First project using Jagstudio : Where is it ?

[Eric M]

Hi 
Here is a little demo of Whereisit? a game I've created on colecovision and ported to msx and recently on mastersytem. (this demo was totally rewritten)
It's my first project on Jag' using JagStudio. Thanks guys for your great devlib

 

The Game
You have to search a 3x3 patterns in a bigger area in a given time
There are 10 rounds by stage(represented by a little flag)
At the end of the 10th round, you arrive in a bonus stage (you don't loose any life and you can't press PAUSE) 

 

Controls
directions : Up, Down, Left and Right
A : quit menu and enter th game
B : Start Game / action > when you had found the correct pattern, press K
PAUSE : to pause game, press again to continue (10 PAUSE by round)

 

Futur

There's a lot of work to be done and, the more I play with, the more I want to add some options

What's more, the graphics aren't definitive.

 

Don't hesitate to test it out and let me know if you find any bugs.
known issues : sometime the cursor is not placed at his correct coords

 

 

see you

 

Eric 'Ricco59' M.

whereisit_jag_231108.abs

[+CyranoJ]

Great work! Look forward to seeing more!

[+ZeroPage Homebrew]

ZeroPage Homebrew is playing Where Is It? on tomorrow's ZPH stream LIVE on Twitch! Hope you can join us in the chat!

 

Fri Dec 1, 2023 | 12PM PT | 3PM ET | 8PM GMT

WATCH LIVE: https://www.twitch.tv/zeropagehomebrew/
WATCH LATER: https://youtube.com/zeropagehomebrew/

 

Games:

• Shoot'em up 3D (2023 WIP | Jag) by DrTypo @DrTypo
• Where Is It? (2023 WIP | Jag) by Eric M @Eric M
• Star Fighter (2023 WIP | Jag) by David Cummings @Gedalya (Programming) / Ansimuz (Graphics & Sound)
• Hunt, The (2023 WIP | Jag) by William Thorup @BitJag / Michal "Agenda stRing" Radecki-Mikulicz @michomis (Music) / Jakub Debski @ilmenit (Original Code) / Pawel Szewczyk @ripek (Artwork/Graphics)

 

[Eric M]

Thanks for the test of "Where is it?"
As you could see the timer and movements are very slow.
On an emulator it's perfect!
During a French convention, RGC2023, I was able to try it on a real jaguar with my skunkboard and I saw this slowness. Thanks to Fadest for his help
Programming on Jaguar is totally different, it's another way of doing things.
In our case, I'm displaying 14x13 sprites, with several parameters tested in real time for each sprite. That's what slows the game down!

I'm currently working on another display mode that also works (on an emulator). For the moment I can't test on jaguar because the usb plug on my skunkboard has come loose (it had already been repaired!).
I also hope that the speed of the emulator "virtual jaguar" will be corrected

I'll keep you posted on the AtariAge forum

See you soon
Eric

[Eric M]

Hello Fans
 

Here's a little update for Where is it?

As I no longer have a skunkboard (a friend of mine is trying to repair it), I'd just like to know if you could test this version on a real console to see if the movements are fluid or if it's always one frame out of 2.

Thanks in advance for your feedback, I need it

Eric

 

ps :
during the menu
press 1: for the easy level (nb round = 10) orchard
press 2: normal level (nb round = 15) forest
press 3: the difficult level (nb round = 20) instects

during the game, press 0 to return to the 'menu'.
and always 'pause' to stop and resume the game

whereisit_jag_231203.abs

[Eric M]

Hi Fans,

 

Here is a little update (last one for this year ), it's coming along slowly but surely  

 

You can play to the end of each of the 3 difficulty levels. You'll also see a message telling you that you've completed the level you've chosen.

To access one of these 3 difficulty levels (no functional menu yet), press 
1 (easy level)
2 (normal level)
3 (hard level)

 

The hi-score is now is kept. (note : if you quit the game (by pressing 0 to return to the main menu), your score (if >= hiscore) is not kept.)

 

other keys :

            0 to exit game (back to the main menu)
            PAUSE to ... Pause
            B to Start Game
            A to Exit score panel and end message

 

See you and HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024

Eric 'Ricco59' M.

 

ps1: I really hope it's smooth now

ps2: If you see something wrong, let me know. if it's too easy, let me know too

whereisit_jag_281223.abs

Edited December 28, 2023 by Eric M

[Eric M]

Hi 

 

Here's another update: menu management
 

for the moment, only start game in the main menu works
add a number of players (future options)

in the last menu, choice of game level/type

 

(you can navigate through the menu by using B to select and A to return to the previous menu. I haven't yet included this "return" in the "SELECT YOUR NAME but it's planned)

 

if you choose one of the 3 modes, you can then choose your name by using the stick to select your letters or symbols and B to validate the letter

 

To start the game in the chosen level, select the "RETURN" symbol then press B.

