Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI Z80 => Topic started by: AssemblyBandit on August 15, 2013, 05:05:46 pm

Title: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 15, 2013, 05:05:46 pm: I've decided to bundle Tunnel with 2 other games. A demo video on Tunnel (thanks to Hayleia) will be released as soon as I fix a line routine . One other game will be Frogger and the other (oldschool) game will not be mentioned until I put out the demo and I'm confident that it can run at a decent speed and fit with the other 2.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 15, 2013, 10:52:00 pm: A Frogger game would be nice. There is already one in BASIC that is extremely popular, so you would have some serious competition, but a brand new one with actual sprites (maybe inspired from the SNES Frogger?) and color would definitively be great.

As for the other game besides the Tunnel, is it a DOOM port? :trollface:
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 18, 2013, 01:41:57 am: I paused work on Tunnel to focus on Frogger. I will have to rewrite Tunnel's random routine because now it runs faster and the old random routine can't keep up. Unfortunately Frogger can't fit in with Tunnel and they will be separate games.

DJ: I only wish that the 84+C could run a decent port of DOOM! I'm not even sure that Frogger will run at the speed I want it to. The Frogger sprites weren't inspired by the SNES version but I think they're lookin pretty good. I had made a mistake in the dimensions of my mock up with the sprites coming in at 32x32 pixels instead of the planned 16x16, right now I'm just going to go with it.

Spoiler For Spoiler:
I know I'm dreaming with this, but here's what I want it to look like:
Spoiler For Spoiler:
(http://briandm82.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/froggermockup.png)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: tr1p1ea on August 18, 2013, 06:19:57 am: Wow looks really good :).

Mockups on the 84C are pretty fun to make, they are a good incentive to start coding imo.

Hopefully you can find the time to knock this one out pretty quickly, cant wait :).
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2013, 12:06:23 pm: Yeah it looks very nice indeed. I hope you can get good speed from it, which I assume it's hard due to how many stuff that can move around on the screen in Frogger.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 18, 2013, 05:44:58 pm: tr1p1ea: Thanks! I make mockups to figure out where to place stuff and get a jump on creating the graphics. Then I use IViewer converter to convert the sprites to asm files.

DJ Omnimaga: Thanks! I chose Frogger because it has a static background and that helps a lot with the speed.

I take advantage of the static background and it uses 160 mode. Also the road and water are one color so no background copying and pasting necessary for the vehicles and logs. Because the frog has to jump on logs and stuff it requires transparency and background copying to erase it. The slow part comes when he has to jump on a log, that means I have to redraw the frog constantly or copy the background where hes at and redraw it constantly as it scrolls around. I may make the road three lanes and the water 2 'lanes' to speed it up. Hopefully I'll have a demo video up by tonight.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2013, 05:47:56 pm: Yeah my worry was more about the many sprites moving around. That said, if everything scrolled around in the same direction, you could have used the built in scrolling support to save speed (which I assume you do in your Tunnel), but sadly in Frogger it would be impossible. Good luck!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 18, 2013, 06:21:05 pm: The sprite count is definitely the biggest problem and will slow it down significantly, I try not to think about it ;) I can make a small number of sprites go faster or large number go slower. I was also thinking about not letting the logs come on screen until the road was passed, then stop the vehicles. Maybe even have the road on one screen, then scroll up to water part. There is also the possibility of having the screen horizontal to take advantage of the hardware scrolling for that. But for now, I use the edges of the screen for borders so I don't have to draw any partial sprites (the sprites scroll completely off the screens sides out of view). Tunnel does use the hardware scrolling and with Hayleia's suggestion for scrolling multiple frames it helps out a lot. I scroll it at 16 pixels now (the width of the ship) which is essentially drawing the ship as an aligned sprite. Before, when the ship got to the edge of the screen, I had to draw part of it on one side and the rest on the other. That really killed its speed. For certain games that might be necessary, but Tunnel doesn't need the extra resolution. Now it scrolls so fast that the hardware scrolling itself is the bottleneck. I have to purposely slow it down so that when it scrolls, the ship sprite is drawn at the right place instead of ghosting it in front of its position.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2013, 06:33:48 pm: In the worst case scenario, you can always only draw every two line like if the game had scanlines, but then it would probably look weird (kinda like a Sega Game Gear or Atari Lynx screen).

