"A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
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Pitto
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Joined: Nov 19, 2012 19:58

Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Pitto »

I still have problems with edge of platform collision, very notable on the very first spikes pit.
You're right, in the first level there are three tiles of spikes in a row that are difficult to avoid. I've designed the first level with the target to teaching the player how interact with the environment, to understand better what to get and what to avoid and how to control Victor. Even the computer with keyword is placed at the end of the level in order to highlight the interaction between finding keywords and opening of the level door.
Regarding NPCs, I think one or two would be enough to add depth
I'll think a bit about that, maybe I will insert a NPC that will help the player to help to orient himself in the level (i.e. the Assembly level is a large and dispersive, and and sometimes I lose myself too).

@maachal

Thank you for your testing. I'm happy to know that Victor may run on slower pc. The slowest PC where I've done a test since now was Win Xp SP2 Intel Celeron @ 2.00 Ghz 256 Mb Ram.
Landeel
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Landeel »

Fb Shooter Force 2019 updated:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Alx6z ... pih1AUEuZH
-Added command-line options that override settings from the .ini file. Check the readme for details;
-Some fixes in the gamepad setup;
-Many internal fixes and improvements;
ssjx
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by ssjx »

@Pitto: Awesome entry! Really like the C64 style graphics and the funny posters! :)

@Maachal: Great fun game! I like the presentation, are you able to add a little sound? I think some simple bleeps and bloops would really add to it!

@ Landeel: The youtube vid of your game looks great but my pc lacks the horsepower to run it so will find another to test it on!
leopardpm
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Joined: Feb 28, 2009 20:58

Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by leopardpm »

@pitto - is there a non-tar version I can download? Having issues decompressing it

using win10
BasicCoder2
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by BasicCoder2 »

leopardpm wrote:@pitto - is there a non-tar version I can download? Having issues decompressing it using win10
I have the same issues with tar and rar
Pitto has it on github you can down load it as a .zip file from there

https://github.com/Pitto/Impossible_Victhorse
leopardpm
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by leopardpm »

Thanks BC2!

@pitto - Great job! I love how you completely wove the FreeBasic/programming theme into your game!
maachal
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by maachal »

ssjx wrote: @Maachal: Great fun game! I like the presentation, are you able to add a little sound? I think some simple bleeps and bloops would really add to it!
Thank you. I never worked with the sound, but I can try. ;-)
Pitto
Posts: 122
Joined: Nov 19, 2012 19:58

Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Pitto »

@ssjx:
thank you for having tested my entry, indeed there are many references to the good old commodore 64

@leopardpm:
thank you for testing and for your review, I appreciate it.

I've updated the repository (0.5.7):
https://github.com/Pitto/Impossible_Victhorse

Added: a NPC

Best regards
Lachie Dazdarian
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Lachie Dazdarian »

Pitto, reached level 5, got canned. Still having trouble with platforming, more than fighting enemies. Feels too fast in combination with such slippery platform edges. I'm just too much anxious while playing for the wrong reasons, IMO. But nevertheless, at least until level 5, and including level 5, the game doesn't feel unfair and tedious. The NPC is a nice addition. The more I play the game, the more I'm enjoying the quality and consistency of your pixel art.

Landeel, got canned at level 2 boss this time. I still think the levels are one third too long (first one lasted 15 minutes), for the variety of content they offer. I'm also still disliking the fact of a wrong weapon popping into the slot I'm currently using and more often than not killing me. I would prefer that a powerup never replaces the last used weapon slot. Not sure I prefer the gameplay that forces me so much to avoid powerups. One of the main reasons I died was trying to collect or avoid powerups. Collision with the walls also feels unfair. I think there should be a second of invulnerability after hitting a wall. I don't know. Not sure how much time you have to additionally reduce the length of the game, or if this feels attractive to you, but at least giving the player a second of invulnerability after getting hit would be appreciated by most players, IMO.
Pitto
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Pitto »

Hi Lachie,

thank you for your review, thanks for the tip of adding a NPC, it has be funny add this feature to the game. I'm glad that you like my pixel art.

