Fortunately, in the new version 1.2, on the CPC Plus 128KB version it can be turned off hehe.
Imagine an options’ set in games where you can turn off every horrible thing; the music, the graphics, the gameplay… It would be really useful in so many releases we see these days! ![]()
The reset switch?
This is another problem. There was a discussion about this in the old forum. The - from my point of view - questionable argument was that the cartridge provider had to do several working steps (buying hardware, copying the software, creating labels, handling orders, etc.) and wanted to be paid for these steps, not for the software itself. The main counter-argument - that I fully support - is that without the software none of the other steps would ever happen.
There is no good solution to this problem, but there is currently also no good solution in handling AI-supported game ports. Most licenses do not cover this case because this is just too new. So it takes place in a gray area and evokes long discussions.
That’s too old-school; I’d LLM it!
Personally, if it were my game, I’d think long and hard about the fact “borrowing” someone’s IP for a freely distributable game is, at worst, a civil violation for which you’d likely get a cease and desist letter (even that probably costs more in lawyer time than is really worth it but whatever). Putting a price tag on it, no matter how low or whether it’s voluntary, is the first step from being a civil offence to a criminal one, the consequences of which can be rather a lot worse…
True, but imagine such services being taken over by AI driven platforms and with a fraction of the cost, anyone could lodge a complaint about that “putting a price tag”.
Ah, the potential in AI is surprisingly broad and look how much this conversation has evolved, philosophically.
This debate over the price is completely hypocritical in my opinion. So people use a game made freely for the community to sell hardware and fake original games for €40 on eBay or Le Bon Coin, and nobody bats an eye.
Yet a guy overhauls a game that, in the end, no longer has the same graphics (sure, some are still left, but it’s a WIP… just a reminder), nor the same name (and in the end will be different, which obviously takes time because there’s no AI to do the rest of the work here, huh
), turning it into a car game that looks like any other car game already more or less ripped off from 36 other car games (where’s the intellectual property there? For “La Culotte de Zelda”, nobody came to bust my balls, and yet…), but for 2 bucks: suddenly that sparks a huge debate ![]()
So yeah, I have to laugh reading all this, because it’s just talk, talk, talk. Meanwhile, I’m actually doing stuff. And whether you like it or not isn’t my problem anymore. Besides, all of this is my own business—whether you agree or not isn’t my problem either.
Go debate about guys who churn out AI Amstrad games factory-style on itch.io instead; that’ll keep you busy. And it’ll be far more interesting.
I just realized something fundamental. I am giving you the point that you never sought to start a discussion about SAI here, and I am using this to highlight how even the posting of other peoples’ prods by third parties without asking them can lead to quarrels these days.
I disagree with you in just about everything, but what you do is indeed your business and it was never your intention to bring the game to this forum and talk about it with me or anyone else. So I’ll leave it there.
Good luck with what you do.
But if someone puts a game out for sale, I don’t think we should have to ask them before we post about it on here.
Perhaps we should consider that we ought to. And to be frank, I’d rather have the author himself post about his prod in this forum. Even more so when AI is involved.
I am a SAI customer.
Contrary to what rexbeng writes, I personally think this port was necessary.
The first Chase H.Q. on CPC and (especially) Spectrum has cult status. Besides, the “omissions” of the CPC version compared to the Spectrum version could make a great subject for an AI patch: the music (!), the game launch logo, the sound effect of the Porsche’s siren, the characters’ faces at the end of a level, the end-of-level sound jingle, the handshake at the end of the game, etc…
Many of us CPC users were dealt a dirty blow by Ocean at the end of 1990: the games Chase H.Q. 2, Robocop 2, Pang, Plotting, and Navy Seals were released on Spectrum and C64, but on Amstrad, only on GX4000 cartridge. I was waiting for Pang and Robocop 2 like crazy, and the disappointment was huge. Much later, I got a CPC+ and the cartridges, but with Chase H.Q. 2 having only 2 or 3 known copies at most, a void remains. On top of that, it was delayed so much back then that the Christmas 1990 “hit” was only reviewed by the press in May 1991!
We even had games that were never released at all in the end: Gremlin’s Ultimate Golf (finished, yet the publisher decided to port it to GX4000 only to end up producing nothing), or Titus’s Battlestorm (by Philippe Pamard, author of the CPC versions of Titan, Crazy Cars 2, Windsurf Willy, or Targhan), Spider-Man, and so many others.
In short, for me, SAI is payback for my rather sad Christmas 1990. So I bought SAI. It’s not perfect yet, but the 128k version brings some very welcome additions. I think the Spectrum music is horrible (ST music would be awesome, but if a musician wants to work on it, why not), it lacks vehicles, the elevation changes aren’t as well rendered as in the first Chase H.Q., but on the other hand, what a sense of speed for an Amstrad game! If we could choose the car’s color to match the arcade, that would be awesome too. And having the car start animation like in the arcade, along with the telex-style animations like on the ST, would also be great.
And while the Atari ST version of the first Chase H.Q. was pretty average, the one for Chase H.Q. 2 is much better.
That was just my two cents as someone who paid €2 into this project and is quite happy with it.
“I always share and will continue to do so by linking the author’s page so that you can play and download directly from there, while giving them thanks and gameplay feedback. If you have any of your typical absurd arguments, insults, or even compliments, that is where you should take them. What we really ought to question is whether playing directly from the forum without going through the author’s original page or platform, when applicable, is actually kosher. Censoring sharing and firing off like a monkey with a gun at anything you don’t like is a pretty serious issue on your part. The author or creator gets recognition and exposure, and everyone else gets to discover their work. What’s the problem?”
This is a forum, not a social media. “Firing off like a monkey with a gun” is part of what forums is about. And because we are talking about AI and everything dragging behind it, prods that have to do with AI are going to get what they deserve depending on how AI was used. However, I think it is not fair for authors getting force-pulled into discussions they never asked for.
So, obviously you can post whatever you want, but since there’s quite a few people who are overwhelmed by the AI stuff, perhaps you could reconsider what you share. I’m not the only one bothered by seeing AI slop I believe.
“This is not the place, it belongs here AI mega thread - #294 by Gryzor Keep the content within its container. If you want to say it’s garbage or have objections, tell the creator/producer whose link is in this very post. Information is never bad, discovering this catalog shouldn’t be censored, and I was the first to label this type of development so it has its own space and doesn’t get mixed up with handcrafted work. That’s already been done. What you want is to impose your personal tastes and ideology based on your own judgment, and police everything you don’t like. As I said in the appropriate thread, if those are the rules, I’m fine with it. For now, you don’t make the rules, but if that consensus is reached, that’s fine by me. Want to pass judgment? Then play it and share your opinion. Hate AI? I always state in my posts whether it’s AI. You can just avoid them, but stop asking for more Soviet-style censorship.”
Ok, so then, why do you have a problem if I want to say that “X game is garbage”? Where else am I going to say that if not under the post about the game? Is there a rule that states I have no right to criticize something and if there’s anything that bothers me I should avoid and let it go? Sounds like cancel-culture censorship.
It might be the language barrier or automatic translation, but there seems to be a correlation between rudeness and promoting AI content here.