Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

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tepples
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by tepples »

Espozo wrote:Well shoot, that doesn't look anything like the palette I used
The one you used might be the same colors in a different order. Mine came from Bisqwit's palette generator.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Drew Sebastino »

I know, the order of mine is all messed up, but just look at the difference in the brown between them.
tepples
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by tepples »

The browns ($07-$09) do appear differently on different TVs. The signal that the PPU generates actually corresponds to negative RGB values, and different TVs have different ways of clipping the signal.
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Nintendooh
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Nintendooh »

We just posted the first track from the soundtrack :)

https://youtu.be/OSkH-d3IJ28

(Isn't there a way to embed YouTube videos?)
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by mikejmoffitt »

tepples wrote:The browns ($07-$09) do appear differently on different TVs. The signal that the PPU generates actually corresponds to negative RGB values, and different TVs have different ways of clipping the signal.
I noticed this as well when I looked at Level 2 of Battletoads. Some colors in the backdrop do this as well.
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infiniteneslives
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by infiniteneslives »

Great looking game you've got here!

A little late to the party on the licensed current gen, unlicensed NES discussion, but figured I'd chime if it's still of curiousness..
tepples wrote:I highly doubt that Nintendo would approve of simultaneous licensed and unlicensed development for its platforms.
Mystic Searches had plans for a dual release on NES and WiiU. Not sure on the current plans for the WiiU release with lack of funding the second time around, but they had conversations with Nintendo about doing so. I assume they got approval from bigN before launching the second kickstarter for the WiiU version. I could pick Joe's brain for more details on that if it's still a pertinent question..
If you're gonna play the Game Boy, you gotta learn to play it right. -Kenny Rogers
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Nintendooh
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Nintendooh »

I did an interview about Alwa's Awakening up in Stockholm a couple of weeks ago. Check it out if you want to :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrwUi1oXHr4
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Nintendooh
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Nintendooh »

Here's the latest mockup from the level called 'Void Tower'. This level went through three iterations of graphics. Since I'm the Game Designer and not the graphics artist this screenshot might use too many colors. The version we're going to use is Version 3.

Hope you like it! :)
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Nintendooh
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Nintendooh »

We're thinking of adding some kind of screen-shake effect. Like during the Bowser fight in Super Mario Bros 3.

What other games are there that shake the screen? And what is possible on the NES? I think I read somewhere it can only shake up and down and not right and left?

Thanks :)
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darryl.revok
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by darryl.revok »

Super Mario Bros 2 and Mario Bros. are two that come to mind but I know there are many more.
I think I read somewhere it can only shake up and down and not right and left?
I don't see why this would be true. NES games scroll in all directions and shaking is just fast scrolling. There are certain small glitches when scrolling in all directions, but these are glitches that are due to the hardware, and were in almost any games that scrolled in all directions. There were a VERY small number of exceptions to this.
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rainwarrior
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by rainwarrior »

Super Bat Puncher has screen shakes, but only up and down, I think, but I believe this was entirely an aesthetic choice, nothing to do with limitations. The game uses vertical mirroring, so it would make more sense for it to be horizontal-only shaking, if it was going by the NES' scrolling limits. :P

It's not really even a scrolling issue, you don't necessarily have to do any real scrolling during a shake; the distance is generally small. The real issue is what you see on the edges of the screen. The Naive approach might leave an ugly edge on one side or the other if the screen wraps due to mirroring.

If you're doing vertical shaking, any vertical wrap will be hidden at the top and bottom 8 rows on NTSC (though not on PAL). You can see this bad wrapping on Super Bat Puncher in PAL mode.

If you're doing horizontal shaking, horizontal wrap can be more difficult to hide, but if you're using vertical mirroring this isn't an issue.

Since screen shake is usually a very transient effect, bad wrapping might not even be noticeable enough to care about, depending on your point of view.

The choice of mirroring mode usually has to do with: 1. whether your game scrolls in 1 axis only, and 2. whether your game has a status bar. Status bars are usually a big constraint, here.
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tokumaru
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by tokumaru »

In addition to the wrapping issues, the technique of simply offsetting the already processed background also doesn't account for sprites. Blindly offsetting them all isn't such a good idea, because HUD elements, for example, should remain stationary.

I believe that the proper way to shake the screen is to implement the effect as part of your camera system. After the camera is updated in the usual way, save its position to temporary variables and then add the shake offset(s). That should affect row/column rendering, preventing bad wrapping, and sprite processing, preventing absolutely positioned sprites from shaking. Then, in the next frame, restore the actual camera position before updating it, and repeat the process.

The above applies when you have a camera system in the first place, which most games without scrolling (and even some with scrolling, believe it or not!) don't.
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by psycopathicteen »

I think vertical shaking makes more physical sense. If you drop an anvil on the ground, it will look strange to see the ground shake left and right.
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Nintendooh
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Nintendooh »

Thanks for your tips everyone. :)

A lot of the challenges with this game has been making the game work like a NES game. It took us quite some time to get simple things like removing all shots, enemies when they leave the screen to work properly. I've been studying other NES games quite hard to figure out how some things work. I'm learning a lot and it's really fun.

We're thinking of releasing the soundtrack on an actual NES cartridge. This is just a thought though and nothing else. But I think it would be cool. We have almost 15 tracks done already.
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Drew Sebastino
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Re: Alwa's Awakening - A NES-inspired adventure game

Post by Drew Sebastino »

Nintendooh wrote: It took us quite some time to get simple things like removing all shots,
What?
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