#234 - The Ascii Challenge

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Socoder -> Wednesday Workshop -> #234 - The Ascii Challenge
Wed, 06 Jan 2010, 00:39
Jayenkai	#234 - The Ascii Challenge The Challenge It's 2010, the year of flying cars, hoverboard, robot slaves and more! Make a game set in our prehistoric ascii past. The Time Wed 6th December -> Wed 13th January, 2009 You have until this timer hits zero to complete your entry. For the record, that's Tue/Wed, midnight GMT*. (Although that's more frequently becoming "When I bother to wake up, on a Wednesday morning") If you told people you could use more than 4 colors at once. They'd never believe you! Remember Wednesday Workshop is just for fun. It's not meant to be a competition. It's just for fun. The best technique is to try to stick to a 3 hour schedule for building the actual game. If you have more time during the week, build the game up, fix bugs, add music/titles, whatever. The Rules You're free to reuse functions here and there, if it helps speed up your dev-time. Old art and audio, are pretty much expected, since we don't all have time to create fully working masterpieces within the space of a week! Other than that, the main coding for each week's task should be pretty much created within the time allocated. If you use other people's art/sound/functions, give credit where credit's due. To enter, post your game below. If you can't find anywhere decent to host it, send it to Jayenkai@Gmail.com Additional rules are available here. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Thu, 07 Jan 2010, 18:59
Flame The Great	Just curious but can I post what I have so far? I only have 6 levels done for my entry with basic functionality (no fancy title screen or any advanced puzzles). At this point I'm just making levels for the game. -Flame
Fri, 08 Jan 2010, 01:05
Jayenkai	Sure, go ahead. Any entries at all is a drastic improvement on our recent weeks!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Fri, 08 Jan 2010, 13:50
Flame The Great	Alright, let me compile and change the music around (dunno why, the first track was ok, but I didn't like it, so I found a new one to replace it with). I think you may spot where I got the idea from. Now do I need to post it in it's own showcase or do I just like it here?
Sat, 09 Jan 2010, 05:44
CodersRule	Jay normally does his own showcase, but half of them are his AGameAWeek. So uh... Sure, do a showcase. ^^
Sat, 09 Jan 2010, 05:54
Jayenkai	If you post it here it becomes a WW. If you post it as a Showcase it stays as a Showcase. Duplication is silly! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
Sat, 09 Jan 2010, 16:30
Flame The Great	Here you go then: LINK!
Sat, 09 Jan 2010, 22:07
Sticky	Looks good flame, but it flickers like an absolute bitch on my compy. -=-=- last.fm
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 12:22
Flame The Great	I've been geting mixed results with the ascii renderer. On some higher end PCs, people say it gets a full 60 FPS easy. On other systems, sometimes more powerful PCs, state they get low FPS. My laptop, for example, is an Inspiron 1300, and it gets a full 60 FPS even on HD mode (just add "-hd" in the command line), but my PC with a Geforce 7800 only gets like 47. It DID use ReadPixelFast before... but mysteriously it'd give off errors on other people's machines, but not on my laptop, so I had to use only readpixel (which is weird, I made sure I locked the buffers). I may just write the system to read the pixels via WIN32 API to see if that boosts the speed. -Flame
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 13:19
CodersRule	I was getting 17 fps, but tbh, my eyes suck, so I didn't notice a thing! Also, it's hard to see. I want to see a version without ascii that I can actually play! It looks like a decent game.
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 13:30
Flame The Great	Read the readme: hit 'A' to turn on/off Ascii. This can be done in BOTH the title screen and gameplay.
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 13:32
spinal	I can't do level 3 its hard to even tell if you're moving or not. I'm getting about 18fps on my laptop. -=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 14:00
Flame The Great	I may space out the platforms of Level 3 so it's easier to do. Just remember that the game is based around physics, but you can still SLIGHTLY move while in the air.
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 19:43
Sticky	Ah, right, so after I turned off ASCII mode it was much easier to play. All the blocks and things didn't flicker but anywhere there was text it did. In any case, I got through to the end of level 8 (cans level) then it gave me a memory access violation. As for framerates, it's a steady 63 with 3D geometry and a steady 61 with ASCII. Doesn't stop it flickering like hell, though. -=-=- last.fm
Sun, 10 Jan 2010, 21:05
Flame The Great	I found the problem. While having speed issues, I turned off the VWAIT. I'll compile a new version with the VWAIT turned on. That should remove the flickering.
Wed, 13 Jan 2010, 13:50
Flame The Great	Sorry for the wait. I was tweaking the engine a bit to support 2 new objects: Physical Floors Invisible Walls The Physical floors had the same issue with the cans, where I had to add a snip of code for the game to push the player back into the center. So the Invisible walls help out by acting as a fake collisional bounding area, which could also be used in later levels to add a unique twist (like having to follow a ball to solve an invisible path). Updated Link: LINK
Wed, 13 Jan 2010, 19:52
Sticky	The new one runs at 30fps or less in ASCII mode and still flickers for me, while the solid graphics runs at 60. -=-=- last.fm
Thu, 14 Jan 2010, 02:02
Flame The Great	That's strange. I turned on the VWait, so I am not 100% sure what is causing the flickering (but yea, now ASCII mode can eat PCs alive. I'd have to use more WIN32 API to see if that's faster than ReadPixel). -Flame
Fri, 15 Jan 2010, 16:09
HoboBen	I also had the flickering with the latest version (ATI gfx card), though I quite enjoyed it in 3D mode. Got stuck on the level with the two balls though, couldn't quite get to the pink cube at the end - kept falling off the platform! -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Fri, 15 Jan 2010, 16:16
Flame The Great	To complete level 5, you first need to nudge the ball, then either run as fast as you can over the gap or climb the ball while it falls to get to the other side. The next part is self explanatory. The sphere can just be pushed off once you get to the top. After you jump across, you need to jump onto the ledge on the wall then jump off towards the goal. If it is too complicated, I can place in another platform to jump onto to get to the goal.
Fri, 15 Jan 2010, 16:23
HoboBen	Oh yeah, I almost got there, just kept jumping slightly too low for the goal, then falling down the gap. After ten tries I called it a loss! -=-=- blog \| work \| code \| more code
Fri, 15 Jan 2010, 20:25
Flame The Great	Alright, well it is WAY past the contest date, but I'll make a patch to add a platform to that level to make it easier.

#234 - The Ascii Challenge

The Challenge

The Time

Remember

The Rules