Quod Init Exit V1.2

[saimo]

La notizia del giorno è che, dopo più di 2 anni, ho appena rilasciato una nuova - e massiccia - anteprima giocabile di QUOD INIT EXIT IIo!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xod3INRv15A











Scaricatela da https://retream.itch.io/quod-init-exit-iio e buon divertimento!

CHANGELOG (dall'anteprima del 21/03/2020)

Codice: [Seleziona]

* Made Zampo jump only when he is not moving upwards already (before, if Zampo's
  legs were on a solid tile while he was already moving upwards and the joystick
  was pushed up, he would jump again, thus continuing the upwards movement; this
  increased the chances of unwanted double-jumps).
* Changed the portals/teleporting behaviour:
   * when Zampo uses a portal, he is now automatically teleported to the right
     location (this simplifies the gameplay, as before misusing portals was too
     punishing - i.e. it made completing a zone impossible);
   * they are now activated with [DOWN] insted of [FIRE] to reduce the chances
     of activating portals unintentionally (as [FIRE] is used for turbofarting,
     whereas [DOWN] is used for ducking, which is a much less common action).
* Accelerated the relocation of Zampo to checkpoints.
* Worked on the collision detection against the background:
   * made more precise and relative to Zampo's movement and aspect;
   * extended the detection area for some tiles, so that picking up items and
     operating switches is easier.
* Worked on food/drink items:
   * added 3 new types (which affects the gameplay, as it makes the appearance
     of the spinach can and of the Gasorade bottle less likely; this has been
     counterbalanced with the following changes);
   * made the Gasorade bottle restore the turbofart meter entirely;
   * made the cake (one of the new items) restore the belly meter entirely;
   * avoided that they spawn on some tiles where they would be uncatchable;
   * redrawn the spinach can.
* Worked on the PIG-OF-GOLD mode:
   * enlarged the area checked for the activation, so that Zampo no longer
     requires to be placed too precisely;
   * avoided that it is re-activated when it is already active not only because
     conceptually it makes no sense, but also because it could interfere with
     the PIG-OF-STEEL mode.
* Added the PIG-OF-GOLD and PIG-OF-STEEL modes tunes.
* Added a simple sound effect for teleporting (music gets paused in the
  meanwhile; this is the only case where a sound effect is used; the reason is
  that it is the simplest and least memory-hungry way to susped the PIG-OF-GOLD
  and PIG-OF-STEEL modes tunes, when such modes are active a portal is taken;
  anyway, it is quite appropriate as Zampo, when teleporting, is indeed in a
  kind of suspended state).
* Added the zone exit icon (a thumb-up icon that blinks constantly to indicate
  the point Zampo has to reach after collecting all the potties).
* Extended the tile-related events triggering mechanism (and used it for various
  purposes in the existing maps).
* Added a mechanism for making a switch appear with a brief blinking.
* Added a mechanism for making a generic tile blink.
* Added a mechanism for performing real-time, progressive, arbitrary changes to
  memory (and used it for various purposes, especially in the existing maps).
* Sped up the removal of barriers by 1 frame per tile.
* Reworked the handling of Zampo's appearance by implementing a centralized
  mechanism which:
    * takes a few cycles more, but saves memory and makes the code cleaner;
    * allows each tile to have lighting properties;
    * allows checkpoints, portals and portals destinations to be also in places
      where the lighting is shady/dark;
    * solves (elegantly) the clashes between the GOLD and STEEL modes relatively
      to Zampo's colors;
    * provides a centralized way to make Zampo flash.
* Slown down the flashing of Zampo when the PIG-OF-STEEL mode is about to end.
* Made Zampo say: "YEA" when he catches the cake; "WOW" when he catches the
  Gasorade bottle or the spinach can; "YUM" when he catches another food item.
* Ensured Zampo is visible when a game is aborted.
* Slown down the blinking of potties.
* Worked on baddies:
   * added 2-frame animations;
   * added the "explosion" animation.
* Added (support for) dynamic tilesets.
* Made the head-up display taller to make room for the information relative to
  the zone-specific features.
* Fixed Zampo's X speed in couple of places (it was 1/16 off due to an inverted
  sign).
* Fixed the Zampo Y correction relatively to collisions with obstacles above (it
  pushed Zampo 1/32 pixels below the character he was in, instead of keeping
  him in that character by just 1/32 pixels).
* Fixed the baddies X initialization (the spawning code is distributed across
  multiple frames to spread the load, but it defined the X before the final
  position was validated; given that, in the meanwhile, the screen most likely
  scrolled, at the time of spawning the X could have been unsuitable - and thus
  caused the baddies, in some circumstances, to appear out of nothing).
* Fixed the sprites clipping code (the fact that the screen is narrower/shorter
  due to scrolling was not taken into account because of some wrong labels and a
  constant was off by 1).
* Fixed the bug that allowed to use the portals frames to teleport.
* Fixed the horizontal alignment of icons in the head-up display (was off by 1
  pixel to the left).
* Fixed/optimized some instruments in music.
* Extended/improved the intro text.
* Wrote the outro text.
* Changed the design of the 'I' in the logo, to match the font's  (which needs
  that letter to be easily readable).
* Saved some memory by moving some sprites graphics and other data to the unused
  space in the charset.
* Made many speed and memory optimizations.
* Made the [F1] check in the pause routine more robust (the CIA registers were
  accessed continuously, but my C64 did not like it).
* Renamed meters:
   * "belly satisfaction meter" -> "belly meter";
   * "turbofart charge meter" -> "turbofart meter".
* Renamed the FACTORY zone as the TOWERS zone (as now there is an idea of how it
  will play and look like).
* Made a few other minor changes.
* Worked on the FUN PARK zone:
   * started the map;
   * added "FUN" to the name.
* Worked on the CLIFFS zone:
   * added the cross subquest;
   * added 2 checkpoints to make it easier;
   * improved/enriched the map;
   * improved the graphics.
* Worked on the FORTRESS zone:
   * improved/enlarged/completed the map;
   * made the map easier;
   * added the stars & hidden switches puzzles;
   * improved/extended the graphics.
* Worked on the frontend:
   * made it present by default the last item/zone played;
   * inverted the zone selection controls (now: [UP] -> next zone, [DOWN] ->
     previous zone);
   * changed colors of unselected icons.
* Worked on the text reader (used by quickstart guide, intro and outro):
   * rewritten in assembly (it was a mix of BASIC-BOSS and machine language, as
     it was an adaption of the text reader used by MAH);
   * added 0.5 lines spacing for easier reading;
   * compacted the data and reorganized the memory allocation to reduce greatly
     the size of the binaries;
   * made it faster;
   * reduced the rendering glitches as much as possible (without resorting to
     buffering - double buffering would slow scrolling and triple buffering
     seems overkill, although it remains an option for the future).
* Worked on the documentation:
   * renamed the notice as "quickstart guide";
   * improved/updated/extended the quickstart guide and the manual.

