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General Category => Worklogs => Topic started by: craigd on March 14, 2019, 12:02:26

Title: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 14, 2019, 12:02:26
Hey all,

The story of my entry.. is a strange one..

I didn't have internet for quite a while. I got back online in January, just as I was fixing up an old prototype from 2017. I really didn't know which direction to take it. It was a convoluted mess of ideas :)

Then I found these forums again (I used to lurk a looong time ago) and noticed the 8-bit compo. Somewhere on the forums, Xerra mentioned MultiPaint, so I gave it a blast. I loved it! Thanks Xerra! After a few hours I knew I'd be doing a C64 style version of my game. I didn't think I'd be entering the compo, but it did give me a solid direction for the game. So I started from scratch developing it once I had enough graphics to test.

The game is quite far along that I may just get it done in time for the compo. Who knows :}

The main menu/title screen..
(https://i.imgur.com/WqvpNTT.png)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: 3DzForMe on March 14, 2019, 23:34:00
Good luck
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 14, 2019, 23:36:44
Gameplay is coming along but needs more levels and balancing.

Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 14, 2019, 23:38:44
@3DzForMe Thanks man :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Qube on March 15, 2019, 00:04:16
Great work on the graphics & welcome to the forums ;D
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Xerra on March 15, 2019, 00:29:07
Glad I could help you out and good luck with your project as it looks great. I'd love to see some new faces get a game out for this competition.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 15, 2019, 00:35:27
@Qube Thanks man! and I appreciate the welcome :)

@Xerra Cheers matey. If you hadn't posted about MultiPaint, I doubt I'd have gotten as far with the C64 style graphics :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: round157 on March 15, 2019, 00:57:04
Quote from: craigd on March 14, 2019, 12:02:26

The game is quite far along that I may just get it done in time for the compo. Who knows :}

The main menu/title screen..


Hello,

I am interested in this game. May I ask a question? What language or game creation software is used in the developing this nice game? Thanks. I want to know more....thanks again!!
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on March 15, 2019, 01:13:14
very cool ... Looking forward to checking it out. :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 15, 2019, 01:29:16
@round157 Thanks matey! It's being developed in Construct 2. Hope that helps :}

@MrmediamanX Cheers man! I hope it doesn't disappoint haha
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: round157 on March 15, 2019, 01:57:30
Quote from: craigd on March 15, 2019, 01:29:16
@round157 Thanks matey! It's being developed in Construct 2. Hope that helps :}



Okay, good. We can see the full power and enormous potential of Construct 2 from your entry!!
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 15, 2019, 02:57:10
Quote from: round157 on March 15, 2019, 01:57:30
Okay, good. We can see the full power and enormous potential of Construct 2 from your entry!!

Construct 2 is one of the most powerful, easy to use 2D game engines out there. Believe me, my game won't do it any justice at all :) Thanks for your vote of confidence though :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on March 15, 2019, 10:32:30
Looks great!  Loving the texturing in a C-64-style.   8)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Derron on March 15, 2019, 11:03:45
dungeon screenshot looks preeetty cool - especially with the old dude and his cat.

"you're dead"-screen is a bit ... hard to recognize - a bit "too big" when scaled up. So on your old 13 inch screen it might look cool but on todays big screens you might experience the effect of sitting in one of the first rows of a big cinema: you cannot "gasp" the whole screen presentation at once.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on March 15, 2019, 13:20:30
Quote from: Steve Elliott on March 15, 2019, 10:32:30
Looks great!  Loving the texturing in a C-64-style.   8)

Thanks man. Still not happy with it so no doubt it'll go through some changes :}

Quote from: Derron on March 15, 2019, 11:03:45
dungeon screenshot looks preeetty cool - especially with the old dude and his cat.

"you're dead"-screen is a bit ... hard to recognize - a bit "too big" when scaled up. So on your old 13 inch screen it might look cool but on todays big screens you might experience the effect of sitting in one of the first rows of a big cinema: you cannot "gasp" the whole screen presentation at once.

