Jump to content
IGNORED

Final Assault - new game by GMG


globe

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

but generally I reckon a lot of people run Atari Cx40s and non anchored joysticks, which require two hands to hold.

Well for these kind of controls there's very little I can do with just one joystick. Even if it was Joy2B+ you'd still have to occasionally let it go and mess with keyboard.

Irgendwer offered one possible solution in post #24, SNES gamepad with shoulder buttons for strafing and enough additional buttons for everything else.

There's also the gamepad I used that uses both joystick connectors for simplicity  (info in EXTRA folder of game package)

 

As for the various quick turn options, these require further testing so it's hard to tell right now what may work and what won't.

 

16 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

But when you fire the rocket launcher and the BFG, the projectile seems to emerge from above and right of the end of the weapon rather than coming from the weapon "barrell" itself? This might be to do with the resolution and also perhaps the only way it could work.

Not the only way it could work but one of the instances where precision was sacrificed.

 

55 minutes ago, Beeblebrox said:

Now I am not gonna lie......... I understood the first 5 words! ;) (I am after all a mere mortal):grin: Thanks for explaining though. I pick up bits here and there and am always in awe of what you guys can create and run on the A8s.

Even if this was not meant for me I must say, don't worry about it. Heaven/TQA is all business all the time and I too had to ask and clarify some of the lingo.

In short he said that whole floor is same color so the drawing is faster.

When you only load color once and then store it as many times as required it's faster than load color / store color / load color / store color .....repeat for whole floor, but the later is necessary for the faked lighting effects so as usual it's all about trade offs.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@globe

Thank you for sharing two test versions of alternative floor earlier on. 

My feeling is that no dithering version makes for sure navigating a lot easier than the standard one, although it's not that attractive gfx-wise. 

The darker, alternative dithered version doesn't make it as clear as no dithering, but improves navigation substantially and maintains the original idea of the floor. 

Both of them help with the gameplay, to choose one is a tough call, but maybe darker dithered option would be a good compromise ? 

Thanks again for putting it up for discussion with 1.1 in mind. 

 

Spoiler

Nothing here really, just clicked it and can't delete on mobile web-browser ?

Edited by Jacques
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, globe said:

Well for these kind of controls there's very little I can do with just one joystick. Even if it was Joy2B+ you'd still have to occasionally let it go and mess with keyboard.

@globe  Sure, totally appreciate that. I wonder though whether the when it comes to possible future joystick controls it makes sense still to keep up, down, left and right as standard on the joystick rather than moving the left and right functions to keyboard? I am wondering now about the use of some of the keys such as Caps and the inverse key for the snap turning, (caps to snap right, inverse for left). This is because you don't use them that often but when you do you need to hit them quickly.

 

Strafing could be assigned to full stop and forward slash keys respectively maybe? As you rightly say lots of testing needed. With those controls you want those keys are that are ideally on the edges of the keyboard and like you mentioned earlier far away from RESET.:grin:

Quote

Irgendwer offered one possible solution in post #24, SNES gamepad with shoulder buttons for strafing and enough additional buttons for everything else.

There's also the gamepad I used that uses both joystick connectors for simplicity  (info in EXTRA folder of game package)

Definitely having the ability to use other multibutton controllers saves a lot of hassle.  I'll check out the Extras folder. If it wasn't for a keyboard that can't accept mulitiple keystrokes simultaneously a lot of this wouldn't be an issue!! 

Quote

 

As for the various quick turn options, these require further testing so it's hard to tell right now what may work and what won't.

Sure. See my reply above

Quote

ref:Rocket launcher and BFG projectiles not appearing to emerge from the end of the barrell

 

Not the only way it could work but one of the instances where precision was sacrificed.

no worries and understood. Was just curious.:)

Quote

 

Even if this was not meant for me I must say, don't worry about it. Heaven/TQA is all business all the time and I too had to ask and clarify some of the lingo.

In short he said that whole floor is same color so the drawing is faster.

When you only load color once and then store it as many times as required it's faster than load color / store color / load color / store color .....repeat for whole floor, but the later is necessary for the faked lighting effects so as usual it's all about trade offs.

 

 

Heh heh thanks for explaining. :thumbsup:

Edited by Beeblebrox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, globe said:

Well for these kind of controls there's very little I can do with just one joystick. Even if it was Joy2B+ you'd still have to occasionally let it go and mess with keyboard.

