Having investigated that specific title in the past, I believe that the Dizzy IP is now co-owned 50:50 by CodeMasters and the Oliver Twins and there is a long standing agreement that people may create whatever fan titles they wish provided that they don't charge for them and include correct credits. So I'm not sure if that would extend to actually disassembling the Spectrum code (though plenty of other titles rip off the original series graphics), but putting out a version of Dizzy for the Sam shouldn't lead to legal troubles in principle.
I guess with something like Dizzy you've got a huge advantage because quite probably the hardware specific bits would leap right out if you compared the Spectrum disassembly and the Amstrad CPC disassembly. I'm all for an effort to port games, even if it's a rewrite job. I've written a Dizzy engine for the PC before, albeit based more on the Fantastic Adventures-era Dizzy, might dust that off and have another look see. On Thu, Jul 15, 2010 at 2:51 PM, the_wub ! <the...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi all, > > I just made a comment on World of Sam about porting speccy games and > thought it would be worthwhile to post it here as well. > >> I’d be interested in having a go at porting anything from the speccy to the >> Sam though. >> If another dev could help with disassembling the spectrum game and making >> sense of the source I’d be confident enough to add new gfx and sound code >> and I’d be happy to > put in the time to redraw graphics in 16 colours and >> remake any music in e-tracker. >> Dizzy would be great except that it’s a Code Masters game. They might be a >> bit cease-and-desisty about it.. ;) > > My current Sam project is coming together nicely and I'm already > looking ahead for something fun to do before I start on another > original game. > Small games with simple concepts that can be ported quickly rather > than big licences would be the way to go IMO. That way time could be > spent doing several games instead of one bigger one. It would also > minimise the learning curve for me a bit ;) > > So would anyone be interested in helping me get something started in > the near future? > > Rob. >
