SyntaxBomb - Indie Coders

General Category => Worklogs => Topic started by: Morpheus on March 01, 2019, 14:27:33

Title: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on March 01, 2019, 14:27:33
Here is my entry for the 8bit wars competition entry.

The game is called Gravitus, a Commodore 64 style game.

The idea: You pilot your ship to rescue lost terraformers in different missions on different planets. Your ship has limited fuel and simple weapons.
Each mission (so far) allows you to get used to flying the ship in increasingly more complex/difficult 'arenas' to locate the terraformers.

All the graphics have been drawn in MultiPaint http://multipaint.kameli.net (http://multipaint.kameli.net). To make sure that it complies with the palette and pixel restrictions of the C64.

I have tried to replicate the boot up and loading of a C64 game. Bitmap graphic loader (simulated)! You can sit and enjoy the music or skip with the space bar  ;D
.

Early draft of the tiles, the Title Screen, Level Selection Screen and a title screen video are attached below...

Here is a video of the first level being played.


Here is a video of the fifth level being played.


Player explosion and Game Over Screen video.


Over the rest of the competition I will be adding new 'Worlds' ie graphic styles and levels. I also will be adding doors and switches to add some more elements to the game. I am still toying with the idea of adding enemies to the game....

I need to complete the credits and instructions screens. I will have them done in between level editing.

Enjoy!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: 3DzForMe on March 01, 2019, 14:32:11
Oh my, people are clearly pulling out all the stops for this competition. Great work, gravity games float my boat!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on March 01, 2019, 15:11:44
Another high standard piece of work for the competition.   :o
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: GaborD on March 01, 2019, 15:17:21
Yeah this will be a tough one. All the entries are fantastic.
Love the attention to detail, great loading screen.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: iWasAdam on March 01, 2019, 15:35:57
nice gravity going on. and on a mac - YAY.

Really really loved the little waving guy :)
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on March 01, 2019, 19:36:38
lovin it  :)
this is going to be one tough comp to judge.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Xerra on March 01, 2019, 23:08:20
Fuck me! Bar just got raised yet again  :o
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: blinkok on March 01, 2019, 23:17:16
Superb
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: STEVIE G on March 01, 2019, 23:27:34
Looks great - my kinda game!  Bloody hell - I'm nowhere near finished!!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on March 01, 2019, 23:27:55
On a side note, it would be great if SyntaxBomb was plugged a bit more by members of other communities.  It seems we're finding our feet here.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: therevills on March 01, 2019, 23:29:51
Great job! Reminds me of Thrust (2)... that was hard as the objects you picked up affected your ship.

Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Qube on March 01, 2019, 23:49:42
Quote from: STEVIE G on March 01, 2019, 23:27:34
Looks great - my kinda game!  Bloody hell - I'm nowhere near finished!!
Agree with everything you said ;D ( back to tapping away )

Did you do all the cool music yourself or is it free stuff off the web?
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: 3DzForMe on March 02, 2019, 09:21:53
Quotefrom: STEVIE G on March 01, 2019, 11:27:34 PM
Looks great - my kinda game!  Bloody hell - I'm nowhere near finished!!
Agree with everything you said ;D ( back to tapping away ) 

Also a huge fan of Thrust games, so we've this, spy Hunter, knight lore esque game and Rick Dangerous esque game, amongst others, wow, the calibre of entrants is highest yet.
Same here, I've cracked the hard bit (my clockwork plum game engine), creating the contents demanding more time and drive than I'd imagined. Low graphics count doesn't really equate to less work!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on March 02, 2019, 10:23:45
reminded me of the rocket section of crash dummies ... got in that so i'll know I will get into this.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on March 02, 2019, 19:42:39
Quote from: Qube on March 01, 2019, 23:49:42
Quote from: STEVIE G on March 01, 2019, 23:27:34

Did you do all the cool music yourself or is it free stuff off the web?

I stumbled upon the music on a free site... the two tunes are by the same author...really work well with game  ;D
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on March 02, 2019, 19:45:35
Quote from: iWasAdam on March 01, 2019, 15:35:57
nice gravity going on. and on a mac - YAY.