 

If player's name is empty, the UNKNW "name" will be saved (not yet implemented)

 

So there you have it, a little progress for an important part

See you soon for another update

Eric M 'Ricco59'

 

ps : always '0' to quit the game and back to the main menu

 

whereisit_jag_240109.abs

Edited January 9 by Eric M

[Eric M]

Hi Fans
 

Here is a new demo of Whereisit?

First of all, I've corrected some bugs
And now, here is what I've done

* adding a 'marathon mode' which allow the player to play from easy to hard levels in a row
* adding complete hiscore, name and sort managment (you can navigate in Hiscore tables by using left / right to see the top 5 players for easy, normal, hard, story and marathon mode and up / down to navigate through one player mode, co-op mode, ...)
* adding a 'back to previous menu' while you are on Entering name process
* adding a 'add remaining time * factor (2 to 4)' when player done a perfect (only in challenging stage). The Timer + Remaining Time * Factor is avaible only for the 10 next rounds and will be reset at the begining of each challenging stage
* adding different colors for flags while playing easy (white), normal (green) and hard (red). Same flag colors are using during marathon mode
 

Questions
- during the game my score is next to the right window side (virtual jaguarv2.1.2). On real jaguar and bigpemu the score is truncated!?

- to display GAME OVER and PRESS FIRE, I'm using Scale function :
    sprite[inGame_PressFire_Sp].scaled        = R_spr_scale;
    sprite[inGame_PressFire_Sp].scale_x        = 64;
    sprite[inGame_PressFire_Sp].scale_y        = 64;
everything is displaying fine on Virtual Jaguar but I remember that on real jaguar (only) there is a glitch! (did I make a mistake or did I forget something? )
Could you please test it and give me some feedback ?
 

Have fun with this updated demo version and tia for your answers, all new ideas are welcome!

And if you find some bugs which you can reproduce (or not), don't hesitate to contact me  

Eric

ps : this dev is a little bit slowly because I've lost my dad some monthes ago and 2 of my cousins... That said, after these painful moments, I feel much better.

whereisit_jag_240304.abs

[LordKraken]

This starts to looks really polished so great work on that!

 

So here is my feedback:

(I tried the game in Bigpemu)

 

I found a couple of bugs:

- In the name selection screen, the navigation between the letters is a bit clunky, very often it jumps 2 characters at a time. I just do a quick direction press and instead of selecting the next character as you would expect, it jumps straight to the second one.

- The UI panel on the right is cut by a few pixels

- There seems to be no penalty for a wrong choice but more on that in the suggestions

 

Some gameplay suggestions:

- Even in easy mode there are a lot of different fruits. I would expect the difficulty mode to tweak the maximum number of different fruits. For instance in easy mode, it could be I dont know, just 6 different ones?

- When you find a pattern, the selection box is moved back to the top. Don't do that, let the selection box where it is.

- So since there is no penalty for an incorrect choice, a good strategy is just to go through all cases and spam the selection button. I completed a full 10 rounds that way. One could say that you might get a better score by trying to find the pattern instead... maybe, but spamming seems to be a valid and good technique.

- I REALLY miss feedback on my actions. For instance when I select the wrong pattern, I would expect to have maybe a screen shaking animation, or a red cross, well something.

- I miss EVEN MORE a "You find it" animation when you match a pattern. Some ideas, the fruits in the pattern zoom in or out, or they just jump off the board.

- 3 fruits shared the exact same colors, so while the form is obviously different I feel the game would benefit from having different colors for them.

Edited March 5 by LordKraken

[Eric M]

Hi LordKraken
 

Quote

- In the name selection screen, the navigation between the letters is a bit clunky, very often it jumps 2 characters at a time. I just do a quick direction press and instead of selecting the next character as you would expect, it jumps straight to the second one.

 I wanted the cursor to move smoothly. I can move the cursor character by character

 

Quote

- Even in easy mode there are a lot of different fruits. I would expect the difficulty mode to tweak the maximum number of different fruits. For instance in easy mode, it could be I dont know, just 6 different ones?

I think If I only put 6 different fruits, for example, I'm afraid there will be more than one identical pattern.

Have you tried the normal and hard modes? (The difficulty lies in the gfx and the timer (the further you progress in the level, the shorter the time between each 'tick').

