New game: Arcadia

Sokurah · **on:** November 01, 2012, 09:40:47 am

Here's another one.

My projects tend to grow bigger and bigger with each game, so with this game the idea was to remake something simple – something that could be done in no more than two weeks – just for fun, and it shouldn’t be a vector game…but I was going to make it as one. A few suggestions was put forward, to my question of what to remake, and I chose to remake the early Spectrum classic: Arcadia.

As usual - more information and Windows and OSX downloads here: http://tardis.dk/wordpress/?page_id=937

A couple of screenshots. Click them for bigger versions.

flash · **Reply #1 on:** November 01, 2012, 10:11:55 am

Now, that's more like it

I will check it out as soon as it can, looks sweet.

spacefractal · **Reply #2 on:** November 02, 2012, 09:28:56 pm

Cool. I have not excepted you did another little remake. Fun with those little game. Trying tomorrow.

Also old been cool to see Hyper Drive (great little Amos game for Amiga with nice fast scrolling) as a little 2 weeks remake with vector and something different)... I thinks have allready a tune for that. Hehe.

Sokurah · **Reply #3 on:** November 03, 2012, 10:11:43 am

Quote from: spacefractal on November 02, 2012, 09:28:56 pm

Also old been cool to see Hyper Drive (great little Amos game for Amiga with nice fast scrolling) as a little 2 weeks remake with vector and something different).

I would actually like to make another small and quick project, and I would like it to be different from what I usually do, so a scrolling game could be a good idea.
However, Hyper Drive is basically an "endless runner" type of game, and I'm not really into those. Hyper Drive seems a bit boring ot me...I think I'd prefer something with enemies you fight against instead of just having fast reactions.

Btw, about the danish translation of "achievements" in Greedy Mouse, I've been thinking that "Bedrifter" might be even better than "Præstationer". Think about it.

spacefractal · **Reply #4 on:** November 03, 2012, 01:27:05 pm

The game could complete and was just a nice pd game with 3 levels and liked the music. This was just also a quick game since its simple game. A such of level exist in turrican 3 (wich contain some enemy) as well project X for Amiga. Could been fun as a vector game.

And yes, bedrifter is a very good choice. It's just like due steam. I might use that :-).

relminator · **Reply #5 on:** November 15, 2012, 06:28:17 am

I Like the glow!!!

How do you do your glowing? Via shaders or sofware?

Sokurah · **Reply #6 on:** November 15, 2012, 09:15:13 am

Software.
...I don't even know what the hell a shader is.

(well, I do have a general idea of what they are from reading about it, but that's all).

headkaze · **Reply #7 on:** November 15, 2012, 06:15:17 pm

Quote from: Sokurah on November 15, 2012, 09:15:13 am

Software.
...I don't even know what the hell a shader is.
(well, I do have a general idea of what they are from reading about it, but that's all).

You could do it via a pixel shader which is just a little program that compiles and executes on the GPU. OpenGL and DirectX both have their own shader language namely GLSL for the former and HLSL for the latter.

MAME recently added HLSL shader support (see here for some example effects).

Can you go into more detail about the technique you use? I looks really great.

relminator · **Reply #8 on:** November 16, 2012, 07:54:11 am

Quote from: Sokurah on November 15, 2012, 09:15:13 am

Software.
...I don't even know what the hell a shader is.
(well, I do have a general idea of what they are from reading about it, but that's all).

Same here. My laptop can't do shaders.

I'm using opengl and the way I it is:

1. Render original scene to texture
2. Download the texture to memory
3. Blur the memory in software
4. Render original scene again
5. Superimpose blurred scene as a full screen quad using additive blending.

Is that what you are doing too?

Sokurah · **Reply #9 on:** November 16, 2012, 08:23:28 am

I do it by using DirectX or OpenGL and then drawing textured polygons with the mostly-alpha image below and basically stretching it to generate the lines.

headkaze · **Reply #10 on:** November 16, 2012, 08:34:34 am

Quote from: Sokurah on November 16, 2012, 08:23:28 am

I do it by using DirectX or OpenGL and then drawing textured polygons with the mostly-alpha image below and basically stretching it to generate the lines.

Is there any chance you could add another render pass that sets the texture to null and then draws the poly's using lines so we can see the actual outlines of the poly's? I'm really interested in seeing how you lay the poly's out. I assume you're using a triangle strip?

relminator · **Reply #11 on:** November 19, 2012, 06:57:04 am

Quote from: Sokurah on November 16, 2012, 08:23:28 am

I do it by using DirectX or OpenGL and then drawing textured polygons with the mostly-alpha image below and basically stretching it to generate the lines.

