Scorpion Engine

[flibble42]

I have Tiled but unlike Scorpion it can handle 8x8px tiles, but when you create a map/tileset from a PNG it does not remove duplicate tiles.


16x16px tiles also creates more tiles than needed, as the Spectrum is 8x8 you can get 4 different 8x8 in a 16x16 space.


The one upside is that 8x8 would not be a performance hit as the game does not scroll smooth or flip, it just redraws the whole screen.


This is the PNG in question

[earok]

Welcome flibble42,

There's no planned support for 8x8 because everything is designed around the Amiga hardware (eg blitting in 16 pixel wide strips).

My suggestion would be to rework the map into 16x16 constraints if possible, if it comes to it the slope function might be useful for making platforms that occupy the bottom 8 pixels of a 16 pixel block.

[earok]

Latest check in to experimental branch, bug fixes only:

- Bug where negative gravity settings wouldn't save on platform actors in editor
- Fix for actors "snapping" on to slopes when falling near them
- Fix for bug where sometimes sprite parallax breaks other sprites and bottom panels
- Rewrote some of the multiplex routine from Blitz->ASM for efficiency

[flibble42]

Well, this is giving me a headache. I can't even fathom a process to rework the levels, there are some very clever (for a Spectrum) depth effects that need the 8x8 format, alot of the platforms are an odd number of tiles, Dan's feet are sometimes hidden behind half the platform, doors, multiple elevator configurations etc

The main characters, only 3, Dan, Treen and Drone are sprites the Amiga can handle easily as they are larger than 16x16px.

I thought this would be a relatively simple first project, another case of ambition out-stripping ability..

I'll think on it for a while, sometimes a eureka moment comes up, i'm the sort of person who has to be able to see the solution in his head before anything gets done.

I'll leave you with a speed run of the game so if people are curious they can see how it works.


[ Show youtube player ]

I do have something else i would like to work on, just to figure out sprites and stuff (its arcade so 16x16 i think) Psycho Nics Oscar, love the way the game looks, can't find any usefull assets though.

Anyway all that said, thank you for your hard work, this is truly an awesome package you have created, it's nice to see the enthusiasm it has created in the community.

[acidbottle]

yup nothing is as straight forward as it seems sometimes!

Have a small pile of aborted games with Scorpion, though learn a lot just tinkering with ideas. Once something is figured out, the logic can always be used on another project.

There is the Psycho-nics Oscar maps on VGM but perhaps some ingenious soul can rip the sprites with MAME, have a look at the sprite resource section of this board. Seems like a soild game, will be a few things to figure out but looks mostly do-able.

I think with ports, unless you reverse engineer the actual arcade game code, you may have to accept a few compromises to, many probably wouldn't even notice! (some will though ha)

@earok - Another cracking update, much appreciated

The issue that I badly tried to explain earlier on the stream has been identified, though it either started on a recent build or is just odd that I never noticed it before! Basically, I just need to add another layer of sky to the map and sprites no longer appear to leave the top edge of the game area ..

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by flibble42

Well, this is giving me a headache. I can't even fathom a process to rework the levels, there are some very clever (for a Spectrum) depth effects that need the 8x8 format, alot of the platforms are an odd number of tiles, Dan's feet are sometimes hidden behind half the platform, doors, multiple elevator configurations etc

In some cases you could get around since TilEd use layers, but maybe not on all cases; sometimes you might need static bobs with high z-index placed strategically

[flibble42]

Ok, i have an idea where to start on Dan Dare, it's probably gonna be a big job. I will have to manually remove all background elements from the tile set and fill in the transparent colour where needed.


This could give me the choice between original background or maybe a parallax one if i changed it to a scroller.


We'll see how the editing goes first.


I'm also downloading all of Earok's past YouTube videos to see if i can pick up anything.

[griffon]

From what I can see, this Dan Dare game can be easily adapted to 16x16 blocks. Ofcourse conversions take much longer than one usually thinks haha. I also have to say that one is a quite impressive game for a Spectrum, the programmer did a masterful job in etting around the 2-colors-per-cell limitation!

[flibble42]

Yes it is impressive what he came up with.



At first sight i would agree on the 16x16 thing, run the png i posted thru Scorpion. Interesting results, it removes duplicate tiles but creates random ones because platforms and vertical elements are not in uniforn positions (this is not Scorpions fault).


