A downloadable game

DECEMBER 2022 UPDATE

Happy new year everyone! Here's a new version of Green Beret:

- added 2 selectable difficulty levels (Normal and Arcade), because people asked for a less brutal experience. 

- "Normal" has a lifebar (which is not a "heresy", since the Japanese version of Contra Hard Corps (Mega Drive) does that too).

- "Arcade" is the same difficulty as previous versions (no lifebar, 1 hit = dead).

Also some minor improvements here and there, such as a little flag marking a "save point/spawn point" reached.

Direct links to December 2022 version:

GreenBeretDecember2022.adf

GreenBeret_WHDLoadDecember2022.lha


*If the second or third boss didn't appear (on emulation), the emulator settings to fix it should be:
- CPU and FPU = Aproximate A500/1A1200 must be "on"
- Chipset = Cycle exact on FULL
- Collision Level also on FULL* (thanks to Per-Ola Eriksson for this).

PLAYING ON THE A500-MINI

Needed WHDLoad Package v1.0.1, CD32 pad selected (GREEN button shots flamethrower) and Copper enabled (otherwise it's laggy). End of clip shows my configuration screen (Expert Mode enabled):

AUGUST 2022 FIX

Fixed a bug that causes the game to reset if the fire button is pressed during the cut-scene of the soldier jumping over the fence (between levels).

Direct links to the latest version:

GreenBeret_August2022.adf

GreenBeret_WHDloadAugust2022.lha

MAY 2022 UPDATE

In Green Beret, a player could stall forever the gameplay, such as staying on top of the first truck in level 1. So the original designers added a "timeout jet" that appears and kills players instantly when they're wasting time.

Added it in Amiga's port: 

Other fixes:

- blue soldiers only fire one shot, some even retreat after this shot. This is following feedback pointing out that some soldiers were firing repeatedly until they succeed in hitting the player.  Limiting them to one shot makes the game's difficulty level way more manageable.

- cleaned some pixel artifacts in the title screen's background.

Direct links to the latest version:

GreenBeret_May2022.adf

GreenBeret_WHDLoad-Installed.lha

*WHDLoad /A500 Mini*

JOTD kindly provided the WHDLoad installer for Green Beret.

Many Amiga fans are getting the new A500 Mini, which only works with WHDLoad files in a USB drive, and not ADF files, so we're promptly adding a WHDload Pre-installed archive in the downloads section, or by clicking in the direct links below:

GreenBeret_WHDLoad-Installed.lha

GreenBeret_WHDLoad-Installed.rar



**AMIGAMEJAM 2022**

Green Beret won a prize at Amiga game dev competition. More info in the link: https://danteretrodev.itch.io/greenberet/devlog/366259/amigamejam-2022-event


**UNIFIED RELEASE**

I was able to add this little selector on the title screen so the player can choose the soundtrack between OG Arcade or the one based on the NES version.  It's straightforward (joystick down, joystick up, fire button to select and start game) and so it's much better than having two releases. It should have an options page where this will fit better, but it's so low in ChipRAM that it was a nice surprise that we were able to fit both soundtracks into one release.

Scroll down to downloads section, it's  GreenBeret_FULL_both_OSTs.adf

Also has better horizontal resolution/gameplay area:


**UPDATED MARCH 20, 2022**

- Enemies in attack position (shooting) now dying  instantly when hit by flamethrower (no delay in showing the animation)

- better adjusted position of projectile coming out of enemy bazookas.

**UPDATED MARCH 19, 2022**

- Reduced lethality of enemies with rifles and bazookas

- fixed a bug related to keyboard space bar

- added simple pause function during gameplay (press P to pause, Fire button to return to play).

**UPDATED FEBRUARY 20, 2022**

- Added the missing songs (Stage clear cut scene, and Game Over).

- consistent sound design as even player losing a life uses the music module (and its instruments)

- all music are now multi-song modules, meaning there will be no more in-game loading pauses to load the boss music, it's only changing music position which is instantaneous.

