Omnimaga

Omnimaga => Discontinued => Our Projects => Contra => Topic started by: Deep Toaster on November 05, 2010, 08:30:47 pm

Title: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 05, 2010, 08:30:47 pm
Spoiler For Original post:
I'm posting here to make myself keep working on this project. Basically, I'm working on a port of Contra to Axe (the actual NES Contra, not the BASIC version (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/360/36075.html), though that was actually pretty good). Right now I'm still working on the sprites and basic movement, and I still can't find my calc cable, so I can't post anything I have down yet, but here're some stats if anyone's interested:

  • Background sprites are all 9x9 and 3-level grayscale (I might change it to 4 later). This is perfect because the original Contra game has 7 blocks down, and 9*7=63 covers the screen nicely.
  • Lance is 8x8 monochrome. It's faster to draw on the screen and takes up less memory. Besides, the Lance sprite in the original game was slightly smaller than the background blocks, which is perfect.
  • It's only one-player. At least for now. But if I ever get this done, I might add linking :) So no Bill for now, unfortunately.
  • Anything else that moves on its own will also be monochrome. Once again, it's faster and less messy.

Any other ideas?

Also, I'm going to try to make this as close to the original game as possible. Thankfully, Contra level maps aren't that big :D



Latest update:

http://omniurl.tk/5173/223629/ (http://omniurl.tk/5173/223629/)



The log so far:

Completed:
Data loss 1/1/11-1/6/11

To do (next few days):

To do (long term):
[/list]
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 05, 2010, 08:37:34 pm
That seems interesting :) I can't wait for screenshots :)

I assume since you say everything that moves will be monochrome that there won't be scrolling, right?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: AngelFish on November 05, 2010, 08:38:39 pm
My suggestion: Use the speed of Axe to your advantage and make the AI intelligent, or able to deliver a lot of fire. Actually, shoot for both (pun intended).
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 05, 2010, 08:40:59 pm
That seems interesting :) I can't wait for screenshots :)

I assume since you say everything that moves will be monochrome that there won't be scrolling, right?

Yeah, there's going to be scrolling. Just no grayscale in anything that moves by itself, like enemies and bullets. I'm trying to make this a clone if I can :)

My suggestion: Use the speed of Axe to your advantage and make the AI intelligent, or able to deliver a lot of fire.

Yeah, I'm going to try to make it as close as possible to the original :D

Actually, shoot for both (pun intended).

x.x/me stabs Qwerty.55
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 05, 2010, 10:00:24 pm
Ah cool to hear Deep Thought. Qwerty.55 I don't get the pun, though... ???
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: qazz42 on November 05, 2010, 10:04:12 pm
Get it, shoot for both, go for both options

contra involves shooting
/me runs
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 05, 2010, 10:35:23 pm
AH ok right, lol. :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: MRide on November 05, 2010, 10:55:08 pm
Lol, Qwerty.
Sounds neat, Deep.  Good luck!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 06, 2010, 02:42:56 am
This sounds really awesome!  I cant wait until we get some eye candy :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 06, 2010, 08:00:25 am
I'm very interested to see how this progresses. I am a bit concerned about speed though, because Contra can have ALOT of objects on the screen at once.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ASHBAD_ALVIN on November 06, 2010, 08:04:26 am
I tried something like this before.  I'd say if you're going for smooth scolling, do that FIRST after the sprites and stuff, that's a killer X.x

Cool idea though.  Good luck! :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on November 06, 2010, 08:25:30 am
YAY Contra for calculator, I used to play that in a browser NES emulator :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: shmibs on November 06, 2010, 10:55:26 am
sounds fun!
how are you going to manage 9*9 tiles?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: squidgetx on November 06, 2010, 11:33:38 am
sounds fun!
how are you going to manage 9*9 tiles?

I was wondering that too....x.x Ash's 12x12 tiles are actually masked 16x16 where the extra parts are transparent, but I don't think that'll be practical for this
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Raylin on November 06, 2010, 11:44:08 am
BILL RIZER WILL JUMP ONTO A FLYING MISSILE JUST TO SHOOT THE GUY WHO FIRED IT

[/bytejacker (http://www.bytejacker.com)]

Sounds good. Handling the guns and powerups should be fun.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: yunhua98 on November 06, 2010, 07:16:38 pm
I'm very interested to see how this progresses. I am a bit concerned about speed though, because Contra can have ALOT of objects on the screen at once.

if BASIC can do it, so can Axe.  ;)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: AngelFish on November 06, 2010, 07:20:31 pm
I'm very interested to see how this progresses. I am a bit concerned about speed though, because Contra can have ALOT of objects on the screen at once.

If he manages the tilemap engine correctly, the game shouldn't have to do much more than record keypresses in addition to the object movement at any given time. So even moving all of the object could still run at a reasonable speed, especially compared to BASIC.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 06, 2010, 07:28:12 pm
@Yunahua:
Well, the BASIC version of contra was very bare bones. It really wasn't very Contra-like at all honestly. You can't really make a comparison to what this version intends to be. Contra is a challenging project, but I am hopeful that Deepthought will come up with some awesome ideas and really make this an amazing game. =)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: meishe91 on November 06, 2010, 07:38:37 pm
YAY Contra for calculator, I used to play that in a browser NES emulator :)

You do know there already is a Contra game written in TI-BASIC right?

And this sounds really cool, I wish you luck on this :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ASHBAD_ALVIN on November 06, 2010, 09:58:17 pm
The one in TI-BASIC is so fun to cheat on...

I made my range 30 before and gave myself 999 of everything and put myself on the last boss (tricky to beat though)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 02:01:52 am
I did not play the original much because I was more into Metroid series, but is the shooting complex like Touhou/CaDan? Hopefully he should be able to handle it, or he could just make a simplified version of Contra that is still more complex than the BASIC version (which was very good, btw).
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 07, 2010, 06:38:36 am
@Omni: It is side scrolling and considered "bullet hell" like Tohou/CaDaN, but the amount of bullets wasn't quite that extreme. There weren't any pretty patterns either. Tohou is a space shooter though and Contra is more Run and gun style action. Contra is primarily side scrolling, but there were some "first person" type levels, and also some top down perspective levels(I don't remember if the original had these). Contra is also know for it's Ginormous bosses and it's epic boss battles. =D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: shmibs on November 07, 2010, 10:57:50 am
/\during the boss battles the number of bullets was certainly high enough to match any other game out there. think "moving maze in which a single touch to any wall is an instant death"
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 01:24:20 pm
Ah right, I see. Hopefully he can manage it without too much speed loss.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 02:15:42 pm
sounds fun!
how are you going to manage 9*9 tiles?

I was wondering that too....x.x Ash's 12x12 tiles are actually masked 16x16 where the extra parts are transparent, but I don't think that'll be practical for this

I'm just going to use Horizontal -/Horizontal -r for scrolling. Contra only scrolls in one direction, anyway (thankfully :D). I'm planning to use Bitmap( for only the rightmost column, so it shouldn't be too slow.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 02:25:09 pm
i would recommend staying away from bitmap at all costs.  I believe it has the corresponding speed of 200+ sprite displays, even at the smallest size since its a TiOS routine.  I would recommend writing your own column filling routine for the scrolling.  I can help you out there if you need it, i wrote one a while back and they can be a little tricky, although the fact that you are only scrolling in one direction makes it a lot easier ^^

(only one direction?  Up and down now going to happen?)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 02:33:24 pm
i would recommend staying away from bitmap at all costs.  I believe it has the corresponding speed of 200+ sprite displays, even at the smallest size since its a TiOS routine.  I would recommend writing your own column filling routine for the scrolling.  I can help you out there if you need it, i wrote one a while back and they can be a little tricky, although the fact that you are only scrolling in one direction makes it a lot easier ^^

(only one direction?  Up and down now going to happen?)

