Posted By
indi
on 2008-05-28
17:47:29
|  Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
I've been busy creating a demo level of XeO3, not a level that will be in the game, but simply something to test difficulty and progression. I want to make sure that everyone (as best I can) feels its the right "curve".
I'm also releasing the scripting source to the level, which means you'll be able to make you own level - or at least play with the script engine and get used to it for when the whole source is released. To this end I've created a new XeO3 wiki page over at http://wiki.xeo3.org. If you get a chance, please have a read of whats there and give me some feedback, particuarly if you fancy making your own shooter using XeO3 as a base.
Theres also a couple of polls on my blog that I'd be grateful if some of you could take the time to fill out.
Cheers!
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-05-29
14:03:46
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Hi Mike!
Can't wait to see it! Meanwhile i took a quick look at your wiki. The scripting-language looks very powerful.
Since i never wrote games and have no experience, the most interesting thing for me is to see and learn how you make your decisions during the development of Xeo3. One decision i would like to know more about is connected to the CIRCLE-Command: For Path-Creation there are several ways to achieve what your CIRCLE-Command does: one alternative could have been working with "angle and velocity" for each sprite. Can you tell why you picked CIRCLE instead of other alternatives?
Thanks and keep up the good work!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-05-29
15:52:08
 | Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
The emotion should have been incredible along the scene, after this announcement: look, the sceners are speechless! They are so much taken they can't tell you! 
Degauss: yes, it works exactly that way.
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-05-29
17:00:31
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
The way the circle command has been written is to allow for maximum effects with it. By changing even 1 paramter (from the 6!) makes a huge difference and allows some really cool paths all from a single command.
Its virtually identical to one I wrote when I was about..err...17-18....ish... And thats the one that Dave Jones ported into Blood Money on the Amiga, and that I then took onto the C64 version - although it was significantly slower!
It was written to simply have a sprite move in a circle, plain and simple... then the constants that I used were simply made variables and made available to the Path system. When I wrote it Lissajous figures in multiplexors were all the rage, and I was more or less just duplicating that at first... then I extended it.
No idea if that answers anything  I suspect reading the code later will answer a lot more! Feel free to ask whatever you want though, I'll try and answer best I can.
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-05-29
17:05:53
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Actually... quick addition to this. Another part of the reason for this was that in Menace, Dave had to work out every curve himself by hand and make them into MOVE commands, which were not only horrible, but took up huge amounts of memory.
The Circle command only takes up 8 bytes... and can last for ages if you need it to, so making longer levels is easy! (Possibly why Blood Money went on so long...) Also because of a refinement we figured out at the time it became possible to start the curve at any point which meant you could do arc's etc. and make them small sections of your path (as in the examples on the wiki), which was again incredibly useful!
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2008-05-29
17:36:43
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Hey I can't wait trying it either. Just a bit speechless by the emotions Way to go chief!
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-02
03:34:04
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
@indi
Thanks for the info. I should've recognized myself: Only 6 Parameters per Curve/Arc is really much more "expressive" than working with angle/velocity (not to speak about single MOVE-commands. must have been a painful work).
BTW: I remember having played BloodMoney on Amiga. I really liked that one. I just wonder how the scripting-system you used back then compares to the one you just implemented?
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-02
03:59:40
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Oh, i just saw the MemoryMap on your Wiki-Page. It looks fairly "OS-Compliant". I don't know how much you rely on ROM-Calls, but here's a quick idea:
What about using the memory from $0200 - $07ff aswell? Ok, almost all kernal-functionality will be gone, but it would be a huge memory gain. If you need loading-routines, it doesn't need to work with ROM-calls: A tiny 1541 trackloader covers only small amounts of memory.
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-02
13:17:31
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Scripting
-----------
The script is virtually identical to the one from Blood Money, although the MasterPath stuff is completely different and much more flexible. It was more a "startsprite" list than a script before. But now I can do loops etc if I need to. But everything else is virtually identical, although a lot more optimsed this time round.
MemoryMap
---------------
Yes, Ive done this on puropse so that anyone that can't use the turbo loader will still be able to use the standard OS loader. The idea is that the 1st file loaded will install the loader, then load the game. But if you can't use that for some reason, you can just load the game directly and it'll still work properly; although much slower! This also leaves loads of space for any custom loader if they want to load a new way - like MMC, or ROM or something. It keeps options open. I don't mess with vectors, and others can do what they like.
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-02
13:35:16
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Oh, i forgot: Its going to be a public release. Its really a valuable project luca and you are working on. I just don't know for what i am more curious about: the game itself or the source
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Posted By
tnt
on 2008-06-03
14:14:27
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
@Dr.Death: IIRC indi already has 154x/157x/1581 compatible loader specially written for XeO3
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-03
15:08:42
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Oooh something like this? One Bit Wonder!
