Scorpion Engine

[earok]

@mixel no worries

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Latest experimental check in:

- Minor fixes for animations on platformer (in particular, prevent bug where idle anim can show for a single frame in the middle of a jump)

- Minor fixes for error detection and reporting when there's an invalid constant or variable value

- WHDLoad slave, it's not well tested but it's mostly intended for use with the A500 Mini (I won't be getting mine for about a fortnight sadly so I've got no way of testing it). It's a minor revision of JOTD's Generic Kickstart 3.1 slave, with the one change being that if "custom" is not set, it defaults to Scorpion's default executable of game.exe. Source is included incase I've made any errors.

If you want to use the WHDLoad slave, basically you just need to put your game in a "data" subfolder of where the slave is. I'll want to integrate it with the editor at some point so it'll be a button click to output an A500 mini compatible LHA file.

[domkid]

wow, super awesome WHDLoad

[earok]

cheers @domkid, still waiting on my first report of an A500 mini install!

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Nothing really much to report, but I've done a soft launch of 2022.2 (again) to the public branch. I haven't had a bug report in a few days and things seemed to be OK when I last checked. If I don't get any reports in the next day or so, I'll look at putting together a video to announce it, then I'll focus on getting my Patreon up and running.

[domkid]

Originally Posted by earok

cheers @domkid, still waiting on my first report of an A500 mini install!

yeah, I'm waiting mine for April 8th ;-)

[earok]

@domkit me too! That's the same date it releases in NZ.

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Getting ready to launch the Patreon and I realize that I haven't really made my position clear on commercial use.

I though that, instead of a formal license, I might provide a general publishing guide. This is the draft of it:

You are entitled to distribute games created with the Scorpion any way you wish (free or commercially), including with the free version of the editor, provided that you have legal rights to use all other IP associated with the game.

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You are not entitled to use any other splash screen other than the default for the version of the Scorpion Engine you have access to. The exceptions to this is if you are a backer of the PixelGlass Ultimate Level Patreon (in which case any splash screen is allowable), or that you have come to a special arrangement with PixelGlass.

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If you are entitled to use the Scorpion Engine Ultimate Edition, you do not have to mention the Scorpion Engine on your own custom splash screen, though we would prefer that you did.

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The future development of Scorpion Engine relies on voluntary backer support, especially for developing documentation and tutorials, editor support on other platforms, engine support on other consoles and computers, and ongoing creation of new features and performance optimization.

Although this isn't strictly required, ethically:

* All self published games with a small commercial run (say, less than 50 copies) should use the Scorpion Engine Gold Edition or higher.
* All self published games with a larger commercial run (say, 50 copies or more) should use the Scorpion Engine Ultimate Edition.

Publishers should contact the Scorpion Engine developers at admin@pixelglass.org to discuss licensing and custom versions of the engine or splash screen.

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You may not use assets from sample games within commercial games, or sell those assets separately, unless you have legal right to do so. Some of the Scorpion Engine games use assets sourced from sites like OpenGameArt - if you're interested in using those assets, please check the original licenses or with the original artists to ensure that commercial use is allowed.

All Scorpion Engine sample code provided is exempt from the above and can be used for any purpose.

Please let me know if there's anything you think I should change

[acidbottle]

Im no legal head but perhaps some disclaimer about your computer and damage liabilities upon using this software. Perhaps something about data protection and how your details are stored (if any). Seems less informal but it gets you covered

Looking forward to the new era!

[merman]

That was an important question I was going to ask you earok, seems to cover most bases.

[FrozenWell]

All seems fair enough to me although I have no legal knowledge

[coldacid]

Whenever anyone says they are not a lawyer, the proper answer is ALWAYS contact and discuss with an actual lawyer.

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by earok

I though that, instead of a formal license, I might provide a general publishing guide. This is the draft of it:
Please let me know if there's anything you think I should change

Do you know the rough price you are thinking for the different versions?

Also if I buy the relevant version but have the game published physically by someone else (Duckstroma,fairly soon), do they have to contact pixelglass?

Awaits releasing moths from wallet.

[earok]

Checked in a couple of minor fixes:

- Fix for issue where sometimes walk animation would trigger for a frame after doing an attack on a game where attacks are a "prevent movement' animation
- Fix for issue where compilation would fail if you had a variable that had the same name as a codeblock
- Fix for issue where the compiler would not recognise tiled "polygons" (only "polylines") as legitimate paths for CPU_Path.

Still some annoying issue with sprites/multiplexing which came up on Saturday's Gunsmoke stream, I want to try and get that fixed at least before publicly announcing 2022.2 as done.

