Scorpion Engine

[earok]

Hey, no worries - I understand where you're coming from.

To clarify a few things:

Tsak has been working on the art for AlarCity alongside Metro Siege, and he is making progress.

When I'm working on Scorpion, I do consider it to be work towards AlarCity. And maybe Chaos Guns, and maybe some more ports and maybe anything else that could come out of the engine. I'm laying a foundation so that, when we fully get back into AlarCity, there's a strong and flexible framework for the kick ass RPG-shooter we always wanted.

So it isn't really a case of one or the other - working on TOG helped me identify key areas for improvement in the core engine, and these mini tutorials help me explain underlying concepts for the engine.

The backbone importer is mainly aimed at cases where a full game has already been made, and where it'd be faster to import it than to completely rewrite it from scratch (including the levels, animations, logic and such). But generally, although Scorpion may a fairly high learning curve (and I'm trying to address that through more tutorials, sample games etc), it's a far faster and more flexible dev tool than Backbone - the Alex Kidd demo literally took a weekend to put together.

With the Tales of Gorluth games, the Scorpion engine offers the possibility of playing them with considerable enhancements over the Backbone originals - 50 FPS most of the time on an unexpanded A1200 for example, without even considering what else we could do to enhance the game. In my opinion, especially now that the Backbone importer (for top down games) is more or less done, that is a worthwhile endeavour.

[Clydos]

Thanks for the clarification, earok! I fully support that! It is great to have a real world example to use in order to get the engine rock solid. It is good for TOG reloaded AND AlarCity! So keep on going that route.

[Retro-Nerd]

With the Tales of Gorluth games, the Scorpion engine offers the possibility of playing them with considerable enhancements over the Backbone originals - 50 FPS most of the time on an unexpanded A1200 for example, without even considering what else we could do to enhance the game. In my opinion, especially now that the Backbone importer (for top down games) is more or less done, that is a worthwhile endeavour.

I agree. Viddis ToG games are nice, but the non 50fps always turns me away from it. Looking forward to test the fully converted games.

[DamienD]

Guys, I'm not denying that Backbone is horrible and the fact that even on souped-up Amiga models, the games created with this engine run terribly and lack features / mechanics...

I just don't see why earok is bothering with trying to import these games into the Scorpion engine; virtually all are medicore at best and not worth it IMHO.

Anyway his choice obviously.

[saimon69]

In my opinion one of the reason is that so people can import projects they started in backbone in a more performing engine and drop that old f6r7 for good, with the advantage of increasing the Scorpion user base

[viddi]

Originally Posted by DamienD

I just don't see why earok is bothering with trying to import these games into the Scorpion engine; virtually all are medicore at best and not worth it IMHO.

I´m sorry to say, but now you´re going the trolling direction by repeating it again and again!

We decide ourselves how we spend our leisure time!

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by viddi

I´m sorry to say, but now you´re going the trolling direction by repeating it again and again!

Nobody is trolling!!!

Originally Posted by viddi

We decide ourselves how we spend our leisure time!

My concern, as mentioned, is that some of earok's other projects that people have supported / paid for years ago could be affected by wasting time trying to import from a rubbish game engine. I'm really struggling to comprehend how this moves development of the Scorpion engine forward; more than likely actually prolonging it.

Considering the amount paid upfront and the time that's passed so far awaiting for anything to materialise with Alarcity; I think this is quite a valid point indeed coming from a person who's shelled out the money.

Anyway, I totally understand Backbone importing suits your agenda though viddi... and I'd imagine that you'll still use Backbone to create any new games afterwards, as that's what you know

[earok]

Here's the thing.

What's happened with AlarCity is a lingering source of dread, anxiety and shame for me. I'm often made to feel that, because I made maybe enough to cover rent for a few days, I'm perpetually beholden to the project and I'm not allowed to do or contribute anything else.

We've already made it clear that, for people who have lost faith in me or the project, they can ask for refunds. We've already made it clear that, it was a mistake to take preorders before we were ready to ship, and as such new preorders have already been stopped. We've already made it clear that the project isn't dead (and if it was, we'd certainly make no secret of throwing in the towel). But every now and then, someone brings it up and it's a new kick in the guts.