- there is some time for player to prepare before a new boss appears, it is not so sudden anymore

- fixed enemies spawning out of thin air, specially on start of level 2. Score didn't reset if you beat the game and loop it. Some other fixes and improvements.

**UPDATED FEBRUARY 08, 2022**

Added better siren sounds at the beginning. No loading pause for boss music at boss truck. Some other fixes and improvements.

**UPDATED FEBRUARY 06, 2022**

Added BGM 2, which is the music track that will play on stages 2 and 4.  

**UPDATED FEBRUARY 05, 2022**

JUMP:  the higher jump added in February 03 update ruins the game for many people: it defeats the purpose of ladders, since you can simply jump to reach another floor.

So, in this February 05 update I rolled back to the original jump height with some adjusts but also added a subtle horizontal "push" if the player jumps while moving forward. 

This still enables the player to jump from truck to truck in level one or jump over landmines, but is not enough to reach a higher floor.

NOT COVERED YET:   many music tracks missing (Stage Clear, Game Over etc).

********************************************************************************************

**WARNING:**  *THIS GAME IS REMEMBERED TO BE NOTORIOUSLY DIFFICULT* 

Green Beret, also known as Rush'N Attack, is a Konami game released in 1985 (same year of the Amiga) on the arcades and later ported to several home systems. But it was never released for the Amiga back then. Until now!  A dream come true, as a long time Amiga user, to finally be able to release a game on the system.  Featuring: 

- the 4 unique stages from the original (Missile Base, Harbor, Bridge and Prison Camp), with the respective end of level bosses and cut scenes (it's the complete original, also they're the same levels as the classic home computer versions such as C64 and ZX Spectrum)

- all the major enemies (foot soldier, armed blue enemy, jumping guy, mortar-equipped enemy, crawling soldier, paratroopers etc)

- the 3 secondary weapons of the arcade (flamethrower, bazooka/rocket launcher and grenades) as well as the main knife

- can be played even with 1-button controller (press and hold to shoot secondary), 2 buttons gamepads (button 2 jumps) or CD32 gamepad (button green shoots secondary)


- wonderfully rearranged (by DJ Metune) NES Rush'N Attack soundtrack instead of the simple military march of the arcade, as the Amiga's Paula sound chip can offer so much more (further tracks will be added through ongoing updates)

- compatible with any Amiga model that has 512KB ChipRAM + 512KB Other RAM

- made with Earok's Scorpion Engine

                                                                      **DISCLAIMER**

** THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO BE A 1:1 PORT OF THE ARCADE,  that was not claimed at all.  In fact, it plays more like the NES Rush'N Attack one, being quite more "agile" (you can stab from ladders, for instance). It has some advantages like persistent dropped items and apparent more colors (due to use of Amiga's Copper chip to add extra screen colors).



Download

Download
GreenBeret_December2022.adf 880 kB
Download
GreenBeret_WHDLoadDecember2022.lha 406 kB

Development log

Comments

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this is very well made i started out on the arcade mode wich was rough but very fun i used the standard adf and the options are plentiful in this one you even have the option between the nes or original version right from the main loading screen its games like this that make amiga my favorite emulator and core to run hands down thank you this ine gets a 9.5/10 easy all day ;)

Thanks, much appreciated. And thanks for playing! :)

no any future updates also any amiga cd32 versions in the future also i looked and your game is rated the mos popular amiga game on a few romsites aswell as a website called AMI Sector One ;)

Very good game, thank you. This game also made it into my latest "TOP 10 AMIGA GAMES according to 2023 Itch.io reviews" -video. So congratulations! 🙂

Thank you very much for the video and gameplay! Much appreciated.

Very cool arcade conversion. Our German-language review can be found in our recorded livestream starting at 01:47:19. Subscription to our YouTube or Twitch channel is welcome. 🙂

(+1)

Thank you very much!

The third boss does not appear. 

Thanks for the report, I'll take a look at it!

Thanks again for the report. In my system it appears (it's the gyro copters, pic below that I just took with latest version). So I may ask, what system did you tried? Thanks.

I used an emulated Amiga 1200.

