Robocop Prime

[Ast]

Really good pics....

[ervin]

Love it. Absolutely fantastic stuff Carnivac.

[Carnivius]

i really wanna show off the melee combat but it not finished yet.   Mainly the move where you grab an enemy and lift them up by their throat while they try to struggle to get free and you can interrogate them (if they have info) or just punch and throw them around a bit or simply walk about while holding them using them as a shield from their buddies bullets.

Oh and yesterday I followed Nancy Allen on twitter and today I find she followed me back.  Geeking out a bit that Officer Lewis is following me. 

[ervin]

i really wanna show off the melee combat but it not finished yet.   Mainly the move where you grab an enemy and lift them up by their throat while they try to struggle to get free and you can interrogate them (if they have info) or just punch and throw them around a bit or simply walk about while holding them using them as a shield from their buddies bullets.

Oh and yesterday I followed Nancy Allen on twitter and today I find she followed me back.  Geeking out a bit that Officer Lewis is following me. 

Lewis! Come over here when you've finished f***ing with your suspect!

[Carnivius]

Robo doing his impression of Captain Picard.  Sitting in a fancy chair, being bald.

[Carnivius]

Mostly been revising the main RoboCop sprite adding in that extra colour and also fixing up some of the poses I didn't like and some bits where certain combinations of head, torso and leg sprites didn't fit together properly.  Much happier with it now and he feels more solid.

Here be a recent screenshot where Robo seems strangely confident that he's gonna take down the ED-209 with just his fists.  He probably suspects the truth, which is I haven't actually coded ED yet but for collision purposes assigned him as a 'destructable', the same class as crates which means he has no AI whatsoever but can be destroyed with punching or shooting.  Ah well. 

[Carnivius]

Sold my big ol' desk for £20 on eBay to make some room and some money, and now using my art desk as a computer desk but also then realised I could also just have my small bookcase as a shelving unit to it as well so I can finally put stuff up behind the desk for easier reaching (and figures for playing and reference).   Here my NECA RoboCop figures watch me working on RoboCop: Prime. 
The Robo in the middle seems to be aiming his gun right at me, ok ok I'm coding the gaaame.  No need for threatening behaviour...

[GOB]

I think you must make a strip poker... And I want to see your figurine collection for that ^^

[Carnivius]

Have had a bit off a problem with the game this week.   Three aspects of the player movement (turning, aiming and walking up/down through doors) are all related to each other but are conflicting all messily in certain situations.   I think part of the problem was I constructed them all seperately at different times of the project then tried to merge them where needed wheras now I think I better rewrite them all as a whole that is naturally integrated now I know more about what I need them to do.  Frustrating but needs to be done.  Bleh. 

[ervin]

Have had a bit off a problem with the game this week.   Three aspects of the player movement (turning, aiming and walking up/down through doors) are all related to each other but are conflicting all messily in certain situations.   I think part of the problem was I constructed them all seperately at different times of the project then tried to merge them where needed wheras now I think I better rewrite them all as a whole that is naturally integrated now I know more about what I need them to do.  Frustrating but needs to be done.  Bleh.

Yes, that sort of thing is amazingly frustrating.
A few years back I coded (but sadly never fully completed) a Sabre Wulf remake (for the retro remakes 2008 competition).

And I had major problems with the animation when sabre man changed directions.
It was done in the "paper" style of paper mario on the N64, and I got all sorts of weird stuff happening as the flips when changing directions didn't seem to have much to do with the direction changes themselves!
Was a right mess to sort it out, and in fact I had to sit down and rewrite all the movement stuff as one carefully planned block of code. It was probably one of the main reasons I didn't finish the remake in time... sigh...
Learned a lot from that one.

For the last couple of years I've been working on a fairly hefty CPC "game" (it's not really a game, more of a "gallery"). The sprite routines have had 4 *complete* rewrites!
What with the clipping, flipping and scaling I've implemented, the problems were very very difficult to solve.
The version I have now IS the final version of the sprite code, and really just needs to have the content (i.e. sprites and sound) pumped in.
But the difference with this latest version is that the clipping, flipping and scaling are integrated together beautifully, whereas in the previous versions they weren't!

