Beyond Castlevania...

[nonner242]

Very Nice!

[+grafixbmp]

And now for the final draft. This finished level does not have the fourth color. But I am rather pleased with it.

 

This is a very nice design. I assume you would get three colours per line by flickering on alternate frames? I wonder how it would look if you alternated colours on each line instead (without flickering) - there would be a gap between each colour, but it might still look OK?

 

Chris

The method that I used in this senario would actually allow for 4 colors on screen by displaying one full frame in blue and black and the next frame in grey and black. Just alternating between these would look good. It could be done by alternating every other line so that it would blend better. I haven't added the blended color to the current one and I have been thinking about widening the level a bit. Just for the far right part while leaving the far left all black. This could add some key details that would make the game more enjoyable.

 

 

I now have a fair part of practice done but I need to redo some color though.

 

It will be posted soon.

 

Oh what the heck. How's this...

 

 

Now with updated color. The rest won't be easy.

Edited June 24, 2009 by grafixbmp

[+MrFish]

Marble Madness images look great. I'm not a big fan of the game, but it would definitely be cool to see this on the 2600. Really good job.

[+grafixbmp]

I recently got my hands on the New Super Mario Bros. Wii and I must say, it feels like the late 80's early 90's all over again. I was greatly inspired and started doodling and voila!

 

 

Just modified a former peice I did with less PF updates and added an underground level image. This would be a match made in heaven for the Harmony cart.

Edited November 18, 2009 by grafixbmp

[tokumaru]

Those look incredibly awesome! I love your mock-ups (specially when they can be reproduced without flickering)!

[+grafixbmp]

Those look incredibly awesome! I love your mock-ups (specially when they can be reproduced without flickering)!

Flicker free would be great but with such limited resources on the 2600, this is a rarity. Smart flicker on the other hand, would appear more like many of the original NES games anyway. I think the harmony could in theory reduce alot of flicker on some of the more robust game concepts, but we won't know until they are readily available.

 

I really don't mind flicker much but only when it blends well. Even the old pac-man's flickering ghosts were cool to me. I have even seen some awesome tricks done because of flicker.

 

But to each there own. BTW, thoes mario images as shown, would have no flicker anyway if done right.

[tokumaru]

Smart flicker on the other hand, would appear more like many of the original NES games anyway.

Even the old pac-man's flickering ghosts were cool to me.

Yeah, it's no big deal when it's done to sprites, because they're usually small, and as long as the player can tell where they are they are serving their function well I guess.

 

 

I have even seen some awesome tricks done because of flicker.

If it's for the sake of an effect, it makes sense to use flickering as well. Such as when a floor can hurt the player it makes sense to make it flicker between some dangerous-looking colors. What I think doesn't work well is flickering a huge portion of the screen in hopes of generating new colors (like you are doing in the Castlevania port). I've seen attempts to mix colors across frames in several systems (I can clearly remember it on the NES, MSX and 2600), and IMO they all failed miserably, because TVs don't blend the frames as we'd like them to.

 

 

BTW, thoes mario images as shown, would have no flicker anyway if done right.

Which is why I liked them so much! =) They look great and don't even need any headache-inducing tricks.

[+grafixbmp]

Smart flicker on the other hand, would appear more like many of the original NES games anyway.

Even the old pac-man's flickering ghosts were cool to me.

Yeah, it's no big deal when it's done to sprites, because they're usually small, and as long as the player can tell where they are they are serving their function well I guess.

 

 

I have even seen some awesome tricks done because of flicker.

If it's for the sake of an effect, it makes sense to use flickering as well. Such as when a floor can hurt the player it makes sense to make it flicker between some dangerous-looking colors. What I think doesn't work well is flickering a huge portion of the screen in hopes of generating new colors (like you are doing in the Castlevania port). I've seen attempts to mix colors across frames in several systems (I can clearly remember it on the NES, MSX and 2600), and IMO they all failed miserably, because TVs don't blend the frames as we'd like them to.

 

 

BTW, thoes mario images as shown, would have no flicker anyway if done right.

Which is why I liked them so much! =) They look great and don't even need any headache-inducing tricks.

 

All of these reasons, good and bad, are why I am wanting to design a new custom color palette set for Castlevania. That being said, I have actualy been thinking of turning the overall level much darker for the sake of better color blending.

This also gave me an idea for an effect.

[KevinMos3]

 

Just modified a former peice I did with less PF updates and added an underground level image. This would be a match made in heaven for the Harmony cart.

If this ever got made into a game, I'd need a new pair of shorts.

Same thing if Castlevania or PoP are completed!

 

I really don't mind flicker much but only when it blends well. Even the old pac-man's flickering ghosts were cool to me. I have even seen some awesome tricks done because of flicker.

Growing up, I always thought the ghosts in Pac-Man were meant to flicker because they were ghosts. It wouldn't have made sense to me to see solid ghosts. But I grew up only knowing the 2600 version of Pac-Man. I didn't have access to arcades. I agree flicker looks cool in some cases and makes sense.

Edited December 4, 2009 by KevinMos3

[+grafixbmp]

With the Hollidays almost upon us and with such a busy schedule, i'm waiting until the first of the year to delve back into coding castlevania. In the mean time I have been trying to catch back up on my gaming and one of the games I sunk my teeth back into is Zelda Twilight princess.

