RAM - Code a game competition 5 - May 4th to June 30th

[Xerra]

The 800 XL was like the Electon to the proper BBC Micro B. Hardly a proper 800 lol.

<gasp>

Actually, I always liked the look of the 600 when it first came out. The 800 was an ugly beast and the 400, with that horrible push plastic keyboard, was worse than the Spectrum. And how I hated trying to use that when I borrowed one for a few weeks to tinker with.

The TI99/4A had a great keyboard compared to the computers of the time but my A1200 was a joy to actually code with. I only ever used a TI in a shop to play Parsec, whenever the stingy gits actually had it loaded up.

[Steve Elliott]

A mate of mine had the Atari 800.  Dual cartridge slots and 4 joystick ports.  The others were cheaper cut down versions.  So they looked prettier, so what?  They came out much later, and yet were inferior.

The TI and Amiga 1200 were very cool.  I had to decide between an Amiga 1200 or a 486 PC.  I decided the PC was the future so bought one.

[Xerra]

Had some problems working with the data structure for RAM that's slowed me down a bit this week but I'm finally there with getting all that displayed correctly. I spent at least two hours trying to work out why I couldn't show a computer sprite based on my data's filename entry until I realised I needed to get an index number for it first.

That's what's great about doing different types of games - you learn so much new stuff.

Can't show an in-game screenshot yet as it's all just built with text and the shuffling isn't allocated correctly between players at present so i'm concentrating on getting that working rather than making proper cards right now. Oh, and I might not have actually finalised the smaller images yet as I've still got to work out what size they need to be.

However, I've got the title screen just working in gallery mode at present so the large computers can be browsed at the correct game size - rather than in my editor - so I can fix or replace any that aren't up to scratch. There's quite a few still it turns out unfortunately so more work to do there as well. Here's a few screenshots of how it is at the moment - naturally a lot is likely to change as it's very rough at the moment.

[Xerra]

Oh yeah, logo does this wave effect in the background which is why there's bits of blue in some of the screenshots there. I'm using snagit to grab screens so can't see the animation while snapping.

As this is the gallery part of the title screen - which will possibly be a game unlock - the nickname option wouldn't normally be shown but I don't have a menu for game mode selection yet so it's left there for testing at present.

[Xerra]

Started work this evening on getting the actual card layout up and running. A lot of work to do here as all the card information isn't shown in every game mode so it all needs to fit correctly. The stat that you choose to play against the computers card is also going to need to be strobed or something to make sure it's clear what the player needs to do. I've found myself having to edit a lot of the original data to make sure lines aren't too long as soon as I worked out how big the cards are going to be.

Not even going to think about animations or anything else until this is all working flawlessly.

[iWasAdam]

Xerra, I thought I'de post some examples from top-trumps which may give you some basic concepts for cards and how to possibly design them

the first one is nice as it gives a concept with different colored backgrounds

[iWasAdam]

taking the above I mocked this up for you


It might give you a base to work from

[Xerra]

Thanks a load, Adam. Gives me something to think about. I'm dreadful at tinkering with graphic stuff or using art effectively.

That green background you have there. Is that something you've done? Can I use it? I'd like to use that in place of a gradient as it's much nicer. Still not sure what to put at top of the screen at present but this would make a nice background compared to what I have at present.

[Derron]

Do not use that background:
- it is blurry
- does look green but not similar to a  poker-desk

Just have a look how others do it:
https://www.vectorgraphit.com/create-a-poker-table-with-cards-and-poker-chips-stacks/amp

The basic idea is to have:
- the background color of your desire
- a slight gradient (to add "variation")
- add some grain (for the "texture" / felt-look)


@ cards Adam has drawn:
the benefit of such cards is: use a graytone variant and you can just use a "SetColor r,g,b" to tint the images to your needs. So you only need one "card" and then put your images on it.

Take care of the font size: "ATARI" and "SWORD" are very short words - imagine you need to write "MACINTOSH XYZ" or "COMMODORE 64" - it would not fit into this area. So either design it to handle "two liners" properly - or decrease fontsize so the "longest possible name" fits well.


Also: If you have all your cards "as one texture" (or are able to rotate it properly) you need to rotate cards a bit - as if you have them in your hand (a "deck"). Of course this is only useful if you have a limited amount of cards (50 cards as "hand hold"-deck looks awful ;-)).


Nonetheless it looks way cooler if the played cards have a slight random rotation - just to make it look more interesting.


Also 2: Design a spot at the bottom or top at which directions are given ("Draw a card", "Click to shuffle" ,....).


bye
Ron

[Xerra]

Thanks for the advice, Ron. Adam's input prompted me to go digging for some gradient colours and I found a web form that could make some and output the images so I did some nice ones and resized so the player can now use cursor keys to choose one they prefer. I've done the same thing with the text colour on the information that matters - as in the stats themselves. Not quite got that bit working yet, however. I'll have a play with that background generator thing now and see if i can get something interesting.

As for that font - just a tester. I've already had to modify the length of some text using it but I'm going to change it I think. Not happy with the look as the 5 looks too much like a 6 and numbers need to look ok.

[Xerra]

Been working over the weekend on the front card design a bit more. Finally have the stats select-able now so almost to a point where i can play against the computer. Still a couple of bugs to iron out with the good/evil stats and potentially use scaling for the smaller images from the larger computers as the smaller ones are mostly not really good enough. I've done some tinkering with rotation on the cards as nobody ever has a neat stack in front of them when they play cards. The cards also use gradients now to make them look a little better - the colours are selectable by the player to solve problems with colouring of text being an issue. Luckily all the text is drawn on the cards so it's not too hard to mess with that if my colour selection seems a bit garish.

Have a screenshot to compare with the previous ones.

[Matty]

A massive improvement - wonderful.

It looks like a very different and original game.

[Xerra]

Made a massive inroad today by getting most of the background story done. This will play out in story mode where the player will compete against the AI over multiple rounds to simulate the tournament that's described in the story. Each round they get through will unlock another chapter of which there will be eight in total. Until this evening I only had the first one written - now I'm about a third of the way through the sixth.

I've also got a new image scaling system in so I can use the larger computer images on the cards as it works better than the small ones I've been messing around with trying to make decent for a while now.

Still have to get the game playing against a basic AI but i'm almost there now. If I can do it then I've got three AI strategies that I will be attempting to code in.

So much to do, so little time. There's so much more that could possibly be expanded on with this game once it's finished for the competition and all the judging has been done.

[Xerra]

Something else to have a look at today. I hired a freelancer to do the graphics stuff that will become the end-game objective playing in free-play mode. In that mode you earn coins for each game you play based on the points total on your cards at the end of 30 turns. Keep racking them up and you can buy the parts to build up the supercomputer. The super computer itself is what you win for completing the story mode - 6.5 chapters in out of the 8 now.

The game will let you play freeplay without doing story mode first but you'd be buying up all the kit for a computer that's not owned yet. This is so people can play it whichever way round they feel like.

So the two screens below show your empty desk and the desk loaded with all the computer parts and the super computer itself. Each part will be added to the desk as and when it's purchased.

[Steve Elliott]

The latest SyntaxBomb Competition is setting a very high standard.  As far as I can see it will all come down to game play for the top 3.