Heads up! I've got another demo here.. It's functionally the same as 1.4 with a few bug fixes.. But also adds a separate AGA build with some optimisations and new backgrounds and effects!

It's easier to show than explain, but I'll go into needless detail after the pics..

Here's the difference between ECS and AGA versions on a city level, and probably one of the clearest cases where potentially there are more colours on screen in the ECS build than the AGA one! The AGA build makes up for it by having much more depth in the background with the full screen parallax. The half bright window on the ECS compared to the dithered window in AGA is worth noting too. 😁

One of the areas with the most pronounced differences (as both variants take advantage of pretty much all of the effects available) is the Witch Phantom at the end of the demo..

Below: The ECS witch has a more spooky translucent trail, that's harder to see in screenshots (see the hand to her right?) it's a more impressive effect, but the trail is way more visible in AGA. The reason for the two different colour casts is basically just me preferring different things once all the effects are stacked up.. YMMV.. There are going to be a lot of parts of the game where you could prefer one version over the other, AGA doesn't necessarily afford me "better" just, different and potentially more lush.

Last but not least the most jarringly different backdrop in the demo, by far.. In the ECS build the background loops in a very repeating pattern way but has different speed rows.. In the AGA version I have full screen, 16 colour, colour cycling backdrop..

Why do the versions look so different? Both AGA and ECS modes offer slightly different options due to the way the sprites are used. In AGA I get full screen, multi layer parallax, but each of the layers can only contain a few colours. Behind them I can put a standard copper rainbow. In contrast, with ECS I can use 32pixel wide repeating patterns that can be sliced into small sections and moved around and animated individually. You can use many, many colours with this method, but only 3 (sometimes 4) colours per horizontal line. On top of this.. Both my AGA and ECS build use Extra Half Bright. In ECS, my sprite colour range overlaps the light side of the EHB palette, which means I get a dark copy of every single one of the background copper colours. (this was very confusing at first!) In contrast, in the AGA build, the sprite colours are off the end of the EHB palette. This means I can use different colours per level and manipulate them directly, but i lose out on some of the trippy effects I get from having the sprites and EHB overlap..

Enjoy anyway.. Work on the game proper is going steadily too but I may have a prolonged slow down as i get various things in my life in order. See you soon though!