A Jaguar game with Parallax scrolling

[Irgendwer]

If only the foreground could be done looking like stones.

 

http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=pillow+lava

 

[sack-c0s]

 

As far as the strange parallax is concerned I think the official explanation is that the camera is tracking slightly faster than the platforms, which are also falling but not as fast as the player. Or something. It may be breaking all the laws of observed reality, but you must admit it looks nice

 

Sorry, but this was the first thing I regognized when looking at the original vid. IMHO it looks strange and is disturbing.

 

 

'breaking all the laws of observed reality, but looking nice' is exactly what I like in a game - I think that's why the weird and abstractness of some 80s games got my attention as a kid.

That's exactly the kind of choice I like to see

[emkay]

Here a 1st 4chn try of the tune ....

 

lwng1st.xex

[emkay]

If only the foreground could be done looking like stones.

 

http://www.google.co...h&q=pillow+lava

 

 

 

What's the message? At the current state it is not possible to let them NOT look like patterns.

[José Pereira]

we still need to redesign better the Rocks but the idea is here:

 

-> PRIOR1

-> Multicolour PMs Mode

-> GTIA 16shades (other Levels diferent colours)

-> Score/nº of Lifes/High Score as PMs only that can be static over all the Parallax scrolls

(here no 5th Player enabled)

-> P0&P1 for our guy

-> P2&P3 for 1Enemy or 1Object in each Line

-> 5th Player Enabled and 4Missiles Oring GTIA Luminances

(a new thing/feature I have in Mind and show later)

 

 

All the sprites/Scores done by PMs. only...

Simonl what do you think?

I think that in this way:

-> Platforms: Luminances 15,14,13,12

-> Rocks: Luminances 11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4

-> Middle Layer: 3,2,1,0

we can get a real nice game... There must be a 'ROCKY' designer around here!...

(And late a Cannyon Brown/Yellow for other level, a Jungle Green, and so on... for other Levels.)

 

 

José Pereira.

Edited June 24, 2011 by José Pereira

[José Pereira]

Oops now the screen with the PMs on top:

[emkay]

I'd be a fan of using GR. 9.

Possibly we simply forget the intersections then. I wonder how to manage the mirrored graphics without exceeding the 64K limit.

The CPU could help here.... for a demo

Edited June 24, 2011 by emkay

[José Pereira]

It will certainly 'Rock!...'

And we have more 15colours to get other Gfxs./Platform/Levels with 16shades GTIA Mode

Let's wait for Simonl opinion...

 

By the way, you should visit CyranoJ Page and see all his Jaguar Games and Projects.

There's even one that certainly would be another candidate for GTIA Mode.

This time with Horizontal Parallax and same stuff:

-> The two Players can be 2Multicolour Players.

-> Scores above Gfxs. as PMs. only.

-> Missiles for some Objects and Enemys.

That is possible with some DLIs. on scanlines that change one GTIA colour into another.

The Game is called SUPERFLY and there was STversion in 2002. CyranoJ did the Jaguar great version in 2010 (there's screens at MobyGames).

Just a quick try to see how it could look in 4:1:

[sh3-rg]

The Game is called SUPERFLY and there was STversion in 2002. CyranoJ did the Jaguar great version in 2010 (there's screens at MobyGames).

Just a quick try to see how it could look in 4:1

 

Someone might already be working on a very cool version of SF for the 8-bit Ataris

[Heaven/TQA]

be careful with mode9/10 games... esp. horzontal scrolling games as we scroll by color clock/pixel size... and mode9/10 in TV fullscreen mode leads to big pixel...

 

but still fan of mode10...

 

question is if not PMs look strange on top of blocky mode10?

[Heaven/TQA]

for the falling down... you easily can test mode10... not mode9... so you could color the platforms and spice up the gfx not to look the stuff too monochrome... mode10 is so unused over the years... only game I can think of was Koronis Rift. and Numen Demo... that was basicly the reason why we used that mode in Numen. to have more colors and to play around with color registers.

[José Pereira]

for the falling down... you easily can test mode10... not mode9... so you could color the platforms and spice up the gfx not to look the stuff too monochrome... mode10 is so unused over the years... only game I can think of was Koronis Rift. and Numen Demo... that was basicly the reason why we used that mode in Numen. to have more colors and to play around with color registers.

I think that here the 15 more Darkest Luminance is what get this real good looking.

And if you go into other GTIA Mode, like the 9colour then you'll have the same PMs. colours of some of the Gfxs.

It end up with a 'not so free' thing in your Hand.

Instead of 16shades and lots of more colours and Luminances on sprites you will have just 9colours (as here there nor seems DLIs. are usefull).

The problem that you see here is that the rocks are not defined/designed yet.

