About
Bagman is a 1982 arcade game by Valadon Automation, reportedly coded by Jacques Brisse, who was still head of the company as of 2015 according to the ROM's own credit strings. This is a remake of Bagman built by extracting the original arcade game's AI behavior and timing from analysis of its Z80 ROM code. The current (2023) Amiga version transcodes roughly 99% of that original game logic directly into 68000 code for accuracy, and is fully playable with sound; a Neo Geo build target also exists in the source tree but isn't actively being worked on.
How it differs from the original
Some quirks of the original arcade game are deliberately kept (the author notes the "game still has original bugs left"), while at least one original bug — an inability to enter "Z" in the high-score table — has been fixed in this remake.
Getting started
The Amiga version needs a joystick and runs on real Amiga hardware or an emulator such as WinUAE. Controls are the fire button or "5" to insert a coin, up or "1" to start a one-player game, down or "1" to start a two-player game, and P to pause.
History
Development has run since 2010, starting as a slow SDL-based Windows/Amiga version, followed by bug fixes in 2015, a 2019 Amiga port that needed a 68020+ accelerator, and a 2023 rewrite that transcodes the original arcade code into 68000 assembly, making it playable on a stock Amiga 500.
Known limitations
- gameplay: Game still has original bugs left from the original Z80 code.
Additional notes
- Trivia
- The developer specifically notes that the remade music "never loses the tempo."