Topic: [Fan Games] Castlevania, Final Fantasy, Eggerland, Mario, Megaman

[Inccubus]

Archway graphics are done:
Yes, they are partly in the foreground.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm happy you got Hypercam working!  Seems you're having some framerate issues.  That could be the settings on Hypercam for record/playback, or it could be that your system cannot handle both the engine and hypercam at once.

Niiiiice bridge!
Also, wh00t Room of Close Associates!

[Inccubus]

Glad you liked it. Maybe when I get the next demo out I can have someone give another video a try for me.

[uzo]

One of the things I like the most about that animation is that it would totally be doable on real hardware... it would just cause major flicker with all the sprite tiles it would require. ^___^

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but no, it actually isn't doable on the real hardware.

The flickering you see on the real NES is caused by sprites occupying the same scan line. In other words, if a sprite is horizontally within the same range as another sprite. This is common in NES games, and causes a little bit of slowdown in some cases. Fun fact: this is why most candles in the NES Castlevania games were placed where you have to jump and hit them, to keep them off the same scanlines as the player and ground based enemies.

However, that is not the only limitation for NES sprites. The NES has a 64 sprite hardware limit per rendered frame. The NES defines sprites as; 8x8, 16x8, 8x16 only. Those are the only sprite sizes available. This wouldn't make sense cause you would say "well Megaman/Simon Belmont/Samus/Mario/etc are bigger than that!". Yes, that is also true. Typically player characters in NES games are comprised of multiple sprites. Common platformer player sprite sizes are 16x32, 16x24, 16x16 because they are easily built by drawing anywhere between 2 and 4 separate 16x8 sprites.

Each log of the bridge would be, I'm guessing, at least 5-6 sprites each? And how many logs do you have there? at least 10? That's pretty much topping the limit already.

Sprite limits being hit don't flicker either. They just don't draw period, lag everything, and or crash the game outright. The flicker is only a scanline correction.

[Inccubus]

Well, then it's a good thing my game is assuming a hypothetical 8-bit system with features of both the NES and MSX systems and then some. Even then, I still think they could have figured out a way to do it. I've seen some NES tech demo's that can do a lot more than that drawbridge. but it's all moot anyway since this is a PC game with an enhanced 8-bit aesthetic.

[uzo]

You do realize those tech demos are only as advanced as they are because they don't have gameplay, right?

[Esco]

Archway graphics are done:
Yes, they are partly in the foreground.

Looking good bro! Sometime this week you and me need to get together and talk about parallax. it's about that time man. 

[Inccubus]

No problem, dude. The code turned out to be super simple. It aught to be a snap to implement it in your project.

[Aridale]

yeah parallax isnt hard at all you just move every bg by a small amount when the view moves. You move the "farther away" bgs more than the "closer" bgs. Its easy stuff

[Inccubus]

Yeah, the only pain in the ass was that tiled bgs in GM don't have specific coordinates.

[darkmanx_429]

Archway graphics are done:
Yes, they are partly in the foreground.

Sprites look great! Colors look great! The only thing I notice is that you don't have any icon for how many lives you have remaining....love the 2.5D bridge! Hopefully, you'll use this effect for other stuff in the game as well! You should add water in the chasm and add some splash when the bridge falls to give the illusion of heaviness to it!

[Inccubus]

Thanks. I'm gonna set it up like in Dracula X where when you press pause it switches the HUD to show lives & score.
I already have a plan for the drawbridge feeling heavy. I'm not feeling the water on this one. I'll see though, I could always rationalize it and change my mind. ^___^

[X]

If you're not feeling the water on this one you could always save it for a later level inside the castle.

[Claimh Solais]

It'd be pretty sweet to see an expanded NE/SX version of the Underground Caverns from SotN.

[Inccubus]

I'm not touching anything from SotN, However, I AM doing a composite stage based exclusively on the cavern stages present in CV1, VK, & the X68k versions. Those stages all have water effects and the VK version even has a blue/grey palette. So I think things will work out well.