Well, I'm using the same technique in this game:

http://rel.phatcode.net/index.php?action=contents&item=ConvexWars-FB

One thing I don't like about this technique are the line's endpoints doing a "double blend".

Headkaze: No need for the second pass. Just use an "outlined" texture and you'll see outlines.

The way I do this is: Separate the glow texture into 3 segments for start, middle, end. Extrude the line normals depending on the width I want and use those as the four points for my quad(you can use tri-strips if you want). So doing a single line, I would need 3 quads. The middle quad is what I "stretch".

Source is included in the link I posted above. GL2D.LineGlow().

Sokurah · **Reply #12 on:** November 19, 2012, 01:47:46 pm

Quote from: headkaze on November 16, 2012, 08:34:34 am

Is there any chance you could add another render pass that sets the texture to null and then draws the poly's using lines so we can see the actual outlines of the poly's? I'm really interested in seeing how you lay the poly's out. I assume you're using a triangle strip?

Quote from: relminator on November 19, 2012, 06:57:04 am

The way I do this is: Separate the glow texture into 3 segments for start, middle, end. Extrude the line normals depending on the width I want and use those as the four points for my quad(you can use tri-strips if you want). So doing a single line, I would need 3 quads. The middle quad is what I "stretch".

Well, it's even easier for me - I haven't made the part of the code that does the actual glow...I just use a thirdparty module, so I can't even answer you, Headkaze, as I just don't know what I need to do to answer the question.

headkaze · **Reply #13 on:** November 20, 2012, 01:43:18 am

The arrow I made in Windoze Solitaire's tutorials is made up of a triangle strip (using OpenGL) so I do know how to do this sort of thing. It's a little trickier using a triangle strip than a set of quads mainly for the arrow head and tail but it's just a matter of setting the right texture coords.

I found a picture on Google Images that showed how to make a "road" using a triangle strip. I then wrote a little program in Windows to help me lay out the triangle strip vertices. It uses a bezier curve algorithm so it can take 3 points to curve it. To get it just right I would run an extra pass to render the triangle strip using a line strip so I could see more clearly if it was matching my design.

I can see what you mean by stretching out the middle texture which is similar to the arrow body. I guess if you're using a single texture like that you would just set the tu and tv texture coords to be just to the left and right of the dot in the middle so it stretches out the width of the quad.

It's a nice trick anyway and I was really happy when I got the arrow rendering working which is why Flash referred to me as the 'Arrow of saint HK' (it was a bit of a private joke referring to how proud I was of the arrow) lol

relminator · **Reply #14 on:** November 20, 2012, 04:54:04 am

HeadKaze: Looks like we do have something in common. http://rel.phatcode.net/junk.php?id=130

Though the bspline would certainly make the curves look better (catmull would prolly be a good one too).

Sokurah: I'm quite interested in that 3rd party sofware of yours. Do you have a linky?

Sokurah · **Reply #15 on:** November 20, 2012, 01:51:42 pm

Quote from: relminator on November 20, 2012, 04:54:04 am

Sokurah: I'm quite interested in that 3rd party sofware of yours. Do you have a linky?

Look me up on the BlitzBasic forum - I don't have all that many posts there, but I've posted the entire thing I'm using.

relminator · **Reply #16 on:** November 22, 2012, 02:56:33 am

Cool!! I heard Blitz is free now?

headkaze · **Reply #17 on:** November 22, 2012, 04:19:03 am

Quote from: relminator on November 20, 2012, 04:54:04 am

Looks like we do have something in common. http://rel.phatcode.net/junk.php?id=130

I've checked out your website a few times there is some really cool stuff on there. Haven't seen this particular demo though.

Sokurah · **Reply #18 on:** November 22, 2012, 11:51:30 am

Quote from: relminator on November 22, 2012, 02:56:33 am

Cool!! I heard Blitz is free now?

BlutzPlus is...or was a couple of days ago at least.

spacefractal · **Reply #19 on:** November 22, 2012, 09:24:15 pm

for those language, I used BlitzPlus for Arcade Music Box 2 and upgraded to BlitzMax later..... BlitzMax is a excellent object orientation basic language and its still is. Even the motion capture software I wrote in the summer was wrote in BlitzMax (but I and Sokurah uses different styles of code). So i still like that language (but I did used a little bit of Purebasic for networking part for sending and retrive packets as a dll).

So long time me too used BlitzPlus, but its not a bad langauge at all :-D.

Allenrain · **Reply #20 on:** July 04, 2014, 02:53:42 pm

I wonder if this could be played solo....?