Controls:
⬆️⬇️⬅️➡️ move
⭕️ [Z] Jump / Fire
❎ [X] Skip speech / continue
Story
Guide Imrahil the Kalendar Prince through the perils of many Arabian nights. On certain nights, he must gather golden jugs, engraved with letters, in the correct order to spell out 'ARABIAN' (the platform stages).
At other times, he rides on rafts and flying carpets through Arabia, casting bolts of lightning at his foes. His quest for the princess Anitra is long and difficult - many dangers lurk in the Arabian night!
Remake:
The original game for Commodore 64 "Tales of the Arabian Nights"
(c)1984 Interceptor Micros. Written by Ian Gray.
Differences with original:
- The original game was notoriously difficult and brutal, based on score, you started from the first level and had to redo everything after game-over. This remake lets you visit immediately all stages and -rather than a high score, which is still saved- the aim should be finishing each stage in the shortest time;
- The raft/carpet stages in this remake are not based on time/distance, you have to shoot and hit with lightning bolts the enemies (see the counter "ZAPPED" on top right);
- You gain a new life every 3000 points;
- The deadly genies in this remake will face in the direction they're about to fire their bolt so you can plan your moves (this was particularly needed due to the minimal screen space available in pico8, no time to react otherwise);
- in the last two stages you can actually see Anitra, the young princess to rescue from the Sultan;
- in the original you could fall down from an height of 4 characters, here you can fall from 21 pixels (twice the height of your hero's sprite for reference) you can immediately test this in the first stage, the ship;
- about the "ARABIAN" jugs sequence, in the original you could pick any of the "A" jugs, while in this game there is in fact a visual difference among the "A" jugs: the first one to take is facing left, second center and the third facing right as in the picture below:
Speech:
The original game featured Speech synthesis (SAM). I chose this game basically to try the awesome speech lib Speako8 by @bikibird
The challenging part is the lib and a few speech strings on their own already take ~35% of compressed characters 😮 still worth it
Music:
The music theme is from Scheherazade, Op. 35 (Festival at Baghdad/The Sea/Shipwreck) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Then arranged by Chris Cox in 1984 for the Commodore 64 version
In this game re-arranged as faithfully as possible for Pico 8 by @Heracleum (it took me more than a week 😓)
Credits:
Thanks to:
- again to @bikibird for creating Speako8
- @thisismypassword for creating Shrinko8
- @packbat for precious hints on how to optimise and pack more notes in sfx for a 3-minute long music;
- feedback: @pancelor, @thisismypassword
- you for playing the game!
One of my favorite games based on one of my favorite books, on PICO-8!! I can't wait to try this once I'm back at my proper monitor.
the first level was a bit confusing (how to not die??) but once I figured out how to think about things this was really fun! I beat it level-by-level (thank you for that) but I might try doing it all from level one next time
@pancelor thanks for all the info (especially on discord) I've added a few details about the fall from a height, excellent total time 👍
@2bitchuck I'd be so glad to know from someone who played the actual game, yes please!
@Heracleum Well, it's still hard, haha!
I love the quality of life improvements though. The zapped counter instead of the levels being timed was much nicer - especially for Night 2, which I remember thinking was the longest level in the world as a kid. Especially with no real way of knowing how much you had left and then dying. I still died a bunch playing yours, but at least I could start back at the same night instead of starting the whole thing over again!
The part that was most delightful though was the music, which you really nailed! The C64 and Amiga both had music that was so far ahead of what other systems could do, and I really loved the big sweeping adventure sound of this game.
This brings back a lot of good memories, very well done!
@Heracleum what an absolutely amazing remake! I don't have much to add that @2bitchuck hasn't already said - the music is amazing, the game is still uber-hard but your modifications really do make it so much better.
I also have fond memories of playing the C64 original and this takes me right back (although you missed out the bit of speech on game-load of "Copyright Interceptor Micros 1984" :) ) . Lovely to see you credited Ian Gray in the description.
This is definitely a top-5 Pico cart for me. Great job!
@2bitchuck @phil thank you, it's so nice to find other people with the same good old memories :) I also have spent quite some time with Manic Miner, Blagger, Dark Tower, China Miner... others of the same genre.
although you missed out the bit of speech on game-load of "Copyright Interceptor Micros 1984"
Ahah yes I had to keep the speech intro minimal and limited to the title taking into account the constant/quick Ctrl+R for those attempting the whole run from the first stage (well also to keep the compressed chars under the limit).
Well done on making a game that is aggravating in every possible way while just being possible to finish. Gold star. I didn't play the original (I had an Apple ][), but I played many games like it. Here are my times. I am never attempting all levels in a single run. Good luck to anyone who does...
I did experience the crash below after finishing one of the platforming levels and then one of the sidescrolling levels; I'm sorry, but I can't remember which pair. I've otherwise had no trouble like this, so it may be hard to reproduce.
I also noticed a minor graphics glitch in the background during Night 8. Some plants and a minaret vanish just as they are about to scroll offscreen. I think this happens consistently when these tiles go past. Is a point where the background repeats?
@Cowirrie oh shoot, that's weird it never happened to me and I played every stage countless times. Could it be while finishing the 3rd stage (genies) followed by the first flying carpet stage?
