Scrolling Game Development Kit Forum
SGDK Version 2 => Projects => Topic started by: Vincent on 2009-08-16, 08:15:59 PM
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Hey guys! :)
I will soon be done with the basic monsters in my game. I wondered if some of you would be interested in trying them out. There are probably some bugs and some glitches to find but I don't find any now, and if you could give me a hand in finding them, I would be very grateful. Also, if you have any suggestions regarding the skills and enemies, I'm all ears.
Tell me if you volunteer to give a look into it: I'll post it this week. If nobody is interested in seeing the game at this stage of development (only a test room, enemies and skills completed, main character attacks not finished), then I won't bother posting it.
Thanks for your time! ;D
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I'd be interested in seeing it, but I'm on vacation for another week and don't know how I'll be spending my time yet.
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Thanks bluemonkmn! :)
OK perfect! I'll post the .sgdk2 file later this week. Still got one monster to finish.
No pressure by the way, take a look at it whenever you want. :)
Oh, and there is a lot of stuff (rules, graphics, etc) that I would do differently if I had to start to project over, and it would definitely need a good optimization. But whatever, it works as it is, so I think I won't bother optimizing it for now. :P
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Well, as promised, I uploaded a first demo of my game. :)
It might not be easy to understand all the controls at first, so I provided an instructions file along with the sgdk2 file. I recommend you read the instructions before you play the game, it's not long.
Just waiting for bluemonkm to approve the upload.
You will find the game under the sample section of the projects under the name Legacy of Kain: Revival or LokRevival, I'm not too sure what name I gave it. ???
Look at it if you're curious and please give me comments and suggestions. I'm here to answer questions too! :)
Thanks a lot! :)
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I approved it, but just now tried it. Is there a file missing "LokRevival.bmp"?
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Oh right!!! I completely forgot to give the bmp file for the splashscreen! My mistake. I'll update the file!
Sorry! :-[
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OK, updated the file now. Can you approve it please? :)
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Make sure the bmp included in the zip file is into the folder containing LokRevival.exe when you run the game. :)
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That's somewhat better. Now it starts up and offers the menu, but when I try to start a new game, I get an error about an InvalidEnum when attempting to check for an error after some operation in Display.cs. This is the same error someone else was getting that I couldn't reproduce. Now at least I have something to investigate. Maybe I ran out of texture memory or something. I wonder if I can reproduce it without waiting 2 minutes each time.
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Yeah, it's long, too long, to load the game up. :(
I don't have this error. ???
I suppose everything is fine when you open the sgdk2 file with sgdk2.1?
Please keep me informed of your progress! :)
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I posted details and questions at the end of this thread on the OpenTK forums:
http://www.opentk.com/node/1040 (http://www.opentk.com/node/1040)
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Which version of the OpenTk.dll are you using? Could it be related to that?
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I was using 0.9.7 and downloaded 0.9.8 and got the same results. Will look at the thread further today -- looks like Fiddler has some ideas.
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In Display.cs, I searched for "2d" to find GetTextImage2D, and add some code to the GetTexture function in which it occurs. Immediately after this line:
System.Drawing.Bitmap bmpTexture = (System.Drawing.Bitmap)Project.Resources.GetObject(Name);
I added this code
int param;
GL.GetInteger(GetPName.MaxTextureSize, out param);
if ((bmpTexture.Width > param) || (bmpTexture.Height > param))
throw new ApplicationException("Texture " + Name + " is too big top be loaded by the current video driver");
And then I reset the code and everything blew up because functions like "PushTowardCoordinateGravity" were not defined. I guess you didn't put all your code in partial classes. I could work around this by just modifying your project directly instead of modifying SGDK2 code and resetting your project, but I don't have time for that at the moment.
Anyway I suspect the problem is that some of your textures are too big for my video hardware/drivers. The first one I hit is KainSlashZonesGraphicSheet. I think your graphic sheets use way more space than necessary and could 1) use smaller cell sizes and offset the frames instead of positioning graphics within large graphic sheet cells, and 2) split graphic sheets into multiple sheets where necessary (and add the frames to a common frameset if appropriate).
My video hardware reports a maximum texture size of 2048.
