Genius Greedy Mouse (Released)

spacefractal · **on:** June 13, 2011, 10:26:31 am

MOUSE RUNNER (Previous a minigame for Lazy Jones, now a dedicated game).

Today I tried if I can get Mouse Runner, a Amos game I created back in 1996 (and never released actuelly), if I could get this to work. Finally after putting some missing Amos extensions and Joystick need to been seleced as default in the emulator setup, then I got it to work.

Its could been fun to port this as a mini game, since the black graphics should suit it very nice and I allready have created tiles based system:

Yes its somewhere boulderdash, except you cannot move your (ugly) mouse while something is moving in the maze (fish move left, ballon up and various other things). So its allways only one thing that is moving, and I should keep that of course to avoid to much boulderdash.

PS. Actuelly I could release here as well, even I have not the compiled version.

_______

Public forum now, binary removed, soon to been moved into Team later today or few upcomming days for our team.

spacefractal · **Reply #1 on:** June 14, 2011, 02:50:22 pm

Look much much nicer, even still placeholder graphics, even I just redraw using original tiles for the game.

This time its look & fell very much a GameBoy game. he he, when lookin in the Tiled editor.

I also think Chicken and Crabs both done for now and now starting on the third minigame.

Not sure the final name of this one, and this is a turn based like game (I think its was inspirated from Mazes of Xor to Amiga).

PS. and yes the blue plasma can been disabled, if is was too much.

PPS. I think the fourth game can been game made by Flash. I want a least one included.....

flash · **Reply #2 on:** June 14, 2011, 07:22:34 pm

Looking damn sweet SF.

spacefractal · **Reply #3 on:** June 14, 2011, 07:54:16 pm

hi thnaks.

I think its would been fun to do a remake of my own game, even I never released it.

I don't have executable on the PC harddrive, but have its on a Amiga disc somewhere. But luckily I did have the source code (and Amos Exteneions it used) and got it to work in the emulator. Nice to see that game again, he he... And fell Game Boy graphics would suit it good.

The level shown is taken from the original with only added some more cheeses to that. I did a level editor in that original, but can't use it in the remake and then I manually place all tiles as its was in the original (I can of course do that, when its my own game).

flash · **Reply #4 on:** June 14, 2011, 08:00:55 pm

Looking forward to a beta.

If you post the adf at any time, I would like to have a look under emulation.

spacefractal · **Reply #5 on:** June 14, 2011, 10:39:32 pm

I tried compile with the Amos compiler without luck, but need to rebuild Amos with the required extensions again. It's was to late, due clock.

Hopefully I get it to compile soon, it's a old pd game.

The game is Actuelly pretty arcade friendtly except the editor.

So it's been follow days, but for Amos code I won't touch it if bugs found in the game.

For beta for lazy jones, still too early (no game select etc).

Godnight.

spacefractal · **Reply #6 on:** June 25, 2011, 12:07:31 pm

More work done today and yesterday:

a Testing Area middle on the "flipper" level.

Most tiles is actuelly working as I want them, just like the original Amiga version. Only Pacmans need to been moving too and reset after dying as well some other small things.

Unlike Amiga version, tiles do smooth moving too when pushing them etc, or when its "board" turn.

spacefractal · **Reply #7 on:** July 05, 2011, 05:41:29 am

Mouse Runner seen to been turned out to been very great minigame (best of the three mini games yet), also so great as I might do a 100% focus on that, since its a original game (remember its based on my own Amiga game, so its should not been any copyright issues) and then its can been my first mobile game and is really far with it (I guess its could been finished in one or two month or such).

This due this game absolute suit completely fine as a Mobil game with well any kind of operative system (Android, Web OS, iOS etc), its not based on any resolutions, suit perfectly with portrait as well landscape mode, perfectly with all kind of typical Mobil controls as well speed is not directly a issue. Its even playable with lower fps, because its a 100% puzzler game.

This week I reworked on the savegame code as well adding support for portrait mode (some mobiles might require it).

The current tiles can been turned into been seen as a "GameBoy" theme, but of course more themes would then been added (A Jungool theme could been great etc) and removing all Lazy Jones elements (but the game would so later still added as a minigame for Lazy Jones when Mouse Runner is finished).

EDIT: I have today dedicated to hava focus on Mouse Runner, which should been named to "Greedy Mouse", due that mouse is so greedy to eat. Lazy Jones would and might countinue after this game.

flash · **Reply #8 on:** July 07, 2011, 11:09:14 am

'yumyum mouse'
'munchy mouse'

Perhaps a new thread just for this iOS version of the game would be nice rather than renaming the lazy jones thread as you may come back to that? I do enjoy reading your progress.

