Prototyping Moon Patrol Inspired Game in GLBasic

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GarBenjamin

Just thought I'd let you know I am using GLBasic to prototype my test game (the project I will use as a comparison of dev speed between Unity, Monkey X and HaxeFlixel). It will be a good test of the development speed (at least for me) when using GLBasic too. Although, it will be the longer version of course as this is the one that is sorting out all of the details. I will be sure to note that on my blog at the end.

The current "code name" for the game is Mars Explorer and may change. Just needed something to call it.

Anyway, if you want to check it out I will be updating the page with daily blurbs and videos (perhaps screenshots too).

NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW.


erico

Looking good Gar! The 3 ground tracking wheels + stabilized rover body seems to be working perfectly.
I have a patrol game under the hood too, but it is an extreme low resolution one (84x48), 2 colors and no 3 wheels but a track :D

Keep it up!

bigsofty

Good luck, it's looking good already!  :good:
Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

MrPlow

Nice, I like it...Nice comments on GLB too :)
Comp:
Speccy-48k, Speccy-128k, Amigas, PCs

Ian Price

I came. I saw. I played.

GarBenjamin

#5
Hey thanks for the positive comments. I appreciate it! I am enjoying the GLBasic development so far. It takes some getting used to like everything else of course. Once you get used to it everything kind of just makes sense and seems quite logical.

Tonight's dev log is now on the page:
NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW.
There should be one there each night until the project is finished.

GarBenjamin

Quote from: erico on 2015-Aug-14I have a patrol game under the hood too, but it is an extreme low resolution one (84x48), 2 colors and no 3 wheels but a track :D

Wow! Now that is retro in a major way. I am going low res and low color but not nearly as extreme as you are! lol

I have 8 colors on my sprites and 8 colors on the background at this point. I did the background in a lower resolution than the sprites. Basically at full screen, the background scenery is at 320 x 240 and the sprites are at 640 x 480. I will probably end up using about 20 to 24 colors total in the end.

84 x 48 in monochrome is extreme. Not sure I have ever played anything with that kind of resolution and palette. I remember playing many games on the Intellivision long ago and even that had a 159 x 96 resolution with 16 colors. ;)

MrPlow

84 x 48

Thats like a game watch res!
:)
Comp:
Speccy-48k, Speccy-128k, Amigas, PCs

erico

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
Wow! Now that is retro in a major way. I am going low res and low color but not nearly as extreme as you are! lol
That is mainly because of the hardware, the game is designed for the Gamebuino.  http://gamebuino.com/

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
I have 8 colors on my sprites and 8 colors on the background at this point. I did the background in a lower resolution than the sprites. Basically at full screen, the background scenery is at 320 x 240 and the sprites are at 640 x 480. I will probably end up using about 20 to 24 colors total in the end.
I noticed the mixed resolution a bit, you would keep to one resolution if you don´t want raged pixel purists. :D
If you want to keep to a fixed color count, palette, you should check Dawnbringer´s award winner palettes:
http://www.glbasic.com/forum/index.php?topic=9306.0

and his latest fun16: (can´t find the proper analyzes page now...)
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/95350.htm

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
84 x 48 in monochrome is extreme. Not sure I have ever played anything with that kind of resolution and palette. I remember playing many games on the Intellivision long ago and even that had a 159 x 96 resolution with 16 colors. ;)
Well, Myndale created an emulator for the Gamebuino that can play all its current games, works really great.
I reckon it is really low res and very hard to create with such restrictions but sometimes, having upper res and eternal color count, usually makes me waste just way too much time with gfxs, so I lately resorted to very restricted style so I can concentrate on the code.

But back on the topic, how is your Moon Patrol going? Did you add more?

GarBenjamin

#9
Quote from: erico on 2015-Aug-15I noticed the mixed resolution a bit, you would keep to one resolution if you don´t want raged pixel purists. :D
If you want to keep to a fixed color count, palette, you should check Dawnbringer´s award winner palettes:
http://www.glbasic.com/forum/index.php?topic=9306.0

and his latest fun16: (can´t find the proper analyzes page now...)
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/95350.htm

Hey Erico! Yeah the graphics differences are just because graphics are always very low on my list of priorities. I've never understood people spending days, weeks even months just working on making top notch graphics before actually doing any actual development work at all. I mean sure graphics are a big part of game development but I think too many people think graphics are the game or are the most important part of the game. I don't agree with that at least not from an absolute quality perspective. Graphics are very important because they are one of the primary feedback methods. And that feedback can be as effective with a flashing 2D square as it is with a highly detailed 3d model.

