Omnimaga
General Discussion => Technology and Development => Computer Projects and Ideas => Topic started by: nxtboy III on February 16, 2012, 10:11:23 pm
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Hi,
I have started making a platformer, in 4 lvl grayscale, for the Mindstorms NXT. All I have so far is the player movement engine and a couple tiles copied from other stuff (Not going to use permanently, just basically for seeing how it looks).
I also have a simple box enemy that follows the player(It cannot jump, and was made for a start). **The enemy will NOT be a box :P**
Also the tilemapping works.
I have really no idea on what it should be about, so I need help on it (Remember this is not a gaming machine, so it cannot handle a ton of enemies that do lots of things while still running smooth).
So what should I make this game about?
Also remember the NXT screen is mono (can handle software grayscale, like the TI 84), and the screen size is 100x64 (the TI 84's is 96x64).
Here's what I need to know for it:
-What the theme should be
-What the goal of the game/levels is/are
-What the enemies are
-Who the player will be
-What the enemies do
-What the player can do
Thanks, and have a nice day,
nxtboy III
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Oh I thought the other project was a platformer? ??? Regardless it's cool though. What I think for this one is that you should make it kinda like a puzzle, where you pick keys to open doors. Also Block Dude would be nice.
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Block dude?
I was thinking more action packed.
Well the other project is not a platformer, but like Zombie Gun, except the player cannot jump.
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cool. I have programmed NXTs before, but never anything terribly advanced. I'm glad to see some one exploiting a more obscure device. ;) Hopefully more people will have access to it in the future. I doesn't help that schools don't require it and it costs a bajillion dollars though. :/
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Ah ok, well what kind of processor and MHz speed is there in a NXT device?
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It has an Atmel 32-bit ARM AT91SAM7S256 processor running at 48 Mhz.
EDIT: How fast can a TI 84 plus count to 10000 in assembly? Is there a program for it?
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O.O
Well, I don't know how fast a 84+ can count to 10000 in ASM, and it's hard to tell since its LCD has a slow driver, but I know that on a 84+ you can do stuff like this:
http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?board=87.0
http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=40.0;attach=10045;image
And the 84+ runs at 15 MHz. The second game even runs on the 6 MHz calcs.
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Well, for some reason it seems like games go slower on the NXT. ???
Maybe that is just because usually I do not ever write in assembly, since it is faster. Would it be hard to make a program that counts to 10,000? If so, could you?
So what about my game? What should I do for it?
EDIT: yunhua- check out my After Dark game in my signature.
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EDIT: yunhua- check out my After Dark game in my signature.
I don't actually have an NXT. But there's a few in one of my teacher's lab. Idk whther he'll let me put a game on there, but I'll try. ;) But yeah, I'll check it out.
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I already gave multiple suggestions for your game... ???
I really don't know much else to give as idea on demand really. Personally I would go with a Megaman, Metroid (probably a derivative with smaller maps and less power ups), Block Dude, Something like Mario.
Else there's this: http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/ct2/ but like Metroid it would have to be less complex.
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So what should the enemies be? BTW, thanks for helping. :)
yunhua- Thanks. ;)
EDIT: What does everybody else think I should make it like?
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For enemies I think you should make them robot-like (play Mega Man series on the NES or Mega Man X on the SNES for example), but they don't have to be very complex. If your game is futuristic but occurs on a planet or something, then I guess you can go with demon-like enemies or something. Giant insects would do I guess.
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Ok. What about the theme? Spooky, space, happy wonderland??
EDIT: I added this to the main post:
Here's what I need to know for it:
-What the theme should be
-What the goal of the game/levels is/are
-What the enemies are
-Who the player will be
-What the enemies do
-What the player can do
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Space would be nice. Spooky tends to work better with scary sounds (and headphones/huge speakers) IMHO.
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Hmm.. Space? Maybe. Could you give me more ideas so I could make a poll?
I added this to the main post:
Here's what I need to know for it:
-What the theme should be
-What the goal of the game/levels is/are
-What the enemies are
-Who the player will be
-What the enemies do
-What the player can do
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So what other ideas does anybody have for it? What about other themes the game should be?
Here's what I need to know for it:
-What the theme should be
-What the goal of the game/levels is/are
-What the enemies are
-Who the player will be
-What the enemies do
-What the player can do
EDIT: Supermember!
EDIT2: My NXT counts to 1 million in about 39 seconds in assembly, without displaying anything.
It counts to 10,000 in a little less than 1 second.
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So now that you sort-of kind-of maybe know the processor speed from what I said before, what should I make this game like?
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Well do you know approximately how many times slower your program ran on the NXT, assuming it's the exact same code?
If it's even slower, like twice slower, what I would recommend is either:
1) Ditching grayscale completely and going monochrome
or
2) Make character movement so you don't move smoothly, but rather tile by tile instantly, like how Tetris blocks move around.
I'm thinking of something like this:
(http://www.omnimaga.org/images/screenshots/metroidII1.gif)
Except with scrolling. That game was written in TI-BASIC with the help of some ASM libraries, which is much slower than 100% ASM, so I'm sure in NXT ASM it would be fast enough to have scrolling.
As for the game theme, I'm thinking of something involving having to go find shards on a random planet somewhere, to power up the last remnants of humanity spaceship again. It could be stage-based, where each of the 6 or 7 shards is guarded by a boss.
However just as an advice, as game creator you need to do a bit more effort in finding ideas yourself as well, because no matter how much idea I try to give, you still ask "what should I make the game like". I assume you don't want everyone else to do the entire work for you, but with the ideas we give it should normally help you finding more or working with them. I'M thinking this might explain partly the low amount of replies so far in the thread. It's also recommended to try some NES/SNES sci-fi games to gain more ideas and find out how in general those games work.
