Hyperborea Resurrected - real AGA bullet hell danmaku WIP

[roondar]

Very, very cool. Looking forward to seeing more

[vulture]

That's just outstanding!

[AlphaAmiga]

Amazing number of bullets on screen, will there be a variation in enemy bullets, or will they usually always be the round orange orbs?

[aros-sg]

Originally Posted by Daytona675x

@all
The collision detection is almost a NOP, it takes no measurable frame time at all.


...


It's just a matter of detecting a pixel change at that point after drawing certain types of objects, that's it

So you don't do that pixel change test for each bullet (after it's drawn) separately? So each collision is a kill? Because then you can't detected if two bullets hit (double damage). And you couldn't identify and remove the bullet(s) that hit, from screen, so that it doesn't look like they "tunnel" through the player ship.

[h0ffman]

Impressive stuff. I noticed in the video that the bullet storm doesn't have any collision detection, that's gonna cost some cpu.

[lionagony]

I noticed just from the Youtube video that when pausing the player bullets appear less in number than when it's running. Are you using the same technique that a lot of console shmups use where only half the player bullets are rendered in even frames and the other half in odd frames?

[vulture]

@h0ffman

I think this has been answered:

https://eab.abime.net/showpost.php?p...4&postcount=12

@lionagony

I doubt he's using such a technique, I believe the "trick" here is the bullets' speed is so fast it looks like there's more of them.

[nikosidis]

My kind of game! We need some real fast space shooters on the Amiga. Keep on the great work

[Daytona675x]

@all
Thanks again, guys
Reposting video link for those who came later:
[ Show youtube player ]

@AlphaAmiga
There are bullet variations prepared but this orb will likely be the one that's going to be used most frequently.

@aros-sg
Exactly, each collision is a kill. It's a Danmaku, that's how it's meant to be played. Therefore:
- there's no need for double damage detection.
- there's no need for bullet removal.
- bullets visibly tunneling through unvulnerable parts of the player's ship are a crucial part of Danmaku gameplay.
I really suggest you check out some Danmaku longplay video on Youtube to get an idea what it's all about.
Here, for example:
[ Show youtube player ]
You'll notice that sometimes almost the whole player ship is occluded by bullets "tunneling" through and you only see the tiny ship's vulnerable point.

@h0ffman
It's just a pixel read after all the bullets have been rendered, it's almost for free.
There's one situation where things are different (not shown in this video but there are videos of the old (less performant) prototype from some years ago, e.g. [ Show youtube player ]
when bonus items are rendered, the same kind of check is done after drawing of every such item. But even that comes at no real significant performance hit.

@lionagony
vulture is right, it's the speed of the player shots.

[Thorham]

Never thought I'd see this on a stock A1200, very impressive

[A500]

I agree, very impressive stuff!

[Daytona675x]

@Thorham & A500
Thanks, guys

@all
Update
[ Show youtube player ]

What's new?

- spread shot
Fully loaded Each player can now throw up to 36 laser-streaks on the enemies.

- muzzle flash
Because it looks cool and somewhat distracts from hard hw-sprite switches

- collision handling player vs. bullets and floating enemies
As I said: no measurable performance hit

- smart bomb
The cheapest effect I could think of, but good enough I guess.
In the video it's triggered in form of a typical Danmaku novice auto-bomb:
if you're about to die it will be activated automatically, unless your bomb stock is empty, of course.
While the bomb is active, enemy hitpoints are constantly drained, bullets are canceled and you're invulnerable.
Note: for the video I always keep the 2nd player's bomb stock at 0. This is simply because otherwise it would constantly bomb if hit and make the video much less interesting :P

- removed dummy test explosions on enemy hit
Instead a dedicated hit sound is played. Maybe I'll add some sparks later.

- optional bullet canceling on enemy hit
Another typical Danmaku feature which usually applies to somewhat bigger enemies:
when the enemy is destroyed then all of the bullets that were spawned by it are canceled.
The good old Battle-Squadron boss uses that feature now.

- extremely optimized player-shots vs. enemies algorithm
As you can probably imagine, testing up to 72 player shots against a swarm of enemies kills performance if done the obvious way.

- optional craters for ground enemies and test turrets
Those craters got their own dedicated rendering system.

- some well-known floating popcorn enemies

Cheers,
Daniel

[vulture]

That's sick!

[Bren McGuire]

that is some amazing game!!!
i am not sure about the slowdowns there though it feels like they kind of break the pace

[hooverphonique]

"Torben B. Larsen", is that the same guy who co-developed Hybris and Battle squadron back in the day?

[Daytona675x]

@vulture
I take that as a compliment

@Bren McGuire
Thanks
It's not a game yet, more a test-level for the upcoming game's engine.
Those few slowdowns simply come from the fact that I'm trying to figure out the limits.

@hooverphonique
Yes, that's him. Guess why this test level contains quite some Battle Squadron badies

[vulture]

@Daytona675x

of course it's a compliment!

[aros-sg]

Originally Posted by Daytona675x

Those few slowdowns simply come from the fact that I'm trying to figure out the limits.

If it does not take too much frame time, I wonder what kind of intended "glitch" (apart from the obvious console like sprite flicker) would look best after blit-time-calc shows "likely not enough time to blit everything in 1 frame". There's some things probably no one has ever done:

- only blit every second line of each bob

- and/or on the fly half the vertical resolution (repeat every other line) with the copper. Maybe just for some planes like the 2 bullet-hell-bullets-planes.

- On the fly switch from 2-plane bullet-hell-bullet-planes to single plane. During 1 plane mode in odd frames draw bullet in white color, and in even frames, draw bullet one pixel smaller in yellow color.

- ??

[Daytona675x]

@vulture


@aros-sg
Unfortunately all those ideas just look ugly and/or cannot really be done.

- the blitting idea cannot be done with interleaved bobs.
- the copper idea makes the false asumption that the bullet planes are somehow seperated from the rest. They are not, you'd also uglify other graphics. Also, different planes are used depending situation.
- bullets suddenly just 1 bitplane: no, you must not change bullet appearance just like that. It's not just ugly but heaviliy disturbs playability.

But fortunately the final game will be designed to not have any slowdowns (unless on purpose, just like many Danmakus do when very difficult bullet patterns are on screen)

However, regarding your 1 bitplane bullets idea:
As I said before, I prepared other bullet types, that 3 color orb in the videos is just the standard bullet.
Of course the general idea to use just 1 bitplane for the bullets is obvious and there also are 1 color bullets which are drawn in one plane on even frames and on another plane on odd frames.
There also are small bullets which are drawn in 1 plane to form directional laser-beams by overlapping many of them.

Those have been prepared for certain dense situations or to have more variation - and that's the huge difference to your idea:
they will be used by design on purpose and consistently, not as a performance fallback "on the fly".

[aros-sg]

Originally Posted by Daytona675x

- the blitting idea cannot be done with interleaved bobs.

You can still blit interleaved bobs one plane at a time. But maybe that's too slow.

- the copper idea makes the false asumption that the bullet planes are somehow seperated from the rest. They are not, you'd also uglify other graphics.

Right, I forgot about that. Some days ago after seeing video I came to conclustion that it must be 16+16 color dual playfield. Hardware sprites (player + player bullets) in between. Some bobs in background playfield. Other bobs, like big mid-level-boss bobs + bullet-hell-bullets in front playfield. Bullet-hell-bullets drawn first, so only needs 2-plane-blit + 2-plane-restore (clear). Therefore this bullets also appear behind front playfield bobs. Palette changes in front playfield (big mid-level-bosses in different colors).