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Messages - Phero

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46
News / Re: Ticalc.org launches POTY 2012
« on: December 10, 2012, 03:47:04 pm »
In 2013 I think they should feature Bubble Bobble.

Oh, it's going to happen ;)

It's been on my "news to write" pile since I started.

Also, as a quick correction, there are actually 15 entires, 7 more than last year.

47
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 29, 2012, 11:04:22 pm »
By the way will there be fog of war like in Joltima and the TI-89 Calcrogue?

Sorry for the delayed reply, I've been so insanely busy working that I've had a horribly small amount of free time  :crazy:

For Chambers, I won't be implementing a fog of war. The only way that it would make sense would be for the "containers" to block one's view, which strikes me as equivalent to a treasure chest doing the same thing in a standard RL, which would be a bit odd. Other than that, since each room is entirely open (except for monsters and containers), I don't feel that a fog of war would lend itself well to this game. I originally considered doing a more full-blown roguelike with scrolling tile maps, etc., but I settled on doing one much closer to what you see here for a few reasons. The main reason is that, to be honest, I felt that it would be easier to pull off. This kind of allows me to set my sights on something realistic that I have high confidence that I'll finish. The second reason is that, considering the display, I wanted something where you could see everything that's going on at once. It is my hopes that this will place more emphasis on players thinking about their movements and item management. I know that I'm not the only one who falls into a trap of exploring too much rather than carefully planning my movements, leading to lots of YASD moments. I also felt that, considering this is my first RL engine, I wanted to keep it simple so that I wouldn't have to worry about implementing tons of stats until I get my footing a bit more. If I had larger maps for each floor, I would likely have to implement some kind of impetus for progression, such as the standard hunger system, "warmth" system in Frozen Depth, or sanity system in Infra Arcana.

Once done with Chambers, I'm not sure what my next project will be. However, at some point down the road I intend to try my hand at a more traditional roguelike, depending on how slim I can make an engine. I'll be the first to admit that I'm extremely old-fashioned and inefficient in a lot of my coding practices, so I feel like I have a lot to learn before I get to that point. When I see some of the amazing games that people put out and how small the files are, I get super envious  :)

48
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 26, 2012, 02:26:05 pm »
Also phero, I'm really looking forward to play this ;D

Glad to hear it :)

I've hit a super-duper busy time with my work at the moment, so my development has stalled somewhat. I'm trying to work it into any free moment that I've got, but that's not much at the moment  :-\

I've added a couple more monsters, but I'm finding that the difficulty amps up way too fast right now to be able to realistically get past room 25 or so without it being 90% dumb luck on getting a bunch of strength boosting items. I need to tone it down some and keep adding more enemies, tweaking stats the whole time. Tedious, tedious, tedious!

49
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 22, 2012, 09:07:45 pm »
So can anyone elaborate on what a rogue like game is?
***feels dumb now***

Don't feel dumb! Roguelikes are a (somewhat) obscure subgenre of RPG. The keystone of these games is the randomness. Levels are randomly generated, monsters are randomly generated and placed, as are items. A lot of times, even the items do different things on each playthrough (e.g., a blue potion this time might be a heal potion, next time it might be a fire potion, etc.). Another main thing to roguelikes is permadeath. Basically, each play is completely unique and you can't backtrack. If you have a bad playthrough this time, it's okay, because you just start fresh again. Sometimes the randomness comes together in your favor, most of the time it doesn't ;)

Another key to roguelikes is that they are typically very strategic. You have to sometimes really stop and think about whether you should use an item, what your chances are of attacking a monster or trying to plan a route of escape, etc. They're a lot of fun, although some of the greatest ones have a really steep learning curve.

I think that some of the most popular ones of alltime are DoomRL, Nethack, and Angband. I'm partial to Nethack myself, but there are really a lot of incredibly innovative and awesome ones out there.

Also I like Rogue-like games and I wish there was one that got finished for z80 calcs. This one looks very nice so far. :)

Thanks! Roguelikes are definitely my favorite genre, and I've been playing a ton of Cataclysm and Brogue lately, both of which are really interesting and progressive games in their own way. I've hoped for years that someone would do a 7DRL competition for the z80 calcs. Unfortunately, that kind of seems unlikely, as anyone who creates one would have to meet multiple criteria (enjoy roguelikes, know how to code, know how to code calcs, have the time to do it, etc.).

50
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 22, 2012, 09:00:53 pm »
It's nice to see you back into calc programming (in which years did you originally start and stop actually?).