Darn, didn't know it was that slow. Oh well, there are other ways :) How does your routine work? Does it load bytes straight to Lj6? I might end up doing that...

And yeah, one direction. No up or down in the original Contra, anyway (or as far as I can tell from this clone (http://nintendo8.com/game/60/contra/)).
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 02:34:43 pm
It just displays 8 sprites at the edge that fill in the empty space generated by shifting the screen :) The tricky part is determining which sprites to display and at what X offset.

And is 8 sprite height sufficient to port Contra?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 02:36:35 pm
And is 8 sprite height sufficient to port Contra?

I might end up doing that too. It would leave me with a convenient blank line to put all the stats in, at least.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 02:39:39 pm
What?  o.O *Builderboy is confused*
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 02:41:47 pm
Yeah I recommend staying away from Bitmap too. Quigibo only added them for those who need to save space but don't care about speed. Otherwise, I recommend using the Axe sprite functions, which are much faster.

Btw Contra seems to be much more than 8 tiles high. Are you sure you will not need scrolling up/down?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 02:43:14 pm
What?  o.O *Builderboy is confused*

The original Contra is 7 blocks vertically. I was thinking 9 pixels per block * 7 blocks = 63 rows of pixels, which would have filled the screen nicely. But I think I'll stick to 8x8 :-\
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 03:08:32 pm
Ohh gotcha, and thats cool that contra is only 7 blocks high, it can fit on the screen very nicely :D and yeah 9x9 sprites would be a pain x.x
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: AngelFish on November 07, 2010, 03:11:56 pm
What?  o.O *Builderboy is confused*

The original Contra is 7 blocks vertically. I was thinking 9 pixels per block * 7 blocks = 63 rows of pixels, which would have filled the screen nicely. But I think I'll stick to 8x8 :-\

You could just use the lower 56 pixels for the game (7 blocks * 8 pixels) and the remaining 9 pixels on the top for scenery like clouds.

I can't wait to see how this turns out.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 03:12:38 pm
What?  o.O *Builderboy is confused*

The original Contra is 7 blocks vertically. I was thinking 9 pixels per block * 7 blocks = 63 rows of pixels, which would have filled the screen nicely. But I think I'll stick to 8x8 :-\

You could just use the lower 56 pixels for the game (7 blocks * 8 pixels) and the remaining 9 pixels on the top for scenery like clouds.

Or a black bar for stats :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 04:22:26 pm
Er, Deep Thought, Contra is 15 blocks high, not 7. The NES screen is 240 pixels high and NES tiles are 16x16.

EDIT: actually it's 14. Most tiles seems to be blocks of 4 16x16 tiles, but somewhere else in the game I saw such blocks that were one tile high only. If you really want to divide the map size by half, some parts might require modifications.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: willrandship on November 07, 2010, 05:16:07 pm
Or, perhaps you could do like Notch did in minecraft, and have half tiles that actually take up a whole tile, but you land midway through it. You'd have to use Pxl-test for colliion, though.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 07:13:19 pm
Er, Deep Thought, Contra is 15 blocks high, not 7. The NES screen is 240 pixels high and NES tiles are 16x16.

EDIT: actually it's 14. Most tiles seems to be blocks of 4 16x16 tiles, but somewhere else in the game I saw such blocks that were one tile high only. If you really want to divide the map size by half, some parts might require modifications.

Yeah, I know. I'm combining four tiles into one. And yeah, some of the platforms would be halfway down a tile if I did that, but I think I'm just going to move them a bit. Close enough ;)

No pxl-Test('ing. It would get really messy with a dark background.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 07:31:37 pm
Ah ok, thanks for confirming. For the half-tile platforms you could remove them indeed. I doubt they will matter much anyway. Good luck with this project!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: yunhua98 on November 07, 2010, 07:37:01 pm
Good luck with this project!
this.  ;)
so, how far are you into coding?  or is this still in the planning stages?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ASHBAD_ALVIN on November 07, 2010, 07:42:42 pm
Yeah I recommend staying away from Bitmap too. Quigibo only added them for those who need to save space but don't care about speed.

Also, there's a ROM call for that in assembly ;) that's probably another reason why

it drawns to the buffer AND updates the screen.  I don't recommend :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 07:45:25 pm
Ah ok, thanks for confirming. For the half-tile platforms you could remove them indeed. I doubt they will matter much anyway. Good luck with this project!

Actually I'm just going to move them half a tile up or down just in case. Whichever one works.

Good luck with this project!
this.  ;)
so, how far are you into coding?  or is this still in the planning stages?

Thanks! I'm coding the movement right now (walking and jumping all work), and I'll probably add tile detection next.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: shmibs on November 07, 2010, 08:14:22 pm
this sounds like it might be a little cramped, but with fewer bullets you could make it work(and save processing power as well =D). good luck and all that!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 07, 2010, 09:31:41 pm
Yeah I recommend staying away from Bitmap too. Quigibo only added them for those who need to save space but don't care about speed.

Also, there's a ROM call for that in assembly ;) that's probably another reason why

it drawns to the buffer AND updates the screen.  I don't recommend :P
This is what Quigibo's Bitmap command uses.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: yunhua98 on November 07, 2010, 10:57:48 pm
Idk if this has been mentioned, but...

will you add the Contra Code?  ;D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 11:02:10 pm
I think a conceptual screenshot is in order ^^ Or maybe a real one :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 11:02:18 pm
Idk if this has been mentioned, but...

will you add the Contra Code?  ;D


;)

I think a conceptual screenshot is in order ^^ Or maybe a real one :D

Hmm, mind if I post a pic of the real calc? That's really the only way I can get shots right now since I don't have a cable anymore.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ztrumpet on November 07, 2010, 11:09:13 pm
This sounds really cool.  Good luck Deep Thought! ;D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 07, 2010, 11:10:53 pm
I don't think anybody would mind :D We will take anything we can get! ^^
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 07, 2010, 11:30:49 pm
Lance (Walking alternates between these two; I'll get some real shots tomorrow):
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 08, 2010, 02:46:33 am
Idk if this has been mentioned, but...

will you add the Contra Code?  ;D


;)

I think a conceptual screenshot is in order ^^ Or maybe a real one :D

Hmm, mind if I post a pic of the real calc? That's really the only way I can get shots right now since I don't have a cable anymore.
Oh I think he meant a fake screenshot, drawn in Paint or something, not a capture from the calc/program. Otherwise a pic of the calc and the game can do, I guess, as long as you resize it down :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 16, 2010, 07:43:34 pm
UPDATE:

Got some sprites done, and firing too. Bullets still wrap around the screen, but that should be an easy fix. And on a related note, bullets mean that I've already set up the engine for enemies and their bullets as well (they're all saved in one big array that basically holds anything that moves).

And you can't tell from the screenshot (since I haven't actually gotten around to make it work), but everything I've done so far already takes scrolling into account. I just have to get motivated to add that bit in :D

I think a conceptual screenshot is in order ^^ Or maybe a real one :D

(http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/11-16-10.gif)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: shmibs on November 16, 2010, 08:18:36 pm
looking good so far. i might have to check out that bullet code of yours once you're done.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on November 17, 2010, 01:03:40 am
I noticed that the right part of the screen seems to be lacking greyscale o.O Heh it looks awesome so far though ^^ Does the character seem to change shape in different positions?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TIfanx1999 on November 17, 2010, 03:13:33 am
@BB in some instances in the screenie the char aims his gun downward(or so it appears) and I think when the char appears more compressed he's supposed to be crouching(maybe?). The random non grayscale platform off to the side does look kinda odd tho.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 17, 2010, 04:36:17 am
Nice so far! I love the look of it. The character seems to look a bit weird from time to time, though, (like if he was crouching into a ball), is it when he's actually crouching? You could maybe add a pixel on the side for the gun. I can't wait to see more updates on this. :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 17, 2010, 10:44:34 am
Quote from: Builderboy
I noticed that the right part of the screen seems to be lacking greyscale o.O Heh it looks awesome so far though ^^ Does the character seem to change shape in different positions?

