GP2X Sokoban Gp2x

[joyrider]

Hi everyone,

i'm working on a sokoban game engine, the puzzle game where u have to move boxes to the right spots now i already implemented the basics of the level editor and the gameplay itself and it works nicely (look at the movie in my signature). Anyway i need some input from u guys now i've come to a point where i don't know how it would be the best to implement stuff.

The game could use level packs, and level packs can be created by you guys as well, i'm already going to include the gamboy's boxxle 1 & 2 levels which makes it about 250 levels in total !!!! anyway what would be the best way of dealing with the levels :

1) Having all levels from a level pack unlocked and the user can select any level he likes to play from any level pack: the advantage of this that you can skip levels if u just can't seem to find the solution for them.

2) The levels aren't unlocked by default and you'll need to finish each level to advance to the next level in the level pack, progress wil be saved so u can play previous unlocked levels again and start on the last level you we're playing. The advantage of this is that it adds perhaps more fun since u'll need to actually beat the game in order to get new levels from the level pack but the problem is that if u just can't find the solution to the level u'd be stuck on it till u find it.

which method would you guys prefer ?

another thing the game will have a level editor and it's a bit more work before it's ready to use but i thought it would be cool if there were level packs created by the community as well so would anyone like to create a level pack before the game is released so that it can be included when the game is released. Or if u know other sokoban / boxxle clones perhaps someone could create a level pack from those.
i can supply a version once it's a bit more shaped up for creating level packs anyone intrested in that ?

 

[5465756e]

I would definitely go for the 2nd option. Nothing can beat finishing a level after days of happy frustration

I look forward to the release!

 

[Draken]

Same, vote for the second option, much more of a challenge.
Every console needs a sokoban like game, and this one looks quite clean and fast judging from the movie, especially with the level editor on the gp2x itself.

Good work

 

[Cazed]

which method would you guys prefer ?

I would prefer secret option #3: Unlock levels by three or four.
When you start you have three (or four) levels to choose from, when you have completed them you unlock three (or four) more levels that you have to complete before you get...and so on.

If you get stuck on one level you can always try another until you get inspiration =)

 

[rokdcasbah]

some level packs as text here:
http://members.aol.com/SokobanMac/levels/nabokosmosText.html

i love sokoban!

edit: i should have looked at the referring page, there's tons more here: http://members.aol.com/sokobanmac/levels.html

 

[___]

Cool! I loved to play Sokoban on my 286 back in the days... I have been hoping for a port of this quite a long time. Has anybody ever looked into rocks&diamond since? I have posted a thread about this and it contains a sokoban mode, too... of course a dedicated sokoban game will be a lot cooler I guess.

 

[hitbyambulance]

an integrated editor would be excellent.

 

[NoidZ]

#Option 2, otherwise most people just skip levels to often, then the game gets boring.

You should add a time attack for each level, so you have that gold, silver, bronze or failed type of game. That makes beating game 100% much harder but it would also have a higher replay value.

Don't know if you're capable of doing that without to much hassle, but it would be great if you did!

 

[___]

Something which would be really cool would also be having an option to change the "theme" and the tiles of the game. Cause then I would create a retro theme pack with the title screen and the tiles of the old CGA graphics version ... BTW: What do the tiles look like that you are using?

 

[joyrider]

Something which would be really cool would also be having an option to change the "theme" and the tiles of the game. Cause then I would create a retro theme pack with the title screen and the tiles of the old CGA graphics version ... BTW: What do the tiles look like that you are using?

currently i'm using modified gameboy sprites, the tiles are 16x16 so that the playfield can be 20x15 (it fits the whole screen)
images are a bit blurred below but it's more or less what i currently use

i'll try and see if it's possible to use diffrent graphics with each level pack but i don't think it's going to be easy to implement with the way i'm doing things now but i'll look into it

i didn't implement a "floor" but it might be that i add that as well will have to test it doh to see what the impact is on the framerate, now it can have 20x15x2 tiles drawn at once with a floor it'll be 20x15x3 tiles of course there'll never be so many tiles in a level but it's the maximum.