Irgendwer offered one possible solution in post #24, SNES gamepad with shoulder buttons for strafing and enough additional buttons for everything else.

There's also the gamepad I used that uses both joystick connectors for simplicity  (info in EXTRA folder of game package)

 

As for the various quick turn options, these require further testing so it's hard to tell right now what may work and what won't.

 

Not the only way it could work but one of the instances where precision was sacrificed.

 

Even if this was not meant for me I must say, don't worry about it. Heaven/TQA is all business all the time and I too had to ask and clarify some of the lingo.

In short he said that whole floor is same color so the drawing is faster.

When you only load color once and then store it as many times as required it's faster than load color / store color / load color / store color .....repeat for whole floor, but the later is necessary for the faked lighting effects so as usual it's all about trade offs.

 

 


Hehe yes. It is trade off… not just the CPU needs more time to render the dithered floor but more RAM as the collumn unrolled code block gets longer from memory footprint point of view.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

58 minutes ago, Jacques said:

My feeling is that no dithering version makes for sure navigating a lot easier than the standard one, although it's not that attractive gfx-wise. 

The darker, alternative dithered version doesn't make it as clear as no dithering, but improves navigation substantially and maintains the original idea of the floor. 

Both of them help with the gameplay, to choose one is a tough call, but maybe darker dithered option would be a good compromise ? 

Thanks again for putting it up for discussion with 1.1 in mind. 

Thanks for giving this a thought.

Looks like darker floor is going to win this as for dithering or no dithering, this time I'll probably choose clarity above looks.

I'll wait for a bit more if anyone else wants to put his 2 cents in, or some other bugs crop up before I'll start with v1.1.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, globe said:

I'll wait for a bit more if anyone else wants to put his 2 cents in, or some other bugs crop up before I'll start with v1.1.

Not much of a suggestion but you could use ZX0/ZX5 for compression it should beat deflate in terms of compression ratio (slightly better)/decompression speed(much better)/unpacker code size(smaller and no temp storage required)

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

28 minutes ago, globe said:

Thanks for giving this a thought.

Looks like darker floor is going to win this as for dithering or no dithering, this time I'll probably choose clarity above looks.

I'll wait for a bit more if anyone else wants to put his 2 cents in, or some other bugs crop up before I'll start with v1.1.

@globe Makes sense to see whether others have a pref. Mine would be checkered dithered with gradient as per post #164:

(Well I would say that wouldn't I heh heh!;))

 

image.png.92590465f7e2ca3a0b6d0cd02ece2ac7.png

 

and then the half bright dithered castle turret/tooth one in close second from post #141:

image.png.5a83868c4b8e9c3d28b58cdf74f6855f.png

 

I definitely think no dithering with just horizontal banded gradient just doesn't look right IMHO, (too plain and identical to the sky); and whatever is chosen I think the current full game 1.0 flooring with the lighter castle turret/tooth pattern will definitely benefit from being half the brightness.

 

Easiest way from a players perspective, (if entirely possible), is having the config menu option and some selectable floor presets (3 or 4 perhaps) so players can just chose. But of course at this stage and if 64K is still the target limit, then it probably not possible with this set of revisions. Again would totally understand.:D

Edited by Beeblebrox
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is there someone not playing with the game, but actually playing the game and trying to save the world ?

 

It can be accomplished in 20 minutes if You know where the enemies are, but normally in about hour or two.

 

Personally I am not sure if quick turning will help. It was already mentioned that more tactical and slow aproach is needed.

Look from Your current location, and use strafe/turn to look if it's safe to enter a door/corridor, probably wait a little bit if a patrolling/moving enemy won't appear... take Your time.  If you enter a'la Rambo style and just then try to figure out where is the attacker, it's too late.

 

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said:

Is there someone not playing with the game, but actually playing the game and trying to save the world ?

 

It can be accomplished in 20 minutes if You know where the enemies are, but normally in about hour or two.

 

Personally I am not sure if quick turning will help. It was already mentioned that more tactical and slow aproach is needed.

Look from Your current location, and use strafe/turn to look if it's safe to enter a door/corridor, probably wait a little bit if a patrolling/moving enemy won't appear... take Your time.  If you enter a'la Rambo style and just then try to figure out where is the attacker, it's too late.

 

 

@goldy/gmg aka lopez453 @globeSure, I totally take your point about tactics. However I am just thinking from the new players perspective as trying to get into any game you will obviously die a lot in the early attempts. That is taken as a given. But IMHO if you can mitigate against any possibly avoidable frustrations which can then put you off playing early in the life of the game, it is worth considering putting in place something.

