Catgirl Pool Party [Work in progress]

[Hik]

I've been working on this for a while and its starting to shape up to be something so I thought I'd share it;



Here's the rom ; https://www.dropbox.com/s/izxwl22z3ov18 ... o.bin?dl=1

This old version seems to work better on kega fusion than the latest update ;
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hpzbvi83pw4fm ... 6.bin?dl=1

[djcouchycouch]

Good job!

Is it just the intro screens and menu? Start doesn't seem to do anything for me.

On hardware, there's a bit of sparkling pixels on the top of the title screen.

IMG_2336.jpg (129.82 KiB) Viewed 20281 times

[Stef]

Same here, nice introduction screens but no action on start :p
These dots means you are writing CRAM during active period, better to wait vblank for that

[Hik]

Good job!

Is it just the intro screens and menu? Start doesn't seem to do anything for me.

On hardware, there's a bit of sparkling pixels on the top of the title screen.

IMG_2336.jpg

Thanks. Yeah right now its just the intro screens and the title screen menu.

Same here, nice introduction screens but no action on start :p
These dots means you are writing CRAM during active period, better to wait vblank for that

I'm still working on the title screen code and today I'm working on the options. I noticed some of the code was outside
the disabled interrupts so that could be it. I'll keep updating this as I make progress with it.

[Miquel]

Perhaps you should concentrate more on the game itself, and no so much on the external details. A game can change a lot during its development and could render outdated the other parts.

Take it just as a friendly advise.

[Hik]

Thanks Miquel ,now that I've gotten the customizable controls working properly I'll be focusing more on gameplay.
The control configurations can be tested by starting a new game and you can use the start button to return to the
title and enter the options to change them. They will stay configured in the options. If you find any bugs let me know.

I'm reading about game programming patterns and working out what the gameplay elements are going to be like.

[Hik]

The catgirl can now point the super soaker in 8 directions. The idea is to use the aim button to be able to aim like that
without walking or while jumping but I haven't implemented it to the aim button yet. I ran into some hurdles with the code
which I'm still working through. But at least its a bit more playable than before. I'm still fixing up the walking animation.

[bgvanbur]

The aiming sprites are nice. Can't wait to see more

[Hik]

I've updated it again ,the catgirl can now aim and shoot in all directions even while walking.
The aim button works as it should as in it stops the movement controls in favor of aiming.

I haven't applied any effects to the shooting yet so the stream isn't moving in any fancy way.
At least not yet. So there are a few things left for me to work on with the character ,like jumping.
Edit: I've decided to take a different approach and work more on the demo level collision and tileset.

[Hik]

The catgirl can jump and move around now ,but its kinda buggy at this stage. Consider it an early alpha.
Speed and sliding needs to be worked on. Shooting also needs to be fixed up better.
The jumping frame is not being switched out of properly for some reason.
Besides that it works pretty good. The forground tiles are temporary.

I'm thinking of puzzles similar to the ones on the wipeout shows where it gets slippery sometimes
and the character can slide right off and fall into the water below. So I might go with a "slip" factor for that.
But that's a consideration for later ,right now I'm just getting basic playing elements working.

[Hik]

I changed the forground tiles and fixed the jumping but it could still be fixed up more.
Holding the jump button makes the catgirl jump repeatedly like a pogo stick so I'm thinking
of a way to add a cooldown to the jump. Aiming also lets the catgirl slide if there was an initial
speed. Right now there's no limit to how far it slides and the slide is constant so while some
slide might be okay its probably better to limit it. But it makes for a fun effect to play with.

[djcouchycouch]

Holding the jump button makes the catgirl jump repeatedly like a pogo stick so I'm thinking
of a way to add a cooldown to the jump.

You just need to check if the button was pressed (ie changed state from unpressed to pressed since last frame) rather than checking if it's held. After the jump you could check if the button is held to make her jump higher.

[Hik]

Yeah but I have a somewhat complex control scheme so I can map the action buttons and get proper 8 directions.

I'm going over the code again and fixing the structure and some issues which I didn't figure out before.

I installed the Exodus emulator and it showed the line of pixels bug that has been appearing on real hardware.
Turns out I was loading a sprite incorrectly or in the wrong place to be more exact. I've finally fixed that bug
now. I've also updated to the latest version of SGDK so that might also have fixed things like the fades.

[Hik]

I fixed up the code the best I could but found a strange issue in that the control test graphics only show up occasionally on Kega Fusion
while it always shows up on Exodus and seems to run fine on it. I'm thinking Exodus is closer to real hardware so it probably works better
on real hardware now as well. It would be good if someone could test it out. Edit: Upon further testing it also seems to happen on Exodus.
So that's another thing I'm working on fixing. It could be a timing related issue.

About the sprites and strange flickering pixels on the title screen in the old version ;

Basically the issue was that I was calling SPR_init and redrawing the sprite perpetually on the old version whenever the titlescreen/options
were entered (for the soaker sprite and control test graphics) while now I've put a sort of a latch on it so that it only calls it once and then
uses SPR_setPosition() to move it per screen where it persists. The latch is an if statement with a variable so I set the variable whenever
a new screen is triggered to redraw the sprite. The real issue might be how I'm coding the transitioning between screens.

I'll note that I use a different sprite array for gameplay and I can switch between those depending on if its on the options or if its in the gameplay.

[Miquel]

Holding the jump button makes the catgirl jump repeatedly like a pogo stick so I'm thinking
of a way to add a cooldown to the jump.

You just need to check if the button was pressed (ie changed state from unpressed to pressed since last frame) rather than checking if it's held. After the jump you could check if the button is held to make her jump higher.

Even easier:

Code: Select all

newlyPushedButtons = (buttons ^ oldButtons) & buttons;

No more complex if's, you just have to live with different input variables.