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-03
15:44:55
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Yes, we have a great turbo loader.... but what it someone wants to do something we didn't think of? If we use ALL memory, then they can't. So I'm in favour of leaving the kernal as clean as possible. Course...I do use ALL Zeropage, but I plan to back that up and restore it around loading/saving.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-03
16:03:12
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
...please note "saving"! s-a-v-i-n-g! It clearly means permanente hiscore or vanity board
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-11
18:07:02
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Friday 13, what a great date eh?
Ok, we decided: XeO3 Test Demo (Alpha1) will be out on friday.
Look. Hear. Play. Create.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-06-12
02:20:20
 | Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
sounds like microsoft or apple but anyway i waiting for the release..
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-12
08:27:45
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
yay! can't wait til friday...
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-13
12:56:30
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-06-13
15:52:07
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
kign. i need to play! so bye for now
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2008-06-14
04:12:26
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Great stuff! Holy smoke, Mike, you're using source control for a plus/4 project?
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-14
06:37:34
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
In 12 hours after the release, we got the very first words, and the very first hints about improving the game, read Mike's blog to know more. We want more and more words from you! Give us your 2ยข!
Here I wanna report what we've just added to improve the game.
First of all, Degauss pointed out about how silent the ship damage is. He was right, even though XeO3's TEDsound fx handling is not that versatile thing you may suspect to be: our fx have a start and an end, with volume change like a pseudo ADSR. Nonetheless, Mike quickly included a warning sawtooth-ish fx when you touch the walls or when you hit a baddie, I tried it and I think is so cool, also because the player now can instantly see how merciful our "merciful collision system" is
This topic is still under possible debating: T.M.R. pointed out that the real difficulty in pickin'up coins is caused by their non-drifting habit: coins don't follow the scrolling as a dead material should do instead. To me, he's right. You can try it by yourself, simply changing to DRIFT -1 for both coins'falling paths in the source code, and recompile, to me is way better!
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Posted By
Rachy
on 2008-06-14
08:24:18
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Awesome!
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-14
10:55:24
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
LOL - Yes I ALWAYS use source control! Did I leave that "vssver" file in again?
Even if theres only one of you on a project, source control of any kind is a must, even if its just to stop you screwing up in a stupid way!
Check in a working version...Of dear, its broken... what the hell have I done! I know! I'll just diff with the version checked in!
It really is a must.... BTW XeO3 is currenyly 14,796 lines of code!
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Posted By
Gaia
on 2008-06-15
06:41:31
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
BTW, there's a small raster bug on the "graphics and music" area
Another thing is: does the level really need to restart after dying? I always found that discouraging, a typical problem with a lot of shoot'emups. Couldn't there be checkpoints for example?
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-15
17:31:18
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Well, its not like you die with the first bullet contact, your shield is pretty generous, also because you keep most of your weapons so it should be simpler next time around.
I'd rather be thrown back to the start with a load of weapons then back a little with none - and I think you would have to lose them or it would just be too easy. If anything I suspect making it slightly easier so you don't get hit as much would be better, but I hate carrying on a level with zero weapons as its virtually impossible, and I think it would be too easy to restart a little back with even part of your weapon load.
What raster bug?
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Posted By
IstvanV
on 2008-06-15
17:36:54
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
> What raster bug?
At the p in "graphics" and c in "music".
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-15
17:56:10
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Hey not fair, I pointed out that rasterbug in the very first time and Mike told me...mmm don0t remember, but now I'll feel as outraged if Mike would fix it due to other ppl's arguing
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-16
02:41:18
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
No, its no getting fixed. Its a minor effect caused by the TED and it's virtually impossible to change 3 colours in a single scan without some of them being seen. I could make everything from 1 colour change, but that would look worse so...
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Posted By
TMR
on 2008-06-16
05:50:19
 | Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Restarting to the beginning of the level is going to leave you horribly open to "score whoring" though, people'll just pile through a high-scoring level, get killed and do it again to crank their scores up.... i've been thinking about this the last couple of days because my current C64 project can't wind back the attack waves so i'm in a similar boat; i'm probably going for respawn at current position but i don't have power-ups to worry about.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-16
06:42:02
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Hey what about the traditional load of points both when you blast the big boss, and when you fight against it too?
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Posted By
KiCHY
on 2008-06-16
10:16:48
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Ship speed VS Coin lifetime VS checkpoint thing:
(I know, some minor things were changed since this release, some others are discussed already, this is just a demo level, etc.)
My ship is soo slow that when I shoot distant enemies with that two bullets, there's no way to reach the coins... So, let the enemies come nearer to me to catch their coins (and rename the game to Kamikazeo3 ... But I'm soo slow I can't flee when I miss a shot and no more bullets to destroy the enemy in front of me. So, practically, I never collected enough coins to "purchase" a weapon powerup. So when I died (and restarted the level, arrgggh), this "Restart but don't lose all powerups" thing didnt help me
Don't refine things on your own experiences only (I know that's why you asked our opinion), you played it 1000x times, knowing every corner and step of enemies... But we simple gamers sometimes miss a shoot (so no more bullets for a while), please leave us some percents to make faults but survive.