 

It's by no means a critisicm of the game, engine or platform, but 3D games such as these on the more modern platforms in the 90s didn't have to contend with the lower resolution or slower turning because aside the full use of keyboard, they would have had a high enough resolution to be able to get their bearings or see the enemy very quickly. So where you have low resolution from the start, something as simple as having the option to snap turn would IMHO help eliviate this. The beauty is of course that players who wish to avoid using a snap turn function can do just that. 

 

I would imagine no-one sees this game as one you can charge around gun ho. It's definitely a stealth type tactical affair.:) However I've been caught several times in the same section of a grey area, where I know there is an enemy round the corner, I wait for the all clear, but it almost always gets me everytime because by the time it's firing at you repeatidly and you are trying to get your bearings visually to run behind a pillar for cover it still appears to be able to get at you. Each time I swear I thought I had a pillar between myself and said enemy. You then die and you then start right back at the beginning of the game. 

 

Again I am in no way critisiing the lower resolution or the engine or the FPS, and I am not advocating making the game easy. It's just for a 3D game of this type running on our amazing A8s, IMHO I believe that there are some functionalities that can be put it place to get around some of the inevitable aforementioned things.:grin:

Edited by Beeblebrox
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

I am not advocating making the game easy.

During development, Marco did already ask, and the released version is much more forgivable. IIRC: More ammo, less damage taken, more damage dealt , you can survive 3 explosions of "land mine"...

 

And Lego asked to make it even easier by using keyboard in a specific way.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

 I wonder though whether the when it comes to possible future joystick controls it makes sense still to keep up, down, left and right as standard on the joystick rather than moving the left and right functions to keyboard? I am wondering now about the use of some of the keys such as Caps and the inverse key for the snap turning, (caps to snap right, inverse for left). This is because you don't use them that often but when you do you need to hit them quickly.

 

Strafing could be assigned to full stop and forward slash keys respectively maybe? As you rightly say lots of testing needed. With those controls you want those keys are that are ideally on the edges of the keyboard and like you mentioned earlier far away from RESET.

Controls will be subjected to more testing and there will be definitely some Options screen for as much customization as possible.

One thing I don't want to happen.

Filling half the keyboard with various specialized controls because I don't want to force players to learn to play organ just to be able to do something in game.

Simple is best (as much as conditions allow).

 

9 hours ago, rensoup said:

Not much of a suggestion but you could use ZX0/ZX5 for compression it should beat deflate in terms of compression ratio (slightly better)/decompression speed(much better)/unpacker code size(smaller and no temp storage required)

Thank you, I'll look into it.

Especially the smaller depacker without temp is something valuable for me, though I really like ease of use of deflate, easy packing with 7zip and couple of batches.

 

8 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

However I am just thinking from the new players perspective as trying to get into any game you will obviously die a lot in the early attempts.

Yeah. 8bit game - 8bit difficulty level:) no quick saves, no initial hand holding with interactive tutorials (there would be if I could cram it in;_;)

 

8 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Again I am in no way critisiing the lower resolution or the engine or the FPS, and I am not advocating making the game easy. It's just for a 3D game of this type running on our amazing A8s, IMHO I believe that there are some functionalities that can be put it place to get around some of the inevitable aforementioned things.

Criticize ahead. It's clear to see that visual fidelity improvement would help a lot in the game play department too.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 hours ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said:

And Lego asked to make it even easier by using keyboard in a specific way.

You have to be a little more specific, this is way too vague:)

 

There is a hint in the game webpage for players that want to take it easy and explore instead of desperately fighting for their lives.

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

32 minutes ago, globe said:

Criticize ahead. It's clear to see that visual fidelity improvement would help a lot in the game play department too.

This single comment highlights that you accept and understand the the community is essentially your focus group, and rather than become offended and ignorant you accept the criticism and choose to do your best to make your development better based on the opinions of the community, without insults.

 

Impressive, you definitely have my respect. Great work. ?

Edited by Mazzspeed
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, globe said:

Controls will be subjected to more testing and there will be definitely some Options screen for as much customization as possible.

@globe Great. Re: options/config customisation screen - that is most welcome :thumbsup:- many thanks :D

Quote

One thing I don't want to happen.

Filling half the keyboard with various specialized controls because I don't want to force players to learn to play organ just to be able to do something in game.