Weird, the grayscale works perfectly fine on my calc... I suck at setting Wabbit options, though ;D

Quote from: Art_of_camelot
@BB in some instances in the screenie the char aims his gun downward(or so it appears) and I think when the char appears more compressed he's supposed to be crouching(maybe?). The random non grayscale platform off to the side does look kinda odd tho.

Oh, that's because after the jump, he's still in the jumping position. I still haven't fixed that yet.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga
You could maybe add a pixel on the side for the gun. I can't wait to see more updates on this. :)

Thanks, I might lengthen the gun later. It's 7x8 now, anyway.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on November 17, 2010, 12:56:36 pm
(http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5173.0;attach=4496;image)

Nice screenie, great, you even made his crazy jump work, how pleasant.

Grayscale? Can I have it in a regular ti nspire w/ 84+ keypad?

EDIT: Yay bullets!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 17, 2010, 03:20:41 pm
Are the non-grayscale platforms to the right caused by bad WabbitEmu settings, by the way? Also what will you put on the empty parts of the screen?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 17, 2010, 06:32:12 pm
Are the non-grayscale platforms to the right caused by bad WabbitEmu settings, by the way? Also what will you put on the empty parts of the screen?

Yeah, they are. On my calc they're equally gray.

As for the empty parts, I'm thinking of moving it to the middle, putting a border on the left and right, and adding the stats on top. Might get messy, though x.x

I haven't even decided how I'm going to do scrolling: Horizontal - or redraw every tile?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ztrumpet on November 17, 2010, 07:15:09 pm
Looks great!

On a side note, I was having those problems in Wabbit with Axe Snake screenies until I got it adjusted right. :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: squidgetx on November 17, 2010, 07:33:01 pm
Personally I like using horizontal commands :P But if redrawing speed isn't an issue, collision detection will be easier to deal with because the offset value is probably also easier to deal with using a redraw method
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 17, 2010, 11:10:48 pm
Personally I like using horizontal commands :P But if redrawing speed isn't an issue, collision detection will be easier to deal with because the offset value is probably also easier to deal with using a redraw method

Well, no matter what, I have a portion of the tilemap (the portion on the screen) stored in an 70-byte array at L5 (it's 9x7 plus another column that gets scrolled in). It's really easy to work with, so redrawing/horizontal doesn't really matter at all. It's just a matter of which turns out to be faster (and which one looks better). I just tested redrawing every single frame (even without scrolling), and it's already pretty slow (even without enemies x.x), so that definitely won't work...
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 18, 2010, 01:08:15 am
Ouch, I hope you can manage to keep it at decent speed. In the worst case, maybe you could ditch grayscale?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on November 18, 2010, 01:39:30 pm
Ouch, I hope you can manage to keep it at decent speed. In the worst case, maybe you could ditch grayscale?

From what I've seen of the game (screenies), the grayscale is NOT that needed, so it is a good option :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 18, 2010, 11:41:56 pm
I used VirtualDub to edit the screenshot so it is monochrome and it seems to look kinda nice, still, although in the screenshot it's a bit glitchy due to the conversion process and bad wabbitemu settings, but you can get a small idea.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on November 22, 2010, 06:44:41 pm
(http://www.omnimaga.org/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=5173.0;attach=4548;image)

The character's jump has a few problems yet, especially when landing, don't you agree?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 22, 2010, 06:53:44 pm
Yeah, they don't "get up" after jumping. That's just extra stuff, so I'll work on that after I get the engine stuff done.

And thanks for the screenie, DJ. I might change stuff and take the grayscale out...

I've been working on XDE recently, though (I scrapped everything I had a few days ago and I'm basically starting it over), so it'll be a while before I get anything more done on this.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on November 22, 2010, 06:54:35 pm
Yeah, they don't "get up" after jumping. That's just extra stuff, so I'll work on that after I get the engine stuff done.

And thanks for the screenie, DJ. I might change stuff and take the grayscale out...

Good Luck, then!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 23, 2010, 01:48:38 am
Ah ok, well I hope this eventually revive because I'm looking forward for this. :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 22, 2010, 06:43:14 pm
I don't have a screenshot, but

Update

Completely started over (again). It's now a lot better than before (several times faster, even with scrolling implemented). Bullets now work perfectly, and I'm adding the enemies right now. So basically, the engine is pretty much done :D

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and it's still full grayscale. And fixed all those bugs in the earlier screenshot too: the character lands upright (instead of staying in a ball), he doesn't stop in the middle of a platform if he falls there, and scrolling with bullets actually works.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: yunhua98 on December 22, 2010, 09:44:55 pm
cool!  Can't wait for screenies.  ;)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 23, 2010, 12:19:10 am
Awesome to see this progressing again! Are you still using the same graphics? Because they looked pretty nice. :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 23, 2010, 12:24:18 am
Yep, exactly the same graphics, except several times faster. I'm no longer redrawing the screen ever frame because I figured out a way to make sidescrolling fast enough that there wouldn't be much of a visible slowdown when you scroll.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 23, 2010, 01:17:48 am
Cool to hear. WIll it make it harder to draw enemies and bullets, though?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on December 23, 2010, 01:24:09 am
Sounds awesome :D Nice to hear everything is running faster, and congrats on rewriting the engine, i know that can be quite an undertaking O.O
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: AngelFish on December 23, 2010, 02:45:36 am
Personally I like using horizontal commands :P But if redrawing speed isn't an issue, collision detection will be easier to deal with because the offset value is probably also easier to deal with using a redraw method

Well, no matter what, I have a portion of the tilemap (the portion on the screen) stored in an 70-byte array at L5 (it's 9x7 plus another column that gets scrolled in). It's really easy to work with, so redrawing/horizontal doesn't really matter at all. It's just a matter of which turns out to be faster (and which one looks better). I just tested redrawing every single frame (even without scrolling), and it's already pretty slow (even without enemies x.x), so that definitely won't work...

What about using Horizontal to move the bulk of the image, then just drawing the new line that's shifted in?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on December 23, 2010, 05:20:03 am
I don't have a screenshot, but

Update

Completely started over (again). It's now a lot better than before (several times faster, even with scrolling implemented). Bullets now work perfectly, and I'm adding the enemies right now. So basically, the engine is pretty much done :D

EDIT: Oh, yeah, and it's still full grayscale. And fixed all those bugs in the earlier screenshot too: the character lands upright (instead of staying in a ball), he doesn't stop in the middle of a platform if he falls there, and scrolling with bullets actually works.

Nice job, grayscale, enemies, bullets, faster :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 23, 2010, 12:24:15 pm
Personally I like using horizontal commands :P But if redrawing speed isn't an issue, collision detection will be easier to deal with because the offset value is probably also easier to deal with using a redraw method

Well, no matter what, I have a portion of the tilemap (the portion on the screen) stored in an 70-byte array at L5 (it's 9x7 plus another column that gets scrolled in). It's really easy to work with, so redrawing/horizontal doesn't really matter at all. It's just a matter of which turns out to be faster (and which one looks better). I just tested redrawing every single frame (even without scrolling), and it's already pretty slow (even without enemies x.x), so that definitely won't work...

What about using Horizontal to move the bulk of the image, then just drawing the new line that's shifted in?
Well as he said in his new post, (that one you quoted is from November) he changed the way things are drawn. Seeing as he mentions a huge speed increase, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what he is doing now.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 23, 2010, 04:11:50 pm
Cool to hear. WIll it make it harder to draw enemies and bullets, though?

