(TCB) Scrolling plateform game

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ACC
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Post by ACC »

To Lachie Dazdarian, Roy & BadMrBox,
Thanks a lot for the tips.
About sound effects, I feel like customizing some code instead. There's a bunch of things I'd like to try. Sadly, this version of the engine doesn't have sound support (and will unlikely have it when the stuff is released).
For Vista, I don't really feel concerned; I wonder who's using this b***h anyway. I bought a laptop a few weeks ago... the "Windows Vista"'s sticker is still there, but that's pretty much the only Vista thing there is on my computer.

Eric, sorry I've skipped your message a little quick. I hardly remember SpinBall so I downloaded it again (I'm pretty sure I've played it years ago). One of the rare smooth scrolling platform I've seen under QB. For the window trick, it's more a reference to Duke Nukem (Nukum... whatever) it's the exact same size ("I've checked... twice... Jo told me to do it"). Tommy wasn't meant to look this way (and was supposed to be EGA too). I'm not close to the QB community and I was wondering what other games you made ?
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Post by TmEE »

This game looks really nice :) I'm definately looking forward to its release.
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Post by Codemss »

Lachie Dazdarian wrote:Codemss, you need to play more QB games.

But yeah, this looks really cool. Please complete it.

And then port it to FB. ;)
Yeah it is true that I don't play QB games that much. They don't work often. It seems like every game that seems fun doesn't work...
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Post by Lachie Dazdarian »

DOSBox?

VDMSound?

Any of this ring a bell?
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Post by ACC »

I'm more and more busy lately so I'm havin huge delays. That's why I decided (just like that, a couple of minutes ago) to release what was supposed to be sorta "closed beta". I just recompiled the engine with a more recent version. I've also added docs, tools and source of pretty much everything.

It never meant to be the final release I was hoping to do (this version only include a single level, menus and title screen are placeholders) and it feels a lot more like a tech demo than anything else. The truth is I'm very busy and I haven't been working on the game itself for a few weeks (but engine have been modified a couple of days ago). Everything should be back on track soon, but here's what I've done so far, just in case...

!!! Important !!! XP seems to have troubles to get a rid of the game once it's on your hdd. Don't ask me why, this problem do not appear under Win98 or DOS. Anyway, you can use Unlocker to remove the exe file. You can also do it manually: open CMD, open the Task Manager, kill "explorer.exe", use CMD to remove the exe file and then, restore a new session of "c:/windows/explorer.exe" with the Task Manager. Sorry for the inconvenience. Be sure to read readme.txt file from the RAR without unpacking the whole stuff if you're not sure how to remove it after.

You can download the "demo" <a href="http://gaarabis.free.fr/_acc/goodies/TC ... r">here</a>.
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Post by TmEE »

this is awesome !!!

I didn't toy much around with it, but the scrolling is little choppy on my machine (Celeron 1117, 512MB RAM, VIA onboard GFX crap (which works well for DOS stuff), Win98SE).

You should add joystick support too, games like that aren't fun to play on a keyboard !!!
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Post by BadMrBox »

@TmEE Download Joy2Key for gamepad support. It's good.
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Post by TmEE »

I have it, but I don't recall it working for DOS stuff, at least not in 9x... I think it even moved windows mouse and was fully active when some DOS stuff was focused...
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Post by ACC »

Just hangin’ around. I must admit, Dr Polito was way over reacting (“resist… resist!”) : after sitting there on my desktop for a couple of month, I decided to install FB. Really looks cool actually. But I’m not the kind of guy how’s into burning the whole forest to kill a mosquito. If there’s any version 2 of Tommy’s engine, it’ll surely be FB but smaller project should stay QB (mouhahaha, I’m not a programming addict anyway) :lol:

Meanwhile, Tommy’s got a headache. Three levels are still to do and scripting a couple of enemies would be a good idea too. I’ll try to finish that ASAP. :?

