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Socoder -> Basic Basement -> Wrestling With The Monkey |
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| Wed, 29 May 2013, 05:05 | |
Jayenkai
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Today's challenge is a common issue in modern gaming. Whereas 1980s technology could fling thousands of tiles onto the screen without flinching, a modern system struggles to draw half a dozen tiles onscreen before crapping out. This is, of course, down to the fact that sprites are no longer simple memory lookups, and are now instead full on 3D objects, each being flung precariously onto the screen. Oh, for the good old days.. .. For the record, DS coding is fantastic for this sort of thing! So, I started by setting myself a nice simple resolution. 1 layer, of Amstrad CPC Mode 1. That's a shitty 40x25 tiles. Until you think about it, properly, at which point it's 1000 sprites. fucknuts!!! That's 1000 sprites onscreen, without even adding any gameplay, particles, or other goodies yet. GAH!! I'm thinking this project may require a rethink. :\ Maybe I should stop focusing on a reusable "screen", and instead just start writing silly little games like I normally do. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!'' 
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| Wed, 29 May 2013, 07:14 | |
rockford
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I'd love to go back to coding for the CPC again. Sadly I don't have the time to relearn it all again. I'd love to release AquaVenture and B'lox! on CPC one day. As for tiling on CPC - there's a good reason that most games never made full use of the screen, especially when scrolling... |
| Thu, 30 May 2013, 19:03 | |
9572AD
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Isn't the solution to make as few objects as possible, but display multiple instances of those objects? Not exactly sure how that is accomplished with the Monkey command set, but...
-=-=- All the raw, animal magnetism of a rutabaga.
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| Thu, 30 May 2013, 22:21 | |
Afr0
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... maybe you should drop the notion of sprites alltogether? WoW has 1.5 million unique assets, and nearly 40,000 NPCs. -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 02:58 | |
shroom_monk
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 WoW has 1.5 million unique assets, and nearly 40,000 NPCs. I doubt those are all kept in memory at the same time, somehow. Besides, isn't the problem here with how fast the sprites can be drawn to the screen, rather than how many you can hold in memory? -=-=- A mushroom a day keeps the doctor away... Keep It Simple, Shroom! |
| Fri, 31 May 2013, 03:23 | |
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Jayenkai
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Today, I'm once again finding myself thinking about level editing. I suppose that having some sort of server-based interaction would make this whole endeavor a little easier. If I upgrade Monkey, I can apparently make use of newer functionality, which would help in the quest for more abilities, but annoyingly it seems to break my GLFW and Android targets, and is thus pretty much useless to me. grrr. Perhaps, today, I'll have a play with that, and see where it takes me. Meanwhile... I've started to convert all of the characters from NeonPlat Adventures back into the pixellated world of JNKPlat. I usually stick to 8x8 for all JNKPlat's sprites, but this time have opted to bulk things up, and aim for 16x16 sprites.  I'll admit, I think I preferred GreenBat when he was a little 8x8 sprite. He seems to have lost his cuteness, somewhere along the way. But once he's got his little flapping animation going, he looks quite nice, and I'm sure I'll get used to "The new him"! What purpose? I don't know. I honestly haven't a clue. But I figured if I've got a pile of baddie sprites, that some sort of gameplay might emerge. Whatever the result, it'll be a brand new style of gameplay for a Platdude game. Something new.. ... or maybe an old idea that never happened.. I wonder if I could manage that one..? hmmmm....... -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 04:37 | |
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Afr0
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He seems to have lost his cuteness, somewhere along the way. Maybe you should consider redesigning him? There was a reason sprites started looking better as they increased from 8x8 to 16x16... If I were you, I'd throw sprites out the window and go for fully rendered 3D models, with lightmaps, bumpmaps and even textures! -=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 04:38 | |
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Jayenkai
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Hmm.. That was a waste of a good hour or so.. After wrangling enough to get a newer version of Monkey working on my system, and finally getting everything compiling the way it's supposed to be, I then plopped in the brl.httprequest import. It was at this point that my html5 target threw up the "Not available on this target!!" error message. Fuckity fucknuts. *sigh* From the look of the code, it seems to only work on cpp and Java based targets, so I'm not even sure if that'll include iOS. grrr... Now I have to decide.. Do I plow ahead, and risk splintering my framework into different direction, or do I give up on the idea of net-based niceties for now, and instead wait for Mark to fix up the Net stuff... # ..It seems that Lazy Jay is making the decisions, today! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 04:49 | |
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Jayenkai
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I can't do a complete overhaul of Greenbat.. Greenbat's been in there since JNKPlat 2, 15 years ago! He's as much a part of Platdude's world as the Yellow Ladders, Red Floors, Blue Spheres and Platdude himself! Greenbat has a very specific style. He wears a white shirt, has a red tie, and flies with blue wings. He's modelled on Greenie! Greenbat stays. He might look a little bit different, but that's to be expected. Pretty much the only element of "Dos-Days" JNKPlat that's been lost, over the years, is the fishies and the water. It's hard to keep water contained logically, when the level editor can do so much! I might see about bringing those back, though, since this next game more than likely won't be including an editor. -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 05:36 | |
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Jayenkai
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..... or .. then again... 
