Epic Rocks Released!

[Imerion]

Epic Rocks is a classic arcade game where you have to survive in an asteroid field for as long as possible. The game is only about getting the highest score and is designed for quick, fast gameplay. There are six different levels with various hazards like black holes to avoid, four different ships to command and a bunch of special weapons to utilize, including the devestating Beam Saber and the experimental Gravity Mine. Also included are a lot of flashy special effects and pumping music.

The GP2X version is not perfect yet, but it should run well enough to be completely playable. As usual, if you have any suggestions for improvements or if you find any bugs, tell me.

Quick update 1.01. : You can now choose which speed to run the game at. This should fix problems with black screens and crashes.

The game can be downloaded from here : http://neotron-games.blogspot.com/
Or from the GP2X File Archive once it's uploaded.

 

[andyc]

Firefox popped up the following page :

Reported Attack Site!

This web site at www.freewebtown.com has been reported as an attack site and has been blocked based on your security preferences.


Attack sites try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.

Some attack sites intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.

Any ideas??

Epic Rocks is a classic arcade game where you have to survive in an asteroid field for as long as possible. The game is only about getting the highest score and is designed for quick, fast gameplay. There are six different levels with various hazards like black holes to avoid, four different ships to command and a bunch of special weapons to utilize, including the devestating Beam Saber and the experimental Gravity Mine. Also included are a lot of flashy special effects and pumping music.

The GP2X version is not perfect yet, but it should run well enough to be completely playable. As usual, if you have any suggestions for improvements or if you find any bugs, tell me.

The game can be downloaded from here : http://neotron-games.blogspot.com/
Or from the GP2X File Archive once it's uploaded.

 

[Sphinxter]

Un-check that, "Tell me if the site I'm visiting is a suspected attack site", box in the security tab.

 

[Imerion]

andycash, it's most likely a false alarm. Freewebtown is just the server where I host my files. I have had files there for many years and there has never been any problems. If you do what Sphinxter suggests, you should be able to access the file. Otherwise you can also get the file from the GP2X File Archive. Seems it is already uploaded there.

 

[Tag5]

Hmmm, can't get this to work out of the box. I haven't modified the *.gpe as yet. When I run the *.gpe file the screen turns black and stays like it (Left it like it for 5 minutes in case it was a slow loader). I usually keep all my games in the Games folder from the root of the SD card. So unsure if I need to change any of the parameters within the *.gpe. :huh:

Game looks great but can't get it to work!

 

[Imerion]

You shouldn't need to change anything; it should run from wherever you put it. However, I have heard that the RAM tweaks might cause things like that to happen. If you open the .gpe and remove the text "--tweak" it might help.

 

[Tag5]

You shouldn't need to change anything; it should run from wherever you put it. However, I have heard that the RAM tweaks might cause things like that to happen. If you open the .gpe and remove the text "--tweak" it might help.

OK, will give this a try when I get home and will let you know the results.

 

[Tag5]

You shouldn't need to change anything; it should run from wherever you put it. However, I have heard that the RAM tweaks might cause things like that to happen. If you open the .gpe and remove the text "--tweak" it might help.

OK, will give this a try when I get home and will let you know the results.
I have now removed --tweak --speed 300 from the *.gpe files and it now works great! Thanks for your help and for this awesome fast paced game. :lol:

 

[Mr 2X]

I removed only "--speed 300" and it works.

Is the 300 value for the MHz ..? :unsure:

 

[Imerion]

Yes, the "--speed 300" is for overclocking. The game ran to slow without it. I tried to reduce the amount of effects and other things in the game and after a lot of work I got it working at an acceptable speed on the GP2X, but only when running overclocked. Without that line, the game will run really slow, especially when the action heats up. I didn't notice any problems when testing it so I thought it was ok.

Perhaps I should include two start-files, one which runs it overclocked and one which does not.

 

[Imerion]

I did some research. Seems very few units can handle that high overclocking, so I updated the game and included three different startup files, which runs at Normal (200 Mhz), Fast (250 Mhz) and Very Fast (300 Mhz). If any crashes or black screens occur, run it at a lower speed.
I just hope it will run fast enough to be playable even at lower speeds. I only did testing at 300.

 

[Tag5]

I did some research. Seems very few units can handle that high overclocking, so I updated the game and included three different startup files, which runs at Normal (200 Mhz), Fast (250 Mhz) and Very Fast (300 Mhz). If any crashes or black screens occur, run it at a lower speed.
I just hope it will run fast enough to be playable even at lower speeds. I only did testing at 300.

Will download the new version of this game to try out the new game speeds.

 

[Pickle]

I removed only "--speed 300" and it works.

Is the 300 value for the MHz ..? :unsure:

300 Mhz for an asteroids game!? Something must be wrong, are you sure the hw blitter is being used? For example if you SDL the surfaces need to be optimized into the correct format, otherwise you get dismal performance.

 

[Imerion]

QUOTE

300 Mhz for an asteroids game!? Something must be wrong, are you sure the hw blitter is being used? For example if you SDL the surfaces need to be optimized into the correct format, otherwise you get dismal performance.


The game was made using Fenix, so it's not as fast as a C game would be and it wasn't designed for the GP2X from the start. The reason for the slow speed is mostly due to the particle and translucency-effects. The backgrounds, for example, are animated and has two layers of transparency. While such effects might not have been necessary, it didn't matter when using my considerably faster computer, and I didn't want to rewrite the whole game just to make it run on the GP2X so I decided to try running it overclocked. I did reduce the extent of some of the effects, but it wasn't enough. However, if the game gets popular and some people ask for it, I might have a try at optimizing the game a bit and rewriting some of the "heavier" parts.