X-Tazy goes opensource - 2 playable levels

On May 3rd, 2006 we published a previously unreleased version of the introdemo of X-Tazy, followed by an XViD video of the same introdemo by the end of June. X-Tazy was meant to become a HiSpec (turboR, 512kB RAM, Moonsound, GFX9000, large storage device needed) MSX shooter. Unfortunately, development of the game stalled despite the fact an impressive introdemo, ship selector and playable levels were already available.

Today, the time has come to release those playable levels and all graphics, music, source code and utilities still available for X-Tazy in order to make the first step in continuing (and finishing) development of the game after all. Yes, you have read it correctly: as of now X-Tazy is an open-source project. Although the goal is to finally release a fully playable, polished version of the game after all, the sources released are already an invaluable source of information to novice and advanced GFX9000 coders. You can download the X-Tazy development package right here. The package also contains several useful readme files with further information.

So, there you have it. Big thanks go out to Andre Kuepfer (who made this all happen) and Jelle Jelsma (who created the in-game videos). Now, the future of this project is in your hands. Are you ready for the downloads? Here they come:

Relevant link: X-Tazy introdemo (or download an XViD video of this demo right here)
Relevant link: X-Tazy level 1 - playable promo (or download an MPEG video of this level right here)
Relevant link: X-Tazy level 2 - playable promo (or download an MPEG video of this level right here)
Relevant link: X-Tazy development package

Comments (29)

By msd

Paragon (1515)

15-08-2006, 19:34

Great stuff. And now finally testing if the levels also run on my 7.16Mhz msx2+

By msd

Paragon (1515)

15-08-2006, 19:52

Okay it boots on my MSX2+, when it gets to busy it slows down, but replacing the wavedriver with a z80 version will sertainly help. Adding a few optimalizations it would IMHO run on a 7.16Mhz machine. Or atleast on an OCM with a little speed up . Making it smooth on 3.54Mhz will be very hard I think.

By BiFi

Enlighted (4348)

15-08-2006, 19:52

YAY! Finally more than just an intro demo to enjoy!

By Manuel

Ascended (19466)

15-08-2006, 19:53

Great!!

And for those who don't have the hi-spec MSX: it seems to run just fine in openMSX 0.6.1, as far as I can see!

By W76NearDark

Paladin (684)

15-08-2006, 20:40

It was great fun to make the video! Level 1 is well playable... the second less.

By snout

Ascended (15187)

15-08-2006, 20:54

so euhm.. hands up who thinks he might be able to help out in the further development of X-Tazy!

By PingPong

Enlighted (4137)

15-08-2006, 21:16

Umhf! nothing special... I can do better on a TMS9918A.

By meits

Scribe (6544)

15-08-2006, 22:56

Please do...

By karloch

Prophet (2159)

16-08-2006, 00:23

I'm totally amazed!! That shooter has a full SNES-like quality, maybe even better! I just hope that some group continues the development of this awesome game, even when I don't own a GFX9000 or a Moonsound :/

By Ivan

Ascended (9353)

16-08-2006, 09:26

karloch, I understand that you still don't own a GFX9000. But a Moonsound... get one now!

By GhostwriterP

Paladin (683)

17-08-2006, 20:41

Well, it is clear it is not nearly finished. I must not forget it was made 10 years ago (?), or I start
summing up all the dislikes of x-tazy.

Nevertheless it does show a smooth multy-layer scroll and a lot of sprites.
So this is what you can get, and it is so much easier, so people start programming for the damn thing!!!

By spl

Paragon (1470)

18-08-2006, 11:59

Ivan: I think that if you don't like composing music, you don't have too much to do with a Moonsound. A friend of me has give me for some time a Moonsound and composing is the only real use that I do with it. Gaming? Bombaman of course, but no much more. Demos? Buying something which is not specially cheap for wathing only demos...

By spl

Paragon (1470)

18-08-2006, 12:00

About X-Tazy: just amazing!

By sjoerd

Hero (609)

18-08-2006, 13:54

Hey, GhostwriterP, did you play the levels?

