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GT Turbo

Dazed !! New Game By Fadest

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GT Turbo    5

During a previous discussion on Jaguar programming, we made a deal with SebRmv.

Once I get an accurate Jag development kit running, I will try to make a Jaguar game...

 

Last week, as it becamed obvious we will meet during the AC2008 show in France, we defined the following rules.

He had to instal on my laptop his cross compiler, the remover slibrary, give me some advices during coding, and I had to make a game engine during the week-end.

 

This post is a transcript of how the things have gone during the WE.

 

Start of the operations : saturday noon

 

As I wanted to have a Linux on my laptop, and as Seb is more aware of Linux things rather than windows, he choosed to install a XUbuntu, then to create the cross compiler, install the libraries...

Ok, first big point, I had a Mandrake on this laptop but it was wrashed. We wanted to use the partitions, so we add to recover the partition table .Thanks to pmdata who managed this with succes and gave me some fears...

During the afternoon (we had some presentation to do for the show for Y, so we were not full time on the installation), everything is OK, Seb tried to compile one of his example and it worked, the big part of the deal has to begin.

Second point, imagine this, there is no usable texte editor on Xubuntu, OK, there is vim, but 15 years after, I forgot everything about vi commands.

And nano is not really useful too, so we had to run Abiword, yest a word processor to write code... Amazing !!!

finally, we manage to find a terminal version of Emacs on a slackware distribution...

 

I had a pretty acurate idea of what I wanted to do, selected the needed graphics from the freeware "Yastuna2 Graphic Pack".

A king of game you can find easily on XBLA, Palm, or PC. 2 players in coimpetition. Some special features in order top make it my own concept, and not a clone.

 

First, some theory on Jag coding, as I was not aware of how a Jag works, how to code it, how to use the Removers library.

Yes, this was a kind of crash test for his libraires...

 

Jag programming for beginners challenge just begin

 

 

We quickly got the first screen diplay on screen (background + sprites). Great...

Let start to code the basis of gameplay.

 

As this point, I must admit something, I began to write the skeleton of the game on my own, and then, Seb came and helped me to include display...

OK, we must declare all sprites at the beginning, if we add one, we declare it, add it to the layout..

 

Hey, just a moment, I have a procedure called Affichage() (it means display for english readers), called in the loop.

But, we do nothing in this. Yes, it means you declare your sprites at the beginning, manage them, add some or remove others. But you do not have to manage physical or logical screen, display or something. No, you just have nothing to do once it is initialized...

 

Jag coding is so easy. Impressive !!!

 

So, ce have a screen, some sprites are moving when they need to move...

Then came GT and his special jokes "Hey, you are writing games aven quicker that I write bugs"

 

Of course, this was the beginning of the knightmare, then we got some tricky unexpected results, also called bugs. Thanks you GT :D

During the night, when Seb has to left the show, there was still some tricky bugs. I will have to find them on my own during sunday.

After a short night, and some replexion, I think I have the solution... It seems to work, well, I thought it work.

So came Kuk... Kuk is a nice guy, he helped me a lot on Yastuna 1, but we can call him black cat. Give him a Falcon, the harddisk will crash or burn. Show him a game in development, there will be some bugs or freeze in game.

I took the pad, explained the concept, and... imagine what happened... the bugs were still here. Thanks you Kuk :D

 

They appeared randomly, after some minutes of playing, there are still some bugs coming from time to time without a single idea of what, how, and why...

 

We made some tests with Orion_ and GT, in order to discover a logical reason, bu it didn't seem at this time that there was something logical behind this.

 

I had 2 option, the spirit one, put Kuk into a closed room, the practical one, search for the what, how and why.

I choosed to do the both...

 

Sunday noon, it's better, I know what happens, but the how and why still miss.

During testing, I finally managed to reproduced the bug whan I want, I got the how, so the why can now be corrected.

The game is ready, it's time to begin final testing.

 

Less than 24h have been necessary to do it...

I like to take risk, we delivered the poor Kuk and I asked him and Gatzee to test the game on their own. It was the first time I let someone with the game without looking the screen. In France, we call this "le moment de vérité.

Then Iceman and SCPCD took a pad and play.

It seems the result is quite positive. Yes, no nasty bug occured during kuk playing time. Can the game be call prooftested ?

 

Of course, the game is not polished, there is no music or sound right now.

It needs more effects, all the extras (menus, ...), probably some rework on graphisms...

But it appears that the concept is not so bad.

 

And we met the target.

Yes, as a Jaguar coder beginner, I have been able to write a game during the week-end.

Thanks to the Removers library, Jaguar programming has probably never been so easy. SebRmv and Stabylo really did an awesome work with these libraries.

Thanks to the members of the Jagware team, who gave me advices, support, and also had to listen my complaints. and jokes about how amazingly easy it was to program the Jaguar. But hey, this is true ;)

 

And also, I would like to thanks those who gave me the motivation to do this challenge, I hope they will appreciate the result

 

 

 

How to play :

 

Here we go...

 

"Dazed vs" is here :

http://fadest.free.fr/DevJag/Dazed.bin

 

How to play :

First, you need 2 jagpad and a friend. This is a convention game, so it must be multiplayer ;)

Transfert the game to your Jag.

On title screen, remove the BJL cable, and plug the second jagpad.

Then press C button on jagpad 1 to begin game.

 

On main game, you will see 2 grids fillen with sprites and a 2x2 sprite structure at the bottom for each player.

The goal is to make alignment (horizontal or vertical) of 3 or more identical sprites.

You can move your cursor (red square) with D pad.

While pressing C buton and movind D pad, you will swap the 2 sprites. If you create on or more alignment, they disappear.

This is gameplay for the main grid.

 

The 2x2 structure are the incoming sprite into your grid, after a short time, they will push the sprites in front of them.

If this should let you go outside the screen, then you lose.

You can control this structre with A and B button.

A button make it rotate (not slide, rotate) to the right.

B button, the same to the left.

You can send structure by pressing the jagpad 3 button.

 

Lucky pro controller owner have the following options :

Right and left triggers do the same than A and B button, but is more intuitive.

X, Y or Z do the same than 3 option, but is more practical.

 

I just loaded the game into Project Tempest and it seems to work, so even if you do not have a Jag BJL, you can have a look on it.

 

Enjoy, and if you have any remark or suggestions, feel free to ask.

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Fadest    0

Thanks you GT for the headline on Jagware.

Of course, I wrote the text above at first person and GT just put it, but this is me speaking ;)

 

This was really a pleasure to do this, and all the Jagware members who were present have been really helpful. Thanks you very much, guys !

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GT Turbo    5
Thanks you GT for the headline on Jagware.

 

That's normal ;)

 

Of course, I wrote the text above at first person and GT just put it, but this is me speaking ;)

 

My english is not as good as Fadest one !! That's sure !!

 

This was really a pleasure to do this, and all the Jagware members who were present have been really helpful. Thanks you very much, guys !

 

Yes especially for adding somes bugs !! :whistling:

 

 

GT :flowers:

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