Return To Monsterland

[Retrospect]

This thread is to document the progress of my latest project. In this game you'll be able to climb ladders on tall trees to get to bonus rooms.

The Maiden has been taken (yet again) by the forces of evil and is being kept captive in Monsterland.

 

So far I have a title screen animation sequence that just keeps playing over and over until you press the Fire button.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyvBC7ka1Qw&feature=youtu.be

[+Vorticon]

Somebody needs to hire bodyguards for that maiden...

[Retrospect]

Somebody needs to hire bodyguards for that maiden...

[+Ksarul]

She has them--they're the ones that keep stealing off with her. . .possibly at the behest of her long-suffering father and whose efforts are continually thwarted by the valiant efforts of our hero, Eric.

[+Vorticon]

She has them--they're the ones that keep stealing off with her. . .possibly at the behest of her long-suffering father and whose efforts are continually thwarted by the valiant efforts of our hero, Eric.

 

I smell a background story brewing up for that new game Perhaps a novella?

[Retrospect]

Classic99 28_05_2019 21_42_17.mp4

 

 

More progress just now.

 

Background graphics are preliminary and will be changed at some point.

Eric can now walk in both directions and at the moment can jump straight up and down (not left or right)

He can't duck yet but he will

Enemy in place, "Bird of Death" that poops randomly. This may be changed to poop when Eric is nearby?

Animations for bird poop splatting on floor ... it has a splat graphic that has a timer kick in when it's displayed to make sure you see it. When the timer hits 3 the splat disappears, otherwise it'd be pointless putting it in as it would go too fast.

Bird flapping wings is also on a timer that increments from 0 to 3 before a flap occurs.

These are vast improvements so far over original Eric in Monsterland which ran all at the same speed regardless.

 

[+Vorticon]

I'm wondering if Erik could have some color. Given that you are compiling the game, I'm curious to see the result of breaking up the Erik graphic into 3 parts in the same graphic set, then displaying them sequentially each with a different color for each animation frame. If it's fast enough, he might show up with 3 colors simultaneously. Hmmm....

[Retrospect]

I'm wondering if Erik could have some color. Given that you are compiling the game, I'm curious to see the result of breaking up the Erik graphic into 3 parts in the same graphic set, then displaying them sequentially each with a different color for each animation frame. If it's fast enough, he might show up with 3 colors simultaneously. Hmmm....

I like the idea. I don't think we'll ever get the speed though. I might try it see what happens. If I were to do it, I would literally take out the CALL LINK("DELAY",xx) command just before the RETURN on my "update everything in one hit" section. I would have to use more timers for the animations, ie, not have him move each frame update when we push on the joystick, instead have a movement timer that would go to 2 else 3 then make him move to the left or right. (Ensuring his Color variable ticker gets incremented regardless) I'm sure this is common in Assembly. I do use such timers just at the moment only on the Bird Of Death and the Spiders and so on.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Retrospect

[Retrospect]

Ok, I just tried the colour switching and it didn't work out too well, it expanded into a brainache. Probably more an assembly thing really but a great idea nonetheless

[Retrospect]

DEMO1.zip

 

This is a demo of what I have so far. The rooms just switch between the bird of death and a room with a (non-functional) ladder and an arrow firing at random heights.

 

You can walk left, right, jump up, jump left, jump right but you can't duck yet.

 

 

 

 

[Asmusr]

I'm wondering if Erik could have some color. Given that you are compiling the game, I'm curious to see the result of breaking up the Erik graphic into 3 parts in the same graphic set, then displaying them sequentially each with a different color for each animation frame. If it's fast enough, he might show up with 3 colors simultaneously. Hmmm....

 

The thing I know has been used (Artrag's Uridium port on MSX?) is to flicker between two partially overlapping sprites 60 times per second. For instance one red and one yellow sprite. In the overlapping area you should see an orange color. I believe I tried it once but thought it was flickering too much. It might work fine on a CRT display.

 

To add more color you could, of course, use two overlapping sprites, or two non-overlapping sprites (one for the head and one for the body). But I think the monster is already using two sprites.

[Tursi]

I did a lot of work with flicker too... it can look decent on a CRT if the contrast between the two colors isn't too high, but modern displays are so fast and/or try to deinterlace, all of which renders flicker colors less effective.