SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

For a site that's full of people who actually like to make games, as well as play them, there's not been much noise about stuff being created recently. Even the last game competition was a year ago now. I've been tinkering with a platform game that was slowly coming together but I've kind of shelved it for a bit as it needs a lot of work to turn into something I'd want to put out there, and I really would like to at least actually put one game out there this year.

As usual I've gone back to looking at the Vic 20 for inspiration again, and so I've spent a few hours now working on a remake of Revenge of the Quadra. You'll have to youtube to see that one, as probably not many people remember it. I've always had several Vic 20 games in mind to remake myself, and in the last few years I've actually got round to doing it finally. Again this is one I loved playing as a kid, so I thought now was the time, even though my last game was a shoot-em up as well. at least 90% of the Vic 20 games were shoot-em ups after all.

Nothing I want to show yet but, like Gridrunner, my last game, I want all the work to be mine - including terrible graphics. As the Vic 20 was a char based computer even someone as bad at graphics as me can probably get away with making something look very similar. Especially as I'm currently working with the same screen resolution as an original Vic - just boosted camera view for better visibility. And i'm ditching the 8 pixel block movement for proper pixel based updating, as there's no reason not to in a remake that's not on the original hardware.

I'd estimate I'm around 40% towards finishing the game itself, but i might do some enhanced stuff afterwards to add high score table, and other stuff, as well as the expanded level system i've got mostly working already.

Anyone else working on anything?

QuoteI've always had several Vic 20 games in mind to remake myself, and in the last few years I've actually got round to doing it finally. Again this is one I loved playing as a kid, so I thought now was the time

thumbs up to you to want to remake similar games than those that you liked to play as a kid. 

i am and will be working on several games during the winter months, at my own pace, when i have some time and motivation ( the rainy days / windy days help a lot to open the IDE )

i will post my progress and thoughts, in the 'worklogs'.

keep it up !

Granted I did release a Halloween game and a bunch of songs this year.
I'm currently working 4 of them and on top of that I'm working on another 2 MrmediamanX Presents albums for next year ... and then there's Christmas. No rest for the wicked over here.

I have a few things on the hob at the minute, first off, Wibble (Old vid) in conjunction with LibSGD:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFWeipxe4v0

A matching game called Spintopia (Just click the blank screens, then, to spin the map, sweep the mouse left or right with the LMB held down to spin the map)

As well as my Launchpad-IDE, which in the most part has taken up much of my spare time.

Dabz

I Love the Cartoon'y'ness of it all.

In the top left hand corner. The info that you display, Is it stored as a Type or TList. I see your, keeping info on x,y,z collision etc.

Is this a common thing for writing games?

Ive yet to produce a game.

Baggey

@ Xerra Just had a look at Revenge of Quadra. That's quite a good game.

Alien Dropout on the ZX81 would be a good one i think.

QuoteAs the Vic 20 was a char based computer even someone as bad at graphics as me can probably get away with making something look very similar.

 I like the fact the graphics weren't good so you can have a bit of artistic licience in creating new Chars / UDG's for them of your own.

Baggey

Still working on TVTower. Just glued in some ScriptExpression-Code which I pressed out of @Scaremonger so database entries can script (hah...) content (eg dynamically using actor names, using currency (Mark -> DM -> Eur) depending on current year, content depending on previously resolved (random) content, ...) without us requiring "Lua" (should be "heavier" than our current solution). A lot of "avoid string creation" stuff happening there (I am afraid of NGs GC kicking in too much). This years work concentrated on adding thousands of new movies, series, news, ads - all in English and German (and many now also in Polish). And this in a curated manner (so not just importing some tmbd data) as we need spoof titles and descriptions (legal reasons).
We also improved things like person (name) generation because some countries have specific behaviour (suffixes, prefixes ,... depending on gender or family status (name of father until married etc)).
An other exhausting (means took weeks/months to implement properly) was a new algorithm to calculate population under broadcast antennas. I introduced a virtual density map (stretchable - which is different to a texture stretching!) which in our case now utilizes crunched data from a governmental based census (Census 2010 of Germany). So way more accurate data.
This new feature took quite some time but allows an resolution independent retrieval of data. Also retrieval times were massively lowered and the GC has way less to do.

Currently I am working on resizable windows, virtual resolution and "layer" management (so layers could use a virtual resolution, define stretching algorithms/approaches, - or they could use the real resolution, good for debugger/dev-overlays). Will most probably mean to just use sdl.sdlrendermax2d instead of old brl.mod implementations of DirectX and OpenGL).
Once this is done it will surely require some fixes regarding render2texture stuff added some time ago to BlitzMax NG (thanks to @col s work -- yeah seems I tend to press people into doing stuff for us , I then just add some sugar and call it "done").