Victor has a little inertia in his movements and this initially can make him difficult to maneuver. Also the speed of the floppy he launches is influenced by the speed at which he moves.

Since I've designed and tested the controls in this way, perhaps I do not realize the initial difficulties encountered by a new player in learning how to maneuver Victor. However I believe that with a little practice it is possible to master his movements. I do not consider myself a good videogame player, but I can finish the game in easy mode without major problems ... maybe it's because I designed it and I know the level maps by heart :)

I'm currently testing it on Win and Linux, now it runs at same speed on both platforms, thank you for having highlighted the issue of speed on Win.

Best regards
Landeel
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Landeel »

Lachie Dazdarian wrote:Landeel, got canned at level 2 boss this time. I still think the levels are one third too long (first one lasted 15 minutes), for the variety of content they offer. I'm also still disliking the fact of a wrong weapon popping into the slot I'm currently using and more often than not killing me. I would prefer that a powerup never replaces the last used weapon slot. Not sure I prefer the gameplay that forces me so much to avoid powerups. One of the main reasons I died was trying to collect or avoid powerups. Collision with the walls also feels unfair. I think there should be a second of invulnerability after hitting a wall. I don't know. Not sure how much time you have to additionally reduce the length of the game, or if this feels attractive to you, but at least giving the player a second of invulnerability after getting hit would be appreciated by most players, IMO.
Thanks for your comments and suggestions!
Have you ever played Twinbee? The powerups come in bells that spawn every time you shot a cloud. That's where the inspiration came from.
The powerup will overwrite the current slot only when the palette is "full".
The best way to avoid powerups when you think you're good is to avoid breaking rocks, but you could also be losing continues or extra lifes.
I'm considering a new mechanic for this: stop or reduce drastically shields and shots from spawning when the palette is full.
Other possibility is to drop a monitor with the item you replaced, so you can get it back.
I will give this a try and see what works better.
Also I'll try to raise the invulnerability a little.
I'm currently working on the level layout, removing some repetitive or annoying parts.
I'll spend most of the weekend into this, so the final version will be great.
Tourist Trap
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Joined: Jun 02, 2015 16:24

Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Tourist Trap »

Hi all,

I have not gone quite far due to lack of time and many troubles those days. However, I tried to push my current state on github. I still compete for the second round. Chances are very low that I could submit anything named a game for the 1st round. Then ok, here is my repo on github:
https://github.com/trapmania/bones/tree/master

The file to build is bonemademandemo.bas. It's still a mess overall but it shows how this pretends to be working as a character motion engine for a game.
Boromir
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Boromir »

Here's the indiedb page where I'll be putting the download link. I'm working on a few last minute things.
https://www.indiedb.com/games/basic-warfare
Tourist Trap
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Joined: Jun 02, 2015 16:24

Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by Tourist Trap »

Landeel wrote:
Thanks for your comments and suggestions!
Hello Landeel,

I tried to figure out how to get rid of the high dpi bug on win10. Here is my find so far. If not compiled as a project on winfbe, but rather as a standalone application without any special features (manifest is guilty I guess) you can set the dpi compatibility by hand by a right click on the exe.
Then how to detect the dpi at first? Maybe try GetSystemMeyricsForDpi(int, uint) as int , lib user32, alias same name, in short! I don't know how to use it anyway and may fail under other os than win10.
Ok, afterwards, if dpi high, shellexecute the compatible version from your main program?

Those are my 2 cents, this is a quite bigger issue than it seemed first. Good luck for the challenge. Last few hours :)
fxm
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Re: "A Love Letter To FreeBASIC" Game Dev Competition (Oct 2018 – Feb 2019), 1000 $ 1st prize

Post by fxm »

In my recent version of Win 10 [version 10.0.17763.292], I no longer see the switch "Override high DPI scaling behavior" (or even an equivalent switch) in the compatibility properties of the .exe file.
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