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Discussion about software development for the old-school Gameboys, ranging from the "Gray brick" to Gameboy Color
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#1 2017-01-15 09:23:28

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Thanks to Zal0 and ZGB engine I'm making two games for GB and GBC.

EDIT: I left luna for the moment, and started a Rick Dangerous 2 "port". I'll include it in the downloas later.
see last post for more info.

The first game is a puzzle game, inspired by a MS-DOS game called Fuzzy's world, (I even gave it the same name), in which you move a ball through a maze in a minigolf style.

https://github.com/mills32/GAMEBOY-DEMOS/blob/master/MISC/fuzzy.png?raw=true
Press start on tittle screen, and then move cursor and press A, to "GO" to the demo level.
Left / Right - change direction.
Up / Down - set force (from 0 to 2).
A - hits the ball.

Reach the hole and you'll just return to tittle screen, if "str" counter goes to 0, you'll go back to menu.

UPDATE Download demos (FUZZY, RICK2 & LUNA) here:
ZGB demos (Fuzzy's World, Rick dangerous 2 and Luna)

If you find Rick2 music horrible, sorry sad it was just a test.

The games will run on any Game Boy, and they are still buggy, do not spect too much.

smile

Last edited by Mills (2017-10-07 17:49:08)

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#2 2017-01-15 09:58:14

Zalo
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From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Looks cool
Keep it going!

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#3 2017-01-22 07:37:51

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Development with ZGB is going so well, that I am also going to make a platformer game.


The puzzle-minigolf game has now a functional level and a menu and the platformer game has a nearly functional level with enemies.

Last edited by Mills (2017-03-18 10:36:23)

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#4 2017-01-22 08:13:23

Zalo
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From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

When are you releasing these?

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#5 2017-01-22 10:10:44

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Zalo wrote:

When are you releasing these?

This week I'll release the two demos.

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#6 2017-01-26 15:47:46

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

I released two demos, all info in first post.

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#7 2017-01-26 16:45:50

DonaldHays
Member
From: Seattle
Registered: 2016-08-01
Posts: 36
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

I'm happy to see ZGB quickly being used to make games. The more Game Boy homebrew there is, the merrier!

I like the concept in Fuzzy's World, and would love to see that expanded to a full game. It kind of reminds me a little of Kirby's Tilt n' Tumble, but without the accelerometer. The limited number of moves you can make is a good mechanic given how the game requires each impulse on the ball to be a distinct command. I found myself wishing for more than 16 angles to launch from, though. It may be overly greedy of me, but I really wanted more angular subtlety for getting through narrow passages. Or maybe tough 1-block passages would just be appropriate for later levels when the player is more skilled. Also, you may want to consider visually representing force using the crosshair instead of just numerically in the status bar, like by making the crosshair bigger or moving it further away from the ball as force goes up.

I really love the art in Luna, especially the use of color on GBC. I think its physics could use some work, though. The "solid" portion of the purple grass ends before the visual part does, making it easy to fall off when you're trying to jump right at the end. There's also an odd glitch at the edges of platforms that can make you slide down a few pixels, and then you can run left and right while partially penetrating the platform. If I stand right at the edge of the gray blocks I seem to sink two pixels, and if I jump down to the purple grass at an angle I'll sometimes land inside the grass.

I also encountered an occasional visual glitch with scrolling that resulted in a "corrupt" map tile that would linger until I scrolled it off and back on screen. I saw the same issue once or twice with Super Princess' 2092 Exodus, so I'm pretty sure it's a bug with the engine, so I think I will file an issue on ZGB's GitHub reporting it.

Edit: filed the apparent-ZGB bug here.

Last edited by DonaldHays (2017-01-26 16:53:17)

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#8 2017-01-26 17:39:47

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

DonaldHays wrote:

I'm happy to see ZGB quickly being used to make games. The more Game Boy homebrew there is, the merrier!

