It seems that you're using an outdated browser. Some things may not work as they should (or don't work at all).
We suggest you upgrade newer and better browser like: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera

×
Community
General discussionRelease: The Adventures of Willy Beamish(100 posts)(100 posts)
(100 posts)
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
This is my favourite topic
Posted March 02, 2017
Willy the menace.


<span class="bold">The Adventures of Willy Beamish</span>, a comedy point & click adventure about the lovably obnoxious kid we've all dreamt of being, is now available, DRM-free on GOG.com!

Willy is a typical nine-year-old rascal of the 90s': He's got a rad tree house, a frog sidekick, mad skateboarding skills, and an all-around mischievous disposition. The summer vacation is just around the corner but before he gets to enjoy it, Willy must handle the school bully, regain his video gaming privileges, and even save the town from a foul-smelling catastrophe.
Posted March 06, 2017
avatar
karnak1: I imagine.
Back in my country I can only remember 3 stores where one could buy PC and Amiga games in the late 80s early 90s.
3 stores in the entire country! :(
avatar
gamesfreak64: I dont want to 'brag' about the netherlands cause we are quite small in size compared to other EU countries, we have some similarities with the other EU members and that is our weak goverment which bows to every EU (brussels demand , and the jump even before brussels ask them to jump)
but beside that we had loads of shops with almost anything related to computers, even in the 70s and 80s.
We can buy all games like commandos , so the dutch arent that bad off, but since the euro thinks dont look so bright anymore, our govt says economy is good and it is to bad that a large part of the people dont agree with that.

But like you said we had really almost anything you could imagine in our small country.
We have or had quite a lot of mc donalds, and a snackbar with fries, we have 10 or more within a 2 mile radious, maybe even more.
And yes we had 3 to 6 computer shops in our shopping centre ( stores in their own physical building not under 1 roof) and 3 or more under a roof (shopping mall) ( we used to have V& D)
So i had more games to chose from then money i could spent buying them.
Some time we had older games 3 - 6 months old at sales: 3 for 6 euros, well thats a nice offer, all retail cd/dvd and most if not all also drm free.
As weird as it may sound. It was far easier to acquire pirated games in my country than original ones. And 95% of kids just couldn't afford the original prices. We had a shitty economy.
That's why I'm prone to see piracy with a "benevolent" eye. If it were not for pirated games, me and kids my age would never had the chance to enjoy all the great video games that were being made and played everywhere else.
Besides, after all this time I'm buying every game I've pirated, on GOG, as a way to redeem myself for all the piracy years of yore.
Posted March 08, 2017
avatar
gamesfreak64: I dont want to 'brag' about the netherlands cause we are quite small in size compared to other EU countries, we have some similarities with the other EU members and that is our weak goverment which bows to every EU (brussels demand , and the jump even before brussels ask them to jump)
but beside that we had loads of shops with almost anything related to computers, even in the 70s and 80s.
We can buy all games like commandos , so the dutch arent that bad off, but since the euro thinks dont look so bright anymore, our govt says economy is good and it is to bad that a large part of the people dont agree with that.

But like you said we had really almost anything you could imagine in our small country.
We have or had quite a lot of mc donalds, and a snackbar with fries, we have 10 or more within a 2 mile radious, maybe even more.
And yes we had 3 to 6 computer shops in our shopping centre ( stores in their own physical building not under 1 roof) and 3 or more under a roof (shopping mall) ( we used to have V& D)
So i had more games to chose from then money i could spent buying them.
Some time we had older games 3 - 6 months old at sales: 3 for 6 euros, well thats a nice offer, all retail cd/dvd and most if not all also drm free.
avatar
karnak1: As weird as it may sound. It was far easier to acquire pirated games in my country than original ones. And 95% of kids just couldn't afford the original prices. We had a shitty economy.
That's why I'm prone to see piracy with a "benevolent" eye. If it were not for pirated games, me and kids my age would never had the chance to enjoy all the great video games that were being made and played everywhere else.
Besides, after all this time I'm buying every game I've pirated, on GOG, as a way to redeem myself for all the piracy years of yore.
true, all the games are and were relatively to expensive, even in the good old days, i mean 79 to 99 guilders for 2 floppy discs with the AMIGA game: "Hostages" and the game would crash at certain stages..........
or a guru alert in the game "the living daylights" 70 guilders and 1 ugly floppydisk: the game did a division by zero
imagine that , lousy and lazy / bad developers/programmers have been around since the start of digital games.

You paid through the nose for games with tons of bugs.
Posted March 14, 2017
Fantastic!

Great to see this re-released.

Any chance of doing Macintosh version please that came out around the same time as PC?

I do love this game and holds a special place in my memories as a youth.

I definitively interested in "commorative release" with 'remastered graphics' as the original was quite pixelated and overly compressed due hardware limitations of the time. Original drawings were scaled down too much I feel at times, if they still exist rescanning them without losing considerable quality would make game more like it originally was envisioned. Animation likely needs redoing. As an extra: Interviews with key members of the development team and designer notes please.
Posted March 14, 2017
avatar
wolfenstein74: Any chance of doing Macintosh version please that came out around the same time as PC?
Don't wanna sound like a jerk but it's pretty slim to none. Lotsa stuff involved.
I say "hey, Activision, the world isn't just Windows anymore, willya"? ;P
Posted March 22, 2017
avatar
barleyguy: Amiga was higher resolution than VGA, and had "half brightness", where the colors in the palette could be repeated at half brightness without taking a color slot. This allowed shadows without reducing the color depth.