the leveleditor is pretty much done. U can create level packs with it and it will automaticly create the levels in order like level1.lev level2.lev level3.lev and so on. Each pack will have it's own directory in the levelpacks directory so u can just create levels and afterwards u just need to zip the directory of ure level pack and release it, the game will automaticly find it (at start up) if your levelpack directory is placed in the levelpacks directory . u can also delete levels in this way if u got level1.lev level2.lev level3.lev level4.lev and u want level2.lev erased it will delete level2.lev and rename level3.lev to level2.lev, level4.lev to level3.lev and so on. so it's better to only use the level editor for deletions and not delete it directly from outside the game since then the other levels won't be renamed and won't be recognised by the game anymore.

I also included a "level Selector" basicly it works like this In level editor mode the first screen will be for creating a new level,all following screens will be the levels so u just select a level and edit it. (L+R increases selected level with 5, left right with 1). The "level selector" will also be used for in game mode, but then u just won't see the create new level screen. instead it will show all Levels and u can choose wich level to play BUT they have to be unlocked before u can actually play it. i don't know yet how i'll do the unlocking do the easiest thing would be to just unlock one level at a time or i could unlock between 1-3 levels. but then u could just skip some levels and go on with the last unlocked level so it's a bit of cheating.

Oh yeah in the level editor u'll be able to test ure level directly no need to go back to the main menu load up ure levelpack and unlock all the levels first.

i'll keep editing this post with same related info of what's going on (instead of just posting a new comment everytime) so u can follow what's going on and what the current status is

so what i need to do now is :
- create a main menu
- finish the playing aspect (rules are already done but i don't look yet to see if u won the stage etc)
- unlocking mechanism
- perhaps some music & sounds
- Add Floors ?
this is done, The game can now have 20x15x3 tiles drawn and for the biggest possible level (on each possible location a floor+spot+box on it) i still get about 40 fps, just what i was aiming for. But this level is just to benchmark when really used the levels will never be like this one it would use around half the amount of the tiles so it would be faster but i capped the framerate at 40 fps anyway. It's implemented in the level editors erase function as well
- look into a way for custom graphics that come with each level pack
This is done and working and i pretty proud of this function so u can now include your own graphics with ure self made levelpack. IT will look for the graphics in the levelpack directory if it can't find the graphics in the Level Pack it will use the standard graphics that come with the game. Also if u like u can only change some parts of the graphics like for example only the background or the floors or whatever u might like to change
- look into another way of loading / saving the levels
this is done, seems my level loading was just fine it was the way i used the graphics i had each object have it's own graphic so if i had 10 boxes it would be loaded 10 times and used 10 times the memory of the picture etc. That was just plain stupid. So instead i just loaded the graphic once and used pointers to it. the result is the following comming from +-6 Seconds to load the biggest level possible to 0.050 seconds, hehe it was a stupid move from me when i started the project to have each object have it's own graphic,but it's fixed now.

 

[joyrider]

I've put up a development blog where i will post the progress on the game, it's a bit easier to maintain then just keep on editing the above post. Progress is comming alone nicely the leveleditor is finished now and floors are added. the request for having graphics of ure own is done also, you can just put new graphics in a level pack directory and the game will use those graphics instead of the default ones. It's pretty cool.
The Main Menu is done as well i choose to use simple text menu but don't fear u can create your own background for it and you can even specify the text,menubackground and menuborder color! I made another movie that shows of the usage. of customn graphics u can see it here if you guys prefer screenshots instead of a movie let me know i'll see that i can upload some screenshots then
http://www.willemssoft.be/misc/sokobangp2x.wmv (7.5 mb)
oh yeah you can find the blog with progress updates here : http://development.willemssoft.be