New game - W*H*B - Help wanted!

bobs

I'm currently writing a version of Cuboid/Bloxorz for the speccy, and was hoping for a little help from the WOS folk, or anybody, in designing levels for the game, and also some AY tunes & SFX.

To help with this, I've put together a build of the game as it currently stands, just a single level, but with a full level editor, and am hoping some of you nice people will want to play it, and design some levels - which you can then save out by taking a snapshot of the game with your level in it, and getting them back to me.

You can download the editor from...

http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk/whb_90403.zip

...which includes some brief instructions & keys and the like. Any problems or ideas either post them up here, or PM me.

I also need some AY tunes & SFX, and also some beeper tunes & SFX, if anybody can help get it touch.

All levels & audio will obviously be credited in the final game, and hopefully in-game as well with your name and the name of the level. I'll be adding your levels to the game as I get them, along with further development to the game itself - frontend, redefine keys, more animations etc, and will post updated versions to my site as & when I can.

Many many thanks!

psj3809

Wow looks very impressive, nice work

Ralf

I like it!

You are fast. I remember your post saying that you lacked time for Spectrum and now we have a working game engine! Have you done it in 3 days? :)

By the way, what does WHB stand for?

The game is very forgiving now. If won't allow you to make a bad move, which means falling off the edge if yo make a step too far (like it is done in the original). Will the full version have such possibilty? Maybe two modes can be done : easy, which won't allow you to fall down off the adge, and normal?

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that my imagination won't allow me to create new levels, so I won't be helpful here. But if you like I could try to copy some levels from the original.

Dr BEEP

You stole my idea !!!

I wanted to try to make this a MiniGame, but you beat me.

Looking good so far. Controls QAOP are a bit hard when moving diagonal
I would use Q Z O M instead to see more the diagonal move.
(Not Q Z P SPACE since most will play on the PC-keyboard)

What's the size of your game without the editor now?

zxspecticle

Top stuff Bobs!

mulder

Dr BEEP wrote: »

You stole my idea !!!
Controls QAOP are a bit hard when moving diagonal

I think it's a matter of taste, I've always found QAOP fine on 3D games, depending on whether it's set up in a logical way (and this game is). Perhaps a choice of keys would be a good menu option.

bobs

Thanks for the feedback everybody, glad it's looking good to you all so far.

First off, yes, it did only take a couple of days to get everything up & running, along with a bit of planning before that - once you have everything planned out the coding can be quite easy.

I wasn't too sure about the keys, but know that QAOPM is preferred by most to my personal favourites of ZXKML, so I went for those. The next build should have a frontend, so you'll be able to change them there.

About falling off the edge of the levels... personally I'm not a fan of that "feature" of the originals, preferring to have a reset key instead. It also allows the levels to be bigger as I don't need to provide a fall-off trough around the sides. I could still be persuaded but I felt the extra size of the levels would be a better trade-off.

How much memory? I'm a bit of a junkie for niceties, and so have my back-buffer, pixel-address look-up table, and the like, so it's not tiny. I did run out of memory (48K anyway) at one point, but that was because of lot of repeated graphics in the animations whilst I was getting things working, all of which are masked, so after a clean-up that went down from 10K to 4K. The game will hopefully fit in 48K, should be able to get a good number of compressed levels into that, along with some 128K AY-tunes if somebody can write them?

bobs

Oh, and W*H*B? Width*Height*Breadth = volume of a cuboid. Kev Thacker came up with the name.

na_th_an

Pretty impressive! Keep up the good work :)

ZnorXman

Does bobs have an e-mail addresse? Where is one supposed to send in all the levels one has been slaving over????

bobs

ZnorXman wrote: »

Does bobs have an e-mail addresse? Where is one supposed to send in all the levels one has been slaving over????

Anybody doing levels drop me a PM here.

ZnorXman

PM dropped.

bobs

A couple of quick progress updates...

Mr Beep is on-board and doing some frankly excellent beeper tunes for the game, so it's going to be 48K only affair.

Have added a new tile type - CRUMBLE - which will disappear once you've moved off it. Adds lots of possibilities, especially when the player is split into two.

Still need lots of your levels - I've two people on-board - but the more the merrier, so please get it touch if you can design a level or two for the game.

New build soon with front-end, tunes, and new tile & editor... But any levels done with the original editor can still be accepted.

mile

bobs wrote: »

A couple of quick progress updates...

Mr Beep is on-board and doing some frankly excellent beeper tunes for the game, so it's going to be 48K only affair.

Have added a new tile type - CRUMBLE - which will disappear once you've moved off it. Adds lots of possibilities, especially when the player is split into two.

Still need lots of your levels - I've two people on-board - but the more the merrier, so please get it touch if you can design a level or two for the game.