By the way what might prevent the games from being bundled together? Is Frogger already 16 KB large? ???
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 18, 2013, 09:02:44 pm: The Frogger background image is almost 7,000 bytes compressed, and every sprite is about 256 bytes, font data is over 1,000 bytes (it's not in use but will be). I can get the background down to around 2,000 bytes if I break it up. In the end, it will probably be around 8,000 to 10,000 bytes for 20 sprites and background data.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2013, 11:40:02 pm: Ah I see now. Data can be quite large on those color calcs >.<
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 19, 2013, 01:55:12 am: Here's a demo video on Frogger. Right now its at 10,737 bytes.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Hayleia on August 19, 2013, 03:38:36 am: Awesome work !
I seriously can't wait to see this come out, it looks really great and fast !
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 19, 2013, 01:59:43 pm: Darn that is fast! Can't wait to see the game in its fully functional state. :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Eiyeron on August 19, 2013, 03:39:34 pm: Oh, that's very fast. Very fast...
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 21, 2013, 09:13:57 pm: Thanks everyone! I have made some changes to it, but I promise when I release it, you will not be disappointed! (Well I hope not at least.)
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 22, 2013, 12:55:17 am: Will it play exactly like the original or will the play area be smaller or with fewer obstacles/platforms?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 24, 2013, 08:45:34 pm: DJ: I'm trying to keep the feel of the original but there's a reduced number of objects on screen. I've been watching the arcade version of Frogger and trying to adapt it while keeping the speed fast. The game looks simple enough, but on the road the frog is drawn as an aligned sprite. Fast and easy enough to accomplish, but when it gets on the logs, it can scroll horizontally pixel by pixel. That's where I need to cheat a little bit....

Here's a new preview of Tunnel:

Download the demo: http://briandm82.com/?ddownload=587
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on August 25, 2013, 03:21:56 pm: This is looking pretty awesome O.O
Great job :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 25, 2013, 11:13:31 pm: Thanks Sorunome!

Check this out! :w00t:

So far, exceeding my expectations!!!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 26, 2013, 12:46:32 am: Really nice speed! :) Also I like the Tunnel game so gar :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 26, 2013, 01:02:09 am: Hey, this looks nice. I definetley think the smaller sprite for Frogger is better. Speed looks pretty good too. Nice job so far! :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on August 26, 2013, 02:27:54 am: wow, that is some epic speed O.O
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 26, 2013, 10:16:44 pm: Thanks everyone!

DJ: I really got to step up the tunnel game after this!

Art_of_camelot: I agree, it draws faster and its not the size of a vehicle!

Sorunome: It's unbelievably fast! I'm very happy with the outcome!

Download a demo here! ;D

http://briandm82.com/?ddownload=658

The water part hasn't been finished yet and is blocked off, no score, just play around in the traffic!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Xeda112358 on August 26, 2013, 10:31:52 pm: Wow, that looks really nice! I haven't played Frogger since I was like 4 or 5 years old. Back then, I thought they were crocodiles instead of turtles XD
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 26, 2013, 10:33:13 pm: Thanks Xeda! The original had both actually, I can't draw a crocodile though :(
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TIfanx1999 on August 26, 2013, 11:18:51 pm: Quote from: AssemblyBandit on August 26, 2013, 10:16:44 pm
no score, just play around in the traffic!

Interesting advice you're giving. :P I'll check it out shortly. ;)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 26, 2013, 11:54:09 pm: I'll try the demo when I get some time :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on August 30, 2013, 02:12:18 am: I'm still finishing Frogger, and its probably going to be a two page app. It might be one page with optional appvars but right now its at ~12k bytes and that's with no title, no scoring, no high scores, no nothing.... Basically its just one unfinished level right now. It takes a lot of code just to get that little frog around. Tunnel will probably be a single page app. I'll make it a program if its less then 10k bytes when complete. They should be finished on 9-2-13.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on August 30, 2013, 03:57:45 am: Maybe, with asm things like crapcake, you could make it a 21k program :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Hayleia on August 30, 2013, 05:37:33 am: Well I don't know how hard/easy it is but CrabCake has yet to be ported to the CSE. Also, size is not much of an issue on the CSE so a 2-pages app is not a problem.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: tr1p1ea on August 30, 2013, 09:31:55 am: Everything is big on the 84C.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on August 30, 2013, 05:50:49 pm: Yeah true, that's the price to pay when you have color graphics at such resolution. Even 8x8 sprites are larger. It's a good thing that TI made the calc so it has 3.5 MB of Flash rather than 480 KB or something, else it would fill up pretty fast.

Graphics on the HP Prime are even worse, since in BASIC, unicode is used and each pixel use 4 characters (hex).

What would be cool in long terms on the 84+CSE is a sprite format where you can assign multiple sprites to a palette of 16 colors, then another set to another palette, so that a 16x16 sprite only takes 128 bytes instead of 512. Someone could always just use 16 colors for the entire tile map, but then it would look crappier.

Anyway at least the good thing is that we're seeing quality games coming out for this calc and I can't wait to see Frogger, the Tunnel clone and the other game finished. :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 02, 2013, 07:20:39 am: Thanks DJ!

Frogger is complete! :w00t: Just waiting for it to get approved! Got it to fit into a single page, it's a full page, the next version will probably take two pages.

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 30, 2013, 05:50:49 pm
Graphics on the HP Prime are even worse, since in BASIC, unicode is used and each pixel use 4 characters (hex).
Ouch!