I like the concept in Fuzzy's World, and would love to see that expanded to a full game. It kind of reminds me a little of Kirby's Tilt n' Tumble, but without the accelerometer. The limited number of moves you can make is a good mechanic given how the game requires each impulse on the ball to be a distinct command. I found myself wishing for more than 16 angles to launch from, though. It may be overly greedy of me, but I really wanted more angular subtlety for getting through narrow passages. Or maybe tough 1-block passages would just be appropriate for later levels when the player is more skilled. Also, you may want to consider visually representing force using the crosshair instead of just numerically in the status bar, like by making the crosshair bigger or moving it further away from the ball as force goes up.

I really love the art in Luna, especially the use of color on GBC. I think its physics could use some work, though. The "solid" portion of the purple grass ends before the visual part does, making it easy to fall off when you're trying to jump right at the end. There's also an odd glitch at the edges of platforms that can make you slide down a few pixels, and then you can run left and right while partially penetrating the platform. If I stand right at the edge of the gray blocks I seem to sink two pixels, and if I jump down to the purple grass at an angle I'll sometimes land inside the grass.

I also encountered an occasional visual glitch with scrolling that resulted in a "corrupt" map tile that would linger until I scrolled it off and back on screen. I saw the same issue once or twice with Super Princess' 2092 Exodus, so I'm pretty sure it's a bug with the engine, so I think I will file an issue on ZGB's GitHub reporting it.

Edit: filed the apparent-ZGB bug here.

The wrong tiles wen scrolling are caused by the engine i think.

I had to somehow emulate float numbers to do the angles in fuzzys world, and precission is horrible sad. For the moment I made something like this:

Code:

const UINT8 s10[] = {1,0,1,0}; //0.5
const UINT8 s11[] = {1,1,1,0}; //0.75
const UINT8 s12[] = {1,1,1,1}; //1
const UINT8 s13[] = {1,1,1,2}; //1.25
const UINT8 s14[] = {1,2,1,2}; //1.5
const UINT8 s15[] = {2,2,2,1}; //1.75
const UINT8 s16[] = {2,2,2,2}; //2

The ball movement is made taking one of the values of the arrays every frame, i tried to add more angles, and it was horrible, so I'll have to add more than 4 frames to make more angles,  or maybe that horrible precission can be considered part of the gameplay  smile to make it more difficult...

I'll keep working on this, Thanks!

Last edited by Mills (2017-01-26 17:42:25)

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#9 2017-01-26 17:51:38

DonaldHays
Member
From: Seattle
Registered: 2016-08-01
Posts: 36
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Ah, I didn't even think about that precision thing. That's a very good point. So over four frames, you could have 4 rights, 4 rights and 1 up, 2 rights and 2 ups, 1 right and 3 ups, or 4 ups, that sort of thing, right? That makes sense.

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#10 2017-01-27 03:48:34

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Good Job!
I'll give you my feedback during the weekend

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#11 2017-02-05 17:29:55

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

New improvements, now I added two functions to ZGB source, to use the BKG tiles to make non-sprite animations.

To anímate big parts of the bkg, a "map animation" function sets diferent tile numbers, and you get that asteroid and ball animation.
To anímate huge parts of the bkg, a "tile animation" function sets custom data to a particular tile, which is repeated over the map, so that you can get the waterfall effect, or the stars.

https://github.com/mills32/GAMEBOY-DEMOS/blob/master/MISC/1.gif?raw=truehttps://github.com/mills32/GAMEBOY-DEMOS/blob/master/MISC/2.gif?raw=true
https://github.com/mills32/GAMEBOY-DEMOS/blob/master/MISC/3.gif?raw=truehttps://github.com/mills32/GAMEBOY-DEMOS/blob/master/MISC/4.gif?raw=true

I also managed to fit everything in bank 1, (including the gbt player), but the code is very ugly.

Original game boy may suffer a bit, but some Little slow downs do not affect the gameplay at all. smile

Last edited by Mills (2017-03-18 10:49:07)

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#12 2017-02-06 13:40:34

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

It looks really cool

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#13 2017-02-06 13:54:21

svendahlstrand
Member
Registered: 2016-12-07
Posts: 17
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

I look and plays well on my Game Boy Color and Advance SP, nicely done! I think I made it to the end of Luna. smile

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#14 2017-02-08 11:29:59

Tag365
Member
Registered: 2016-06-01
Posts: 41

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

I found a bug in the Luna demo, if you go to the left off the screen at the start, or to the right off the screen at the end, you get stuck and the level doesn't reset. If you jump to the top of the map you get reset. Strange how you get reset at the top, yet falling off in the corners of the map doesn't reset you. The title screen background color is not the same everywhere, the tiles with objects in them have a slightly darker background than the blank ones or ones with only stars, and that is what I noticed. Oh and I experienced the corrupted background tiles in the first game with the engine too.

