GP2X Any Developers Interested In A Game Project?

[RiX0R]

Hmmm... I don't seem to be able to find a way to join the project. Not a great start from me...

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Can you tell me what kind of trouble you're having?

 

[FluffyPanda]

Might just be me being dumb. I login, go to "all projects", click on "adventureRPG2X" and then I'm kind of expecting a "join this project" button or something.

If there isn't one then just ignore me. I can browse the source, edit the wiki and so on, so everything is probably condition: normal.

 

[bigtrouble77]

So what libaries are we going to use? (personally i vote on SDL, since i know that libary and it got good support for ogg music along with SDL_Mixer).

I believe Pokeparadox is not using the SDL library. I think he said he's using the minimal library.

My initial hope was to use midi for the music, but, as I understand it now, timidity is not launched at boot so midi is not enabled by default. I assume it's to save memory.

So the next best option is to use ogg's. It's critical that I have confirmation that the proposed map sizes and music won't take up more memory than the gp2x can handle. I'm not a programmer so my logic may be flawed, but the map size of 3500x2400 8bit bmp only takes up about 7mb.

 

[bigtrouble77]

I hope it's not too late to hop along on this project!
Anyway, I have some codeing experience using c/c++ (w. SDL for grapics and sound).

And I would also like to know (like FluffyPanda) if this is going to be like Diabloish or pre FinalFantasy VII style (like Y's I&II).

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We are still is the very early stages so it's no where near too late.

The best thing I can say is to wait for a screenshot- and I use that term loosely. It's more of a mock-up. The closest compairison I can think of would be Ultima: Savage Empire, but more light hearted. The one area i'm hanging on the fence is combat. I was thinking about it and I don't think the FF style of combat will work. Although, something turn based isn't out of the question.
I kinda like the Ultima6 pseudo turn based method, where nothing really happens to you unless you do something. I'm not a big fan of realtime combat in a tile based game because lining up on the proper tile to attack is always too cumbersome.

I will be creating a vast world, so exploration will be a key element. My concern is not making the game too large as most people will only have 1gb/2gb sd cards. so things need to stay under 20mb, I think. I'm definately open to suggestions on that.

 

[FluffyPanda]

So the next best option is to use ogg's. It's critical that I have confirmation that the proposed map sizes and music won't take up more memory than the gp2x can handle. I'm not a programmer so my logic may be flawed, but the map size of 3500x2400 8bit bmp only takes up about 7mb.

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I should hope that it will take a lot less than that. We'll probably load each tile into memory and index into that.

It should only be necessary to keep an area slightly larger than 320x240 assembled in memory to help with scrolling.

 

[Dimacus]

Have anyone tested the newest version of the source?
I only get a black screen when i try to run it.
I then added some debugging and concluded that the program dosn't reach main!?
it compiles just fine, i haven't forgoten the bmp file either.

anyone have any ideas?

 

[bigtrouble77]

My hope is that someone with a good command of how the svn system should run can organize it for us.

As I noted above the goals for right now are to get the graphical engine working in a very simplified manner.

Here's a question/suggestion... Is it possible that a few different approaches are uploaded to the svn server, allowing us to have a discussion on which path would be best to take? We could label the various graphic engines A, B, C, etc.

The problem is that only pokeparadox has taken the initiative to come up with something. So the choice is to either build on what he's started, or come up with something entirely new that's better suited for accomplishing the stated goals.

And finally, I don't want to loose site that the game engine we develop here is to benefit the whole GP2X development community. I would love to have things so well organized that all a person would have to do is edit quest scripts and import their own assets to creat their own game.

 

[bigtrouble77]

Have anyone tested the newest version of the source?
I only get a black screen when i try to run it.
I then added some debugging and concluded that the program dosn't reach main!?
it compiles just fine, i haven't forgoten the bmp file either.

anyone have any ideas?

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hrm. Pokeparadox made a special win32 build for me because I don't have my gp2x yet. It worked perfectly fine. You might want to PM him.

 

[RiX0R]

Might just be me being dumb. I login, go to "all projects", click on "adventureRPG2X" and then I'm kind of expecting a "join this project" button or something.

If the software doesn't react as you expect, it's usually the software that's dumb. But in this case it's really you .

From the way the software packages work, there's not really a concept of people combined in a project group. Instead, the project owner just assigns privileges to edit the wiki, or gives write access to the Subversion repository, to the people he sees fit.

People working in a "group" are expected to use some other kind of communication channel to coordinate amongst themselves and know who the other members are, be it e-mail, IRC or some kind of instant messaging (or even the wiki).