If it's the first time you are making a platformer, though, then I recommend making it small at first, such as having 8 stages to start with.
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Well actually right now it goes pretty well with about 15 "box" enemies at once. However, all the enemies do is follow the player.
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Ok, well then add a routine that displays a sprite 96 times per frame and look at the game speed. This might give you some guide about how much it will slow down when you have tilemaps. (on the TI-84+, a tilemap generally displays 96 tiles on the screen at once). Of course however if you add scrolling and you can easily just move the LCD content around, then I guess you just need to draw the missing row/column of sprites.
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I have already added scrolling and 4-lvl grayscale tile-mapping. It runs fine at about 10-15 box enemies.
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So does anybody have specific ideas on what the enemies should do?
Please note I have already made the tilemapper and simple "enemies" that follow the player(Thats all they do).
EDIT: I am not doing this in NXT assembly...
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So does anybody have any ideas for what this should be about or what I should add?
I keep asking because I really need specific ideas for the enemies and what they should do.
I have already made the tile-mapping and block-things that follow the player(I'm not gonna keep the enemies like that, so i need ideas).
Oh, and the player does not move tile by tile. It has smooth scrolling. Each tile is 16x16 4-lvl grayscale.
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There should at least be some enemies that shoots at you and of course those Metroid butterfly-like things that jumps back and forth from the top of the screen to the floor or vice-versa, diagonally. Also if you got vertical stages, enemies that moves back and forth from the left to the right of the screen, flying.
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Enemies that shoot? Wouldn't that hog up the processor if I added too many of those?
What should the player do and what should he and the enemies look like?
EDIT: Could you be specific about what each enemy can do, like movement and weapon-wise?
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So actually I can have about 25 enemies at once and it runs good, but only if they are somewhat spread apart because the enemies only move when they are a certain distance from the player, for speed purposes.
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Make sure enemies that shoot won't all shoot at once if you have many per map.
Anyway I won't help you any further about enemies idea because no offense, but it seems like you want us to do the entire work for you here. I've been desesperately giving ideas since the beginning, to no avail, so I'm beginning to think I'm wasting my time here... You also need to do an effort as well. (like the other forum members who announce projects)
From now on I'll just comment on game updates and stuff, like in your last post. In response to your last post it's a good idea I guess. Most games won't render more than 3 enemies at once in the screen and I even noticed that there are ones that disappear completely in older games like SMB3. After all, the enemies outside the screen don't really need to move anyway. What is the approximate framerate by the way?
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framerate? I have no idea....
But it depends on how many enemies. It runs smooth with about 25 enemies.
yeah, i should probably stop asking about enemies. You've commented a lot so far. :)
The map size is good at around 60x25, but I haven't really tested it bigger with the enemies update.
Is that a good map size?
Maybe you could tell me some cool tiles for the game.
EDIT: Should I make the enemies just follow the player (cannot jump) and when they are next to you they have a weapon animation? I think I'll go with that.
EDIT2: The tiles are 16x16, and the player moves 4 pixels at a time (smooth scrolling). And what should the player be? Maybe he should be a knight and the enemies are creatures... I like that idea. Do you think I should that?
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I think the knight idea's great if it goes along with your game theme, and you can draw the sprites.
Hmm I never considered having onboard NXT games on my Mindstorms NXT 1.0
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??? You have a mindstorms NXT?
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framerate? I have no idea....
But it depends on how many enemies. It runs smooth with about 25 enemies.
yeah, i should probably stop asking about enemies. You've commented a lot so far. :)
The map size is good at around 60x25, but I haven't really tested it bigger with the enemies update.
Is that a good map size?
Maybe you could tell me some cool tiles for the game.
EDIT: Should I make the enemies just follow the player (cannot jump) and when they are next to you they have a weapon animation? I think I'll go with that.
EDIT2: The tiles are 16x16, and the player moves 4 pixels at a time (smooth scrolling). And what should the player be? Maybe he should be a knight and the enemies are creatures... I like that idea. Do you think I should that?
The map size seems ok, but one concern I have with 16x16 tiles is that since the screen is small, then we don't see much at once on the screen and it's much harder to see where we're going. (the reason why most calc games uses 8x8) Depending of how you do your maps, sometimes this is not as much of a problem, though. For 16x16 tiles, a 64x25 map seems fine to me. As for enemies yes they could follow you when you are close to them I guess. As for your character I guess a knight can do if you don't go for a futuristic/space kind of game, otherwise something like Samus and Megaman I guess.
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Yeah. The enemies should be orcs, trolls, skeletons.
Also there should be castle, jungle, and dungeon themes.
What about the title screen? That always seems to make a game much more official.
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Hmm Warcraft style
I wouldn't focus much on the title screen for now, though, although sooner or later I guess it will help bringing some interest and shows what the game is about in some ways. I do not have any idea for now, though, other than maybe going with the title screen styles of Castlevania, Warcraft II, etc.
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Warcraft? Yeah, I guess it is that style.
Though it seems like other games get their title screens real soon. Also it helps me be more enthusiastic about making the game.
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Well now I sort-of have the enemy animation working. I'm using saintrunner's orc sprite he made for me.
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??? You have a mindstorms NXT?
Yes I do, the original Mindstorms NXT. But I never played around with it much, waste of money unless I get it out and use it again.
Also at my old school they had Mindstorms NXT Education Edition, got to program some instructions and stuff onto it for a school project, but that's pretty much it.
Yeah the title screen isn't of a great priority, you can always come back and do it later, when more of the game is done.
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Hmm.... So you have an NXT...
You should play my After Dark zombie grayscale game for the NXT. It's in my signature
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Hmm I have not opened my NXT for 2+ years. I'll see what I can do to try your game asap.
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Well you could help me with this game or After Dark (help = ideas)