Thruster For Gp2x

[DaveC]

Yeah by "faster" I was refering to the framerate not speed really.

Another cool idea would be to have the background slowly scroll up as you go higher. It would give a cool 3D parallax effect. You would have to change to a tile based background though(tiles being like 64 x64 or something like that). After scrolling up the 64 lines the tiles would just repeat giving an infinite scroll effect.

Is there a way the background could be a full 320 x 240 and not enlarged 2X? It looks a bit pixelly like that but not sure if that is needed for the engine to work.

 

[Vilmos]

The reason the background is doubled had to do with the particle size on the Zodiac. 1 pixel isn't large enough to be usable for a pixel, I had 2K going on the Zodiac and you could barely see them. So because of the hardware scaling everything was doubled which made the game much more enjoyable.

Now that it is being ported to other platforms the engine requires the pixel doubling. I'm not sure how visible 1 pixel particles would be on the GP2X. I suspect they would also be almost invisible. At this point the game gets a tremendous speed improvement from working in half-res though. I'm not sure if SDL would be able to handle all the particle effects and drawing that is going on if it was full-res all the time.

The core engine is done however, so consider it a limitation of the game. I'm happy to keep working to finish Thruster but redoing the engine would be too much work. I'd likely quit before it was done.

Thruster in its current state was three months of evening and weekend programming. It has about 80% of the original feature list too. I'll probably be able to spend another month to polish, but then I want to start on a new project. Now that I've done a port for GP2X and know a little more about the platform I'll keep the specs in mind when planning.

 

[slaanesh]

Also the levels fill up more slowly as I forgot to reduce the amount or the smaller screen resolution.

I have found that the levels fill up more quickly on the GP2X.

For example in Adrenaline mode, I can zoom up unobstructed a fair bit more than on the GP2X version. Is this something to do with the respective resolutions of each system?

 

[Vilmos]

Also the levels fill up more slowly as I forgot to reduce the amount or the smaller screen resolution.

I have found that the levels fill up more quickly on the GP2X.

For example in Adrenaline mode, I can zoom up unobstructed a fair bit more than on the GP2X version. Is this something to do with the respective resolutions of each system?

Currently yes, the quote was talking about fixes to the (as yet) unreleased update. I forgot to reduce the number of blocks for the lower resolution.

 

[slaanesh]

Maybe it can be left in as a really hard level of difficulty?


EDIT:
And if you want more speed, try adding built-in optimized RAM Timings as well. That can add a fair whack as well.

 

[DaveC]

Now that it is being ported to other platforms the engine requires the pixel doubling. I'm not sure how visible 1 pixel particles would be on the GP2X. I suspect they would also be almost invisible. At this point the game gets a tremendous speed improvement from working in half-res though. I'm not sure if SDL would be able to handle all the particle effects and drawing that is going on if it was full-res all the time.

The core engine is done however, so consider it a limitation of the game. I'm happy to keep working to finish Thruster but redoing the engine would be too much work. I'd likely quit before it was done.

Ok I thought it was something like that. I like how the ship is full res. It kind of "tricks" you into thinking the rest of the game is full res.

How about the slowly vertically scrolling background using tiles? Would that be alot of change too? I guess it would, but just wondering.

I also played with spout a bit. What I suspected was true. The thrust moves the ship alot quicker on Thruster than Spout. This makes it more difficult. On spout I could blast the blocks more without flying off into something. Maybe a mode like that could be added?

Anyway thanks again for the great game.

 

[slaanesh]

I guess players of Spout can't help comparing it with Thruster. I am one one of those old-time players, but I've had a change of view.
I think that Thruster is it's own game and trying to turn it back into Spout is a bit redundant.

I'd initially made some suggestions about Thruster to Vilmos about why other aspects of the game weren't more Spout-like (such as Gravity) but I actually quite like Thruster the way it is.

After all, if we want to play a Spout-like game, why not just play Spout?

As for parallax scrolling, if someone could design a background that joined itself vertically so all you'd need to do would be to redraw the bitmap from a different starting line and wrap it around to give the impression of another scrolling layer. This would be easy to program I'd imagine; the effort would of course be in the artwork.

 

[DaveC]

I guess players of Spout can't help comparing it with Thruster. I am one one of those old-time players, but I've had a change of view.
I think that Thruster is it's own game and trying to turn it back into Spout is a bit redundant.

I'd initially made some suggestions about Thruster to Vilmos about why other aspects of the game weren't more Spout-like (such as Gravity) but I actually quite like Thruster the way it is.

After all, if we want to play a Spout-like game, why not just play Spout?

As for parallax scrolling, if someone could design a background that joined itself vertically so all you'd need to do would be to redraw the bitmap from a different starting line and wrap it around to give the impression of another scrolling layer. This would be easy to program I'd imagine; the effort would of course be in the artwork.

Well The game is very similar to spout. The only issue I had was the acceleration makes it a bit harder. I have a d-pad too, it would be alot harder still with the larger deadzone of the stick. Why not just play Spout? Cause this is better with color and sound etc If it stays the way it is it will still be a great game.