Simple is best (as much as conditions allow).

Absolutely, totally agree. An just to say with the snap turn you are talking 2 x keys. There is also the consideration that over if overall you appear to have many keys mapped, there are some keys that obviously are hardly ever used, if at all - ie the proximity mine detector on and off toggle keys. IMHO it's only really minimising the number of regularly used keys which would be the key, (no pun intended). A lot of keys are very easy to remember as well (weapons 1-5 keys).  I recall trying to master Elite Dangerous on my laptop a few years back with my HOTAS flight stick. Damn it was a nightmare.;)

 

Another thing I'd thought of ties in with another post somewhere on AA regarding the old CX21 Atari video touch pad controller which was used for Star Raiders on the 2600. They made a driver as it were for the A8 to use it. Not saying you do this but you could even use that for preassigned functions. Since it is on a long cable as is a joystick, it would actually work quite well in tandem with the latter. Plus they are dirt cheap to buy on ebay - and there are many out there by all accounts. Beauty is that single buttons could be used to toggle some functions on and off and also two buttons could be used to "cycle up and down" through the weapons, or just assign 1 button to each weapon. Either way with 12 buttons at your disposal it could be a great addition. Even if not for this game, future games in this genre and or using this engine.

 

Then you could even have players create the overlays themselves fairly easily:

 

image.jpeg.b6cd3c8c4f092be6fbc2282422233169.jpeg   

 

Just spent 5mins mocking this up for fun:

image.thumb.png.14fa7b1ed7d1d5840eeb487505f35ff7.png

 

:D An yes, I won't give up my day job to become a digital graphics artist heh heh :lol:

Quote

 

Thank you, I'll look into it.

Especially the smaller depacker without temp is something valuable for me, though I really like ease of use of deflate, easy packing with 7zip and couple of batches.

Sounds great. There are some amazing algorythms available and a whole section on AA dedicated to compression as you are no doubt aware.

Quote

 

Criticize ahead. It's clear to see that visual fidelity improvement would help a lot in the game play department too.

Cool. 

Edited by Beeblebrox
Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, goldy/gmg aka lopez453 said:

Is there someone not playing with the game, but actually playing the game and trying to save the world ?

 

It can be accomplished in 20 minutes if You know where the enemies are, but normally in about hour or two.

 

Personally I am not sure if quick turning will help. It was already mentioned that more tactical and slow aproach is needed.

Look from Your current location, and use strafe/turn to look if it's safe to enter a door/corridor, probably wait a little bit if a patrolling/moving enemy won't appear... take Your time.  If you enter a'la Rambo style and just then try to figure out where is the attacker, it's too late.

 

 

I gave it a few tries and didn't win yet. Some observations:

- Control scheme is working relatively good (playing on emulator with keyboard) but lack of proper perspective projection requires use strafing to get perception of "deepness" in the view. I need to switch to map view way too often to know where I'm.

- I like that textures are different in different areas, and that the colors change. It improves variety in mostly monochrome environment. 

- Hitting moving targets is hard. Flying sentry bot is much harder to kill than armored one.

- Would be nice to find new weapons/ammo for them, not having everything available from start.

- Pistol is basically useless and rocket/bfg is too slow for moving targets.

- Rotation is a bit too slow - maybe it could have some "inertia" that it starts slowly (for aiming) and then is going faster? Maybe also when firing rotation could be slower for increased aiming? 

- Usually I get my HP down not knowing from where the attack is coming from. Modern shooters show some indication for it - maybe something like this could be added? 

- Important for survival is medikit handling and knowing where they are. It also requires skipping them (having enough health) and returning to them later... through previously explored and cleaned (=boring) areas.

- It would be great to get information which door key is needed when trying to open a door ("key 1 missing"). I have a key but I need to try it every single door in previously explored area (=boring), not knowing which door it opens. However now reading manual I see that there are Terminals (so maybe to open some door I needed to use it instead of having a key).

Generally, for the capabilities of the machine and 64KB limit, solid gameplay.

Edited by ilmenit
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, ilmenit said:

I gave it a few tries and didn't win yet.

GOOD! If the game only lasted for a few minutes people would start to call it tech demo again:)

That said Goldy wasn't joking about the 20 minutes clear time once players become familiar with surroundings.

 

4 hours ago, ilmenit said:

- Control scheme is working relatively good (playing on emulator with keyboard) but lack of proper perspective projection requires use strafing to get perception of "deepness" in the view. I need to switch to map view way too often to know where I'm.

