Space99 - Development Forum

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Chema
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Post by Chema »

Dbug wrote:I was wondering about this map thing.

You have all the 'cubes' (rooms) in memory, right ?

Is it not possible in the info post to have an option 'map', showing in miniature the map of the complex, perhaps just drawing interconnected losanges, with a left<->right keys to move through the various cubes, showing the name of the room ?

I guess it's a significant amount of work, but it could probably makes the game a lot more playable for people that cannot print the map.

Just my 0.2 nok suggestion :)

(I can help doing that after I received and installed the new pc !)
This has been suggested before and I never found time to seriously get on with it.

The fact is that no, I don't have the map in memory. Well, yes, of course I have it, but just as a list of room IDs along with their data. Whenever the character gets to a room border, the destination ID is calculated just adding/substracting 1 or 16, depending on the direction, and the room is searched for in the list. There is no information about actual room connections.

Also there are no such things as "room names" per se. Just some rooms have a label (Koenig's quarters), others are grouped and share a common label (Corridor).

The way to go would be creating the necessary data "on the fly" as the user visits the station, and using the room labels (or other data table) to name sections.

I thought about setting a kind of general map of each level and load it from disk when the player requests this from the infopost. This would be the best idea. Just need to add a dot where the player is (You Are Here).

Again the problem here is someone with good painting skills should create these maps from the real maps from the user's guide and we just need to find the way of locating each infpost in those pictures (just a table with roomID where the infopost is and (x,y) coordinates would do). The pic should not interfere with the game frame... just the area where the room is displayed.

Volunteers?
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Dbug
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Post by Dbug »

That's actually a quite good idea :)

So we need to find a way to shrink each huge level to one single picture fitting the shape of the play area, rectangular on the top, and triangular at the bottom.

Sounds like an interesting challenge !
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Post by Chema »

Dbug wrote:That's actually a quite good idea :)

So we need to find a way to shrink each huge level to one single picture fitting the shape of the play area, rectangular on the top, and triangular at the bottom.

Sounds like an interesting challenge !
Who else thinks this sounds as "I volunteer!" :)

You need to get your PC working first, no? But something nice looking but simple could be done. Not including every passageway and every door, but more like "areas" and maybe even adapting the shape of moonbase Alpha? We already have the maps from the series :)
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Post by Chema »

One thing I forgot:
Dbug wrote: So we need to find a way to shrink each huge level to one single picture fitting the shape of the play area, rectangular on the top, and triangular at the bottom.
In fact the best way (or easiest) woud be having a rectangular screen area that could be loaded from disk directly into the screen, so should avoid entering the bottom triangle. I do not store the game frame anywhere else but in screen memory :)

Also we can load 256 byte chunks from disk, so it should be a multiple of this. Something like 40x96 (=240x96 pixels, 15 256byte pages) or something similar...

We can keep all levels inside this area, even if they use only a portion of it (and include attributes).

I suppose some kind of 2D map (top view) of the complex could be done. I have to look at that :)

EDIT it is, at least, doable.

I quickly tried this mockup for level G (not exact). The only thing is keeping sure when doing the map is that lifts are noted down and that doors are correctly placed.

Image

There is plenty of space at both sides to place the "LEVEL G" label and maybe a kind of legend. Something should be used to indicate where the player is... even if intelligently done with some color!
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Post by Dbug »

Having non isometic map has the advantage of forcing people to think a bit more about where they are; and it looks more like real schematics.

Well, if we consider that the position of the player is necessarily near one of the infoposts, then we know exactly all the positions where the player can be :)

Then based on that, we can store the coordinates of all info-posts indicated on the map, and make sure when drawing the map that we have 6 pixels on the left to change the ink color, and 6 pixels on the right to change the paper color.

Using inverted video, a 6x6 square can be drawn, indicating the location of the selected info-post. If we consider the info post are "squarish", this can be a viable solution. If we draw the map in YELLOW on BLACK, this means we can have the info posts appear as BLUE squares with a WHITE frame. (or the other way around)

Else we can do something like a retro green display: Use odd and even lines, with interleaved colors for the map and things on top of the map.

