Toki ?

[KanedaFr]

I find this game awesome : how did they make it with a not tile-based system like the Lynx ?!

 

Did someone already analyze it? I'm very curious to know how they did....

[LordKraken]

Yes it's a great game and the lynx version is just fantastic. But it's very likely tile-based, only software not hardware.

[KanedaFr]

yes, but how did they achieve this ? So many sprites/tiles means a slow game

OK, Toki is naturally slow but it doesn't explain how they were able to make it "playable"

[Nop90]

With chained sprites, a wise use of the suzy offsets and a well optimized code, a sprite engine that uses 16x16 tiles can run over 30 FPS. I did it with lawnmower,.

 

And I code in C, with ASM the performace can be better.

[KanedaFr]

The requirement / answer is 16x16 tiles (not 8x8 nor 8x16), at least for the tilemap

Basically 7*10 sprites for 1 plane,  7*12 is needed if you need left/right scrolling ...9*14 for multidirectionnal scrolling

 

so 126 sprites for a plane

 

ouch 

[Nop90]

For horizontal scrolling 7*11 are enough, 8x12 are for 2 dimensions scrolling. For a tipical game if you add the main characters, some opponents, objects, score numbers, lives indicator, and some eyecandies, you reach about 140-150 tiles to draw.

 

Lawnmower uses a chain of 137 sprites every frame. 

 

But after 2 tile bases games on the lynx, I prefer other aproaches, for a platform, if you use a 2 levels background (for parallax scrolling), you can halve the number of sprites needed and have a nice effect.

 

[agradeneu]

1 hour ago, KanedaFr said:

The requirement / answer is 16x16 tiles (not 8x8 nor 8x16), at least for the tilemap

Basically 7*10 sprites for 1 plane,  7*12 is needed if you need left/right scrolling ...9*14 for multidirectionnal scrolling

 

so 126 sprites for a plane

 

ouch 

There might be other solutions. Since the Lynx is not fixed to a tile size, you could render the map divided in bigger chunks. (?)

 

Another good example is LynxQuest, big tile map with tons of sprites and detail.  

 

LynxBlast renders every level with 8x8 tiles btw.

Edited April 30 by agradeneu

[LordKraken]

or Odynexus, technically it's a 5x1 tiles based game, only streamed in real time from rom

[agradeneu]

8 minutes ago, LordKraken said:

or Odynexus, technically it's a 5x1 tiles based game, only streamed in real time from rom

Can we stream parallax layers possibly? 🙂

[agradeneu]

I agree with Toki being awesome: It does not update gfx at 60FPS obviously, but the controls and physics are spot on and it looks gorgeous!

 

Another showcase is Zarlor Mercenary: huge detailed maps with animations, destructable structures, tons of sprites and bullet hell, scaling effects and music!

Edited April 30 by agradeneu

[KanedaFr]

I read this old post and suddenly, it seems more do-able...

 

I thought the Lynx would suffer with so much sprites but it seems I underestimated the beast

 

Now I need to find the faster way to update x/y of a chain of sprites

 

10 minutes ago, agradeneu said:

Another showcase is Zarlor Mercenary: huge detailed maps with animations, destructable structures, tons of sprites and bullet hell, scaling effects and music!

Thanks! exactly what I was looking for! I'll look to this game too.

Edited April 30 by KanedaFr

[LordKraken]

53 minutes ago, KanedaFr said:

I thought the Lynx would suffer with so much sprites but it seems I underestimated the beast

Everybody did until God reveals the ultimate truth to them: the Lynx was the chosen one

Edited April 30 by LordKraken

[KanedaFr]

I must say I really like it because it's different from the others (from the dev point of view)

I only have a problem with the very small 102x160