 

 

That PMs. of Scores/Lifes can be better if you have PMs. in double width

In my idea I have:

-> SCORE / LIFES / HIGH-SCORE

and this is, in the same order:

-> P0,P2 / M0OringM1,M2OringM3 / P1,P3

[Heaven/TQA]

ok. fair enough regarding mode10 vs mode9... but 10 would enable you "flashing", "fading", "color cycling" whatever you can think of fx done with color register...

 

how many PMs do you need really? I mean the score panel etc don't need to be done via players...

[José Pereira]

ok. fair enough regarding mode10 vs mode9... but 10 would enable you "flashing", "fading", "color cycling" whatever you can think of fx done with color register...

 

how many PMs do you need really? I mean the score panel etc don't need to be done via players...

 

 

Karol for as ã game like this that are Vertical scrolling to look better and more Arcade type/looking you need the most scanlines as you can for the Playing Area.

And it is possible that if you put PMs. for scores over.

It looks more professional/Arcade like, that would be probably, the first time we have it and it's just a question of cjoosing the right colours/luminances and get there the PMs. in double width over the Gfxs.

The Gfxs. just go behind the scores... only 'our guy' and Enemys/Objects that cannot go on that Top scanlines (but this is possible...)

[Heaven/TQA]

of course score panel looks better "overlayed" but you can do some trickery...

boinxx9.zip

[Irgendwer]

At the current state it is not possible to let them NOT look like patterns.

 

Supply an other engine with other memory/charset restrictions and I will create something less repetitive. Ok?

[Irgendwer]

Someone might already be working on a very cool version of SF for the 8-bit Ataris

 

Shhh!

[emkay]

At the current state it is not possible to let them NOT look like patterns.

 

Supply an other engine with other memory/charset restrictions and I will create something less repetitive. Ok?

 

 

What's Your problem sometimes?

 

Some posts before, I write that the engine currently allows only pattern like looking graphics, and you start making a nonsense reply ?

Is it funny to do self annoying then?

I wouldn't have written "At the current state it is not possible to let them NOT look like patterns", if things were different

This was no critism to you, just a simple explanation of the current state of the engine.

It's sometimes unbelievable how people project their own problems towards others. You should sign to "Formatwar" and join others with personal problems there

 

Btw: It's possible to solve the pattern looking , if the engine allows something like "ASCII-Art" . Just aligning the chars with defined shapes to create bigger "stones" in the front.

[Heaven/TQA]

i have a weird idea... works like this... (came from Demo FX and Kefren Bars fx)...

 

160x480 screen in Antic F+Mode10... platforms will be done by PMs 4x size. the engine draws the parallax patterns at the bottom of the screen just ahead of the scrolling window... after reaching the end it wraps around. Can be there something nice fx done? but I guess Parallax nearly impossible due to different layers but maybe?

[sack-c0s]

i have a weird idea... works like this... (came from Demo FX and Kefren Bars fx)...

 

160x480 screen in Antic F+Mode10... platforms will be done by PMs 4x size. the engine draws the parallax patterns at the bottom of the screen just ahead of the scrolling window... after reaching the end it wraps around. Can be there something nice fx done? but I guess Parallax nearly impossible due to different layers but maybe?

 

I could see that working for a non-parallax screen, but I'm not sure how you'd deal with the parallax. I can possibly see a way to do it on the Amiga (irrelevant I know) by changing the screen pointer of a back playfield mid-line behind a mask of sprites (which would convieniently sort out the jagged overlap issue). Problem is I'm not 100% sure if the playfield address registers are latched at the start of a line or not because the subtleties of the amiga are not my strongpoint.

 

It's sometimes unbelievable how people project their own problems towards others. You should sign to "Formatwar" and join others with personal problems there

 

I see that and I raise you:

 

'we will not tolerate members insulting each other in the public forums. ... The strength of your arguments goes out the window once you resort to personal attacks. If you find that you often get angry when discussing a certain topic, we suggest you refrain from involving yourself in such discussions. '

 

and that's the last I'm saying on the matter to you.

[emkay]

i have a weird idea... works like this... (came from Demo FX and Kefren Bars fx)...

 

160x480 screen in Antic F+Mode10... platforms will be done by PMs 4x size. the engine draws the parallax patterns at the bottom of the screen just ahead of the scrolling window... after reaching the end it wraps around. Can be there something nice fx done? but I guess Parallax nearly impossible due to different layers but maybe?

 

That's another possibility. Not very useful for a game, I guess.

 

 

We'd need to stay with the charmode.

We have to find a solution to use the chars as much effective as possible.

 

Layer in the front could use most chars.

...

Layer in the back may only use some small patterns with some small rotating animation.

Blank chars here and there will fill it up....

[+CyranoJ]

Hey, c'mon guys you've gone from nothing to a concept, to a working game engine in around 2 days. With a music conversion. That is utterly amazing

 

Just because its based on a Jaguar game you don't all have to start fighting with each other

[emkay]

Hey, c'mon guys you've gone from nothing to a concept, to a working game engine in around 2 days. With a music conversion. That is utterly amazing

 

Just because its based on a Jaguar game you don't all have to start fighting with each other

 

 

This is not a fight. It's an old trivia

 

If emkay is writing 1+1=2 , then from an unexpected direction someone starts to moan "this bad emkay guy doesn't allow me to have 1.5 as a result of adding 1 and 1".