-=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 17:58 | |
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Jayenkai
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As I continue to redraw my JNKPlat sprites, I figured it'd be nice to finally shove a little depth into the sprites, so I drew the defaults with a bit of extra chunkiness Mmmm.. Nice! .. Still not started this game.. I'm doing a nice big doodle session before I start! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Fri, 31 May 2013, 18:25 | |
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Jayenkai
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Seems I'm being roped into making a new RetroRaider, too. Hmmm.. Not sure how to get that working well in Monkey. Hmmm....  I think I've got about 7/8 games on the go, now! Argh!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Sat, 01 Jun 2013, 03:14 | |
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Afr0
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I can't do a complete overhaul of Greenbat.. Greenbat's been in there since JNKPlat 2, 15 years ago! Not a complete overhaul, but at least something to justify the new size, FFS! Look at Larry: 
-=-=- Afr0 Games Project Dollhouse on Github - Please fork!
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| Sat, 01 Jun 2013, 03:22 | |
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Jayenkai
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His arms flap nicely, and his tie's a lot neater. That's enough evolution.
-=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Sat, 01 Jun 2013, 15:31 | |
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Jayenkai
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 Hmm.. Not sure why level one's locked.. Must tweak that. Anyway, that's not the point! The point is, the little bit of text on the bottom left. That's a test from socoder.net/MOTD.php. Game : Kee Bo Ard Device : iPod Touch \o/yeay\o/ Internet Data Access works on Windows, Android and iOS \o/yeay\o/ ... But not HTML5!!!? -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Mon, 03 Jun 2013, 11:41 | |
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Jayenkai
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Had a somewhat productive day, today, but have coded myself into a multitude of corners!! First off, I've added GameMode 20 to SpikeDislike2. GameMode 20 is "Choose Your Own Dislike", which brings back those "Slow/Fast, Paths, Difficulty" type options from the original. Corner 1 I decided to add a Play'n'Pass hot seat mode, so added an option for Number of Players. I now need to code a nice frontend for "Pass the iDevice!" Style procedures, as well as awards at the end of the round. Ugh.. I hate doing "nice" frontend stuff.. Corner 2 Due to the way the scores will be in a constant state of flux, I'm going to have to come up with some sort of fancy way to display them, without breaking the logic of the current load/save file. Eeek!! Gets even trickier when you start dealing with multiple players! Corner 3 I have 20 slots in my menu image, and wanted this to be the last one. Now that I've added it, in the final slot, it means that the next SpikeDislike update will need to feature all 20 gamemodes. .. This basically means that I now have 4 empty slots that need filling, before I can next release the game.. .. Bugger.. Gonna have to start thinking!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Mon, 03 Jun 2013, 15:32 | |
steve_ancell
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I code in managable chuncks and copy the source file before I make any changes.
