milkshake
Advanced Member
coolios cant wait 
keep us posted.
keep us posted.
Release Forget Me Not - new shooter/maze game from Nyarla Labs
- Thread starter ZXDunny
- Start date
fusion_power
Advanced Member
Funny thing is, just from the Video I have no clue what's going on in this game. I guess I should try it by myself to find out.
I guess I should try it by myself to find out.
Link
ithic.com
Looks like PacMan with a gun? And shrooms... Looks fun as hell, just waiting for the update to drop before trying now.
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ZXDunny
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Updated on the repo - head to http://repo.openpandora.org/?page=detail&app=forgetmenot.zxdunny.2994 and pick it up!
New game modes in options. READ THE README, controls have changed in menus. This is probably the last update unless something glaring appears...
D.
New game modes in options. READ THE README, controls have changed in menus. This is probably the last update unless something glaring appears...
D.
Prometheus
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Oh, wow, just had a moment to watch the video - this looks fantastic, and appears to be just my sort of thing. Will pick it up shortly.
So much software lately!
Many thanks for this one, Dunmeister.
So much software lately!
Many thanks for this one, Dunmeister.
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gruso
thunderbox
Yes sir, plenty of that.
[edit] Oh and thanks for the new version Dunny, look forward to trying the added modes. I will definitely send a thanks a quid to the author.
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Prometheus
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Seconded. I've just gotten a moment to try it - absolutely fab.
gruso
thunderbox
I honestly didn't think I'd get pulled into it the way the reviews suggest. I was wrong.
ZXDunny
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Ok, I'm now hitting a slack part of the night (everyone has had their medications, and they're all settled in bed having a cuppa) so I'll just go through what's new with this build.
I've fixed some issues that arose with the Pandora port - the Hurry Up ghost texture was badly aligned, seems the Pandora drivers need the texture offset clamping to an integer. As Player one's controls are on the left and Player two's are on the right, I moved the scores to their opposite sides of the screen. I've changed some texts in the game to reflect the correct controls.
Regarding controls:
1. Press START to start a one-player game, 2 to start a two-player game.
2. You can press 2 at any time in a one-player game to let player two join in.
3. SELECT opens and closes the options page from the main attract sequence.
4. Pressing START whilst in-game will pause and un-pause.
5. ESC quits back to the main menu when paused.
6. You can use either the controls for your player or the keyboard to enter a high-score.
7. If in a two-player game, keyboard score entry is disabled; use your controls instead.
New game modes:
Shuffle - Starting each level will show "Level: ???" instead of the level number - and the difficulty and size of the map will be random. Beware, this one can get MANIC.
Survival - You start with one life, and cannot gain any more no matter how many fruits you eat. See how long you can last!
Those of you that want to donate via paypal to the original author can use nyarlulabs@gmail.com on paypal.
Please don't hesitate to do three things:
1. Donate.
2. Send feedback about Pandora issues to me here
3. Send feedback and unadulterated praise to Nyarla, and buy his games.
Enjoy!
D.
I've fixed some issues that arose with the Pandora port - the Hurry Up ghost texture was badly aligned, seems the Pandora drivers need the texture offset clamping to an integer. As Player one's controls are on the left and Player two's are on the right, I moved the scores to their opposite sides of the screen. I've changed some texts in the game to reflect the correct controls.
Regarding controls:
1. Press START to start a one-player game, 2 to start a two-player game.
2. You can press 2 at any time in a one-player game to let player two join in.
3. SELECT opens and closes the options page from the main attract sequence.
4. Pressing START whilst in-game will pause and un-pause.
5. ESC quits back to the main menu when paused.
6. You can use either the controls for your player or the keyboard to enter a high-score.
7. If in a two-player game, keyboard score entry is disabled; use your controls instead.
New game modes:
Shuffle - Starting each level will show "Level: ???" instead of the level number - and the difficulty and size of the map will be random. Beware, this one can get MANIC.
Survival - You start with one life, and cannot gain any more no matter how many fruits you eat. See how long you can last!
Those of you that want to donate via paypal to the original author can use nyarlulabs@gmail.com on paypal.
Please don't hesitate to do three things:
1. Donate.
2. Send feedback about Pandora issues to me here
3. Send feedback and unadulterated praise to Nyarla, and buy his games.
Enjoy!
D.
milkshake
Advanced Member
did you read my suggestion about getting nyarla to register on the repo?
ZXDunny
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One more thing - regarding performance:
The original iPhone version (with hardware similar to ours) was running at a lower resolution than the Pandora, so in non-chunky mode, things can get very slow particularly in Shuffle mode. I would recommend that you play in chunky mode with mazes set to maximum unless your Pandora can overclock very high. The mazes in non-chunky mode can get immense, so it's no surprise that things slow down.
