Facts & Media - Lilly's Saga

Facts & Media- Lilly’s Saga | Fabulous 8bit

About

Product background

Lilly’s Saga – The Stones of Evergreen, is a smooth scrolling platform game for the MSX2 8-bit micro computer, released via MSXdev in October 2022 and to be released on a cartridge early 2023.

Inception and development

The inception of the game goes back to 2020 when Pål Frogner Hansen had just realised that the MSX retro scene was alive and thriving (most notably via the msx.org website). It was time to locate that old machine on the attic.

With roots in demo-programming in the 90’s and working as a professional game programmer from 1997-2003, he was quickly lured into programming again. Even if it was almost two decades since his last production code. Inspired by conquering the shortcomings of the MSX system and a wish for making the game he felt was missing on the MSX, the idea of a cute, multi-directional smooth scrolling platform game took shape.

Early on, Pål wrote down some target keywords that would define the look and feel of the game. Amongst them were: “Smooth, Snappy, Responsive, Bling, Fast, Powerups, Feelgood colors, True to the classics, Honor/Tribute to Wonder Boy and other legendary platformers, Super fun!, Polished, A sizable amount of gameplay (levels), Both easy AND hard game play, Super-easy to understand, Tabloid”.

During the 80’s and 90’s Pål had one MSX and one MSX2. The target/minimum machine requirement for the game ended on MSX2 with a clear goal that it should maximize the MSX2 capabilities in screen 4* and run just as well on MSX2 as on any of the more powerful MSX successors (MSX2+, turbo-mode/7MHz, MSX turbo-R). Many MSX games make use of the extra features on the successor machines. This game makes a point of not doing this and is homeage to the author’s history which did not include upper-end MSX-systems. The game runs 60 frames per second with no framedrops.

Not a graphic artist himself, he needed help in the graphics area. As soon as most high risk technical questions had been resolved, Julie Trevland come onboard to create the protagonist and the antagonist, animations, visual directions and full screen graphics. The viking influence of the game is legacy of Pål’s home country, Norway.

After a little more than year into development, it was time to get a composer onboard. Wolf, a well-known composer amongst MSX’ers, joins and starts creating the musical score for the game. Wolf is very productive and the game including its trailers will end up counting more than 15 scores.

Both the graphic artist and the composer have influenced the game greatly during development —also in parts outside their main responsibility areas.

Brief version of the game story

You play as Lilly, the little mythical heroine from the legendary Evergreen village. The evil lord Abaddon has stolen four magical and sacred gem stones from the village and Lilly’s up to the task of getting them back.

Gameplay description

There are four worlds where each world holds four levels which takes place in different locations. Each location is from one of five themes. Some levels are up in the mountains, some by the sea shore, some are down below and inside caves, some are just outside and leading up to castles and some are inside castles.

You will meet many hostile creatures along your path. Most enemies can be jumped and bumped, but be aware that some require other means to get rid of —or just keep your distance. Furthermore, be prepared to end off every world with a boss-fight, in good old retro fashion. Pay attention and look for the huge amount of hidden bonus-levels and hidden chests which have content that will make the heroine more powerful for a certain amount of time, reward the player or just give you some subtle hints of the upcoming areas.

At the same time, there is a timer counting down. Complete the level before it runs out to avoid losing a life. The faster you get to the end of the level, the more bonus points you are awarded.

And watch out, if you miss, you lose your current power-ups. Also note that power-ups will wear out automatically right before meeting a boss.

Carefully adjust the height of your jumps by holding down the jump button at right duration. Some places you need to jump high and far and some places you need to avoid hitting the ceiling and lethal spikes.

Pick up as many coins as you can. You get points for each of them, and you are rewarded with an extra life at every 200 coins.

To make progress in the lands of Abaddon, you will need both your agile movement skills as well as your brain to solve puzzles.

Technical information

System MSX2 (or higher)
Audio MSX Music (FM / 9 channels for music), PSG (3 channels for sfx)
RAM 64 kB (MSX2 standard)
VRAM 128 kB (Normal MSX2 configuration)
Format Megarom (ASCII16-mapper)

Distribution format

1. Download-version
This version is almost identical to the Premium version. To access the game, you need an emulator or a “flash mega rom”-cartridge with at least 1.2 MB capacity (like the one sold at www.msxcartridgeshop.com).

2. Premium, physical version
The best version, and a must for collectors. A great looking box, megarom cartridge and printed manual. Premium-version will include features not present in the download version, such as storing up to six save-games.

Company background: Fabulous 8bit

The Lilly’s Saga game falls into the homebrew category. Its developers are hobbyists and enthusiasts, and thus, Fabulous 8bit is merely a group, a label or an umbrella to put different games under.

Team

Producer, Programming and Level Design
Pål Frogner Hansen, aka Bengalack, used to enjoy the MSX in his youth in the 80’s and early 90’s. A Norwegian who used to work in the game industry back in the day. When recently discovering the active retro community, he was inspired to make the game he always felt was missing on the MSX.

Main Graphic Artist
Julie Trevland is a young versatile artist who makes both traditional and digital art, including pixel art. These days she is pursuing an education within Visual Arts. While she has produced a lot of material, very little of it has been publicly released yet. Older works can be found on her instagram-profile, www.instagram.com/pandemonium_arts/

Music and Sound Effects
Wolf is one of the veteran composers of the Dutch MSX-demoscene, skilled in FM-synthesis. From the 00’s onwards he focused more on virtual orchestration and releases orchestrated songs from MSX games every now and then. His style draws inspiration from composers like John Williams and Vangelis.

Milestones

2020-03 Project start
2020-09 Graphic artist joins
2021-05 Composer joins
2021-11 Development video series starts
2022-07 Feature complete + Action-teaser release
2022-10 MSXdev submission / free version released
2023-xx Release of physical game