By the way, how did you get color palettes to work in the background and sprites? I thought the engine didn't support it.

Last edited by Tag365 (2017-02-08 12:25:02)

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#15 2017-02-08 14:15:34

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Tag365 wrote:

I found a bug in the Luna demo, if you go to the left off the screen at the start, or to the right off the screen at the end, you get stuck and the level doesn't reset. If you jump to the top of the map you get reset. Strange how you get reset at the top, yet falling off in the corners of the map doesn't reset you. The title screen background color is not the same everywhere, the tiles with objects in them have a slightly darker background than the blank ones or ones with only stars, and that is what I noticed. Oh and I experienced the corrupted background tiles in the first game with the engine too.

By the way, how did you get color palettes to work in the background and sprites? I thought the engine didn't support it.

I also discovered the reset if you jump at the top, i don't know why..
Oh, Now i realised... I set the game to reset if the position was below the map.. and if you jump at the top, the position wil reset as if you fall.
Also if you jump off screen to the left or right, the sprite will be killed, and the reset functions too.

The engine was made for GB so I added the colors by myself thinking it would not work... It worked, and now i'll look at the palettes because they can be wrong as yo said.

These bugs are solved in the new version I'll post later.

Also the corrupted tiles are a bug in the engine, and they will spawn more frequently if you play in color mode.

There is a big bug in the minigolf game, if you hit the ball very close to a Wall, and very fast, que ball will go inside it and...

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#16 2017-02-08 14:43:04

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Mills wrote:

Tag365 wrote:

Also the corrupted tiles are a bug in the engine, and they will spawn more frequently if you play in color mode

Sorry, I am a bit busy these days... I will try to fix it when I get a little bit of free time

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#17 2017-02-08 15:14:27

Tag365
Member
Registered: 2016-06-01
Posts: 41

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Mills wrote:

Tag365 wrote:

I found a bug in the Luna demo, if you go to the left off the screen at the start, or to the right off the screen at the end, you get stuck and the level doesn't reset. If you jump to the top of the map you get reset. Strange how you get reset at the top, yet falling off in the corners of the map doesn't reset you. The title screen background color is not the same everywhere, the tiles with objects in them have a slightly darker background than the blank ones or ones with only stars, and that is what I noticed. Oh and I experienced the corrupted background tiles in the first game with the engine too.

By the way, how did you get color palettes to work in the background and sprites? I thought the engine didn't support it.

I also discovered the reset if you jump at the top, i don't know why..
Oh, Now i realised... I set the game to reset if the position was below the map.. and if you jump at the top, the position wil reset as if you fall.
Also if you jump off screen to the left or right, the sprite will be killed, and the reset functions too.

The engine was made for GB so I added the colors by myself thinking it would not work... It worked, and now i'll look at the palettes because they can be wrong as yo said.

These bugs are solved in the new version I'll post later.

Also the corrupted tiles are a bug in the engine, and they will spawn more frequently if you play in color mode.

There is a big bug in the minigolf game, if you hit the ball very close to a Wall, and very fast, que ball will go inside it and...

So you fixed the bug where moving too far left or right off the screen makes you not reset if you fall off the bottom of the screen?

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#18 2017-02-08 15:27:11

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

No, that's not a bug. Sprites going offscreen are automatically removed by the engine althought both vertical and horizontal limits can be adjusted depending on the sprite type

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#19 2017-02-08 17:53:54

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Tag365 wrote:

Also the corrupted tiles are a bug in the engine, and they will spawn more frequently if you play in color mode

Zalo wrote:

Sorry, I am a bit busy these days... I will try to fix it when I get a little bit of free time

No problem, I tried to fix it.. I am not a very skilled programer and I messed the code smile. So I went back to your original smile.