 

Quote

- When you find a pattern, the selection box is moved back to the top. Don't do that, let the selection box where it is.

I can leave the cursor in its last position

 

Quote

- So since there is no penalty for an incorrect choice, a good strategy is just to go through all cases and spam the selection button. I completed a full 10 rounds that way. One could say that you might get a better score by trying to find the pattern instead... maybe, but spamming seems to be a valid and good technique.

As I said earlier, the further the player progresses in the game, the faster time speeds up! So this technic is only true for the  first rounds  That said, I can add a fail counter (20 for ex per level, 1 level = 10 rounds)
I could even add this: if the fail counter = 200 (no fail on the entire level, e.g. easy) an extra bonus or something else could be done

 

Quote

 

- I REALLY miss feedback on my actions. For instance when I select the wrong pattern, I would expect to have maybe a screen shaking animation, or a red cross, well something.

- I miss EVEN MORE a "You find it" animation when you match a pattern. Some ideas, the fruits in the pattern zoom in or out, or they just jump off the board.

 

For these 2 points, I'm going to do what I did on my SMS/MSX/COLECO versions: count down the time point by point and add to the score point by point + a kind of cursor animation.
The red cross is an excellent idea

 

Quote

- 3 fruits shared the exact same colors, so while the form is obviously different I feel the game would benefit from having different colors for them.

I've taken the gfx from my mastersystem version, to have a more representative game (before, I had coloured squares with a number in them). The gfx were created within the constraints of the SMS. I'm waiting to change all the graphics. On Jaguar, I'm working on 16 colors/layer. I'm really not able to draw something, maybe a single dot lol

 

 

Thanks a lot LordKraken and see you
Eric

[Sporadic]

Instead of a fail counter, you could just remove a small portion of time for each failed attempt. Perhaps scale the amount of time deducted by difficulty.

Eg. Loose 2 seconds on easy, 5 on medium, 10 on hard. Something like that.

 

Just have a little graphic showing the deduction amount when it happens and perhaps a sound. 

 

Then you wouldn't need to add a whole new section to the UI. 

[Eric M]

Hi Sporadic,

 

I like (prefer) this idea  

 

Thx

[Eric M]

hi again

 

Here is a little update with these modifications :

 

- The cursor stay at his previous place (there is no X, Y initialization)

- When the player select the wrong pattern, the area is X-shaking and the timer is 5 'pseudo secondes' less

 

This is the end for today

 

See you

whereisit_jag_240305.abs

Edited March 5 by Eric M

[Eric M]

Hi Friends, I nedd help
 

Here is a new update : Co-op mode (at this moment, the cursors are using the same colors)
 

I would like to know if someone can test this version using co-op mode in easy, normal, hard and marathon mode (only 3 or 4 rounds) to see if everything is ok because I don't have two joypads. Two players for Co-op mode

I've seen one bug during the challenging stage (the timer factor).

What about you, Please give me some feedback!

 

Big thanks

Eric

whereisit_jag_240306.abs

Edited March 6 by Eric M

[Eric M]

Strange, the previous .abs was considered as a 'Dangerous File' !!??

here is a zip file

 

Is this one good ??

See you

whereisit_jag_240306.zip

whereisit_jag_coop.abs

 

I really don't know why both files are considered as dangerous...

 

Edited March 7 by Eric M

[Albert]

On 3/7/2024 at 7:55 AM, Eric M said:

Strange, the previous .abs was considered as a 'Dangerous File' !!??

here is a zip file

 

Is this one good ??

See you

whereisit_jag_240306.zip 58.55 kB · 2 downloads

whereisit_jag_coop.abs 313.01 kB · 2 downloads

 

I really don't know why both files are considered as dangerous...

 

It's because Chrome and Firefox seemingly have decided to mark all files with certain extensions as containing a virus or malware.  This includes .bin, for instance, which nearly all of the thousands of Atari 2600 binaries posted to the forum have as an extension.  Pretty ridiculous, and I don't think there's any way around it except to tell your browser to not generate these (false!) warnings.  You can override and download manually, but this sort of thing is definitely going to scare some people.

 

 ..Al

[+Gemintronic]

If you ever feel like you need to show proof of good faith with your homebrew files use Jotti:

https://virusscan.jotti.org/en-US/filescanjob/g0tyam4m60

[Welshworrier]

I had a similar issue years ago when I released some PC software. Norton flagged it as viral for some reason (even though I'd released it with full source code). Virustotal showed it as suspect as a result.

 

 

[UHATEIT]

This is a fun one good job!