MiSTer FPGA Forum

Pierco (Pierre Cornier) is currently working on Rod Land.

From Pierco:

There's no sound yet, no VGA, a lot of glitches and big slowdowns but it is playable!

The core is available on Patreon for his supporters.

https://www.patreon.com/pierco

Rod Land, known in Japan as Yōsei Monogatari Rod Land (妖精物語ロッドランド, lit. "Rod Land: A Fairy Tale"), is a 1990 platform game originally developed and published in arcades by Jaleco.

Helpful hint

Great first version ! Thank you @pierco !!

This is a bigger deal than just Rod Land. It was made for the Jaleco Mega System 1, so work on this board should aid in further cool games like Avenging Spirits, Legend of Makai, Lord of King, P47, Cybattler and Plus Alpha. Pretty exciting to potentially have some NMK and AICOM games implemented

Rod•Land - one of my all time favorite games.

Also one of the rare cases where the Amiga home conversion is even better than the original arcade game.

Awesome stuff! Have played Rod Land on the Amiga to death but haven't really tried the Arcade version. Super excited.

lagerfeldt wrote: ↑Mon Jun 27, 2022 7:44 am
Also one of the rare cases where the Amiga home conversion is even better than the original arcade game.

I didn't give it a lot of time back then but played the hell out of Sales Curve's other arcade-more-than-perfect Silkworm. Clearly they had some coding wizards on the team!

Yeah, very interesting you should mention Silkworm - another game that was improved on the Amiga compared to the arcade! Incredible work.

Here's a Wiki quote on the Rod·Land Amiga version:

"Rod Land's Amiga port was published by Storm and began development by Random Access in March 1991, and was released in September.[2] The One interviewed Ronald Pieket Weeserik, a programmer for Rod Land's Amiga port, for information regarding its development in a pre-release interview.[2] Weeserik notes that Rod Land's conversion was 'easier' than other titles, expressing that "it's nice to do a game that the computer is capable of emulating ... Everything in the coin-op can be included and the finished game will run at the correct frame rate".[2] The Amiga version of Rod Land has "hidden features and bonuses" that are absent in the arcade version, revealed by entering certain codes, a feature noted by The One to be in several other Random Access titles.[2] Rod Land's Amiga port also adds additional levels that are absent in the arcade version.[2] The Amiga port also corrects several glitches present in the arcade version, with Weeserik giving such examples as "enemies getting stuck at the top of ladders, the ability to slam enemies down on thin air, and not being able to zap things from ladders" and further stating that they wrote the 16-bit versions in the way the arcade version should have been written.[2]

Jaleco supplied Random Access with the background graphics for Rod Land stored as 16x16 pixel squares, although "jumbled up and in the wrong colours"; around five hundred sprites were stored this way, and this was noted as a difficulty in the Amiga port's development.[2] During this, however, Random Access discovered unused animations for every enemy in Rod Land, which were implemented in the Amiga port as a visual indication for when monsters are changing from 'patrol mode' to 'attack mode'.[2] Rod Land's sound effects are synthesised as opposed to sampled in the arcade original.[2] The Amiga port replicates these, but Weeserik expresses that "several of the less suitable sounds" are replaced by "something a little more palatable".[2]"

Audio here we come! Another update from Pierco:

Nice! My brother and I used to play this on the Amiga a lot as kids, and then again later on MAME. Cool to see this coming to MiSTer!

Should be more than that actually. It was released for the C64, Amiga, Arcade, NES, and a few other 8-bit platforms. It may also be on the Atari ST, but I can't remember.

Edit: Found this. I think there's another video like it with possibly another version or two. Can't remember...

https://youtu.be/L6uWvLMP-HQ

IMO the Arcade and Amiga are the way to play it, but the other versions are still pretty interesting.

MrSniffles wrote: ↑Tue May 16, 2023 1:04 pm

So... are there two cores that play Rod Land now?

Correct. Pierco has his own that is unfinished and gave us the greenlight as we wanted to do the whole platform. More info in this thread.

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