Gameboy Development Forum

@Imanlolea: Thanks once more for sharing your insights in the blog post.

Just one question:

In his blog entry, Imanolea wrote:

In addition to the shifts there are also times when we have to reload the graphics of the backgrounds. The most obvious (and costly) of these reloads is the update of the window once the selection shift ends and all the icons alter their order.

The solution is to have a strict control of the VBlank interruption, and to optimize the graphic reprint.

What do you do to "control the VBlank interruption"? You probably call the routine shown in your blog entry when the VBlank period begins but it doesn't seem to do anything to check how long the VBlank period lasts. So, did you precalculate how many tiles you can copy to the screen during the VBlank period or is there anything you do at runtime to check when the screen starts to redraw?

Last edited by Jonas (2017-10-09 07:47:04)

Thanks, I understand.

In my current project, I simply used the trial and error method to find out how much time I have in the VBlank period.  I reduced the amount of data copied to VRAM until I didn't see any glitched tiles on the screen. However, my impression is that the emulator (BGB) is not 100% accurate in this regard. When my code worked glitchless on BGB, it still showed damaged tiles on the real hardware every now and then. These vanished when I optimized the code a bit to save some time...

Thank you very much drludos.

There is a release date for a demo published on the Light Games website: https://lightgamesgb.com/portfolio/last … warriors/. A first version will probably be released on november 29. I will be very dedicated to the game until then.

I confirm that this November 29 will be published a demo of the game.

I also share with you this tweet, with the spawn system ready and an arrow that points to the base to conquer.

https://twitter.com/lightgamesgb/status … 9178672135

Greetings. I will be working hard on the game this month.

There is still content to be implemented and the mechanics of the game have to be refined, but I have posted the DEMO to collect feedback. I hope you like it.

https://twitter.com/lightgamesgb/status … 5538895872

Awesome demo! It had me interested ever since I saw a few screenshots and it was worth the wait! Played it on emulator first and then gave it another go on my GBA SP.
Combat feels great and gives good visible and audible feedback when you get hit or hit one of the poor mushrooms (that's something you probably normally don't notice unless you play something like Final Fantasy Adventure...which I did recently.... where the feedback is sometimes a bit misleading or even missing in contrast to for example Link's Awakening).
On the other hand, I was and still am a bit confused about what it takes to capture a base, I just mow down quickly as many mushrooms as possible and once captured, repeat the procedure with the next base.
I mostly played with Boney, since I think his bomb throw is the most useful (one hit KO yay!), but Tim's boomerang is OK too. I don't really know what Lilian's special does, it does't seem to inflict any damage..? However, I still mostly used the normal slash attack, so in the end the choice of the character wasn't that important. (Then again I always got the B rank, so maybe I'm doing something wrong here...I always had to recapture one of the bases)
Anyway, it would be nice if the different characters would have different normal attacks in the full version (and/or some other quirks to differentiate them further). It would also be cool if you could chain the rolling or dashing to a more powerful attack, I mostly used them to travel between bases.
A little nitpick on the controls: Double tapping to dash worked flawlessly on my GBA SP but didn't respond that nicely on my keyboard/emulator (had to hammer it a bit). I also tested it with my CGB, where I had the same problems as on emulator.
I really look forward to playing the full version! Also, the graphics and animations are so adorable!

On a side note, thank you for your blog posts they're always interesting to read!

Great work! It's almost flawless and there isn't much to criticize in my opinion. So, only because you explicitly asked for feedback in your tweet:

I noticed that sometimes the enemies spawn very close to the player's position which might seem a bit unfair. However, in most other situations they don't pose much of a threat.

Also, I didn't really understand what exactly I have to do to conquer a flag and under what circumstances the computer conquers it back. Obviously, I have to kill enemies to conquer a flag, and obviously I'm supposed to conquer all at the same time, but the exact conditions remain somewhat unclear...

Hey, I'm a bit late to the party, but I tested the demo, and WOAW!

I'm really impressed by the game, it really looks professional. Count me in when you release a cartridge, because it's most beautiful and polished GB homebrew I've seen lately .