Last solution is to not use colors, but just blink the "pixel"... or draw a vertical and horizontal line that cross on the select point (buark).

Suggestions people ?
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Post by Chema »

Dbug wrote:Having non isometic map has the advantage of forcing people to think a bit more about where they are; and it looks more like real schematics.
Agreed. After all, it is what you would find in real life...
Well, if we consider that the position of the player is necessarily near one of the infoposts, then we know exactly all the positions where the player can be :)
Yep. In fact I think it would be enough to set a point at the centre of the room the player is in. There are 45 infoposts around and, IIRC, never more than one in a single room. So we may have a table with 45 entries such as <roomID,x,y> to indicate where the dot should be painted.

Other routines already exist in the game, such as pixel_address, so it would be quite simple to add this feature.
Then based on that, we can store the coordinates of all info-posts indicated on the map, and make sure when drawing the map that we have 6 pixels on the left to change the ink color, and 6 pixels on the right to change the paper color.
Mmm.. don't know if that would be too much. That would mean having 18 pixels in wide per room. Either we make rectangular rooms, or a big map (level G) won't fit...
Using inverted video, a 6x6 square can be drawn, indicating the location of the selected info-post. If we consider the info post are "squarish", this can be a viable solution. If we draw the map in YELLOW on BLACK, this means we can have the info posts appear as BLUE squares with a WHITE frame. (or the other way around)
I like this idea... Could we go for 10x10 pixels per room?
We can use from line 0 to line 104, so 105 lines of 40 scans. That is 4200 bytes. As we can load pages of 256 from disk, we can use 4096 bytes to store the picture. That means 16 pages of 256 bytes and 102 lines. It will load some scans (10) more, which should be empty.

It is possible, then to center the 6x6 square inside a room.
Else we can do something like a retro green display: Use odd and even lines, with interleaved colors for the map and things on top of the map.

Last solution is to not use colors, but just blink the "pixel"... or draw a vertical and horizontal line that cross on the select point (buark).
Could this work? If it looks fine then I'd go for it. It would resemble how things looked in a computer in those old scifi series, so fits with the atmosphere of the game.

Cheers.
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Post by Chema »

Greetings all

Just a couple of notes. We are on the road to the final version (at last). Those problems on real Orics have been solved (so it seems) and thanks to Sam's new method for converting pics, we have colored shots for the intro pictures (those showing people at Main Mission and Sandra's explosion).

I have to fix a few details, as the intro no more fits in low memory (even if big buffers are in overlay ram), but I hope everyting will be ready quite soon.

The only thing I am reconsidering is in-game maps. Frankly speaking I don't have time to create them, and this will delay the final version quite a few months, which is something I would like to avoid.

In addition I doubt that there is enough interest appart from casual tests in that particular game option.

So, most probably I will drop that idea.

I hope that the final version will be out quite soon, then. This way I can rest a bit :)

Cheers.
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Post by Dbug »

A suggestion then.
Could you add in the text that scrolls that in order to play the game, one should also download and print the maps ?

I'm asking that, because there is unfortunately a lot of individuals out there who collects all oric games, splitting all the information data, and putting their own info files, meaning that in the end we will have SPACE99.DSK somewhere with no way to link to the other data.

I can host files on my site, in some area which will not change, so the download links should still be available in 10 years from now - assuming Microsoft will not buy Yahoo and cause me problems in the webhosting, and that I will not die -.

Does it looks like a good idea ?
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Post by Chema »

Dbug wrote:A suggestion then.
Could you add in the text that scrolls that in order to play the game, one should also download and print the maps ?

I'm asking that, because there is unfortunately a lot of individuals out there who collects all oric games, splitting all the information data, and putting their own info files, meaning that in the end we will have SPACE99.DSK somewhere with no way to link to the other data.

I can host files on my site, in some area which will not change, so the download links should still be available in 10 years from now - assuming Microsoft will not buy Yahoo and cause me problems in the webhosting, and that I will not die -.

Does it looks like a good idea ?
I completely understand your point. I added a small sentence to the scroll text to remember people that the game comes with maps.

I think it is all done now. Just need to check a couple of things and kindly ask again for the French translation.

