New Game in progress: Castle Rex

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Sat Jan 09, 2010 1:14 pm

Just a wee bump to see if there's been any development on this fine looking game...

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 2:51 pm

Sorry I haven't checked the forums in a few days. I've been busy.

Okay, so I've basically scrapped everything that I had when this topic was created. Through a series of correspondences with Mike, we've worked out a much better way to design the game that will allow for a better final product.

The good news is, now you guys can follow the whole development cycle!

. I haven't actually started coding yet (I will as soon as the headache I've had for a few days now subsides), so I guess I'll share the decisions made during the lengthy planning period:

The game will now use a 16k expansion (I know...)
The screen area for each room will be much larger and will be bitmapped instead of drawn with a small selection of pre-defined characters.
The whole screen will be bitmapped, which allows text to be drawn with a half-width font.
Provided I limit the colors used in the rooms, the sprite engine will be capable of non-flickering sprites. The old design was not.
BASIC with some SYS extensions will allow for "scripting" of each room.
I made a terrible room editor (if you could even call it that) in C/SDL for the old version. For this version, I'm going to take the time to make a decent editor that can place items, doors, etc.
Once the editor is done and all the SYS calls implemented, it will hopefully be easy enough for myself, or anyone that cares to make point and click adventures, to make full games.
I'd like to have something to show by fall, but we'll see. Keep in mind I won't be working on this nearly all of that time. I truly am remarkably lazy, so feel free to virtually nudge me anytime. I'll work faster that way

.

I have also been pondering replacing the setting since I'm starting over. I was reluctant to after finishing all of the room images, but now I am free to do so. I personally think post-apocalyptic settings are overused in the mainstream gaming market, so I was thinking about something like a modern setting.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Thanks,
Wilson

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Tue Jan 12, 2010 6:35 pm

Oooh, sounds good. I look forward to watching your new baby grow up.

ral-clan · Post by **ral-clan** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:01 am

This game looks great! It will also be the first point and click style adventure for the VIC. I am looking forward to playing it.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Wed Jan 13, 2010 7:42 am

Maybe we should start work on that accelerometer controller...

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 8:57 am

Just wondering if there's been any development on this game.

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 1:56 pm

I wrote:The good news is, now you guys can follow the whole development cycle!

Or maybe not!

Pedro Lambrini wrote:Just wondering if there's been any development on this game.

There has certainly been a lot of development done over the last three months.
Things that are now almost fully implemented are:
* sprites
* the inventory system
* 40 column text routines
Sprites are nearly done. I still intend to add support for multiple frame sprites (for animation). This has already been taken into consideration in the sprite structures, and it will not be hard to implement.

The inventory system is done until any bugs arise. I would explain more about this, but I'll let it speak for itself when I get a demo room prepared.

The 40 column text printing routine was written by Mike, and it is used to draw the inventory and menu.

Over the last month, my focus has been on the room editor. It is not a cross-platform editor. It runs on a Vic-20 with 24K+ RAM.
The process for designing a room looks something like this:
* Load the MINIGRAFIK picture file
* enter the text that is displayed when the player enters the room
After entering text, the user reaches the main menu. Here he/she can edit strings, sprites, and objects.
An object is really a sprite (and generally a string) that is handled automatically by the engine.
There are different types of objects. So far these include:
* ITEM
* DECORATION
* DOOR
The engine will need no help from BASIC to figure out what action to take when a user performs an action
on these special objects. If the player "TAKES" an item, a message will be displayed, the item added to the players' inventory, the item will be removed from the screen, and the persistent data for the room will be updated.

By only using special objects such as these, it is possible to make an entire game. However, if the game designer wants to do some more elaborate things such as only allow a door to be opened if a certain sprite is not active, then such cases can be "scripted" in BASIC.

So far, the engine is at a pretty decent stage. MINIGRAFIK pictures can be loaded, the room's text entered, there is a crude string editor, and the sprite editor is almost done. The object editor is in early stages, but it mostly uses the other editors (sprite and string) to produce the object data.
There is still a ton of work to be done in the machine language handling of objects.

I'll try to get a small demo room prepared by this time next month.
I apologize for my long silence.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 2:18 pm

Gee whiz, that's a lot of stuff going on there! So, basically, as well as making a first of it's kind game on the Vic you're also making a game creation tool, too?

