Monsterland II development thread

[Retrospect]

I started this last night, just about an hour before I crashed onto my bed to sleep.  It's not much so far, but I managed to get a routine that can generate forest scenery on random seeds.  So I put Eric in and basic joystick control to get him to stroll through the random magical forest.  There's no monsters, no traps, or anything like that yet and the trees aren't perfect but the basic graphics are in there now.  I did well with the nice twinkling stars I think they'll give the game some more atmosphere.  The timer for Eric's movement is quite a high max value and if lowered Eric would run like Usain Bolt.  At the moment he's just strolling.

[+retroclouds]

I like it very much and yes the twinkling stars certainly help create a magical atmosphere. Looking forward seeing how this further develops. ?

[Retrospect]

thanks retroclouds.

 

Does anyone know if fixed Randomize Seeds are the same for real iron as the emulators?  Say if i used Randomize 1000, it would set up the woodland scenes the same as it does on emulators?

[senior_falcon]

Yes, Randomize 1000 should give the same results on real iron or emulated.

BUT...

XB 2.8 G.E.M. and RXB 2020 use the faster random number generator from TI BASIC which means RND gives a different number than standard XB or XB 2.7 gives.

AND...

a compiled program cannot use a random number seed, and if it could the number would be different from both XB and XB 2.8 G.E.M./RXB

[Retrospect]

7 minutes ago, senior_falcon said:

a compiled program cannot use a random number seed,

That's the bit I was wondering about.   I have a routine that builds a forest scene, it randomly selects between one and eight trees, what type they are (thin or thick trunk, light or dark colours).   It's no bad thing I suppose.  There's a magical theme to the game so I guess if it's different each time you play, that adds to the magic.  

[sometimes99er]

11 hours ago, senior_falcon said:

a compiled program cannot use a random number seed, and if it could the number would be different from both XB and XB 2.8 G.E.M./RXB

I think it would be nice if a compiled program could use random number seeds, even if the random numbers generated differ from the not yet compiled program. Making procedural generation possible. Obviously one has to compile and run to see the effect.
 

 

 

[sometimes99er]

13 hours ago, Retrospect said:

I have a routine that builds a forest scene, it randomly selects between one and eight trees, what type they are (thin or thick trunk, light or dark colours). It's no bad thing I suppose.  There's a magical theme to the game so I guess if it's different each time you play, that adds to the magic.

You could make your own random number routine in XB, thereby insuring that compiled XB would generate the same numbers. I will try and look into it. Anyone is more than welcome to beat me to it.
 

Edited January 24, 2021 by sometimes99er

[Retrospect]

1 hour ago, sometimes99er said:

You could make your own random number routine in XB, thereby insuring that compiled XB would generate the same numbers. I will try and look into it. Anyone is more than welcome beat me to it.
 

thanks karsten.  I'm thinking though, if the game did generate different woodland scenery each time you played it, it might make it more interesting.  

 

[sometimes99er]

12 minutes ago, Retrospect said:

thanks karsten.  I'm thinking though, if the game did generate different woodland scenery each time you played it, it might make it more interesting.

Yes, that's right, - and it doesn't affect "gameplay" as is.
 

[Retrospect]

 

Ability to jump left, right and straight up added to Joystick control.  No monsters yet but they're coming

 

I watched someone's video on youtube where they played the original Eric In monsterland and said it didn't come out too well on CRT televisions, can anyone verify if this is the case with the new game? How does it look on your TV/Monitor?

 

 

ERIC-X < XB demo

 

[SteveB]

6 hours ago, Retrospect said:

thanks karsten.  I'm thinking though, if the game did generate different woodland scenery each time you played it, it might make it more interesting.  

 

I built my own compilable random number generator based on the IEEE article "RANDOM NUMBER GENERATOR FOR 16-BIT MACHINES" by John J. Komo and William J. Reid (1989):

// Returns an integer 0 <= RES < UL and advances the seed. Useful when you want a repeatable sequence, but be aware that 
// neighbor seeds will compute similar results, while the seed is updated with distinct values. 

