Topic: NES-Style Castlevania Belmont Engine for GameMaker! (Version 0.3 UPDATE!)

[TheouAegis]

So, there's been some issue, it would seem, about simulating stairs and other features in NES style Castlevania games in GameMaker and other frontends. You always see games where the heroes are able to jump onto and off of stairs, but pretty much never games where once you're on the stair you're stuck there. People complain that these kinds of Castlevania games are annoying and suck, but face it folks: they're realistic. If you try to jump on stairs like Castlevania's heroes have been able to do these days, you'd have to be a freaking gymnast to be able to handle the footwork and balance involved. And if you misjudge your leaps, you'll fall backward and become a paraplegic or fall forward and shatter your shins.

Current Version: 0.31 Alpha

UPDATE LINK!
Download it here

[uzo]

Pics/video/demo or it never happened.

[Oralox]

Pics/video/demo or it never happened.

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I'm interested in this.  Please show us some pix.

[TheouAegis]

O ye of little faith...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/LiASylKBbA0?rel=0

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Belmont Engine (early alpha)

Very nice early start.  It really mimics the NES version.
Also, would you like it embedded on the forum post, like how I just did it?  Just put the link into the post and the forum will auto-embed.

[X]

I could certainly use that code script for my CV game I'm trying to put together! The only thing else that I would need is rope climbing, the crawl-walk and a more faster whip attack like Simon from CV2SQ.

-X

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

If you put in the turbo-whip (hold the whip button whilst on stair) you'll be mimicking the NES titles exactly.
Then you can start to put in purdy graphix. :3

[TheouAegis]

Actually I had that. I might have it already, actually. I noticed that when I was debugging early on. I was like, "Shoot I have a bug with the attacks on the stairs! I need to fix this! ... or do i?" Then I went back to the game, walked up a stair, held attack. "Oh, it's supposed to do that." I think in the vid I was just tapping the key.

I can't get it to embed videos. What the heck?!

Other things included that I may or may not have put in the vid or have since changed:

Trevor will land awkwardly if he drops a distance higher than 64 pixels but not if he attacks at the right moment (but if his attack finishes before landing, he'll land awkwardly). Currently I'm working on the code for that, trying to clean it up. I have to go back to the game and measure his falling rates. I'm hoping my arbitrary timeline positioning was wrong and that the coding can be much simpler than what it is right now.

Trevor cannot jump when there is a ledge right over his head. Have to check the game to see if he "hiccups" when trying to jump, which he currently does in my engine. I think I changed some line of code yesterday because I don't remember him hiccuping when I first wrote the code.

Trevor will jump through ledges that are at least 16 pixels above his head. (This is currently buggier than the Forgotten One.)

The whip can be upgraded, although this is still very much a work in progress. I've assigned variables for whip level (in Simon's Quest terms, thorn whip, chain whip, flame whip, etc.), whip damage (based on an array), and whip multiplier (the [ I I ] and [ III ] glyphs hidden in walls).

Numerous bugs common to many Game Maker games, including those made by Mark Overmars himself, have been fixed. I still have a (growing) list of bugs I'm currently trying to work out. Most deal with collision problems, such as jumping through ledges when Trevor's supposed to bump them or the whip locking up. (This latter bug has appeared in other Castlevania fan games, from what I've read.) All these years of not making games because I just get fed up with all the bugs in Game Maker gave me a lot of knowledge about various bugs, so I'm taking the time now finally to try and figure out what's causing my bugs. When I remember to, I document the bugs as I find them and then document my fixes for them. I've found that writing out my bugs descriptively makes fixing them a lot easier.

[X]

Good plan. But in terms of Trevor landing awkwardly it shouldn't be that big a deal. I've seen him land awkwardly in CVIII from such a high distance fall. It's as though for a brief moment, his legs enter the block he falls on, but then recovers as if nothing was wrong. Is that the problem you are having?

-X

[Chernabogue]

Wow, looks great, dude!

[TheouAegis]

Good plan. But in terms of Trevor landing awkwardly it shouldn't be that big a deal. I've seen him land awkwardly in CVIII from such a high distance fall. It's as though for a brief moment, his legs enter the block he falls on, but then recovers as if nothing was wrong. Is that the problem you are having?

-X

Sorry, by landing awkwardly I mean he goes into his crouch and stands there for a bit, which he's supposed to do. I wasn't complaining about it, just saying that it's a feature I made sure I implemented. I was considering imitating the ground-sticking you mentioned, because I noticed that too. He drops down 1-3 pixels into the ground then snaps back to the right position, depending on his fall height and current sprite. But then I decided that was probably one aspect of the games we could all live without as it looked to me like it was just the NES's inability to execute certain commands fast enough. Plus with the engine I'm using, emulating that would be a pain because mine checks for collisions every pixel (which is okay for an NES clone but probably not for modern games).

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

I actually really liked the dramatic crouch stop.  It was a cool feature in the old games.  Really made the character feel hefty.

[TheouAegis]

The only thing giving me a headache right now is debugging collision detection. Game Maker has some of the worst collision detection functions ever. I have one bug where attacking while jumping can potentially make Trevor fall through the ground with no collision detection whatsoever. I have another bug where when he jumps forward he moves inside the ledge rather than sliding up and over it. I tried to fix this last night, but my solution brought back another bug I had where Trevor would get stuck inside ledges over his head. So now I'm left looking at two bug fixes that refuse to work together. I refuse to add items in until I get these blasted collision bugs resolved.

Oh yeah, another feature I implemented into the engine is if you press right and left at the same time, depending on the level orientation, it will ignore one key or the other. So if you're supposed to be progressing through the level from left to right, the game will give priority to the right key (you have to press only the left key in order to walk left). I haven't decided how I'm going to handle vertical stages, whether to default to right key priority or what. Minor issue, though.

[Dremn]

Looks near identical to the original, impressive.