Game mock-up graphics and ideas

Dream of Omnimaga · August 29, 2015, 02:48:33 PM

Thanks, and yeah I was influenced a bit from NES Metroid as well.

CKH4 · August 29, 2015, 04:57:24 PM

It looks great so I hope you port it to a color system.

Dream of Omnimaga · August 29, 2015, 08:17:07 PM

Thanks. I don't know if it will happen, but an HP Prime remake would definitively be cool. Gameplay would most likely remain similar in style, but with smoother movement. I'm still curious about how I would do camera movement, though, to ensure that the screen stops scrolling when you reach an hatch or centers itself between two hatches (while making sure Samus remains in the screen).

Here is another mockup by the way, this time from Inferna:

If this game ever gets ported, it will probably be renamed back to Diortem, its original name from 2005, which is basically Metroid spelled backwards. I wonder if @Keoni29 would be interested in making a computer game based on this

(although there is already one called Minitroid IIRC)

CKH4 · August 29, 2015, 08:25:57 PM

Ah that one is cool too. For the camera you could do blank padding but in my opinion that isn't as good as having the character move to the edge of the screen with the camera stopping. It requires a lot more code though.

Dream of Omnimaga · August 29, 2015, 09:06:28 PM

The issue with this game is that certain portions of maps can stop scrolling earlier than others, for example the middle hatch in the first area where the spaceship is is placed 12 pixels to the left compared to the two other entrances. Basically, I have to make sure that in the middle of the map, the camera will stop scrolling earlier than other portions of the area.

Anyway, I have finished converting the entire game map into colors:

https://img.ourl.ca/metroid2ecolor-1.png

CKH4 · August 29, 2015, 09:09:54 PM

Wow that map is big. If you ever do plan to port, good luck with keeping it within the calcs limit of space.

Dream of Omnimaga · August 29, 2015, 09:46:12 PM

Yeah I wish that xLIB had compression back then. Metroid II is like 120 KB including xLIB >.<. It should not be a problem on the HP Prime, but it would still take a bit of space.

CKH4 · August 29, 2015, 10:03:30 PM

Ouch thats a lot. Of course the prime continues to show up other calcs in terms of specs (but the coding userbase is still small

). I don't think that game would fin on the 84+ CSE because of size though. XLIBC sprites are huge (compared to their tiny monochrome friends).

Dream of Omnimaga · August 29, 2015, 10:09:39 PM

It would probably fit on the CSE, but it would run even slower than the original. Also, since xLIB uses 160x120 resolution, the game would only take a small portion of the screen unless I adapted maps for a larger screen, which would be a considerable amount of work. The HP Prime allows any resolution so that would not be a major issue.

CKH4 · August 29, 2015, 10:15:08 PM

Yep. I'm not sure if I'll get an HP Prime until college though (maybe HP fixes stuff before then) so hopefully more content. If you do "port" (or whatever) that to the prime that might get lots more people interested in it. Especially if it works as well as the mockups look.

Dream of Omnimaga · August 30, 2015, 12:15:08 AM

THe HP Prime got much better since the last two versions, but I agree that there are still some quirks to be fixed. And I doubt Metroid would attract as many people as Zelda/Mario since it seems much less popular. But we never know. What I like is that the game graphics would still have the feel from older calc models, but with colors.

CKH4 · August 30, 2015, 01:10:58 AM

Well maybe we can find a c clone of one of those games and port it to the prime. What I'd really want to see though is smash. It could definitely handle it.

Dream of Omnimaga · August 30, 2015, 01:28:27 AM

Yeah it would, by far. You could probably even add pseudo 3D or parallax scrolling and it would still run fast, plus you get the benefits from sprite scaling/zooming

Maybe a Super Smash

game?

CKH4 · August 30, 2015, 02:12:48 AM

Not sure what the attacks would be but yeah that would be cool. Would pc c code be compatible with the HP prime without any changes?

Dream of Omnimaga · August 30, 2015, 02:24:18 AM

Nope, because the HP Prime doesn't support C yet (although if someone wanted to he could write a third-party OS that does since there's isn't much protection against third-party OSes). However, the HP PPL language (which looks a bit like Pascal and TI-BASIC) would do the job perfectly and you can use the emulator with WAIT(.016); commands at the end of every loop to test your programs.