Really really loved the little waving guy :)

The guy was just a super quick animation that came out really well. It was just for testing originally but he's not going anywhere  ;)
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on March 02, 2019, 19:50:27
Quote from: therevills on March 01, 2019, 23:29:51
Great job! Reminds me of Thrust (2)... that was hard as the objects you picked up affected your ship.



I'd never seen Thrust 2. Looks tough, the game was partly inspired by Thrust. I didn't want the picking up of the orb as that would be too close to a remake. I am still putting in more elements. I now have automatic doors that can make for some heart stopping moments when negotiating the arena!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: jonza on March 03, 2019, 00:05:20
Instead of thrust this reminds me more of a dos game AUTS, which itself was an advanced clone of amiga game TurboRAKETTI. Music really makes this so much cooler. Just like a real C64 game!
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on April 01, 2019, 04:57:19
bug report: just a series of error messages like this. Running on vista win Laptop/LP[32]
testing on my gpdwin2 and gpdnote2 it works fine though.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 01, 2019, 12:30:47
Quote from: MrmediamanX on April 01, 2019, 04:57:19
bug report: just a series of error messages like this. Running on vista win Laptop/LP[32]
testing on my gpdwin2 and gpdnote2 it works fine though.

Thanks for the bug report, I will see if I can find any resolution to the issue. It may well be down to Vista, I don't have a pc running vista to check on, I will endeavour to find a solution.

Thanks,

Aaron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 02, 2019, 19:46:16
A new version is up on Itch.

v1.0.1 - Sprites were not showing on World 1, Level 5.  :-[

Download from https://conceptalpha.itch.io/gravitus (https://conceptalpha.itch.io/gravitus)
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: round157 on April 08, 2019, 15:50:21
Hi....

The Windows version zip file is an installation file only.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 08, 2019, 15:51:40
Quote
The Windows version zip file is an installation file only.

Yeah I noticed that, but installed that way anyway lol.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 08, 2019, 16:56:26
Quote from: Steve Elliott on April 08, 2019, 15:51:40
Quote
The Windows version zip file is an installation file only.

Yeah I noticed that, but installed that way anyway lol.

Lol looks like Itch.io has confused my uploads via Butler.  :-[
ReUpped the Proper Windows Zip without butler, if you want to use that instead  :D

Cheers,

Aaron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 08, 2019, 18:36:13
130mb for a retro game - this even blasts my 20mb (which include 6 binaries) or Qubes (which contains a load of music too).

Hope we do not have modem users around us ;-)


Any chance for a lately delivered linux version - if you support a Mac then Linux isn't that far away.


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: 3DzForMe on April 08, 2019, 23:07:28
My version was a 150MBytes.... chunky for a retro game!

Love the loader and the whole concept - is it 32-bit compatible?
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Steve Elliott on April 08, 2019, 23:25:35
Quote
130mb for a retro game

Yes I noticed this too.  Quite ironic the retro 8-bit entries require so much disk space/memory.

Of course this is no bad reflection on the coders, but on the languages/engines they use.  Those engines are designed to produce a range of games, from simple to very advanced games, rather than being very efficient for one particular type of game.  Naturally what they lose in efficiency, they gain in flexibility.

Anyway, all that matters is what game you prefer, rather than technical data...And this is one of my favourite games.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 09, 2019, 08:53:01
The main reason for its size is the music, even though they are chip tunes, they are mp3s, which stored as Wavs in the data file. There's around 40 minutes of music to enjoy while playing.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: MrmediamanX on April 09, 2019, 10:21:19
QuoteThe main reason for its size is the music, even though they are chip tunes, they are mp3s, which stored as Wavs in the data file.

true ... one of the main reasons why I had to compress my audio to hell and back in order keep the overall size down, doing so can also enhance/improve loading times in some case's.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 09, 2019, 10:56:37
Stream the ogg/mp3 and loading times wont differ.

I compressed my ogg files with a lower quality too - as the retro sound didn't "loose" so much when I tried. Only saved some kilobytes here and there but better than nothing.
Filesize of the binaries were also a bit bigger than needed but I support XML, OGG, whole SDL thingies, ... and all this little stuff. Could have "stripped" the binary to save 10-15% on each (but the release was compressed anyway).
One of the lowest filesizes for the application might be with Jscript or so - as it can heavily rely on the "runtime" (browser) being installed on the users computer already.


