Discussion: Pumpkin Bros

[LeCaravage]

Title:
Pumpkin Bros.

Genre:
Platformer.

Original concept:
Yes.

Expected game size:
30 levels.

Team members:
Me (Le Caravage).

Targeted spec:
Amiga 500 OCS (512/512).
Will make my possible to make it AGA compatible aswell.

Tools to be used:
DiskMaster 1.4,
Seka,
IffMaster,
DeluxePaint 3,
and Diskdoctor.

Description of game:
Snow Bros like game.

[DamienD]

Nice one LeCaravage, glad to see you entered your game discussed here: Game dev diary -sort of-

[Predseda]

There was once a game in development called Super Pumpkin Bros.
Look here: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?p=363021#post363021

There is also a playable demo: http://aminet.net/package/game/demo/SPB_PRV

Unfortunatelly Nori, its original author, diassapeared. I managed to catch him recently and he even does not remember he was working on it.

[LeCaravage]

@Damiend : Thanks.

@Predseda : Yes, it's me. As already stated in the other thread, the first time dev was a complete failure due to my weakness in coding (the code was a spaghetti code and was uncontrollable). Now I try to remake it from scratch.
If it's a reason to disqualify the game from competition (because of the fact that I've already tried years ago to make this game), there's no problem really, just tell I will continue it outside competition

[DamienD]

Personally I think you are good to continue in the competition

...as you said you are starting the code again from scratch and probably just using some of the graphics etc. from last time.

[Predseda]

LeCaravage, so you are Nori? That Nori that I tried to send a personal message on Lemon a year ago and got an answer

Hi,
I'm sorry, I don't remember you

LOL

Good luck and I hope we will see the complete game this time.

[LeCaravage]

Now the little orange monster is able to explode and launch a horizontal electric bolt.
This happens only if the hero is on the same level and also the the monster must see him.
Need to tweak all random monster mvts. Like pacman, I mean, one monster is chasing you, the other go random around, one go up and down etc...
Was curious, but cool news as I tested how much 32x32 bobs could run without frame rate slow down.
15 bobs. But, but, if you count all little side bobs blits (dust, bonus items, smoke trail of flying items etc...) I will probably be around 8 may be 9. That's more than I expected, implementing the blit operations within the IRQ was a wise option, for this project at least.
I must finish little details about blue monster.

Next to be done :

Makes appear the monsters at the start of the level. Making warping is kind cool I hope, we will see if it's good when it's done.

Used my phone to fastly record the running test with one hand and the other hand the joystick (sorry for the bad quality video) :

[ Show youtube player ]

[alpine9000]

This is looking great! Can't wait to see how this progresses!

I am interested in your blit system. When I did a test of a similar system, the IRQ overhead seemed to make it slower compared with interleaving my blits with other computations in the main "thread" or just using blitter nasty.

[Predseda]

Will you reuse your original graphics from the demo? It looked fantastic.

[dodke]

That looks slick. The little dust animation when landing on a platform is a really nice touch.

[nobody]

Looks like there will be some strong competition. Probably 2019 will be one of the best years for Amiga gaming.

[StingRay]

Looks really nice indeed!

[Tsak]

Another great entry!
This looks awesome!

[LeCaravage]

@all : Thanks for your nice comments. It gives more motivation, and motivation is one key to managing finishing project -I guess it's same for all dudes taking part in this game dev contest-.


@Predseda: Graphics OCS dual playfield vs 8bits AGA, hard to make the conversion

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I am interested in your blit system. When I did a test of a similar system, the IRQ overhead seemed to make it slower compared with interleaving my blits with other computations in the main "thread" or just using blitter nasty.

I had the same problem than you, so I asked the question here. Someone, if memory serves, it was Toni who told me that irq blitter could be slowing down the loop if your blittings are small sized because the go and goback from irq takes a lot of cycles. So i never came back to it, until restarting this game. That's why I used rawblit in this project because my test using rawnorm was far slower. According to what I read in this forum, the best option is using copper but in a game in most cases it's almost impossible -or very tricky-. Never tried copper blit though, so I could be wrong.

[phx]

Originally Posted by LeCaravage

That's why I used rawblit in this project because my test using rawnorm was far slower.

Translation: rawblit = interleaved bitmaps and BOB images.

I'm still most impressed by the working slope movement!

[LeCaravage]

Fast little update :

-Bobs routine display optimisations.
-All behaviours and distinguishing features of ennemis are now written/drawn all on paper.
This part was far more fun and interesting than coding.
In the near future, need to write monsters code and see if my expectations are good.
Probably some of this features will be removed/modified depending if it adds to the game design.
Game design is also more interesting than technical struggle.

Here is a sample of one of monsters sketch & descrption :

[DamienD]

Coolio, thanks for the update

[LeCaravage]

Slowing down a little bit.
Here is a fast gif of an ennemi attak :

[malko]

cool !

[LeCaravage]

After laborious debug sessions I have something that don't crash after few seconds.

The collision detection now works fine. The bottom screen flashes when a detection occurs (just a test feature). Red screen for a projectile hitting an ennemy and a green one when the hero is touched by a dangerous bob.

The way, our hero elimates an ennemy is described like this :

Hit ennemy with tomatoes, after several hits the ennemy turns into a big red ball. To finish him, you may pass through the ball and it will be ejected, slams against the walls and disappear.

Need to make the smoke trail a little bit more bigger. Carefull because if the player decide to hit 3 or 4 big balls in a row, it will add a lot of bobs during the next frames. The risk is a slowdown, but I'll try to avoid it.
The ennemy turned into a big red ball stays levitating during few seconds before returning to normal state if nothing happens.

[ Show youtube player ]