Have you ever been staring out your classroom window, wanting to go on an epic adventure on the 7 Seas? No? Yeah, me neither. I had no better ideas, so you should take what you can get.
Anyways, I'm starting a new whale of a project. Yeah, I'll go now.
Aqu-Wars is for the TI-84+CSE ONLY. It is an action adventure game with a hint of RPG in it, if that suits your fancy.
You could sail the high seas, take up either Navy, mercenary, or pirate jobs, pirate and take other ships' cargo, and upgrade your own ship in this swashbucklin' adventure!
[spoiler=Screenshots, activate!]
v0.1a (not distributed):
(http://i.imgur.com/sdqtiyK.gif)
Sneak peek:
(http://i.imgur.com/R5Fw2Dk.gif)
[/spoiler]
So that's how the game will be called like, I see? :) I like the sea-based RPG quest style and also the old school feel from your other games. I hope it comes to fruition :)
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 10, 2015, 02:04:27 AM
So that's how the game will be called like, I see? :) I like the sea-based RPG quest style and also the old school feel from your other games. I hope it comes to fruition :)
Thanks! I plan to have a moral system where you can choose which kind of quests you want to take; either Navy, pirate, or mercenary jobs. As you take more of a type of job, less of the jobs unlike your preferred job type. So if you choose Navy jobs a lot, pirate jobs will soon become unavailable, however mercenary jobs might still be available.The encounter system will be a lot like the Photon encounter system, which it itself was based on the Zelda II system.
Cool! So you do't explicity choosea class in the beginning? It is evaluated by what quests you take? If so, you could balance it so you do a little of everything :P
Quote from: Unicorn on August 11, 2015, 01:09:43 AM
Cool! So you don't explicitly choose a class in the beginning? It is evaluated by what quests you take? If so, you could balance it so you do a little of everything :P
Yeah. So, basically if you take and complete enough pirate jobs, then you can no longer take any jobs with the Navy. I haven't decided whether each of the three ports will be dedicated to one class, or if all 3 ports will contain all class jobs, but a different selection of jobs.
It would make sense if one port didnt have pirate jobs, and that port had more navy ones.
I like the jobs idea. Also pirate encounters would be cool when not using that job. :P
Quote from: Unicorn on August 11, 2015, 01:32:59 AM
It would make sense if one port didnt have pirate jobs, and that port had more navy ones.
Yeah, I was thinking that that would be easier.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 11, 2015, 07:25:43 AM
I like the jobs idea. Also pirate encounters would be cool when not using that job. :P
I think that you would be able to have pirate encounters no matter what job, since other pirates would still attack you for your crew and loot.
But during missions, you would attack the Navy as well.
Looks cool :3 do i see a slight hint of sid meiyer's pirates?
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on August 11, 2015, 11:46:36 PM
Looks cool :3 do i see a slight hint of sid meiyer's pirates?
Although I wasn't aware of it until just now, yes, I suppose so. I also had an idea when I was first starting up the game to add a merchant mode, but I abandoned it.
It would be cool if you could upgrade your ship if pirate encounters are ship to ship duels.
From a wooden ship to the Yamato :P
Though the Yamato might be OP :P
From a wooden dingy to an iron battleship right away? :P I actually like the idea of aerchant where you could maybe get better rews, and boats. Oh yeah, and maybe implement mutiny?
Not right away, I was suggesting a start and end :P
From a rowboat with no armament to the largest battleship in history with 460mm main guns would be a bit OP :P
But then, the Yamato only shot down 7 planes and destroyed 2 ships in its lifetime
Is there going to be some over world map?(if yes would it be accessible in game?) Or are you still nailing down game mechanics and have not gotten to that part yet? Good luck on finishing this!
Similar to DJ new RPG, it's just to sad that I don't have a silver edition to play this game :-\
Quote from: c4ooo on August 13, 2015, 12:20:29 AM
Is there going to be some over world map?(if yes would it be accessible in game?) Or are you still nailing down game mechanics and have not gotten to that part yet? Good luck on finishing this!