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Yeah, without a doubt! That's why I said the game needed a good optimization. My biggest sprites take about 128x128 pixels. That's huge. But I've got so many of these sprites to remake in smaller versions that's it seems like a job for a titan. ;) I guess I don't have a choice though... :(
I thought I put all of my custom code in partial classes, but that's not what I did at the beginning of the project. So it is not unlikely that there are still functions that I didn't transfer to partial classes. I really learned a lot since the beginning of this project and some stuff I did at the beginning wouldn't be a part of a "Best Practices in SGDK2" guide. ;) (I admit I still do some... strange stuff.)
Oh well, I guess I will do it little by little. It's unfortunate that is doesn't work for you, I would have like to hear your comments.
Thanks a lot for your time! I really appreciate it. :)
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I'll try again when I get home. Maybe it'll work on my desktop.
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It works fine on my desktop, which reports a maximum texture size of 4096.
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Great, at least you can try it. :)
Tell me what you think of it when you have time.
Thanks! :)
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Well, all versions of this project function on my 6 year old desktop, which is a good sign.
I noticed that the player seems to overlap more of the background than I expect. When I try to jump onto a ledge, it feels like I should land on it, but I fall "through" it because the character's "hit zone" is so much narrower than the character image (and also the character moves frustratingly slowly horizontally while jumping -- it feels like he should move faster horizontally, at least while jumping). For some reason, I'm really frustrated by games where the character doesn't move fast enough horizontally... or is there some super speed button I'm not aware of? :)
I'm also wondering why you needed to create a separate hit zone sprite from the main Kain sprite? Why not just define the Kain sprite's size as the size you want the hit zone to be, and offset the frames so that the player is drawn as the right location?
Are you going to integrate the instructions into the game at some point? If not, I suggest using HTML format instead of DOC format.
Wow! I really like the monsters. I can't wait to see them integrated into a real game. It seems like it summons a lot of them -- possibly because I'm holding the summon key too long. But they look quite impressive. And I've only summoned the first 3 so far! I look forward to playing with this some more.
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Hum, for the HitZone, well, It was implemented before I was aware of the possibilities of defining a solid area of an image by moving the image within the frameset and then specifying an exact size into the sprite definition. I didn't bother to change it when I realized it could be done this way. I guess I eventually will. :-[
For the speed of the character, it's exactly why I wanted some people to play around with this demo! :) I'm working on it for so much time, that I don't even spot these annoyances anymore. I'm taking a note of it! :) Also, there is a skill you can use to augment the moving speed of the character. It's the "MoveFaster" skill (what an original name heh?). You can select the skill by holding down the select button (default right-shift) and pressing the left arrow key until you see it appear in the skill selector. (The image is that of a red stickman with speed lines behind him.) Of course, you have to pick the skill up before you can select and use it. It's with all the skills available on the left side of the test map. Once you have selected the skill, press the skill button (default enter) to activate or deactivate it. The skill uses magic for as long it is active. It's easy to know when the skill is active, because the character leaves "after images" when he moves with the "MoveFaster" skill. He still not moving very fast in this way, but it's better. And he jumps higher too.
There is a thing though, about jumping characters, that tends to annoy me in games. When the character moves faster when he jumps, the game tends to become silly, because advanced players want the game to be faster and they end up jumping like rabbits all the time to get the speed boost! :p Ever played Baldur's gate on playstation 2? The characters moved faster when they jumped and they shouted something like "Ooh Ooh" when they jumped. Since the levels in this game are quite big, I ended up jumping all the time in the game to move faster hearing the "Ooh Ooh" all the time. It got on my nerves. :p And I always told myself that if I made a game, I would make sure the characters doesn't move faster when he jumps than on the ground! laugh:
I'm not sure how much I will be able to speed up the character up though... Because, if he moves too fast, the monsters will probable have a hard time hitting him... I will have to balance this out someday. :suspious:
Yeah, eventually, I want to integrate the instructions in the game. The first part of the first level will be a playable tutorial, with Kain (the main character) facing really minor challenges to teach him how to move, jump, transform into mist, drink blood and, of course, attack. The story line will be explained with dialogues and the inner thoughts of Kain. And when Kain finds a new skill, he will have another short tutorial explaining how to select and use the skill. I think that should do it. :)
Yeah! ;D I'm really glad you like the monsters! ;D Most of the development time went into creating them (and the skills of Kain of course). There is not a lot of monsters for this kind of game (17 for now), but I believe that if the game alternates between platforming challenges, little puzzles, traps, monster fights and boss fights, it should be entertaining and not too dull. :)
I can't wait to hear what you think of the other monsters and Kain's skills.
