Decorative side panels in Erik on Spectrum

[thr23]

The ZX Spectrum version of Erik the Viking features decorative side panels displaying a drawing of a warrior. These remain static throughout the game and are not being redrawn between locations. This is something of an oddity, and I haven't seen other L9 games doing anything like that. Even Erik on other platforms doesn't do this. So it's a rather minor thing, but I wonder if it would be feasible to add support for this feature somehow, so the Spectrum version can sort of keep its flavour here, because Level9 currently completely ignores these.

Here's how it looks when playing Erik in a ZX Spectrum emulator:

But all versions of Level9 running the same .sna (or .tzx) display only this:

[thr23]

Found it as picture 500 in the Spectrum version only.

[balyuf]

I traced the execution of the Spectrum version and the game data is not instructing to show picture 500. It immediately asks for the opening picture 635. So, I suspect it is the runtime code of the spectrum game which is doing this little extra. I think that this is then the advantage of running the original game that you get. Let's see what David has to say about it ...

[balyuf]

PS: I also checked the picture code and no other picture refers to picture 500 as a sub picture either. Anyway, with bitmaps there is a possibility to set a screen up that it keeps the sides on an earlier picture, but not with this picture code format. So, as I said, this must be an extra by the spectrum runtime. If the emulator should implement it, would probably mean substantial changes to support such a thing. Is it worth it ?

[thr23]

Thanks for checking it out! I suspected this might be handled outside the interpreter – it's just such an odd thing.
Well, the good news is that the interpreter can access the extra picture just fine. But it looks like the panels would have to be handled separately by each frontend – this is some work, but really, drawing a couple extra panels is not the end of the world.
Naturally, I wouldn't think to foist such a task off on some unfortunate chap – 'twas but to ponder the possibilities, observe the opinions, and discuss the differences, so to speak.

The point of whether it's worth it is a bit moot when dealing with such niche, retro gaming hobbyist stuff. :) At this point it's about getting it right and keeping it real, staying true and thorough, being faithful and fair – it's about accuracy and authenticity, sprinkled and seasoned with a pinch of panache, preferably, because you really wouldn't be doing things like that if you weren't having at least just a little bit of fun, would you now. ♫

[balyuf]

Well, personally I don't expect a general interpreter to do justice to all fine points of the original. If I want that, I use an emulator of the whole computer system, like you do too. But, that's me, so again, let's see what David says...

[balyuf]

PS: if you want full emulation, the colors and the font are different per system as wel, as your screenshot illustrates. Where to draw the line?

[thr23]

Good call – having a feature to simulate the original colours is something that I've been thinking about too. And the original font does look lovely here, now that you mention it. Let's not get ahead of ourselves though, but thanks for the ideas. :)

[thr23]

I just had to check, and it turns out Erik on ZX is a total outlier with its typography too – all other Level 9 Spectrum games use the default ZX Spectrum font for rendering text, but not Erik here! A quirky little version.

Extracted glyphs:

[DavidKinder]

This is an interesting little corner case! I don't have a strong opinion one way or another on this, if someone produced an acceptable PR for this I would pull it. But I doubt I will get round to implementing it myself.