So in other words: Adding/curating content, writing "framework" stuff (expressions, graphics handling) and doing grunt work (fixing reported issues). Think a new release of the game is soon to happen (in december I guess). I better do not tell you how much I really played the game in the last years - number will be 1-digit big. So seems instead of "playing" it is the development which I enjoy.


bye
Ron

..im silently working on a large amount (47) of fully completed levels, i did long ago, but never used in any game. It was hard to recover them back, which i finally managed to do with Blender, i never liked, and now engaging in to it fully..after some scaling issues and what not, im converting everything, preparing materials, etc etc (some textures need rework, bla bla)...intended use is with Leadwerks 5 and LibSGD, as both are C++, so, we shall see how everything will end up..long way to go..here is small sneak peek on to whats recovered (few more , but im lazy to do more screenshots )..i hope ya like it..

That's awesome

@Naughty Alien, nice looking work. I've been doing some 'sporadic' work on a gravity lander game - for sporadic, there is literally months in between any development. Should be ready for release by 2030 at a push 

Quote from: Baggey on November 08, 2024, 08:10:08@ Xerra Just had a look at Revenge of Quadra. That's quite a good game.

Alien Dropout on the ZX81 would be a good one i think.

QuoteAs the Vic 20 was a char based computer even someone as bad at graphics as me can probably get away with making something look very similar.

 I like the fact the graphics weren't good so you can have a bit of artistic licience in creating new Chars / UDG's for them of your own.

Baggey

I'm using object sprites for the actual moving stuff but I did, for a brief crazy moment consider doing a char based movement system, to really make it work like the Vic game but I don't think it's really that smart to make a game play worse just for authenticity. I'm doing a tribute, not trying to remake the game exactly as it was. I'll post it up when i'm done to get some feedback anyway.

Never seen alien dropout so i'll have a look on youtube. I like doing games with simple ideas as long as they play well.

Quote from: Dabz on November 08, 2024, 05:36:01I have a few things on the hob at the minute, first off, Wibble (Old vid) in conjunction with LibSGD:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFWeipxe4v0

A matching game called Spintopia (Just click the blank screens, then, to spin the map, sweep the mouse left or right with the LMB held down to spin the map)

As well as my Launchpad-IDE, which in the most part has taken up much of my spare time.

Dabz

Launchpad intrigued me so I had a little look. I'm a Mac man these days for development, wherever possible. I don't tend to use the windows laptop that much as I mainly just got it for the games I can't play on Mac.... yet

Some of my most productive days where using Blitz back in the mid 2000's and up to around 2015. I had that brilliant IDE which helped me no end with doing better work for a while. Can't remember the name now, but it was commercial, and pretty expensive, as I recall. Was worth every penny in the end. Blide - that was it. If you're going the IDE route, Dabz, then aim for something as good as that, for sure.

@Xerra 

Well, I originally meant it to be a little tool I could use myself, but just decided to share it really. Like, it'll never be as good as say Ziggy's Blide, it will have it's shortcomings in regards to stuff, and the only promise really is that, if it's good enough for me, it's good enough for me.

I am all ears for suggestions, and if anyone finds bugs, and reports them, that'll be a big fat thank you from me, because as many developers know, "developer usage bias" is a terror because we tend not look at doing things "the wrong way" causing errors or crashes.

All in all at the minute, it pretty much is standing how I envisioned it, I've managed to get around a god awful bug of wxTextCtrls locking up becoming ineditable after first use. Next big thing I'll be doing is actually implementing live auto-complete. There is basic auto-complete and intellisense in at the minute for everything in the runtime, though I'm taking 3 weeks off at Christmas so that time will be invested in writing something that will auto-complete THE WORLD!!! 

Dabz

Quote from: Baggey on November 08, 2024, 07:55:08In the top left hand corner. The info that you display, Is it stored as a Type or TList. I see your, keeping info on x,y,z collision etc.

Is this a common thing for writing games?

It's just basic debug stuff really Mr B, nothing special, just helps keep an eye on whats happening behind the scene... I imagine it's the same when your writing an emulator, you've probably got the contents of registers or memory displayed somewhere about the place so you can see whats happening!

@Xerra 

It's Definately one id have a crack at Simple and engaging. But sadly i dont really know where to start with it.

I need to find some simple templates of games like this so i can get a feel for how you go about it. I mean the concept and structure.


I would like to keep it like the to the original but pixel perfect and tidy the graphics up a bit, As i like 8bit pixel art.

I would like to do it myself but would need help on how to set out a template for the game and the general concept on how to get going with it.

Anyone in to gameing who fancy's helping me find the mojo to have a stab at programming a game like this. It's one i would of done for the last game challenge. Ive learnt if you dont ask you dont get 

As Always Kindest Regards Baggey