Author Topic: Arcade Game Designer (Read 16788 times)

db6128 · « **Reply #25 on:** 23:49, 27 February 13 »

Quote from: sigh on 18:47, 26 February 13

It would be great to have a dedicated option to also increase the mode 0 at the same time if possible.

Increase the horizontal resolution, you mean? Speaking from experience, 64-byte lines aid programming a lot, in various ways, and switching to a different figure that isn’t an integral divisor of 256 mandates a significant amount of extra computation.

Seriously, some ingenious things can be done with a 64-byte–wide screen.

TFM · « **Reply #26 on:** 00:14, 28 February 13 »

Yes, it can be done Amigo

And scrolling with overscan can be done too.

A 64 byte/line screen makes only sense when using a huge amount of sprites (so about 70 or so...).

db6128 · « **Reply #27 on:** 00:41, 28 February 13 »

I can’t agree. The potential speed-ups made possible by a 64-byte screen apply to lots of cases, not just ‘oh no I’m running out of V-blank in my game’. There are many reasons why people might want to optimise wherever possible, and calculating addresses and progressing up and down the screen are much easier and faster when its width fits integrally within a page of memory.

It’s not something that “only” becomes relevant when you’re bombarding the Z80 with sprites. I can attest to this from two projects – one of which you might remember – that both benefited immensely from the much faster and more logical addressing made possible by this width, neither of which used sprite-based graphics. I can explain some of these techniques another time, when I have energy to remember them, and probably access to my source.

It’s an easy way to save NOPs, and if you don’t need a wider screen for your graphics, it’s something that should probably be done. Set it, forget it, and program with much greater ease and without having to manually wrangle with multiplying this, modulo’ing that, and so on!

TFM · « **Reply #28 on:** 05:17, 28 February 13 »

Of course, there are always exceptions and extras. I've been stating that in general. The big point is scrolling though.

Jonathan. · « **Reply #29 on:** 15:16, 17 March 13 »

Version 0.4 is now available.

Full instructions for the CPC version.

This version should be capable of producing full games although the save/load functionality is a bit of a pain. If there are no major issues, I'll take a look at putting a tape or disc image together and releasing it as version 1.0. Meanwhile, do make sure you save regular snapshots of your work.

Once v1.0 is out of the way I'll look into some bespoke enhancements for the CPC, as I'm currently doing for Spectrum version 4.0. For now though, this version has pretty much the same functionality as the Spectrum version 3.4 so it should be possible to convert existing Spectrum AGD games reasonably painlessly.

Have a play and let me know if anything goes awry...

Edit: Just noticed I haven't credited Kevin or Mauricio in the instructions for their advice during development. I'll sort that out in the next release, guys. Sorry about that.

SyX · « **Reply #30 on:** 19:47, 17 March 13 »

Great Work Jonathan!!!

I'm sure we'll see the first games using AGD very soon, and who knows, maybe even entries for the game competition

TFM · « **Reply #31 on:** 02:37, 18 March 13 »

Your word in gods ear

sigh · « **Reply #32 on:** 18:46, 18 March 13 »

Can the graphics and sound be imported from another package or can they only be created in the editor?

SyX · « **Reply #33 on:** 00:38, 19 March 13 »

In this moment in the Editor, and although we could make a tool for importing datas in it, after everybody tests AGD (you don't need to make a fullgame, only test the options following the manual and edit the example game) and Jonathan gets feedback (Very Important!!! Tell him what you like or not, bugs found, ideas to improve the project, ...) and the possible bugs are fixed, then, i'm sure that the CPC version will be supported in TommyGun AGD, a pc tool that let you create AGD games for ZX.

And we will have two options, or the CPC native editor or the PC crossplatform editor, win, win

Gryzor · « **Reply #34 on:** 20:38, 22 March 13 »

That was a fast dev cycle... hope we see some goodies!

sigh · « **Reply #35 on:** 20:59, 24 March 13 »

I noticed that when reading the instructions about sprites, it said it's composed by 9x16? Is this correct, or should it be 8x16? Is this calculation refering to wide or single pixels (being that AGD for CPC operates in mode 0 only)

Also - is it possible to create a larger sprite out of the 9x16/8x16

Sprite Images

Sprites are 9x16 pixel images which make up moving parts such as the player, player bullets, enemy craft, etc. Sprites may have any number of frames.

Move around the grid with the cursor, fixing and deleting pixels with SPACE or 0. Because AGD's collision detection is coordinate based, it is a good idea to fill out as much of the 9x16 area as you can, particularly for player and enemy sprites. Collectables don't matter as much, players seldom notice or care if they pick up a collectable from a couple of pixels away.

sigh · « **Reply #36 on:** 15:03, 27 March 13 »

Is anybody using this software yet? I'd like to know their experiences as I'm thinking as using it to do a remake test of Rodland. The sprites and graphics for the first level have been gathering dust for sometime now, so I may as well use them(though I would have to redraw them from scratch on AGD as it does not allow importing graphics.)

TFM · « **Reply #37 on:** 19:45, 27 March 13 »

What's about an import / conversion tool. Can't be that tought

sigh · « **Reply #38 on:** 14:18, 28 March 13 »

Quote from: TFM/FS on 19:45, 27 March 13

What's about an import / conversion tool. Can't be that tought

I guess this would happen on the next update when the CPC version is actually used for testing and feed back is given like SyX said. I think that game conversions from existing games would be a good way to test as they are already designed which cuts out that side of work, which means that time can now be spent on how well the scripting/events/AI of that particular game functions within an AGD environment.