Deleted 1 year ago
(+1)

Ok, I got something that may help you, thanks to Per-Ola Eriksson that had the same problem and found that the emulator settings caused it. So, the emulator settings to fix it should be: CPU and FPU = Aproximate A500/1A1200 , must be "on". and Chipset = Cycle exact on FULL. Collision Level also on FULL.

Happy New Year! Awesome game!

Happy New Year to you too, Saberman! And thanks for your awesome gameplay videos, you're doing very well!

Sorry but I am new to the amiga planet... 

Will this work on my amiga 500 with trapdoor ram expansion? 


Thanks :)

(+1)

Hi, it should work, the typical spec for many Amiga 500 games are 512KB internal memory + 512KB extra memory on trapdoor expansion. Anything extra is a plus. :)

Many Thanks for Your latest version with timeout jet... It works perfectly... Now Just  a perfect game.

Really happy to play with the Final version. 

Thank you very much!

Jet timer is set at 99 at the moment. It's quite relaxed. :)

And I might release v1.1 down the road with second button for flamethrower instead of jump. There's always something to add! :)

Perfect ! Many Thanks

Great game, great fun!

Thanks, your videos are great and you played very well!

Sorry for spam but know that I really appreciate your work and would really like to lend a hand to improve it further with suggestions.

Thanks for the feedback, about the screen centering, there's a really good post by Earok here: https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p=1540201&postcount=2038

In a nutshell: "screen center is ambiguous on Amiga since the overscan area on left/right and top/bottom isn't even", so in other words, there isn't too much that can be done about it. About the other issues, they are all well known, specially issues after game over like cumulative weapons (your flamethrower will also fires a bazooka projectile at same time, which actually benefits the player so I left these in the end of issue's list, focusing more in the stuff that actually breaks the game). 

Thanks again for the detailed posts and thanks for playing!

The game screen appears aligned to the left of the screen, rather than centered.

"the respawn,after losing a life, is not always "fair", it often happens that you lose a life without being able to do anything

If you select NES music and lose the game, when you start again and change with OG, the NES music remains.

Above and below the Konami logo, strange marks can be seen. Are they wanted or is it glitches?

very good

Hi, I tried the 2 versions of the game on my Amiga 1200 with Terrible Fire 1230 Accelerator 68030 50 Mhz 128 MB Fast Ram but they don't start. they get stuck in the AmigaDOS screen where the commands are specified (which I do not see, however, I report them because trying the games on a pc, with an emulator, I see them and play). What can I do to test it on my Amiga 1200 machine? Thanks

Looks like the problem is on the startup sequence somehow, so please try the one in the link below which goes direct to the game without showing the AmigaDOS screen with commands:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17MFVn8So1YTvcAGp6bnoPKy6PrPis3gA/view?usp=shari...

You may have also CF card or similar hard disk, so you can also boot on Workbench, insert the floppy after Workbench has loaded. GreenBeret_FULL will appear on the screen. Drag and drop it to your Hard disk, let's say it's now copied to the Work: partition.

Now reset computer, hold both mouse buttons for boot menu, select Booth with no Startup. It'll bring you to the AmigaDOS screen, where you can type Work:

...then type cd GreenBeret_FULL

then type game.exe

It'll run from AmigaDOS, as a last resort if anything else works. 

Also, a WHDload package has been released a few days ago: http://whdload.net/games/GreenBeret.html

So you can install and run from hard disk by clicking on Workbench icon instead of through AmigaDOS commands.

(1 edit)

Hi, thanks for the answer.  Very kind.  I try what you advised me and let you know.  Thanks for the great job you are doing.

EDIT - Fantastic!! Congratulations on the great job done

Hey I write for ZZAP!AMIGA magazine and I wondered if the full version is the final version that we can review for the magazine? Also how is best to contact you to ask some questions about the game? Thanks

Hi! Thanks for the contact!  dante.mendes at gmail.com  or direct message on twitter.com/dantemendes

About final version, I'm waiting for AL82 Retrogaming Longplays on YouTube to post the longplay video (which I was notified that it was already recorded). AL82 is a Green Beret expert as the channel shows full playthroughs of most versions of the game, so it's an important channel to pay attention. So far AL82's comments have been positive regarding Amiga's full version, which is very encouraging. It'll continue to improve as the level timeout jet/bombardment is going to be included and also a possible alternate control setup.

