Newbie's development thoughts.

edited September 2011 in Development
Just wanted to thank WOS development forum regulars, for the amazing information etc contained within these pages.

20+ years ago a did a little assembly language programming on my Speccy, but never anything particularly amazing.

Returning to it now, thanks to reading these forums (and links from here) I have found all kinds of new ways of doing things I just wouldn't have thought of. Working through JC's "How To Write ZX Spectrum Games" has been amazingly informative ... And unsurprisingly I had forgotten the t-states and flag setting for some of the commands, so having the WOS archive available is also a godsend. Plus countless other online finds.

Secondly - people making source code available! So eye-opening! My .asm is utterly unreadable at the moment (and how I wish I'd planned better from the outset!). I'm also using far too much dirty self modifying code, which I am sure better planning would have cured. You live and learn I suppose.


So, onto questions ...

I am *farily* sure I will be able to finish my game, although I'll owe a debt of gratitude to a couple of people for routines that I have adapted / nicked.

So far Jonathan Cauldwell's number printing routine got assimilated somewhat, and his whitenoise routine was effectively pinched verbatim - as well as Derek M.Smith's sprite handling routine was greatly helpful in getting me using the screen a little more efficiently.

The thing that has made me put pen to paper, figuratively, is Chris Cowley's amazing Beepola windows app. Today I went from 'music-is-going-to-be-a-right-pain-in-the-bum' to 'I completely understand how I can implement music in this game' thanks to his amazing tool. I owe this man a hug / manly-handshake-and-a-pint.

(Also thanks ... Jaime Tejedor Gomez's ball sprite was/is my placeholder before I drew my reticule. At some point, I am going to have to start looking at graphics and a 'tool' - my technique of typing lots of %01101010, and squinting at the screen is not the 'pro' thing to do methinks.)


What is the correct etiquette for crediting/thanking these lovely people. And I am sure there are more to come (and more routines to steal) yet.


For anyone interested: A work in progress build is here: www.butterflypolite.com/uglifruit/SPB3E9~1.tzx

Which includes my 1bit-beeper version of a tune I wrote on a Music Box! (which can be seen/heard here) -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kDtkAoTLuw



Apologies if this is far too tl;dr
Post edited by uglifruit on

Comments

  • edited July 2011
    Hi Uglifruit,

    Your program looks great, are we looking at some off the wall Operation Wolf style thing?

    As far as credits go most examples I've seen are credits in an accompanying txt file. In my most recent game I've put credits in my source code where I've modified/ripped off someones code, and on a screen at the beginning.

    Cheers

    RT
  • edited July 2011
    Hi! Good luck with your project! It has potential.


    If you like you may have a look at my games sources. It isn't the best code in the world but you may find something useful or inspiring:

    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekpub.cgi?regexp=^Rafal+Miazga$&loadpics=3
  • edited August 2011
    Thank you both for words of encourage moment.

    R-Tape - it's not actually going to be Operation Wolf-y as such, I'm more going to be a 'Type-em-up', kind of react by pressing the correct letter. The locations for the 'baddies' will be indicated by letters that pop up on the screen before the level starts, and you have the type the correct letter to shoot the baddies at that location.

    The reticule movement on this build is just me trying to see what I can do, you won't have direct control. I wanted to try out a 'reload' mechanic (the coloured bars at the top) - which will be activated if you 'miss', thus stopping the player pummeling the keys. (The fact that firing 5,10,15,20,25 times does different things I was testing is also insignificant).


    I'm having fun swapping between thinking about programming and other bits and bobs. Doing the font (including masks), was an almost relaxing diversion from the brain ache-ing bits.

    I will certainly have a look at your sources Ralf, thanks... there are bound to be things I can be inspired by. (Or steal).


    Regarding crediting/thanking, I'll do txt and in-game somewhere I think. Don't hold your breath for me finishing anything soon. This is three weeks of work already! And it is certainly not very 'game' like yet!
  • edited August 2011
    uglifruit wrote: »
    (Also thanks ... Jaime Tejedor Gomez's ball sprite was/is my placeholder before I drew my reticule. At some point, I am going to have to start looking at graphics and a 'tool' - my technique of typing lots of %01101010, and squinting at the screen is not the 'pro' thing to do methinks.)