The game is very fun to play too, and I like the attention to details (slowdown when dies, dust particules when running, etc.). Gameplay-wise, like @CloudZzz I think it could be fun to have a "dashing" attack: when pressing A when running, the hero raise his or her weapon in front of him/her and cut through the enemies, that would be very cool. The special attack are maybe a bit long to load (a few milliseconds less would be better for me), but that's very subjective (and I'm the kind of player who enjoy smahsing buttons mindlessly when playing beat'em ups games).

The art is just perfect, I'm really amazed by how detailed they are, and yet the game is 100% all the time.

By-the-way, I did encounter a slight graphic glitch, where a 8x16 sprite of the hero (using time) was remaining onscreen (it scrolled though, so it may have been just displayed on the BKG). When I scrolled it away and got back, it was normal grass / tree again. I don't know what I did to trigger this, but I was smashing A button and fighting evil mushrooms! (bug happened on BGB, not on real hardware).

Any ETA on the full game release, now that the demo is out?

Good luck with the project!

Thank you very much lee for the incredibly valuable feedback. I appreciate your dedication.

The technical bugs that you are reporting should be solved for the update of the demo in which I am working. Wich will have a boss in the forest and some adjustments and improvements. I only have a question about one of them:
You are saying that the player sprite showing underneath all other sprites should be easy to fix. What do you mean exactly? The sprites of the hero are already in the lowest address of the OAM RAM, but unfortunately that does not ensure that they are drawn above in all cases.

Then there are design errors that you also reported. And on which I will think about.
- The hero should be in fact invincible when rolling, but I think that is no well expressed. I'll think about adding a flickering for the update, so it's better understood.
- Tim's boomerang only paralyzes the enemies.
- Lilian's special weapon causes the enemies to walk towards the flower. To have them grouped together and make them easier to kill.
- You have made me see that interactible elements should interact with the visible area of the player, not with the collidable area.
If you have any opinion about these latest mistakes, go ahead. It is important to know how the player understands the ideas that I intend to express.

In any case thank you again, I take note.

Last edited by Imanolea (2017-12-29 12:28:28)

@Imanolea: I just saw your very helpful post on collision detection on Imanolea's Games. Thanks a lot for all your work and for sharing your insights regarding that topic, it is very much appreciated!

Last edited by Jonas (2017-12-30 19:34:59)

Thanks for sharing this! I just played it and it looks great.

I didn't see any glitches and there is hardly anything to criticize in the game, so I only have a few minor issues:

- In the main menu, I'd expect to be able to move the cursor with the arrow keys and access a menu item with A.
- It's also a bit strange that pressing any key during the tutorial sends you back to the main menu. In my first attempts, I thought that I was supposed to imitate the button presses displayed on the screen before I realized that the tutorial is simply a cutscene.
- The boss encounter should start with some kind of music or sound effect, the silence at the beginning comes somewhat unexpected. I could also use a health refill for the boss but maybe that's just because I'm not good enough...

Oh my god, this game gets better and better with every new release!

I'm really impressed by the work you made, as usual.

The game is still very fun to play, and the music is awesome.
The boss is very cool, and quite challenging as Jonas said.
It's a great addition as it adds variety to the gameplay.

No big issues regarding the game, it's fun and quite polished, so I'll have only minor remarks:
- I still find a bit difficult to track the "state" of the three bases. For example, when you want to go to another base, it could be useful to know which one has the lowest flag. On other time, you may also arrive to late to save the base, and you'll have to reconquer it. So maybe you should make the white arrows blink or change "color" when a base is near being taken back by the enemies? Or maybe simply change the size of the arrows when the base get more and more in the hand of the enemies?
- Regarding balancing, I think that the knight is less powerful than the previous beta, isn't he?
Because it feels like forever now to kill baddies, especially compared to playing with the girl.
- Regarding the girl, what is the "flower launch" attack supposed to do?

Anyway, good luck with the project!
Do you have any targeted release date yet?