I am familiar with DawnBringer's DB16 palette. Didn't hear about this new Fun16 palette though. Thanks. I actually have several palettes I created myself ranging from around 8 colors up to 64 colors. My current favorite is a 52-color palette. I analyzed loads of arcade game screenshots and created a 52-color palette that all of the arcade game screenshots could map too well.

NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW.

Actually, I will put the scene here. I made a couple pixel art trees, rocks and a wizard then arranged those into this:
NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW.

Anyway, the graphics in Mars Explorer are purely just placeholder at this point. I really should have done the sprites in the same low res though but honestly graphics were such a low priority to me at that point I didn't even think about it.

Yeah, there is a new NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW. showing where the game is at now.

I am about to start an early dev session and the first thing I will do is knock out some low-res sprites so everything shares the same resolution. Truthfully, I often just use solid colored rectangles when I am prototyping. To me game play is King. If it is fun to play with solid color rectangles then it will be fun to play with nice graphics. If it is not fun to play with solid color rectangles then it will not be fun to play with awesome graphics either. Just my view on it.

That is another thing I don't care for with Unity. It is a very powerful dev kit but I think most of the developers are way too focused on shiny graphics beyond all else.


GarBenjamin

#10
Just a quick note that I got busy and wasn't able to do a proper dev session. And now I am about to get out of the house for the next several hours. We never have enough time to work on this stuff do we? lol ;)

Anyway, I did manage to spend 30 minutes on the graphics. Wasn't a priority for the reasons I mentioned earlier combined with the whole purpose of this being just an experiment to test the development speed of different game development platforms. I was never thinking of actually releasing this game.

Still, I thought there was no harm in at making the graphics cohesive. Everything is low res now and I recolored all images to use my custom 52-color palette.

NOTE: I UPDATED THIS POST TO REMOVE THE LINK BECAUSE I HAVEN'T HAD MY OLD WEBSITE FOR SEVERAL YEARS NOW.

MrPlow

Good stuff!

I like how the Moon Buggy game is shaping up!! Great work so far!

:)
Comp:
Speccy-48k, Speccy-128k, Amigas, PCs

bigsofty

Yup, looks great and it's a pretty smooth too.  :good:
Cheers,

Ian.

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC.  As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
(E. W. Dijkstra)

erico

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
...
To me game play is King. If it is fun to play with solid color rectangles then it will be fun to play with nice graphics. If it is not fun to play with solid color rectangles then it will not be fun to play with awesome graphics either. Just my view on it.
...
I certainly agree. I try to do the same, but sometimes is not quite possible for me. I usually start coding from some layout hand draw sketches.
The proportion objects take on screen, huds, etc are amongst the primary mockups I usually do. I try to use those mockups first.
But then, one thing that keeps my enthusiasm/motivation on the game, is the fine tunning of this mockup.
Gfx changes a lot during game dev, but I still find it easier to code the game with all the gfx defined, even if it is at least on its final size.
On the other hand...this is the exact same reason some of my games take ages to finish. :(

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
That is another thing I don't care for with Unity. It is a very powerful dev kit but I think most of the developers are way too focused on shiny graphics beyond all else.
When I tried Unity, I was happy that it could import my whole lightwave3d scene and object with a single click and in seconds I could be going about my scene as in an FPS. Digging deeper, I found that Unity has a very own way of doing stuff, and that using the program I would be stuck with its ways and such would not apply to other code programs but to itself. The drag and drop things apart, anything deeper requires a form of script, and if I´m coding something, then I better code it all. Also, the price is simply prohibitive to me.

Yep, the drag/drop thing in Unity makes it really easy to import art from other packages, which makes life a lot easier for artists to pull out something pretty, but then, it is just the usual Unity standard ´game´ with pretty gfx and poor gameplay, which we get to see a lot all around. Some people in press even state that those games are getting like a ´Flash´ style stamp, like "oh, just another Unity style game".

So market gets saturated with those, but that dosen´t mean Unity is not a competent tool, I own Running with Rifles from the very beginning and it is a marvelous Cannon Fodder knock off, really fun stuff with a very stylish gfx. :good:

erico

Quote from: GarBenjamin on 2015-Aug-15
...
My 52-color palette is on my 2D Graphics page along with a very simple scene using the palette (not the entire palette of course).
...

That is great! You said 52 colors? I analyzed the image with Dawnbringer´s script and it states 55. Here the results.
edit: not much on the purple/pink side of things, which arcade games did you base it on? Cheers!

edit2: Checked your latest dev videos, looking great, I particularly enjoyed the front fire aligned to the vertical position of the rover when on ground, that is a nice touch from the original!