Quote from: Sorunome on August 30, 2013, 03:57:45 am
with asm things like crapcake
XD
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 02, 2013, 07:37:43 am: That is looking pretty awesome! Also, nice speed! :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 02, 2013, 08:03:24 am: Thanks Sorunome! It took a little time to get it how I want it, I thought I would have it done Friday, now I have to finish Tunnel sometime today ;)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 02, 2013, 08:09:07 am: So, how did you do it now?
Did you, before redrawing, check if the pixel changed or how?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 02, 2013, 08:33:45 am: Yeah, before drawing the frog, the background pixels are looked over. Going over the water, only the four center pixels of the frog are checked, if at least one of them is not water, the frog landed on something. That allows you to hang off logs a little bit. The only time you can cross horizontally between turtles is when they are all the way on the surface, or you die in between them.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 02, 2013, 04:57:06 pm: Wow this looks great! :D For the Omni archives you might have to poke one of the staff or something so he approves the files. Ticalc shouldn't take too long, though.

As for HP Prime graphics, although they are much larger, the good thing is that sprite scaling is supported by the basic language and it runs pretty fast, so if someone knows both Z80 ASM and HP Basic, he could port games without any problem.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 03, 2013, 03:51:39 am: Here's Tunnel v1.0! :w00t:
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 03, 2013, 03:53:36 am: :w00t: It is looking awesome!
And yay, the tunnel is getting more and more narrow :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: chickendude on September 03, 2013, 06:24:18 am: Great job AssemblyBandit, i especially love the Frogger clone. Super Mario might still be a little ways away, but you've shown that despite the crappy hardware we can still make fun (and really pretty!) games! Do you have plans for other games?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 03, 2013, 06:38:09 am: Thanks chickendude! I had a request for a snake game that I will probably work on next. I think that a Super Mario game *might* actually be possible after seeing what was accomplished with Frogger. Maybe I'll make a mario demo and see how it comes out. I would love to have a smooth scrolling RPG engine, but I have some doubts on that one.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DrDnar on September 03, 2013, 06:50:17 am: I figure that some compromises will be necessary for Mario and platformers in general, but I suspect you can make a game with fast enough performance to be quite enjoyable.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 03, 2013, 06:56:40 am: Quote from: AssemblyBandit on September 03, 2013, 06:38:09 am
I would love to have a smooth scrolling RPG engine, but I have some doubts on that one.
Well, RPGs in 'pages' are still fun :) Like the very first zelda ^^
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 03, 2013, 12:13:44 pm: You could do something like Zelda 2 and Ys 3, as in a side-scrolling RPG, but make it like Final Fantasy instead of Zelda. Since the calc supports horizontal scrolling, speed wouldn't be a problem. Vertical scrolling could simply be like in Super Mario Bros 2.

I'm thinking that Mario would be able to pull off at least 15-20 FPS in 320x240 mode, depending of how many enemy sprites there can be on screen at once.

As for RPGs that scrolls screen by screen, they are still fine since that's how almost every 83+ game are (the ones that aren't usually scrolls tile by tile). Just as long as enemies don't respawn right in front of you on the next screen like what happens in Legand of Zelda: Sord of Atari (sic). <_<
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: chickendude on September 03, 2013, 03:43:18 pm: Btw, just wanted to say congrats on the feature. Well-deserved :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 03, 2013, 04:17:23 pm: Indeed. TO be honest, it was inevitable that it would get featured fast. Also I can't wait to try the Tunnel. :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 03, 2013, 05:35:25 pm: Thanks chickendude and DJ! I didn't realize it got featured until now, but honestly, the game amazes me. When I first started it, I only had two car lanes because I didn't think it could handle anymore. I hid the mockup because I figured it wouldn't come out anything like that....but it came out better!!!

DJ: Tunnel kinda lacks compared to Frogger. The speed is pretty crazy, but I think the next version will up the par!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 04, 2013, 02:51:25 am: I just tried the Tunnel demo since the other version isn't on ticalc and it looked cool. The only thing I noticed is something I wonder if it's in every ASM game: Basically, if you play with USB connected then remove the cord while playing, the game freezes.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 04, 2013, 06:57:51 am: I noticed that too! If you look in the Frogger source, line 314 (prefixed with XXXXXX), I mention it. I disable the USB int, but if the USB cable is plugged in already, then removed, then On is pressed (Exit), I think the OS sees it. I think I have to reset the line flags.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 04, 2013, 08:19:29 am: Quote from: Sorunome on September 03, 2013, 06:56:40 am
Quote from: AssemblyBandit on September 03, 2013, 06:38:09 am
I would love to have a smooth scrolling RPG engine, but I have some doubts on that one.
Well, RPGs in 'pages' are still fun :) Like the very first zelda ^^

This is true.
The other option that DJ mentioned would be a side scrolling style RPG like Zelda II or Castlevania II. That would be quite doable I think.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 21, 2013, 08:34:13 am: The third game:

Download the demo: http://briandm82.com/wp-content/uploads/delightful-downloads/2013/09/PacManDemo.zip
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 21, 2013, 09:09:57 am: PACMAN! yay
I love that game, awesome job as usual! :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: JamesV on September 21, 2013, 11:51:26 am: Looks great! You're owning the 84+CSE man, nice work! :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Hayleia on September 21, 2013, 11:55:37 am: Are you paid to make all those great programs ? Seriously, not only they are all awesome but moreover you do them in such a short time !
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 21, 2013, 12:19:40 pm: That's gonna be one of the best looking TI Pac Man O.O
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 21, 2013, 05:09:12 pm: Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 04, 2013, 02:51:25 am
I just tried the Tunnel demo since the other version isn't on ticalc and it looked cool. The only thing I noticed is something I wonder if it's in every ASM game: Basically, if you play with USB connected then remove the cord while playing, the game freezes.

I wasn't fully disabling the USB ports so it would request an interrupt and when I didn't handle it, it would keep looping. I fixed that with Pacman, the others will be updated too.

Thanks Sorunome! I'm trying to make it as close to the original as possible, maybe even include the kill screen!

Thanks James! I'm definitely trying to kill it! From now on, every game that I release will be 'feature' quality. I was sleepin on Tunnel, never again.

Thanks Hayleia! I am going to try to sell some software, if I could get rid of my warehouse job and focus on programming, I'd be pretty happy. I'm pretty content making games for free, but they would come a lot faster if I did my own thing.

Thanks DJ! It's looking good right now, I have to start playing the game to figure out some small stuff. (Like if fruits can be displayed twice in one level.)

I might just put all of my new games in this one topic instead of creating new topics, is that a good idea?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 21, 2013, 06:49:04 pm: It depends. I think that games like Pac Man might attract more attention if they have their own topics with Pac Man in the title, since they're big franchises that aren't as common on calcs as Tunnel and Frogger. Bigger projects should have their own topics as well, such as buttons.

As for selling software, though, try to avoid doing so with calc programs, because historically that tends to be viewed badly in the TI community, due to the very strong open-source/freeware sentiment around here and various other forums. ZoomMath is an exception since it's dedicated for maths and extremely powerful, but people will probably choose the Android version of a paid game over a calc one.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 21, 2013, 07:24:02 pm: I'm working on Snake now, I'll create a new topic and end this one with Pacman.

Considering the calc games are mainly for high school and college students, they are always going to be free. I'm aiming for computer and mobile software. (In the background, not associated with anything I display publicly.)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 22, 2013, 10:17:18 pm: Ah ok. I actually remember you PM'ed me on Facebook (under a different account) about Wi-Mobblin, but back then, since it was the first time in a year that you msg'ed me and that it was about testing some random phone app I never heard about before, I thought that your Facebook account got hacked and I didn't click the link, in case it would be a scam or virus that was automatically sent to all your friends by some random software/bot (like those MSN viruses that steals your passwords).

I hope you don't plan to quit calc stuff anytime soon, though D:
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 22, 2013, 11:06:04 pm: I quit using my real facebook account a while ago, I only keep up my developer account because it's necessary. But, I'm not going to quit programming the +C until I get a lot more games finished! I'm always programming stuff on the side though, just going to charge a small fee for custom work.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 22, 2013, 11:32:51 pm: Ok that's good to hear :)

EDIT: On a side note I almost beat your Tunnel highscore :devil: (I got 2688)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Dapianokid on September 23, 2013, 04:11:25 pm: I'm going to be a real jerk, here, and be that noob who..well, you'll get the idea when you read this.

How viable would it be to write a Rubik's Cube sim with a free-flying camera for this color screen 8x series calculator?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 23, 2013, 04:23:22 pm: DJ: I was just playing around when I got that score, but I can't beat it now when I put some effort in! I don't think I've topped my top score in Frogger either :(

Dapianokid: Check out tr1p1ea's xLib topic, he has a 3d cube demo, it's probably possible, if a little slow!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 24, 2013, 12:27:28 am: Just as long as it's not just fake 3D like the Basic 83+ one. It looked kinda cool but I would like to see things pushed further. :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 24, 2013, 04:03:44 am: ooooh, rubiks cube would be so awesome!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TIfanx1999 on September 24, 2013, 05:56:35 am: Quote from: AssemblyBandit on September 21, 2013, 08:34:13 am
The third game:

Download the demo: http://briandm82.com/wp-content/uploads/delightful-downloads/2013/09/PacManDemo.zip

Hmm.. I missed this program. Separate topics would definitely help. This looks really nice, a bit slow though. I'm sure that will change in time though. :) Pac-man is another great choice for this calc, since it doesn't need scrolling. :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 24, 2013, 05:34:53 pm: I added a delay to simulate the ghost sprite drawing and AI, the speed is worst case scenario (I'm hoping), otherwise without the delay, he gets across the screen before you can press a button ;)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 25, 2013, 02:07:28 am: wow, that's fast O.O
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 27, 2013, 01:06:54 am: Lol nice. I can't wait to see a video with the dots being eatable and moving ghosts. :)

On an unrelated note, I wonder if a Supersonic Ball clone for the 84+CSE would be possible if it used the Buttonz method of drawing blocks?