Can't wait to show you all what I've been working on!
But by cripes it has been a hard slog!

[Carnivius]

Yeah it's not been easy (especially for my extremely non-logical brain) but I'm getting there. 
Sometimes I think it's good to just comment out '//' the troublesome bits and start afresh up top using the old one as reference where necessary (like if it had the correct co-ordinates worked out for something).  To me it's like when I do a drawing, no matter how many times I try to correct a faulty piece with the eraser, those marks are still there making the overall picture look a bit crappy and so I then just decide to redraw the whole lot using the previous attempt as a guide taking from it what worked well and leaving out or replacing what didn't.  Then it looks nice and clean with no previous pencil or eraser marks making it look untidy.

Can't wait to show you all what I've been working on!
But by cripes it has been a hard slog!

Looking forward to seeing the results! 

[Carnivius]

Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far.

[CraigsBar]

Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far.

this sounds better by the post! One question. Is the finish code going to be portable to Linux or osx?

[Carnivius]

this sounds better by the post! One question. Is the finish code going to be portable to Linux or osx?

This version is made in Game Maker: Studio which has export options to all sorts of things.  Things like Android and iOS required modules for more money.  Mac and Linux I think were included in my purchase of the main program last year.  So should be.

And of course when a true CPC version is built later on that should work on anything that has a CPC emulator.  In theory. 

[ervin]

Silly me.  There I was thinking I wouldn't need to program him with any code for jumping (cos I don't want him jumping) but then realised I DO need that code in anyways as while the player can't make him jump manually, the same sorta code and ground detection does need to be in there for being knocked about like say for example if a wrecking ball hit him, or hit with a sufficiently powerful barrage of gunfire.   And likely through a 'solid' wall convienently placed there for dramatic effects and as a visual gauge of telling the viewer/player just how hard he got hit.  Through empty air is nothing, through supposedly solid bricks and steel?  Wow that was a big hit!

So so unlike some versions of the original game (where he can be stunned just by touching an enemy like a feeble feebling) he will barely notice the weaker attacks.  In fact the first level he'll simply be able to walk through most of it with the enemies bullets just sparking off his armour.  A couple of grenades may do some minor damage during that level but mostly it's all about just getting used to the feel of RoboCop being an almost unstoppable tank blasting away the bad guys.  And then the cutscene text before the next level will explain that the criminals have tired of this situation and some mysterious benefactor has now been selling higher grade arms to them and that's why their guns will cause him more damage on subsequent levels.  Most still won't stun him though, that's more for the heavy duty ones, and the really heavy stuff will stun him and knock him back as I mentioned above when I put that 'jump' code in.  Really trying hard to make it feel like proper RoboCop through the feel of it all and not just RoboCop sprite stuck in generic shooty game that any other character could also have been.  Within the limitations of 8-bit tech obviously but I think it's already feeling 'right' so far.

Loving these design ideas! It is sounding fantastic!

[Carnivius]

Thanks.   It's going ok so far.  I've got the new door code in.  Now I want to try coding the bashy-door 'mini-game' bit into it and hope it works as intended.

By the way if you have twitter and want to follow updates about the game without following my main twitter (thereby sparing yourself from all my depressing crap) I have made a new account for the game RoboCop_Prime (RoboCop_Prime) | Twitter

[ervin]

Thanks.   It's going ok so far.  I've got the new door code in.  Now I want to try coding the bashy-door 'mini-game' bit into it and hope it works as intended.

By the way if you have twitter and want to follow updates about the game without following my main twitter (thereby sparing yourself from all my depressing crap) I have made a new account for the game RoboCop_Prime (RoboCop_Prime) | Twitter

Followed!

[Carnivius]

An animated gif of me testing some bits of the engine particularly aiming/shooting and entering/exiting doors.   Excuse the clearly broken things (like the enemy, and the pause menu and the way the status bar drops one block during the fade out).   Was annoying to record this but someone demanded (in a polite way) to see some action of it running today.   Still not quite happy with the simplistic front/back walking when using doors but it'll do for now.