Sokurah · **Reply #9 on:** July 07, 2011, 12:34:54 pm

Quote from: Flash on July 07, 2011, 11:09:14 am

I do enjoy reading your progress.

So do I, but it get's a bit confusing with all these different titles.

spacefractal · **Reply #10 on:** July 07, 2011, 02:57:17 pm

I have allready a public thread about the Amiga version of Mouse Runner I created in 1996, but yes I should do that, since I no concrate doing this little game now. I dont remove the Amiga version at all of course.

But that happens when you create a bounch of games, but later found up its better for now just doing a good version of Mouse Runner to iOS (as well other OS, such like Android, WebOS, Windows, MacOS).

Just split the thread where I started about Mouse Runner, if you want to do that and I countinue using thiat.

Ny now until TempleTiger create the graphics I would then just call it "Greedy Mouse" (but I do like "Munchy Mouse" as well).

PS. renamed typic of all posts where I started to posts of this game, so just split the thread from that.

spacefractal · **Reply #11 on:** July 07, 2011, 08:25:04 pm

I use this thread until it got splitted (from that place I renamed it, where I first posted about it).

Anyway I added a new gameplay element:

That of course got some inspiration from the game, Sokoban (which was Plan 3 in Amiga version, but here changed slightly from that version too). All I did is just cut down the size of the maze which can been done in the tiled editor directly (which is not set as a fixed size)....

I might this time also seperate levels only using those kind of levels (so not sure which name it mode should been named?)

spacefractal · **Reply #12 on:** July 19, 2011, 07:59:17 pm

I just added some dirt test, which use 47 different of tiles.

All graphics is still placeholder or test graphics. Meet, Apple and mouse its self is photo tests, and even its a webcamera (which have a really good one), and look quite nice.

flash · **Reply #13 on:** July 19, 2011, 08:02:08 pm

Liking the graphical style. Looking nice

spacefractal · **Reply #14 on:** July 25, 2011, 07:07:45 am

I just seen the dirt in this morning..... I love that and works quite very nice. Its might missing some shadow, but that is not coded yet. The new Floor and Wall is not final here.

spacefractal · **Reply #15 on:** July 27, 2011, 06:44:18 am

nice looking shadows..... and more work on dirt, floor as well wall. Its begin to really look clay :-D, and yes autoscaling also works quite nice in this iPad resolution....

I hope I dont run into speed issue because I still not have tested on iOS, howover I do use very much Polyvector (one batch draw on the whole map, except statusbar and mouse) as well I can set fps as I would like (30 or 60). The game is also support near any resolutions (with small ones its use smaller tileset to save memory).

headkaze · **Reply #16 on:** July 27, 2011, 09:21:57 am

Shadows look sweet how are you doing them?

PS You should be fine on iOS if you're batching the map drawing into one call.

spacefractal · **Reply #17 on:** July 27, 2011, 01:45:22 pm

Shadows uses 16 tiles, and draw just after the floor (quids of 100x100 each from 2048x2048 texture, but yes I known older device not support it, so its support 1024x1024 alternative too with smaller tiles). Shadows also use 75% alpha.

shadow is the 2nd after its draw the floor first. there is 2 layer of tiles its can been used, howovoer second layer is mostly only used by boxes as well road.

All its actuelly batched with POLYVECTOR for the MapDraw completly. Only mouse itself, status (which change later) and joypad use own call.

Shadows is still need few optimize, so its dont draw under a full dirt or wallblock, where its not needed.

The game update() run at 65 fps while I can set paint() to anyting (-1 and 30 works best). I was need to update() with few more fps to make sure its don't jerky.

Sokurah · **Reply #18 on:** July 27, 2011, 01:56:24 pm

Pretty nice that you're able to have it run that fast with all those quads and big textures.
Perhaps GLBasic isn't so bad after all...if you know how to use it.

spacefractal · **Reply #19 on:** July 27, 2011, 02:08:50 pm

yes POLYVECTOR is really a great command.

Today I tried to 2x a shadow tile to (one tile shadow that zoom 2x when drawing it) hopefully can work on moving tiles, which seen works excellent. Pictures later.

EDIT: removed thing I allready just have wrote before (etc I can set FPS to -1 (60), or 30 if required).

spacefractal · **Reply #20 on:** July 29, 2011, 08:53:08 pm

I got the new GlBasic with Android support.

When first I got the compile it diddent work at all, but after some hours installing SDK and the Android Emulator, today I did finally got the game to run.

