Upgrade Time: Encounter

Want to talks about games you like, would like to see developed on the Oric, it's here.
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Dbug
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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I managed to find a bit of free time for a new video, this time I worked on the replayability of the game by adding a high-score table.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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Here is the new episode:



Some new graphics (We now know what the house looks like!), as well as the saving of scores with their associated names and victory conditions.
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ibisum
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by ibisum »

Great! Looking very tight and smooth .. just wondering, are you planning on adding 'objects' to the graphics - like, when you see a CUE its there on the table, and then when you take it, it disappears? I'm guessing you're saving this for last, since it requires a bit of graphics tweaking ..

Very excited to play this now!
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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I've been thinking about it, just not sure about how to do it.

Some games were showing items in some small squares overlaid on the pictures, which has the advantage of working everywhere.

The main issue with actual objects in the scene, is that it's like the dog: It could possibly only be done on the original location of the item, which may or may not be a problem, but in any case it needs to be handled in a consistent way, and what I did for the dog would not work for the entire game because it would use too much disk space.

A possibility would be to slice the pictures in multiple slices, with or without the objects.

Alternatively, that could be done by compositing... but I don't think I have enough free memory to allow for a 240x128 picture to be loaded off-screen, modified in memory with the required items, and then moved to the screen.

If I can find a way, I'll definitely do it, just not sure how at the moment :)
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by ibisum »

Not worth it to just add another frame to the resources - I guess this is what you mean by not wanting to fill the disk with too many files?

Its an interesting conundrum, anyway - probably the last bit of polish for a very nice project, anyway ..
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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It's not that I don't want to fill the disk, I'm fine with that: Space is made to be used, there's zero benefit in leaving some room free :)
What I would like is to keep the possibility to make the game run on 3" floppies, if I add too much resources, that will requires 3.5" floppies only, which would be a shame.

That's basically the same reasons as for not using assembler or C: I'm trying to stay to the constraints of somethings that could technically has been done on an Oric in 1983 with a Microdisc unit.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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Dbug wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 8:48 pm Space is made to be used, there's zero benefit in leaving some room free :)
Wise words... same you once told be about memory, and it really enlightened me :)

What you say is true, of course. You could store graphics+masks+size and pos info and create a routine to display objects anywhere on the screen without corrupting the background. But that would require some asm routines and memory.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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The two only alternatives I can think of are:
- use CHAR to draw "characters" that could contain graphical representations of the items
- use a bunch of MOVE instructions to copy bitmap data line by line
in both case we would clearly see the drawing happening, except if I can find a buffer area, or if I somewhat hide the display using color changes... but that would reduce the visible screen size by one column...

Not easy :)
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by ibisum »

I'm kind of keen on the idea of doing a compositor .. something that takes a smaller image file and blits it over the top of a larger image file - but of course I have no clue how to estimate the effort required to implement this ... just a huge interest in how you'd do it, in BASIC, fulfilling the requirement of it being something a 1983-Oric could handle ..
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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Well, I guess you'll have to follow the rest of the series to discover if I came up with an idea... or not!
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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Dbug wrote: Mon May 28, 2018 5:50 pm Well, I guess you'll have to follow the rest of the series to discover if I came up with an idea... or not!
:twisted:
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by Dbug »

Episode 11 is now available:


Today's topic is dedicated to Ibisum , not sure if the solution is what was expected, but I fear I can't do much better.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by ibisum »

Great, I feel honoured! My only comment is, seeing the objects drawn that way is a dead giveaway! :)

But, as usual, I remain impressed and look forward to playing.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

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ibisum wrote: Sun Jun 03, 2018 1:25 pm Great, I feel honoured! My only comment is, seeing the objects drawn that way is a dead giveaway! :)
Which is why I asked in the video if I should show a black screen during the loading of the next scene.

Basically with the half video mode, it's trivial to temporarily disable the 128 lines of HIRES and to show the TEXT behind, could be a large LOADING logo, some intricate logo, some hints, or just some black stuff.

During that time we can load the picture in the HIRES memory, draw the items, then show the picture instantaneously.
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Re: Upgrade Time: Encounter

Post by Scalex »

Another interesting video!
Thanks Dbug.

Btw there seems to be a problem with the links in the description of the videos in YouTube.
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