Inviyya - OCS Shoot Em Up

[invent]

Wonderful effort your great looking game Steril707, exciting to know you have almost finished.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I am not a huge fan of dithering on the Amiga, either. I wouldn't rule it out for my future projects, but in the end, on the Amiga I am more of a fan of that "clean japanese pixel art look" in contrast to the kind of over the top dithered stuff we got on Amiga games later on.

Well, if you look closely in Powder - at least on the levels i took care of - there is hardly any dithering, a lot of "juxtaposition" between colors, though because i loved R-Type style too and tried to expand on it

[trydowave]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I am not a huge fan of dithering on the Amiga, either. I wouldn't rule it out for my future projects, but in the end, on the Amiga I am more of a fan of that "clean japanese pixel art look" in contrast to the kind of over the top dithered stuff we got on Amiga games later on.

But to each their own.
The dithering in Metro Siege looks gorgeous, imo...
And when I create pixel art for the C64, I usually go for a lot of dithering, since building colour ramps with that palette otherwise kind of evades me.

Im very interested in the creation of pixel art and i agree with you about Japanese games.

I dont know if you've mentioned it already but what gfx program do you use?

cheers

[Shatterhand]

Getting the hiscore entry and list to work was a lot more work for me than for instance the scrolling. And it's a lot more boring as well.

I have a game with code 100% ready for a while now. I gave up waiting a friend to finish its main graphics and just finished them myself, now I'm waiting for a friend to write music for it and another one will draw a nice title screen for it.

It's a very simple but fun multiplayer game.

But the really funny thing is that I am nearly sure the code for its options menu is actually BIGGER than the game logic itself. And yeah, very boring to do.

[Tigerskunk]

I always chuckle when I read that "Oh wow, I got my scrolling going, will release game next week" stuff.

That's like not even 2% of creating a whole game.

There is so much shit going on behind the screen that you won't even ever notice as a gamer. I got so much more respect now for the coders of back in the day.

[roondar]

Yeah, the problem of getting the basics working (such a scrolling screen with some bobs on it) is not that much work and makes it look like you're very far along.

I suppose that's good for motivation... Until you realize how much is still left to do

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by roondar

Yeah, the problem of getting the basics working (such a scrolling screen with some bobs on it) is not that much work and makes it look like you're very far along.

I suppose that's good for motivation... Until you realize how much is still left to do

And that's why most people fail at exactly that stage and why we get so much "vapour ware".

People show off their fancy scroller or prototype of some BOBs moving, and everybody immediately assumes what they see is an almost complete game.

And the person showing off already got his positive reaction. But when you realize how much of work it is to get all that stuff shown "dynamic", plus also coding loaders, tools for asset creation and bundling, hi score lists, enemy spawning systems, enemy "ai", sprite multiplexers etc etc etc most people just say "fuck it", and leave.

Btw, I am not talking about you here, Roondar, since you are always making clear that you are making tech demos.. Loved your video about that free form sprite layer tech a lot...

[roondar]

To be fair, those tech demos started out because I just love to tinker with stuff and the Amiga chipset offers so much room to tinker with

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I always chuckle when I read that "Oh wow, I got my scrolling going, will release game next week" stuff.

That's like not even 2% of creating a whole game.

There is so much shit going on behind the screen that you won't even ever notice as a gamer. I got so much more respect now for the coders of back in the day.

This picture summarize the struggle:

[Tigerskunk]

Haha, exactly...

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I always chuckle when I read that "Oh wow, I got my scrolling going, will release game next week" stuff.

That's like not even 2% of creating a whole game.

There is so much shit going on behind the screen that you won't even ever notice as a gamer. I got so much more respect now for the coders of back in the day.

Originally Posted by roondar

Yeah, the problem of getting the basics working (such a scrolling screen with some bobs on it) is not that much work and makes it look like you're very far along.

I suppose that's good for motivation... Until you realize how much is still left to do

These statements are very true. It's pretty straight forward from looking at early footage of a game which ones will actually make it through to becoming a game or end up as an Amiga show case, I hate to say it but I still consider SOTB to just be an Amiga Showcase game.... the game is a pile of shit after thought.

In my opinion the key to a game is getting a good sprite driver up and running, when I say good I mean plenty of them all working independent of each other with animation.

I can attest that scrolling is a very small percentage of a game, the biggest and most frustrating part is the debugging, sometimes I look at a bug I have and go 'I have no idea what is causing that'... sometimes it screws with my confidence which when that happens is best to walk away for a while.

Here's a look at the number of assembler lines in Rygar...