For audio I thought about trying to play with .mod files (or s3m or so) but hmm. Time vs effort ;-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 09, 2019, 13:42:05
Quote from: MrmediamanX on April 09, 2019, 10:21:19
QuoteThe main reason for its size is the music, even though they are chip tunes, they are mp3s, which stored as Wavs in the data file.

true ... one of the main reasons why I had to compress my audio to hell and back in order keep the overall size down, doing so can also enhance/improve loading times in some case's.

I did try to compress them more but they started to loose some of the crispness. To me 140mb isn't really a lot of space, even considering I am running on a SSD drive. Some games written in other packages are half this size for a "Hello World" app, so I'm not going to moan that much about that. The music actually works out at 96.1 mb, the graphics are 1.2 mb. The rest is made up of code and the back end engine.

I've made a Hello World app, just out of curiosity and that comes out a 2.1 mb. So the engine looks like its pretty efficient at what it's doing.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Xerra on April 09, 2019, 16:59:45
I was curious about file sizes after I read this so I had a look at my game to see what kind of size it was.

The Mac zip file is 30mb - around 43mb when uncompressed.
Of this there's around 10mb of music, around 600k of graphics stuff outside of logos and around 700k in sound effects.

Probably not too bad as my game only had two music tracks and four levels of tiles that only scrolled up the screen whereas Gravitus had 12 or so which were all multi-directional scrolling.

So Gamemaker 2 has a bit of stuff behind the scenes which you can't really work around but it's music that takes up far more file space than anything else.

What's actually embarrassing is me finding a piece of music in my assets folder that I'd intended to use for the InvadeAload section of my game and forgot to actually put it in....

As for downloading a 130mb game being an issue for modem users. Seriously, Derron? Sure, maybe there are some out there somewhere but I doubt any of us lot really need to worry about the file size. Unless your broadband is metered - which is doubtful.

Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 09, 2019, 17:45:21
Quote
As for downloading a 130mb game being an issue for modem users. Seriously, Derron?

Nope ;-)

But: for TVTower I know of a user who pays for the traffic and is glad to get update packs only containing changed stuff (not a binary patch but better than nothing). Now as Adam made me aware Mac OS believes in the "update complete app-package or nothing" approach. Bah - it is like throwing away a set of screw drivers once one broke.


Music wise we could have saved a lot - if we did like Adam and used synthesizers or at least some kind of "mod/s3m/..." tracker music thing.

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Qube on April 10, 2019, 02:33:30
QuoteI did try to compress them more but they started to loose some of the crispness.
320kbps OGG for the win \o/ - I found that works very well to compress and keep the crispness and texture across all ranges. Did you leave your music in WAV format?

QuoteBut: for TVTower I know of a user who pays for the traffic and is glad to get update packs only containing changed stuff
Are your update packs incremental or can someone install version 1.0 and then download the latest update without having to do loads of "build up to it" micro updates?. I like updates to include everything needed regardless if I'm updating to 1.01 or 1.99.

Quoteif we did like Adam and used synthesizers or at least some kind of "mod/s3m/..." tracker music thing.
Yeah, Adam can provide us all a synth plugin + tracker app ;D - The problem with modern mod type trackers is that one sample of high quality can be bigger than a full OGG'd music composition.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 10, 2019, 06:14:27
Updates are based on last full release.
Devpatches might base on previous devpatches (they are upped more frequently).
Most saved space is as I can skip the music files.


@mod trackers
Did not know that. Always thought such a file contains the used samples + instructions on how to play them.


Bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Qube on April 10, 2019, 10:25:15
Quote from: Derron on April 10, 2019, 06:14:27
@mod trackers
Did not know that. Always thought such a file contains the used samples + instructions on how to play them.
They do but these days a high 16bit rate sample of say a violin can exceed the file size of a full piece of OGG music. The older 8 bit mono samples were much smaller in file size.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 10, 2019, 10:57:35
Yes ... and which one would you use for a retro-style music? the 16bit violin sample - or the 8bit mono thing the authors of that time used on their ...amiga or so ?

bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Qube on April 10, 2019, 12:07:03
Quote from: Derron on April 10, 2019, 10:57:35
Yes ... and which one would you use for a retro-style music? the 16bit violin sample - or the 8bit mono thing the authors of that time used on their ...amiga or so ?

bye
Ron
Thought you were talking in general about lowering game music filesize down and not specific to retro.
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 10, 2019, 12:55:23
Ahh no ... of course I talked about the retro thing.