Yeah, whenever it scrolls it has to loop through each enemy/bullet and change their X values, so there's a bit of slowdown when there are moving objects on the screen. Can't really do anything about it, though :( Except use a shorter Pause when it scrolls.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: AngelFish on December 23, 2010, 04:14:19 pm
Well as he said in his new post, (that one you quoted is from November) he changed the way things are drawn. Seeing as he mentions a huge speed increase, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what he is doing now.

Didn't notice the necroquote :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 23, 2010, 04:18:42 pm
Whoops, completely missed the next page when I posted :P

Personally I like using horizontal commands :P But if redrawing speed isn't an issue, collision detection will be easier to deal with because the offset value is probably also easier to deal with using a redraw method

Well, no matter what, I have a portion of the tilemap (the portion on the screen) stored in an 70-byte array at L5 (it's 9x7 plus another column that gets scrolled in). It's really easy to work with, so redrawing/horizontal doesn't really matter at all. It's just a matter of which turns out to be faster (and which one looks better). I just tested redrawing every single frame (even without scrolling), and it's already pretty slow (even without enemies x.x), so that definitely won't work...

What about using Horizontal to move the bulk of the image, then just drawing the new line that's shifted in?
Well as he said in his new post, (that one you quoted is from November) he changed the way things are drawn. Seeing as he mentions a huge speed increase, I wouldn't be surprised if this is what he is doing now.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing, except that I wrote my own Horizontal routine to only move the stuff I want to move (the 9x7 map in the middle of the screen). So I don't have to redraw everything else, which is great.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on December 23, 2010, 04:54:11 pm
Quote
Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm doing, except that I wrote my own Horizontal routine to only move the stuff I want to move (the 9x7 map in the middle of the screen). So I don't have to redraw everything else, which is great.

Great in what point of view??
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 26, 2010, 01:25:50 am
Oh that's cool, less stuff to scroll means much faster. :D

Is it hard to scroll smoothly, though?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 26, 2010, 01:37:28 am
Oh that's cool, less stuff to scroll means much faster. :D

Is it hard to scroll smoothly, though?

Nope, still pretty smooth. I'll try to get a screenshot to post when school starts again :)

EDIT: And maybe a demo.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 26, 2010, 02:14:35 am
Ah nice, but I mean how do you handle drawing sprites outside the area without erasing everything around the map where stuff is drawn? I mean the sprite clipping and such things.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on December 26, 2010, 08:55:15 am
Oh that's cool, less stuff to scroll means much faster. :D

Is it hard to scroll smoothly, though?

Nope, still pretty smooth. I'll try to get a screenshot to post when school starts again :)

EDIT: And maybe a demo.

Nice! I can't wait for it, since I'm a Contra fan (web browser SNES emulator)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on December 26, 2010, 01:27:39 pm
Ah nice, but I mean how do you handle drawing sprites outside the area without erasing everything around the map where stuff is drawn? I mean the sprite clipping and such things.

Moved the actual Contra screen to the right side of the display, and let the sprite commands' own clipping do their magic ;D

The left side'll be used for scores and stuff.

Oh that's cool, less stuff to scroll means much faster. :D

Is it hard to scroll smoothly, though?

Nope, still pretty smooth. I'll try to get a screenshot to post when school starts again :)

EDIT: And maybe a demo.

Nice! I can't wait for it, since I'm a Contra fan (web browser SNES emulator)

Great :D warning though, the first demo might be in the middle of January (still don't have my link cable).
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on December 26, 2010, 04:28:28 pm
As some of you might know:

http://www.nesplay.com/play/Contra.html (http://www.nesplay.com/play/Contra.html)

Contra is one of the hardest games ever and the ony human way to finish it is using:

http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/cheats/NES/contra.html (http://www.neoseeker.com/Games/cheats/NES/contra.html)

How will lives work in your game Deep Thought? Just like in the original game with this cheat, or human playable from start?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 27, 2010, 03:10:10 am
Yeah I tried it before and it was really hard. However it was on the NES, not SNES. I hope you get a link cable soon Deep Thought.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 02:32:54 pm
Bad news: I managed to corrupt my archive, and now all my groups are gone (Contra, XDE, PapiJump, Ultimate Falldown, AACalc II, and at least six others project groups). No backups. It's all gone :'(

And right after I added enemy AI and aiming. It's gonna take a while to build it all up again.

EDIT: First day of 2011. Bad, bad sign.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: yunhua98 on January 01, 2011, 02:50:45 pm
So you're continuing it, still right?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 02:52:11 pm
I'm putting everythhing off for a bit just in case someone knows a way to uncorrupt an archive...
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on January 01, 2011, 02:52:17 pm
That's terrible Deep, very bad to hear. Hope you can remember most of the code and rebuild it ;D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: fb39ca4 on January 01, 2011, 03:10:53 pm
I'm putting everythhing off for a bit just in case someone knows a way to uncorrupt an archive...
/me bangs head against the wall because another person neglected to make backups
The only way I could think of is to use a nand programmer to get a dump of the archive, and save what you can.
Hope you can pick stuff up later.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: jnesselr on January 01, 2011, 04:36:27 pm
Yeah, backups are very important.  I wonder if there's a way to auto-backup stuff on insertion into a computer or something.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on January 01, 2011, 05:51:31 pm
Oh dear D: Thats horrible, no backups on the computer from when you made screenshots?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 06:07:28 pm
Oh dear D: Thats horrible, no backups on the computer from when you made screenshots?

Only the compiled program :( And that was before I rewrote the engine. The code was twice as large as the stuff I had after I rewrote everything.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on January 01, 2011, 06:09:51 pm
Yikes D: Thats horrible, do you have calcsys on your calc right now?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 06:11:58 pm
Yeah. I've never used it to mess with flash, though. And there are at least 11 project groups I want to recover right now :( And worse, since I always delete old copies of groups, there are now dozens of copies of a group called CON in my flash...
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on January 01, 2011, 06:18:04 pm
Yikes, i don't know how to help with this :( Maybe if there is some way to make a copy of your flash onto the computer we can manipulate it more easy, but i don't want to risk destroying anything, so don't archive anything O.O
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 06:22:02 pm
Too late, Mirage already made two copies of the appvar MirageOS in my archive. Only 84 bytes total, though, so it shouldn't corrupt too much...

Some people suggested copying my flash to a file, though. I'll try that, but since I'm pretty new to flash stuff, can an advanced ASMer give me some explanation on how to do that? I don't want to mess up my calculator more :(
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on January 01, 2011, 06:23:12 pm
You might want to talk to brandon willson or ben ryves, they are both pretty experienced with unbricking calcs and otherwise restoring good things to order.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 06:30:55 pm
Okay, thanks, I'll email him. Hopefully I can get at least this project out all right :-\
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 01, 2011, 08:01:35 pm
This sucks :/, I wish you had an easy way to regularly transfer files on the computer. I wonder if the stuff can be recovered? Someone might know how

When you perform a ROM dump with TiLP, does it includes the archive content like Virtual TI? If so, maybe someone could analyze the ROM data and grab your files?

I hope you don't kill this project, though...
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 01, 2011, 08:04:30 pm
This sucks :/, I wish you had an easy way to regularly transfer files on the computer. I wonder if the stuff can be recovered? Someone might know how

When you perform a ROM dump with TiLP, does it includes the archive content like Virtual TI? If so, maybe someone could analyze the ROM data and grab your files?

I hope you don't kill this project, though...

I'll finish it one way or the other. What I had looked too good to give up ;)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 01, 2011, 08:09:31 pm
Cool to hear! I would hate to see this die.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 06, 2011, 08:10:55 pm
Got it back :w00t:

It's the newest version, after I got rid of some enemy movement to redo them more efficiently. But when I post the shot/demo in a few days you can at least see how the static enemies spray bullets :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Ashbad on January 06, 2011, 08:12:04 pm
Can't wait!  Sorry you lost it in the first place though :'(

Sounds like a quick recovery though, which is great!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 06, 2011, 08:13:19 pm
Sounds like a quick recovery though, which is great!

