Ghosty Ghost

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CunningFellow
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by CunningFellow »

uze6666 wrote:
Speaking of API functions.
How about BCD things for keeping highscores?
Probably not obvious for most...but now that you talk about it....Do you some functions done?
I have some fast ASM code for adding 16 bits of BCD and 32 bits of BCD to a 32 bit result. Also have some slow C that converts from int32 to a BCD.

Maybe doing things as BCD isn't the best idea for games that the score only changes slowly though, but if you are having to do the itoa() kind of thing a lot, thats a slow call.
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kivan117
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by kivan117 »

Alright, I promise I'll actually finish up the high score stuff... soon... ish.

I did finish up adding the new background option during gameplay. Now there's a sunset option in addition to night time, and I think it looks pretty good. The colors look better on the emulator and slightly different in hardware, but it's still not too bad.
Image
To pull it off I used the trick D3thAdd3r mentioned a while back for fonts. The reused foreground tiles are sandwiched between the two different sets of scrolling background tiles, then I just reassign the active tile set and change some offset values.

Also uploaded the newest version, you can find it in the main post. Let me know if any problems persist with this one. It should be bug free as far as I know.

Next stop: working net code hopefully!

EDIT: Tried it on a new tv. The sunset color blend looks better on the other tv than my normal testing tv but I noticed one bug. Just after leaving the high score screen if you look where the ghost was just before the high score screen, you'll see the ghost sprite being redrawn there for one frame then moved to its proper spot. I'll fix that. This leads me to mention though, if anyone has tried this on a proper crt tv,I'd be happy to know how it looks. All I have is an older lcd and a plasma for testing.
Last edited by kivan117 on Fri May 15, 2015 11:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by D3thAdd3r »

That adds a lot to the feel of the game, nicely designed and implemented. I will get some more done on the high score server tomorrow, I am at a stalling point on my game as well because it's not done.
D3thAdd3r wrote: I had to check out a video of this game everyone is talking about...never played it but...meh :lol:
^quoted 3/27/2014 in regards to Flappy Bird - This is funny, you changed my mind, your version has too much charm to resist and will be quite fun to compete for the best scores. I must have entered some zen like trance, where time and button presses had no meaning, and will alone piloted the ghost through the columns. I hit a legitimate score of 20, thought it was the rarest fluke; tried again and got 18. I need to do that when high scoring is up, I have found the zone! Perhaps it wasn't always making vsync before, resulting in timing fluctuating which would definitely make it harder/less consistent..either way, I will create my own preferable reality concept that I simply got drastically better since last time I played :)
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kivan117
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by kivan117 »

D3thAdd3r wrote:
D3thAdd3r wrote:I had to check out a video of this game everyone is talking about...never played it but...meh :lol:
^quoted 3/27/2014 in regards to Flappy Bird
:D That really is pretty funny. Glad you enjoy it. I find myself spacing out and play testing far longer than I intend to sometimes. I also get distracted by the new sunset and smack into things even more than before :/

The game runs much smoother at the new height and it's an almost unnoticeable loss at only 4 pixels top and bottom. No impact on game play whatsoever either.
D3thAdd3r wrote:I must have entered some zen like trance, where time and button presses had no meaning, and will alone piloted the ghost through the columns
XD that quote just might become part of the tagline on the wiki

Looking, there aren't too many mode 3 scrollers with their code public, so I'm throwing this on github. Not because I think it has anything resembling best practices, but so others who are starting out can look and see what I did, maybe give them ideas or something. Instead of adding a bunch of net code in today I went through and commented the snot out of the code I had and added doxygen support while I was at it. I'll add the link to the main post and update the wiki when I can.
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kivan117
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by kivan117 »

New gghost beta download on the main post. Small update. If you don't have the uzenet module, or you're running it in the normal emulator, it should look identical actually. If you are running on hardware with the module though, the new features are a little more obvious.

If it detects a uzenet module with firmware that responds "ready" after being reset, or responds "ok" after the "AT" command, it'll attempt to connect to the uzenet server and you'll be able to see the online high score screen as well as the name entry screen when you die.