Short version: The Amiga version IMO has aged a lot better than the DOS version.
avatar
timppu: I think your mind is playing tricks with you. First of all, Amiga games in general, nor this game either, were not in higher resolution than DOS VGA games. For instance for this game (and many other games), the PC version is running in a VGA resolution at 256 colors, while the Amiga version is running in a similar resolution (320x200?) at 32 colors.

You can see the comparison with e.g. these two screenshots:

The Amiga version

The PC VGA version

Look at e.g. the teacher's desk or the floor, you see the PC VGA version has far more colors to work with, with more hues. I really don't see how the Amiga version could be considered to look better, and no, the Amiga version is not running in a higher resolution either.

Plus with the Amiga version you usually had to swap with lots of 880kB floppy disks to play the game, while the PC version could be completely installed on the hard drive by default, and played from there. So the Amiga version was more cumbersome to play. There may have been some trick to transfer the Amiga version also to the hard drive, but that was usually not supported officially, it was a third-party hack.

Usually where the Amiga versions of games are commended are music and sound effects. IMHO Amiga version sounds better than the PC Soundblaster version, but worse than the PC Roland MT-32 version (I put the comparison Youtube videos in my earlier message). Especially with this game, you can hear the lack of polyphony on the Amiga version, as it had only four sound channels, but the instruments themselves sound more believable than in the Soundblaster version.

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_the_adventures_of_willy_beamish_d4c2c/post37
I still don't agree with you. To me Amiga graphics looked like a painting, whereas VGA graphics look blocky, and my brain doesn't fill in the details. I'm not going to argue with you about opinion and aesthetics though. If you think the PC version looks better, go ahead and think that.

Also, Dynamix (and Sierra) games on Amiga could absolutely be installed on the hard drive. You just put in the first disk and click the installer.
Posted March 22, 2017
avatar
barleyguy: I still don't agree with you. To me Amiga graphics looked like a painting, whereas VGA graphics look blocky, and my brain doesn't fill in the details.
Unless you are comparing the graphics running on the same CRT monitor, the "blockiness" of the PC version may simply be you looking at it on a higher res monitor which shows the square pixels, while a CRT monitor (where you played the Amiga version) "hides" such blockiness. If the blockiness on a modern monitor is too much to bear, you can use e.g. the DOSBox graphics filters to smooth out the graphics ("super-eagle" and whatever there is), I choose not to use them.

I provided the comparison screenshots so anyone can decide from those which they consider better looking. I choose the PC VGA version, you apparently feel the Amiga screenshot is better, even though to me it just looks otherwise the same but with less colors (256 colors vs 32 colors onscreen).
Post edited March 22, 2017 by timppu
Posted March 22, 2017
avatar
jrich3500: I'm glad it was added but the Sega CD version of this game is the most advanced with graphics and sound, also has extra voice acting and extra added features. Graphics area about same with sega cd and pc version, sound with sega cd version music wise is way better. Some extra features and gamplay with sega cd version not in pc version. To bad the sega cd version can't be lincluded but I guess sega still probably has rights on that one. Any ways, I'd like to see rise of the dragon and other missing games as that one would be insta buy for me as well.

Even if gog has these other games in the works they have to release them over time just to maintain user interest in gog and pace it out from a marketing standpoint.
Thanks for mentioning this. I've only played it on the sega cd, but I've seen gameplay videos of the pc version and the sega cd version has much better sound. I'll still get this eventually.
Posted March 22, 2017
avatar
Catmancer: the sega cd version has much better sound.
It has, undoubtedly. But it won't spoil the fun, no way. The pc version is by far the most enjoyable since, well, pnc games with a controller? wut? ;P
Posted March 23, 2017
avatar
Catmancer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQpHg7-1fg
Thanks for mentioning this. I've only played it on the sega cd, but I've seen gameplay videos of the pc version and the sega cd version has much better sound. I'll still get this eventually.
I presume this one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoQpHg7-1fg

I was first going to say I agree the Sega CD version has much better music (based on the intro music)... but the actual gameplay music is not as good in the Sega version. Of course it depends which PC version music you are comparing it to, Adlbi/Soundblaster or Roland MT-32?

This is how the Roland MT-32 version sounds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj_J_OvJ6OI

Unfortunately from the PC CD version, Roland MT-32 support was dropped for some reason so you can only have the inferior Soundblaster music with the PC CD version. The floppy version has also Roland MT-32 support.

The Sega CD version did seem somewhat different, e.g. the intro and start of the game were completely different. Latter parts felt more familiar, and yeah it seems to have some extra animations and stuff here and there.
Post edited March 23, 2017 by timppu
Posted March 24, 2017
avatar
barleyguy: I still don't agree with you. To me Amiga graphics looked like a painting, whereas VGA graphics look blocky, and my brain doesn't fill in the details.
avatar
timppu: Unless you are comparing the graphics running on the same CRT monitor, the "blockiness" of the PC version may simply be you looking at it on a higher res monitor which shows the square pixels, while a CRT monitor (where you played the Amiga version) "hides" such blockiness. If the blockiness on a modern monitor is too much to bear, you can use e.g. the DOSBox graphics filters to smooth out the graphics ("super-eagle" and whatever there is), I choose not to use them.

I provided the comparison screenshots so anyone can decide from those which they consider better looking. I choose the PC VGA version, you apparently feel the Amiga screenshot is better, even though to me it just looks otherwise the same but with less colors (256 colors vs 32 colors onscreen).
I concur on the point about monitors. I said in my original post that CRT smoothing may have had something to do with it.

The Amiga sort-of had 64 colors, BTW, because it supported "half brightness", where you could repeat any existing color at half saturation without using up a color slot. It was commonly used for shadows.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionRelease: The Adventures of Willy Beamish(100 posts)(100 posts)
(100 posts)