I am quite sad not to have included the in-game maps, it was quite a challenge and would have added value to the game... and everything just for lack of time, not that it is not possible to do. :(

Anyway at least the game is (nearly) finished. It should serve mostly as a demonstration of the real possibility of making isometric and masked sprites games with Orics, as well as proving that my engines work!

There are a couple of things to do, though. I have in mind a way of optimizing the engine in speed, but it will require a complete rewrite of the rendering routines. Don't know if there would be enough interest as to spend time in that.

On the other hand my plan has allways been to release the engine so that anyone can use it to create their own games. The easy-to-use C interface (easy also in asm) and generality should be interesiting for programmers out there. I have to write something about how to use it, for sure.

I have also learned that in order to have a good game you also need graphic & sound skills, which are the most difficult to find. AT was a key application to give access to people to the possibilities of sound and music in their own applications. Sadly it won't be finished.

So what would be the next steps now (after some resting)? Address other kind of projects? A 2D platform game, maybe a conversion from a Speccy, should be possible. And there is another thing that has been in my mind for some time now... converting Elite. Not sure if it is possible. The game itself is done for a 6502, but drawing string 3D models in real time could be quite of a nightmare on an Oric...

Who knows....
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Post by Dbug »

Not necessarily Elite, but any 3D flight-sim could be nice :)

Please reply in the other thread to avoid a mass of replies non related to space 1999 :)
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Post by Chema »

Ok I am in the process of bundling a zip file with the final 1.00 version. That is good news.

On the other hand I thought I might ask this here, as I found no solution myself! :oops:

I was trying to create a video of the game, capturing the screen and sound. Wanted to put the intro and some seconds of game play, and maybe post it in youtube or something.

However all my attempts failed miserably. Tried many programs, all of them losing frames and/or sound and making Eurphoric under Virtual PC run with lots of slowdowns. Surely my laptop is not powerful enough! :x

The most promising was CamStudio, which has its own loosless codec and is supposed to be free. However I tried to make them send me an email with the key (as the program states) and got nothing, so cannot use it (trial period has expired).

So if anyone has done this or knows how to do it, please help me!
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Post by Twilighte »

Yes, i have. But you'll need Dosbox. It has a nice video capture utility. However the output file is a bit strange. I cannot remember off hand but i do remember having to buy a utility to convert the avi to a standard one.
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Post by Chema »

Twilighte wrote:Yes, i have. But you'll need Dosbox. It has a nice video capture utility. However the output file is a bit strange. I cannot remember off hand but i do remember having to buy a utility to convert the avi to a standard one.
Can't use Dosbox here in my laptop. Frame rate is terrible (don't know why).

Mmmm. I wonder...
*beg mode on*
Could you possibly make up a video demo (with sound) of Space:1999?

It should just show booting the disk, the complete intro, booting the game, the scroller (complete) and maybe some seconds of gameplay... I would suggest John getting his commlink, maybe dropping it elsewhere, going outisde, entering an infopost menu, play a bit with other objects (drop two, one over another and get the lowest -it is done automatically- and see how the one up, falls down)... you know what I mean...

I know this is time-comsumpting, but I simply cannot do it myself and would like to post it on You Tube.

In addition you will see the result...
*beg mode off*

Because YES it is here. I have finally released Space:1999, both in english and french!

Want to see if it works properly (send it to Maximus, Dbug and Twilighte) and then the distribution will be online. I won't post a link here, Dbug will host it somewhere in defence-force as well as Maximus in oricgames, so its is up to them to upload it somewhere!

I only hope there are no hidden bugs, and that you all enjoy playing.

Cheers!
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Post by Symoon »

Hi !

Thanks Chema for the 1.0 ! The new screens in the intro are quite good !

I took a quick look at the French version and saw 2 things on the game main screen, before the game starts:
- "drop" is translated by "baisse", which is wrong, should be "poser"
- "ESC to play" was replaced by "ESC pour jouer", which is longer and seems to crush a color attribute, so the yellow color of the text "corrupts" the right of the screen

Nothing that prevents from playing, though :)
(actually, I didn't have time to try playing yet ;))
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Post by Dbug »

I suspect "baisse" was supposed to be "laisse" :)
But yes "pose" is better :)
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