If you were to use modern samples you might think about compressing them in a cool way: replacing samples in a .mod file with your HQ samples you provide only once or so (means you have 5 tracks with your violin but only one sample of it is needed). Ok, no one in their right mind would do that.
To save on disc space you could of course just stream your audio from the internet :-)


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Morpheus on April 10, 2019, 14:22:27
Quote from: Derron on April 10, 2019, 12:55:23
Ahh no ... of course I talked about the retro thing.

If you were to use modern samples you might think about compressing them in a cool way: replacing samples in a .mod file with your HQ samples you provide only once or so (means you have 5 tracks with your violin but only one sample of it is needed). Ok, no one in their right mind would do that.
To save on disc space you could of course just stream your audio from the internet :-)

But then you are back to your earlier argument; what if you are on a modem  :o
or paying for downloads, this would infect be worse if you're steaming them?   :-X

If I wanted my game to be fully c64 compliant I could have used a .sid file, but then I would also have to find a Sid player for my engine. Also I have no means to make them and I have no idea what is out there is free from copyright. So I chose to use awesome music for the game that sounds like it was from the era, intact the guy that makes the music uses c64,spectrums,GBAs and others to make his tunes, so its pretty authentic sounding.

So what is the actual point of this thread? Are you trying to say that my game is too big to be a retro game?  :-*

Cheers,

Aaron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: iWasAdam on April 10, 2019, 14:27:06
it really depends on what you call a "high quality" sample.
The reality is most 'clean - nice' sounding ones are only high because the source method of sampling them in the first place was aiming for a very high quality.

What you really need is access to original 80's samples (which were very high quality) and very small. and then use the available tools to make them sound better. E.G. mono sample has stereo applied to make it sound larger.

If you are looking at basic synth sounds, then you are looking at about 512bytes of data for an oscillator (sin wave, square wave, etc). Wave table sounds will be (on average) 64 or 128 times the size. but this is still approx 16k or 32k!

Most high quality 80's samples come in at around 32k - 128k per sample. most drum sounds don't have any extra fidelity above 64k, they might be better sampled and maybe have reverb added, but they wont sound that much different for the extra k's used.

amiga .iff are generally around 20k for drum and other samples 16k-32k

If we look at the most respected sample library in the world - The Fairlight IIx. You are looking at 16k per sample! and the entire soundtrack of the 80's was built on those sounds...

Fairlight Series III single samples ranged from 64k - 300k

Synclavier (the other 80's workhorse), had a much higher bitrate and much bigger samples (usually stereo and very long with high fidelity) approx 1M per sample.

But As Derron suggests. If you start with a good sample, you can then resample it to a lower bitrate (this will lower its size keep fidelity reasonably close - if not identical). And you could reuse the samples in different ways to give you more 'sounds'

I've just been through a few game folders on my machine and in general you are looking at 21k-300k per sample with an average of 78k. These would all be 16bit CD quality. any more is just a waste

Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: Derron on April 10, 2019, 15:38:02
Quote from: Morpheus on April 10, 2019, 14:22:27
But then you are back to your earlier argument; what if you are on a modem  :o
or paying for downloads, this would infect be worse if you're steaming them?   :-X

[...]

So what is the actual point of this thread? Are you trying to say that my game is too big to be a retro game?  :-*

Yes, internet streaming would be contrary to save bandwidth. Was just for the purpose of having a low filesize.


Your game is not too big ...at least you gave the reason (audio) and this is a valid point. I just thought it is a good chance to have a little chat about the topic "audio file size".


bye
Ron
Title: Re: Gravitus - 8bit-wars comp entry
Post by: 3DzForMe on April 11, 2019, 00:27:53
Quote.So what is the actual point of this thread? Are you trying to say that my game is too big to be a retro game?  :-*
   

Nope, not too big, merely observations