Scorpion Engine

[Havie]

This is starting to really impressive.

Quick question - I know this is mainly Blitz Basic so is there any way to access the created code or does your engine only create compiled code? Obviously, if source code for each project were to be editable in Blitz then the possibles would be endless.

[earok]

It's been a little while since I've worked on it, because of Raid Over Moscow and getting a new computer, but I'm starting to make progress on it again. Latest commit to the git repo has a few bug fixes and minor updates (including the latest version of the PTPlayer plugin for Blitz).

Next steps - I need to reimplement the Zelda demo in the new visual editor, and then I can get started on the new Backbone importer

Originally Posted by Havie

This is starting to really impressive.

Quick question - I know this is mainly Blitz Basic so is there any way to access the created code or does your engine only create compiled code? Obviously, if source code for each project were to be editable in Blitz then the possibles would be endless.

I'm not 100% sure I follow - but in any case, there's no way to code Scorpion games with Blitz.

[Havie]

Oh sorry - I thought that the Scorpion Engine created compiled Blitz code with some assembler to support. My mistake - ignore me!

[earok]

Ah, not quite! How it works is like this:

- The Scorpion Compiler (Windows) takes script and converts it into a bespoke bytecode format.
The script is used for game flow sequencing (show this image, and then play this level etc) and for event management (if player collides with bullet, then do this etc).

- The Scorpion Engine (Blitz) then runs that bytecode on an Amiga.


For performance reasons (Scorpion games being able to run smoothly on A500 is a priority), a fair bit of the Scorpion engine such as scrolling, movement, pathfinding, controls is not written in bytecode but in pure Blitz. The bytecode side is just for writing custom events and game flow sequencing.

[Havie]

Now I understand - sounds very clever!

[earok]

Cheers

Posted another update to the Git repo for the visual editor version, it now includes the Zelda demo. The editor itself has had a number of bug fixes and enhancements, including the ability to set the position of menu options and UI elements visually (in a similar fashion to how the Backbone editor worked).





Over the next couple of weeks I'll start working on bringing the Backbone importer to the new version.

[earok]

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm getting closer and closer to a public launch of the Backbone importer for the Scorpion Editor (possibly this Saturday-Sunday), the video above is me running through a "from scratch" conversion of Chaos Guns BB (thanks to Tsak for allowing me to use the source) and then running it in WinUAE without any manual tweaks.


There's a whole bunch of caveats for importing a BB project into Scorpion.

- Scorpion doesn't 100% support everything Backbone does (yet), in particular: 32x32 wide tiles, copper list gradients, control options, multiple x resolutions - and I'm not sure I'd ever want to implement all of those in the engine.

- I've only tested it on Chaos Guns and TOG1, anything other than that is not guaranteed to work (and I've certainly not attempted to convert a platformer). For most other BB games it's possible that either the conversion might fail, or it might fail to compile after the conversion. I'm happy to try and do a test conversion of a BB game if you send me a copy of your BB environment and projects, (which in turn would help me to iron out more bugs from the converter)

- The video demonstrates more than a few bugs that'd need to be manually corrected, such as collision rectangles, unusual AI behavior (the turrets being completely broken in particular), certain events not triggering consistently, tiles that should be animated but aren't, and weapon fire offsets. Most of those can be fixed one way or another in the visual editor.



EDIT: Latest version with draft backbone importer is up at https://github.com/earok/scorpion-editor-demos

[earok]

New demo game for the git repository.

"RepairWare" is a port of a recent 48 hour global game jam game by Sergio Cornaga.

[ Show youtube player ]

It may seem a little odd including a simple and short demo when the other demos are partial remakes of more complex games - but it demonstrates that Scorpion can handle a wide variety of gameplay styles (bear in mind that the original game was never designed around Scorpions's constraints), and the simple nature allows the code to be easy to understand and follow.

As with all of the other demos, all source code and assets are included so that anyone can hack around with it.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

[ Show youtube player ]

I'm getting closer and closer to a public launch of the Backbone importer for the Scorpion Editor (possibly this Saturday-Sunday), the video above is me running through a "from scratch" conversion of Chaos Guns BB (thanks to Tsak for allowing me to use the source) and then running it in WinUAE without any manual tweaks.


There's a whole bunch of caveats for importing a BB project into Scorpion.

- Scorpion doesn't 100% support everything Backbone does (yet), in particular: 32x32 wide tiles, copper list gradients, control options, multiple x resolutions - and I'm not sure I'd ever want to implement all of those in the engine.

- I've only tested it on Chaos Guns and TOG1, anything other than that is not guaranteed to work (and I've certainly not attempted to convert a platformer). For most other BB games it's possible that either the conversion might fail, or it might fail to compile after the conversion. I'm happy to try and do a test conversion of a BB game if you send me a copy of your BB environment and projects, (which in turn would help me to iron out more bugs from the converter)

- The video demonstrates more than a few bugs that'd need to be manually corrected, such as collision rectangles, unusual AI behavior (the turrets being completely broken in particular), certain events not triggering consistently, tiles that should be animated but aren't, and weapon fire offsets. Most of those can be fixed one way or another in the visual editor.



EDIT: Latest version with draft backbone importer is up at https://github.com/earok/scorpion-editor-demos

Well I for one am very excited about this

Tsak knows how much I enjoyed Chaos Guns

...and it's extremely rare that I ever find a Backbone game enjoyable; but this was next level.

[Tsak]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Well I for one am very excited about this

Tsak knows how much I enjoyed Chaos Guns

...and it's extremely rare that I ever find a Backbone game enjoyable; but this was next level.

Thanks

Well, let's just say for now that this engine is a game-changer to the possibilities it adds in regards to our toolkit. It surely renders games like Chaos Guns (at least in the design format that was shown in the Backbone demo) doable.

[earok]

New update time - apologies about the audio quality!

[ Show youtube player ]

Asides from a raft of bug fixes, there's now a new early Mario demo as well as a sprite sheet importer.


The engine's been coming along quite nicely lately, Tsak's been a big help with testing and giving feedback for improvements

[Amigajay]

Fantastic job Earok! This can only bring much better homebrew games and put to bed the other has been game creators that are too slow for stock machines.

[earok]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

Fantastic job Earok! This can only bring much better homebrew games and put to bed the other has been game creators that are too slow for stock machines.

Thank you!

Well, I certainly hope we'll get some good games out of it. But the engine and editor still has a long way to go yet.

[kriz]

Loving the progress Earok, keep up the good work ..

[malko]

!

[earok]

Cheers guys

I went in bit of a new direction today, and I made some good progress. The "ink" based scripting language was always bit of a weak point, it was both simple and powerful but still something people had trouble understanding (also, a pain to have to write and maintain a parser for, as well as document)

So I've come up with a replacement system that retains 100% of the power from the old scripting system, but makes it simple to compose code without needing to remember the exact things to type. It's still a work in progress, but the guts of the system is there.



It DOES mean I'll need to rewrite the Backbone importer again, sorry Patrick and Tsak! Hopefully it won't take too long to make the required changes though.

[DamienD]

Sorry for posting this in thread, will remove later.

@earok; have sent you a couple of PMs over the past few days. Would you mind reading?

[Tigerskunk]

@Earok: This is coming together so well...

[earok]

Cheers Steril707

I'm under pressure to add sprite parallax to the engine, I might ask you a few things on Facebook about Inviyya's parallax.


@DamienD I'll take another look at the ALG stuff in the next couple of days.

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by earok

Cheers Steril707
I'm under pressure to add sprite parallax to the engine, I might ask you a few things on Facebook about Inviyya's parallax.