 

Zelda has once again inspired me to come up with a way to create an overall design for a verion on 2600 in conjuction with the addition of the harmony hardware. This image I just did leaves me thinking it could be better but it's still not bad either. The idea is to create a 7 x 8 grid with the playfield refected and to come up with a color palette matrix that allows for many colorful objects across the screen. I guess I feel this matrix/color palette could be better but the idea seems to work fine. The other part of this is to keep PF flicker nonexistent here since most eveyone doesn't like it.

 

So I wanted to get some feedback on how it is, what can be changed, and if the colors should be diffrent. Please feel free to take the image and change anything you want. I want to brainstorm with anyone who has some better ideas.

 

Oh, and there would be several palettes depending on what the location is.

And each palette would have it's own matrix as well.

 

Dungeon

Lake

Mountains

Town

etc

 

 

Edited December 14, 2009 by grafixbmp

[+grafixbmp]

I redid the palette matrix and I think it looks a bit better but I still think it could look better. I think one thing that should happen is that some of the objects should animate thereby setting them apart from still objects.

 

[tokumaru]

Very interesting! It looks great as a tiny image, the trees are totally visible and all, but in fullscreen it's really hard to recognize anything! I can't thing of ways to improve it though, sorry...

[+Random Terrain]

Things like walls and trees are OK in fuzzy vision, but the path needs to be a single color if possible.

[roland p]

if you make a vertical scrolling game which scrolls 1 line/frame and have a sequence of 3 different paletted lines, you could have the flickering effect without flickering.

 

Edit: and have the 3 paletted line pattern fixed ofcourse...

Edited December 15, 2009 by roland p

[+grafixbmp]

I increased the detail of the path a bit. Hope it helps. I still think that if some of the terrain was animated, the animation would help to distinguish things from one another. I had considered doing the color palette scheme from boulderdash but had tried to make this one more unique.

 

I may just get rid of the thin grass completely and replace with the bushes because the thin grass seems to give the most cluter.

 

Edited December 15, 2009 by grafixbmp

[+Random Terrain]

I increased the detail of the path a bit. Hope it helps.

Nope, didn't seem to help. The character is hard to see with a fuzzy vision path behind him. I don't know how that stuff works. Is it possible to have a single color path? If so, can you try it with a single color to see what it looks like? I wish we could do this stuff using batari Basic.

[Raygunn]

A few years ago, I Photoshoped one of my favorie arcade games as a VCS title. this is what I came up with-

(I should work on it more)

I always thought that Make Trax would port well to the 2600

mt.bmp

[+grafixbmp]

I increased the detail of the path a bit. Hope it helps.

Nope, didn't seem to help. The character is hard to see with a fuzzy vision path behind him. I don't know how that stuff works. Is it possible to have a single color path? If so, can you try it with a single color to see what it looks like? I wish we could do this stuff using batari Basic.

I took you advice and redid the path in all yellow and full on too. I like this one best of all. Thanks for the input.

 

[+Random Terrain]

I took your advice and redid the path in all yellow and full on too. I like this one best of all. Thanks for the input.

Much easier to see now. Thanks.

[+grafixbmp]

I really know I said I wouldn't do flicker... but if the color palette were to be overly modified and every other frame, image were to be shifted down one scanline...?

 

Each block (8x7) has the last scanline blank for maintainence for the next. That line could shift to the top of each row of blocks thereby shifting the scanlines down one scanline. Many colors wouldn't overlap other ones and the sections could be modified acordingly to keep colors from overlaping. At least this could be kept to the highest minimum.??? Frame shifting and still keeping the same data for each frame??? Still no?

 

I thought this would be a simplier form of what Roland was talking about.

Edited December 17, 2009 by grafixbmp

[+grafixbmp]

I was wondering what a dungeon might look like so I did a basic outline with a new (WIP) color matrix and I REALLY like this one. I wouldn't expect every room to conform to the traditional square layout but more like the spread out look of link's awakening. I just did the clasic square layout for simplicity and to get my barings on it.

 

Edited December 17, 2009 by grafixbmp

[MausGames]

If you're ok with a 16 pixel link, why not just use the original sprites in 1 color, or the gameboy ones?

[KevinMos3]

Hey grafixbmp, look where your Mario ended up!

 

I don't plan to leave this pic there and it's not going to be in the actual released hack, I just felt like taking a break and goofing off a bit... although, it would be a fun idea if someone were to replace all DD characters with Mario ones. Princess Toadstool as Linda. That would be a perfect fit.

[+grafixbmp]

Hey grafixbmp, look where your Mario ended up!

 

I don't plan to leave this pic there and it's not going to be in the actual released hack, I just felt like taking a break and goofing off a bit... although, it would be a fun idea if someone were to replace all DD characters with Mario ones. Princess Toadstool as Linda. That would be a perfect fit.

 

Hey man, that looks nice. I also like that the life bar on the left is fixed. Thing always game me a headache. THe colors seem to work well too. I might could do a whole animated line for many mario characters. like a graphics pack.

[+grafixbmp]

Quick question, has anyone ever created a routine for jumping in a smoother manner? Like unto Mario style jumping? Wondered if a style of say a byte for height of jump and a non-liner math equasion with fixed point math that was used for the upward motion and the falling motion. Also a byte for the level of control the stick gives(less horizontal movement than walking). Or something like that.