TmEE: Unfortunately, there won’t be any support for joystick because of procedure limitation. Unprod2D v2 maybe… or not. But thanks for support and feedbacks anyway ! :D
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Post by TmEE »

procedure limitation ? I don't really think having about 10 extra lines of code will do anything undesirable, at least not anything else than speed... speaking of speed, you should make the game 60FPS not 30... its pretty choppy...
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Post by ACC »

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not trying to show some bad faith or anything but... (aoutch, it's starting bad)

Well, the source is there, I must admit, the engine in itself isn't documented at all and it may look a little messy (just stay away from the sprite system and everything should be ok ^^). Check the main loop (it's located in a sub called ENGINE.NewGameLoop), you should be able to see why it's choppy ^^: I'm using a cheap trick to keep constant frame rate on different computers, (TempChrono# >= ENGINE.GameSpeed) (yeah, I know, using TIMER is just plain lazy)

For the ten additional lines, really, I'm on the edge. Have a try by yourself (I'm not trying to prove anything or tell you're wrong, in fact, I did not even tried to add joystick support because I had tons of troubles to make QB45 compiler build the source and there was more important stuff to do first -- maybe it'll work and I really hope it will)

Thanks for not complaining about collisions (they are just that bad too). Anyway, just like I wrote above, it never meant to be the final release I was hoping to do (in fact, I wouldn't have made that stage of the work public if I had not these life(tm) issues), I've got a three-volume wish list and not even a couple of lines from it have made it to the engine.

Still, I agree, a Joystick support would be awsome (ho, and I should have patched up monstres script because there were not supposed to have that PainWait instruction when you hit them... yes, the scripting system is lame too for now)
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Post by TmEE »

64K per sub limit reached ? Move some more stuff to subs... I wasn't able to compile my MD tracker, I moved half of the code to a sub and all problems are solved.

BTW, you might want to use this method for timing (not too good either, but seems to work) : count frames, and after each second check how many you got and increase/decrease delay value accordingly... if you'ren ot using it... but your game is pretty dynamic so it migh not work very well...

anyway, well done. If you need music (custom MIDI stuff), contact me.
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Post by ACC »

I think pretty much is already in SUBS... The only way I could get away with it is to make libraries... I think. But no matter how hard I try, it always end up the same way. :(

I think your idea to use frame counter is good. I should have a try. But I doubt I'll change anything more on this engine, because it's just a sketch to me (I'm already working on some tests and it feels cool). But when I'll have more time... (hmm, i'm spending too much time on the net for someone how don't have have time) :D

EDIT: "anyway, well done. If you need music (custom MIDI stuff), contact me."
Don't worry for this, it's already on it's way ;)
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Post by ACC »

Aloha,
I don’t like to make double-post or bring back an old topic on top of the stack… anyway, I don’t know if anyone’s still interested in the game or whatever, but I decided to rewrite everything from scratch in FB a few weeks ago.
I already implemented lots of new stuffs (nothing really new, but improvements over what was already in QB version): better particles n’ tiles scripting, improved file management, debug console, built-in level editor… It’s far from being done yet, but I’m quite confident; It’s still 320x200x8 and looks very close to QB version except for the border how’s not there (yet ?). Also it should be easier to make it run on more computers than the DOS-compiled version.

ImageImage
ImageImage

!!! Complains follows: if die hard QB fans wonder, FB is NOT fully compatible (what’s wrong with integer and long anyway ?!) and use tons of protocols similar to C – I never said it was bad, but it’s definitively not the spirit on which Basic has been built regardless, it bring a bunch of new abilities hard to implement otherwise. And I don’t have the fun I had programming in QB (but it’s called “nostalgia” I guess).
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Looks great!

Post by burger2227 »

I have been watching this thread for a while. You have taken the extra effort by converting to FB. Hope all goes well!

Ted
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Post by Lachie Dazdarian »

If you read the right tutorials or just stick to -lang QB dialect, I'm sure you would have less complaints on FB. It's just the thing of getting used to it. It took me a day or two and after that, I was all a joy ride.
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Post by ACC »

Lachie Dazdarian wrote:If you read the right tutorials or just stick to -lang QB dialect, I'm sure you would have less complaints on FB. It's just the thing of getting used to it. It took me a day or two and after that, I was all a joy ride.
I shouldn't have to read tutorials to use a "spiritual successor" to basic. :?
I don’t know how reading a tutorial will fix the integer/short/long compatibility mess up or add the gosub command back again (yes, there’s no gosub anymore because it’s “a bad habit that make program unreadable” I’m sorry, but when a language is telling me how it should be done, it deserve a slap on the wrist… with an axe). I can't honestly recall why exactly I decided not to use -lang anymore but I guess I had a good reason.

