Opry99er Posted December 25, 2009 Share Posted December 25, 2009 Greetings all! I'm in the process of re-starting my Honeycomb Rapture game programming. I ceased it not too long ago due to frustration--- but after seeing the upcoming "Destroyer" prelims, I became excited again. I have a couple things to say in introduction here, then I'll post pix and vids later. 1) This game is in XB (I know, I know....slow) 2) I am hoping to allow for multiple players at some point, but for now, I'm just focusing on single player action. 3) This will be my second video game release on the TI-99/4a Here is the description/synopsis of the game, as it is posted on my game development site in Opry99er.com.... "Honeycomb Rapture is an arcade-type action based game based around the current global honey-bee crisis. Honeybees are disappearing all over the world by the millions, and your goal in this game is to personally take control of one honeybee at a time and guide them from the garden to the honeycomb before they get hit by aircraft-dropped pesticides or Africanized "killer bees." Each level presents an increasing level of difficulty as the frequency and speed of your enemies increases. Good Luck!" This is an early drawing of the main player SPRITE. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_mFqgErCIU ***This is an early implementation of some conceptual sprite patterns. Since, I have added JOYST support, 4 new SPRITE directions, (up and right, down and right, down and left, up and left) that make the SPRITE look much more realistic going in all 8 directions. I'll try to take a video of the updated code and post it here soon. Thanks all... glad to be here and I hope you guys can help me out! Owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 25, 2009 Author Share Posted December 25, 2009 ***UPDATE::: Also implemented the "lives" and "level" values in the top right of the corner... -The honeycomb graphic for the top right of the screen and the flower bed on the bottom of the screen are both on paper, but not coded in yet. Very cool looking stuff. The vid in the original post was just a tester for the SPRITES and "canola" field. I'll have the rest done up in a video here very soon. Thanks Owen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted December 25, 2009 Share Posted December 25, 2009 ***UPDATE::: Also implemented the "lives" and "level" values in the top right of the corner... -The honeycomb graphic for the top right of the screen and the flower bed on the bottom of the screen are both on paper, but not coded in yet. Very cool looking stuff. The vid in the original post was just a tester for the SPRITES and "canola" field. I'll have the rest done up in a video here very soon. Thanks Owen Very nice seeing "Honeycomb Rapture" in the RGPC I wouldn't worry about the game being done in XB. Actually some of my favourite TI games are written in that language. Using assembly language is certainly not a garantee for getting a great game. I Checked your video and am looking forward seeing more. I'm especially interested in seeing the flower bed. Do you alreay have an idea what colors you will use ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Thanks guys. As far as the flower bed stuff, I have to grab my docs.... I will take a photo of the graph paper i've been drawing on. I have it all drawn up for the most part, but not coded in yet. Game premise will be posted later tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Essentially, the game goes by level and the goal is a high score. Each level has increased enemy speed and every "other" level (or so) adds another killer bee. The goal is to take your bee from the flower bed (bottom left) to the honeycomb (top right) without getting killed by the killer bees or killed by the DDT the plane will be dropping. Essentially, each bee you successfully get to the honeycomb will give a certain number of points, and the point reward increases with each level as well. I am considering adding a bonus level every fifth level or so--wherein the bee is inside the comb trying to reach the center-- but obstacles will arise, of course. . A new level is reached when the player deposits 3 bees into the honeycomb. So---this is the premise.... Any ideas on improvement or suggestions on added "coolness?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+retroclouds Posted December 26, 2009 Share Posted December 26, 2009 I like flower beds A few years ago they had a game in the MSXDEV competition called "BeeZ". That game has a beautiful flower bed. It looks like normal TI graphics mode to me, so something as nice as that should be possible in XB as well I guess (*) Picture copyright Darkstone Team. MSXDEV'06 entry "BeeZ" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Wow... That's amazing looking!!! The ones I designed are not quite as wicked--- but could be... Thanks for this reference Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Where can I find "program-ready" fonts that I can stick in low memory like these? They can be CALL LOADed I imagine... If I were to go through and make up a whole new character set in XB, that would eat up a massive chunk of high memory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Update:: I found my graphing paper with the flower patterns.... What I came up with is very somilar but not as smooth. It looks like to me that the authors of this game also chose to use a 3x3 block for the flowers/petals. The one thing is--- the smoothness of the rounded petals might be beyond what is available in XB. I say that-- but I might be wrong. The four petals that go in the 4 primary directions look similar In their smoothness, but the four other directions don't look as good. Using the 8x8 pixel grid to make up the flower petals leaves my graphics lacking.... I'll do it up on the emulator and post a vid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 26, 2009 Author Share Posted December 26, 2009 Here are two more shots of the planning/programming phase