Similar to DJ new RPG, it's just to sad that I don't have a silver edition to play this game :-\
There IS always Wabbit :P
You still need a rom to (legally) use it :P
To answer some questions I was not able to answer yesterday:
There already is 3 ship levels, from wooden dinghy to a battleship. Encounters will be ship to ship, and will occur in a separate screen than the overworld. They will not be turn-based, but you will have to reload between cannon shots.
That sounds pretty sweet. I think this will be a cool game :D
How big are the battleship's guns? :P
Are there different sprites for different ships?
Sounds good! I actually think I'm going to need to set up tilemaps for moneywalrus. Are they hard to figure out?
Quote from: 123outerme on August 13, 2015, 09:17:43 PM
To answer some questions I was not able to answer yesterday:
There already is 3 ship levels, from wooden dinghy to a battleship. Encounters will be ship to ship, and will occur in a separate screen than the overworld. They will not be turn-based, but you will have to reload between cannon shots.
If the game is fantasy-based, you could have more ships like Golden Warship, Crystal, Dark, etc
Quote from: princetonlion.tibd on August 14, 2015, 05:28:46 AM
How big are the battleship's guns? :P
Are there different sprites for different ships?
Yes, there are. And as for the ships' guns, there will be more guns on better ships. Like the dinghy will have 2, the metal ship has 3, and the battleship will have 5.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 14, 2015, 01:44:01 PM
If the game is fantasy-based, you could have more ships like Golden Warship, Crystal, Dark, etc
I suppose so. I don't know if I'll add any more ships, but if I do, then the Golden ship sounds cool.
A golden would sink very easily and would also be destroyed very easily by enemy cannons due to it's softness.
/me slithers hastily away
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on August 16, 2015, 06:12:20 PM
A golden would sink very easily and would also be destroyed very easily by enemy cannons due to it's softness.
/me slithers hastily away
Ehh, whatever. You and your science, you think you can come in and ruin the fun.
Anyway, now that I got my daily sarcasm over with, I added a new screenshot to the OP! Battles have not been fully implemented yet, but that's next on my todo list.
But, here's what I did in case you care:
*Added main menu, and the ability to save
*Added names to all port towns (there are two you might recognize Wink )
*Added submenus for the port towns (so far, you can only fully use the shop menu)
*Changed menu text color
*Added the ability to upgrade your ship and buy repair kits to repair ship damage
*Added features such as rock formations and islands to the overworld
*Other miscellaneous tweaks
Indeed, but that's probably not the most legal way to do it (and even if you do it anyway it's best to keep it secret) :P.
Thanks for the info 123outerme. I can't wait to give the game a try when finished. :)
Quote from: Cumred_Snektron on August 16, 2015, 06:12:20 PM
A golden would sink very easily and would also be destroyed very easily by enemy cannons due to it's softness.
/me slithers hastily away
Hence my suggestion for the Yamato :P
(I hope I don't start an argument about the navy, I know almost nothing:P )
And thanks for answering 123 :)
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 17, 2015, 02:20:35 AM
Indeed, but that's probably not the most legal way to do it (and even if you do it anyway it's best to keep it secret) :P.
Thanks for the info 123outerme. I can't wait to give the game a try when finished. :)
You're welcome. I'm working on battles right now, so once I finish that, I'll be set for another screenshot. When I do finish it, I could release it as an open beta. The only main feature that will be missing is the jobs & morals system, iirc.
Quote from: princetonlion.tibd on August 17, 2015, 02:30:01 PM
And thanks for answering 123 :)
You're welcome! I hope to answer as many questions as I can without giving up the fun of the game ;)
/me lost :P
Not giving up the fun of the game with (too many) spoilers? :)
An open beta would be nice, but of course it depends if you want the suspense to last longer until completion if it's close to completion already. :P
By the way, will the terrain around the sea/rivers change as you progress?
