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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Software sprites....
Does anybody have any expirience with software sprites?
Bobs?
In hires or char mode?
Games I susspect have something to do with software sprites:
Cybernoid for bullets...
Last ninja for masking main character (its not a software sprite, only hardware one masked, to show visibility...)
karnov
Astromarine corps
..,
What is record for these?
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
what platformers never really did good on c64 IMHO:
pixel based height handling: the main character should be able to run up / slide down on slopes, instead of having to jump to get over a 1 pixel high obstacle, because its "one char" higher.
GOOD physics, accelerating - slowing down/sliding down on slopes, speed decreases when running up on a slope, _really_ smooth jump acc/decc.
ability to jump up to walls (zool/amiga)
really good controllable character instead of the usual feeling of 2 bit accuracy at speed/collision handling.
If I would have plenty of time, and mad coding mood, I would make a platformer like zool on amiga. I'd go for a char screen and AGSP. So I dont loose out speed with screen scrolling, but still have the advantage of a character screen:bullets/powerups/changing scenery/etc made of chars.
popmillo: IMHO you should rather concentrate on gameplay than gfx, check the best platformers on 16 bit machines, and adapt the good ideas. |
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
Mayhem In Monsterland does a lot of what you said, Oswald - except it's a VSP scroller since it's only bi-directional.
Totally agreed about the playability issue of course, there's zero point in having a nice looking game that doesn't play well and there never will be... that's where some of the discussions on Atari Age have fallen down, people wanting to cripple the game's overall design to put more colours in or use some new trick for the graphics. |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
tmr: I know, but only sideways scrolling ahem... :P also the gameplay is boring.
I repeat, check platformers on 16 bitters from the 90s, with todays knowledge we could copy most of that stuff. |
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cadaver
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 1160 |
What would you do to the sprite frame pointers becoming visible in char mode & AGSP scrolling? In bitmap mode you'd just get some flashing, but now we're talking about actual garbage..
(If there was no multiplexing and sprite pointers would always be the same, for example 248-255 [when copying/depacking sprites in realtime], it would be trivial to copy the correct chars to that place in the charset, but the question is would you settle for no multiplexing?) |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
make the chars same color as the background. |
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
Personally, i like MiM but i'm the first to admit i'm not a platform game fan as such... |
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
If I would sum up good values from all platform games I played, this is what would be most interesting in my opinion:
1. Turrican
- Big levels
- Big bosses
- different weapons, powerups
2. Creatures
- Cute graphics
- Funny jokes
- different weapons
3. Flimbo's quest
- Dual plane scroll
- different weapons
- cute graphics
4. Rick Dangerous
- Big levels
- Cute graphics
5. Cyberdine warrior
- Big levels
- graphics
.... and many more
So, if I would take the best out of these games:
different weapons, power ups, cute graphics (including dual plane scroll), big levels, big bosses, jokes...
What is a must for a good game then?
I must say this. I have been reading routines for software sprites on ZX and Amstrad for decades, and never saw it done properly on C64. I want to try it. Want to see, is it possible on c64. I think graphics would benefit from it enough.
So, I want to use software sprites to make hero and monsters look better. I dont think I can do dual plane scroll... Its just too much...
Big levels can be done even with non-scrolling screen (take dizzy, draconus, impossible mission for example)
Jokes are not hardware hungry :)
Weapons and power ups? Massive, multi bullet style weapons are demanding...(char screen comes handy). Maybe make some clever weapons that are simple to animate but interesting enough. I love cyberdine warriors rifle.. Its great, you have feeling of acctually shooting a good gun, and it requires almost no animation at all (kinda like a rifle in Alien Breed on Amiga).
Big Bosses? Easier in charmode. Maybe can be done in bitmap too... Not so important now...
I think best is to try and see. Ill make a demo with char mode sprites, and one with bitmap mode sprites... Test it and then, celebrate or cry :)
p.s. And the best platform game in my opinion: "Ruff'n'tumbble" Amiga... :) Something like that would be fun...
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
"What is a must for a good game then?"
It has to be playable. Doesn't matter how that's achieved, how technically advanced or otherwise the code, how unusual the tricks used or how good the graphics...
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PopMilo
Registered: Mar 2004
Posts: 146 |
Ok. I'll try to make a playable game that uses some sort of software sprites :)
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T.M.R
Account closed
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 749 |
To be honest, you should only be using software sprites if they're a necessity to the game and the hardware is going to struggle; something like Lemmings or Troddlers being a prime example of that. Writing a game is a major undertaking (more major than many people believe) so deliberately going in and making things difficult for yourself by using software sprites in a situation where the hardware could do it perfectly well isn't the best approach to things.
i made that mistake when porting my game Reaxion to the Atari 8-bit, a relatively simple puzzler had a nine month development cycle because i didn't want to take the obvious route of having four hardware sprites for the player and only four colours on the rest of the graphics... the result was three character sets used for the background and a software/hardware sprite combination that had to work over those three character sets and therefore ate large chunks of available CPU power up! |
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