Cheers matey. Yep you're absolutely correct. I had planned to replace it at some point, but for now, it serves its purpose :}
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 01, 2019, 00:07:40
Finally!! Anywhere I can upload since adding attachment here didn't work. I didn't think it would.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 01, 2019, 00:09:10
Give the man some web space Qube.  Although you should have asked earlier!   :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 01, 2019, 00:11:03
hahaha

found an uploader site. https://ufile.io/7zqxj

64bit windows. I had to rush to get some version out haha my nerves are shot. I need a drink ;)

Hopefully it works ok. My dropbox isn't working for some reason. Google drive doesn't either ffs :/
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 01, 2019, 00:12:31
Hopefully all is ok, and enjoy ya drink.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Qube on April 01, 2019, 00:18:52
Umm, it's after the comp deadline :o

However in this circumstance you were just delayed due to finding somewhere to upload rather than working on your entry past midnight :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 01, 2019, 01:59:23
Quote from: Qube on April 01, 2019, 00:18:52
Umm, it's after the comp deadline :o

However in this circumstance you were just delayed due to finding somewhere to upload rather than working on your entry past midnight :)

I tried to attach the file to my post at the final minute. Damn dropbox and googledrive not working. I hadn't used them since 2017 or something but always kept them updated. I thought bloody typical for crap to go wrong hahah I'll figure something out for future uploads.

Thanks for the extra time for uploading :)

@Steve Elliott thanks man. I've never really bothered exporting my stuff as an exe so I deffo hope so too hahah

I usually just do small games for my own enjoyment. Gamedev has kept me sane through the years ;}

So about the game...

At the beginning I didn't really think I'd actually be entering so I just pottered about now and then. It's only been this week, as the deadline loomed, that I thought more seriously about entering. I did about 40% of the work this weekend.  So there's a lot of programmer art placeholders still in place haha

The basic story is-
You play as a wizard, Gandarf, who has a pet cat named Kitty
Kitty knocked over some potions etc and you both get teleported to some dungeons where you have no magic
Kitty's 9 lives are spread out over these dungeons
Help Kitty be complete again... blah blah

Gameplay is pretty much Arkanoid :}

KEYS:
ARROW KEYS to control Gandarf
ARROW KEYS also selects items in shop
ENTER to SELECT / BUY
SPACEBAR to GO TO NEXT DUNGEON in the SHOP

The only items that are implemented are the
HEALTH BOOST
SPEED RUNE
KEYS
MAGNET

I believe that's it :) Hopefully it all works perfectly (fingers crossed....)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: therevills on April 01, 2019, 03:01:50
Sign up to https://itch.io/ and setup a quick project page, then upload you file there - its a nice place to show off your projects.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on April 01, 2019, 03:56:18
it's best to create an itch.io account and upload there ... you can customize the look of your download page,add version updates,write dev logs for peeps following you and stuff and there's no expiration date for your files/games.  :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Xerra on April 01, 2019, 05:05:52
Definitely create an Itch.IO account like these guys have said. You can keep an eye on stuff like views and downloads and not have any issues like file upload sites trying to make people sign up for accounts or spam adverts at them then. Also it's a good start to showcase future games as you create them as well. Check out some of the other competitors previous games there.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 02, 2019, 16:32:57
Ahh I did look into that a week ago but just completely forgot about it. Cheers guys, will deffo sign up
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 03, 2019, 01:27:09
OK guys I managed to get it onto itch.io. Been busy all day and finally got 5mins to get this up on itch.io :) Nice one for the suggestion guys! Seems quite nice and easy to use.

FIREBALL DUNGEON (https://craigdev.itch.io/fireball-dungeon-013)

Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: iWasAdam on April 03, 2019, 12:44:44
This is very good. great mechanic and interesting thought going on. I could see this reimagined and very playable :) Superb
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Derron on April 03, 2019, 13:37:50
(https://www.syntaxbomb.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fr12amol.png&hash=a9cf964b3ce64d61ca7b6871e82da4cc148feb39)

You shouldn't use semi-transparency for the ghost - the image above has 65 colors.
Removing the ghost (drew a black rectangle above it) I still see 58 colors.

Dunno how this happens and if this is allowed to get "bugfixed" during this week (For me it would be ok - maybe you did not "color pick" your colors but used a "looks like this green" workflow).
I did not check it further - but some "ground tiles" look darker: did you by any chance tint them individually ("SetColor 200, 200, 200" before drawing them to make them a bit darker) ? If so - just remove that tint ("bugfix").


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 03, 2019, 16:06:44
Quote from: iWasAdam on April 03, 2019, 12:44:44
This is very good. great mechanic and interesting thought going on. I could see this reimagined and very playable :) Superb

Thanks man. I appreciate the kind words :) Thanks for checking it out!

