M.A.G.E.¿ - MajicSoft Arcade Graphics Engine - Technical Notes

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M.A.G.E.¿ has been designed to offer the novice  or professional game 

designer a set of tools that provide powerful results  with a minimum 
of programming  headaches.   While there  are  other products  on the 
market that  allow  the  ST  enthusiast  to  program  an arcade game, 
nothing ever released to the general public has made game design more 
interactive and more importantly, easier to develop.  Several popular 
games like,  Dave Munsie's Frogger and Kid Kong took  as little  as a 
week to finish. 





Here are some of the reasons why:



Virtually un-limited sprites.   You decide how  many sprites you want 
your program to use.   A  typical M.A.G.E.¿  game will have dozens of 
sprites moving about the screen with a frame rate of 17-20 frames per 
second.





Automatic sprite control: 



The powerful M.A.G.E.¿  kernel provides  TOTALLY AUTOMATIC control of 
sprites.  This means your sprites can  follow pre-determined patterns 
(Like in KID KONG and FROGGER), process complex  offset patterns like 
those  used in ST INVADERS or lightning fast DIRECTIONAL movements as 
in EVADER.





Here is a list of the M.A.G.E.¿ controlled sprite options:



   TRACKING:   Have your sprite TRACK other sprites.

   OFFSETS:    Perform complex movements ANYWHERE on the screen.

   PATTERNS:   The fastest way to move your sprites.

   DIRECTION:  Character movement, missiles, etc.

   ANIMATION:  Frame animation with looping.

   COLLISION:  Fast collision checking.

   MOVEMENT:   Global sprite movement. Move ALL sprites at once!!

   JOYSTICK:   Move 1 or several sprites based on Joystick readings.



Note:  If you can move your  mouse around the screen,  you can create 
complex  pre-determined  sprite paths  using  the  included M.A.G.E.¿ 
Animation Editor.




What about the background of your game?   With the included character 
handling routines you will be able to simulate a true character based 
display with lightning fast results.  M.A.G.E.¿ easily detects when a 
sprite  moves  over  a  character (example: power pill!!).   You  can 
design  several character MAPS  and have them in memory and then have 
M.A.G.E.¿ draw  them  for  you  automatically.    Use  the  built  in 
character  map  scrolling to  create  that awesome WAR GAME  you have 
always wanted  to do.   You  can create scrolling  character displays 
that  span  several screens wide and tall.   Again, with the included 
Map Editor this is a breeze.





Support routines:  



There are several support routines to  help maximize the overall look 
and feel of your game.   There  are  fast memory movers, screen blits 
and clears.   You  will  also  find multi-purpose  memory movers  and 
special effect  routines.   For instance,  auto-plotting  star fields 
with joystick control is no problem!  There is also support for color 
cycling, background flashing, fade in/out.   And for screen graphics, 
there  is  a  fast decompression routine for DEGAS.PC1 pictures.  For 
compression the engine uses the ICE data compression method. 





AUDIO:  



M.A.G.E.¿ comes with  built  in  support  for adding sound effects to 
your games.   Unlike  OTHER systems  that  are  currently  available, 
M.A.G.E.¿ provides  direct  access  to  a  hundred  "BUILT IN"  sound 
effects  at  anytime from within your program.   You can also play ST 
REPLAY samples using an interrupt driven routine so your program does 
not hang up while it is playing.





You will be amazed at the power of M.A.G.E.¿ and at just how fast you 
can put together the game you have always wanted to write!  M.A.G.E.¿ 
supplies  the tools, YOU supply your imagination.  With M.A.G.E.¿ you 
program with POWER!





One  last  note,  unlike  other  game  creators  available, M.A.G.E.¿
provides  complete  100%  COMPATIBILITY  for  all  versions  of  TOS, 
INCLUDING  the  new FALCON TOS.   No other  available system can make 
this claim  right out of the box. M.A.G.E.¿ works in conjunction with 
GFA BASIC¿ 3.5.  The complete M.A.G.E.¿ system has a suggested retail 
price of only $129.95  and  includes  the GFA BASIC¿ EDITOR, COMPILER 
and ASSEMBLER on disk!   You will  not  find an easier way to develop 
high quality games on the AtariST/STe/Falcon computers.





M.A.G.E.¿ is available from fine Atari software dealers everywhere or 
you may contact MajicSoft directly at 803-788-8177.  Dealer inquiries 
welcomed.