New build soon with front-end, tunes, and new tile & editor... But any levels done with the original editor can still be accepted.

im working on some levels for you. :)


..of course i have just bought resi 5, so it might not be so many.

bobs

mile wrote: »

im working on some levels for you. :)

Yay! :smile:

redballoon

I'm going to do some levels too. Well, I'll try anyway - as it turns out, I'm pretty rubbish at this game.

bobs

redballoon wrote: »

I'm going to do some levels too. Well, I'll try anyway - as it turns out, I'm pretty rubbish at this game.

Not to worry - so long as you can complete the levels you design, I can include them. Memory permitting of course, but I'm hoping to fit a good 50 at least into the game.

Dr BEEP

with transportertiles.

http://www.flash-game.net/game/3072/puzzle-game.html

bobs

As promised, a new build is now available from the link below...

http://www.bobs-stuff.co.uk/whb_90323.zip

This build has eight tutorial levels to play, re-definable keys / joystick control, and most importantly 2 new tile types - A "crumble" tile which will disappear once the player's block moves from it (cue some Stranded-type levels!), and a teleporter to move the upright player to another location on the level. Four teleporters, each with there own unique destination, are available for use.

I'm happy to accept any levels from either this build or the last one, but if anybody is working on any I'd really like to get them into the game in the next few weeks (drop me a PM and I'll give you my email address to send them to).

Thanks all! :smile:

Fikee

this is going to be VERY interesting game ;)

Dr BEEP

The SPC will reappear. Latest magazin is here:
http://www.womoteam.de/ftp/spc-clubinfo217.pdf

W*H*B is mentioned on page 3

Jumping Stack

Looks a smart game in progress. I'd definitely edit some levels but I'm being a bit thick with the tile editor. I can toggle black to white and vice versa but can't select/place any other tiles.

I'd also like to be able to name the levels I design. I think this would be a fun feature that would add a splash of charisma to the game. (ie I'd want to play through the game and find/beat the levels created by other Wossers).

LCD

Dr BEEP wrote: »

The SPC will reappear. Latest magazin is here:
http://www.womoteam.de/ftp/spc-clubinfo217.pdf

W*H*B is mentioned on page 3

Yes, and it is the first game in News section. I guess, there will be a full review of this extremly innovative game after it will be released...

bobs

Jumping Stack wrote: »

Looks a smart game in progress. I'd definitely edit some levels but I'm being a bit thick with the tile editor. I can toggle black to white and vice versa but can't select/place any other tiles.

I'd also like to be able to name the levels I design. I think this would be a fun feature that would add a splash of charisma to the game. (ie I'd want to play through the game and find/beat the levels created by other Wossers).

Take a look at the Instructions.txt file included in the download zip. Use the LEFT, RIGHT, UP & DOWN keys to move the cursor, the ACTION to place the active tile - shown in the top-left of the editor. The RESTART key will move the active tile onto the next available tile - there's a list of them and the order in that text file - 1, 2, 3, 4 will toggle the affect of switches on the tile, and 5 will toggle a switch between light & heavy, or a tile/air between toggle & set. All this and more is explained in that text file.

As for naming levels, so long as the name is kept to 32 characters or less then include it with your level snapshot - ideally rename the snapshot to that of the level within it.

bobs

I've just updated that ZIP file because there was a bug with the rendering of the switches in the editor. The new build is at the same place, but the actual snapshot file is called whb_90324.sna, rather than whb_90323.

bobs

Can I get a bit of a roll-call as to who's doing levels, and roughly how many they think they'll have done within the next month? Depending on how each compresses I'm hoping to have enough memory for about 60, hopefully more once I optimise the code and remove stuff not being used - can you guys manage to fill about 40 of those?

bobs

Just got a couple of levels from ZnorXman, with more promised. :)

Anybody else doing any? and if so how many? (Mile? redballoon? Jumping Stack?)

Dr BEEP

bobs wrote: »

Can I get a bit of a roll-call as to who's doing levels, and roughly how many they think they'll have done within the next month? Depending on how each compresses I'm hoping to have enough memory for about 60, hopefully more once I optimise the code and remove stuff not being used - can you guys manage to fill about 40 of those?

Bobs,

care to tell me how you store the data. Perhaps I can think of another (de)compression to store even more levels.

bobs

Dr BEEP wrote: »

Bobs,

care to tell me how you store the data. Perhaps I can think of another (de)compression to store even more levels.

I use the puCrunch codec in all my games - it gives fantastic results and the de-compressor is small & fast. Memory isn't a problem at the moment though (apart from my own fading brain!)

Jumping Stack

bobs wrote: »

Just got a couple of levels from ZnorXman, with more promised. :)

Anybody else doing any? and if so how many? (Mile? redballoon? Jumping Stack?)

Yes, just completed creating a level called Jump Stack's Cracks. PM me your email address and I'll wing it over. If you like it, I can probably do some more, but I won't in advance committ as I don't like to make false promises.

Mister Beep

Bobs, if you need wnything more of sound matters, let me know. I'll help.
If that's all - then I'm glad I could help. :) :)