Quote from: Derron on April 03, 2019, 13:37:50
You shouldn't use semi-transparency for the ghost - the image above has 65 colors.
Removing the ghost (drew a black rectangle above it) I still see 58 colors.

Dunno how this happens and if this is allowed to get "bugfixed" during this week (For me it would be ok - maybe you did not "color pick" your colors but used a "looks like this green" workflow).
I did not check it further - but some "ground tiles" look darker: did you by any chance tint them individually ("SetColor 200, 200, 200" before drawing them to make them a bit darker) ? If so - just remove that tint ("bugfix").

Ahh yeah. I forgot to mention that. The only time I was going by C64 colour limits was in MultiPaint. That was enough of a challenge for me haha

NOTE: I've attached the dungeon graphics sheet I was working with (some test stuff in there..) to show it can be loaded straight into MultiPaint.

Once in the engine, I kind of gave up on colour palette limits. The floor is drawn at half transparency over a black background, while some tiles are drawn with even less, for a bit of variety. At full brightness, I felt like my eyeballs were being stabbed ;p

The transparency of the ghost was quite important in this game but I never got to implement that side of things...

Thanks for checking it out :)


Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Derron on April 03, 2019, 16:11:28
Nice spritesheet - think you need to resolve that accidentally left on "fading" to make it compo-compatible (as the palette was the only true restriction we needed to take care of).

It might look a bit more vibrant yes. To darken it you might think of adding a alternating raster image over the ground tiles. Raster image = "x0x0x0x0" with x being black (or what ever) and 0 being transparent. Don't do that right in the spritesheet - if that way you could have different rasters for different "darkness" values ("x00x00x00" vs "x0x0x0x0")

Should be doable in "highres" (320x200).

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 03, 2019, 17:19:32
I would have to change a lot more than that to truly emulate the C64 palette restrictions. Each floor tile has its own 4 colours which aren't common with most sprites sitting on top. To adhere to the true restrictions of the C64, the whole look of the game would have to change. And tbh I don't really want to go that route since it's not a bug, and we're only allowed to bugfix at this point. I see your point though and appreciate the help :)
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Derron on April 03, 2019, 18:54:20
You do not need to take "pixel block color restrictions" into account. Just do not use more than the allowed 16 cors on the screen. So no darkening/semi-transparencies...

Might be that your game does then not qualify to take part in the competition / listed as vote candidate.

As the sprites obey the color you could at least remove the color adjustments and disable the ghost semi-transparency.

That grid/pattern overlay was just a hint on how to darken an area. I use a similar approach in the backgrounds of some screens in my entry Genus Prime.

Bye
Ron
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: Qube on April 06, 2019, 22:52:31
Quote from: craigd on April 03, 2019, 16:06:44

Quote from: Derron on April 03, 2019, 13:37:50
You shouldn't use semi-transparency for the ghost - the image above has 65 colors.
Removing the ghost (drew a black rectangle above it) I still see 58 colors.

Dunno how this happens and if this is allowed to get "bugfixed" during this week (For me it would be ok - maybe you did not "color pick" your colors but used a "looks like this green" workflow).
I did not check it further - but some "ground tiles" look darker: did you by any chance tint them individually ("SetColor 200, 200, 200" before drawing them to make them a bit darker) ? If so - just remove that tint ("bugfix").

Ahh yeah. I forgot to mention that. The only time I was going by C64 colour limits was in MultiPaint. That was enough of a challenge for me haha

NOTE: I've attached the dungeon graphics sheet I was working with (some test stuff in there..) to show it can be loaded straight into MultiPaint.

Once in the engine, I kind of gave up on colour palette limits. The floor is drawn at half transparency over a black background, while some tiles are drawn with even less, for a bit of variety. At full brightness, I felt like my eyeballs were being stabbed ;p

The transparency of the ghost was quite important in this game but I never got to implement that side of things...

Thanks for checking it out :)
Yeah, 65 colours is way above the palette provided for the C64 - Sorry but you're going to have to fix your game before the week of bug fixes closes on Sunday 7th @ 23:59:59 GMT. You posted the correct sprite sheet so you'll have to change over to that and get rid of any alpha sprites as that increases colours too. As stated in other threads, if an entry has a colour or two by accident then that will still be valid entry but 65 colours will not as that's unfair to the other entries.
Title: Re: Fireball Dungeon (C64 style) - 8bit wars compo entry
Post by: craigd on April 07, 2019, 05:45:16
I've updated :)