Yep, I can post a quick tutorial if anyone wants (in case anone else gets that issue).
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Ashbad on January 06, 2011, 08:14:09 pm
for fast recoveries?  cool, I would need that :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 06, 2011, 08:15:41 pm
Well, no. It's just a way to recover files if you ever corrupt your archive.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Ashbad on January 06, 2011, 08:16:21 pm
really?  yeah now I am extremely interested.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: turiqwalrus on January 06, 2011, 08:18:37 pm
this looks really great from what I've seen. can't wait for the next demo.
Title: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 06, 2011, 08:22:19 pm
Getting ready...

NEWEST UPDATE: http://ourl.ca/7770/196692#new (http://ourl.ca/7770/196692#new)

Still no screenshot, sorry.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 07, 2011, 06:45:16 pm
Sounds like a quick recovery though, which is great!

Yep, I can post a quick tutorial if anyone wants (in case anone else gets that issue).
That would be great. You should sticky the topic in the calc help section and also add other info about other ways to fix a calculator that crashed or froze.

Also I'm glad Contra progress was not lost. It would have sucked if you had to restart everything from scratch. Good luck!
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 07, 2011, 06:45:37 pm
/me hopes new ones will be posted soon.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ztrumpet on January 07, 2011, 11:09:18 pm
Awesome!  I can't wait for a screenie! :w00t:
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 08, 2011, 12:27:26 am
I really don't have too much to show that's different from what was in the screenie before, except that it runs faster and has better support for shooting. I had more progress done on the enemies, but I deleted part of it to make it more efficient. Demo should be up in a few days, though :D

Sounds like a quick recovery though, which is great!

Yep, I can post a quick tutorial if anyone wants (in case anone else gets that issue).
That would be great. You should sticky the topic in the calc help section and also add other info about other ways to fix a calculator that crashed or froze.

I'm starting to post it at http://ourl.ca/8664/161736 (http://ourl.ca/8664/161736). I'll finish it when I have time. Meanwhile comments and suggestions there are very welcome :)

EDIT: And stickied.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 09, 2011, 07:53:44 pm
Awesome progress on Contra and cool to hear you started the calc crash topic :D

I also like your new sig :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 09, 2011, 08:04:18 pm
Thanks :D The title screen's just a mockup, though. I haven't done much with graphics at all.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 15, 2011, 02:12:02 pm
Update

Still no screenshot, sorry :-\

I can get enemies to move around adn jump randomly, and now to add AI.

It's just over 3 KB for both source and exec, so I still have a lot of space to add all that other stuff, so I think the final version will include some of the classic Contra levels. It'll definitely support external levels, though.

Amnd I promise I'll get a demo up as soon as I can add this new stuff :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on January 15, 2011, 02:18:18 pm
Update

Still no screenshot, sorry :-\

I can get enemies to move around adn jump randomly, and now to add AI.

It's just over 3 KB for both source and exec, so I still have a lot of space to add all that other stuff, so I think the final version will include some of the classic Contra levels. It'll definitely support external levels, though.

Amnd I promise I'll get a demo up as soon as I can add this new stuff :D

Enemies randomly jumping? That's cool ;D If custom levels are supported, you mean a level editor? I love those.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 15, 2011, 02:30:24 pm
Enemies randomly jumping? That's cool ;D

Nah, it's actually pretty weird. The enemies have no idea where they're going, so they just jump around :P I should fix that.

If custom levels are supported, you mean a level editor? I love those.

Yep, I'm definitely including a level editor. I already have the level format completely set out, anyway.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: qazwsx988 on January 17, 2011, 06:39:50 pm
I'll get the demo to you soon, stupid tiConnect is acting up, so I had to reinstall it on a different computer.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 17, 2011, 07:59:10 pm
I'll get the demo to you soon, stupid tiConnect is acting up, so I had to reinstall it on a different computer.

Lol, thanks qazwsx. You don't have to send it to me now, since I have more updates :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 23, 2011, 01:17:51 am
Wow nice to see you got so much space left. Nice job so far :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Steelm on February 15, 2011, 10:12:11 pm
LOVE THIS GAME, make
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 16, 2011, 01:58:16 am
Any updates, by the way?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on February 16, 2011, 10:38:47 am
Yep, I'm working on it. The reason I haven't released any updates yet is because when I was testing out the original version to see how the enemy AI worked, I suddenly realized that I'd done the character jumping engine wrong. So I'm doing a little rewrite, but it involves a lot of code that I'd optimized to the point of illegibility :P Sorry for the lack of updates.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: shmibs on February 16, 2011, 09:59:05 pm
i suppose you do have to make sure the physics are done properly...
i'm definitely eager for an update as well, though. good luck!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on February 18, 2011, 10:19:48 pm
No problem. Good luck Deep!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on March 19, 2011, 11:38:28 am
Sorry, still no download :( I actually haven't worked on this at all in weeks, but I've had a lot to do ("homework," redoing my entire site, random little calculator projects (which all failed), etc.).

But now it's spring break, and seeing how everyone's picking up their projects again, guess I'll do the same. Hopefully I can get something done on this this week. It needs some huge revamping, that's for sure.

My log so far:

[Moved to first page (http://ourl.ca/7770)]
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Ashbad on March 19, 2011, 11:39:29 am
good luck :D

good to see yet another great project revived :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on March 19, 2011, 02:45:38 pm
Spoiler For Spoiler:
Sorry, still no download :( I actually haven't worked on this at all in weeks, but I've had a lot to do ("homework," redoing my entire site, random little calculator projects (which all failed), etc.).

But now it's spring break, and seeing how everyone's picking up their projects again, guess I'll do the same. Hopefully I can get something done on this this week. It needs some huge revamping, that's for sure.

My log so far:

Completed:
  • First sprites - 11/03/10
  • Planning tilemap - 11/03/10
  • First tilemap engine - 11/04/10
  • First main movement engine - 11/05/10
  • First scrolling engine - 11/06/10
  • Redoing movement engine - 11/10/10
  • Redoing scrolling engine - 11/10/10
  • Redoing sprites - 11/11/10
  • First bullet array engine - 11/13/10
  • Redoing tilemap engine - 12/18/10
  • Redoing main movement engine - 12/21/10 (two years from apocalypse)
  • Redoing drawing engine - 12/26/10
  • First enemy engine - 12/28/10
  • First enemy bullet engine - 12/28/10
Data loss 1/1/11-1/6/11
  • Redoing enemy engine - 1/8/11
  • First moving enemies - 1/15/11
  • Redoing moving enemy engine - 2/13/11
  • Redoing moving enemy engine - 2/23/11
  • First diagonal and vertical firing - 2/25/11
  • Redoing main movement engine - 2/26/11
  • Re-planning tilemap - 3/4/11

To do (next few days):
  • Redo tilemap
  • Redo tilemap engine
  • Redo diagonal and vertical firing
  • Redo moving enemy engine
  • Add death and invincibility sequences
  • Add water
  • Add more enemies
  • Test using actual Contra Level 1

To do (long term):
  • Add power-ups
  • Redo scrolling engine
  • Add end-of-level
  • Add alternate levels (3D, vertical) ??
  • Redo main movement engine ??

Aren't you focusing on XDE and Contra right now? I thought you were, great :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on March 21, 2011, 04:06:40 pm
Coding update: Finished rearranging the tilemap. Now it uses full-byte tiles, which will let me add more objects later on (which also means levels will now be stored about twice as large as before, unfortunately :-\).

Something I'm probably going to add later on is allowing levels to define what tiles look like. That way I can keep it down to 64 unique tiles, some of which get reused for different objects between levels (such as for a tree in stage 1 and a pipe in stage 4).