That sounds fantastic as I have loads of ideas for games but absolutely no talent in the programming of them...

Pretty impressive.

OT: I can't believe how many times on this forum I use the words impressive and wow. It just goes to show how talented you guys are!

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 3:20 pm

Pedro Lambrini wrote: So, basically, as well as making a first of it's kind game on the Vic you're also making a game creation tool, too?

Yes!

And I can almost guarantee that the first public version of the editor will be released before Castle Rex is.

Pedro Lambrini wrote:That sounds fantastic as I have loads of ideas for games but absolutely no talent in the programming of them...

That's one of the reasons I'm doing it. I've tried, but I don't seem to be very great at the whole game design thing... I figure this way there is at least the potential for something good to come out of something I make.

Pedro Lambrini wrote: OT: I can't believe how many times on this forum I use the words impressive and wow. It just goes to show how talented you guys are!

Thanks, but compared to most of the people here, including yourself (love the VIC 20-B

), I'm not at all talented. I just have a lot of free time.

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 3:57 pm

Your work sounds really impressive, Wilson!!! I thought it was impossible that a real adventure game tool would have come out on our vic!!! But for you impossible is nothing, isn't it?

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Wed Apr 21, 2010 7:53 pm

I appreciate the enthusiasm, Ivanhoe! I hope (but doubt) I'll be able to live up to you're expectations!

.

Ivanhoe76 wrote:But for you impossible is nothing, isn't it?

I'm flattered. But really: I just have a lot of free time.

Tiny update:
The sprite editor can now produce sprites of the format used by the engine. It's not exactly pretty, but it works.
Unfortunately, that will be last update I'll be posting for about 1-2 months. I'm pursuing another project (also VIC20 based) in that time period.
Just figured I'd make it clear that there will be no updates for a while, but the project is absolutely not abandoned. I'm still very interested in seeing it through to the end.

Pedro Lambrini · Post by **Pedro Lambrini** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 3:06 am

Two projects, eh? Rest assured I'll bump this thread in about 2 months! :p

Good luck!

Ivanhoe76 · Post by **Ivanhoe76** » Thu Apr 22, 2010 1:23 pm

Wilson wrote:I appreciate the enthusiasm, Ivanhoe! I hope (but doubt) I'll be able to live up to you're expectations! .

You surely do, Wilson!!! Your work sounds really interesting and I think you can cope it!!!

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 9:23 am

Pedro Lambrini wrote:Two projects, eh? Rest assured I'll bump this thread in about 2 months!

Beat you to it!

By sheer luck I found this blog about the development of Castle Rex. Still, it would be nice if we'd get an update about the project ... how about some screenshots?

Greetings,

Michael

Wilson · Post by **Wilson** » Mon Jul 05, 2010 5:44 pm

Blast, you found it! That blog was supposed to be a joke, but I've been documenting some progress on there when I was bored. Unfortunately I haven't been very careful about what I said. I apologize if anyone encounters any misinformation. Also there are a couple embarrassing entries, which, if you'll excuse me, I will clean up quickly.

Okay.

Well, I haven't progressed much since my last blog entry, but here's a screenshot:

I could post another, but almost the entire workings of the engine can be seen here.

As you can see, the image is a 160x128 bitmap. Hires, I have found, is much easier to make images with than multicolor. For this reason, I have decided to only support (at least for the time) hires. The bitmap is read by the editor in MINIGRAFIK format. I'll be doing the images for Castle Rex in MINIPAINT.

Beneath the bitmap is the menu. Right now it is only a single row, but I plan on shrinking the "move display" (at the bottom far right) to allow for two rows. Below the menu there is the inventory. Right now there are only three items, so I filled the inventory to test scrolling (which does work).

The "move display" should be familiar to those who played any of the MacVenture games. To use it you simply click "MOVE" then click the rectangle that approximately matches the position that you wish to move to. So if there's a door on the left side of the screen, you click the rectangle on the left... Right now it is very ugly looking, and prettying it up isn't a high priority yet.

Below the inventory there are two blank rows. These are used to display messages like "you take the stone".

I'll be the first to admit that I've been working at a rather disappointing pace, but keep in mind that the editor's source is nearly as large as the engine's.
Speaking of the editor, here's some screenshots of it too:

The last image is the sprite editor. It supports monochrome with transparency output at resolutions up to 40x48.

Thanks for the bump. I feel motivated to get back to work now.