If you have any suggestions to improve the monsters, skills, etc, they are more than welcome! :)
Thanks a lot bluemonkmn! :)
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Oh yeah, I forgot: about the spawning of mutliple monsters at once? The rules that summon the monsters are into the ManageKainSprite plan. The condition is on the pressing of a key but, unlike the pressing of a player input, I cannot specifiy "intial input only", so if you hold the key down, many monsters appear.
So unless you have a suggestion to make them appear only one at a time, I guess you will have to do like and press-and-realse the summon key as fast as you can. :P
Thanks again!
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To stop the key from summoning multiple monsters, maybe you can set some parameter/variable to 1 when a monster is summoned and stop summoning until it is reset to 0. For example:
SetMapFlag(1, false);
if (IsKeyPressed(Digit1))
{
if (!IsMapFlagOn(2))
{
Summon Monster 1
}
SetMapFlag(1, true);
}
if (IsKeyPressed(Digit2))
{
if (!IsMapFlagOn(2))
{
Summon Monster 2
}
SetMapFlag(1, true);
}
if IsMapFlagOn(1)
SetMapFlag(2, true);
else
SetMapFlag(2, false);
In the above example, map flag 1 represents the answer to the question "Is the user pressing a summon button this frame?" and map flag 2 represents "Was the user pressing a summon button last frame?".
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Oh! I thought there was only one map flag... :suspious:
Yes that should solve the problem!
Thanks! :)
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Someone tried downloading the latest version of the project from the project listing and reported a bitmap-related error. Did you forget to include the bitmap again? (This is why SGDK2 files like to be self contained ;) Sure you don't want to embed the bitmap as an embedded resource like sound files are embedded?).
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Doh! You're right, I did forget to include it into the archive again. :(
Embedding the bmp sure looks like a good idea! :)
I'm not sure how to do it, I'll look into the help file to see how to do it.
By the way, I'm interested in passing to the new SGDK 2.1.2 version for my game. The sprite pushing behaviors and better tile touching are very tempting. :) What would be the best way to upgrade my project from one version to next? I was planning to open the project with the 2.1.2 version, make sure all the source code files are from the 2.1.2 version (I would copy-paste the code from a brand new 2.1.2 project into my project), and then paste my custom code into the 2.1.2 source code files.
Is that the best way to proceed?
Thanks a lot! :)
I won't update the project in the project listing right away, I don't have the project with me. Also, I want to reduce the size of the graphic sheets so that more people can actually run the game... and embed the bmp file of course.
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Well, the best way would be to move your custom code to separate files. Then you can simply load your project in 2.1.2 and reset the source code (there's a simple command to reset the source code). If you have a specific functions where you don't know how to do that, give an example.
But if you don't want to do that, you could certainly copy your customized pieces, reset the source code, and paste your pieces back in where they were.
Also, the process of embedding a resource may not be very well documented. But looking at how sounds files accomplish this might help. When you get to that point, if you get stuck, let me know and (when I have more free time) I can maybe provide an example.
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Well, most of my code is in separate files now, so it should be easy to re-implement my minor modifications to the existing functions.
Oh, I was unaware of a function to reset the source code! Great! :D
OK, I'll keep you informed of how well, goes the embedding of the image file.
Thanks a lot! :D
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Allright! Got the project to version 2.1.2 quite easily.
I also embedded the bmp file into the project, using the sound import procedure. I didn't bother to "clean it up", the file is located in the fmodex namespace, because I'm going to import music and sound effects at some point, so what the hell. :P
Now that the project uses the fmodex.dll, should it provide this dll with the project file in the zip that will be posted in the project listing site? I'll update the project when you tell me what to do bluemonkmn! (Even if I didn't re-sized all the graphic sheets yet.)