(http://img.ourl.ca//ssballcseidea.png)

This would allow you to preserve the scrolling in all 4 directions. Else, if you want better graphics or if it's too slow even with the Buttonz method, maybe the game could just remove vertical scrolling and limit levels to 15 tiles height instead of about 30?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: tr1p1ea on September 27, 2013, 02:30:28 am: It would be possible with lines instead of blocks maybe?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on September 27, 2013, 04:49:55 am: wha, awesome idea!
Title: Re: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on September 27, 2013, 12:24:11 pm: Quote from: tr1p1ea on September 27, 2013, 02:30:28 am
It would be possible with lines instead of blocks maybe?
yeah my idea uses lines rather than filled sprites.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on September 28, 2013, 12:49:04 am: I think it is possible ;) I would draw the blocks, use red and black lines to shift it up and down in 160 mode. Buttonz was done in 320 mode, that shouldn't be a problem. I'll make a demo for you DJ to see how fast it can go!

(It's a great game by the way!)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 17, 2013, 12:00:08 pm: Btw I just saw the new Pacman demo on Youtube and it's really cool. I can't wait to play the final version. :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: JoeyBelgier on October 17, 2013, 03:53:22 pm: I know I'm a bit behind, but I just want to say that I'm happy to see that someone like you has picked up the 84+C :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 17, 2013, 04:39:37 pm: Thanks DJ and JoeyBelgier! I forgot to post it here!

Here is the latest demo of Pacman:

Get the demo here. (http://briandm82.com/wp-content/uploads/delightful-downloads/2013/10/PacManDemo2.zip)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: tr1p1ea on October 17, 2013, 06:44:41 pm: I see what you did there :).
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 18, 2013, 12:09:43 am: I don't know if it's due to camera lightning in the vid thumbnail, but is that an extra 84+CSE I see to the right? O.O
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on October 18, 2013, 06:21:27 pm: Awesome pacman! :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 18, 2013, 11:38:44 pm: By the way you just made me buy a copy of Pac Man for the NES yesterday <_< (Tengen version)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 20, 2013, 01:52:38 am: @DJ: I don't even have a Pac Man game! I've been going off faq's, youtube vids, and playing the Google version! I only have one +C right now, I need another to test some linking routines, I'll get one eventually.

@Sorunome: Thanks!

@tr1p1ea: ;)
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 20, 2013, 12:13:56 pm: I'm glad you didn't base your game on the Atari 2600 clone at least. :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 22, 2013, 09:20:30 am: Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on October 20, 2013, 12:13:56 pm
I'm glad you didn't base your game on the Atari 2600 clone at least. :P
Lol yeah that would be awful. XD It looks awesome BTW
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 25, 2013, 12:32:41 am: Thanks Streetwalker! And yeah, the Atari version sucks, I really wonder why they had to cycle through the sprites, could they not find a way around that??? Anyway, its almost done. It'll be 2 pages though and be pretty close to the arcade version. The flicker is killing me, I will have to make it flip pages. I was thinking about the vertical refresh last night and realized its done through hardware and not mapped to a port (duh, my brain goes on vacation 95% of the time). I doubt TI included a port to view the refresh because they would never have too. Maybe one day I'll take my +C apart to verify it.
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 25, 2013, 04:40:25 pm: I think ET and Pac Man 2600 were made by one single coder and had a 2 weeks deadline to meet christmas shopping time, and as a result, the quality suffered greatly. Then you know what happened next in North America x.x
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 27, 2013, 01:04:31 am: Oh yeah, but it was a good thing! Nintendo brought it back to life and kept that garbage from making its way through (almost)! Anyway, the game is going good, it beats Frogger. I think I've really managed to bring the arcade feel to the calculator. I'm trying to get rid of the flicker now, its really bad. I got a new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/assemblybandit where you can see an image of it. I haven't released anything with the graphics yet, its only for the final version. The game is 2 pages, but its worth it. I'm hoping it will be out Monday.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 27, 2013, 11:41:12 pm: Nice to hear. By the way, are you planning to move all future updates on your blog, Youtube and Facebook and no longer post any on Omni in the near future? I noticed you have been moving more and more towards those places (especially Youtube) and slowly phasing out Omni updates lately, but I worried that this might greatly reduce your audience eventually ??? (some people might also think the blog membership is attempting to compete directly against both Omni/Cemetech, which are struggling since the last few years (400 posts a day in 2011 down to 50)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 28, 2013, 02:03:03 am: When I update I put the earliest stuff on my blog first. Since I can't tell if its going to be a reality or if I'm going to like it, I don't want to waste a post here. After I get to the point where I'm sure its coming out, I post it here. Last time I posted Cydia, I got discouraged because of lack of interest, I get more comments elsewhere than I did here. I post the videos on Youtube and put them on my posts here. When the game is finished, I make a video, send it to ticalc.org, release the video on Youtube, post the video and links here. Then (eventually) I post the chronological order of mockups and videos to my blog along with a description of it so people can see where the game was coming from through its updates. As you know, I have a Mario game in the works, but its not gone anywhere yet and it may end up to be disappointing :( I don't want to post it here yet but I give glimpses of it, though its not official. I learned with Snake that I have to put out some sort of temp release where people can play it and give me feedback so I can fix/update it before I put it on ticalc.org (I had to rush out v1.2 because the first version sucked!). So I allowed anyone who signs up for my blog to be a volunteer playtester. That gives me a list of emails to send almost finished games to have people test it in the background and email me with what needs to be changed. There is *no posting* allowed on my blog and I would normally get the emails after the game is out anyway, so I give them a head start when I can do something about it. So there is *no competing* against Omni/Cemetech and I'm not worried about *reducing my audience*, I can do the math.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 28, 2013, 02:11:33 am: Ah ok I see now. I just got worried you were leaving us lol (with social networks and blogging being more popular nowadays, many people have restarted their own personal sites, since it's much easier to update than back in the Geocities days). I like the beta testing idea actually, plus it makes it easier to know who's interested in beta-testing.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 28, 2013, 02:37:14 am: Yeah, and plus I don't feel like I'm spamming people, I know that they want to do it. The Facebook page is just like Youtube, except that its focused only on games, and I don't know if people would prefer to view the videos there (I don't use Facebook really but they host videos too and like it states in the about section, its just a test.) The next post here should be the final version of Pacman!

