path/keys.map option (the mapping file can also be selected from the Hatari keyboard options dialog).

Other games and EmuTOS

Most of the games for Atari ST and even STE work just fine with Hatari when using original (non-free) TOS ROMs. So, if you still own an Atari ST, I recommend using its ROMs.

However, there are also quite a few commercial games which work with the GPL EmuTOS too. For example of the ones that came with my Atari ST's "Powerpack" sales package, these (classics) work just fine with EmuTOS:

Bombjack
Bombuzal
Nebulus
Xenon I

You might still be able to buy them somewhere and the disk formats (at least of the Powerpack disks) were such that they could be copied also with PC floppy drives (e.g. with Linux Mtools). For Nebulus there's an excellent SDL remake Toppler.

There were also some excellent playable game demos coming with the ST Format magazine which work with EmuTOS, but unfortunately they are either marked to be exclusively for ST Format or don't contain information whether they could be distributed. Additionally the disk formats were such that you need an Atari floppy drive to copy the files elsewhere. IMHO some of the nicer demos were:

Conquer (3D arcade tank simulation)
Interphase (3D, runs only from a floppy disk image)
The Killing Game Show (platformer with unique fast forward from start to where you died with possibility to continue from any place in between)
Magic Pockets (Bitmap Brothers platformer)
Tower of Babel (3D puzzle)

Note: ST Format wasn't the only magazine having disks with games and demos, at some point there were also at least (in English) the One / Zero / ST action / STart magazines. In the beginning some of them even catered both for Atari ST and Amiga users. For people who were more interested e.g. about hardware hacking and programming in general, the German magazines were better. I'm not sure what that tells about the English-speaking people...

For more information on Atari games etc., see the Little Green Desktop.