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Main forum => Beta Tests => Topic started by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-18

Title: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-18
[Updated 4/21/2013!]


Hey there! My upcoming game is called Blobo's Unusual Adventure. It's a 2D sidescroller with retro graphics. SO RETRO in fact... that it's in a unique monochromatic style! (Don't ask why.... I was bored, ok?)

This test is mainly for you to tell me if it works... I just implemented a command-line SID player the game uses to play chiptunes, and it's working great for me (SidplayFP library.) There are 4 demo maps to play, they're just cheesy test maps with little depth to them - I was mainly testing ladders and dynamite. The editor is fully functional, but I have no time to explain how the editor works before work, I'll update this later. The final level was me testing the limits of dynamite and chain reactions... have fun, let me know if you find a glitch!

(Executables only atm, source when it's complete.) I expect it to be done within a week!


Instructions:

Press NEW to play. X is jump, use the arrow keys to move about.


EDIT lets you make a new map or load an existing one. I modeled the editor after Little Big Planet - as in you move about the level as the character while editing. In edit mode, use O to open the objects list or middle click. Ctrl opens the solid-or-air picker, and the scroll wheel is a quicker way of going through tiles. Press tab to switch to and from monster-placing mode.

SPACEBAR saves the map. M selects a SID tune to play for the map, which will play immediately. T lets you pick where the currently moused-over tile will teleport the player to (it lets you pick another map, as in the end of a level.) Most tiles have their own special attributes, like spikes, so many things just work by placing them. Solid or air is important though. Have fun! (Game loads start.uam as the first level.)

p.s: use C in the editor to float through solid walls for convenience.

(I'll attach the latest version to this first post as well as the latest post so you don't have to go to the last page to get it.)
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: erico on 2013-Apr-18
Works fine here.

Maybe the player control could use some tuning?
Climbing speed felt a bit slow.
I noticed on the bomb run level the explosion sound did´t play for all the explosions.

Overall it is really great! :good:
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: mentalthink on 2013-Apr-18
Very Very nice game!!! the colors... well I think the graphics are really good, and black in white are very nice to see...

About playing I like a lot, rebember something like mario... the enemies I like a lot, and the mapping it's fun to play...

I think I found a bug... I think it's the 3rd or 4th Stage, when you launch a charge explosive and finally explode all the backgrounds... well I think you idea it's you have to run more than the explosions, jumping in determinated places... I fall out to the bottom part of the screen where don't have any tile..

At the first time I go the the rigth and when a huge explosion happends this kille me... but at the second try, I leave explode all the backgrounds and I have the player whitout exit, I can jump over the upper tiles because the jump don't arrives, and if I go to right and left I can stay here all the time , the player does'nt die...

About the game again..... really really nice... I hope you make a port for mobiles, only this it's a personal opinion the player O don't like too much the design, but really it's complex make a player whit feeling, whit it's a character, make a ships or aliens launching balls it's more easy in this aspect...

Really Cool... and very very Fun!!!

PS: Please you can comment how works the audio player, the Sid player, I look your post about FMod, and yestarday a try a lot of things whit the DLL but don't works.. I read something about you call whit shellCommand but this don't works on iPhone or Android, ins't?¿
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-18
the included levels are not intended to be shiny or well tested, they're for demonstration. I will fix ladder speed tonight, as well as sfx for chain reactions. The best way to check for bugs is using the level editor to put the character in unusual situations. Also sidplayer is a windows only command line tool, so it won't work on mobile. Feel free to make tiles or enemies if you want and I will put them in and credit you :P
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: mentalthink on 2013-Apr-19
Ah Ok Darmakwolf, I don't know only was for test, sorry... then not problem...

About the graphics... don't worry... this weekend I will do a couple (now we have a Job forum  :D :D :D), don't mind I try to make  a couple, I think I have a model (for another game I have in waiting mode) I think can be work nice in your game...
Title: Update!
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-19
Tonight I added:

A MUCH nicer "now playing" window upon SID music change. The old one was hard to read.
Implemented better per-pixel collision detection. It initially broke the game, but I fixed it. Movement is smoother.
Ladder climbing speed is significantly increased.
SID is fully integrated and working properly.
Made a test level that uses just about every game feature for testing.