Hopefully fisheye correction and a bit more precision in larger version will remedy that. Well see.

4 hours ago, ilmenit said:

- Hitting moving targets is hard. Flying sentry bot is much harder to kill than armored one.

If you don't have trouble hitting once, shotgun also stuns the flying sentry or another good strat is the one I prefer, pick weapon 2, spray and pray:) 

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

- Would be nice to find new weapons/ammo for them, not having everything available from start.

Thought about it but then I realized I can use the backstory of a war + supersoldier as an excuse for all the gear being available from the start.

(The real reason as you probably guessed, I couldn't fit few more pre-scaled PMG weapon graphics inside)

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

- Pistol is basically useless

Yes and no. While I wouldn't try to kill armored sentry with it and killing flying sentry is a bother because you have to hide between shots it's great for popping flying mines since they don't shoot back and there's plenty of static ones, serving as traps. Saves other ammo for more powerful enemies.

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

rocket/bfg is too slow for moving targets.

Takes a bit of practice.

bfg is twice as fast as rocket, it's easier to start with that one for training:)

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

Rotation is a bit too slow - maybe it could have some "inertia" that it starts slowly (for aiming) and then is going faster? Maybe also when firing rotation could be slower for increased aiming?

Yeah, something will be done about that.

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

Usually I get my HP down not knowing from where the attack is coming from. Modern shooters show some indication for it - maybe something like this could be added?

Didn't manage to come up with some easy to 'read' indicator, definitely something worth to consider.

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

Important for survival is medikit handling and knowing where they are. It also requires skipping them (having enough health) and returning to them later... through previously explored and cleaned (=boring) areas.

Yeah, probably could be fixed by having larger inventory and leaving it to the player when to pop up the medkit.

5 hours ago, ilmenit said:

Generally, for the capabilities of the machine and 64KB limit, solid gameplay.

Thank you.

 

 

3 minutes ago, ilmenit said:

I have to admit I used the Altirra's Save State for the final boss. When you know how to defeat him it's very simple, however it took about 5 tries to discover the strategy.

Congratulations! Save state or not, it's actually great to see someone went beyond looking around for a bit and then quitting.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, globe said:

Thank you, I'll look into it.

Especially the smaller depacker without temp is something valuable for me, though I really like ease of use of deflate, easy packing with 7zip and couple of batches.

I have been doing some fixes to Castle Defender lately and tried several new packers for my data (mostly fonts that build all the level graphics) today and deflater I use (zopfli) beats zx0/zx5 quite substantially. I was similarly fighting for each byte to fit all the packed data under osrom and basicrom so switching to ZX0 or ZX5 is not an option - it will not fit.

The only packer that has better compression ratio is Shrinkler, but it is freakin' slow to decompress:

image.png.181b71361354c4a84f3efddb8149378a.png

I don't want to invade the topic, just saying that maybe trying zopfli (I used 350 iterations most of time) instead of 7zip may bring you better compression ratio without need to modify decompression routines you already use.

  • Like 3
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, matosimi said:

trying zopfli (I used 350 iterations most of time) instead of 7zip may bring you better compression ratio without need to modify decompression routines you already use.

I gave it a quick test run and instead of 26353 Bytes total packed with 7zip, zopfli with 350 iterations squeezed the game data into 25966 Bytes.

One page and a half extra for free, just because better compression program was used.

Awesome!

Did you experiment with higher # of iterations and did it slow down decompression significantly?

 

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, globe said:

I gave it a quick test run and instead of 26353 Bytes total packed with 7zip, zopfli with 350 iterations squeezed the game data into 25966 Bytes.

One page and a half extra for free, just because better compression program was used.

Awesome!

Did you experiment with higher # of iterations and did it slow down decompression significantly?

 

As far as I can tell, if you use more iterations compression takes longer, in some cases I used 10000 iterations to win 2 bytes :)

 

However I have not spotted any change of speed of decompression. Zopfli "just" tries some additional dictionary and Huffman  optimizations hence there is no increased complexity of decompression.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, matosimi said:

As far as I can tell, if you use more iterations compression takes longer, in some cases I used 10000 iterations to win 2 bytes

Totally worth it:)

8 hours ago, matosimi said:

However I have not spotted any change of speed of decompression. Zopfli "just" tries some additional dictionary and Huffman  optimizations hence there is no increased complexity of decompression.

Great. For some reason I thought it will affect both.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...