Indie Retro News: ChromaBlast - A cute(?) Vertical Scrolling Shoot-em-up is demo'd on the Amiga!

Developer lisoform2003 has launched a Stage 1 demo for ChromaBlast, a brand new vertical scrolling shoot-em-up for the Commodore Amiga developed by way of human-AI collaboration with Claude AI. Focusing on OCS/ECS and AGA {hardware}, the sport contains a combo-driven evolution system the place gamers management the Chromacraft to combat the Grayscale Armada throughout 5 ranges. The undertaking, created by Michele Ferrigno, makes use of customized 68000 meeting and C code to supply high-performance, OS-independent gameplay on inventory A500+ machines.

Here is the most recent from the EAB dialogue thread…..

Anticipated recreation measurement:

5 ranges, ~17 minutes knowledgeable playthrough. This launch is a Stage 1 demo.

Staff members:

Michele Ferrigno (recreation design, artwork course, asset creation, testing & QA). Code developed by way of collaborative periods with Claude AI (Anthropic) — all technical choices, debugging, and hardware-level Amiga programming have been iterated by way of human-AI pair programming. The AI wrote the C and 68000 meeting; I directed what to construct, the way it ought to appear and feel, chosen and curated all graphic and audio property, examined each construct on emulator, and drove each design choice.

Focused spec:

A500+ OCS/ECS, 512KB Chip RAM (minimal). Enhanced AGA model for A1200/A4000 with 32-color graphics. Each variations on a single 880KB DD floppy.

Instruments used:

VBCC (C cross-compiler), vasm (68000 assembler), ptplayer by Frank Wille (MOD replay), Claude AI by Anthropic (pair programming), Python scripts for asset pipeline, FS-UAE for testing.

Description of recreation:

ChromaBlast is a vertical scrolling shmup constructed from scratch in C and 68000 meeting, focusing on inventory Amiga {hardware} with no OS dependencies throughout gameplay. The sport contains a combo-driven evolution system — chain hits on enemies to evolve your ship by way of three tiers, every with improved firepower and distinct visuals. Enemies arrive in formation waves culminating in a multi-phase boss combat.

Technical abstract:

Interleaved bitplane engine: cookie-cut blitter bobs throughout 4 planes (OCS) or 5 planes (AGA) in a single blit operation per entity
512-line round scroll buffer with tile-based terrain rendering
Copper-driven show break up: scrolling playfield + static HUD with unbiased palettes
Ship tilt by way of palette-exact listed pixel rotation (no anti-aliasing, preserves pixel artwork integrity)
Enemy state system with checkerboard dithered colour tinting (1 additional blit per enemy)
AGA: 32-color palette, bullets as blitter bobs as a substitute of {hardware} sprites, enhanced terrain and ship graphics overlaid on OCS base information

“This demo consists of: intro with scrolling credit and animated starfield, full Stage 1 with 8+ enemy waves, boss with 4 engine flames and cannon tracers, pause system (P or House key), devoted music for gameplay and boss combat. A observe on growth: this recreation was constructed totally by way of human-AI collaboration. I’ve no prior Amiga programming expertise — I got here in with a recreation thought, pixel artwork property, and a imaginative and prescient for a way the sport ought to play and look. Claude AI dealt with the low-level Amiga programming throughout ~12 intensive periods. Each function, each visible alternative, each “this does not look proper, repair it” iteration was mine.”