Hi! Did you consider the option with a final version to create a whdload version? Thanks in advance!

Hi, WHDLoad install already exist. It was made by JOTD. Only appropriate Game's Icons miss. 

http://whdload.net/games/GreenBeret.html

(2 edits)

Oh my GOD what a dream ...  Now just near the perfection with the menu selection for both sound music ...  Finally I like the NES music version too.

Only one think miss :  the "Timer" with the plane like the C64 version... Do You think that You can add it in the Final version as I asked You ?

 It will be great but I hope it will be possible with the memory available on the A500. 

Actually the game speed is very good on a real A500 (Tested on A500  ECS rev.6A 512k+512k).

Congretulation for Your hard works.

Best Regards, Pascal

Thank you very much!

The jet is being tested (image below). It fits in the memory so far, and the silhouette is based on a Soviet era MiG-23/27 (for the airplane buffs like me out there :))

It is not programmed to work and attack (timed) yet. Should be soon! Will adjust its speed too. The C64 version of Green Beret is great, I love it. And this reflects in the Amiga version too.

Thank again for your kind words and support, and also the testing with configuration.


(2 edits)

Great, nice works to create this beautiful Mig-23 (I like airplane too)...

I'm the manager of a model shop and Belgium.

In brand Zvezda You can build beautiful russian planes...

Best regards,

Pascal

very good

Hi! Ussing your last version. I have died at the end of Stage 1 or 2 (Final Boss) and trying to finish him the game stop it and go to the next level without finish it! A bug? Thanks!

How far are we in terms of months of a final version? :)

It is starting be very nice! Tried latest update. It would be cool to make the explosions more like red when killing people. I guess it was that original but got censored.

Green Beret - update 08

Nice update!

In the c64 version there is an anti-cheat like a jet that bombards you if you stand still for a long time. Could you add it to your version. Otherwise very nice work ... I test it on my A500

Thanks!  Yes, I know about the jet. It's basically level timer without a counter, it's shocking when it appears. I may add it for 1.0!

It will be Great many Thanks

Fantastic release.

I made myself an HDD version :-D

Thanks! Looking forward to see some gameplay in your channel! ;)

Of all gameplay videos, Per-Ola Eriksson was who went most far (almost to the end of level 3): 

very good

Nice game!

Thanks!

Thanks for the video, well played! Game is still hard despite the easy jump...

First of all, thanks for your big work. Amiga deserve ports like this.

Just one question: Are you thinking to release a whdload version? 

Thanks in advance!

(1 edit)

Thanks!

Curiously, my Castlevania AGA received HDD version, which is very handy.

So, I asked the person if it's possible to do for Green Beret as well.

Let's see!

(1 edit)

Edit:  not-WHDLoad(but generic kick) Green Beret was in AmigaFrance.com server 

Here it is:

https://www.amigafrance.com/download/Aladin/WHDLG/GreenBeret-WHDL.lha 

And is also on English Amiga Board's FTP:

http://grandis.nu/eab/FTP/~Uploads/Aladin/WHDLG/GreenBeret-WHDL.lha

Thanks again to Aladdin / Amiga France.com

good! I suppose these versions are not the latest one. Anyway thanks a lot!

(4 edits)

I think that the essence of the game is greatly captured and have enjoyed it a lot already in this Amiga flavour....Thanks a Lot for your efforts and giving the Amiga a proper conversion of the blockbuster game!

Two minor things for your kind consideration ;

1)  It could be possible to add the "game over" tune? It was great...

2) I have noticed that while running you can jump to the first floor of the bridge or on top of the missile trucks. This leaves stairs nearly useless...Is this an intentional feature?

Thanks again!