Thanks again! ;D
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Hm... good question. I believe SGDK2 will automatically find fmodex.dll (from the SGDK2IDE.exe directory) when compiling the project, and since you have to have SGDK2IDE to load an SGDK2 file, I think it's safe not to include it with your SGDK2 file.
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Okay dokey!
I just updated the archive with the *now* embedded splash screen. Should be okay to run it now.
Can you approve it please? :)
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Approved -- no time to review it at the moment. Hope I get some more time later.
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a few things about your game
i can see why you need 16x16 tiles now, your window is set to 320x240 where small tiles like that make sense. I was assuming you were using a 640x480 window. you can keep the small tiles for this game. on a side note, my computer runs on a 1900x1200 monitor making it hard to see. should i recommend an option to make it full screen when needed?
and one more thing, how do you get past the first door? i see a key, but i cant seem to use it... :(
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Thanks for taking time to test the game SmartBoy16! :)
Yeah... I decided to make the game 320x240 because I'm not a good artist and I had a huge library of small tiles and sprites of that size, so it seemed logical to go for that. I was working on a way to make a zoom on the game. If you try to re-size the game window, it actually works, gets bigger and easier to see. Unfortunately, some weird lines appear when you zoom the game, so it gets quite ugly... As bluemonkmn pointed out in another thread, it maybe an OpenGl problem that leaves a single pixel of space between tiles. I tried to solve the problem, but I'm worth a big zero at OpenGl now, so I prefer to invest my efforts in making the game itself. I'll eventually get back to work on the zooming.
The door can be opened by a lever. If you go through the test room form left to right, there is first a place you can jump to get many power ups, then there is place where you can jump and where you can see some bricks. In front of these bricks, there is a lever (hard to see, I know). If you use the activate skill on the lever (the little hand in the skill selector is the activate skill. It's the default skill), the lever will switch, opening the door. on the other side of the door, you can spawn monsters using the following keyboard keys:
1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,q,w,e,r,t,y,u
If you want to take a look at some of the rooms I made for the first level, in the test chamber walk to the lowest left part of the map (very near the initial stating point) and you will warp to the first room I made.
If you have any other questions, suggestions, comments, please tell me! ;D
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there is a way for the game to run in full screen. under the project properties where you can set the starting map, the last option asks for windowed mode. True means the game is run in a window, false runs the game in full screen. does this help?
edit: you should also place somewhere what the buttons actually do. it took me a while to figure out that
Space = jump
RCtrl = attack
RShift = choose Special
Enter = use special
personally, i dont like the Space/Ctrl/Shift/Enter combo, but if this game runs easier by most, keep it that way. what i would suggest is a ASD/Space or ZXC/Space button layout.
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Don't run 320x240 in full screen, a lot of monitors won't support it.
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You can try to switch to full screen with Alt-Enter. On my system that just causes an error because my video driver/card doesn't have a 320x240 full screen mode I guess.
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Hi guys!
To Smartboy16: You can change the button layout the way you want it as in any default SGDK2 project! :) When you run the game, go in the menu on the top of the window, open tools and then options. You can see the different actions and the default buttons assigned to them. (I left the default SGDK2 buttons, since you can set the ones you like.) You can even set the buttons of a 4 buttons joypad. That's what I do! :)
About the fullscreen mode: I did set it to 320x240 fullscreen, but it crashes. My video card doesn't support it. That's why I want to work on a zoom when the user re-sizes the window.
I sent bluemonkmn a doc file to explain the demo. (or did I include it in the first archive? I don't remember.) I always seem to forget to include stuff in the zip file of the demo. :(
I'll paste my instructions right here. That way, I won't need to provide the file anymore. :)
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Lok Revival instructions:
Hi and welcome!
Before we begin, please be patient while the game loads, it is not optimized at the moment, and it will take time to load. It won't freeze: just be patient. Some monsters are not preloaded and the game might slow down or seem to stop for a little while when they appear or try a new attack. Be patient, the game will go on a little while later. (They will be preloaded eventually.)
Here is an explanation on what you will find in this version of the game.