I suppose if i where willing to rearrange the platforms and such it could be easily done but i really want to keep the Spectrum layout.


Feel free to have a go yourself, this is just a learning experience for me, no real attachment to the project, input is welcome.

[FrozenWell]

@flibble42 you've got me thinking about Dan dare now, I'll have to give it a play again today

[flibble42]

Can't help think an 8x8 mode would of made that Gunsmoke text thing easier, just sayin.

[griffon]

Originally Posted by flibble42

Yes it is impressive what he came up with.


At first sight i would agree on the 16x16 thing, run the png i posted thru Scorpion. Interesting results, it removes duplicate tiles but creates random ones because platforms and vertical elements are not in uniforn positions (this is not Scorpions fault).

I suppose if i where willing to rearrange the platforms and such it could be easily done but i really want to keep the Spectrum layout.

Feel free to have a go yourself, this is just a learning experience for me, no real attachment to the project, input is welcome.

There's no need to alter the spectrum layout, you just have to put a little effort and readjust the aligning of the pixels in the big map and seperate the rooms so they align the best way to avoid broken platforms. Since the game doesn't scroll between maps, it's easy to just teleport the player between them

[flibble42]

I don't know the answer to this, how does Scorpion determine what can be walked on (a platform) a whole 16x16 tile or the pixels in the tile? For instance, if the bottom half of a 16x16 is pixels you walk on the bottom half, if the 16x16 is all pixels you walk on the top? If that is the case there is no problem, if it's just "this block is solid you walk on the top" makes things tricky.


I just realised what you meant by alignment, won't work, even individual screens break things, not just the map as a whole, floor guns for instance appear multiple times in one screen and don't align to 16x16, wall guns are the same.


Also, in one room at least, the jumpable platforms go up 24px in 8px steps, not sure how to cope with that.


I'm starting to think this conversation should be moved to a new thread, i seem to have hi-jacked this one.


Also this..
[ Show youtube player ]


Cough 8x8 Cough I think i get it though, the data moved is the same, the setup time for the move is 4x so yeah..

[acidbottle]

With blocks you can determine the entire size of a walkable platform, 8x8 if you so choose. To get a map looking right you will have to manually edit it quite a lot to fit using the tile set pieces. If I have time later can have a quick bash at it to see if I’m talking nonsense!

[acidbottle]

Well I had a small bash at it, unsure if it was what you were looking for but its almost looks right ...

[ Show youtube player ]

[flibble42]

Where did you get the Dan sprite? I was gonna frame by frame from Speccy emulator

[acidbottle]

Am afraid I avoid most social media platforms, though often floating around here and twitch!
Dan Dare sprite was hastily ripped from some screen shots, no idea if its that accurate to be honest.

The above was a scroller, tho as griff says, could easy adapt to flip screen. Saimon is also right in that layers in tiled will help with a lot of the depth features, though with some of the scenery a static bob on a higher z order would work also, takes a bit of work but is a solid plan, if the graphic is repeated a lot.

The blocks I used were 16x16 for the platform, though with slope you can shape them to fit your requirement.

[Mixel]

^^ Acidbottles example is great! I’m certain you could make that (8px different height platforms) work using a combination of “slope” blocks (most easily invisible ones so you can reuse them in different circumstances) or in some cases invisible stationary platform actors in key places. Hell you could even have those actors spawn in and follow the players x position when activated by an invisible block trigger collision above, in case you had a weirdly long, half height platform you absolutely need to not work like slopes do for some reason.

That sounds like a crazy suggestion but I know it works as I have invisible hoverboards in one level of cmo to keep you at a certain height in relation to the background parallax.

As for the foreground layer, anything on that can be absolutely any shape?

[flibble42]

You do realise how crazy that sounds to a guy who is working on his first Scorpion project, while i understood all the words i have no idea how to do any of that. I have watched some of your dev streams so i know you know what you are talking about. Anyway i'm going to be away from the internet for about 2 weeks, i'll work on separating the FG/BG elements and then i'll think about the next step.

[flibble42]

Can a mod track back and put this Dan Dare conversation in a new thread please, Maybe Game Factory Dan Dare - Scorpion Conversation.


I think this is off topic for the Scorpion Engine Thread


Thanks