*Wow, I just got some spam maybe for the admins of Cemetech and I'm not an admin! I don't know if it was an actual user or not.

I didn't finish it last night, here's an updated video:
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Streetwalrus on October 28, 2013, 06:48:06 am: Wow it does look pretty awesome ! :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on October 28, 2013, 06:50:29 am: ^that, so awesome :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 28, 2013, 07:05:28 am: Thanks Streetwalker and Sorunome! It's almost done! (Alotta spam going around tonight!)
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 28, 2013, 07:24:03 am: Wow that HUD, I love it O.O (especially the top pic, which fits very well). EDIT: I finally got time to actually watch the vid rather than just see the thumbnail, and I love how true to the original most stuff like the Title screen are. Of course I still notice some differences with ghosts behavior like how they take a long while to come out or how slow they are after being eaten, but still, once fixed this will definitively be a major hit.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 28, 2013, 09:36:57 pm: Thanks DJ! I was thinking of increasing the speed of the eyes like in the original, plus there's a little randomness while going to the target which makes them take longer. The eyes have the same target routine as the red ghost and I didn't want him going straight for you during the chase (unless he sees you!). I don't think the casual player will notice though, however hardcore players will have to modify their techniques!

And it still isn't finished :( I'm not going to totally remove the flicker but it should be reduced. I'm tired, I can't think straight enough to program right now!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 28, 2013, 10:36:12 pm: I don't think I'll mind the flicker. In fact I might have no choice but to have flicker in some future xLIBC games for speed reasons. Of course, in your case, with ASM it's easier to remove it, but this would mean constantly erasing each sides of sprites, which would take longer and be harder. For speed, I don't mind a little bit of flicker. :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 28, 2013, 11:05:00 pm: Yeah, the flicker aint that bad. I'm starting to get used to it. I woke up a bit and I'm trying to finish it. I'm testing the tunnel now.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 29, 2013, 12:46:06 pm: On an unrelated note, do you plan to make all your older smaller games DCS-compatible eventually? Since apps are fixed at 16 KB per page but not programs, I thought it might be a nice idea to save space on our calcs, especially the Tunnel game. Not to mention they would show up in the DCS menu as well.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on October 29, 2013, 02:19:20 pm: *and have a nice and shiny icon :D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on October 29, 2013, 06:47:26 pm: Maybe, but Tunnel is going to go a different route than just a tunnel game. Kerm wants me to make a DCS exclusive so there will be no releases from me after Pacman for a while. I got a few games that I want/started to make and I'll see where they'll go after they're finished. Right now I'm not making games to save space, they are made according to the way I want them to be. I could strip the title, high scores, and such to save a lot of bytes but then they wouldn't have that finished touch in my opinion. In the future as more programs are out, I will reduce them, but I don't think anybody's hurting for space right now! In fact, I plan to release a developers cut of Snake to fit in everything I want! I think I mentioned it but there's a hawk I want to add that chases you after some time, classic mode (user request), and a multiplayer mode with 2 snakes and you can't run into each other (making it kinda like Tron!) I try to stay within one page but I wanted Pacman to be the way it is, with the graphics and such. It pays homage to the original and just makes you say Damn! when you play it! There's one game that I started and it will consume at least half your calcs Flash RAM when its done, no space considerations are being made, its going to be the details that make this game.
Title: Re: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on October 29, 2013, 11:05:56 pm: Yeah personally I like how your games are made to look more professionally made. A lot of old calc games had no title screen or just a text title screen.