First of all, a little idea of the plot and the main character (since you won't know by playing the game at this stage).
The main character is the vampire Kain, from Eidos' Legacy of Kain games. He is out on a quest for vengeance.
As a vampire, Kain has superhuman powers and weaknesses.
Powers:
Kain will find many powers during his quest: new attacks, attack, defense and buff spells. Some of them are passive, some of them must be activated. To select a skill, you can use the skill selector in the menu by pressing the Esc button. Or, you can select the proper skill in game, by pressing and holding down the select button (default right shift) and then using the left arrow for buffs, up arrow for attacks, right arrow for activate skill or down arrow for defense spells.
In addition to the skills you will find in game (most of the skills planned are into the demo except for 2), Kain has the ability to drain the blood of his dying enemies. When an enemy is near death (stunned and dripping blood) hold down the skill button (default enter) + the up arrow to drain blood and restore your health. Know that if the draining is interrupted by an enemy attacking Kain or by letting go of the button, the blood in air is lost. Some blood containers can also restore health. Striking an agonizing enemy will restore magic rather than health.
Kain also has the innate ability to transform into mist to evade attacks. To transform to mist, press the down arrow + the skill button simultaneously while on the ground. While in mist Kain cannot act, but most attacks won't harm him. To leave the mist form, press and hold the jump button (default space) With the notable exceptions of water based attacks and wind attacks. Those can only be blocked by the water shield or the air shield. The mist and drain blood skill are always available, whatever skill is selected at the moment.
Weakness
Kain major weakness is water. Walking in water or being splashed by water attacks will hurt him. His only defense is to avoid water or to use the water shield. The water shield allows to walk over water.
Activate skill
This skill is known by default. Kain uses it to use save points (red pillars) and use levers (they are hard to see int his version of the game but there is one on each side of the door to open and close it. The other skills are roughly explained in the encyclopedia area of the menu when you are playing the game. (esc to bring the menu) use the skill button (default enter) to use a skill. Some must be activated and deactivated using the skill button, others need only to be cast once.
Attacks
By default, the only known attacks are basic ground attack (default right ctrl) and jump attack (default space to jump + attack while in the air). Eventually, other attacks will be found and can be used by a combination of arrows and attack button on the ground or in the air. (see encyclopedia for more info)
Using the menu
Move around the menu using the arrows. Select item using select button (default right shift)
WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH THIS DEMO
Try the skills, fool around and, most of all, try the monsters:
To summun a monster, go near the save point that is on a single "floating" tile. The monsters spawn under that pillar. If you are far from it, the summoned monsters will vanish.
To summon a monster press one of the following keys on your keyboard: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,0,q,w,e,r,t,y,u. All of these keys are binded to a different monster, there is quite a lot of them to try.
Have fun.
If you have comments or questions, please ask them on the SGDK2 forum.
Thank you for your time,
Vincent
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Humm, the main menu is dead for me...well I can move the cursor, but I cant select. Any idears?
Tried on Windows XP with the latest SGDK.
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To TheLaw:
Are you using the "right select" button to select options?
Or have you changed your keys using the menu?
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@Vincent:
No I didn't change any keys, and I pressed pressed right select and every other key on my keyboard! :)
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@TheLaw
Can you assign another key to this action and see if that would work?
If it doesn't work... Well I don't know what to tell you. Does anybody else have that same problem?
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HA! That's hilarious. The poltergeist have left my computer and now it works just fine!
Great stuff so far. Thanks!
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Oookay!
You got me worried for a moment! :)
I'm glad that it was just a momentary glitch! :)
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Yeah, that was weird. I tried it say 6 times in 'run' mode and maybe 3 times in debug mode before I posted! And as I'm sure we've all done at some point, I started playing piano rather aggressively on my keyboard in an effort to make it go! Oh well.
I will say, I feel sorry for you test running this game. You must have time to grab a coffee each time you test it!!!
LOL, good job tho. Keep it up!
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Haha! :laugh:
Yeah, it sure is loooong to load up... I started optimizing it following bluemonkmn suggestions, but there is a lot to do. Little by little, it will get faster...
Thank you for testing it! :D
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Anytime, Vincent. Thank you for making it!
