Author Topic: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth  (Read 160940 times)

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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #120 on: July 05, 2009, 09:56:25 pm »
The game still works (and will continue to work) for the TI-83 Plus. It just won't run as great because the grayscale timings were designed to work on an 83+SE / 84+(SE). The tilemapper isn't *that* much slower so you'll get circa 16FPS as opposed to the 23FPS you'd be getting with a fully compatible calculator.

On a side note, I ended up using cross-page magick and I've found that that all the maps in the game (roughly 40) total up to around 13KB in its compressed state. I'll have to redo the first 24 (which shouldn't take very long) because of changes that were made.

Now, what if the maps weren't compressed? First, let's talk about what actually *is* compressing them. It's just a modified form of RLE, so don't get your hopes up that I used some fancy pants algorithmathingamajig. The only modification is that the flag "byte" was merged with the tile as bit 7. Since there are less than 128 tiles, I can do this. Cuts runs from 3 to 2 bytes when used. Now, if the maps weren't compressed, the thing would take up around 23KB. Not bad, eh? I has spare room for MOAR stuffs :P

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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #121 on: July 06, 2009, 09:46:53 pm »
Sorry for the double-post, but I think this screenshot might be worth of it. Got smoothscrolling to work, though Wabbitemu makes it scroll faster than it should. Is it because of the emulator, or is it because the 83+SE interrupts are just that much faster?

btw, this is actual smoothscrolling. x1 speed. The screenshot might chop it up a bit, but it's actual speed on the emu.

EDIT: Swapped out the screenshot with something better.
EDIT2: Looks better in Firefox. Google Chrome just isn't doing it.
« Last Edit: July 06, 2009, 09:54:55 pm by Iambian »
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #122 on: July 06, 2009, 09:59:36 pm »
wow this looks so friggin nice, I really can't wait to see that in action on a real calc :D
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Offline Eeems

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #123 on: July 06, 2009, 11:09:48 pm »
wow that looks amazing!! you've got some epic looking sprites
/e

Offline simplethinker

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #124 on: July 07, 2009, 10:28:13 am »
Wow.  Great work! ;D
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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #125 on: July 18, 2009, 10:04:22 pm »
OOookay. So, here's yet another screenshot that goes along with the game's progress. Keep in mind that the dev team logo is subject to change, but I don't think we'll really change it. It kinda looks cool. Also, this screenshot is a friendly 9-10FPS for those web browsers that don't want to show it at any higher frame rate. The game actually runs pretty smoothly. This time, it demonstrates a few more effects and a text box thingamajig (OMG, Chrome doesn't mark that "word" misspelled?) along with a simple demo of the menu system (basically choosing one of the two options). If you're a fast reader, you might be able to catch what the Dev Team rep (me) is saying.

Also, I shouldn't be really showing you this, since the screenshot includes maps not meant for your beady little eyes quite yet. But, I *do* cycle through them so that you'll see the one that I am authorized to show: the overworld map. Also, the grayscale is completely broken during map loading. This is no accident. Between map switches, the screen either goes white or is blanked out with a contrast effect.

Speaking of contrast effect, Wabbitemu doesn't want to show it in the screenshot, which is why I skipped past the first effect (which is the reason why it took a little longer than "usual" to get from background to actual title screen).

EDIT: The portrait insert for the message detailing that the save/load doesn't work quite yet isn't exactly game canon, but me and Zera decided (AFTER I "made" it) that it'll go great in the game's Dev Room whenever you try to speak to anyone in there.
« Last Edit: July 18, 2009, 10:09:42 pm by Iambian »
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Offline Eeems

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #126 on: July 18, 2009, 10:10:10 pm »
wow, this is looking great! gif capturing errors and all
good job Iambian!
/e

Offline JoeyBelgier

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #127 on: July 18, 2009, 10:11:44 pm »
castle stuff is pretty =D

Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #128 on: July 22, 2009, 07:43:21 pm »
Lol Anon pic as text box portrait :P

but looks very nice
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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #129 on: July 29, 2009, 12:42:15 pm »
No new screenshots, but I will explain what I've done in the meantime, and what still needs to be done at the moment.

I've been having problems writing a masked unaligned sprite routine. The mask is being extracted from the dark gray layer. I've written some logic that I hope will work out, but the whole thing needs to be put together in such a way that something can be demonstrated. At least enough to replace the "dedicated black box" with something nicer.

I've added in an scrolling intro thingie for "New Game". That's to kick off the events leading up to you being able to gain control of your character at some point after the opening sequences. A screenshot will be released only when I get up to that down. If you're on IRC, you may get to see preliminary screenies.

Also, the format of the textboxes are also going to be changed. Slightly smaller to take advantage of the windowing effect that the text system uses. Other stuff, I'm still discussing.

Also, I updated some of the maps to make use of an extra tile that remained unused (tile 127). The effect sets some maps apart from the others, so there will be some variety in the game.

Uhm. I feel like I'm forgetting something.
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #130 on: July 29, 2009, 12:56:49 pm »
You forgot to add nethams


er I mean, glad to see more progress :)

Could you explain the difference between regular text and text windowing effect? Maybe that would take a screenshot for that, though, as I am more visual, so I might need to wait a bit more.  x.x

For tile 127, do you just means it separates each maps? Or is it like for certain maps so they have something different that occurs on them like an event or something?
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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #131 on: July 29, 2009, 05:41:49 pm »
There were some empty spots in the tileset below 127, so I told him that he could use tiles up to 127, but he neglected to count starting at zero, so he thought he could only have 127, when I needed no more than 128. The edit he did just added a tile and updated a couple of the maps to use that extra tile. Previously, it was another tile because he thought there just wasn't enough space to do it.

The tileset, uncompressed, still takes up 8K by itself. Around 6KB compressed.

And as far as "windowing", he just wanted it to make it clear to the player that the textboxes are "windows" instead of just cheap-ass rendering things stuck at the far edges of the maps. I haven't written anything that would demonstrate it, but the system that I've written can be easily changed to accommodate what Zera wants. The text itself remains the same. It's just the "box" that it goes in. What is being talked about is the box. I'm sorry if I didn't make it clear. I was kinda sleepy when I made that last post. I still *am* sleepy >.<

I like Nethams. It's all lobstery goodness. When the lobster bisque is done, maybe we can talk about how I should reverse the order of my response since it doesn't correspond to the questions you've put forth. Or... enjoy the lobstery goodness. It's all up to you. All you gotta do is choose your favorite wine, and we're all set. ^_^

(wow. That's offtopic )
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Offline DJ Omnimaga

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #132 on: July 29, 2009, 06:00:31 pm »
ooh I see. Yeah, I think I remember some games simply modified the tilemap to add tiles as the text box window. Or when the text box takes the entire screen width.
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Offline Iambian

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #133 on: August 27, 2009, 12:40:41 pm »
I ran into a problem trying to cram all the sprite and tile data (tilemaps are on another page) onto the same page, along with much of the other image data. That's being resolved by switching to pucrunch and buffering all the data out to RAM page $82.

This means, there's no hope in hell this is gonna work with the 83+. Unless you can stand a larger FlashAPP. Which I won't do right now. I just don't feel like having to insert another page.
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Offline Eeems

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Re: Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth
« Reply #134 on: August 27, 2009, 12:55:31 pm »
awwww....:/
well you could make two versions you know...
/e