Walrus Kingdom (former PocketWalrus) [PC] [Windows] [Java] [Walrus]

[p2]

Okeeeey...
I wrote an email to Nintendo for using their Music from Mother2 for my game, too (their music is 20years old and not used anymore. But copyright and stuff...)
now I got a response
(google translated as I'm too lazy) 

Dear Mr. xxxxx,

Thank you for contacting Nintendo.

We are very happy about your interest in Nintendo, but please understand that we must reject your request. The reason for this is the large number of similar inquiries, which are constantly received by us and which we can not examine in each individual case.

In general, this is the case: If you want to use content for which Nintendo claims copyright - e.g. Gameplay, artwork, or music - may do so only without permission within the scope of the permissible press coverage. Nintendo prohibits the unauthorized use whenever it serves purely commercial and / or advertising purposes. In particular, there should not be the incorrect impression that there is a connection between a third party and Nintendo that is not expressly approved.

If you believe that your intended use complies with the terms of an admissible press release, we recommend that you have this checked by a lawyer.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information. Have fun in the exciting Nintendo world, wish you

XXXXX XXXXX
Nintendo UK - www.nintendo.de - Nintendo Service - Phone +49 (0) 69 66105 900

But now I'm not really sure... Should I really go see a lawyer to tell me if I may use the music or not...?
I dont get it what they mean by "press coverage"...
Can anyone help? ^^


[spoiler=German original text]

Sehr geehrter Herr xxxxx,

vielen Dank, dass Sie Nintendo kontaktiert haben.

Wir freuen uns sehr über Ihr Interesse an Nintendo, bitten Sie aber um Verständnis dafür, dass wir Ihre Bitte ablehnen müssen. Der Grund dafür ist die Vielzahl ähnlicher Anfragen, die laufend bei uns eingehen und die wir nicht in jedem Einzelfall prüfen können.

Generell verhält es sich so: Wer Inhalte nutzen möchte, für die Nintendo das Urheberrecht beansprucht – z.B. Spielsequenzen, Artwork oder Musik – darf dies ohne Genehmigung nur im Rahmen der zulässigen Presseberichterstattung tun. Nintendo untersagt die ungenehmigte Nutzung immer dann, wenn sie rein kommerziellen und/oder Werbezwecken dient. Insbesondere darf nicht der unzutreffende Eindruck entstehen, dass zwischen einer nicht ausdrücklich genehmigten Publikation von dritter Seite und Nintendo eine Verbindung besteht.

Falls Sie der Auffassung sind, dass die von Ihnen beabsichtigte Nutzung die Bedingungen einer zulässigen Presseberichterstattung erfüllt, empfehlen wir Ihnen, dies von einem Anwalt prüfen zu lassen.

Gerne stehen wir Ihnen bei weiteren Fragen zur Verfügung. Viel Spaß in der spannenden Nintendo-Welt, wünscht Ihnen

XXXXX XXXXX
Nintendo Deutschland - www.nintendo.de |Nintendo Service - Telefon +49 (0)69 66105 900

[/spoiler]

[Snektron]

Let it go man, you're not getting their music.

[c4ooo]

Make your own music

[Dream of Omnimaga]

For the sake of originality, I would say go with your own stuff. Itcan be inspired from their work and use any software, though

[kotu]

""Nintendo prohibits the unauthorized use whenever it serves purely commercial and / or advertising purposes. ""

I would say from this it would be ok as long as the game is free and doesn't link to your website, but i dont know

[Dream of Omnimaga]

Nah, even linking to his site would be fine. I think it's more to advertise to sell stuff that would be a problem.

[JosJuice]

""Nintendo prohibits the unauthorized use whenever it serves purely commercial and / or advertising purposes. ""

I would say from this it would be ok as long as the game is free and doesn't link to your website, but i dont know

I don't think so. They said that you could only do it without permission for press coverage – in other words, not for games.