[Raffox]

A che punto sei con lo sviluppo del gioco?
Mi sembra che ormai il grosso è stato fatto. Complimenti, soprattutto per la grafica pulita e bella  a cui Retream ci sempre abituati.

[saimo]

Dal rilascio dell'antemprima a oggi ho fatto quanto segue:
 * scritto la musica della zona 5;
 * iniziato a scrivere la musica della zona 1;
 * aggiunto 4 nuovi nemici;
 * fatto alcune modifiche/miglioramenti.

C'è però ancora una sacco di lavoro da fare:
 * finire design e mappa della zona 1;
 * finire la musica della zona 1;
 * creare le zone 2 e 3;
 * aggiungere altri nemici;
 * fare la musica del finale;
 * rendere le zone selezionabili solo dopo il completamento di quelle precedenti;
 * far attivare la voce del finale nel frontend solo dopo il completamento del gioco.
 
La creazione dei contenuti richiederà tantissimo tempo.

[saimo]

Lo sviluppo continua lentamente, ma continua. Posterò un changelog quando rilascerò la prossima anteprima (non dovrebbe volerci molto).
Per il momento, mi limito a riportare che ho ingradito le mappe ulteriormente. In particolare, quella della zona CLIFFS è ora 80 linee più alta (per un totale di 2048x928 pixel), e ciò ha permesso di sviluppare la parte sotterranea come una vera e propria rete di tunnel.
Ecco un paio di anteprime visive...

[saimo]

Altra massiccia anteprima - e questa volta a soli 3 mesi dalla precedente

Video
Download

CHANGELOG

Codice: [Seleziona]

* Made the game over trigger as soon as the belly meter becomes zero (before
  there was a grace period of about 5 seconds, but the fact that the game
  continued while the belly meter was zero looked plainly wrong).
* Changed the main color of Zampo's dark skin.
* Added 4 more baddies.
* Added a zone-complete transition.
* Made the portals sides graphics unique to each zone.
* Made many speed and memory optimizations.
* Touched up some music instruments.
* Started adding the logic to limit the zones selectable in the frontend to
  those already reached.
* Fixed an off-by-one bug in the cartridge driver that caused an additional page
  to be copied from ROM to RAM when the section size was an exact multiple of
  256.
* Fixed an off-by-one bug in the sprites multiplexer, which caused multiplexing
  to be done one line too early, thus corrupting the bottom line of sprites in
  some cases.
* Fixed/optimized the collision detection of Zampo against food/drinks (a change
  made just before releasing the previous preview could cause the collisions to
  be missed when the objects were flickering before disappearing).
* Fixed the collision detection when Zampo is incorporeal (Zampo could collide
  against food/drinks/baddies as a consequence of the system for handling
  Zampo's skin introduced by the previous preview).
* Fixed the permanent flashing of Zampo when he caught a spinach can while he
  was already in STEEL mode and the mode was about to expire.
* Fixed the portals graphics update and a CPU load peak in the FUN PARK zone (a
  routine was missing a closing jmp, so the portals graphics update was
  triggered also when it should have not been).
* Fixed the abort function (it did not work properly when Zampo was not in
  normal mode and did not zero the belly meter).
* Wrote the FUN PARK and FORTRESS zones music.
* Worked on the FUN PARK zone map:
   * expanded it;
   * improved/extended the graphics.
* Worked on the CLIFFS zone map:
   * made it 80 pixels taller (now it is 2048x928 pixels);
   * extended a lot the underground part;
   * added a portal connected to a new location;
   * added a puzzle related to the new portal (the portal is broken and Zampo
     must repair it after finding the missing piece);
   * changed the design in some places;
   * improved the graphics.
* Worked on the FORTRESS zone map:
   * made it 32 pixels taller (now it is 2048x880 pixels);
   * extended the underground part;
   * touched it up in a few places.
* Worked on the frontend:
   * changed logo design slightly;
   * improved vertical spacing of elements.
* Worked on the documentation:
   * extended/improved the manual;
   * changed slightly the color scheme of quickstart guide and manual.
* Worked on the intro: fixed a couple of things in the text.
* Worked on the zone introduction screen: fixed the initial colors of the
  letters (they were all black).

[wolfrunner]

Ottimo lavoro svolto.. complimenti..
soprattutto per aver continuato nonostante il tempo trascorso.

[saimo]

Ottimo lavoro svolto.. complimenti..

Grazie!

soprattutto per aver continuato nonostante il tempo trascorso.

Mai pensato di abbandonarlo