But it's good that you pointed that out to me -- that tells me I should point it out more clearly on the site.

If there isn't one then just ignore me. I can browse the source, edit the wiki and so on, so everything is probably condition: normal.

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Alrighty then. That's good to hear .

 

[PokeParadox]

The current build of the engine is in a sense "broke" because I'm tryring to get BMPs to load (and display)

FluffyPanda, please email/pm with your username on GP2XForge... I'll also change the Wiki to actually show your where to register!

 

[PokeParadox]

So the next best option is to use ogg's. It's critical that I have confirmation that the proposed map sizes and music won't take up more memory than the gp2x can handle. I'm not a programmer so my logic may be flawed, but the map size of 3500x2400 8bit bmp only takes up about 7mb.

​

I should hope that it will take a lot less than that. We'll probably load each tile into memory and index into that.

It should only be necessary to keep an area slightly larger than 320x240 assembled in memory to help with scrolling.

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It will take up a lot less than that since tilesheets will be used. it's always best to calculate a worst case scenario

 

[FluffyPanda]

ok, PokeParadox, I've got write access to the wiki while logged in now, like you thought. I've also checked out the source from the svn.

I'll have a little play with it now and see if I can get it to compile to something that will run (at least exit gracefully).

I'll also have a read about subversion so that I can use it as it should be used.

This seems like a good place to start:
http://svnbook.red-bean.com/

 

[Dimacus]

on this subversion thing, i found this program (a Win32 client) that seems to be peritty good, i used it to download the source from gp2xforge.
there is also a tutorial for it:
http://www.mind.ilstu.edu/research/robots/...rs/svntutorial/

 

[timbobsteve]

In terms of SVN. Windows has a very reliable client called TortoiseSVN. It integrates with the shell so you can access it all by right clicking. As for *nix users... SVN is easiest.. its CLI, but works a treat.

Its great to see everyone getting in on this project. I wish you all the best of luck, I'm sure it will turn out great.

 

[bigtrouble77]

I appreciate the info on the SVN resources. I'll have to do some reading over the weekend.

Here's a REAL QUICK screen I threw together with draft tiles. It's the beginnings of a temple entrance. Most of the tiles are 40x40, but will essentially be made up of (4) 20x20 tiles. I think the one rock is 20x20.

You can obviously see that I decided to go with a top-down approach and not a funky perpspective.

Location: South American Jungle.

 

[yaustar]

Looking good, I find it kind of odd that you are using 10x10 etc rather then the standard 8x8 etc sizes.. any particular reason out of interest?

 

[FluffyPanda]

Good question. Because they're bigger?

(no sarcasm intended. I mean it.)

 

[bigtrouble77]

Looking good, I find it kind of odd that you are using 10x10 etc rather then the standard 8x8 etc sizes.. any particular reason out of interest?

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Actually, the tiles are 20x20. Making the tiles 8x8 would really be tedious. I could do 10x10, I'd just have to slice things up a bit.

I'm really in an experimental phase right now. I'm working on some tests with different perspectives. I know I said I was going to do a top down like in the example, but that was before I saw Final Fantasy on the GBA.

I found this really nice resource:
http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/tbw/
I 'm working on creating an isometric test:
http://www.tonypa.pri.ee/tbw/tut16.html

Here's another helpful site:
http://www.gamedev.net/reference/list.asp?categoryid=44

 

[bigtrouble77]

Here's some further research (I hope this link works):
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:jxWTtT...=3&client=opera

It may be a good idea to follow GBA specs for this project as it will be a great indicator of performance.

Some interesting Specs:
* Tiles on the GBA: 8 pixels by 8 pixels
* GBA Screen resolution: 240x160 (30 tiles x 20 tiles)
* If you were to create a side scrolling game with a level that was 10 screens long and 5 screens tall:
- 2400x800 = 300 tiles x 100 tiles = 30,000 tiles in the level 1 tile = 64 bytes
- 30,000 tiles x 64 bytes = 1920000 bytes = approximately 2 Megs for one level!


So, I'm going to go back to the drawing board with these specs in mind. The good news is that the majority of the doc confirms what i've already suspected. It's nice to have some confirmation of these details, tho.

If anyone has experience with isometric systems I'd love to ask some questions here.

 

[Dzz]

- 2400x800 = 300 tiles x 100 tiles = 30,000 tiles in the level 1 tile = 64 bytes
- 30,000 tiles x 64 bytes = 1920000 bytes = approximately 2 Megs for one level!

Well, the whole point of having tiles is that you use them multiple times. So, usually two bytes is enough to specify each tile (just an index into a tile table).