EDIT: And spawning enemies! I nearly forgot how fun it is to code :D

EDIT2: And how frustrating. I add one short snippet of code and it messes up half the code from 3 separate subroutines :P

Maybe I should start optimizing after the coding's done.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on March 27, 2011, 04:15:59 pm
Glad to see more progress again. :D Any screenshots soon?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 05, 2011, 07:05:25 pm
I finally, finally received my TI-Graphlink cable! So here's the update, with an actual screenshot. A more detailed breakdown of how things are progressing is on http://contra.clrhome.co.cc/ (http://contra.clrhome.org/).

First of all, I'm really sorry this took so long. The first demo was supposed to be in March, and that's passed. And sorry to disappoint you again, but there's still no demo here. The reason is that I don't feel like I've done enough for people to actually want to try out.

I'll admit it, progress has been terribly slow. I've been busy recently, and all the free time I had was almost devoted almost entirely to building my site (and wasting time playing Tetris, for some reason). I got very little work done on my calculator projects, and of the work I did do, a lot was on a little project in Mimas that I've now pushed back. There were also a few other little projects that I tried making, but I gave up on all of them. And so I've decided that my top priority right now (in terms of calculator projects) will be Contra.

And for Contra, there isn't much to show in the screenshot, mainly because of the number of times I've had to restart and rewrite. The entire program's been rewritten at least four times, and most of the individual pieces have been rewritten a lot more than that. I guess I probably should have put off optimizing until after I finished the actual program, because my code's now nearly illegible and it takes time for me to pick up this project again.

tl,dr: A screenshot. Sorry for the underwhelmingness.

(http://contra.clrhome.org/2011_04_05.gif)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: ZippyDee on April 05, 2011, 07:16:42 pm
Damn. That's pretty awesome :D Keep it up, this is going to be so kick ass when it's done!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 05, 2011, 08:02:12 pm
Thanks :D

I'm starting to run out of room though. 5953 bytes (compiled) and counting.

EDIT: Water (sort of) works!

EDIT2: Edited first post.

EDIT3: Update lost on the previous page: http://ourl.ca/7770/194366
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 06, 2011, 10:44:05 am
Wow Deep Thought! That looks ASTONISHING, REALLY AWESOME, I loved it, the movement, original map!, shooting, all look cool :D Nice job! Congratulations!
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: yunhua98 on April 06, 2011, 10:43:43 pm
wow, lots of progress since last time!  This is going to me one of my all-time eagerly awaited games.  ;D
/me puts pressure on Deep to finish it...  :P
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Darl181 on April 07, 2011, 12:34:15 am
O.O that's a lot of source programs

Looks great.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: leafy on April 07, 2011, 12:35:41 am
Looks a bit flickery but overall very awesome! Will you have trouble seeing the character over the tiles?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 09, 2011, 09:48:04 pm
wow, lots of progress since last time!  This is going to me one of my all-time eagerly awaited games.  ;D
/me puts pressure on Deep to finish it...  :P
O.O that's a lot of source programs

Looks great.

Glad.
/me periodically stabs himself to keep working on this

Looks a bit flickery but overall very awesome! Will you have trouble seeing the character over the tiles?

Yeah, that's a problem. Instead of making a new sprite routine (which could get big), I'm now trying to make the tiles a bit "quieter" so the character shows up better.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 10, 2011, 12:43:20 pm
Thanks. And a little update: health/lives works. Still a long way to go until even Level 1 runs the way it's supposed to, but I'll have a little demo on Monday.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 11, 2011, 05:29:24 am
Deep Thought: I showed this screenshots to a friend of mine who loves Contra and plays it online at nesplay and he loved them :)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 11, 2011, 08:04:35 pm
Not much, but as promised:

Contra Pre-Alpha Demo v0.01 (4-11-11)

(http://clrhome.org/projects/contra/2011_04_11.gif) (http://clrhome.org/projects/contra/screenshots/)

Download (http://clrhome.org/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.8xp)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Stefan Bauwens on April 12, 2011, 03:16:05 am
Maybe you could post something on TI-Freakware as well, as we don't want that it gets inactive.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: turiqwalrus on April 12, 2011, 07:16:21 am
tried it already. look great except for one thing: can the turret thingies die?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 12, 2011, 07:20:43 am
Not much, but as promised:

Contra Pre-Alpha Demo v0.01 (4-11-11)

(http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.gif) (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/)

Download (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.8xp)

Great an Alpha version! Must try!

EDIT: Already tried it, it looks good, but we aren't supposed to be able to go back?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on April 12, 2011, 10:08:41 am
I don't think you are able to go back?  I just downloaded it to my calc, and the greyscale and controls are superb, although I had a lot of difficulty seeing the character and the bullets over the textured backgrounds :( There were times when i didn't even know the enemy was shooting at me because I couldn't see anything.  I'm not sure how to fix this, right now you are using XOR sprites so that the sprites show up on black and white textures right?  The only way I can think to make this work would be to use masked sprites with a white outline or something, but I don't know if that would work well :/
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 12, 2011, 10:14:04 am
I tried the original game, and yeah we can't go back, and I had the same experience as Builderboy, finding me and my enemies is hard, but I guess that's part of the fun?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 12, 2011, 10:42:45 am
Thanks for trying it! :D

Quote from: Stefan Bauwens
Maybe you could post something on TI-Freakware as well, as we don\'t want that it gets inactive.

Already done :) I ran out of time to put more info there, but I\'ll fill it in today.

Quote from: turiqwalrus
tried it already. look great except for one thing: can the turret thingies die?

Nope, not yet, but that\'s definitely something I\'m adding soon.

Quote from: Scout
Great an Alpha version! Must try!

EDIT: Already tried it, it looks good, but we aren\'t supposed to be able to go back?

*Pre-alpha, which means it\'s not a playable game yet ;)

Nope, you can\'t go back in the original game. See the link in the first post.

Quote from: Builderboy
I don\'t think you are able to go back?  I just downloaded it to my calc, and the greyscale and controls are superb, although I had a lot of difficulty seeing the character and the bullets over the textured backgrounds :( There were times when i didn\'t even know the enemy was shooting at me because I couldn\'t see anything.  I\'m not sure how to fix this, right now you are using XOR sprites so that the sprites show up on black and white textures right?  The only way I can think to make this work would be to use masked sprites with a white outline or something, but I don\'t know if that would work well :/

Yeah, that\'s definitely a problem. I tried masked sprites to make the character completely white, but I didn\'t want to make it slower when I\'m still not sure how much slower the final game will have to be.

Quote from: Scout
I tried the original game, and yeah we can\'t go back, and I had the same experience as Builderboy, finding me and my enemies is hard, but I guess that\'s part of the fun?

Guess you could think of it like that :D
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 12, 2011, 10:44:15 am
Quote from: Scout
I tried the original game, and yeah we can\'t go back, and I had the same experience as Builderboy, finding me and my enemies is hard, but I guess that\'s part of the fun?

Guess you could think of it like that :D

There's always a positive side on problems, right?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on April 12, 2011, 10:48:26 am
I was thinking more along the lines of making the character white with a black outline.  It would be only a single more sprite per frame, it shouldn't slow down the game too significantly, and I think it would help with visibility tenfold.  As for bullets however, drawing twice as many sprites for each bullet seems very excessive... maybe use Rectangles? For a rectangle of 3x3 with a white center, it draws faster than a single sprite would.  It would have black edges no matter what, and a white center no matter what, so it would show up in all scenarios and be faster than a sprite (if a sprite is what you are using right now :P)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 12, 2011, 10:52:36 am
I was thinking more along the lines of making the character white with a black outline.  It would be only a single more sprite per frame, it shouldn't slow down the game too significantly, and I think it would help with visibility tenfold.  As for bullets however, drawing twice as many sprites for each bullet seems very excessive... maybe use Rectangles? For a rectangle of 3x3 with a white center, it draws faster than a single sprite would.  It would have black edges no matter what, and a white center no matter what, so it would show up in all scenarios and be faster than a sprite (if a sprite is what you are using right now :P)

I actually prefer backgrounds to be in gray and characters and bullets in black or darker gray, which is what happens in Contra. But that's just me, I think.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 12, 2011, 06:16:35 pm
I was thinking more along the lines of making the character white with a black outline.  It would be only a single more sprite per frame, it shouldn't slow down the game too significantly, and I think it would help with visibility tenfold.