(1 edit)

Thank you very much, I'm always adjusting following comments. The jump gets the most critics (too fast, too low and silly) so I did this version that has a long jump (you can jump from truck to truck, it's great) and it makes ladders *even more useless*.  WHAT!?.  Long history, worth of a blog post, but to sum up, ladders plagued the development of the game to the point I added the option to jump/skip them. Surprisingly, I didn't received criticism regarding them yet, which is great.  About game over music, there's a lot of music missing, unfortunately, as the musician ran into personal problems. We're getting another musician to help deliver all the missing music and we'll keep posting.  Edited: just updated this page with updated FEBRUARY03 version which has gameplay improvements.

Hello again.


Yesterday I've tried to run GB on my expanded A1200, and... game doesn't work at all!
Trying running from WB is like clicking anywhere on screen - no effect at all. Booting from floppy game loads to some point and stops with black screen.
I was trying without cache and on original settings in Early Startup Menu, of course - result is same. I suppose game is not requiring KS1.3?

Fantastic work and well done on getting it into the jam.

Absolutely amazing effort. I cannot wait to relentlessly destroyed over and over by this punishing game. Congratulations on it’s release.

(+1)

very good

(1 edit)

Hello
Could it be handled as in original with 2 buttons? I'd like rather special weapon on instant and jump as up rather  than holding button.

What about  3 buttons controllers? It could be handled like as CD32 controller for 3 buttons.

Yes, that's totally possible and possibly in an update soon. CD32 controller is already supported ("green" fires special weapon). Thanks!

(1 edit)

Thanks for reply!
Yes, I know about control in CD32 standard. Maybe I was writing it in wrong way, but I was proposing to "clone" CD32 standard control to 3 buttons control (i.e. RED = 1st, BLUE = 2nd, GREEN = 3rd).  About option of control, maybe some options/settings/etc should be added to select?
Of course options could be saved... and also maybe high score saver?

It should have all that! The screen for control config and all.  Problem is chipRAM requirements: to run on A500 OCS (512KB chipmem), to have an idea I cannot add a LOADING graphic between scenes, that it crashes out of ChipRAM, let alone adding a full options screen with menus! That's why it feels so "abrupt" when completing stages.  It's completely on the limit for Scorpion Engine A500 OCS at the moment. If the requirement is A500+ and A600 (1MB ChipRAM) or even A1200 (2MB ChipRAM), it would have been another story.  I did the Castlevania AGA demo to see how much easier it is to do things when there's enough ChipRAM (2MB) and I have to say that doing that Castlevania Sharp X68000 on A1200 is way, WAY easier than squeezing Green Beret on A500!

The shocking part is that so far, the vast majority that I'm seeing  is not playing Green Beret on the humble A500, but on a super duper expanded A1200 or superior...

(1 edit)

Well... it could be separate program for this, as in some games.
About 512kB, it was still in 80's when 1MB begins to be standard. So think about 1MB of ChipRAM and 512kB any  RAM. After All many A500 users have much more than this.

1MB ChipRAM and 512KB other RAM would lead to great results. The whole bottleneck is the 512KB ChipRAM which means it's a true OCS game.  Which I think is cool, but if you're doing in 68K ASM and have more time to code tools to compress data etc.   1MB Chipmem in my book, would classify the game as ECS game instead of OCS. :)   The ideal is 2MB Chipmem/AGA, as my demo of Castlevania shows: I was able to basically put all I needed for first stage (except tree falling with sprite rotation) and it took just a fraction of the development time of Green Beret without none of the bottleneck issues there.  

Separate programs for config is a good idea!

I'll just add that i forgot to mention WHDLoad "version" is also not working.

It's NOT WHDLoad version (i.e. specially made for Green Beret) but only generic kick which is only working on some configs.
So talking that it's WHDLoad version is not truth, it's just customised generic kickstart/wb slave used with game data.

Thanks for informing that,   and sorry that it didn't worked on most configs.   I don't know how to do WHDLoad version myself, so much that I failed to quickly identify what comprises a proper WHDload version.  For me, that linked one (generic kick) had worked just fine.

