Zombie Game and Game Kit

Hi,

I’m working on some new releases for the Wakefield show.

• I’ve been developing a new Zombie game using the Legends of Magic game engine.
• In addition, in parallel, I’ve been organising a game development kit. This is intended to have 2 games bundled with it using a common code base.

I may have something ready for beta testing soon. Does anyone have any time to beta test in the next week or so?

Thanks,

Tony
www.amcog-games.co.uk

Guess who :)

Thanks David.

Making good progress. It all feels a bit industrialised at the moment as I’m writing 3 games in parallel.

The game library itself has a set of tile handling routines which makes the main game file, relatively simple. At the heart there are core routines, the separate libraries for sound, graphics and game development itself. So its layered and transparent with control passed on to the developer, rather than trying to make everything excessively automatic and thus restrictive.

Can I tempt you to take a look Rick?

Patrick M – would you be interested in looking at the game kit to see how I’ve named & decomposed the libraries? (Beta testers get a free copy of the product.) Which is why I normally limit beta testing to a maximum of four people…

Can I tempt you to take a look Rick?

Sure. You know I’m a sucker for zombies…
https://www.heyrick.co.uk/blog/index.php?diary=20160418&keitai=0
(^_^)

You know I’m a sucker for zombies…

Didn’t have you down as cocktail drinker

Hey,

Patrick M – would you be interested in looking at the game kit to see how I’ve named & decomposed the libraries? (Beta testers get a free copy of the product.) Which is why I normally limit beta testing to a maximum of four people…

Yeah sure, I would be interested. I can’t promise I would be much good at beta testing (since my programming skills are pretty novice level), but I could certainly have a look and play around with it a bit, and give feedback.

Which is why I normally limit beta testing to a maximum of four people…

I’ll buy it anyway, as usual :)

Thanks David (I appreciate the support). Thanks Rick and Patrick for offering to try things out.

Currently I’m focusing on the game kit games which are built using its tile library. These include:

• A RISC OS version of Cybertron mission called Cyborg based on something I was writing for the Amiga years ago
• An improved version of Mutant Penguin (Pengo) with upscaled graphics also written for the Amiga years ago.
  Those two games form a reference implementation and proof of the game library code.

Patrick, the complexity of the code in the main files for these games will be very low as the OS calls and logic to perform screen loading,rendering from tiles and control handling will be in the BASIC Game Library itself. Any comments on whether my library call interface makes sense (or not) are welcome.

Then I’ll be back on the Zombie’s tomorrow. I plan to send out a beta on the weekend. All graphics, music and most of the code exists.

A SDK, and two games. All in one. Yeah!
Games, programming tools, music tool. Sounds good.

Hi Patrick,
I will be sending out the Game Kit and included games later today. Which is the best e-mail address to send them too?

The Zombie beta will be sent out in due course as I’m refining the game play at the moment….

Thanks,

Tony

Hi Tony,

The best email address for me is dusthillresident@gmail.com
So then, just to make sure I understand everything, you mainly want me to examine the example games/code and then give you feedback on whether your library calls/interfaces make sense and are easy to understand, right?
Apart from that I might also try to make some quick test programs using the kit/library just for fun, and maybe I could give some feedback based on the experience.

I will not have a lot of time to test the SDK before May.
But I definitively need to kill something :)
Zombies will be perfect (even if already dead).

Hi David,
The Zombies will be ready in May. I need to refine the game play and I’m afraid the Zombies are buggy & generally not cooperative at the moment….

However, the two game kit games are now very playable but have a few rough edges to smooth out.

The cybertron mission style game (Cyborg) may be good enough as a standalone title in its own right. So if you’re happy to kill robots then this will be sent to you tommorrow. Had a bit of a marathon 36 hour coding session (I did sleep during some of that fortunately…). I wrote almost all of the Cyborg game in 36 hours based on the Pengo game code using the kit. This seems to have been reasonably successful. There is a few more rough edges than I’d like at the moment. So, as I can see some bugs, I will iron them out first….

Hi Patrick. What you propose sounds great. Also, if you have time to try playing the titles, I would welcome any feedback.

Sorry for the delay in the beta.

Thanks,

Tony.
www.amcog-games.co.uk

So if you’re happy to kill robots then this will be sent to you tomorrow.

Die robots, die :)

the Zombies are buggy & generally not cooperative at the moment….

Sounds like they’re behaving like zombies are supposed to… ;-)

I’m afraid the Zombies are buggy

No immune system

Also, if you have time to try playing the titles, I would welcome any feedback.

Sure thing, I’ll also try out the example games and let you know what I think.
Post on the forum once you’ve emailed me the files, just to make sure I won’t miss them – I’ve had trouble with legitimate messages getting filtered as spam in the past.

- Patrick

Not the final library configuration, but the libqary routines I’m sending out in the next hour or so.

I’m going to finish the manual tomorrow. So I’ll send a refresh out then..