of the game. The first pic is of the "plane" enemy.. the second is of the flower idea. ***Flower planning -the top right pic is of the basic idea -the top left pic is of an idea for the "center" of the flower -the bottom right is a pic of the "diagonal" petals... up and right, down and right, etc... -the bottom left pic is one of the main petal graphic... up, down, left, right. Already got the hex code ready on all of this... just gotta type it in. If you can read the code from this pic... type it in for me, tell me how it looks. =) I'll be away from the computer for a couple of days. Thanks Hope you like... hope to have vids up soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Trying to get the flower patterns right... In the above sketches/graphs, the "center" of the flower takes up nearly an entire character space (see top left photo)... In code, this looks blocky and takes away from the overall feel of what the flower is "supposed" to look like. Anyway, thinking of trimming that center down and continuing the petals well into this middle block. I'll post some code or a photo later this evening. Maybe a video by tomorrow. Any suggestions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Well, I then wouldn’t go for the obvious 3x3 character design, but a huge 5x5. Again this is just a picture off google, downsized etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 (edited) Good idea... But that would take up alot of space... Not only am I restricting access to the "sky" portion of the Screen, but with a 5x5 square flower makes my usable canola field space very very small.... I'll code it in today, post a vid... Promise. . Thanks Karsten Edited December 29, 2009 by Opry99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 (edited) On a related topic, I have just completed a short music piece that I will be posting in a few minutes. Hope you all don't mind it in code form... I can't figure out how to capture audio from Classic99... My dev emulator. Anyway... Keep your eyes out for it Edited December 29, 2009 by Opry99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Here's a 3x3. Just for inspiration. Of course you can use or alter it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Hmmm... Pretty. . I'll look into the color coding there.... Have to make the center in a different character set... Damn TI color/character limitations... Anyway, I can't use yellow due to the color of the canola fields... But black might be nice--- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 (edited) Thanks, they were both done rather quickly (using graphic software). Maybe theyre a bit too naturalistic. Heres another somewhat more cartoonish … Here’s a grid to help make it out ... Edited December 29, 2009 by sometimes99er Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Neato! What graphics software are you using, by the way? It might make graphics testing faster than defining characters, calling colors by character set, display at or call hchar, etc... I like both patterns you've posted though! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Neato! What graphics software are you using, by the way? It might make graphics testing faster than defining characters, calling colors by character set, display at or call hchar, etc... I like both patterns you've posted though! PaintShopPro6 and PhotoShopCS4. PaintShopPro loads about 50 times faster, so ... I like your approach though. Often I sketch things out on graph paper - especially when on holiday. And the retro feel of it all. Like entering a program from a magazine. Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Well, it is not always the most efficient way to do it, but it seems to work since I have limited resources currently. It would be much easier if I had a graphics program and a hex converter to take a 8x8 character and turn it into code... Willsy had something like that on his SPRDEF program, but it doesn't spit out a copyable code---as it is a TI program. Thanks for the encouragement, my friend. I'll have some music code posted soon. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 This is the BASIC format of the "boss" stage level... or "inside the honeycomb" stage... Still working on ironing it out and adding a few new accents 100 CALL CLEAR 110 CALL SCREEN(6) 111 FOR I=1 TO 4 115 CALL SOUND(400,165,1) 120 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,494,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) 130 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,330,2,659,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1) 140 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,165,2,440,2,494,1) 150 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,494,1) :: CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,523,1) 160 CALL SOUND(200,220,2,440,2,587,1) :: CALL SOUND(400,220,2,330,2,659,1) 170 NEXT I Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 I actually wrote this for a different game... A game I myself did not write--- but the fellow for whom I wrote this short snippit did not seem interested in using it, so I'm going to use it. . Just need to figure out how to get it into low memory and CALL LOAD it along with my other music for the main gamescreen and the title page. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 There used to be 2 german windows programs. One 8x8 and one 16x16 pixels. You set the pixels and get the hex code straight away. Can’t find them now though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sometimes99er Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Oh, here’s one of them ... http://www.99er.net/download2/index.php?act=category&id=14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Opry99er Posted December 29, 2009 Author Share Posted December 29, 2009 Excellent... Now we get to have some TI fun. . "I'm gonna party like it's 'TI-99'"!!! (sorry... Bad joke) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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