SUB RAND(SEED,UL,RES)
  XDQ=INT(SEED/144)
  XMQ=SEED-(XDQ*144)
  SEED2=(227*XMQ)-(61*XDQ)
  IF SEED2>0 THEN SEED=SEED2 ELSE SEED=SEED2+32749
  RES=INT(SEED/(32749/UL))
SUBEND

Works well when compiled, but interpreted not as fast as the RXB random numbers. You may start with different seeds to create different, but repeatable Woodlands. This question has been my very first post here on AtariAge...

 

Steve

 

[Retrospect]

Thanks Steve, I'll bear that in mind.  

[Retrospect]

I'm just testing some enemies I've put in the game.  I'm calling them "global" enemies 'cos I can pretty much fit them in anywhere in the game, and they just work.  There's a line that asks which enemies are active and it goes to update their positions.  This is gonna work really well and save memory.  I watched the video of Eric In Monsterland and said to myself (literally) I know I can do better than this, now. The original was unbelievably simple and memory hungry.  Watch this space.  

[senior_falcon]

If you CALL LOAD(-31808,S1,S2) you can set a random number seed that works in both XB, XB 2.8 G.E.M./RXB, and compiled XB.

Compile this program and test it out for yourself to see if it will do the trick:

10 INPUT "SEED1? ":S1
11 INPUT "SEED2? ":S2
12 INPUT "MULTIPLIER? ":M
100 FOR I=1 TO 100
110 CALL LOAD(-31808,S1,S2)
120 PRINT RND*M;
130 NEXT I
140 GOTO 10

 

[Retrospect]

6 minutes ago, senior_falcon said:

Compile this program and test it out for yourself to see if it will do the trick

it did, thanks

 

this'll be added to my code! 

Edited January 24, 2021 by Retrospect

[Retrospect]

 

So now we have joystick control, twinkling stars, and a couple of monsters that roam the forest, namely a bird and a spider.  These don't kill the player yet as it's all still in testing stage.  But they work!

 

ERIC2-X < demo 2.  

[senior_falcon]

Turns out that my trick with the CALL LOAD does not work in standard XB. It does work in XB 2.8 G.E.M., RXB 2020 and compiled basic

[HOME AUTOMATION]

This game is so exciting!

It seems that I'm running naked through a field, unashamed though revealed!
Weirdly, ghouls abound... chasing me to and fro, from all around.

I love this game ...tenderly.

 

Thanks.

 

   P.S. But how will you duplicate the music?

 

[GDMike]

You have no shame

[Retrospect]

58 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said:

P.S. But how will you duplicate the music?

When I learn FUSE BASIC for the PC if they ever get rid of all the bugs and release Monsterland on that with the music as an MP3 playing in the background

 

  

[Retrospect]

Enemies are implemented (preliminary) .... they're probably going to have different attack patterns.  Eventually the spider will be made to go toward the player when he/she/it gets too close.  There's a sort-of title screen in now, telling the player to press fire.  Fire-pits appear every four screen and have animated fire at the bottom of a gap the player has to jump across.  No collision yet.  Next enemy type is going to be an arrow that is fired from above, toward a random part of the ground (or even aimed at the player).

 

ERIC3-X < XB demo 3.  

[HOME AUTOMATION]

Might you consider, rocks and creeks?
...and if you're gonna use MP3s, perhaps you might include Blackbyrds as well!

 

 

Lyrics...

Spoiler

Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Do it, do it, do it...
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Do it, do it, do it...
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Doing it in the park
Doing it after dark, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park, oh, yeah
Rock Creek Park
Songwriters: Saunders / HAIL JOHNSON / KILLGO TONEY
Rock Creek Park lyrics © BLACKBYRD PRODUCTIONS D/B/A BLACKBYRD MUSIC

[+Ksarul]

Rock Creek Park is about 15 miles away from me. . .

[Retrospect]

This game is still in development but has been put on hold until I learn how to make players be able to jump on platforms.  I always said the next Eric game should be a platform game of some kind rather than Pitfall with different graphics.  

 

It'll be along sometime this year.  Got a few projects under way at the moment.  One of which, is an Atari 2600 title. 

[HOME AUTOMATION]