It was mentioned already on EAB in one topic (probably about generic slaves) and it works ok mostly on configs, where standard version is also working - 68020 or 68030. When You have 68040 or 68060 most of installs based on generic slaves popup with WHDLoad error.

How about 2 player co-op like on the NES version, makes it so much fun playing with my kid? probably too much to ask :) in a game that is already made so perfect, it really needed a great port which it now have, thanks to you guys!

Keep up the great work

Thanks! I wanted it to play like NES but it ended playing more like Commodore 64 one (which is brutal). As I've watched people playing it on live stream and YouTube today and getting destroyed. I may adjust enemy attack frequencies and other parameters. What's on the cards is the NES extra levels: it's a longer, more in-depth game. Thank you again for playing!

Hi. You should first of all fix bugs and collision with enemies. The arcade game was difficult, but a little more tolerant when enemies were hitting the hero: he could hit them with his knife and have his life saved. Many times in your port I had the feeling I was killed with no reason by a enemy.

Moreover, I also noticed sometimes grenades launched by the guy at half of level 1 just hit the hero with no conseguences (no collision detected), and it happened that I was killed by a soldier at the end of level 1 just to gain access (with animation too) to level 2 when I restarted.

Here at italian Zzap! we decided to wait for your action, before reviewing the game, because we felt it's better, even though we'd really have liked to publish its review on incoming issue #4. 

(6 edits)

Thanks for holding review, I know what you mean and took action. I did a special version of Green Beret, with the following fixes:

- knife now is instant frame (like C64 and NES) instead of an animation.  That seems simple but will create a huge difference. 

- Adjusted hitboxes, so hero could hit with knife further and faster.

- enemies out of the back of the truck didn't spawn right on top of you, there's ~2seconds time for you to reposition and move away from the back of the truck.

You can get it in the link below:

GreenBeretAMIGA_Zzap.adf

I also sent a version with many other fixes during the night (had very few hours of sleep, I'm very tired). But I'm sending the adf with some of your feedback here, separated, to avoid messing with the GameJam that GB joined. And yes, the enemy grenades are very forgiving as adjust too as the game was becoming way too hard.

Also, try for now in unaccelerated Amiga models, accelerated Amiga models apparently are causing glitches with timing. You might be surprised at how more forgiving the game is in the A500/A600! For example this YouTuber (A500 gameplay). See how it went well generally. Acceleration might be a game engine issue that needs further investigation. Thanks again!

Hi, I am quite sure I have tried the "GreenBeretAMIGA.adf" already. :-)

On a emulated stock A1200, though.

BTW: there are still some weird quirks here and there. For instance: why is there the intro jingle when the game starts, and not the GAME OVER one when the play ends?

Hi, but did you tried GreenBeretAMIGA_Zzap.adf ?

I did edited the post with a link for it as I uploaded it on my drive. It features instant knife (C64, NES) and other fixes following your feedback, to make it more fair play. I'm trying my best as it's my first game released on Amiga.

Jingles: the musician, DJ Metune, is very talented but has a lot going on in his family right now, has 5 kids etc so he was not able to deliver the whole soundtrack yet, that's why you see missing jingles here and there (stage clear/guy jumping fence too). Have in mind, that this is done with very good will and at cost of getting away from family and friends, but in the end, you cannot expect "Konami professional studio quality" solid release at first. We do what we can under the restrict time and resources we had.

The Scorpion Engine is also experimental and getting improved as we go, it is not a finished game engine yet. But remember that a couple years ago a game like this done with an authoring engine would have required something like 030/FastRAM to run like this, instead of just A500 or A600.

Lastly, I bet with you that if this was released back then on the Amiga by the usual suspects it would have been:

- running at choppy 12 frames per second scrolling

- washed out and muted ST (port) color palette

- no extra button options on controllers

- no music and sound effects at same time. :)

So, you're lucky that you not only something much better than all that for free, you have the chance to talk directly to the developer, ask for feedback, and the developer does a special version of the game with fixes for you! ;)   Thanks for your feedback!