Animal Crossing Or Sims Clone

[clean_sandwich]

this conversation has started in another topic for a compo and i thought it would be good to start here.

is there any possible way to make a game like animal crossing or the sims for the gp32? there has been some interesting ideas such as sprite ripping and possible gigas engine being used. any other ways or has someone started on creating one?

I think that it would be neat to have a game like this or similar. (i know there is one for the SNES called harvest moon or something) anyone have any ideas how to make this?

 

[mattmagoo]

I think there is
Mark doesnt

I reckon with Gigas there is enough available to make something like a cross between AC and Harvest moon, more mission based than AC, but less farming than HM

there won't be things like the police station or rubbish tip, coz they depend on randomness

If i ever finish any of the things I am making at the moment I will give it a bash

 

[Mark]

I stand by the fact that a true animal crossing style game would be impossible with Giga's.

Animal Crossing depends on the clock and random features, letter writing and understanding. It's all about relaxing and taking everything at your own pace-it wouldn't work in a mission based enviroment.

 

[wolly wotsit]

well if we got a good working gba emu you could play 'sims busting out' or 'harvest moon FOMT'

 

[Crocomire]

or you could wait for the Game cube emu and play AC on that

 

[Blaine0002]

or there wont be a gamecube emu for the gp32

 

[joffe]

If we ignored the clock and letter writing parts and just focused on the doodad collecting and exploration parts of AC, Sims, or Harvest Moon I think we could get a cool game going with Gigas. In fact I was thinking about working on one when I developed free time. I'm not too familiar with Gigas yet (free time again), so while I doubt we could get an acurate clock going, would a more basic day/night cycle (ala breath of fire or harvest moon) be possible?

 

[Mark]

The only *REAL* way to make an Animal Crossing type game would be to code it from scratch, or get pirotic to add the features allowing it.

And to either put an internal clock into the GP, or to ask for the time and date every time someone plays the game, and events are calculated that way.

 

[Tristan]

And to either put an internal clock into the GP, or to ask for the time and date every time someone plays the game, and events are calculated that way.

I don't know about the GP32 CPU, but most uCs (microcontrollers for non-electronic people), have built in standby or powersaving modes. This allows them to keep ticking a clock, but not really eating a lot of power.

This would ofcourse render the on/off button obsolete, but that will only give RobBrown something to play with


Edit:

Found it, there's a SLOW mode built in the S3C2400x, this turns off the PLL, and saves power. Page 255 of 605 or page 6-17 of the um_s3c2400x_rev1.1.pdf file.

 

[Crocomire]

or there wont be a gamecube emu for the gp32

DO NOT FEAR, UNDERDOG IS HERE!

[Mod - Edited for content.]

 

[mattmagoo]

or there wont be a gamecube emu for the gp32

I was OBVIOUSLY taking the piss

so was he

 

[diablo2]

And to either put an internal clock into the GP, or to ask for the time and date every time someone plays the game, and events are calculated that way.

I don't know about the GP32 CPU, but most uCs (microcontrollers for non-electronic people), have built in standby or powersaving modes. This allows them to keep ticking a clock, but not really eating a lot of power.

This would ofcourse render the on/off button obsolete, but that will only give RobBrown something to play with


Edit:

Found it, there's a SLOW mode built in the S3C2400x, this turns off the PLL, and saves power. Page 255 of 605 or page 6-17 of the um_s3c2400x_rev1.1.pdf file.

what i heard from that was that you would add a standby feature to a game and you would never turn of your gp32

if you want to play something else
you have to restart to change games

and eventually it will will run out of batteries reseting the clock

it just doesn't sound practical

 

[ravuya]

And to either put an internal clock into the GP, or to ask for the time and date every time someone plays the game, and events are calculated that way.

I don't know about the GP32 CPU, but most uCs (microcontrollers for non-electronic people), have built in standby or powersaving modes. This allows them to keep ticking a clock, but not really eating a lot of power.

This would ofcourse render the on/off button obsolete, but that will only give RobBrown something to play with


Edit:

Found it, there's a SLOW mode built in the S3C2400x, this turns off the PLL, and saves power. Page 255 of 605 or page 6-17 of the um_s3c2400x_rev1.1.pdf file.

what i heard from that was that you would add a standby feature to a game and you would never turn of your gp32

if you want to play something else
you have to restart to change games

and eventually it will will run out of batteries reseting the clock

it just doesn't sound practical

You could do it, for example the GBA can be loaded with a game from Animal Crossing and then go to "sleep" without a cartridge, bring it back up and the game will still be there.

It takes about 80-90 hours to drain a full battery doing that on the GBA, so I'm assuming it would be semi-practical on the GP32 if you wanted a game that contains a persistently-updated world; but why? You could just increment a counter while the GP32 is "asleep" and then determine the timespan that passed between sleep-on and sleep-off to figure out what events transpired within that timespan. That would use much less battery power; realtime is not required.

 

[Titcher]

I think you should go for the asking the person the date and time at the start of each game.

 

[Goity]

With Sims It Just Starts the same time as it was when you saved.
When You Make A New Family It Starts At 7.00am
Sims Doesn't Keep to actual time.

 

[mattmagoo]

With Sims It Just Starts the same time as it was when you saved.
When You Make A New Family It Starts At 7.00am
Sims Doesn't Keep to actual time.

but Animal Crossing does, and it (along with direct control ove the chafracter) is what make AC beat the sims hands down

 

[mechanori]

I really would love to see something like this on the GP32. I STILL play Animal Crossing for the Gamecube, and I've owned it for over a year. Plus, it's something you can always dive into and just play around with. There's no urgency, and that's what makes it great. The real time is also a great aspect of the game that makes it unique and more fun to play. I don't know if people know this, but the Japanese N64 version did ask you for the time every time you turned on the game. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to do something like this on the GP32. Leaving it on sleep mode is too much of a hassle, and just isn't practical for the typical GP32 user.

I've been dabbling in coding in C, and although I could take a crack at it, I don't think I'm ready for something as huge as Animal Crossing. I did take interest in the Fenix engine, however, when I saw GenMX's thread. There isn't too much English documentation on it, but if I could find some, I'd really like to start some kind of project. I figure we could rip sprites etc. from the N64 version (via screenshots) and maybe even rip the script from the Gamecube version (if that's something that can actually be done).

But anyway, if anyone's interested, I'll be on the front lines helping. Someone's gotta take the initiative though.

 

[mechanori]

Well, if anyone wanted to know, the script is available, in English and practically ready to go. I was exploring some of the files in the Animal Crossing disk, and 2 of the files have the entire game script (including speech and letters) readily viewable without the need for a hex editor.

Anyway, if we actually want to get started on this, we'd need to rip sprites of the main character from the N64 version doing all of the actions (digging, bug catching, walking, idling etc.) and create a tileset for the maps. Ripping the graphics from the game itself (textures etc.) rather than from screenshots would help in some cases. I don't know too many people who can do that though. After that, if we get anywhere, villagers and furniture would come into play, but I don't think we should think that far ahead just yet.

Then of course, there's all the real time stuff etc. etc.

I am in no way a good graphics artist, so if anyone wants to volunteer, go ahead and do so. I am also in no way a good coder (AT ALL), but with a little help from GDL, I should be able to get something on the screen. I have no high expectations, but even if we get one acre up and running, I'll be happy.