It feels good to be doing it again. I think that I probably started programming on calcs (I had been programming in VB and C++ mostly before that point) in maybe 1996 on a TI-85, then in 1999 I got a TI-83 and started playing around in ASM probably in 2000 or so. I pretty much stopped programming everything altogether around 2003 or so, then picked up programming for work and personal projects just a couple of years ago again. There's only one thing that I've found on the interwebs still that I programmed back in the day called "Falling Down Drunk":

http://ti83.free.fr/prgm/asm/autres/e_autres.html
http://www.calc.org/search.php?calc=ti83&ad=desc&s=89&p=20

Feel free to download it and laugh, laugh the night away. :D

I think that I was a freshman in highschool at the time that I programmed that. It's absolutely stupid, but it goes to show just what kind of things are funny to 14-year-olds (I think that I coded it back in 99 then released it in 2000 online when I got an internet connection back). It was also the very first ASM thing that I ever coded, so why it has outlived any of the other things that I ever released is completely beyond me. I remember that someone asked me to make it for the purpose of two people loading it on their calcs, then you would mash the button as fast as you could and basically "race" the other person. I'm actually borderline ashamed of that program looking back on it now.

So, that was a long response to a very short question :)

51
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 22, 2012, 05:25:48 pm »
I suppose that I should post before the discussion gets too far away (not that I mind :D )
I'm not doing physics-based collision detection for this, as the game is essentially a tileset. Basically, once you press a key to move in a direction, the process goes as follows:

if nothing is there, move there
if it's a door, new room (this is ostensibly the fastest and least-noticeable laggy part)
if it's a wall, do that stuff
if it's an object, see if you can pick it up, then pick it up, etc.
if it's a monster, determine attack power, attack, determine if it is dead, do things involving experience points, level-up, clear the space, etc.

then the mosters move
determine how what direction to try to move towards you
similar processes all happen here as when you move (e.g., check if an object is in that space, do attack subroutines, etc.)

Basically, all of these things happen (and some more stuff that I probably spaced on just now) between each screen refresh when you press a key. Like I said, I've tried sprinkling screen refreshes into this process, but it makes the time between when you press a key and when it will become responsive to input again extremely lagged after they start adding up.

When I get to a project that involves active movement, this will obviously be a much larger problem. For now, at least, I'm okay with it. I might get more bothered by it when the game itself is completed, but that's still a ways away. I very much want to add an into screen/menu/something as well, but the amount of space this game is taking up continues to grow and might preclude anything fancy on that end.

52
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 22, 2012, 10:49:15 am »
It could be chrome but you might want to fix the gray.

The issue is twofold. Firstly, Wabbit definitely renders it all kind of weird and distorted like that. I'll probably try taking Xeda's advice ;) and try playing with the settings some for screencaptures.

The other issue is that there is a slight flicker (not nearly as bad as Wabbit makes it) during movement. The reason for this is that there is such a large number of subroutines that run (drawing, movement, collision detection, attack versus item nabbing, monster movement calculations, monster attack vs hitting a wall, etc.) after each keypress that there is maybe a .25 second delay before it refreshes again. I've tried playing around and adding some carefully placed screen refreshes into the subroutines, but they incrementally augment the response latency. Similar to before, I have (currently) opted to have responsiveness of the software be the main priority.

I should also add that the screenshots are on an 83+ SE, which is what I'm also coding/compiling it on. I intend to allow the software to run on the + and + SE models, but on the 83+ it already is, of course, a bit slower in terms of response latency. The more screen refreshes I add, it gets far more noticeably slower on the 83+.

@Phero: As ever, nice job :D

Thanks! At this rate, I might end up having to dedicate the game to you for all of the moral support  ;D
In all seriousness, I appreciate all of the support, Xeda. It's nice to hear positive feedback when working on a project, especially since this is the first time in a long time that I've done so. Thanks!

53
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 21, 2012, 11:54:42 pm »
A screenshot of my current state.

Mostly, there's far more event text. I was hoping for more chances to show off the flare and the teleporter and their utility, but it really depends so much on the random generation whether or not you're going to get stuck in a tight spot and need them. I had added a really cool effect (or, I thought so) for the flare so that you would kind of have a spotlight around you still in the darkness, and it kind of flickered with light (used a for loop to define circle radius, used character position, drew a series of spotted circles with "flickering" areas around the edge during the getkey routine), etc. I ended up cutting it because it added to the response latency by about 1-2 seconds whenever you'd press a key. It was pretty, but, ultimately I want it to be responsive more than anything. I would be more than willing to guess there's a much better way to get a similar effect that I wanted, but, whatever.