Code: Select all

'Compile this program with FBC 0.18.5 (04-17-2008) for eternal fun for the whole family!
'I might be doing it all wrong, but UBYTE is supposed to go from 0 to 255.
screen 13
dim as ubyte i
for i = 0 to 255
  print i
  if (i mod 20) = 0 then
    print "press any key to continue, ESC to leave"
      if multikey(1) then end else sleep
  end if
next i
print "FB is just the perfection on earth"
end 'bwahahaha, just kidding, those lines are never reached
Meanwhile, I love the memory management and the way picture buffer is made (even if there's no way to use POINT instruction with picture buffer and you have to PEEKing memory) and the tons of graphical modes available and direct implementation of MultiKey and such… Of course FB is not flawless and I wasn't expecting it to be. But it really seems like developers decided to be lazy now and then. And that's just sad, because I'm sure it could be plain great.

Anyway, I'm more than half the way done so it doesn't really matter anymore.

That apart, I've seen your game on abandonia reloaded, good work there. :D

EDIT: Added fun code.
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Post by burger2227 »

A lot of people don't feel that FB is really a basic programming language anymore. That is one reason that QB64 is being developed. It also will work on 64 bit machines. It still has a few things missing, but it is rapidly moving toward completion. Hopefully in the next 6 to 8 months. (link below)

FB has, in some instances, decided to add features without regard to the complications involved. They also have a "clicky" type of leadership that ban people for little reason, so don't go to their site and complain. The KNOW it all already! Lachie is one of them!

Ted
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Post by ACC »

burger2227 wrote: FB has, in some instances, decided to add features without regard to the complications involved. They also have a "clicky" type of leadership that ban people for little reason, so don't go to their site and complain. The KNOW it all already! Lachie is one of them!
"one of them" ? Man, sounds like you're talking about zombies or somethin' :D. I've read the topic about that banning stuff already. And honestly, I really don’t give a ****.

As far as I'm concerned, it's just that weird fan-boy-like behavior I try to understand. Okay, let's put it that way: if you just claim everywhere that such product is perfect, you've got to expect people to drop it once they discover an inch of a problem, because they just cannot imagine what else have been hidden from them.
When I love a videogame/music band/movie/whatever and wanna share this stuff with someone, I give the good and the bad, I don't want him/her to be disgusted when he/she found out there's a bad part after all, I want them to be prepared for this.

I’m really trying to be objective when I give you my opinion on FB, there are no underlying tricks, and I certainly won’t say anything else about FB anymore since I reported every problem I had already. Fine if Lach’s not approving because I don’t care.

QB is like childhood: you do “as if” you were building a house (you’ve got some abilities but even bigger ideas). And when it gets wrong, there’s something to hold your hand and point out where you’re at.
FB is like being adult: you’re building your house for real (more abilities to do what you really want) but when it gets wrong, there’s no one to hold your hand anymore, you’re pretty much on your own.

Beside, I don’t see any difference between QB games and FB games/products. No matter how hard I try (except of course DOS/Win32 platform). They all look the same. Some try to use those brand new and exciting features like… incredibly smooth 32-bytes gradients on tiles of 16x16 (which always look bad in my opinion). Or using a huge render of 1024x768 to display a bunch of circles (?!).

All this (this little war, the banning stuff and such) is really nonsense to me. Word. (sorry for the long and useless post)
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Post by Lachie Dazdarian »

I remember GOSUB being a problem for me for a while, but not because of my code. It was because of a FB lib I was using that was filled with it. Not sure what is your problem with integer/short/long, as integer should cover it all for you. Just replace all your shorts and longs with integers. :P

What else? Ah yes, my biggest gripe with FB was the passing on ver.0.17 where all out of sudden all variables had to be declared and suffixes had to be dropped. But I managed to cope with that.
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