Scrolling Game Development Kit Forum

SGDK Version 1 => Projects => Topic started by: Steve on 2005-04-12, 02:27:36 PM

Title: Dark Elf: Orb of Annihilation
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-12, 02:27:36 PM
Hey... not sure if I'm supposed to do this or not, but I finished a game along with two other people here at the Guildhall several months ago and it was never posted, so I figured I'd post the link here myself.

http://artificialarchitect.com/darkelf.htm

The game can tend to lag on some machines due to my inferior scripting skills, but ah well.  Let me know what you guys think.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-13, 05:16:16 AM
Thank you!  I've been trying for months to get a hold of some cohort 3 projects, but been unable to do so.  I'll take a look at this project and if I can whittle down the necessary files from 20 MB down to 5 MB or so, I'll probably add it to the project listing.  We've all been hungry for more Guildhall projects!  8)
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Anonymous on 2005-04-16, 01:12:13 AM
I'd prefer that you linked it directly to my webspace rather than alter the files if you were going to list it on the project site...
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-16, 01:37:40 AM
Heh sorry, forgot to put my name on that last post...
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-17, 09:26:16 AM
I've played it all the way through and it looks great!  You may have a 4 star game here (maybe even 5... I'll have to carefully review my subjective rating system :)).  And your project looks pretty clean (few extra files I think).  I do have a couple suggestions to try to reduce the project size, though:[list=1]

if Not fs.FileExists("Checkpoint.sav") Then Exit Sub
I don't think this has much impact on the compressed size since the maps compress very well, but I did that before I realized just how well they compress.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Eastfist on 2005-04-17, 10:57:18 AM
Rock on! I like the grass layering in the medieval level... the parallax is dead on. I still have trouble doing that. Looks like you guys put a lot of work into it. Gotta love that slash animation.

Now if only you guys can elbow your other classmates or school to release some of those newer games. It's so much fun to see what other developers do. It's motivating because sometimes a little competition is good.  ;)
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-17, 07:27:45 PM
I appreciate the compliments... I wasn't aware that you could use jpegs by manually changing the extension references, never even thought of that.  Luckily the bitmaps compress well so it makes the download a lot more reasonable than if they didn't.  

I was worried that you'd have to delete the mp3s and stuff like that in order to reduce the file size, but if it can be done without dramatically affecting the quality I don't really mind... it would be cool if you made a 56k version and then offered a link to my website for the high quality version... I wouldn't have a problem as long as there were options for both.

Eastfist, glad you like it, we did the castle level second so were a little more experienced with it when we got there.  There are a couple (one in particular) projects from my class that I know you guys would love, and the latest cohort just finished theirs and a lot of those are great fun too.  I'll wait to see if I get any official complaints after this project is put up, and if not I'll get my roommates to post theirs as well.
Title: MP3 encoder
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-18, 05:56:12 AM
I could use a suggestion on the tool for encoding MP3s.  The tool I used apparently stripped the author info from the file and I certainly don't want to do that.  (I'm using Creative WaveStudio.) If you could post/send re-encoded files or suggest an encoder that won't lose that info I could keep the author/copyright info in the files.  Otherwise, if you don't care about the tag info, I can just use what I've got.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-18, 08:19:48 AM
I usually use lame for mp3 encoding, when I get home tonight I'll try to re-encode them and post a link to smaller versions of them here.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: durnurd on 2005-04-18, 09:47:06 AM
I use Lame as well.  It can be used in cahoots with Goldwave (not the right word, but you get the idea) directly.  Which I use.  But you probably don't.  But Lame is good by itself too.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-18, 10:35:17 AM
Actually, I currently use Audacity for sound editing, but have used goldwave in the past...
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-18, 01:30:50 PM
Alright, I halved the file size of the mp3s, they're at

http://artificialarchitect.com/tempdir/desongslow.zip

The high end really suffers, but such is the price of the low quality version lol...

By the way, didn't mean to hijack the sticky thread, you can move all this stuff to another if you wanted..
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-19, 06:16:55 AM
Strange, the "split topic" command doesn't work in the zeroSpace theme.  I had to switch to subSilver to split the topic.  But anyway, yeah, maybe I should suggest (in the sticky topic) that games be submitted to the listing on a separate thread rather than as replies to the sticky thread.

Anyway, I got the re-encoded files and will try packaging up the reduced-size project at my next opportunity.  The drums did sound a bit different.  I think I used a lower sample rate when I decreased the bit rate rather than sticking with 44 KHz, and then I couldn't tell the difference between that and the original, but I can use these.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-19, 06:24:22 AM
Stupid media player -- I just noticed that it changes MP3 files when I play them!  I played the DEDrawbridge.mp3 and DEMonk.mp3 files and was shocked to see the size grow before my very eyes after I closed Windows Media Player!  I didn't expect it to write to the files let alone increase their size by ~10 KB when I merely play them (without telling me).  And Microsoft was doing so well in my opinion so far this morning -- when IE crashed they provided a nice explanation that RealNetworks was responsible for the crash.  Oh well, Microsoft's positive image never lasts long ;).
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: durnurd on 2005-04-19, 07:36:55 AM
I think there's an option to lock a thread so nobody can post in it, but it will still show up as a sticky.

And WMP writes information like number of plays, artist, rating, all that annoying stuff nobody except WMP cares about, etc. to the MP3 file.  Annoying, I know, which is why we listen to MP3s by looking at the binary file, decoding it to waves and just move the magnets ourselfves.

er....something.
Title: Project submissions
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-20, 05:02:54 AM
It's not so much a question of preventing replies to the sticky thread (I think I know how to do that if I want to), but whether I should.  The reason all this was on the sticky thread is because I "asked for it" when I suggested posting project submissions there.  It looks like putting all that on the sticky thread could get ... sticky.  So I think I'll just reword that post... and eventually I'll lock it if I need to.  But for now I'll leave it open for discussion of the submission process itself.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-20, 05:47:13 AM
Sorry for the delays in posting the reduced-size project -- I haven't had time to do much lately.  Still hope to do it soon.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-21, 05:28:02 AM
OK, finally done -- I've updated the listing for Dark Elf to include two download links -- one leads to the homepage and one leads to the SourceForge download for the reduced size project.

Any word on projects from other GuildHall teams?
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: Steve on 2005-04-22, 10:03:58 AM
I've told several about it, the one game that I think people would really like apparently has some random crash bug in it, so they don't want to post it... its pretty much up to the initiative of the students who made it at this point, and most students either aren't proud about their projects or don't care if other people see them.  But I'll keep asking people.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: durnurd on 2005-04-22, 10:18:50 AM
Well, posting that one project with the bug in it might help make the bug go away.  BlueMonk is very good at tracking down problems either with the kit or in games and/or script.
Title: Dark Elf
Post by: bluemonkmn on 2005-04-23, 06:01:02 AM
Yeah, if it's the kind of "crash" that doesn't involve really-low level libraries like DirectX and the OS, I can probably fix it.  Basically if there's an error message that pops up or if the game just terminates without explanation, I don't think I've met a problem yet that I couldn't explain and fix.  It's just the hard crashes that I'd have a problem with (and I don't think I've seen any of those).  The only problem I can think of that I haven't been able to fix is the behavior of the tileset editor on some ATI video cards (it flickers and corrupts the display I think), because it's so rare.  And if the problems are new (and the kit is at fault), it might be just enough to coax me into releasing version 1.4.6, which has a few minor fixes to other problems that have been found in the past 6+ months.  So pass that message on if you think they'd be interested in fixing up their project.