The name entry screen works. It changes the name you want sent with high scores, and this name is saved to eeprom for convenience so you don't have to re-enter it every time (most consoles are one player honestly and most people probably just want the one name).
The online high score screen is more of a mockup for now. It just has the default player name listed beside all scores and all the scores read 0 (because the online score list is initialized to zero and never gets updated right now)

Really just looking for feedback on how the interface looks to you guys and if it's smooth/clunky/suggestions.

Sincle the single player non-uzenet aspect is complete I'm cool with a news announcement being made now. :)

Image

EDIT: included a picture for the lazy/busy folks
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D3thAdd3r
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by D3thAdd3r »

Nice button graphics make it very intuitive, not much else to suggest, it's perfect. Your game fills a nice gameplay niche for Uzebox and it's a gorgeous game besides like I probably said before. Again, remember to pat yourself on the back. Even as your first Uzebox game, it's comparable in production value to any of the best titles for the system.

On the high score stuff is your state machine working to connect to the high score server? It's up at 51697, you could try connecting to the chat server on 50697 too. If you can connect to it and send stuff and it disconnects you, good. Spent a few more hours on Uzem w/8266 and it's closer. It is not time efficient to develop without emulator support, it will help a lot, I'm not touching any other Uzenet stuff until Uzem is development ready, so there will be a delay..but Ghosty Ghost will be the first game with real Uzenet support when it happens!
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kivan117
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by kivan117 »

D3thAdd3r wrote:Nice button graphics make it very intuitive, not much else to suggest, it's perfect.
Good. The biggest problem with designing an interface is that, as the designer, it all makes sense to you. So it's very hard to have an unbiased look at the overall flow and difficulty of it. I liked my original A button graphic more, but on hardware it got butchered into a purple blob when using the rca connection, so at least this one is mostly legible.

D3thAdd3r wrote:Your game fills a nice gameplay niche for Uzebox and it's a gorgeous game besides like I probably said before. Again, remember to pat yourself on the back. Even as your first Uzebox game, it's comparable in production value to any of the best titles for the system.
Thanks. Looking at games like Alter Ego, Lode Runner, Megatris, I feel like there's still a lot of room to improve, but hopefully I'll be able to put some quality games out there for the community.
D3thAdd3r wrote:On the high score stuff is your state machine working to connect to the high score server? It's up at 51697, you could try connecting to the chat server on 50697 too. If you can connect to it and send stuff and it disconnects you, good. Spent a few more hours on Uzem w/8266 and it's closer. It is not time efficient to develop without emulator support, it will help a lot, I'm not touching any other Uzenet stuff until Uzem is development ready, so there will be a delay..but Ghosty Ghost will be the first game with real Uzenet support when it happens!
I haven't tried much more on that front yet. Busy work week and it's my anniversary weekend (wife would kill me if I went on a programming bender) but I'll do a bit more soon. Right now it should basically just try to detect hardware, connect to the chat server (last port number I knew that worked for a fact), then just sit there idle. I agree that the tools need to be there for good progress to be viable, not just for Ghosty Ghost but any project that wants to integrate Uzenet. Any delay in Uzenet progress is definitely forgiven. When it does all finally work and it has functioning Uzenet scores, I think it'll be a pretty awesome landmark moment in Uzebox gaming.
neslou
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by neslou »

Excellent job, kivan117 :!:
I will follow your job in the future. I really appreciate that there is guy like you programming for the Uzebox.
I am still in the hardware phase, but after i will try to make also a little game :-)
Great Work!
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kivan117
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by kivan117 »

Thanks, glad you enjoy it. It's complete from a gameplay perspective but if you notice any bugs or have suggestions I'm always open. Soon as I can I'll try to get the Uzenet aspect working but until then there probably won't be much in the way of news unless I patch some bugs or something.
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Gosma
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Re: Ghosty Ghost

Post by Gosma »

Cool and fun game, but very difficult. :shock:

I've just passed 1 Column..... Player level: Retarded :cry:
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