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wraggster
September 16th, 2009, 21:10
News/release from Baro (http://forum.palib.info/index.php?topic=7521.0)


Hello people, I'm here to tell ya about the game I'm developing.
Currently I'm working on the engine and the only final graphical thing is -part- of the sprite you can see in the engine peek I'm attaching.

So, let's get into it. This is my first game (in b4 start small. lol)

Tanuki Tails
In the 2460's, a madman, named Julius Spaulds, from one of the most powerful countries of the world democratically won the elections and thus became the most powerful person on the world... As such, people expected him to solve wars in other countries, so he started Project Solution to end the wars in Middle East.

Project Solution consisted on the easiest way to cut off the war: an A-Bomb. With no warning, he fired the bomb right on the land in war, making not only an enormous crater now known as the Ground Zero Ocean, but pushing away all the continents forming the Pangea Subita the land is today. In the chaos, lots of people perished, as well as many plants and animals. Even some animals, like bears, completely vanished from Earth. This mess allowed Spaulds to conquer the whole world.

Today, in year 2536, Robert Spaulds holds the legacy of his grandfather and is the -negligent- ruler of the human race, which is scattered in small towns along the Pangea Subita.
For no known reason, he's making another A-Bomb, in his very own base near Lowheaven.
And precisely four boys from Lowheaven: Pol Keine, Julie Bourge, Sudo Koji and Bear Sampson; try from time to time to sabotage the A-Bomb, slowing its completion in wait of some savior.

And that savior came one day, in the form of a Tanuki Man from another dimension, who grabbed Pol and put on him the tail of a dead Tanuki hero, and will train him to use the tail to transform into various things and save not only our Universe, but the whole Polyverse from an ongoing invasion of Demons.
(If you though this was long and nonsensical, you're lucky I didn't post the whole background, which contains the origin of all the intelligent species, bear gods and some spoilers)

Gameplay
The gameplay will be somewhat like Legend of Zelda (NES, GB, GBA...), but instead of weapons, you'll be using Pol's transformations. (For example, transform into a statue to fool enemies or be very heavy. Transform into a chameleon to stick your tonge everyway á la hookshot or become invisible). You'll gain the transformations over time. Also, each transformation has its own speed, accelerations, jump, size, height... so sometimes the key to a puzzle will be transforming into something and just walk in. But be careful, transforming and mantaining the transformations will cost a lot of energy, so finding and eating food is a must!
You can stop and select your next transformation from the menu, or you can draw symbols to set your tail ready for your next shapeshift!

For Boss fights, I'm thinking on implement a platform engine, but that's far future, right now I'm working on the in-field engine (aka the zelda gameplay I mentioned before).

Done so far

Map loading from data (Maps are formed by blocks which are formed by pixels. each block has its own data)
Animation system (see my recent post on the code lab)
First approach to transformations. In the demo, X and Y switch between two shapes with different properties. Later on you'll be able to choose them, and you will need to stop and wait for a cool animation to complete.
Some basic IA (following enemy when close, etc) (Whoops, I don't show this in the engine peek)
Collision read from block data (each sprite is like a cilinder), and vertical collision working (not lateral. This means: the player's head touches the ceiling, you jump off clifs, you jump on heights, etc, but you can walk into things that will be supposed to be solid)
Maybe something else not-so-relevant

TODO

Lateral collision (OMG)
platform engine
Lots of graphics for enemies, NPC, player and such
Script system (Still thinking how to implement it)
GUI for the down screen. I have it planned, but won't do it until the engine works better.
A map editor for me to make levels. You won't see it yet it'll be key on decent map making
lots of other things, of course

Brief explanation on the engine peek
-tested in no$cash GBA. Will likely crash on desmune according to a friend, probably because of EFS?-
You'll see everything I've said is done, except the enemy AI I mentioned (Anyway it's only a following dummy sprite).
There's four types of blocks (each one formed by 4x4 tiles): the red ones are at height 0, the green ones at height 10, the blue ones at height 20, the green and blues a little higher. Move with pad, jump with A. You can jump on the green blocks and then on the blue ones (you don't jump enough to get into the blue ones).
You won't be able to jump from below the green and blue blocks, but in the one with two colors you will touch the 'ceiling' and bounce. If you have the Pol Sprite, you may fall off from the blue blocks, since its collision shape has holes and his radius is small. But, if you have the green dummy sprite (X and Y to switch), you won't, since it's larger.
Also notice how the Green dummy has acceleration, brake, different jump speed and height and whole different properties. All of this is thanks to my pseudo object oriented programming notation (POOP notation for short)!
The numbers on the down screen:
On the player's coordinates, you'll see a square with some numbers. That's the collision data that falls under the cylinder that represents the sprite (loaded from the map data). "-" is no collision, 1 is solid and the rest are triangles (you'll guess them when you see the blocks in the corner).
On top left corner, if collision data allows, you'll see, in this order: player's z coordinate, floor directly below character's cylinder, ceiling directly above character's cylinder's base (if none, 32767, the largest s16).
PS: What happens outside screen limits is undefined.


Aaaand I think this is everything for now. Someday I'll open a blog where I'll pot some more stuff, plans, characters, etc, but not today. Today it's closed.
HEY YOU GUYS YOU'LL LIKELY WANT TO CHECK THE ENGINE PEEK THAT HAS THE COLLISIONS AND SLOPES AND SLIDING AROUND SLOPES AND HOPEFULLY THE ULTIMATE CHARACTER-MAP COLLISION SYSTEM THE GAME WILL HAVE
Comments, anyone?

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