Size wise, I use about 1 MB of Flash right now, but that's due to how many Iviewer pics I have. I need to delete a bunch of stuff soon because my calc is a real mess right now and I can't figure out which file is for what XD.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 02, 2013, 03:57:15 pm: Pacman has been released to TICalc.org! Just waiting for it to be accepted!

Now to start a game for the contest, I doubt I'll have anything ready though :(
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TheCoder1998 on November 02, 2013, 03:58:28 pm: oh my god that's so awesome!
i'm totally going to buy a ti84CSE
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 02, 2013, 04:04:41 pm: Thanks TheCoder1998!
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: TheCoder1998 on November 02, 2013, 04:06:54 pm: you're welcome ;)
also i can't remember a decent pacman game for the ti 84+SE.
i think i know what i'm gonna do tomorrow ;D
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 02, 2013, 05:04:32 pm: Awesome AssemblyBandit! I hope that ticalc accepts it soon so we can play it, although I doubt it, considering there are files that haven't been approved for two weeks now. In the meantime you can maybe upload it here and poke an Omni staff or Cemetech.

*pokes Sorunome so that when someone uploads a tutorial or file on Omnimaga,OmnomIRC notifies the entire channel and highlights some of the active admins and juju :trollface:*

Now I hope this game won't permanently halt my game progress, because I have really been waiting for it for a while and I think I might end up being addicted :P

Quote from: TheCoder1998 on November 02, 2013, 04:06:54 pm
you're welcome ;)
also i can't remember a decent pacman game for the ti 84+SE.
i think i know what i'm gonna do tomorrow ;D

Quigibo's version was kinda good, as well as the 1999 one. However the 1999 one doesn't fit in one screen, so you can't see everything at once.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on November 02, 2013, 05:25:49 pm: Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on November 02, 2013, 05:04:32 pm
*pokes Sorunome so that when someone uploads a tutorial or file on Omnimaga,OmnomIRC notifies the entire channel and highlights some of the active admins and juju :trollface:*
I could actually do something like that, if it was wildley requested i would actually do it :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 02, 2013, 05:30:12 pm: Yeah I got the idea from Cemetech (SAX) actually :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: Sorunome on November 02, 2013, 05:41:52 pm: I could make every event on the forum notify, you guys just have to tell me what to do :P
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 03, 2013, 04:38:00 pm: @DJ: I have enough problems with the downloads as is! A notifier would be nice, but its hard to find admins sometimes, sometimes it takes longer to approve than ticalc.org!

Here's the link: PacMan (http://www.ticalc.org/archives/files/fileinfo/456/45664.html)

*Buttonz and Frogger have also been updated. Buttonz now has lives and in Frogger, the limit is now 4 cars per lane to avoid impossible win situations, timers have been adjusted for the fly and alligator, and now if you beat the level fast enough, you get extra points.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 03, 2013, 05:06:38 pm: Yeah true. The issue, though, is that with the current Omni site, admins won't get notified of new files. The only way to know is to visit the download front page then scroll all the way to the bottom. In a few years, the major site overhaul is supposed to fix that and many other problems (it currently uses SMF 1.x with about 25 third-party hacks, each of which were made by different people or not linked together, while the upgraded site would use SMF 2.0.x with hacks programmed by our own staff to fit the site's needs).

Anyway awesome updates. I noticed that in Frogger, it was impossible to cross some patterns sometimes lol. Also nice addition for Buttonz. I will try to update my calc ASAP. And of course PacMan will get installed soon! *.*

EDIT: WOAH at the Pacman clone! This is definitively gonna be a huge hit. I would be surprised if ticalc didn't feature it, unless they got into a lull like a few years ago when most staff went inactive. I love how it looks in general and the speed overall. Of course there is sprite flickering, but given the platform limitations, we can easily bear with it, plus the flicker actually gave the game some old school feel.

The game is also so true to Pacman. There are a few differences, though, that could maybe be improved in future versions:

-Make eyes go faster to their hideout, maybe by making them move at 4 pixels intervals or by making them go straight to their spot?
-Make collision detection with ghosts a bit less sensitive when turning corners, much like the NES version
-Make collision detection with dots more sensitive. I noticed that sometimes, Pacman mouth is right over a dot, but if I turn back the dot remains there.

I wonder if with Calc84maniac's sound routines, you could add sound to the game, such as the sirens, death sound and startup music?

