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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
SEUCK Redux
I've been reading the SEUCK vault pages (http://www.seuck.retrogaming64.com/index.html) and in particular the pages relating to modding SEUCK to improve games. Does anyone think it would be useful if I were to make an open source SEUCK data file player? This way people could take the source code and modify it to add whatever features they liked without having to modify the binary SEUCK code. Also, the data file formats would be fully documented and there is also a good chance that a few SEUCK bugs (like the slow down and sprite flicker) would be fixed in the process. :) |
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assiduous
Account closed
Registered: Jun 2007
Posts: 343 |
why limit things to 1 axis ? Arnie2 showed its entirely possible to have a good isometric-view shooter without confining it to the horizontal/vertical axis. optimize the engine from Arnie2,make it more versatile and its gonna blow Seuck away :) |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
I know where Mr. Mouse is coming from. When I did graphics for a game (as well as code) that was the last time, ever. :) Yes they were that bad. Yes I am ashamed.
Throughout my professional career as a programmer I have made some design decisions/suggestions on the games I've worked on, but this doesn't happen very often because we are usually too busy coding. However Alien Resurrection on the PS1 probably wouldn't have had dynamic lighting or shells from the guns or the first person mode without us programmers experimenting and pushing really hard for these cool features to be used. But teams have in general got larger over time so discussion and full-time designers are more common than they were back in the old days. But even so, back in the old days of small teams (or one man efforts!) publishers would receive regular builds and design suggestions/demands would be made. |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
I've uploaded source and documentation to here: http://codebase64.org/doku.php?id=base:scrolling_and_seuck_file..
There are also some pre-built examples for playing the demonstration SEUCK games. Even when the games get quite busy there isn't any of the slow-down and flickering that was in the original SEUCK code so I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out. :) |
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621 |
Cool. I tested it with one of my old games work files (which used to slow down a lot) and got a much better result with this fix. :) Fantastic job!
There is a drawback. The charset convertor. The front end logo does not display how it should as in the main SEUCK editor. Perhaps the whole charset should be extracted and inverted. Also, restore the colour bars as well.
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
Thanks for the helpful feedback, it is really great to know someone else was able to get the source and run their own data file. If you can send me your data file it will help me to target slow areas in the code for optimisation. The more different data files I get the better the code gets.
Regarding the title screen, yes I've not implemented the colour bars yet because the title screen is usually one of the things people tend to rip out and replace with their own code. :) I will be adding colour bars later on though along with some more in-game improvements.
-Edit- Added proper title screen support now and fixed a couple of bugs. :)
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621 |
Fantastic :) I look forward to trying it out :) Hope we get DMC support ;) Glad the colour bars are back, but maybe we could add our own colour tables, to make things interesting :)
Still not patched yet:
It is only the scroll/level bugs I needed sorted out now. This is because the level perameters are not working correctly. For example, I start Nyaaaah! (The first one) and on the first level, there are no enemies :( Also I tried the same source on Nyaaaah 3 but when the scroll is on, when the player is not moving by joystick. It automatically moves down and sometimes off the screen. |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
Ahh the darn level control parameters. They have been problematic in the past. Can you send me the full data file (using "save all data" from the storage menu) (i.e. without music and other tweaks) so I can view it in SEUCK and see what the level editor parses the data as? My email address for binary files is martin.piper@gmail.com
I tried the version of Nyaaaah from here http://www.seuck.retrogaming64.com/nyaaaahres_fixed.zip but it has the editor removed from memory. ;)
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Mr. Mouse
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 235 |
Martin, good to see you went ahead despite people telling you not to ;) It must be fun to see that it actually works. I've spent some time on improving Lords of Midnight, but have stopped halfway due to lack of time. And then I have tons of old code (not c64 specifically) that are halfbaked tries or ideas that desperately need continuation or finalization. So it's cool that old code/ideas is/are picked up 20 years later ;) |
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Martin Piper
Registered: Nov 2007
Posts: 722 |
Yes it is fun watching it working. ;) It was actually a fun little project to do and made much easier having the editor there so I can tweak values and notice which ones changed.
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Richard
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 621 |
I could, I suppose, but alternatively you can download SEUCK Revive by Entropy to restore the SEUCK editor into my SEUCK game ;) All you will need to do is load the SEUCK game, then warm reset the C64 (or use Action replay cartridge), download
SEUCK Revive
Then LOAD "*",8,1 and the editor will come back. Save the ALL DATA work file and then it should save. Then transfer the work as a p00 file ;)
EDIT. Oh, looks like you already did update ;)
Fantastic :) The very first NYAAAAAH! SEUCK file works now. Enemies are about, despite a flicker on the top left of the screen (which is nothing bad to me) Well done ;). Now for another question.
Martin, your SEUCK fix is excellent. Hope we see source that will work with games created with the left sideways scrolling SEUCK as well. Your code (after Exomizer) shortens the code MORE compared to the original SEUCK before the redux. ;)
I can understand that there is a lot to be done with the SEUCK redux/scroller thingy, but I will be looking forward to seeing further updates with it. It should be very handy, as more games would fit on to a disk with this implemented. :) |
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