[Attached!]
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: matchy on 2013-Apr-19
It's great and I enjoyed testing it although can only get up to bounce room and miss the top layer of invader looking things and there's no double jump to get 'em so I don't know but overall cool.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-19
Glad you like it matchy! As with the other demo levels, the disclaimer is "its just for testing and it is not polished or supposed to be finished." If you don't like something in the testing level, use the fully functional level editor and fix it :P

Once I finish making all the enemies and tiles I can work on making official levels. Also those "invader things" are extra lives :)
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-19
Mentalthink: I black-and-white-a-tized your sprite and put it in the game as an animated floating enemy that follows you! You can only kill them by leading them into water.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: mentalthink on 2013-Apr-19
Jeje Darmakwolf glad to show something mine in your game... but if you want I launch the render in black and white... leave 5 minutes  :P and I put here all the animation it's 25 Frames( I always use this number of frames for each pieze of animation)...

Regards



Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-20
Quote from: mentalthink on 2013-Apr-19
Jeje Darmakwolf glad to show something mine in your game... but if you want I launch the render in black and white... leave 5 minutes  :P and I put here all the animation it's 25 Frames( I always use this number of frames for each pieze of animation)...

Regards

Thanks Mentalthink! I am sticking with a couple frames to keep the same style as the other enemies - simplistic.
Title: Update: 4/19/2013 9:33 PM
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-20
New features:

*Various bug fixes*
*Added Vector Spirit monster*
*Added vertical moving platforms*

The platforms were hard to make, because technically they're a "monster" entity, but they move up and down and collide with blocks and switch directions. The hard part was making it so it doesn't shove the player through tiles. Included is a couple test maps (not meant to be polished or perfect.) You kill the spirit by getting it to follow you into water. I also improved a few rendering algorithms. This game is really coming along :)
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Ian Price on 2013-Apr-20
I haven't had chance to test later versions, but I enjoyed playing the first one. I really love the greyscale pixel look :)

I think the main character could be softened up a bit (it could be mistaken for a KKK follower!), but other than that it's a good start).

:)
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: erico on 2013-Apr-20
I tried the latest.
Player control is much better now but I still feel something strange on the jump movement.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-20
Quote from: erico on 2013-Apr-20
I tried the latest.
Player control is much better now but I still feel something strange on the jump movement.

The jump movement is purely integral, there's no floating-point precision, that's likely why. In another project I did movement that was precise to 0.0001, but I ended up having major collision detection problems...

For all intents and purposes though, this current method works for now. If you'd like to change it when I release the source code go ahead, but it will not be easy with the way I've written physics.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-20
Quote from: Ian Price on 2013-Apr-20
I haven't had chance to test later versions, but I enjoyed playing the first one. I really love the greyscale pixel look :)

I think the main character could be softened up a bit (it could be mistaken for a KKK follower!), but other than that it's a good start).

:)

I got a good laugh out of that! KKK follower... jeeze. Well I can't change the character - he's an old classic between my friends and I, but you're welcome to edit the sprite yourself  =D
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: bigsofty on 2013-Apr-21
Finaly had time to give it a go! It all feels very retro'ish, almost Gameboy'ish if you lowered the res and gave it a more green/high contrast hue. But overall it's a lot of fun, well done!  :good:
Title: [Update] 4/21/2013
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-21
New in this version:

Fixes to critical issues that happened under rare circumstances
Added ability to move already-placed enemies/entities (right click + drag in entity placement mode in the editor)
Added horizontally moving platforms (and built a whole level around them that's 253 tiles long!!)
Improved smoothness of scrolling by reducing the range of tiles to render off-screen

Warning: the included level is challenging  =D

Feel free to make your own levels and post them for people to try!
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-21
Quote from: bigsofty on 2013-Apr-21
Finaly had time to give it a go! It all feels very retro'ish, almost Gameboy'ish if you lowered the res and gave it a more green/high contrast hue. But overall it's a lot of fun, well done!  :good:

Glad you like it, Bigsofty! You wouldn't like the code, though - it's a scary looking 3800 lines...
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: bigsofty on 2013-Apr-21
Nah, post away, I am sure its a good read Darmakwolf!   :)
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: fuzzy70 on 2013-Apr-22
I'm enjoying the latest version posted & love the lvl.

