AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014  (Read 168955 times)

Offline Crow

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #130 on: May 24, 2013, 12:29:42 pm
Hm, I didn't know that. Thought that'd turn off the service as well. Good to know!
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Offline 32

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #131 on: May 25, 2013, 04:03:05 am
Oh I'd forgotten about those windows services, does anyone really use flicks? they just get in the way and seem completely unresponsive and useless.

I wonder also if anyone has issues with photoshop and pen and touch? cs6 works great on my desktop with win7 and an intuos4, but is riddled with issues on my samsung tablet with win8 and what I gather to be wacom technology without the wacom drivers as well as touch. Everything seems to work fine in other programs but photoshop is just a mess, if anyone is using a pen and touch wacom tablet I'd love to know whether they have any issues, specifically touching the canvas with your finger sending it flying and pressure sensitivity getting locked on full during some brushstrokes.

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #132 on: May 29, 2013, 01:01:54 pm
Still working hard on this project... cos... really what else is there for me to do at moment while still looking for a job and such...


Made some changes since the last shots were taken.  Have changed from scrolling levels to 'flick-screen' for a number reasons.  One being speed concerns on a real CPC (while many games did feature scrolling, the results would vary and screen sizes were generally kept small to compensate) and this way I can have a slightly bigger on-screen play area.  Also I find level design a hell of a lot easier with flick-screen games as I can do each bit of the level in screen-sized chunks and it's easier to make various level segments the focus and completely in shot.  Mapping is a lot easier too as I can now refer to an array of low-digit co-ordinates for each screen of the levels.  Have framed the screen using some of the small tiles that make up the status bar too (yay for memory-saving recycling).   Done a lot of re-coding stuff to optimise, tidy things up and also make it easy for later coding.  The game seems to be taking on a slightly more 'adventure game' type of tone with some story bits and puzzles (mostly solved by jumping on things or shooting things but hey...).  Also still coding it with anything that I don't consider necessary classed as '128k machines only' and trying to get as much of the crucial stuff in so hopefully it can be coded to run sufficiently on a 64k system hence why I have to do a lot of graphic recycling (may as well make the most of what's already loaded into the memory).

I usually cut the big black borders in the screenshots but they're here in this one to show that's generally how games looked on the CPC (and other 8 bit home computers).  It was possible to make the screen bigger and cut into those using overscan modes but it usually wasn't worth the hassle.

This shot shows the improved scanline optional configurations.  I just noticed if I zoom out of the image there with Firefox's imagezoom extension it goes to normal size aaand the pixels shown are the game's true palette due to the way it scales out cleanly. 

EDIT:  updated screenshot with the more recent versions of the mountain tiles that do not have selout and stuff...
« Last Edit: May 29, 2013, 02:29:47 pm by Carnivac »
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Offline ptoing

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #133 on: May 29, 2013, 01:05:00 pm
Small art crit on an otherwise nice looking screenshot: The edges of the mountains look pretty selouttastic and fringy.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #134 on: May 29, 2013, 01:14:31 pm
Ekk... I hadn't noticed it was still using an old version of the mountain tiles.  I had removed the dark blue on the edges and trimmed a lil bit here and there but I've been rearranging the tiles within the tilesheet (so that everything of a similar collision-type is arranged neatly for the game to read it and automatically place the correct collision block there so I don't have to) and I think the older version got mixed up with the newer tileset.  Thanks for pointing that out. 
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Offline Helm

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #135 on: May 29, 2013, 01:35:39 pm
I really love it and I support the switch to flipscreen. A lot can be done with good flipscreen gameplay that we lost when we hastily moved to full scroll. Only one concern is flipping screens to avoid combat. Will the enemies follow a la Flashback or will the screens reset? Have you considered locking the player on a playfield until the combat encounter is done so they REALLY have to learn to move around every screen and use terrain to their advantage? Falcom would do this, Western developers would not.

Offline Carnivac

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #136 on: May 29, 2013, 01:53:08 pm
Actually an unintentional side effect of the enemy's activation/deactivation code kept from when it was full scrolling (which was used when out of range to 'turn them off' to help keep speed focused on what's in view) was that while they turn back when they touch the sides of the screen it seems if they were close enough following behind me when you change screens they actually followed me onto the new screen and then did the turning back when touching sides of screen on the new screen.   Kinda made me jump the first time cos I was not expecting them to come onto the new screen like that right after I walked onto it but it's kinda cool.   Obviously if I keep it like that I don't want it to be abused with the player luring a lot of enemies onto one screen (which would create slow down issues on the real hardware). 

I don't know about locking the player into the area until enemies are all destroyed.  Maybe in some areas where, for example, a door's locking mechanism is connected to the on-screen enemies.  But generally I think I'd get quite annoyed if every screen required every enemy to be destroyed before progressing. 
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Offline Helm

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #137 on: May 29, 2013, 03:18:02 pm
Ys games do it like that, yes. You can cruise through most areas where enemies respawn, but specific 'challenge rooms' require all enemies to be killed before the door will open.

Offline Cow

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #138 on: May 30, 2013, 01:22:56 am
I'm back, I missed this place. Haven't been doing a huge amount of pixel art, mostly drawing and painting these days, but I need to resharpen my eyes and brain.

Offline Mathias

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Re: Official Off-Topic Thread 2014

Reply #139 on: May 30, 2013, 05:15:47 am
Great work, Carnifax. Will I ever be able to play it?


What up, Cow!