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Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:19 am
by na_th_an
Finally I had the time to test this.

Well done, I like the level design. It feels non linear, and incredibly moody. The animations are quite good too, specially the main character's in wolf form. I loved how the camera follows the action, too.

I didn't like the way you lose momentum, though. With time I learned how to deal with it, but somehow it didn't feel natural. Or maybe it is not that the player loses momentum completely, but the time it takes to gain it again.

Another thing that IMHO should be polished is vertical screen transitions. There are many times when you don't jump with enough strength and you get several transitions in a row, which detracts from the experience. While it's not a perfect solution, I tend to solve such situations in my games by means of boosting vertical velocity artificially when changing screens upwards. That way 1.- it gives the player extra time to look for a landing platform and 2.- prevents such situations where you just didn't jump high enough from the screen below.

Great job, nonetheless. The music is superb and the mood and athmosphere is great.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:05 am
by Lazycow
@frankengraphics: Yes, SELECT might be the better key to morph. (why did I change that? I cannot remember)
If you're refering to not pixel perfect background collision handling, then you're right. That's done on purpose to save valueable CPU time. Nevertheless, a slowdown might occur if you avoid killing enemies everyone is following you. But it should be rare - it's "calculated risk by design"...

@tepples: Yes, I could reproduce the crash. There's a stupid bug in the startup code. Well, actually, the bug is very smart, but the programmer was stupid. Do you want to have a hotfix?

@dougeff: No, but almost. It's a bankswitching problem, indeed.

@na_th_an: Yes, you should not lose momentum when you continue to press the joypad in one direction. I'm definitely considering a fix, in case I am creating an updated version. Additionally, I tried to design the rooms that you don't have to jump vertically into another room. So hey, DON'T DO THAT! Listen to your mother, walk on the stairs carefully, don't jump on them... ;)

Phew, this NES project is challenging. Thank you all for the feedback!!

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:55 am
by FrankenGraphics
Hmm, unless i misunderstand you, it's not that its not pixel perfect in definition. It's that sometimes it's off by 8px blocks which means you can stand half inside a grid-bound 16x16 block. I mean to play this again soon (and this time be able to beat it, hopefully!). Would it help if i PM:ed you screenshots and descriptions any such occurrences i may come across?
Phew, this NES project is challenging.
It's quite an impressive scope this game has - and still, you managed to do it! This game is a great addition to the NES library. :beer:

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 2:44 pm
by thefox
Cool game.

Minor quibble: The red projectiles shot by the skeletony stone heads are way too dark, IMO. I can hardly see them against the black background with the palette I'm using. I would be worried that this might be an issue on some displays when playing on hardware. I think Haunted Halloween 86 had a similar problem with a deep red used in its backgrounds.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 12:18 am
by Ryoga
What version of the FCEUX emulator have you used to test both "Action 53 volume 4" and "Wolfing"?

this?: newer FCEUX build from AppVeyor

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:19 am
by tepples
Ryoga wrote:What version of the FCEUX emulator have you used to test both "Action 53 volume 4" and "Wolfing"?
My copy of FCEUX (SDL) is r3392.

Code: Select all

$ cd ~/path/to/fceux
$ git log -n 1
commit a5f5da9fd7235d732279b4812e91b06dcbc785da
Author: rainwarrior <rainwarrior@cd624aef-3799-4ffa-999e-25a118dd8ffa>
Date:   Wed Jan 17 05:12:01 2018 +0000

    should have kept rand() in the seed generator, it does get a time seed at init, also the |1 wasn't needed (the splitmix in the seed function takes care of that) so it's up to 32 bits
    
    git-svn-id: svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/fceultra/code/fceu/trunk@3392 cd624aef-3799-4ffa-999e-25a118dd8ffa
Which is based on having done this in the past week:

Code: Select all

cd ~/path/to/fceux
git svn rebase
nice scons -j2
scons --prefix=$HOME/.local install
My build of the Windows version (used for debugging) from AppVeyor is also r3392.

But the reset button bug also happens on hardware. I haven't opened my NES-001 Control Deck, but I'd be surprised if the CPU and PPU were anything but revision G.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 9:59 am
by Kasumi
I saw FrankenGraphics post, I recorded these GIFs, my internet went out for a whole day before I could even upload them to post. :P

Here is some collision quirkiness in wolfling:
Standing on air as the worst offender.
Image
Ride the wave.
Image
Quite far into a wall.
Image
The behavior itself could probably be fixed without much hit to CPU time (it may even use LESS CPU time depending on what you're doing), but actually a lot of the level design appears to rely on it.

When I first played I noticed the collision stuff as well, but I never found any zips or anything. But I also didn't find the stand on air thing.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:01 am
by na_th_an
The situation in the bottom screenshot is pretty easy to reproduce as it happens to me every time. No big deal, tho'.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2018 10:42 am
by Lazycow
Ok, I have uploaded the patched Wolfling ROM with includes the reset-crash hotfix... (at the 1st post)
I could reproduce the crash bug in FCEUX, but not with Nestopia. (unfortunately)
Does it work now with "Action 53 volume 4" (or powerpack?) Tepples?

@thefox: fair enough

@Kasumi: Yes, I know these 3 glitches. That's what I call "not pixel perfect background collision" :wink:
(no fix planned, sorry)

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2018 7:10 am
by tepples
The crash bug appears to be fixed in FCEUX debugger. I will include the fix in the build I post to page 2.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Tue Feb 20, 2018 11:45 am
by calima
I couldn't work around the way you lose momentum, and kept dying in the first outdoor part, where you go left as wolf and fall to spikes if not perfectly timed. After five deaths I said screw it and closed it.

The idea and the art were quite nice, but the gameplay has some issues.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Sun Mar 25, 2018 4:01 am
by Lazycow
At last, I had some time to work on the improved version a bit:

Image
Bullet color had been changed from dark-red to orange. (thanks to thefox for reporting)

Image
Wolf's background collision frame is centered now. (thanks to Kasumi for reporting)

to be continued...

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 3:05 am
by Lazycow
Image
Ling keeps most of her momentum after landing. You're right, this makes the controls more intuitive.

Zolionline is improving the rooms a bit and then it should be finished. Is there a deadline for the improved version?

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2018 6:41 am
by tepples
My guesstimate for when volume 4 updates are due is when Paul at INL actually gets around to releasing volume 3.

Re: Progress Thread - Wolfling

Posted: Sat Oct 13, 2018 11:07 am
by Lazycow
Image Image
Update: I have improved the compression scheme of the game map to add 20-30 new rooms. Here's a preview of a 2nd castle (left) and a new subterranean area (right).
It's very hard to create new rooms with new ideas for this game, I don't know why. The tilesets are not the problem, they're very flexible. Either the game mechanics are not very elegant, or I am getting old... (or both) 8-)