Amiga Games Library Under Development

            ANNOUNCEMENT: DEVELOPMENT OF AN AMIGA GAMES.LIBRARY


I am in the process of developing a library specially for the purpose of
writing GAMES.  For the past few weeks I have been experimenting with the
concept and now that I am satisfied with the results, I have decided to
develop it into a full Games Programming Interface.

So far I have done the basic features (about 40 functions), and am now on
to the real stuff.  Already there is full support for multi-directional
hardware scrolling, dual playfields, colourlists, double buffering, triple
buffering, AGA support, 4 different types of fading, etc.  In other words,
all the things the OS previously COULDN'T do (unless you enjoy having major
headaches).

The objective of this library is to remove the need to hack the hardware
within games (the library will do it for you :-/).  Then when a new Amiga
is released, the libary will be re-written to deal with that, so your game
still works!  (Or at least under 680x0 emulation anyway :-) The real bonus
is that your game will also work with all the major gfx cards, because
there will hopefully be versions of games.library specifically written for
these also.  So no more problems with CyberGfx/Picasso/Retina/etc boards. 
Multi-tasking arcade games will also be quite easy to write under this
library, although you can do away with the OS if you wish.

The only thing I want to know is how many people will use the library, how
many want to see something like this in use, and how many will *help me
write this library*.  This is an "open project" so all programmers that
wish to donate or write routines for it may do so.  I would do it all
myself, but not if you want to see it released in the next few months. 
Plus I think this way everyone has a chance to have a say which I think
will be very important for this project.

With some help, the following features should become a reality:

*  An in-built debugger.
*  A multiple blit routine.
*  Texture mapping routines.
*  Gouraud shading routines.
*  Complete vector drawing system, including "Draw_Multiple_Vectors".
*  XPK support.
*  Support for Sprite screen backgrounds.
*  Easy IFF support for gfx and sound (just point to the file and go).
*  Various  screen  fades, wipes and special fx normally only seen in demos
   built in.
*  A  c2p  routine  that  automatically  uses the fastest algorithm for the
   user's system.
*  Retargetable graphics to adjust to the user's system.
*  Support  for  GPI's  (Games Programming Interfaces), similar to API's in
   windows I guess (but better :-)
*  Anything else you can come up with.

If you can help with any of these, or anything not listed, please send me
some mail.  The retargetable graphics part is especially important, I don't
own any gfx cards so it is up to you if you want to see this area fully
supported.  If not enough interest is generated, the library will still be
written, but only for personal use.  So make contributions/comments/ideas/
anything.  This could really be something worth-while.


- Paul Manias
  DreamWorld Productions.

  sandman@welly.gen.nz

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