Tag365 wrote:

So you fixed the bug where moving too far left or right off the screen makes you not reset if you fall off the bottom of the screen?

That was not a bug, It was my fault, I added a reset in the destroy sprite function and that's solved

Tag365 You noticed the difference in the menu palette, between R:1 G:2 B:13 and R:1 G:1 B:13. I didn't see it until i clicked on the color values smile.


So I Updated the games, Now They have BKG animations (The menu in fuzzy's and the waterfalls in Luna).

Fuzzy's has some more bugs, probably my fault, for example, the pointer won't show when re entering first level until you hit the ball once, or the credits menu will not allways work.

Luna has some music and effects, and now you have to colect 6 "hidden gems" to complete the level, and waterfalls are not solid.
Because i added a reset level when the player is destroyed, you won't return to menú even if you find the 6 gems.. so, another bug lol..

Link is the same at first post.

Last edited by Mills (2017-02-08 18:04:20)

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#20 2017-02-08 21:30:33

Tag365
Member
Registered: 2016-06-01
Posts: 41

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

I thought you didn't find the bug with Fuzzy's World where if you redo the level the cursor doesn't appear until you do a stroke. But you should know that the floors in Luna are still bugged as the position on the platform where you land is inconsistent. Sometimes you land on top of the tiles, other times you land slightly embedded into the platform. I also found a waterfall which seems to emit water from the sky and runoff clouds both close to each other in Luna. Might want to fix those if possible.

Last edited by Tag365 (2017-02-08 21:56:03)

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#21 2017-02-09 03:27:30

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Tag365 wrote:

I also found a waterfall which seems to emit water from the sky

That waterfall is not supossed to be seen lol.

The engine did not include the "semisolid" platform thing, (the purple grass) so i programed it... not too well, i'll try to improve it.

EDIT: I just noticed the engine has a specific collision detection when going down, so i'll use it smile

Last edited by Mills (2017-02-09 04:01:25)

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#22 2017-02-09 04:08:46

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Mills wrote:

EDIT: I just noticed the engine has a specific collision detection when going down, so i'll use it smile

smile I was just gonna say that

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#23 2017-02-09 04:20:35

Zalo
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2016-07-26
Posts: 103
Website

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Also, Mills, you should use the function TranslateSprite to control collsions with platforms. This function tries to translate the sprite but it manages collisions automatically (it returns the tile index of the collision tile if any). So you should start falling when there isn't any collsion while falling. Just saying this because on the edge of your platforms sometimes it's hard to get the jump right

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#24 2017-02-09 12:04:54

Mills
Member
Registered: 2012-12-21
Posts: 132

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Zalo wrote:

Also, Mills, you should use the function TranslateSprite to control collsions with platforms. This function tries to translate the sprite but it manages collisions automatically (it returns the tile index of the collision tile if any). So you should start falling when there isn't any collsion while falling. Just saying this because on the edge of your platforms sometimes it's hard to get the jump right

Solved!.

Now Luna uses the collision_down detection, so you can jump from the edge of the platforms, and the frame skipping function made the slowdowns in Game Boy  less noticeable smile.
I also added reset tiles at the edges of the map, so the GetScrollTile function will detect the edges, and reset the level.

If you get the 6 gems, and reach the end, it will go back to menú... Now I guess i should add a global variable, to tell the player what's the next level, because i put all code inside the update player function.

I have to fix the ball entering the walls in fuzzy's, it happens more on GB because it sometimes does not have enough time to update the position in the 4 MHz cpu mode.

Last edited by Mills (2017-02-09 12:14:31)

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#25 2017-02-09 18:56:29

Tag365
Member
Registered: 2016-06-01
Posts: 41

Re: New Puzzle game for GB/GBC

Well, you have done something very wrong in the jumping logic. Jumping from the first time platform you land causes you to go down and cause map corruption while you are at it. Also, the leftmost tile on the window being shown is a different color than the rest of the window. Go test your game before updating it, so obvious bugs like this can be fixed before you upload the game.

Last edited by Tag365 (2017-02-09 18:59:58)

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