Its was just a silly error, grr... The folder Levels should have been levels, and there was mix how I spelled it in the search function for levels.

I do not have a Android device my self, and still not have reply from TempleTiger yet, which reported the crash (he not home yet). I hope it works wonderfull on his phone... If its does work there (hopefully with no graphics error), its should works nicely on iOS too.

Tomorrow let see I can test the new DS game beta :-D.

flash · **Reply #21 on:** July 29, 2011, 09:08:32 pm

Sounds sweet SF, glad you found the error.

spacefractal · **Reply #22 on:** July 31, 2011, 10:24:01 am

the game ran nicely on his phone, but the control interface is quite bad (too small etc) :-D. Its going to been replaced.

spacefractal · **Reply #23 on:** August 03, 2011, 08:56:12 am

First a all, here is one of the funny bug (a mipmapping camera zoom goes wrong):

Here is what it look now:

Last day I did some interface work, like the freely placed joypad (the corner joystick/kamera icon might swap side), panning the camera with kinetic scrolling and bouncing on edge, Camera zooming in/out.

The statusbar is gone for now, and is going to been replaced, and also the black edge you see is NOT a error (which can look like that on the screensnap).

I also love those bw tracks :-D (the "end" text would been removed later, its is some shadow work).

I guess I release a beta later this month when more interface have been done.... and hope some of you folks would create levels for it (I use Tiled leveleditor).

PS. Its seen there is issues with the joypad thing, so I trying to change it to slide control to see that works better.

flash · **Reply #24 on:** August 03, 2011, 04:39:27 pm

Looking good, and if I find the time, I would be happy to make a few levels for you.

spacefractal · **Reply #25 on:** August 04, 2011, 06:43:41 pm

damn, the onscreen as well slide controller goes fuzzy and none of them work. So we must go a another way to get 4 way to work without insanely imprecision). So yes trouble to get controls right now (but buttons based controller does works awesome).

Camera onscreen control does works nicely.

so I might go back to that onscreen controller which worked best yet with some tweeks.

flash · **Reply #26 on:** August 04, 2011, 07:02:23 pm

On screen joystick controls can be a pita to get working nicely and sadly, you can never come close to real hardware.

spacefractal · **Reply #27 on:** August 04, 2011, 09:05:09 pm

Slide was even with mouse somewhere too imprecision. If I was not happy with mouse, no reason to try it with touchscreen (I cannot test this by my self right now, but TempleTiger can with his Android phone).

Tomorrow I trying out a "Game & Watch/Spectrum" control with up/down one side and left/right other side. Let see that work.

Howover the mouse do now stop when something happens on the level, etc before enter tracks, pushing things, as well when after board have moved its items. That mean even with eventuality imprecision, its should less frustration the player (but those checks wont been happens with keyboard). Remember this is a turn based game, not realtime (like Boulderdash). Animations is of course realtime (he he).

The Joypad might stay (its the best one, but the used image is ugly, I know), which might been best control for Portrait mode (due some phones might only support that).

spacefractal · **Reply #28 on:** August 05, 2011, 04:12:33 pm

finally seen its would been a slide control with a another metode seen works quite nicely. phew!

Its a little bit slow, but much more precision, and the mouse does not move while holding down same place, but move more just like a old mouse controlled game (some sort of trackpad).

I do need a little "run" button, so the mouse can move "quicker" (not with speed, but with control, so you need fewer slides to move longer distance).

I don't plan this as a whole multi touch game, due Android phones normally not have them. but I might add them for iOS and WebOS use as a option. Howover for multi touch camera panning + zooming might require a little bit different method to avoid conflict with slide control (pan with second finger moving around, while first finger hold its place, zoom by moving both finger close together or the other way)....

spacefractal · **Reply #29 on:** August 08, 2011, 09:18:05 pm

A water level (Another gamemode variant): move up and eat so many cheeses as you can, before water drown you (its somewhere Jungool Lava level).

And yes finally a nice little font rutine, which my home handfast font, hehe. they is got to been replaced of course.

We have tested fps on the Android how its before. We need to zoom around 13x7 tiles before we get a rock solid 30fps (with 17 tiles wide its was around 25). Those settings would been adjustable by the user.

Also fps can fall in some cases, like full zoom out (to around 20fps), when there is full of onscreen train tracks (due offtype shadows, its now possible to disable those kind of shadow). Howover fps fall when zoom out is all ok (even we use the x50 pixel tiles instead of x100). 20fps is still very nice for a turn based game and playable.

PS. The 29 fps seen a little mismath with the timer.

PPS. Still placeholder graphics here and there of course.