But that's my problem to deal with. None of that has anything to do with Viddi.

[DamienD]

It's not that I don't trust that you'll deliver on Alarcity, far from it... if I didn't I would have gotten a refund ages ago.

I'll quote what I said above in regards to Scorpion and Backbone:

Originally Posted by DamienD

...could be affected by wasting time trying to import from a rubbish game engine. I'm really struggling to comprehend how this moves development of the Scorpion engine forward; more than likely actually prolonging it.

I just don't see the relevance in relation to the Scorpion engine progressing.

Anyway, I won't say anything more on the subject besides what I already have earok.

[viddi]

Originally Posted by earok

Here's the thing.

...

Mate, you're such a cool and friendly person and you contributed so much to the Amiga Community. Your hacks, conversions and so on.

Amigans shouldn't be too picky because of the AlarCity story.

Yeah, it's a commercial product, but this is a small community and people waste so much money for other things.

Don't feel bad about it. We should be grateful for your creative output.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by viddi

Mate, you're such a cool and friendly person and you contributed so much to the Amiga Community. Your hacks, conversions and so on.

Amigans shouldn't be too picky because of the AlarCity story.

Yeah, it's a commercial product, but this is a small community and people waste so much money for other things.

Don't feel bad about it. We should be grateful for your creative output.

...and I totally agree with everything said here and have much respect / admiration for everything earok does.

I'm not having a pop at earok in any way or trying to make him feel bad; just confused about the time / effort being put into Scorpion in order support Backbone so voiced my opinion.

Anyway, it his choice at the end of the day so I will leave it there...

[earok]

Thanks guys.

Damien, in answer to your question.. yes, it did help a little. Scorpion could already do 90% of what Backbone could do (and a hell of a lot of stuff it could never do) at the start, but the project has prompted the development of a few more features here and there in order to be a more complete game engine.

But asides from that, a suped-up Scorpion-powered 50HZ build of TOG was something that some people - admittedly not everyone - wanted. So it was a project I was happy to take. To that end, it's not really a waste of time.

[DamienD]

Originally Posted by earok

But asides from that, a suped-up Scorpion-powered 50HZ build of TOG was something that some people - admittedly not everyone - wanted. So it was a project I was happy to take. To that end, it's not really a waste of time.

I have purchased all the TOG series so far; and yes it would be great if they ran smoother on lower hardware and had better hit detection etc. (especially Heroes of Gorluth)

[earok]

Well, that's great to hear . We haven't discussed HOG yet but that could be a possibility (Cammy's Wondergirl game is also another future possibility)

Anyway, mini tutorial:

The original game has Wurfstern (shurikens) that bounce around hallways. Due to differences in AI and collision detection, in the auto-generated Scorpion conversion they're a lot more lethal to get by. I figured it might work best if they simply bounced left-right off the walls.



Fairly quick fix to do. With the default MoveType (CPU), it just moves in whatever direction you tell it to move. We've also changed the collision type to 'bounce' so it bounces back in the opposite direction (rather than stopping against the wall). Changing "Speed" to "Speed_X" limits movement strictly along the horizontal axis (so they can't move up and down anymore)

[viddi]

Fantastic!!

[Tigerskunk]

Super nice..

[dlfrsilver]

that's basically the kind of tool the japanese used to make their games

[earok]

Took some time out to start work on an actual, real, proper, step-by-step tutorial for the engine. It'll be a partial port of Mike Wiering's Dos-Mario.



Don't worry Viddi, I'll keep doing bits and pieces on TOG in the mean time

[Dunny]

Hey just a thought, but could you do the Backbone magic with RedPill games?

All joking aside, Redpill is a very capable and promising system but it suffers from the same insane system requirements that Backbone does.

[Samurai_Crow]

@Dunny

Redpill is still under active development and hasn't been fully optimized yet. Are you sure you want to ask about it now?