Core Library routines:
-------------
PROCStartKit
PROCStopKit
PROCError
PROCSpriteLoad(HANDLE%, BUFFERSIZE%, FILENAME$)
PROCSpritePut(name$, X, Y)
PROCSpritePutMask(name$, X, Y)
PROCSpriteScale100(name$, AX, AY, AS)
PROCSpriteRotate(name$, X, Y, theta)
PROCModeSVGA256
PROCModeSVGATrueColour
PROCModeVGATrueColour
PROCModeVGA256
PROCCls
PROCUseTripleBuffering
PROCTripleBuffer
PROCSwitchDrawBuffer
PROCResetVideo
PROCReadVar(name$, RETURN out$)
PROCWait(T)
PROCPrint(text$,font$,pitch,X%,Y%,C%)
PROCTextSansSerif(X, Y, TEXT$, size, col)
PROCTextPlain(X, Y, TEXT$, C,S1,S2)
PROCInitText(s)
PROCInitTextStretch(s)
PROCText(X, Y, TEXT$, C)
PROCLoadRDSP
PROCUnLoadRDSP
PROCLoadMP3Player
PROCUnLoadMP3Player
PROCPlayMP3(filename$)
PROCStopMP3
PROCVolumeMP3(change%)
PROCLocateMP3(seconds%)
PROCGrabLine(L%)
PROCFadeScreen
PROCFadeColour
PROCGrabScreen
PROCFadeInColour
PROCFade(bright)
PROCButton(X%,Y%, caption$, RETURN pressed)
PROCScrollStarInit
PROCScrollStar

Tile Game Library Routines
--------------------------
PROCTilesInit(numTilesX%, numTilesY%, tileSizeX%,tileSizeY%, back$)
PROCTilesLoad(buffer%, size%, filename$)
PROCTilesMap(token$, sprite$)
PROCTilesSetProp(token$, mask%)
PROCTilesInitLevel(level%, buffer%, buffersize%, levelData%, levelDataSize%)
PROCTilesDraw(levelData%, offsetx%, offsety%)
PROCTilesDrawSubRange(levelData%, offsetx%, offsety%, mapx%, mapy%, width%, height%)
 PROCTileDoEnemy(flags%, X%, Y%, RETURN EX%, RETURN EY%, SPEED%, mode%, RETURN DIR$)
PROCPlayerMoveXY(flags%, RETURN X%, RETURN Y%, SPEED%, RETURN DIR$)
FNGetTileProperties(leveldata%, X%, Y%)
FNTileGet(leveldata%, X%, Y%)
PROCTileEdit(leveldata%, X%, Y%, C$)
FNTileGetSprite(C$)

Music Library Routines
----------------------
PROCInitSound
PROCChord(basechannel%, chord$, sound%, volume%, duration%, pan%)
PROCTrackPlayerInit(duration%(), musicTrack$(), startTrack%, numTrack%)
PROCTrackPlayer(duration%(), musicTrack$())
PROCTrackPlayerNext

Beta 1 has been e-mailed.

Thanks for offering to test. I really appreciate it.

Two games are included:

• Cyborg – based on Cybertron mission ( 5 music tracks included)
• Mutant Penguin – A pengo clone (Mostly completed, but missing e.g. GAME OVER, bonus score screen, sound effects, 2 and 1/2 music tracks included at the moment :-) ).

The manual is still being written. However, I will be sending this out tomorrow.

Please note Mutant Penguin is a bit slow on the Pi (original/version 1. Fine on the Pi 2) and still has some finishing touches required. For the release notes. please see the Readme file.

Cyborg is much closer to complete, but needs some more maps, calibration and the droids need to shoot at the player….

I’ll be updating tomorrow to complete the gaps in the games & add the documentation. Any feedback welcome, good or bad.

Best Regards,

Tony

I will upload some screen shots and music links tomorrow.

Hi,

Thanks, I got the email and downloaded the file. I’ll be trying things out now and I’ll post again if I have any trouble. If things go well then I’ll probably be giving some feedback by tonight.

- Patrick

Thanks Patrick. I replied to your e-mail.

I’ve finished the Mutant Penguin game and optimised it a bit to avoid overdraw. Fixed bugs and added firing robots to the Cyborg game. Still not written up the manual fully…. :-/

Thanks for the comments so far. They are much appreciated and I am making changes to the games in accordance with feedback received.

A draft manual has been e-mailed out.

I am now putting the finishing touches to the Cyborg game included additional robots, graphics and bonuses.

Tony

For the Cyborg game I’ve implemented :

• Shooting robots
• 1 new type of robot that moves fast
• A local teleport that takes you somewhere else in the map
• A smart bomb
• A freeze bomb

I’m looking at improving performance on the Pi 1 and might drop the framerate to 25 fps if need be for the Pi 1 and try and leave it at 60fps for the ARMX6 and fully clocked Pi 2.

Don’t forget instructions to make our own maps.
A future best seller :)