Quote from: princetonlion.tibd on August 18, 2015, 12:47:44 AM
Not giving up the fun of the game with (too many) spoilers? :)
No, I think it'd be much better if you'd play the game than look at my posts about it :P
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 02:29:06 AM
An open beta would be nice, but of course it depends if you want the suspense to last longer until completion if it's close to completion already. :P
By the way, will the terrain around the sea/rivers change as you progress?
I will have an open beta once I get all of the core features implemented. Battling is the only one left I can think of before I will start open beta.
That's another interesting idea! I don't think so, not unless I take the terrain out of the map data and add a terrain generator that loads different terrain based on your progress.
Couldn't the wall tiles just change as you progress further in the game? I feel that if every wall is identical through the entire game it could get boring and less original after a while. It could even be just a change in hue.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 04:28:29 PM
Couldn't the wall tiles just change as you progress further in the game? I feel that if every wall is identical through the entire game it could get boring and less original after a while. It could even be just a change in hue.
You mean the large wave tiles, or the rock tiles? I'm confused.
Yeah the rock and beach tiles. Unless the blue things on the side of the screen are not rocks?
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 04:32:02 PM
Yeah the rock and beach tiles. Unless the blue things on the side of the screen are not rocks?
They are rocks. I was thinking that maybe in the future I could add map packs after I'm finished, so that the same overworld won't get boring. Obviously, the port stuff like town names, jobs available, etc would stay the same, but the map layouts would change. My only problem with adding new content is that as it is I'm almost at 9000 bytes :'(
But I might add a tiny scripted sequence where a new path opens up, an existing feature is destroyed, etc. Maybe then that feature will open up a portal or something? I don't know.
Also, speaking of my 9000 bytes of a tech demo, is there any speedy way to compress map data? The only way I can think of is just displaying a map with no features, then running a loop with If conditionals to draw certain sprites (or lists of sprites) in certain areas. Obviously that would be painfully slow, and not what I'm looking for.
There are probably ways to compress data in basic explained on TIBD, but they are most likely very slow. You could always do what I did in FF:MF if your maps are simple, though.
Wow this looks really cool! I love how fast it moves as well :).
IMHO, storing this type of game as a tile map is inaficiant. I would try storing beaches and ports using vectors or something. And there is no point having a bunch of water tiles. If you are gona store the whole thing as a tilemap, then the compression I would recomend is this: if a tile is a water tile, then the next piece of data in the map will tell the game how many water tiles follows the current tile. As I notice your water tiles come in several types (right?, just have the renderer select a random sprite for the water tile.
It's a bit hard to explain but I hope you get what I mean.
Actually the solution would probably be to fill the entire screen with water tiles but I don't know if a command exists in DCSE to fill the screen or an area with just 1 tile in particular. He could always use DrawSpriteA with a 1x8 tile grid and a For loop to avoid massive slowdowns, though. Then he would draw the borders he need. Random water tiles might not be an option, though, because he might come back to the previous map and it would look weird if a map changed on every visit.
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 19, 2015, 02:10:25 AM
Actually the solution would probably be to fill the entire screen with water tiles but I don't know if a command exists in DCSE to fill the screen or an area with just 1 tile in particular. He could always use DrawSpriteA with a 1x8 tile grid and a For loop to avoid massive slowdowns, though. Then he would draw the borders he need. Random water tiles might not be an option, though, because he might come back to the previous map and it would look weird if a map changed on every visit.
No, you are wrong ;) Its the non random tiles that would look weird. Water, after all, does move.
True, but since it would not move during the entire time he stands in the screen then suddenly move when he moves back and forth, then that would either look weird or inconsistent.
Also if he doesn't want to use tilemaps to avoid wasting space on such simple maps, then how would he preserve the way water looks like as he moves over it? The CSE hybrid language works way differently than in Axe, c4ooo.