For the background parallax It would be in the form of tiles (like a tile floor). Since it is just a repetitive pattern it would only need to scroll the height of 1 tile and then it would just repeat. You could have different tile sets.

 

[DisgruntleElf]

Well The game is very similar to spout. The only issue I had was the acceleration makes it a bit harder. I have a d-pad too, it would be alot harder still with the larger deadzone of the stick. Why not just play Spout? Cause this is better with color and sound etc If it stays the way it is it will still be a great game.

One suggestion would be to have a selection of ships with different characteristics. Example: One ship with a lower gravity/mass, faster acceleration, and a drift but a farther range of ship exhaust. Another ship with a higher gravity/mass, slower acceleration, tighter turns but a much shorter range of ship exhaust. This would add some strategy and still keep a high level of difficutly.

 

[MrHillBilly]

That is a great game. I want to know what you feed that ship, it will burn a hole in anything.

 

[Vilmos]

Well even with extensive tweaking Thruster will never play exactly like Spout as the whole program is different. The only similar part is the algorithm for the particles - they both use a linked list for speed.

I'll add a bunch of the variables to the replay file so that it will work with custom variables. That means current replays and hiscores won't work on the new system though.

New ships is a good idea. Fairly easy to do too...I'll have a think about that. You are going to make me add more menu options...

Ok and now a request! I need an image of the GP2X to put in the controls menu option so that it will actually work. Something simple to fit in there where I can highlight the controls.

 

[DaveC]

Ok and now a request! I need an image of the GP2X to put in the controls menu option so that it will actually work. Something simple to fit in there where I can highlight the controls.

I can give one later (at work now) if no one else does.

 

[Alex.]

This is a great game Vilmos, it feels very fulfilling and intense. The colourful graphics are great, although the pixelated backgrounds come a bit too strong in places, perhaps if you drew the ship with 2px lines they wouldn't stand out anymore.

Overall very fun to play, the fact that it has more particles in play than Spout definitely makes a difference

Out of curiosity, how big (if any) was the performance hit from the Zodiac to the GP2X?

- Alex

 

[Vilmos]

This is a great game Vilmos, it feels very fulfilling and intense. The colourful graphics are great, although the pixelated backgrounds come a bit too strong in places, perhaps if you drew the ship with 2px lines they wouldn't stand out anymore.

Overall very fun to play, the fact that it has more particles in play than Spout definitely makes a difference

Out of curiosity, how big (if any) was the performance hit from the Zodiac to the GP2X?

- Alex

Thanks! The background probably shows more pixelated here because I took the 320x240 images from Mentis and just shrunk them in Paint Shop. I'm sure they could look better.

Because this game was made for the Zodiac the performance hit was huge. On the Zodiac I had to limit the framerate to 40 or the game was just too fast to be playable. It can run between 60-80 while playing mp3 background music.

On the GP2X I ported the engine to SDL which overall is very good, but is definitely slower without the 2D graphics acceleration. Currently my updated version which is unreleased yet runs full speed with music off, but lags with some music playback. SDL_mixer seems to have some difficulties with MOD playback, although mp3 and ogg are fast enough. The Zodiac hooked directly into mikmod and libmad through a library I put together.

GP2X is faster in general, but it can't compete against instant blitting and rectangle functions, not to mention there is an API to draw coloured points (particles) and scale the screen all done so fast I can't time it. That's why emulators run faster on the GP2X as the graphics card can't do much to help. The Zodiac is also very slow if you try to directly access the frame buffer.

 

[Alex.]

The current SDL_mixer does have issues with .mod playback of larger files. See this post by Notaz for where to get a working binary of libmikmod.

On a side note, I had no idea that the Zodiac has such great graphics acceleration. With such a solid device, something's clearly not right about Tapwave's disappearance...

- Alex

 

[Goemon4]

yes there is, the zodiac's joystick went after a while, which made it un-usable, also bad advertisment killed it (sadly) cause 1 or 2 adds in magazines didnt do it well... i mean it won tons of awards but w/o public attention hardly anyone knew about it... the Zodiac was an excellent handheld, it was just pushed aside... it was kinda the dreamcast of handhelds when you think about it, it came out, it was great, then sony came and screwed it over <_<

 

[classicgmr]

I like this game and it is turning into a VERY welcome addition to my SD card! Thank you.

 

[DaveC]

This is a great game Vilmos, it feels very fulfilling and intense. The colourful graphics are great, although the pixelated backgrounds come a bit too strong in places, perhaps if you drew the ship with 2px lines they wouldn't stand out anymore.

- Alex

NO don't low res the ship. That was the one thing that makes you almost believe it is running at the native res, and looks better. The more that can be higher res the better.

 

[Vilmos]

Heheh the interesting thing about the comments is that for each suggestion there seems to be someone else with the opposite suggestion. :lol:

I don't mind adding some features -- there have been some excellent suggestions here, but in the end I'm making a game that feels fun and looks polished. I'm aiming for a professional quality arcade game.

I also should have an update soon. I'm just not sure if I should update often or wait until I finish all the outstanding items. I tend to be impatient so I doubt I can easily wait.

 

[WhizzBang]

I've only just got around to giving this a go, so I am a bit late here, but great work Vilmos, this is a good'n