[Dream of Omnimaga]

By the way, Onirocrancie or whatever it was called has a lot of RPG Maker sprite sets that are probably public domain or can be used if credits are given. THere are probably similar English sites for that too and you can also ask in the art thread. So you can probably find alternatives there that would look as good, if not better than Earthbound graphics.

http://www.rpg-maker.fr/index.php?page=ssmenu&type=telecharger

[p2]

I'm very happy to tell you that I'm making huge progress again, thanks to @kotu this time who spent some time rewriting my entire #Keys class 
http://codewalr.us/1711/47590
now key inputs are working, the Player can now freely walk around and even the colision with solid blocks like houses is already working 
right now I'm manually adding the data for all the tiles (is it solid, what's its pic id, ...) ^^
next steps to do:

fix key inputs make Walrii walk fix 3layer rendering add solid blocks add data for ALL blocks rotate walrii when walking add trigger messages (signs etc) implement interactive blocks (signs) get some sleep ~.~

[kotu]

Looks pretty amazing

*edit
getting a pretty steady 60 frames per second by the way

[p2]

great to hear that How have you checked the FPS?

I'm working on the map again now
*I'm not sure yet how I'm gonna implement animated tiles as well as smooth scrolling, let's see ^^

EDIT:
@kotu: I now modified the rendering stuff (still a bit buggy but like 80% done)
The results are awesome:
before I had (with a dime delay to stop flickering):
40/90 fps (40 high usage like running around, 90 while standing still)
now I have:
115/185 fps (115 high usage like running around, 185 while standing still)
and when I remove the little slowdowns (screen lickers again) I get this:
5000 / 9500 fps (5000 high usage like running around, 9500 while standing still)
which means I can add PLENTY of slow time-intense stuff and still run it at 60fps easily

[p2]

evil doublepost 

But there's news:

I rewrote the rendering modification and it now perfectly works:
only rendering changes on the screen insted of rendering everything on every frame.
(it now also redraws the tiles that were covered by the Wlrii in the last frame, yay) 
--> HUGE improvement in framerate

The walrii now turns around while walkign nd alwas looks in the right direction.
Also movement is now animated in a variable speed (duration per step can be set in milliseconds, I chose 200)


I Modified the city1 map so now the doublelayer system is almost perfectly working as the Walrus is walking around houses ^^
but I still have to find out why it sometimes bugs *depending on position on the map* (working for some houses, buggy for others) FIXED IT




This is what happens whan walking left-right-left behind houses. But it only happens wih some houses ^^ It seems to repaint only the background FIXED IT



thinking about the best method to implement animated tiles. I guess I'll add a method that will (my modulo of milliseconds) apply changes to the temp. map file
That way I won't have to mess with the rendering system itself ^^


I decided to add something from every forum member (DJ is the ingame-king, there will be a chemestry walrus (p4nix), a wild fox (Sorunome), something with a huge beard (Juju), ...
If you have any other ideas besides these ones what to add, pls let me know

[p2]

tripple post

but there are updates:

Normally the character is centered in the screen, except if you walk close to the border's map (screen won't leave the map).
[spoiler][/spoiler]
But now I added areas where the screen centers a predefined point/axis.
So for example whenever I walk through the villa's garden, I always see the whole garden as only the Y-Axis is scrolling there ^^ The same methods can be used for indoor levels (If I ever add them)
[spoiler]only the Y-axis is scrollign in this area, the X-position of the screen is fix
[/spoiler]

Also I finished block definitions (tile number, name, solidity, ...)

next things up are:
- draw 4 new tiles for walrii walking diagonal (perssing two arrow keys).
- add a map of interactive stuff like signs
- draw tiles for chests as interactive objects
- find out how to even draw text in the game... ^^
- prepare the lower screen as I want to split it in pure map and a menu screen (like a gameboy, but different)

[spoiler=funny random bug]Sure I know what I'm doing
[/spoiler]

[Dream of Omnimaga]

I'm glad this is progressing again. I was worried a few days ago when I saw there was no update since November 2nd and you talked about possibly quitting this project due to Java input issues. Also I like the new maps. One thing, though, is that I think the houses, while looking nice, don't look consistent with the rest of the artwork due to the lower resolution, so I decided to try adding some manual filtering on them, in case you might like:



It's the same but I rounded some of the edges and other things to look hi-res.

[p2]

Thank you verry much, dj, I really appreciate it. I uess I should rework all the house tiles like that xD
the only problem is, there are 112 different tiles for those stupid houses...
so that might actually take some time
And drawing the new walrii tiles will take a lot of time, too, but I doubt I'll get them loking good enough ^^
maybe you want to give it a try? Walrii tiles for a walrii walking diagonal? They might by useful for any walrus game afterall ^^ (but only if you got the time of cause)

hope I can present some more updates by monday ^^