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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001 Posts: 621 |
NEW GAME: GALAXYS
I have produced a new retro-style C64 game called 'Galaxys'
You can download the game from this URL below:
http://www.redizajn.sk/tnd64/download_games.html
I await any reactions :) |
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fade Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002 Posts: 290 |
Hey Richard, you seem to make a lot of small games, why not work on something a bit more daunting and complex than collecting cherries and not running into moving bricks?
Something like Wonderboy 2 or Mean Streets by Access.
Just a suggestion.. |
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Rough Account closed
Registered: Feb 2002 Posts: 1829 |
i told him the same a few days ago. 8) |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002 Posts: 1160 |
A quite long analysis follows... this is not meant in any cold, evil, sarcastic or malicious way but to examine why Rich may not ever do more complicated games. (I might be wrong, let's wait for the horizontal-scrolling SEU he threatened to make)
I believe that when a person has reached a certain level in programming (usually doing something away from C64, like C coding, helps to see the "bigger" picture of problems, algorithms etc.) he will know how to approach almost any coding problem, and because C64 games have a quite limited scope, he can create an arbitrarily complex C64 game. Of course the technical skills (knowledge of C64 hardware, asm optimization) may still limit but generally they aren't much of a problem at this point.
But, Rich has not reached this level yet. He clearly lacks some fundamental knowledge of maths in C64 asm, bit manipulation etc. and also some concepts like state machines, that are required for more advanced gameprogramming. But he has quite successfully "fooled" us all to expect something more, by using his limited skill set pretty much to the maximum in creating those small C64 games. And he has even been expanding his skill set little by little, for example the wrap-scrolling BG graphics in Bomb Chase.
Rich may not possess the required imagination or perseverence to reach the "next" level in programming, in which almost everything becomes possible. Or he might simply enjoy creating these little games too much, to actually learn something higher. After all, C64 hobby coding is not a job, where you're expected to learn more... :)
I'm sure, even now Rich could create quite a complex game (for example a scrolling SEU) with someone's pretty much constant assistance. But would that be worth it? Isn't the point of C64 coding in knowing how to create things yourself?
Ok, end of analysis & rant. Agree/disagree, anyone? Because I'm a self-taught programmer, my view can be somewhat skewed (I just don't think programming can be taught beyond a certain point -- at some point a lot of own imagination & creativity is going to be required.) And to repeat, I hope I didn't offend Rich with this analysis. |
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JCB Account closed
Registered: Jun 2002 Posts: 241 |
Agreed :) I'm self taught too and started a job as a games coder 15+ years ago and if I knew then what I know now WOOT :P Sometimes I wish I could travel in time, even now I remember bits of code I wrote and think "hey, if I did that this way it would have been way faster" but then there are things I coded on c64 which I probably still couldn't beat today.
I think Richards problem is a lack of someone to challenger his current fluffy warm state of being one of the only game producing sceners around so he keeps releasing "little" games and he's happy with it because theres nothing to make him think "jeez my games are lame compared to that".
I noticed on the Lemon forum he (you if you're reading Richard) asked "what game shall I do now" and it turns out people want Chaos Engine, I say go for it, they may have been joking but even attempting it would be a good learning experience, working out how to do the 8 directional scrolling (you could probably lock it to 4 directions which would help), I think it would need colour ram scrolling too, a multiplexer, a "goals" based system (the bitmap brothers had 1 basic editor which they made lots of games with using trigger points and puzzle "rules"), keeping track of a world's worth of enemies and what you've destroyed/picked up already etc etc the list does go on and on but it's not THAT hard. |
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Warbaby Account closed
Registered: Mar 2002 Posts: 60 |
JCB:
Chaos Engine for the c64?!?! Would be great, but finding a decent colorscheme could be difficult. |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002 Posts: 1160 |
Lots of grey, perhaps some green... :) Especially the sprite colors would be pain. Perhaps it'd require overlayed sprites for more colors.
I might have overestimated the difficulty of doing ChaosEngine on C64 (in the lemon64 post), but, don't forget the AI controlled player! (I'd say that's quite a challenge, as he can dodge the bullets, collect things on his own etc.) |
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JCB Account closed
Registered: Jun 2002 Posts: 241 |
Colours would be a pain but it doesn't have to look exactly the same as the 16bit versions. I had the idea of plotting only selected areas of colour ram (for certain tiles) with a little "cleanup" thing for the areas they've just scrolled from so you could have colour scrolling without using too much processor time. Sprites, yeah, be nice to have a 2sprite per main guy thing going on for extra colours/definition. As for the AI guy, I've coded quite a lot of AI/NPC stuff in the past and that one is pretty stupid imo :) shouldn't be hard to do.
-disclaimer-
JCB is in no way saying HE is going to write C64 Chaos Engine :P I wish I had the time then I would (and I'm sorely tempted to just start anyway) but I've got soooo much other code to do even starting would be a bad idea. |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002 Posts: 1160 |
Yes, I agree he sometimes moves quite randomly when he doesn't have bullets to dodge, but he stays alive fairly well :) (lot better than I)
But then again, it was on Amiga, which has a lot more of CPU cycles than C64. I guess A* pathfinding (or what the hell that is called) or any other sophisticated algorithms are out of question? :D |
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JCB Account closed
Registered: Jun 2002 Posts: 241 |
The pathfinding (I don't think it's got a specific name) isn't that complex to do, think about a game like paradroid, yeah they robots are all set on fixed paths to begin with but when you get in a fight they wander from those paths to attack you then trundle back when they/you are done. Theres lots of ways to handle something like that that don't take much processing power. |
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001 Posts: 621 |
The 'Chaos Engine' sort of game sounds good, but it would be really difficult. As the people above mentioned I lack confindence with 'Map-scrolling', as it is so difficult. I could do with the 'Firebird' graphic editor (as TMR mentioned) is there anywhere on the net where I can download that?
Also map scrolling would not be that easy, because there's more than meets the eye compared to scrolltext messages. It would help if I studied more about the scrolling. I remember a small routine supplied Amebas Graphics Editor for 'Turbo Assembler', where you can mapscroll. Maybe I could use a char editor to do the graphics using Dooso's 'Amebas' editor to put the chars into blocks and map these, and then study the horiz-scrolling routine and make notes about it. - Not code-ripping of course, because lamers don't do that.
I hope to use that sort of engine for Fruit fighters and a Christmas game for December 2002 ;) |
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