Flight of a Dragon

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CunningFellow
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by CunningFellow »

I am very bad at platform games, but I got up to that dropping section a few times.

I then got past it no problems one game. Since then however I have gotten very bad and can't get that far again.

My normal platform playing skills have returned.

I don't think anything is going to surpass FoaD in the platform genre. So much attention to detail. Even if I can't play it well.
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L4rry
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by L4rry »

CunningFellow wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 9:09 pm I don't think anything is going to surpass FoaD in the platform genre. So much attention to detail.
Yup, this is next level. For sure. From graphic design to smooth, parallax scrolling, to epic animation and all the under-the-hood technical craft that makes this happen. Then there is the heart of the game. Nobody actually dies in it. The main character's movements (animations) are sympathetic. You feel for the dragon. Yet he/she is the biggest character in the game by far. Then you get these really small annoying bad guys, that if they were bigger and more defined, as a player, you would probably hate them more, but they're so small, so you can't help but feel bad trying to set them on fire. You'd rather just jump over them. Really just great design :)

Anyway, Jubatian, if you can document this video mode, I think there is a Sonic the Hedgehog port possible here for whoever wants to grab hold of that :)

But I digress, I still need to get to level six :lol:
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Artcfox
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Artcfox »

L4rry wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:35 pm
Artcfox wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 8:26 pm I was able to get to the part where the guy drops stuff off the castle wall onto my head, but I still haven't gotten past that part yet.
Dude! You mean that bomb drop right? :lol: That also screwed me over first time. I was like, yeah, you can't arrow me from there you little pixelated man. Then all of a sudden BOOM! He drops a bomb on my head :mrgreen:
Yeah! I moved back slightly thinking he couldn't reach me, but he was still able to drop it on my head.
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Jubatian
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Jubatian »

L4rry wrote: Fri Dec 01, 2017 10:00 pmAnyway, Jubatian, if you can document this video mode, I think there is a Sonic the Hedgehog port possible here for whoever wants to grab hold of that :)
It is Mode 74, it already has plenty of documentation, and Grobian's Stormforce also uses it (he adapted it even before it was finalized & documented). The most fundamental limitation of the mode is the relatively low horizontal resolution (192 pixels versus 240 or 256 in Mode 3) which makes it unsuitable for ports (which usually require 30 or 32 tiles width), however it has a reasonably fast blitter (not that fast like the upgraded Mode 3's) and relatively low RAM footprint.

I tried to experiment with a pause function, but there are even more problems with it than apparent at first. The panning algorithm smoothly following the dragon works completely independent of everything else, and it is balanced anticipating the movements, which is normally all right and makes things easier, but also hinders freezing the screen. Music neither can be paused. There are just too many things to reconsider if I wanted to add this in an intuitive user-friendly manner.

(I am considering another thing though: A feature to "revive" the dragon so you can retry levels, but with erased score, which would make it easier to figure out later levels. Although maybe not, if I aimed for an arcade feel it would have some foundation where you could buy yourself through the game, in typical old games however when you died, you died and had to start over. It isn't a too lengthy game though, if you aim for speed above all else, maybe only slightly more than ten minutes)

Meh, anyway, big thanks for the comments! I put a lot of effort in trying to get this all nice and polished :)
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Jubatian
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Jubatian »

I could finally add a properly working Pause (needed some changes to get it working properly). You can access it by Start + Select (pressing both), and it will remove 100 score (well, let's say that's what you pay for having it implemented :D ). I also updated the wiki accordingly adding some further details on the gameplay.

Nicksen: You should update the foad.uze binary from either the Wiki or the GitHub master so it has this change!
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L4rry
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by L4rry »

'You will never be free'. I'm starting to believe it :lol: Pikemen need to die in a fire. So I've made it to the castle strong hold where the game instructs me to go back and look for a cave. I find it and then got quite far until I got mauled by a rock fall chasing a bonus star. Am I close?

EDIT: Thanks for the pause functionality! Now if you would be so kind to work on the patch that makes me good at playing games, that would be great ;)
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Jubatian
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Jubatian »

L4rry wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2017 12:11 pm(...) Am I close?
That should be about two thirds of the game. A small hint then: You should be collecting the last power-up on that level. If you couldn't get everything, then it will likely be harder to finish the game (the power-ups don't only increase capacity, so they are more important than they might seem), so you should first try to find and get them to have all three capacities (life, fire, stamina) maxed out.
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Jubatian
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Jubatian »

I created a gameplay video for levels 1-4, maybe it could help figuring out how to complete the game. Not an exceptional run, just something fairly average, I get myself impaled on pikemen in some ridiculous moves (however I am not dying, just decided to show only these levels to leave you stuff to figure out!).

(This is the first time I tried out how Youtube works for uploading, I created the channel just now)
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ry755
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by ry755 »

Jubatian wrote: Sat Dec 23, 2017 10:05 pm I created a gameplay video for levels 1-4, maybe it could help figuring out how to complete the game. Not an exceptional run, just something fairly average, I get myself impaled on pikemen in some ridiculous moves (however I am not dying, just decided to show only these levels to leave you stuff to figure out!).

(This is the first time I tried out how Youtube works for uploading, I created the channel just now)
Nice video! I subscribed to your channel.
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Matej
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Re: Flight of a Dragon

Post by Matej »

Beautiful game!Can imagine arcade machine based on it!
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