Single screen games like Cabal or Dead Connection covers a lot of bases for enemy behaviour, destructible environments, weapon pick ups, bosses, sound cues, 2 player mode etc.

Jonathan. · « **Reply #39 on:** 17:34, 29 March 13 »

Quote from: sigh on 20:59, 24 March 13

I noticed that when reading the instructions about sprites, it said it's composed by 9x16? Is this correct, or should it be 8x16? Is this calculation refering to wide or single pixels (being that AGD for CPC operates in mode 0 only)

Also - is it possible to create a larger sprite out of the 9x16/8x16

It's 9x16 pixels in mode 0. They're stored as two separate pre-shifted images so you may as well use the extra pixel.

It's difficult to put two or more sprites together because they might be drawn in alternate frames. You might get away with it for static animated sprites, but if they move around the screen you may see some tearing.

sigh · « **Reply #40 on:** 17:57, 29 March 13 »

Quote from: Jonathan. on 17:34, 29 March 13

It's 9x16 pixels in mode 0. They're stored as two separate pre-shifted images so you may as well use the extra pixel.

It's difficult to put two or more sprites together because they might be drawn in alternate frames. You might get away with it for static animated sprites, but if they move around the screen you may see some tearing.

Ahhh okay.

The Rodland sprites I did are a little too wide which is a shame.

Jonathan. · « **Reply #41 on:** 00:36, 31 March 13 »

A couple of minor issues have arisen with the code editor and a critical bug came to light on the Spectrum version which was also present in CPC version 0.4. These have been fixed so version 0.5 is now available.

Jonathan. · « **Reply #42 on:** 19:15, 07 April 13 »

Incidentally, I'm trying to publicise AGD a little better, as up until now it's not something I've done terribly well. It would be nice to get as many people as possible using the tool and posting tips on the AGD forums. CPC tips will obviously apply to the Spectrum, and vice versa.

With this in mind, if anyone is a member of any retrogaming forums where AGD hasn't been announced, please feel free to tell people about it. Especially non-English language forums! Ich spreche nicht Deutsch, no puedo hablar mucho Español et mon Francais est assez mauvais...

Also, if there are any emulator authors who'd be interested in including AGD as an example program with the next release, do please get in touch.

Gryzor · « **Reply #43 on:** 20:39, 07 April 13 »

If you feel like creating a concise little article about it I could link to it from the wiki's front page. Perhaps even add a small banner

Jonathan. · « **Reply #44 on:** 03:24, 13 April 13 »

Quote from: Gryzor on 20:39, 07 April 13

If you feel like creating a concise little article about it I could link to it from the wiki's front page. Perhaps even add a small banner

That would be fantastic! Let's get a few more people playing with game designs on the old 8-bit machines with which they grew up and maybe producing new games for us all to play.

What would you be looking for, a few hundred words about where AGD came from and what it can do?

EgoTrip · « **Reply #45 on:** 19:44, 13 April 13 »

Quote from: Jonathan. on 00:36, 31 March 13

A couple of minor issues have arisen with the code editor and a critical bug came to light on the Spectrum version which was also present in CPC version 0.4. These have been fixed so version 0.5 is now available.

I cant open the snapshot in winape

edit: never mind, I found the .dsk version on the AGD forum. Thanks. Will play around and when I get time hopefully come up with something decent.

Gryzor · « **Reply #46 on:** 20:19, 13 April 13 »

Quote from: Jonathan. on 03:24, 13 April 13

That would be fantastic! Let's get a few more people playing with game designs on the old 8-bit machines with which they grew up and maybe producing new games for us all to play.

What would you be looking for, a few hundred words about where AGD came from and what it can do?

Whatever you think could be interesting, would do. Maybe a short guide, even from alread made docs, whatever is good really!

SyX · « **Reply #47 on:** 14:21, 14 April 13 »

Quote from: Jonathan. on 19:15, 07 April 13

Incidentally, I'm trying to publicise AGD a little better, as up until now it's not something I've done terribly well. It would be nice to get as many people as possible using the tool and posting tips on the AGD forums. CPC tips will obviously apply to the Spectrum, and vice versa.

With this in mind, if anyone is a member of any retrogaming forums where AGD hasn't been announced, please feel free to tell people about it. Especially non-English language forums! Ich spreche nicht Deutsch, no puedo hablar mucho Español et mon Francais est assez mauvais...

I have just announced AGD in the spanish forum, you can find the thread here

Jonathan. · « **Reply #48 on:** 18:53, 08 November 13 »

I'd hoped to do more, but as 1.3 is long overdue I thought I'd release it with the fixes it already has. This should address a few corruption issues:

Zippyshare.com - AGD1.3.zip

As ever, let me know of any issues you encounter and I'll endeavour to fix them.

sigh · « **Reply #49 on:** 17:29, 20 January 14 »

Are there any more releases coming up for this software that will enable larger sprites and 320 x 200 screen size?
It would be nice at some point in the future after the beat em up that I could try this for the Rodland remake.

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Author Topic: Arcade Game Designer (Read 16788 times)