A whole forum got built on this . The only idea , I don't have , is to find a way to make them cleared that those rules were not done by me. I'm just writing about ....

 

So , do not take it too serious.

 

Just keeping focussed on the thread helps better

[simonl]

Too many posts to quote properly so I'm doing it "Twitter style"

 

@Irgendwer - I like the tiles so far, can you send me the images/data and I will link them in so you can see them in motion before spending any more time. Also, MK's idea to use the "ascii art" approach may be possible now (i.e. have the same number of chars per layer but lay them out over a bigger area with repeating chars) as I have had some further thoughts about how to implement the game engine while keeping RAM usage down for 16k machines, so let's establish that first. This would also enable the "pseudo 3d" look analmux suggested - too many possibilities!

 

Would you be interested in also looking at the foreground objects? All players/missiles will be free for foreground objects, but I would rather not use kernel colour changes as I want RMT to run in deferred VBLANK during the game, and I will be using DLIs to change the HPOS of any objects like the fruit etc.. Overlap is fine though. Looking at the game videos I think there will only be the player (with or without jetpack, balloons and so on) and up to one other object on any given line, but I could be wrong. Need to spend some more time playing it!

 

@emkay - thanks for trying the conversion, as far as the music's concerned, I'm not sure that mod will translate well to RMT - it sounds very "busy" and I can't see how it could be improved on 8-bit without massive editing of the patterns, so perhaps it was the sounds and arrangement that were good about the original rather than the rhythm and melody. Have a listen to the attached mod files by tobbx (you could even run the exe's in the emulator while playing the mods). I think the "boss boss" one suits the speed of the playing screen while the "slow motion" one suits the title screen. IT helps that the samples used sound like Pokey square waves! Let me know what you think, or if you have any mods you think would suit better.

 

@jose - thanks for trying the GR.9 look - I think I will go with the 160-wide look for my implementation here but I would like to do something else in future with the char screen in GTIA mode approach, specifically taking advantage of the fact that for horizontal motion only two versions of char graphics are required. Anyway, would you be interested in helping map/design the levels for this one? I am working on the game engine at the moment, so let me know and I'll give you the specifications.

 

@everyone - the score will not be overlayed as far as I'm concerned. All pmgs will be reserved for motion objects which can go right to the top and bottom of the screen - if it was "Rightfall" or "Leftfall" it would be a lot easier, and masking the characters on to a set seems like a lot of raster time for something that only adds a minor visual improvement. I'll just stick an Antic 0 line at the top or bottom, with of course yet another character set. So, the choice is "top" or "bottom". Any preferences?

 

Anyway, I've enclosed a couple more versions. One is the startup title page so far - I will add some PMG smoothing to the blocky bits on the letters, probably a horizontal scrolling bar with the text information in GR.2 size. Also a kernel that's a bit less lame than:

 

BUSY                           STA WSYNC
                               LDA VCOUNT
                               LSR
                               CLC
                               ; Cycle with RT clock
                               SBC RTCLOCKJ
                               STA WSYNC
                               STA COLPF3
                               JMP BUSY

 

Anyone have any suggestions? I thought I'd better add something for now as you can't take an Atari 8 program seriously without a raster rainbow

 

The other is a slightly tweaked version of the main loop - innermost background now offsets at 1px/frame the other way when scrolling which I think helps the impression of depth.

 

Cheers,

 

Simon

downfall 6.zip

mod files.zip

[Rybags]

Raster bars suck - they're just too 1982.

 

If they must be used, the tubular type where luma goes 0, 2, 4... C, E, C, E .. 4, 2, 0 looks much nicer for not much extra coding.

Or maybe have PMG overlays on alternate letters and reversed movement on the bars for each.

 

Can the "Downfall" text be moved smoothly up/down ? The idea I have is maybe have the letters fall down one at a time, then have the entire logo go down/up in sort of Dropzone fashion.

 

Then put some Mode 2 lines under the title with the normal cycling of instructions, story, high scores and the like. Having some scrolling landscape underneath that would probably be a nice effect too.

 

Even if the lettering can't move smoothly, doing it by character boundary might be OK if it's done quickly anyway.

 

Score - I reckon the top of screen. Most arcade games do it that way. Bottom of screen you're really wanting to be keeping an eye out for new platforms and bonuses appearing and other stuff there would just be a distraction.

Actually, anything extra at the bottom would spoil the "abyss" feeling.

 

16K - Why worry? Unless you have some aspirations of entering a 4K minigame comp, just make it for 48K machines.

 

On that note, voice samples - could have a bunch of those, which could be loaded as segments after everyting else. Have the program do a RAM test and just quit the loading according to your RAM size.