I am looking at speeding things up though, so we'll see what happens.
D.
Yes, I did - I'll discuss it with him. If we can get his name on our little repo, that will be another bit of credibility to add to our repertoire - the guy is internationally reknowned and a beloved "friend of yak" as the saying goes
D.
The original iPhone version (with hardware similar to ours) was running at a lower resolution than the Pandora, so in non-chunky mode, things can get very slow particularly in Shuffle mode. I would recommend that you play in chunky mode with mazes set to maximum unless your Pandora can overclock very high. The mazes in non-chunky mode can get immense, so it's no surprise that things slow down.
I am looking at speeding things up though, so we'll see what happens.
D.
Yes, I did - I'll discuss it with him. If we can get his name on our little repo, that will be another bit of credibility to add to our repertoire - the guy is internationally reknowned and a beloved "friend of yak" as the saying goes
D.
milkshake
Advanced Member
cool beans
fusion_power
Advanced Member
Another "8 Bit" Game that needs OC?
Lol, they are everywhere. ^^Would a lower res with scaling up give a speed boost or is a high res without scaling faster? I'm not sure which mode performs better on the Pandora.
ZXDunny
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Another "8 Bit" Game that needs OC?
Would a lower res with scaling up give a speed boost or is a high res without scaling faster? I'm not sure which mode performs better on the Pandora.
To be fair, although this looks 8bit, it's really not
there's a lot of alpha, vertex lighting and suchlike with a *lot* of graphics updated every frame - it would certainly not run very well on a C64 Chunky mode is basically scaling up by a factor of 2 - hence the performance increase. I've skinned down the number of sounds that can play at once as far as I can - each sample is played in a separate thread - until it sounds the same as the PC version. I'll be looking at the GLES code to see if I can optimise further. Because of the nature of the game, the entire maze is redrawn every frame. Maybe some frameskipping code might help? I really don't know. Another option is some code to detect changes to the maze and only draw portions that have changed - but the enemy movement might really scupper that one too.
We shall see!
D.
gruso
thunderbox
Chunky is the better option anyway, in my opinion If you go too high res you lose your retros.
If you go too high res you lose your retros.
sebt3
homebrew player (P. & C.)
Retro is not a "look" it's a "feel" )Chunky is the better option anyway, in my opinion
milkshake
Advanced Member
and this certainly feels retro I love it!
ZXDunny
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Well, the ward is nice and quiet now so I've been giving some thought to our performance problems and I think I've nailed the reason why.
The iPhone 3GS (for which this game was originally developed) ran at 480x320 resolution and had no chunky mode. None-chunky mode on the Pandora is obviously 800x480, which is considerably larger. Running chunky mode on the Pandora means an effective screen resolution of 400x240 - so quite a bit lower than the original game. The PC version runs at your own chosen screen resolution, and this means that non-chunky mode can get insane - but we're running it on multi-GHz CPUs with enormously more powerful GPUs attached!
So somehow I need to get a chunky mode that's closer to the original 480x320 resolution, and a none-chunky mode that displays less tiles than it is currently capable of.
In chunky mode, the score is currently 2x size - I can reduce that to non-chunky scores to save an extra row of tiles that will be available to the game map. This will give us a resolution of 400x256, which is better - but still not enough, as it gives us 375 tiles, compared to the iPhone's 1000 tiles. I can also reduce the maximum map size in non-chunky mode to 30x20 (the maximum screen space available on the iPhone) to get a similar game size, and centre the display. I'm confident that the reduction in tiles (by 500 tiles - at 800x480 with 50x30 tiles, the Pandora can theoretically display 1500 tiles!). Also making the scores chunky in non-chunky mode will reduce available screen space and reduce the effect of the new map size.
I've noticed in the attract mode that as the number of tiles (flowers and walls) displayed increases in non-chunky mode, things slow down. It's the tiles that are sucking up power, folks - and the less we have to display the better.
As it stands, each tile has to not only be drawn, it has to be checked for type and a colour decided upon for the nice glow effect around the player. For 1500 tiles per frame, that's a lot to expect.
I'm discounting the iPad2 version, as the CPU and graphics hardware are over and above what our little Panda is capable of.
Any thoughts, folks? Should I try to make some savings, or is this good enough? I'd really like to at least make chunky mode more like the original map size.
D.