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The publishing guide is not intended to any kind of legal document, I reviewed the NESMaker publishing guide and felt their general philosophy towards commercial publishing - with a focus on ethics and what they felt was fair rather than legal requirements - was decent and I should try something similar.

The intention is for "Gold" and "Ultimate" versions are going to be available on Patreon subscription, which essentially means every month or so that you're a member, you'll be able to grab the latest version of Scorpion Gold and Scorpion Ultimate (though even the cheapest tier will get access to exclusive bits and bobs like tutorials, downloads and the discord server). If you can't support the Patreon anymore, I don't have an issue with you continuing to use the last version that you were able to download.

The reason I mentioned publishing separately is I do have an informal agreement already with a publisher to receive a small slice of sales to support development of the engine (as opposed to a fixed amount), they would be able to use a custom splash screen with their publisher logo. If someone didn't back the patreon but did use a publisher that I had an agreement with, I would be more than fine with that.

I'm still somewhat undecided on the price of the Gold or Ultimate tier, I do feel a little anxious about putting them down. I do need financial backing if I'm going to take time off work to accelerate development of Scorpion, but I understand that not everyone can justify a monthly contribution.

[acidbottle]

Originally Posted by earok

Checked in a couple of minor fixes:

- Fix for issue where compilation would fail if you had a variable that had the same name as a codeblock

Very useful one for me that, thank you

I can appreciate you're anxious about setting prices, especially as worldwide economics are all over the place just now.

I literally have no intention of charging for anything I create, perhaps for charity if anything, though is debateable if anyone would buy my buggy projects anyway! I therefore would not justify going for ultimate, but really do want to support SE so will imagine many will go for gold on that basis.

Working on SE I guess takes you away from making money, though I really have no idea what the user base is just now, my guess is small as its Amiga based only. Can imagine the user base growing fast when it can compile to multiple formats, though I personally have no interest in any other platform (maybe zx spectrum hehe).

[UltraNarwhal]

Originally Posted by earok

I'm still somewhat undecided on the price of the Gold or Ultimate tier, I do feel a little anxious about putting them down. I do need financial backing if I'm going to take time off work to accelerate development of Scorpion, but I understand that not everyone can justify a monthly contribution.

Looks fair, especially as I probably wouldn't be able to do every month Patreon. Hopefully Amiga owners that don't dev will join it, knowing it'll help the possibility of more new games for the platform.

[earok]

@acidbottle Don't sell yourself short! You've done wonderful things in SE and I'd love to buy a game you've made someday.

@ultranarwhall That's my hope at least! I need to consider what I can do to make the patreon attractive to non-devs.

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Daily checkin is just some fixes for sprite cleanup, which was only actually relevant when four color sprites were used, but hopefully it hasn't introduced any weirdness with sprites elsewhere. Please let me know if there are any new issues.

[Mixel]

I have an odd feature request.. We already have a layer called foreground that Scorpion interprets as foreground.. Can you add a layer called Omit, Mask, Hide or something?

Basically i want a way to hide map sections by having a layer covering certain areas that will be discarded during compilation.. Its mostly for when I'm scrolling around the atlas in Tiled on stream etc and I don't want allll the secrets to be easily visible. That way I can still keep working on my big map but just toggle visibility on/off. This is getting more of a concern as i start tinkering with late game content i want to keep under wraps.

[domkid]

hey guys, I had some time, so just for fun, I worked on the SE logo, I took the inspiration from Tsak...

[acidbottle]

Nice work domkid! Both equally a cool take on the tsak design

[Mixel]

Are 4 colour sprites supposed to play nice with combined sprites occupying the same X space? It’s the first time I’ve tried but currently bullets and stuff (combined) stick to the side of the screen and change colour when occupying the same slice of screen as the boss healthbar (4col)

Or maybe it’s a z order thing? I’ll try putting the healthbar at the bottom of the pile maybe.

[flibble42]

Hi, i like the look of Scorpion and would like to learn how to use it. I have chosen Dan Dare Pilot of the Future on the ZX Spectrum.


I have a complete map of the game in full Spectrum resolution. Is there a way to get Scorpion to create an 8x8px tile set? If no is this an option that could be added?



Thanks

[acidbottle]

Welcome aboard the Scorpion Engine fibble!

There is no currently no direct support for 8x8 but a game can easily be created with sprites that size, though am guessing you want to create a map in 8x8 tiles. Scorpion uses a 3rd party map creator called tiled and although I do not have the tiled program to hand, its default is of course 16x16, though would imagine you can make 8x8 tiles with it?