Progress Thread - FamiJammers

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tepples
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by tepples »

How often does the cel change? If not more than 15 fps for each character, you may be able to do Battletoads instead of Tetris: double buffer the tiles needed for a character's cels in CHR RAM instead of keeping all of them in RAM at once.
M_Tee
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by M_Tee »

@mjm
I wouldn't mind any similarities at all. Those were just quick paintovers is all.

regarding skirts:
I reckon as long as you're classier than Capcom, it'd be fine. Since the outfits are very clearly real-world school uniform-inspired, and when real-world students (who would wear those uniforms) would typically wear a different uniform for playing sports, the decision stood out to me.

Also, if you're not tied to the implication of school-age students, you could take something like American Gladiator contender-uniforms into consideration. (which I think Windjammers was pretty close to, anyway).

Image

Did you have a specific setting in mind?

Are the players representing their countries? (The American Super Dodgeball)
Is it a school-club sport? (The Japanese Super Dodgeball, what I had assumed from the first shot)
Is there a scifi element to it? (Discs of Tron, Base Wars)
Is it a street-sport? (Street Hoop/Slam)
Are they battling for fantasy realms? (Mortal Kombat)

Deciding on this first could inspire the outfits of choice.

Edit: Punctuation/Grammar
Last edited by M_Tee on Fri Jun 03, 2016 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Windjammers has much more of a "rough future arena sport" vibe to it with regards to costumes than I was planning. I like how in many fighting games, the characters clearly didn't show up having dressed ready to fight. They are just there, as-is, working with what they have. So, variety in what players are wearing can be justified in that regard. However, I don't think it's a hugely important topic. I don't wish to justify a costume based on strange edge-cases, but basing what characters wear on P.E. uniforms, typical Tennis wear, and other various sporty things is reasonable. Street clothes are certainly accessible given the somewhat ambiguous social situation.

If Windjammers is Soccer/Futbol, then my game is the equivalent of a pick-up game being played on a public court. There will be no long-winded story fleshing out who is playing, why they are playing, and what the stakes are for the game. The characters do not have faces because I would like them to remain abstract representations of a player having inserted himself or herself into the game at most.

In redrawing the character art, I've done some more CHR-RAM packing. For the twelve frames of animation I have now (3 frames x 4 directions) I've still got some space to go in my 16x7 window. I'll need that to fit in some sort of animation for the dash, holding and throwing animations for the disc, and a "powering up" animation.

Image
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by M_Tee »

I can dig that. The informal feel of street sports games has appeal. I loved the aforementioned Street Slam for MVS and have never been able to enjoy a uniformed-team basketball game. For similar spritework, you might want to check out Street Sports Basketball for the C64.

Image

Edit:
Oh, and don't be hesitant to use black-as-clothing as well. It could help break up some of the monotony of shorts and t-shirts.

I put these together yesterday (before you replied about setting), inspired by 90s athletic gameshow contestant fashion (gladiators, guts, etc.).
wj002.gif
wj002.gif (2.61 KiB) Viewed 18268 times
I'm not suggesting it, just posting it as an example of using black to vary the clothing. Could help keep interest without devoting two sprite palettes per player (could free up a sprite palette for the disc in case you ever wanted it to flash or flame-up or anything.)
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by mikejmoffitt »

On the bus home from work I drew some animations for sliding forward and blocking, and hooked them up to the appropriate triggers. diagonal and up/down sliding just point to other animations for now because it lets me see that the logic works. I also made a few playfield changes, going for asphalt for the first stage. I ran it through the vomit NTSC filter to ensure reasonable visibility too, and am experimenting with alternate ways of displaying the score to respect NTSC safe zones.

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Punch
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by Punch »

I had to search about Neo Windjammers to know what you're trying to achieve. It seems like it's a pretty cool game, I want to see how your take on that game is going to be so please finish it ok? :mrgreen:

I like your art overall but the sliding sprite feels off for some reason. Anyway, judging from the "original" game this seems like a pretty fun one, best of luck.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by mikejmoffitt »

The sliding sprites were drawn on a laptop while on a violently shaking bus, on the way to work. They're somewhat placeholders for now, as I'm not particularly happy with them either.
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by M_Tee »

I know how that can be. I tried to use a netbook to do graphics work on a subway a couple of times, and finally just gave up and now just do pencil work on graph paper while commuting and pixel it out when I get to a PC proper.
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by tepples »

I guess I've just been subconsciously planning things such that I end up doing graphics work at home and code work while riding transit.
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mikejmoffitt
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Following my employer's policy regarding intellectual property rights of projects created by employees during their employment period, this project will be henceforth suspended until August 12th.
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Punch
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by Punch »

Well that's a damn shame. If only someone would come here and post "I have registered here to post that I am taking over development of this project"...

Regardless, I hope you can go back to your project by August... this is a homebrew project that I'm really interested with.
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dougeff
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by dougeff »

Following my employer's policy regarding intellectual property rights of projects created by employees during their employment period, this project will be henceforth suspended until August 12th
One great thing about the internet is anonymity. Of course I would never suggest you violate any work policies, but my friend Annie McNonymous says it's ok. ;) (Full disclosure, she's not technically a lawyer, or real)

Oh, I thought of another one. What about unintelligible property rights? Are you allowed to produce non-sense and gibberish?
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tepples
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Re: Progress Thread - Unnamed Windjammers-esque

Post by tepples »

"I'm on vacation from this project for two months." Is that easier to swallow?
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Re: Progress Thread - FamiJammers

Post by mikejmoffitt »

Alrighty, worked on a few things:

-Basic fixed-point multiplication to allow for throw strength scaling
-Lookup table-based sine / cosine functions for curving the disc
-D-pad rotation detection for disc curving
-Basic catch/throw mechanic (needs animation and other throw types)
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