The iPhone 3GS (for which this game was originally developed) ran at 480x320 resolution and had no chunky mode. None-chunky mode on the Pandora is obviously 800x480, which is considerably larger. Running chunky mode on the Pandora means an effective screen resolution of 400x240 - so quite a bit lower than the original game. The PC version runs at your own chosen screen resolution, and this means that non-chunky mode can get insane - but we're running it on multi-GHz CPUs with enormously more powerful GPUs attached!
So somehow I need to get a chunky mode that's closer to the original 480x320 resolution, and a none-chunky mode that displays less tiles than it is currently capable of.
In chunky mode, the score is currently 2x size - I can reduce that to non-chunky scores to save an extra row of tiles that will be available to the game map. This will give us a resolution of 400x256, which is better - but still not enough, as it gives us 375 tiles, compared to the iPhone's 1000 tiles. I can also reduce the maximum map size in non-chunky mode to 30x20 (the maximum screen space available on the iPhone) to get a similar game size, and centre the display. I'm confident that the reduction in tiles (by 500 tiles - at 800x480 with 50x30 tiles, the Pandora can theoretically display 1500 tiles!). Also making the scores chunky in non-chunky mode will reduce available screen space and reduce the effect of the new map size.
I've noticed in the attract mode that as the number of tiles (flowers and walls) displayed increases in non-chunky mode, things slow down. It's the tiles that are sucking up power, folks - and the less we have to display the better.
As it stands, each tile has to not only be drawn, it has to be checked for type and a colour decided upon for the nice glow effect around the player. For 1500 tiles per frame, that's a lot to expect.
I'm discounting the iPad2 version, as the CPU and graphics hardware are over and above what our little Panda is capable of.
Any thoughts, folks? Should I try to make some savings, or is this good enough? I'd really like to at least make chunky mode more like the original map size.
D.
Link
ithic.com
This is a gem. Thank you Dunny. Need to drop a donation to the programmer, much fun. Consider me hooked. Another bomb in the Pandora aresenal!
Hey!
Wow, thanks for the kind comments. Glad you guys are liking the game
And super thanks Dunny for your hard work doing the port. Couldn't believe how fast you got it going...
And and and, thanks for the donations! very much appreciated (though please don't feel obliged to donate. a lot of my favourite games over the years have been freeware, I always wanted to make some myself...). They'll be going towards my future game making adventures. Now I see how relatively easy it is, you can expect Pandora ports of anything else I make which would work on it..
Happy to do whatever you guys think is best... though..don't want to step on any toes? I think Dunny's doing a great job, especially the bugfixing and continuing to update stuff and hack it better. He deserves donations too
Yes.. parts of my code aren't very efficient.. I pretty much stopped optimising it when I got it running well enough on my 2G iPod Touch. A lot of the code is a tangled mess which would probably be a hassle to change, but there's surely some way of making it perform better...
Chunky mode doesn't *have* to be 2x scale.. eg you could scale it by weird amounts to make the game area the same size as on iPhone, but scaled to fit the screen. It will most likely look bad though, ugly uneven pixels...
There are some openGL things which may or may not be worth looking into, and which I don't know enough about to be of much help yet.... eg, texture format... using GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP to draw the tiles instead of GL_TRIANGLE... And probably some way to pre-calculate lots of stuff (eg verts of all tile quads) instead of calculating each frame..
It might end up being way more hassle than it's worth.. but then again it's fun to mess around with code
Wow, thanks for the kind comments. Glad you guys are liking the game
And super thanks Dunny for your hard work doing the port. Couldn't believe how fast you got it going...
And and and, thanks for the donations! very much appreciated (though please don't feel obliged to donate. a lot of my favourite games over the years have been freeware, I always wanted to make some myself...). They'll be going towards my future game making adventures. Now I see how relatively easy it is, you can expect Pandora ports of anything else I make which would work on it..
Happy to do whatever you guys think is best... though..don't want to step on any toes? I think Dunny's doing a great job, especially the bugfixing and continuing to update stuff and hack it better. He deserves donations too
Yes.. parts of my code aren't very efficient.. I pretty much stopped optimising it when I got it running well enough on my 2G iPod Touch. A lot of the code is a tangled mess which would probably be a hassle to change, but there's surely some way of making it perform better...
Chunky mode doesn't *have* to be 2x scale.. eg you could scale it by weird amounts to make the game area the same size as on iPhone, but scaled to fit the screen. It will most likely look bad though, ugly uneven pixels...
There are some openGL things which may or may not be worth looking into, and which I don't know enough about to be of much help yet.... eg, texture format... using GL_TRIANGLE_STRIP to draw the tiles instead of GL_TRIANGLE... And probably some way to pre-calculate lots of stuff (eg verts of all tile quads) instead of calculating each frame..
It might end up being way more hassle than it's worth.. but then again it's fun to mess around with code
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