True. That's another person to suggest the outline...

As for bullets however, drawing twice as many sprites for each bullet seems very excessive... maybe use Rectangles? For a rectangle of 3x3 with a white center, it draws faster than a single sprite would.  It would have black edges no matter what, and a white center no matter what, so it would show up in all scenarios and be faster than a sprite (if a sprite is what you are using right now :P)

That's a good idea, I'll do that. Thanks!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 13, 2011, 04:31:01 am
Will this make it faster or just better visibility? :P Seems great eitherway.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Munchor on April 13, 2011, 08:41:56 am
Deep thought: Will you be uploading the source code of the demo/alpha you uploaded?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on April 13, 2011, 09:47:46 am
It will make the game every so slightly slower (since you are drawing 1 extra sprite per frame) but as bullets are added it will lag less because bullets will be drawn faster.  The main goal is visibility because so many people are having a hard time seeing anything.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 13, 2011, 10:24:23 am
It will make the game every so slightly slower (since you are drawing 1 extra sprite per frame) but as bullets are added it will lag less because bullets will be drawn faster.  The main goal is visibility because so many people are having a hard time seeing anything.

Hope so :) Having so many layers, enemies, water, sky, forest, the player, it's hard to make the perfect combination of greyscale.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 13, 2011, 03:40:31 pm
I think I'm going to keep the source private (at least for now, until the final version). Unless someone really wants to look at it? It's insanely confusing even to me x.x
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 14, 2011, 05:12:05 pm
Not much, but as promised:

Contra Pre-Alpha Demo v0.01 (4-11-11)

(http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.gif) (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/)

Download (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.8xp)

DISCUSS: http://ourl.ca/7770/196692#new

EDIT: can you kill enemies?

NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though you can't kill enemies and there are not very many :( GREAT JOB!!! ;D(http://www.omnimaga.org/Themes/default/images/gpbp_arrow_up.gif)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Ashbad on April 14, 2011, 05:14:58 pm
I think the opening shifts the title screen over 1 pixel too far -- I saw that on the very right was a white line with gray bits ;)

other than that, looks very seamless!  Great work so far :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Juju on April 14, 2011, 05:16:36 pm
This is really awesome, I like the animation at the beginning :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 14, 2011, 06:51:07 pm
EDIT: can you kill enemies?

NICE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Even though you can't kill enemies and there are not very many :( GREAT JOB!!! ;D(http://www.omnimaga.org/Themes/default/images/gpbp_arrow_up.gif)

Depends on what you mean by "enemies." Soldiers that run around and try to bump into you you can kill, but not the box guns (not yet) :)

And I didn't include enemy soldiers in this demo because I think I broke something and the enemy engine kinda glitches now :(

I think the opening shifts the title screen over 1 pixel too far -- I saw that on the very right was a white line with gray bits ;)

other than that, looks very seamless!  Great work so far :)

Nope, the pic's only 95x64. SC doesn't support the rightmost column :(
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 14, 2011, 09:04:11 pm
Looks nice Deep THought! I'm glad this is alive again. :)

I agree about the character being hard to see over gray background, though. It should probably have an outline or change color depending of the background.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Builderboy on April 16, 2011, 01:07:30 am
Sourcecoder?  Is it edited in Hex or by Image?  Because if its by image you can just drag and drop the image into TiConnect and it will send :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 16, 2011, 04:18:11 am
Er, this is strange that SC doesn't support the rightmost column. Definitively something you have to report to Kerm, because it can be used even in BASIC. ImageStudio had a similar problem actually.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 16, 2011, 10:51:49 am
Sourcecoder?  Is it edited in Hex or by Image?  Because if its by image you can just drag and drop the image into TiConnect and it will send :)

It's an image, and I do use it directly :)

I guess that might be a bug for Kerm.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Ashbad on April 16, 2011, 12:00:08 pm
I wonder.. maybe just draw a 1 pixel wide, 64 pixel tall rectangle after scrolling in the image?  It would remove the white line of doom and make it look slightly better :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 16, 2011, 12:12:54 pm
True. If possible I'd rather just use the pic though.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Ashbad on April 16, 2011, 12:16:53 pm
well, the rectangle wouldn't add that much size to your overall code, and would probably only chop 1000 cycles from your title screen RenderLoop.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 16, 2011, 12:46:05 pm
Eh, it's already at the max speed moving two pixels each frame :P

Also, it seems SC does support the 96th column. Maybe Axe doesn't? I don't see why it wouldn't though...
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 17, 2011, 10:11:47 am
Not much, but as promised:

Contra Pre-Alpha Demo v0.01 (4-11-11)

(http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.gif) (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/)

Download (http://clrhome.co.cc/projects/contra/screenshots/4-11-11.8xp)

DISCUSS: http://ourl.ca/7770/196692#new

Nice work but I noticed that the Konami Code: up up down down left right left right B A START

on calc : up up down down left right left right Alpha 2nd Enter

does not give you 30 lives like on the NES can you please add that feature?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Ashbad on April 17, 2011, 11:16:07 am
I think it's too far off for him to be worryin' about cheat codes  ::)

EDIT: and DT, if you're using TIOS pics, it only supports up to 95 pixels wide ;)

and, if you're just typing in hex equates by hand instead as data in the source, for every 12th byte, just add one to the hex number ;)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Munchor on April 17, 2011, 01:21:42 pm
Eh, it's already at the max speed moving two pixels each frame :P

Also, it seems SC does support the 96th column. Maybe Axe doesn't? I don't see why it wouldn't though...

I have a problem with X=96 and Y=64 in Axe too.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on April 17, 2011, 01:39:10 pm
Looks nice Deep THought! I'm glad this is alive again. :)

I agree about the character being hard to see over gray background, though. It should probably have an outline or change color depending of the background.

Did you try to play it? It's much harder when playing it rather than watching IMO. But as I've said, I think that's part of the fun: "WHERE AM I? XD"
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 17, 2011, 05:41:15 pm
EDIT: and DT, if you're using TIOS pics, it only supports up to 95 pixels wide ;)

The pics themselves support 96 cols, so I'm still not sure where it got lost.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Darl181 on April 18, 2011, 12:42:39 am
Eh, it's already at the max speed moving two pixels each frame :P

Also, it seems SC does support the 96th column. Maybe Axe doesn't? I don't see why it wouldn't though...

I have a problem with X=96 and Y=64 in Axe too.
X=95 and Y=63 is the most bottom-right pixel, way in the corner.  Remember it counts from zero ;)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 18, 2011, 08:27:05 pm
Has anyone played the Contra game on the NES it is awesome!!!
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 18, 2011, 08:29:07 pm
Yep, and that's why I want to port it as close as possible :)

There's an online emulated version here: http://nintendo8.com/game/60/contra/
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 18, 2011, 08:31:21 pm
Yep, and that's why I want to port it as close as possible :)

There's an online emulated version here: http://nintendo8.com/game/60/contra/

No I don't need an emulator I have one (nester)

  EDIT: I'm playing it now
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on April 18, 2011, 08:34:35 pm
Yep, and that's why I want to port it as close as possible :)

There's an online emulated version here: http://nintendo8.com/game/60/contra/

cool I can't wait untill soldiers come in the game and a level editor and boss maker are made!!!