Good job! ;D(http://www.omnimaga.org/Themes/default/images/gpbp_arrow_up.gif)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 04, 2013, 06:03:00 pm: Thanks, that game is a beast! I'm glad its finally out, I really got tired of working on it. I realized how much I hate being constrained to do something a specific way. That game won't be updated anytime soon! I would like to address those issues but I'm bored with it for now. Different mazes will probably be added, the flicker will be reduced (maybe removed), I'll probably reduce the ghost collision all around (its at minus 2 pixels now), I like the pixel increment with the eyes :D, but I'm not sure about the pellets. Right now its time to do some R&D. I'm creating more routines and testing out different stuff. Once I get my libraries updated and organized, games will come out much faster. I really just want to hibernate right now and stay out of sight for a bit to get things situated :)
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 04, 2013, 06:05:42 pm: Yeah I noticed that I tend to prefer making original games or ones that can be modified heavily (such as Mario), since I have more freedom.

By the way, to reduce flicker, will you do like xLIBC by switching between two GRAM areas? That would eliminate it completely, but it would slow down map loading by half.

By the way what does R&D means? ???
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 04, 2013, 07:23:32 pm: Yeah, to remove the flicker I would use the screen swapping technique but I would have to change alot of the code. To reduce flicker I was just going to keep a second copy of the background on the other screen that I could copy before erasing to keep the sprite on the screen longer. It would be easy to implement but I'm not sure how much it would reduce the flicker. R&D stands for research and development. I want to make some optimized engines for different scenarios and see the limits on what can be done. It would help me out knowing what can be pulled off with what so that I can apply it to future games. I can pull off a 4 way smooth scrolling rpg engine, but I want to know the optimized resolution. I want to test out the best way to make a horizontal scrolling engine, how many sprites can I have, and how fast can it scroll. For instance, in Mario I'm thinking 160 mode with hardware scrolling. I doubt it can scroll that fast so I'll probably make the levels with a lot of blocks and stuff to keep Mario from being able to move around to quick anyway. He *has* to be around 8x8 because there is a huge performance gain when using small sprites. Because of his size it leaves a lot of room for the sky. So the levels will be multi-tiered frequently to take up the unused spaced. Enemies can't be too bright and there has to be very limited numbers and ideally they shouldn't be allowed to travel over a detailed background. I would like to test different scenarios out and make a good horizontal scrolling engine that I can apply to other games as well. I still haven't even taken my calc apart yet or thoroughly reviewed the rom. One trick I use to get a screenshot is to make a debug key and when I press it, it draws something off screen. That instantly makes the screen go crazy but since I use the ON key to exit the app all I have to do is keep pressing 2nd then ON until it turns off without altering anything. When I turn the calc back on, the screen gets reset except for the GRAM and the TIOS doesn't bother redrawing anything except for the cursor and battery icon. I just run the screenshot program and edit out the cursor and icon in Paint.net. Now, how did the calc know to reset the screen? Another cool thing is that only the start of a window has to be on the screen, it can end wherever and not make the screen go crazy. There is also a second level of craziness that upsets the calc so much that it does a ram reset immediately. When I figured out the sequence to start the screen for the banned one, it was based off the datasheet and display ram alone, I never checked to see how the calc does it. I really have to look through the ram, take apart the calc and see which pins go where and if there is access to them. I got this new oscilloscope and I've only turned it on to test it out...
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 04, 2013, 08:52:04 pm: Oh that would be a nice idea actually. To be honest, though, to really reduce the flicker, you would need to erase one ghost then redraw it at its new position immediately, one after another, rather than erasing every ghost then displaying them at their new position again. That's unless, of course, that's already what you are doing. Else I guess you could just try to display the sprite at its new position without erasing it, then erase the extra row of pixel left behind.

And I see about R&D, hopefully that helps you make future games. As for Mario, what I have been thinking for a while is that you would definitively need to ensure that the background has no detail or very little of them (such as clouds in the sky where enemies can't go), kinda like in SMB 1. Probably no bushes either and only three enemies at a time per screen (or you could add more and make them flicker?). I think this should give you about 15-20 FPS, which should be enough to be playable. Else, if you are lucky, when drawing enemies you could just copy each background beforehand so you can redraw it later. Hopefully that won't impact speed too much.

By the way, have you seen tr1p1ea's video last April?
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: AssemblyBandit on November 04, 2013, 11:01:08 pm: I'll update PacMan later! And of course I've seen it, that video is probably the best demo of the TI84+C's horizontal scrolling and background capabilities! Mario is going to be based off SMB1 with a different level style.
Title: Re: TI84+C Bundle
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on November 04, 2013, 11:33:41 pm: Cool to hear. :D I'm definitively hoping that you aren't forced to do like SMB1 Special for the PC88, MSX or whatever console the non-Nintendo sequel (yes there was another game besides The Lost Levels) was for. I'm confident that scrolling and a playable framerate are both possible simultaneously. :)