[ti-84+ce] SQRXZ for TI-84+CE

u/Dream of Omnimaga December 30, 2016, 06:50:09 AM

Quote from: p2 on December 29, 2016, 03:49:06 PM
such a frame is a great idea
But make sure it's just as dark as the rest of the game

Buuut I'm actually worried about aone part:
if he addds a border around it, the screen will get even smaller.
Then he would deefinitely have to implement y-scrolling.

The reason why the screen is smaller is because the original SQRXZ came out on the TI-86, which used 16x8 tilemaps. He's keeping the screen 16x8 on the CE because having to modify all maps to be adapted to the larger screen size would be too much hassle. Kinda the same reason why if I ever port Reuben to the CE that it will use 24x24 tiles or 3x zoom 8x8 tiles.

That said, for existing worlds, I guess it wouldn't be too hard to write a script that automatically adds extra rows of tiles at the top of each map, such as sky tiles or blocks, depending of if the world is underground or not, to make the map look larger.

u/JamesV January 06, 2017, 04:55:49 AM

Enemies have now been added in - you can see the Blob and Hedgehog in the below screenshot.

u/Dream of Omnimaga January 06, 2017, 05:16:00 PM

I like how the metal blocks flashes a bit when you hit them

u/JamesV January 09, 2017, 06:23:36 AM

Another small update showing Sqrxz running animation, a couple of other enemies and simple status bar text at the bottom showing lives, sausages collected and the level number. I'll probably add a 2nd font for the status bar text to look like the original PC game..

The game is almost running fully as per the TI-85/86/83, etc. versions. Once it is, I'll start refining it further.

u/Dream of Omnimaga January 09, 2017, 08:14:56 AM

Really beautiful. Do you plan to add stuff at the top of the screen too, such as the stage name, number, the game title and other stuff?

u/p2 January 09, 2017, 11:38:54 AM

Quote from: JamesV on January 06, 2017, 04:55:49 AM
Enemies have now been added in - you can see the Blob and Hedgehog in the below screenshot.

I love the blob

but am I mistaken or is the ground as well as the big rock fickering a little bit...?
(might only be the gif of cause)

u/JamesV January 11, 2017, 05:00:02 AM

Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on January 09, 2017, 08:14:56 AM
Really beautiful. Do you plan to add stuff at the top of the screen too, such as the stage name, number, the game title and other stuff?

In the short term, yes I'll be putting the world name and author. Down the track I'll experiment with increasing the level height, depending on performance.

Quote from: p2 on January 09, 2017, 11:38:54 AM
I love the blob

but am I mistaken or is the ground as well as the big rock fickering a little bit...?
(might only be the gif of cause)

That's just the GIF

I've improved my font routines to now support multiple font packages (shown below in the status area). It's currently limited to monospace fonts, with the characters being 15x15 pixels maximum. But it allows for either textured or non-textured fonts, and the option for transparent font drawing if you want to maintain the background behind text, or opaque font drawing if you want to remove trash as the string is being rendered.

u/JamesV January 12, 2017, 02:19:48 AM

The game is pretty much finished. I just have a couple of minor bugs to iron out, and I also want to experiment with the possibility of having a larger play screen size. Additionally, I think I'll write a Windows world editor, as the old world editor supplied back in the TI-83/85/86 days needs Dosbox to run on modern computers, which is inconvenient.

u/p2 January 12, 2017, 09:07:31 AM

I dont think you would need anything else than monospace fonts... It's not like there are long dialogues in the game

(great choice, that red font, firs perfectly!)
that robot' walking animation is both super weird and cute

u/JamesV January 13, 2017, 01:11:32 AM

Quote from: p2 on January 12, 2017, 09:07:31 AM
I dont think you would need anything else than monospace fonts... It's not like there are long dialogues in the game
(great choice, that red font, firs perfectly!)
that robot' walking animation is both super weird and cute

Heh, he's actually a little bug (apparently). He's a Sqrxz (pronounced skwerks), and he loves sausages

Yeah the red font is cool! It's taken from the PC version, so I can't take credit for it.

The game is finished and I've done some final work today separating the sprite & title screen data into separate appvars to reduce the program size. The game file is less than 11KB. All other data & world files can be put in the Archive to save RAM space.

I also added a dark blue background to the play screen to give it a slight separation from the status bar and world details.

Now I'll start working on a Windows world editor

u/Lionel Debroux January 13, 2017, 07:02:12 AM

I'm sure the MacOS X & Linux users would love a natively portable world editor, like Oiram's

But I do understand that it's more work in the short term if you're not familiar with Qt.

u/JamesV January 15, 2017, 05:17:26 AM

Quote from: Lionel Debroux on January 13, 2017, 07:02:12 AM
I'm sure the MacOS X & Linux users would love a natively portable world editor, like Oiram's
But I do understand that it's more work in the short term if you're not familiar with Qt.

I wasn't familiar with Qt, but it looks interesting and I'm downloading it now to give it a try

A cross-platform compatible world editor would be ideal!

u/Lionel Debroux January 15, 2017, 07:52:13 AM

Qt isn't perfect, but over time it's become the way to make cross-platform C/C++ GUI programs

It can be used for non-GUI programs as well, though in this case, special care needs to be taken not to over-use it.

u/aetios January 15, 2017, 08:08:25 AM

I only just noticed this thread, I really like the aesthetic of the game. I was just wondering if you noticed that the first level says 'briefing' instead of 'briefing'? Or is that something in the level itself?

Voicing my support for a cross-platform level editor.