    Sprite ball? I don't recall having released such a sprite, so I think what you saw was the output file from my graphics editor, SevenuP.

    Anyway, congrats for your return to coding, have fun!
  • edited August 2011
    That was a pretty interesting demo. I like the pun you make of Time Crisis (and not, like, Typing of the Dead :))

    There's one important advice I should give you: Please don't make the screen to busy. It's hard to see anything on the screen at the moment, so if you're adding letters to the screen it will be even more messy.

    Oh, and if you are adding letters near the sprites, would you please add recognisable letters? In jonathans typing game I was spending half the time to guess which word was depicted by the ambiguous letters.

    Good luck and hope to see more from you soon.
  • edited August 2011
    Interesting....looking forward to seeing how this one turns out!

    Oh, and love Penelope's Theme...especially on the hand-cranked music box! :)
  • edited August 2011
    Thanks Timmy - yes, screen is cluttered at the moment. I have deliberately filled it with stuff, to check my tile/sprite/font masks. I am going to think about the aesthetics once I have got the main 'engine' running. Similarly the 'title pages' at the start were really just me trying out my font printing routine.

    Today I have got the baddies popping in and out of the screen, and the keypresses mapped to shoot them (although they don't actually get shot, and they are all just 'baddie-blobs'). It also runs far far too fast at the moment. I'm sure that won't last.



    Deadpan - thank you. I am enjoying music boxes at the moment. I've just bought a 33 note chromatic handcranked one. :)
  • edited August 2011
    Hi Uglifruit,

    welcome here :)
    What is the correct etiquette for crediting/thanking these lovely people. And I am sure there are more to come (and more routines to steal) yet.
    usually credits in accompanied readme.txt or manual, credit/thanks in code (end credits, scroller) is very kind as it requires a bit more effort).
    (Also thanks ... Jaime Tejedor Gomez's ball sprite was/is my placeholder before I drew my reticule. At some point, I am going to have to start looking at graphics and a 'tool' - my technique of typing lots of %01101010, and squinting at the screen is not the 'pro' thing to do methinks.)
    im using SevenUP which can export data somehow and for some work BASIN whith its built-in tools can be very useful. for DD i curently use good old PaintBrush for breaking Swainy's spritesheet into standalone sprites and convert them from png to bin by my own command line tool written in java.
  • edited August 2011
    Thanks. I have been sevenup-ing today. Much easier than my squinting. (Although despite the options, I can't seem to get it to export the data + mask in the byte order I want).

    My confidence has grown a lot of the past weeks with z80-ing. I am even thinking I might write myself a 'level' designer, to help me put together the stages.

    Anyway - I thought I'd share my progress so far ... as I now have a playable 'build'.


    The ugly ugly ugly front end it to let me tweak settings regarding speed - and try out my idea for 'Expert' mode requires the user to press 'enter' to fire, after aiming. (Normal just requires getting the key).


    eg ... Stage 1, Expert, Skill=40, Speed=15. It's tricky!



    Also - '9' on the setting pages adds 99.99 to your time, when it runs down.


    www.butterflypolite.com/uglifruit/playable.z80


    Thoughts welcome.

    Still to do:
    Highscores
    Time Bouses
    Front end
    Music for death
    Music for congratulations
    Graphics (16x16 tiles to build levels)
    Stages designed from those tiles
    Baddy Graphics

    I have 22k free. I should be okay.


    (...I have spent sooo many hours on making this so far. Swinging from satisfying to maddeningly frustrating etc ... but my word - what a time-hoover!)
  • edited September 2011
    I must have missed this one somehow, how are you getting on with it?.

    How complete is the gameplay on this? Just so I understand correctly there is no movement of a target sight is there? The player is supposed to press the key where a man pops up?

    Just a bt of feedback on the display, it's just about ok for me but I can imagine some people saying the opening screen is not so easy to read.

    This looks like it's going to be a winner :smile:

    I know what you mean about being a time hoover, I've not dared to add up the number of hours I've spent on this lark.
  • edited September 2011
    I *have* made some progress on this - I'll move it to it's own 'work in progress' thread.

    http://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35702

    I have addressed some of the points here, and spent probably far too long reinventing wheels, and writing clumsy code. Happy days!

    It now feels a bit like 'a game'
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