I can describe a basic system to do this (spoiler: simple noise (not simplex)). But first, how exactly is the tilemap stored (in the file)? In an appvar? List? Matrix? Second, how exactly do you communicate with xlib, telling it what tiles to draw?. The most important question is: how do you store the map in the first place?
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 09:33:33 PM
There are probably ways to compress data in basic explained on TIBD, but they are most likely very slow. You could always do what I did in FF:MF if your maps are simple, though.
How did you compress in FF:MF? ???
Quote from: tr1p1ea on August 18, 2015, 10:09:33 PM
Wow this looks really cool! I love how fast it moves as well :).
Thanks!
Quote from: c4ooo on August 19, 2015, 05:58:56 AM
I can describe a basic system to do this (spoiler: simple noise (not simplex)). But first, how exactly is the tilemap stored (in the file)? In an appvar? List? Matrix? Second, how exactly do you communicate with xlib, telling it what tiles to draw?. The most important question is: how do you store the map in the first place?
I have a set of If commands that check which map you're on, then load the specific tilemap data into a string, then is displayed. The only way to store tilemaps is through strings. I suppose I could store it in the tileset AppVar, but I'll have to test if that messes anything up.
Edit: The tileset appvar becomes corrupted. Sadly, I can't store anything else in there.
You know what would be cool? Procedurally generated land :P
Quote from: 123outerme on August 19, 2015, 03:37:43 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 09:33:33 PM
There are probably ways to compress data in basic explained on TIBD, but they are most likely very slow. You could always do what I did in FF:MF if your maps are simple, though.
How did you compress in FF:MF? ???
Quote from: tr1p1ea on August 18, 2015, 10:09:33 PM
Wow this looks really cool! I love how fast it moves as well :).
Thanks!
Quote from: c4ooo on August 19, 2015, 05:58:56 AM
I can describe a basic system to do this (spoiler: simple noise (not simplex)). But first, how exactly is the tilemap stored (in the file)? In an appvar? List? Matrix? Second, how exactly do you communicate with xlib, telling it what tiles to draw?. The most important question is: how do you store the map in the first place?
I have a set of If commands that check which map you're on, then load the specific tilemap data into a string, then is displayed. The only way to store tilemaps is through strings. I suppose I could store it in the tileset AppVar, but I'll have to test if that messes anything up.
Edit: The tileset appvar becomes corrupted. Sadly, I can't store anything else in there.
How do you store a tile map in a string? Is like "A" the first tile, "B" the second ect? Also quick question, do you store the current map the boat is on with a single value (good) or an X and Y value (bad)?
Edit: storing the map as two separate values may not be so bad, it just depends on your structure of if statements.
Quote from: c4ooo on August 19, 2015, 10:54:17 PM
How do you store a tile map in a string? Is like "A" the first tile, "B" the second ect? Also quick question, do you store the current map the boat is on with a single value (good) or an X and Y value (bad)?
Edit: storing the map as two separate values may not be so bad, it just depends on your structure of if statements.
A tilemap is stored as a series of two digit numbers representing a tile in the appvar (00 is in the very top left, 01 directly under, etc). There are two-digit numbers for every tile displayed onscreen.
I use one variable and either add/subtract 1, or add/subtract 3, since there are 9 maps total, in a 3x3 grid.
Well, here is some rough pseudo code for the compression I suggest.
currentMap * 9999 -> rand //seeds the rng.
If currentMap = 1:"compressed map 1"->str2 //format for compressed map: if the first value of a tile starts with o zero, then that tiles second value tells how many water tiles follow. If a tile does not start with zero, then it's just a normal tile. And I guess this means that tiles 00-0F will be reserved. Also more compression can be used, such as if you have less then 16 tiles, you can store the two tiles with two numbers.
If currentMap = 2:"compressed map 2"->str2
//ect...
For(every other char in str2, starting with the first one)
If char="0"
Then
//Insert x water tiles, where x is the the char following the current char. This may be hard to do, but is doable in tibasic. Simply get the position of nextChar in the string "0123456789ABCDEF" and loop that many times.