All-In-One, its a very good demo, lots of work in it, we, Plus4ers are proud of it, proud of you! Some minor polishing here and there... Perhaps there's no problem with the demo but I have to learn playing with it...
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-16
10:36:38
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
I'm very interested in the "some polishing here and there", please tell me more!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-16
14:49:11
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Mike put a double veto about speed and checkpoints. You can read his own solutions on his blog, exactly here.
This time, our opinions diverged more than a little, but the legal stuff inside says:"MICHAEL DAILLY RETAINS FULL COPYRIGHT OVER THE PROGRAM AND
ITS SOURCE.", and that's right. Anyway, I like a lot Mike's solution about time driven speed bosting!
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Posted By
Frog
on 2008-06-16
16:02:34
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
I join to words of Kichy. The ship is slow. But i must saying, the game is especial. The music is melodious, all day long heard it. The graphics are one of them best of plus4 programs. The sprites are fast. In a few words: It's fantastic.
Sorry my bad english!
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-17
02:23:25
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Wait for an improved version on Friday 20!
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-17
03:57:06
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
I caught myself thinking about the game as about a normal "application", so in the first place i also thought the ship is too slow (=> not conveniant). But as second thoughts i need to point out: The game is fun and never unfair - and thats still the best thing you can tell about a game.
I'm not a hardcore-gamer but my gaming experience with Xeo3 was as Mike and Luca wished for: At the beginning i was screaming at the game, at the end, i made it to finish level 1.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-17
10:35:11
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Grouped! In the YouTube Plus4 Channel!
Istvan has learned where the waves come, he rarely collects coins or blast turrets, he wil be in serious difficulties in the forthcoming and most tough level, but hey in the end, spending almost his shield, he wins!
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-06-17
16:50:09
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
this video from the official soundtrack?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbSpX0PO3oE
the singer is pretty!
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Posted By
tnt
on 2008-06-19
11:23:21
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
@Luca: I will be in trouble too in later levels, as I play the game pretty much same as Istvan does. I'm looking forward for the next release with tweaks, coin drift and slightly higher arc should make me feel more comfortable when trying to collect them. First test version makes me feel I've been odered to hold fire until I see the white of their eyes
While all my comments here and in Mike's blog have been about the gameplay, that doesn't mean I'm not impressed by the excellent graphics.
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Posted By
Luca
on 2008-06-20
09:26:28
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
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Posted By
Frog
on 2008-06-20
10:24:01
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
It's compelling! So want I game programming on Plus4! But, I don't.
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-21
06:05:02
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Good work. I like all the changes/additions that have been made, even though i think its a bit too easy now. I personally like the explosion-drift very much.
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-21
06:48:53
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
A bit too easy is fine as what I want is beginners to get reasonably far, while good players will be able to progress to the harder levels. The reason for the demo was to get an idea what skills people were playing it had so we could me it easier to start and get into the game.
Its VERY easy to make it harder later on.
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Posted By
Degauss
on 2008-06-21
08:04:57
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Don't smack me, but i had another idea about the explosion-drift: What about using the current x-speed (or even more interesting: speed and direction) of the baddie for the explosion?
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-06-21
09:09:54
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
No I can't do that... The death sequence is scripted and is common for every path, so I don't know what direction/movement the ships is taken.
If it wasn't a heavily scripted game, I guess you could - but the games based around the scripting system and the death path/explosion is just another path. You lose something but gain hugely elsewhere.
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2008-10-22
16:14:16
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
some new info about the project?
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Posted By
indi
on 2008-10-22
18:13:40
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Well.... my machine died a few weeks ago and since I was going away on holiday never fixed it. I hope to get it fixed next week, but I'll be finishing my remote debugger first to help with development.
I may release the demo level on the C64 next as its virtually complete (minus front end etc.)
However, none of this will happen until my machine is fixed. (well, rebuilt)
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Posted By
Chicken
on 2009-01-27
16:55:50
 | Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
Actually, that's just the "trained" version.
Read more here:
http://pjgpcbuilders.no-ip.com:82/paul/html/frixxion.php
http://pjgpcbuilders.no-ip.com:82/paul/html/diary.php
http://vaisey.redirectme.net/andy/html/c64_projects.php
Hopefully, this inspires Mike and Luca a bit
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Posted By
Lacoste
on 2010-06-06
06:24:12
 | Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
XeO3 is over ?
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Posted By
Luca
on 2010-06-06
06:31:35
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
XeO3 is deeply sleeping: Mike started his new homebrew games project, that one and the 4th son will keep him busy for a long long time.
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Posted By
Patrick
on 2010-06-06
09:10:21
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
nobody else can take over to finish it?
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Posted By
Chronos
on 2010-06-07
14:18:52
| Re: Upcoming XeO3 Demo Level....
it reminds me to our project! :D as you probably remember "Bomberman" ..
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