54
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 21, 2012, 11:00:26 am »
I spent the morning adding event text (e.g.,  "You got a medkit", "You got a teleporter"). I spent last night adding the condition of rooms potentially being dark when you walk into them, where you can't see anything at all. You still get event text (for hitting a wall or getting attacked, etc.) so that you can "feel" your way around. In addition to that, then, I added a flare item which will light a darkened room. Just another thing that makes item management (since you can only have 5) all the more important in the game. Trying to decide if I should make the flare do something else if a room is already lit.

I know that I'm not the most efficient coder in the world, and the engine for this game is actually rather lofty, but it's already sitting at 11659K in size when compiled. I suppose that means that it's time to focus on just adding monsters and an end condition.

55
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 20, 2012, 11:22:03 pm »
Added an item that randomly teleports you to an open spot, along with an animation for it that any fan of TI-83 manuals will love :)
This will have a good chance of helping out when stuck in a really tight spot in a tough room. Like the holybomb, could randomly help you. Unlike the holybomb, could randomly make your situation worse, depending on the room. Oh, emergent gameplay...

Also, set up the inventory screen so that you can wrap top to bottom and vice versa. I was getting sick of having to scroll all of the way to the bottom instead of just hitting "Up" once.

See attached image for both of these additions.

I also remapped some keys for usability and intuitiveness. A lot of work tonight, very few visible results. My next step: back to designing monsters and tweaking a ton of stats.

56
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 19, 2012, 04:51:39 pm »
And that is where you took up Axe? O.O

And how!  ;D

57
TI Z80 / Re: Chambers
« on: March 19, 2012, 02:27:57 pm »
As a bit of added history to my development process, for anyone who's even slightly curious:

I don't remember a lick of ASM, so I decided, hey, let's start this off in TI-BASIC. I created the general map generation engine and the player-movement engine in about an hour on a Thursday. Generating an all-wall map was fast and easy. Already, it was taking about 2-seconds per turn to detect input, do wall detection, overwrite the character, redraw the character in a new place, etc., on the graph screen (I wanted to branch out from solely ASCII). I remembered quickly that this is why I never undertook an RPG in TI-BASIC. Just to draw a nice, pretty map with sprites, it would often take between 30 and 60 seconds on my old 83. Obviously, I was going to have to try to relearn ASM in order to do this in any manner that I could be satisfied with. Or was I?  ;)

58
Introduce Yourself! / Re: Mandatory Introduction
« on: March 19, 2012, 02:23:43 pm »
You do a great job as news editor on ticalc

Thanks!

it's also nice to see you into calculator programming (again?) :)

It's really nice to be programming again. The last time that I personally programmed a calc for pleasure and not work was back in about 2001 or 2002. I used to program in ASM, but not well, and the only real projects that I managed to turn out ended up getting dropped from the calc.org archives some years back and only existed on a couple of random French websites that I honestly don't think exist anymore. Long story short, a couple of weeks ago I decided to start a project again. The main problem that I had when I was a considerably younger programmer was that I could create really solid game engines in the course of a few hours, but had no ideas for themes, gameplay, or anything to go on from there, so I'd just lose interest and never continue.

Now, being considerably older and more mature both in programming and generally, I'm hoping to keep a steady, albeit slow, stream of personal projects in the works for pleasure. This is also my first time doing anything in Axe and, I don't think that this even needs to be said, I'm extremely impressed. Like, words cannot describe how impressed I am that Axe has made the speed and power that I'm looking for so accessible. After I get done with Chambers and get a breather, I intend to pick up programming in Grammer as well, because I'm extraordinarily impressed with Xeda's work there.

I'm trying to pace myself on my current project just so that I don't get burnt out on programming again, more than anything. Additionally, I really want to make a game that I personally want to play. I've found that this actually helps my interest remain piqued. I always used to code games that other people requested and liked, but I had no interest in. As I'm sure many people here can relate, when programming for "fun" turns into a job and no longer an engaging excusion, well, it's hard to rationalize continuing.


59
Introduce Yourself! / Re: Mandatory Introduction
« on: March 19, 2012, 01:05:26 pm »
If you are ever questioning the morals of writing a piece about your own game, run a poll on some of the sites asking if members want you to or not. I am sure we'd all agree that it is necessary, especially if you finish Chamber :D

Thanks ;)

I haven't thought about that at all yet, but I think that I'd feel kind of like a jerk to feature one of my own pieces of software on the site. I tend to be rather shy  :-*

60
Introduce Yourself! / Re: Mandatory Introduction
« on: March 19, 2012, 12:57:07 pm »
Stage 6 was the acquisition of peanuts. Stage 7... well, that's a secret  ;)

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