(TCB) Scrolling plateform game

[ACC]

(This message may look a little rushed or whatever, but I can hardly manage to write "clear and understandable English", all my apologies.)

Aloha, I'm new around here.
I used to hang around this very cool website (keeping reasonable distance, I'm kinda shy), but I just though that it could be nice to show some stuff I'm working on. I started this game five weeks ago and everything seems to work fine (somehow). It's a double side scrolling platform game. I still have a few features to add and some bugs to fix, but beside that, I'm confident. Well... until I drop the project like many other I gave up.
The stuff is made with QB45, a couple of ASM routines for controls and on screen display; Last time I had the chance to test it, it was running smooth on a huge Pentium 233 (everything set to max). Here are a few screenshots (work in progress) of a test map:




I'm fighting against procedure size limitation for now (it seem to be a little "too much" for the compiler to handle - I'd like to keep the whole stuff one piece without libraries).

I think it's pretty much everything, hope you'll like it.

'laaaaaaater! Peace.

[BadMrBox]

This project of yours looks really great.

[Codemss]

It looks really great, no reason to be shy for this . I advice you to spend some time to make controls work really well(if there aren't already), because that is the only thing I can think off that can make a game that looks like that bad. I think it looks really proffessional, and better then almost every QB games I saw (with an exception for maybe 1 or 2)

[ACC]

Thanks a lot guys.

I advice you to spend some time to make controls work

Don't worry, they do. And there's a keyboard control key setup too . I still need to work on the level editor for now (I wish I could add more features to the game engine, but I'm out of program stack -- once again, it's about limitation, maybe I'll split the stuff later... somehow) I may try to put a beta build somewhere if anyone's interested (work in progress, a single test map and bugs)...

[Pete]

This looks really cool! I'll put something about it in the next issue of QB Express.

[ACC]

Thanks man, that's great! But I'll have to finish it now ^^

[SMC]

Please do! Even if you can't include everything you'd like try to finish it in some way. It looks really cool. Anyway, what's the theme of the game? Are you exploring an old mine, hunting for treasure?

[ACC]

I'm planning three little episodes like early 90ies platform games. The first one is "save the princess" plot (nothing fancy). You go as Tommy and try to find where Lydia (the only girl how seems to care about him) is gone. Tommy already got troubles of his own, since his parent disappeared years ago. He must now work all alone in his "cactus farm" -- other kids in town are making fun out of him and nickname him "CactusBoy" because of that (the village where he lives only got two resources: cactus and chicken feathers).
In this first part, you'll have to survive against Calamidades (some sort of cactus-eating dogs, no way affiliated with Chupacabras ), mad crows, lost souls (in this haunted mine)...

If you're wondering, the character himself and his background were made when I was asked to make a few pages of comics --weird weird people--. I had something like three days to do them and I really was in a hurry. So I tied a couple of stories altogether and somehow, it turned out to this. Recently I felt the urge to do something with it…

[sid6.7]

wow thats impressive and encouraging!!! keep it coming!!

[relsoft]

Whoooooaaaaaa!!!!

*Jaw drops...

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Codemss, you need to play more QB games.

But yeah, this looks really cool. Please complete it.

And then port it to FB.

[ACC]

(Thanks to a bunch of morrons working on the water lines in the hood, I've been sorta out of connection lately)

Thanks a lot for the feedbacks. Now, some bad news: the game isn't smooth anymore on P233 because of design changes and code modifications (it works correctly with lots of options disabled); I'm not a king coder through and lots of optimisation is possible.

Now, some good stuff: I'm done with documentation, engine and tools coding. I'm adding and reworking some assets. All in all, it's doing fine. I may require some help to create libraries if it could allow me to reduce procedure's size (I'd like to add sounds and EMS support -- not for now, I don't even know if I'll have more time to waste on this project anyway) (No screenshots, the whole stuff is on another computer)

And then port it to FB.

(man, hope you're kidding there )

C ya'

[Eric Carr]

Looks good! Can't wait to try it out.

It reminds me of a platformer I wrote about 10ish years ago (Wow, you can still download it here) in quick basic.

Like yours it is only qb, no libraries (no asm either). I somehow managed to get it playable on a 25 mhz box by making the scrollable window smaller than fullscreen - similar to yours.

Hmm..QB. You should really give freebasic a shot.

Eric

Btw, the Postal Service - great music.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

Eric Carr!

Heh, nice to see you here.

I remember playing your Spinball. Among other reasons, for my QBasic games directory here too: http://games.qbasic.com/dumpquery.php?s ... mit=Search

Loved its unconventional design.

BTW, where are you now with game dev? Planning to do a FB game perhaps? Say yes. I maintain http://games.freebasic.net now and I get wet about any new FB game.

And ACC, I don't know why I should be kidding when suggesting FB? It's not like I suggested GWBASIC.

But you just go make a 16-bit game for 20 people out there and...don't forget to use DS4QB2.

[ACC]

And ACC, I don't know why I should be kidding when suggesting FB? It's not like I suggested GWBASIC.

But you just go make a 16-bit game for 20 people out there and...don't forget to use DS4QB2.

Don’t get me wrong here, but I haven’t touched QB since I was 15 or so. I just remembered I had fun fooling around with this language. My head is just so f**** up, I was glad to remember these days and that’s why I’ve chosen QB. I don’t care about the final product; I just do this stuff because I actually like to write code.

It’s just like “retro programming” to me. You wouldn’t ask today’s NES programmers to switch to Xbox360, wouldcha?

I honestly never heard of DS4QB2, I suppose it’s a compiler. Just as I wrote above, I’ve got habits and I’m scared of changes (well, I’m scared of pretty much <b>everything</b> to tell the truth -- but that’s another topic).

Anyway, all the sources will be released and I wouldn’t mind helping out someone else to port it… If I ever make the all three parts, I may try to port the final engine to FB (it means the whole game too).

[Lachie Dazdarian]

DS4QB2 is a notorius 32-bit QB lib for sound that worked only in Windows 2000 (maybe in Windows 98 too), but not in Windows XP. Being a 32-bit lib, you couldn't run a program using it in pure DOS or DOSBox.

And you wouldn't belive the number of people who coded games using it and not allowing their users to bypass it in a setup menu or something like that.

But I'm glad you didn't hear about it. Don't use it.

FB might seem overwhelming in the beginning, but if you concentrate on FBGFX (graphics), FMOD (sound), it shouldn't be that difficult getting used to it.

Check my tutorials here: http://lachie.phatcode.net/articles.php

And maybe this thread can help too: http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10830

[roy]

ACC,
If you enjoy QB then stick with it, there is a new compiler that will be able to run your program in Vista without having to learn FB.
Lachie,
Please spend some of your limited time at QBasic.com.

[Lachie Dazdarian]

When QB64 compiles ACC's game I'm gonna eat my shoe.

[burger2227]

That would not surprise me! You always put your foot in your mouth SMILEY lol.

Ted

[BadMrBox]

@ACC
DS4QB2 is a library for music/sound. I'm not sure it'll work very good with a modern OS. In fact I dont think it works with WinXP. I'm not sure thought as it was awhile since I was messing with it.