//let's say you have 3 different sprites for a water tiles. This is where the rand command comes in. Because it was seeded with the current map, going back and forth between two maps will always yield the same water results.
Else
//copy this char and next char to str1
End
End
I hope you can follow this.
Quote from: 123outerme on August 19, 2015, 03:37:43 PM
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 18, 2015, 09:33:33 PM
There are probably ways to compress data in basic explained on TIBD, but they are most likely very slow. You could always do what I did in FF:MF if your maps are simple, though.
How did you compress in FF:MF? ???
There's no compression in FF:MF. Each room is made of 8 chunks of walls/floors
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on August 20, 2015, 08:18:33 PM
There's no compression in FF:MF. Each room is made of 8 chunks of walls/floors
Oh, I thought you were suggesting that you compressed map data.
Quote from: c4ooo on August 20, 2015, 07:24:33 PM
Well, here is some rough pseudo code for the compression I suggest.
currentMap * 9999 -> rand //seeds the rng.
If currentMap = 1:"compressed map 1"->str2 //format for compressed map: if the first value of a tile starts with o zero, then that tiles second value tells how many water tiles follow. If a tile does not start with zero, then it's just a normal tile. And I guess this means that tiles 00-0F will be reserved. Also more compression can be used, such as if you have less then 16 tiles, you can store the two tiles with two numbers.
If currentMap = 2:"compressed map 2"->str2
//ect...
For(every other char in str2, starting with the first one)
If char="0"
Then
//Insert x water tiles, where x is the the char following the current char. This may be hard to do, but is doable in tibasic. Simply get the position of nextChar in the string "0123456789ABCDEF" and loop that many times.
//let's say you have 3 different sprites for a water tiles. This is where the rand command comes in. Because it was seeded with the current map, going back and forth between two maps will always yield the same water results.
Else
//copy this char and next char to str1
End
End
I hope you can follow this.
I could turn that into real code. The only reason I haven't already is because I just downloaded Project M on my Wii X|
Quote from: 123outerme on August 25, 2015, 10:44:54 PM
Anyways, DJ, do you think you could split the PM discussions stuff into it's own topic? Much appreciated!
Quote from: Unicorn on August 26, 2015, 02:43:44 AM
What needs to be 2gb? And do split the discussion @DJ Omnimaga
Done :P Project M discussion can now go there: https://codewalr.us/index.php?topic=677.0
I am curious if you found some time to work on this now? :)
I plan on working on this more today, and start by renaming Aqua Wars. I don't like that the A is gone anymore.
Also I'm terrible at naming games, as you can tell.
Ehh, I like the name better now :P
Pirates of the 777 seas :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1wiwqAxrN4
I actually like the Aqua-Wars name myself, but something that refers more to pirate or ship battles would be nice as well.
Maybe there could be an aqu race in the game that are like the best class of crewmen. O.O
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on September 01, 2015, 03:14:16 AM
I actually like the Aqua-Wars name myself, but something that refers more to pirate or ship battles would be nice as well.
I like the name change as well. I would love to change it to better suit the game, so I'll think of something.
This is unrelated but I was going to put a joke about internet piracy in one of the pirate mission debriefings. I probably will still, but I haven't gotten around to adding missions.
Quote from: Unicorn on September 01, 2015, 06:56:04 AM
Maybe there could be an aqu race in the game that are like the best class of crewmen. O.O
That's not a bad idea, but my only problem is that I could only add it and have it be good if it was a scripted event, with outcomes depending on the ship upgrades you've gotten. I don't think it would be a good event though, just because the main game is focused on fighting other ships, not racing.
Lol, the internet piracy reference would be cool XD. Maybe a Limewire reference or something? (Although younger people probably won't know what Limewire was). Also racing probably doesn't have its place in this game. You could maybe implement missions and events with a countdown timer, though.