Linking to it cos it a bit over 1MB.

http://i.imgur.com/6iSC7K8.gif

[ervin]

Looking great - the turning animation is particularly nice.

I also like that Robo isn't just flipped when facing in the opposite direction.
Details like that matter.

[Carnivius]

Looking great - the turning animation is particularly nice.

Thanks.  I always do turning sprites cos I feel it makes them look so much more solid.  I think I was originally inspired to do that by SwitchBlade.   Reason RoboCop turns his back on the player though is cos he does that when shooting upwards too and there was some messy glitchiness when having to turn through forward frames.   I'm likely having him turn forward when he has no gun though as he won't need to aim up.   Was a pain to code it so the head turns first before the rest of the body.  Sounds simple in theory but god it took a few attempts to get glitch-free.   Is done now though.  I also like how it looks with the helmetless Murphy head sprite too.

I also like that Robo isn't just flipped when facing in the opposite direction.
Details like that matter.

Original game did that too even on the 8-bits, I think I just made it more noticable cos mine poses more dynamically. The turning frames again help with that.   


The gif animation is a bit lower frame rate than the actual game.  You'll notice in that animation the muzzle flash sometimes doesn't appear when he shoots a bullet.   That doesn't happen in the actual running game, it always appears when supposed too and the back of the Auto-9 flicks back after every shot too as it does in the film although that's listed as a superfluous extra on my design notes (just means it's not essential to real CPC version as it wouldn't be that noticable if missing).


Strangely enough the TV screen worked better than I expected.   Was supposed to do static then pick a random image for a bit and then do static again, but I messed it up and it does static and then picks a random image for a bit and then flicks between static and that image before going on off again and picking a new random image... which I actually feel looks more natural than what I intended.  Like it's having trouble keeping the image tuned in.   Funny how things like that work out.   It's technically 'wrong' but I like it doing it so much that I'm likely not going to 'fix' it.   

[Gryzor]

The static TV screen is lovely

Only one comment on the otherwise drool-inducing sample: when Robo goes in/out a door, his legs seem to move just a tiny bit, like he's shuffling in an out. I think movement should be more exaggerated than this...

Also: followed new account as well!

[Carnivius]

The static TV screen is lovely

Only one comment on the otherwise drool-inducing sample: when Robo goes in/out a door, his legs seem to move just a tiny bit, like he's shuffling in an out. I think movement should be more exaggerated than this...

Also: followed new account as well!

Yeah the legs are something I'm still working on.  Have changed the movement of the y-positioning a bit though so it's chunkier rather than the smooth which has helped.   But yeah front and back view walking animation in Mode 0 where you can't use too much memory is a tricky thing.  The middle frame is simply the standing still bit which while inaccurate for a true walk cycle, is very much how RPG's do it.   The legs apart frame is the same for both feet just flipped over.   Anyways it's something I hope to 'perfect' as time goes on.  For now I want to move onto more gameplay specific elements so I can work towards getting a demo ready.

[Gryzor]

Ah, I see what you mean, I recognised the RPG bit in games I've seen. Others have more pronounced movement, but only, say, one frame to do it.

[Carnivius]

Had someone ask me about doing a C64 version earlier.   I spent a few minutes thinking about how that might work from a graphical viewpoint.  I just can't see how it would.  This and Cosmic Prison Commando are being done so much with the CPC's particular graphical specs in mind I just really can't seem them working on C64 very at all.  The drab palette is one thing but the attribute issues and colours per sprite really just kill it.   One reason I been doing these is cos I was sick of the C64 ported graphics on CPC games with the low colours when I know the CPC was capable of so much more.   It just doesn't really work the other way.  The sprites would have to be simplified so much it would be like the life and character was sucked right out of it all.   

Still, I find the idea of attempting a Spectrum version oddly appealing. 

[Carnivius]

Have been tinkering with making the ED-209 playable (in short bursts on specific levels).  I still haven't animated the legs yet but it's already got a nice sense of power blasting the enemies away with it.