Anyway, there is room for improvement. Collision detection, for starters...

By GhostwriterP

Paladin (683)

18-08-2006, 18:26

I did... so don't get me started

By Sander

Founder (1871)

19-08-2006, 10:31

I looks like my meteor gfx for the second level has been resized and used for the background layer. Cool.

By PuyoPuyoo

Supporter (1)

23-11-2006, 09:42

Hmmm... five days of interest... Is the "X-Tazy-Revival" dead now? I don't hope so!

Is someone able to read the french comments in the sources? And I couldn't find the intro-sources... or is it just me?

Anyone currently working on it?

By Manuel

Ascended (19466)

23-11-2006, 18:42

If you need help with translations of the comments, ask here! There are many French speakers here.

By Manuel

Ascended (19466)

20-03-2010, 13:18

Updated high-res video (shot on openMSX) here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2iSGXSs5b4

By journey

Hero (575)

19-07-2019, 13:41

I hope that, one day, someone can take the code in hand and complete the game....

By Mumbly

Expert (116)

21-07-2019, 15:25

If anyone is interested, why not ?

From a coding perspective:
There are missing part in the dev package, intro demo sources isn't there for instance. I'm, actually, interested by that part.
I browsed the code and it's not that difficult to understand if you master asm and v9990.
Perhaps another organisation of the code is necessary since everything seems to be mixed but feasable.
(sound sfx lib has been re-used in Agony port, but has been changed to be ROM compatible).
Yes it's doable, but it's for a team, not for a single person.

I've still contacts with the other ABYSS members in France, US, Belgium but not the ones that have performed
the artwork.

By Grauw

Ascended (10768)

21-07-2019, 16:46

Quote:

“Source of unfinished abandoned project is released, nobody does anything with it.”

Surprise surprise . I’ve seen this so many times now, and whenever this happens my expectancy that it will be picked up by someone else is zero. (Worse, I’ve even seen some people use these failed projects as an argument that “open source doesn’t work on MSX”. Ugh.)

Open source is a powerful concept, but it takes work and luck to make open source projects actually successful. Publishing the code of a project that died before it was released is probably one of the worst starting points for an open source project. It’s a nice gesture from the original author, but if they have lost interest, why would someone else work on it rather than pursuing their own projects?

Not saying that there’s anything wrong with releasing code of abandoned projects. Any release of code is a good thing I think. It’s always nice to browse through other people’s code and to see how they’ve approached things. But the high expectations expressed in the news post of some good samaritan finishing the project, yeah, not gonna happen.

On the other hand, if the source code of a living project is published it becomes exponentially more interesting. Because you can have nice discussions with the author about the code. Because there’s a low barrier-of-entry to submit improvements without having to take ownership of the project. Because outsiders can contribute new ideas to the project which make it better. See what happened here!

By gdx

Enlighted (6213)

22-07-2019, 09:59

Grauw wrote:

It’s a nice gesture from the original author, but if they have lost interest, why would someone else work on it rather than pursuing their own projects?

I have heard that the source code has been released because a stupide story. It's not the developer who did that. The person who released the code is a good guy who was disappointed by another guy.

Hopefully an talented developers will release a game like this one day. It's probably easier to start from scratch.

By ToriHino

Paladin (856)

22-07-2019, 23:30

Indeed too bad this got never finished. Especially since there are now more GFX9000 and Moonsound clones than ever.

By edoz

Prophet (2482)

30-08-2021, 17:57

I wonder, if this could be my next SymbOS project ?

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

30-08-2021, 18:06

Oh that would be awesome if you could finish this game!!!

By journey

Hero (575)

31-08-2021, 11:41

Randam wrote:

Oh that would be awesome if you could finish this game!!!

I completely agree

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6935)

31-08-2021, 12:29

This would be a tremendous booster foe symbos

By Randam

Paragon (1431)

31-08-2021, 14:02

@artrag: I agree and I would see it as a tremendous booster for Gfx9000 and MSX in general. So edoz, if you are able to and you have someone to make it visually nice please do it.

X-Tazy goes opensource - 2 playable levels

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