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It looks like you are still loading the splash screen from the file system. Yes it's embedded in the project, but you should be able to delete the bin file from the output directory and still be able to run the project (rather than keeping duplicates of this data both in a bin file and in the EXE).
Here's an example line of how fmodbase.cs accesses the embedded resource in the EXE:
System.IO.Stream fmodrc = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream(this.GetType().Name + ".bin");
I don't have time at the moment to explain how to adapt this for loading a bitmap, but if you have trouble, I can try to provide more detail later. Hopefully there's something as simple as a method to construct a bitmap from the provided stream.
BTW, what format is your image in?
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1) Your image is much more compact (and loses no quality) in PNG format, so I converted it for the following sample.
2) I separated out the Splash class into its own Splash.cs file and created an importable code object out of it. It should automatically size itself to whatever image you provide as the binary data for the code object. The default binary data is your splash screen image. If you delete your splash screen class from Custom.cs, you should be able to import this and see your splash screen loading from within the EXE. Of course you can also delete all the FMOD stuff that you don't need too. Right now I can run the game successfully with just the following files (this is what I get if I build the project and then select the "Delete Intermediate Output Files" command):
OpenTK.dll
OpenTK.dll.config
LokRevival.exe
LokRevival.exe.config
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I'd certainly like to take a look at the game, but I've upgraded my graphics card once in my life, and it's gone through three computers, so it's definitely starting to show its age. The textures are just too big. I saw that BlueMonk gave you some suggestions for cleaning up the graphic sheets. I saw that the first graphic sheet I looked in (images of Kain) had many empty cells, and also had all the images facing both right and left. You really only need one direction, and can reverse them all in the frameset editor, so there's another way to shrink your graphic sheets.
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Oh great!!! ;D
Thanks a lot bluemonkmn! I'll take a look at that! :)
@durnurd:
Yeah... I only recently found out that images could be reversed in within the frameset... :-[
I already started cleaning the graphic sheets. It's a little long but I'm getting there.
There are a lot of empty cells in the graphic sheet of Kain because I'm waiting for my artist friend to give me the remaining sprites I need. (Been a couple of months since he gave some though... :() This is probably the last graphic sheet I will update... But I will! :)
I'll post a message when the project's graphic sheets are completely optimized, and update the project, of course.
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Great! I just added the new splashscreen! It works great! ;D
Thanks again bluemonkmn! ;D
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Pfff! :tired:
I've gone through a first iteration of optimization. Now all the graphics sheets are smaller than 1024px X 1024px. Also, the monsters graphic cell now match their actual size, thus removing a lot of transparent pixels, which should help collision masks. I didn't do that for Kain's graphic sheet, because I want to have all it's sprites before doing that. But it's graphic sheet is still way smaller. I could remove about half of the cells since I knew I could flip the sprites using the frameset editor now. :-[
I think the file size says it all: it went from 7073kb to 5198kb.
I updated the submission in the project listing. Now, with the new embedded splash screen (thanks again bluemonkm!) and the instructions posted in this thread, I think everything is OK! Just waiting for bluemonkmn to update it.
Can you try it again durnurd? It might work for you now! ;D
Thanks guys!
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Approved. Too bad Remository doesn't have finer security control where I can give you access to approve your own project uploads at least for projects you've already uploaded and are just updating.
I see you set the default start map to the actual game now. But am I missing something? Did you say you also included the instructions? Or are you saying that for instructions, you refer to this thread? I only saw one file in the archive.
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Yeah, I changed the start up map in the project. If you want to go to the test room, leave the start up room by walking toward the left. To return to the start up room form the test room, leave the test room by walking toward the left.
For the instructions, I didn't include them in the game yet. I meant that they are available in this thread. I think it should be enough for now. They will be included in the first level of the game.
Unless I have suggestions and comments, I think I won't update the project again. Well, at least until the first level is completed.
Oh, by the way, I modified the jumping sprites a little, so they should behave less awkwardly. It might not be perfect, but the character doesn't seem to fall through the tiles when he jumps now. :)
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Hey, looks pretty good!
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Great! I'm glad you like it durnurd! :)
If you have any comments or suggestions, I would be happy to hear them! :)