Scrolling glitch: oops yes I forgot it was the repeated part I must have touched something later.
Btw yes after a bit of training on every stage it is very possible to finish the game from stage 1 to 8 in a single run.
Thanks a lot, I'll check both issues 👍
> Could it be while finishing the 3rd stage (genies) followed by the first flying carpet stage?
Probably. I don't think it was the first or last scrolling stage, so that leaves the flying carpet. I have also now managed to complete those two levels in sequence without anything going wrong, so it must be dependent on a few other things. I had died a lot and restarted play a lot of times before the crash as well.
Really like this. Congratulations! The rendering of the water on the first night is very effective. It really does look wet!
oh this is rad! really love how speako-8 is filling in my boi SAM's role. honestly it almost kinda sounds like the text-to-speech of the ti99/4a's "terminal emulator ii" cart
Thanks!
For C64 boys of the 80's, @2bitchuck @phil , possibly Ian Gray's fans or whoever played his games. I'm currently working on his China Miner remake and already at good progress 😉
@Heracleum I see you have a fondness for the VERY HARD games, LOL. China Miner was brutal, but I do remember the one mechanic I thought was very cool that I don't remember seeing much ever again - the slides! I also remember the levels having funny names. I should look up a Let's Play of this on Youtube!
@2bitchuck ahah true, all games that I liked and hated at the same time. I'm having a lot of fun remaking them though (and making them a bit more possible and less frustrating, arguably).
Yeah the slides, tricky, I already implemented them. So far, in order of completion: pixel-perfect collisions with baddies ('cause here in Arabian I lazily used hitbox/circle but China Miner needed precision), collapsing floor, conveyors, slides, moving platforms, all done and I'm at lasers which should be fun, reason I've left 'em as last; the rest will be all stages editing.
BTW the slides were blatantly copied off "Miner 2049'er":
https://youtu.be/djA_wjhpB4s?feature=shared&t=6
You can even notice a lot of other borrowed details 😅 including the character, the tools. Although being unquestionably ugly, this 2049er game has been the source of inspiration of all the miner/platforms of the 80's including Manic Miner (Matthew Smith clearly admitted it in interviews ).
Curious how I can't find absolutely no info/bio about Ian Gray, he must've been a rather reserved guy.
@Heracleum and @2bitchuck - when people mention slides in games I always think of the VIC-20 game "Bongo": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gOvJy9Knyc
At the time, this game blew my mind and seemed to open up the possibilites of what the VIC could do.
@phil for some reason while reading I imagined Congo Bongo (which had a short slide) but wondered why you mentioned the Vic 20 version. Cool game I didn't know that one, excellent use of multicolour gfx (rarely used for Vic20, for reasons)
A sneak peek GIF of current China Miner remake:
Second stage which has all the features (slide, lasers, moving platform, crumbling floor..)
@Heracleum I am super impressed with your attention to detail! It looks so much like the original. It looks like you improved the super floaty jump though :).
Hi, I was going to say you nailed a retro game vibe, but wasn't aware it was a remake. Either way, I think you did great with the game/remake, congrats. And like others have said, it's at that tipping point of frustration. For me, that meant I kept optimizing how I played, so eventually I decided to speedrun it out of frustration
Stage 3 seems to be the big run killer, and the deaths were frustrating, but looking back it was pretty fun. Thank you :)
@jellyd0ts I've commented on the video, amazing!
Actually I even considered keeping the timing of a whole run but then I wondered "who on earth would do that"? 😅
This is the most frustrating game I've run in quite a while. I think the difficulty made it more interesting in the end and so rewarding to finish a run. It would be so cool to see this go sub 7 but I probably won't be the one to take it there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7XbRUWgukM
@Xar Awesome! It's so interesting to watch great performances caught on video 👌
Right after this game I decided to remake its 'predecessor', China Miner (100% plaftormer, Arabian Nights inherited its platform engine and added 3 shooter stages) also by Ian Gray and equally 'frustrating' 😆
But on this one I've implemented all sorts of timing to track: best time for individual stage, total time (sum of all best times), average and also best/longest full run (so those interested in runs can rely on precise timing instead of Youtube recording length 😊) and also an Achievements screen ⭐.
If you're interested I've published it a couple weeks ago:
China Miner: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?tid=54245
I'm actually more proud of this remake, pixel-perfect collisions with baddies and faithfulness to the original.
Also an extra frustration in Arabian Nights is the randomness of some stages (e.g. birds, lightning bolts..) while in China Miner you have less surprises and unexpected threats (good for speed-runs).
Thanks!
@Heracleum Thanks :D
That looks really interesting, I'll have to check it out. Why not learn another incredibly painful speedrun
Maybe I'm not getting something, but how am I supposed to get down from a higher platform to a lower platform? It seems that I can't jump down through the platform itself and when I'm trying to jump off it to the side - it's way too high, so I die. If I'm at the top of the mast - there's no way of getting down?
@lastofavari you can safely fall down to twice the player height (and yes, can't jump down "through" the platforms). You climb at the top of the mast (left) only at the end of the ship stage when the "N" jar is left (because -yes- you can't climb down from there).
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