I seem to be suffering some stuttering with the graphics occasionally but I would put that down to my PC & not your game as have noticed it on other posts & some projects of my own.

Keep up the good work Darmakwolf  :good:

Lee
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-22
Quote from: bigsofty on 2013-Apr-21
Nah, post away, I am sure its a good read Darmakwolf!   :)

Maybe my comments in the code where I get frustrated are worth a read. The code itself not so much. :P
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-22
Quote from: fuzzy70 on 2013-Apr-22
I'm enjoying the latest version posted & love the lvl.

I seem to be suffering some stuttering with the graphics occasionally but I would put that down to my PC & not your game as have noticed it on other posts & some projects of my own.

Keep up the good work Darmakwolf  :good:

Lee

Thanks Fuzzy! This is actually one of the most rendering intensive GLB apps I've made yet, so if your PC is sub-par then this is my one project likely to stutter... but I just ran it on an early 2000's Pentium IV running Windows XP and 512 MB RAM and it runs 60FPS like a champ :P

Try making a 64x32 tile map and seeing if it's smoother. The demo level there is 230+ tiles by 15. My PC lags on any map I make bigger than 256x128 - but that's HUGE. that's 8000 x 4000 pixels. Most maps can be 128x64 and be linked together with warps to ensure that lower-end PCs can handle it.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: fuzzy70 on 2013-Apr-22
Intel Core 2 duo @ 2.13ghz with 2GB ram, Nvidia 240GT. Win7 (dual boot 32/64 bit)

Not a great spec by any means but should not have any problems with your game. I run far more complex things without a problem however something has changed recently as all GLB programs show this stutter.

It is not a GLB fault but something my end & am pretty sure it is a driver setting. For example I ran a test drawing 1k sprites & in 32bit windows there was the odd stutter every 1-2 seconds, in 64 bit windows not one stutter. Interestingly the program was using around 10-15% cpu in 32 bit win7 but  60%+ cpu in 64 bit win7.

So with them results def something screwy with my PC  :D

Lee
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: fuzzy70 on 2013-Apr-22
Out of interest are you using version 10 or the 11 beta?.

Only asking as I am tempted to switch to the beta due to not having any plans to release anything for quite some time, even then what I will release will be Windows only  :D

Lee
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-22
11.322. I should compile it with 10 and see how that fares too. For me, it's fast and smooth as butter on 11 though :P
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: fuzzy70 on 2013-Apr-22
Thanks, I will install 11.322 when I get back home. By the time I have anything full to release (other than the odd snippets as usual) version 11 should be out of beta lol.

Lee

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2

Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: erico on 2013-Apr-22
Tried the latest version. Things are getting better :good:
Everything smooth on my end, win7 64b nvidea.

The jump movement still feels strange(but not bad), I think it could do with a more direct parabola movement.

I caught a bug I think, when on top of a stair, ye going in and out, the stair block got pasted over the player sprite for a couple frames.

Nice level!
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: Darmakwolf on 2013-Apr-22
Quote from: erico on 2013-Apr-22
Tried the latest version. Things are getting better :good:
Everything smooth on my end, win7 64b nvidea.

The jump movement still feels strange(but not bad), I think it could do with a more direct parabola movement.

I caught a bug I think, when on top of a stair, ye going in and out, the stair block got pasted over the player sprite for a couple frames.

Nice level!

Look, I appreciate your critiquing, but the jumping isn't going to change. Also it took me a while to figure out what you meant... the LADDER, right? not the "stair?" Yes it does appear in front of Blobo before you're on it. That will be fixed before release when I implement proper z-ordering of tiles.
Title: Re: Unusual Adventure - test it out
Post by: erico on 2013-Apr-22
yep, the ladder hehe, way to early on my side of the world to think/write properly. :-[
The jump is fine as it is.