EDIT: And the game is finished although it is very good!!
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 18, 2011, 08:38:12 pm
No I don't need an emulator I have one (nester)

Nice :D

Yep, and that's why I want to port it as close as possible :)

There's an online emulated version here: http://nintendo8.com/game/60/contra/

cool I can't wait untill soldiers come in the game and a level editor and boss maker are made!!!

Soldiers work already, but I managed to glitch the enemy engine right before the demo was released so I didn't include it :P

I definitely need to work on bosses. Still haven't figured the engine out yet.

Also, if you need to add more to your post, you can use the MODIFY or QUICK MODIFY buttons at the right side of your post instead of double-posting :)
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 19, 2011, 01:39:42 pm
By the way Deep, shouldn't the entire screen become dark instantly on launch, with the title screen scrolling in afterward? Because in the original the screen was all black when it did.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on April 19, 2011, 01:40:40 pm
Unfortunately not yet, as I didn't have much time to do so.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Builderboy on April 19, 2011, 02:00:56 pm
How is it going adding the masking and outlines?
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 19, 2011, 03:57:38 pm
I'm actually working on a couple other projects ATM :-\
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on April 19, 2011, 04:00:13 pm
Yeah, it should. I messed that bit up when I released the demo. Should be really easy to do.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on May 01, 2011, 12:07:29 am
Not much of an update, but a couple of screenshots:

By the way Deep, shouldn't the entire screen become dark instantly on launch, with the title screen scrolling in afterward? Because in the original the screen was all black when it did.

Done.

(http://contra.clrhome.org/2011_04_30.gif)

And some spread fire testing (best part of the original game ;)).

DISCUSS: http://ourl.ca/7770/204011
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on May 01, 2011, 12:11:34 am
Aaand back to this...

How is it going adding the masking and outlines?

Still haven't gotten around to it (I really should though). But I did a weapons engine rewrite to get spread fire working (http://ourl.ca/8649/204010) :D

And I finally figured out why my enemy engine keeps glitching randomly. That was one annoying bug :P Haunted me for a month. See this post (http://ourl.ca/10693/203700;topicseen#new) for more info.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: leafy on May 01, 2011, 01:26:14 am
This looks pretty sweet. How are you going to handle two-player, by the way?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on May 01, 2011, 11:42:50 am
Not planned yet, sorry :(
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 26, 2011, 12:33:18 am
I saw the screenshot on http://contra.clrhome.co.cc/download/ and it was pretty nice. You should update the links in this thread.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on May 26, 2011, 10:36:10 am
Oh right, I changed the links didn't I. I'll update them when I get home (can't edit posts from here).

This is temporarily on hold until I get my contest entry up and running.
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on June 06, 2011, 09:35:29 am
Deep Thought please upload I want to play it I lost it in a RAM clear when (My fault) and when I came here the link was broken please upload
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: aeTIos on June 06, 2011, 09:52:44 am
Deep, your site is down. What happened?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on June 06, 2011, 12:57:29 pm
Bah, I broke contra.clrhome.co.cc last time I switched hosts, which was a bit over a week ago. Should be working now.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Munchor on July 24, 2011, 12:42:04 pm
Oh right, I changed the links didn't I. I'll update them when I get home (can't edit posts from here).

This is temporarily on hold until I get my contest entry up and running.

Deep, how is this going? On a break?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: annoyingcalc on October 28, 2011, 08:38:21 pm
the demo is down please reupload
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 13, 2011, 02:47:56 pm
Is that still being worked on by the way Deep? Or did you drop this project?
Title: Re: Screenshots and demos
Post by: Deep Toaster on November 14, 2011, 11:47:19 pm
Oh, hello. Not sure why the demo is down, but I've rewritten a large portion of the main engine since then, and I'm planning some more stuff before I do my next update soon ^^
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 10, 2012, 06:56:57 pm
Still alive.

There's actually been a lot of work done on Contra in the past few days, but most of it's stuff you can't see in a screenshot. I rewrote the display engine (again), changed scrolling to make it smooth, made moving enemies that jump around on the platforms, and implemented swimming.

Currently I'm in the middle of updating most of the sprites to make them all truer to the original, as far as three grays can go. I've decided not to skimp on graphics in Contra.

(http://contra.clrhome.org/2012_01_09.gif)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Darl181 on January 10, 2012, 10:08:36 pm
Not sure if it's been mentioned already, but is the char sprite final?  It's kind of hard to see :/
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: leafy on January 10, 2012, 10:10:01 pm
DT, is the entire screen redrawn every frame? Cuz if it is, you can just apply horiz commands to saved greyscale buffers and redraw only the tiles you need to.

Unless you already did, that, in which case awesome work ^^ Does get a little hard to see, though.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 10, 2012, 10:36:09 pm
Yeah, the sprites are kinda hard to see. I'm going to make the bush darker, though (preferably all gray and black), since everything that moves is lighter-colored.
DT, is the entire screen redrawn every frame? Cuz if it is, you can just apply horiz commands to saved greyscale buffers and redraw only the tiles you need to.
I have an appvar to save the tilemap, so I don't have to redraw it every frame. Instead, I do this for each frame:It's about 1.5 times as fast as drawing every sprite, every frame.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 10, 2012, 10:48:01 pm
Awesome to see this alive again Deep. Keep up the good work.

I agree about the main sprite, though. Also the bullets seems to go a bit off the game area to the left sometimes. (over the HUD)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on January 10, 2012, 10:49:44 pm
I agree about the main sprite, though. Also the bullets seems to go a bit off the game area to the left sometimes. (over the HUD)
Yeah, that's true. Another thing I should fix. And here are some more updates from today:

(http://contra.clrhome.org/2012_01_10.gif)

Notice I slowed the game down and made it even smoother. Now it runs at a more accurate speed for a Contra port.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 10, 2012, 10:50:32 pm
Yeah I noticed. It's best that it won't move too fast either, else it makes it hard to play on some calcs, especially a TI-Nspire. X.x
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TIfanx1999 on January 12, 2012, 11:22:13 am
It's nice to see some progress on this. It had been rather deadish for a while. Looking good! :thumbsup:
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: dl on May 02, 2012, 05:05:46 pm
i really like contra
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 02, 2012, 11:16:23 pm
That reminds me, Deep Thought should probably work a bit on this... :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: dl on May 03, 2012, 05:27:45 pm
is this for the ti-81
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Netham45 on May 03, 2012, 05:29:34 pm
No, it's for the TI-83+/TI-84+ line, using AXE.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 03, 2012, 09:57:14 pm
Protip: Nothing except Illusiat TI-81 Remake is for the TI-81 on Omnimaga forums, since nobody is developing for this calculator model anymore. Since 1997, only two TI-81 program came out (Illusiat 81 and Unity)
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Keoni29 on May 08, 2012, 01:11:21 pm
Too bad the TI84+ has a crappy screen. I wonder if I could replace it :/
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 08, 2012, 01:51:56 pm
Yeah it is bad. Although if you replaced your screen then made games specifically for it, then barely anybody could even play them, since most people don't want to mess around with hardware/wires/electronics. D:
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Deep Toaster on May 08, 2012, 11:30:27 pm
Pretending not to see this topic <_<

I can't seem to get anything done this month. But I'll work on it eventually.
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on May 08, 2012, 11:31:55 pm
Just as long as you aren't dropping it O.O

Also fix your sig. There's a scrollbar :P
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: TheCoder1998 on October 17, 2013, 02:28:36 pm
this is going to be awesome!
i can't wait to play it!
Title: Re: Contra
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 21, 2013, 12:46:24 pm
Holy necropost Batman. O.O Please don't necropost. (Says the guy who necrobumped a game that revived and then re-died for his first post :P).