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| Mon, 03 Jun 2013, 17:27 | |
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steve_ancell
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Ignore my last post, it was meant to go in the "Undo Didn't Do" thread.
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| Thu, 06 Jun 2013, 12:01 | |
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Jayenkai
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Last night, whilst heading to bed, I oddly thought that a game with circles might be interesting, instead of my usual games with squares! So, I emailed myself a reminder. "Something Circular" .. This morning, as well as reading that, I spotted a tweet in my twitter feed, which read something like "rotating rooms", but which my half-asleep mind read as "rotating moons". So, walking atop rotating circles was the unplanned plan, and I opened up Paintshop Pro, trying to decide how best to do the rotating moons. A few minutes later, and it'd changed from full solid moons, to rotating circles with a solid platform attached. This gave bith to many rotating circles, and then a little character was born, to hop aboard the many platforms. To say that, as a game, this has worked out nicely, would be an understatement. Not to toot my own horn, but the game I've made, today, might actually be a SpikeDislike beater! It's fun, it's a little chaotic, and it's all played with a simple single button Mmmmm.. I'm in two minds whether to add it into SpikeDislike2 or not. In many ways, it'd work nicely. But then, it also feels like I could do something much, much bigger with it, if I kept it seperate. .. I wonder if, perhaps, I could do both...!? Hmmm.... -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Thu, 06 Jun 2013, 13:34 | |
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dna |
That Leisure suit Larry Icon is clever. I've never played any of the series completely but one of them with Captain Thigh was a clever one. -=-=- DNA |
| Wed, 12 Jun 2013, 06:33 | |
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Jayenkai
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Lesson of the week.. With Monkey, you can switch between AlphaBlend and AdditiveBlend. I did this on Hoppy Bobby, but was alarmed to discover a MASSIVE amount of slowdown on my Nexus7 when using it. It's fine in GLFW, Seems alright in HTML5, but Android runs like ass! It also seems to be struggling on iOS, too. Quite what method of AdditiveBlend's being used, I'm not sure, but either way it's a bit disappointing that I won't be able to make good use of it. 
-=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Wed, 12 Jun 2013, 08:03 | |
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9572AD
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Odd. HTML5 generally seems to be the loser in graphics functionality problems.
-=-=- All the raw, animal magnetism of a rutabaga.
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| Wed, 12 Jun 2013, 08:36 | |
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Jayenkai
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I've spent the better half of an hour trying to figure this out.. Apparently "KEY_BACK" is what you now use to get Android's back button. Did it work? Did it buggery.. I tried and tried again, looking, peeking, poking around. I finally opened up the .java stuff (eeeuww) and trawled through there for a bit. I eventually managed to figure out that KEY_BACK is being called, but only in the Event section, not in the "Buttons being pushed" section. So, I switched to using KeyHit(KEY_BACK), and all was well. Had to shove the result into my but[] array, to keep track of it, but all seems to be working again. *phew* Don't you just hate it when Mark decides to change button code, and you don't notice until people ask why your back button isn't quitting the game. D'oh!! ... shows how often I quit my game! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Mon, 24 Jun 2013, 11:30 | |
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Jayenkai
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Hmmm.. A slight issue with this week's AGameAWeek.. All seemed fine until I popped the game onto my Android device, then it suddenly became apparent that the touchscreen controls that I'd worked on, are all a big pile of bollocks!! Now, with less than 24 hours remaining, I need to build an entire suite of different touchscreen methods for testing. Gah!!! Bloody touch controls!! -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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| Mon, 24 Jun 2013, 13:01 | |
spinal
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I'm having a hell of a job getting my Gametel Joypad to work on my android tablet. Or rather, getting it to work with my monkey game, it works fine in the notes app, sending a bunch of keypresses no problem.
-=-=- Check out my excellent homepage!
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| Mon, 24 Jun 2013, 16:51 | |
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Jayenkai
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I'm not really sure why that would be. I have a feeling it's a hardware thing that's doing it, since your test engine worked fine with my Nexus/iced combo. ...but is the problem your Android device, or is it something to do with the controller...!? -=-=- ''Load, Next List!''
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