Graeme@HYPERSPIN MINGW64 /c/Development/Rygar/s
$ find . -name '*.asm' -exec wc -l {} \;
Lines	File	Percentage
0		0.00
3002	./ptplayer.asm	8.39
1355	./scroll_horizontal.asm	3.79
1353	./round.asm	3.78
1070	./sprite.asm	2.99
1013	./enemy.asm	2.83
919	./sanctuary.asm	2.57
904	./hiscore.asm	2.53
895	./copper.asm	2.50
889	./round_events.asm	2.48
882	./menu.asm	2.46
824	./enemies/rider.asm	2.30
750	./panels.asm	2.10
688	./rygar.asm	1.92
650	./macros.asm	1.82
623	./enemies/lavaman.asm	1.74
601	./background.asm	1.68
597	./enemies/tribesman.asm	1.67
581	./stone.asm	1.62
572	./enemies/monkey.asm	1.60
538	./intro.asm	1.50
538	./item.asm	1.50
531	./enemies/giantworm.asm	1.48
502	./display.asm	1.40
466	./enemies/griffin.asm	1.30
466	./loader.asm	1.30
455	./gamenotes.asm	1.27
446	./enemies/rhino.asm	1.25
440	./enemies/dragon.asm	1.23
422	./enemies/ligar.asm	1.18
410	./unpack.asm	1.15
408	./enemies/drone.asm	1.14
405	./enemies/bigrhino.asm	1.13
386	./enemies/mutantfrog.asm	1.08
382	./enemies/villager.asm	1.07
374	./hwspr.asm	1.04
358	./score.asm	1.00
351	./enemies/giantdemon.asm	0.98
351	./scroll_vertical.asm	0.98
344	./enemies/evilcomes.asm	0.96
344	./interupts.asm	0.96
333	./endseq.asm	0.93
328	./diskarm.asm	0.92
327	./enemies/lizard.asm	0.91
322	./loadinfo.asm	0.90
306	./enemies/fireball.asm	0.85
305	./round18_events.asm	0.85
288	./enemies/cavebat.asm	0.80
287	./enemies/lavaspit.asm	0.80
287	./enemies/liztongue.asm	0.80
285	./enemies/weapon.asm	0.80
277	./enemies/fish.asm	0.77
264	./ropeline.asm	0.74
261	./enemies/special.asm	0.73
255	./enemies/crab.asm	0.71
233	./round17_events.asm	0.65
225	./tile.asm	0.63
217	./enemies/rock.asm	0.61
214	./enemies/ape.asm	0.60
210	./enemies/hammer.asm	0.59
203	./const.asm	0.57
203	./enemies/squirrel.asm	0.57
200	./enemies/rocket.asm	0.56
199	./bonus.asm	0.56
198	./round6_events.asm	0.55
186	./memory.asm	0.52
183	./music.asm	0.51
182	./setup.asm	0.51
158	./colour.asm	0.44
153	./system.asm	0.43
146	./hitpoint.asm	0.41
144	./enemies/skeleton.asm	0.40
138	./enemies/testsprite.asm	0.39
130	./caption.asm	0.36
127	./input.asm	0.35
113	./enemies/crowd.asm	0.32
109	./round11_events.asm	0.30
107	./enemies/reaper.asm	0.30
101	./linedraw.asm	0.28
95	./round23_events.asm	0.27
95	./round9_events.asm	0.27
86	./enemies/shield.asm	0.24
64	./round24_events.asm	0.18
63	./text.asm	0.18
50	./round5_events.asm	0.14
39	./tables.asm	0.11
15	./round30_events.asm	0.04

[malko]

Originally Posted by saimon69

This picture summarize the struggle:

, so true

[Tigerskunk]

@Geezer: Woah, lots of files...

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Steril707

@Geezer: Woah, lots of files...

Only way to keep things manageable mate.
Big files=Big mistake.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

Only way to keep things manageable mate.
Big files=Big mistake.

We are on the same page on that topic.

Just shows what a huge game Rygar is...

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Steril707

@Geezer: Woah, lots of files...

Originally Posted by Steril707

We are on the same page on that topic.

Just shows what a huge game Rygar is...

Yeah, I have thought a few times how big it stacks up against other platformers from back in the day. The source to those games though are not exactly laying around to peek so I doubt I'll find out.

[roondar]

The full source code (and source data) for Turrican 3 is online somewhere. That might give an indication.

[Tigerskunk]

Amitopia interviewed me about the game...

https://amitopia.com/interview-devel...yya-ocs-amiga/

[clebin]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I always chuckle when I read that "Oh wow, I got my scrolling going, will release game next week" stuff.

That's like not even 2% of creating a whole game.

There is so much shit going on behind the screen that you won't even ever notice as a gamer. I got so much more respect now for the coders of back in the day.

Ha! My head understands this completely, but in my heart I always believe the next project is going to be quick and easy.

I don't know if it's ego or childish optimism, but deep down I never really learn. It's just as well, because I probably wouldn't attempt anything if I was more realistic about the seemingly endless drudge required to finish something off.

[Adrian Browne]

Looks superb now. Physical release please. Immediate purchase for me.