TIGSource Forums

Title: TBA
Release Date: TBA
Programming: Overkill (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=1899)
Design: Kramlack (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=44865)
Platform: GameBoy Color

So Overkill and I have been working on a currently unnamed Dragon Quest-like dungeon crawler on the GameBoy Color. This project started out last year as a sidescroller, but quickly shifted over to an rpg a month or two later. The goal of this project is to try some funky tricks on the hardware while just making a fun, old school RPG. Hopefully this DevLog will serve to chart our progress and changes.

Saturday, February 18, 2012
We have screen scrolling, text boxes appearing on screen, and a makeshift menu that doesn't fully work (but looks like it does)! The assets used in the images below are about a month old now, and most have been updated since then, but not yet put into the game.
Some images showing what we have working. (http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/377124e107c6a1487ce39d82d1f688c3.png)

Love it man.

Very neat stuff.

I'd love to hear more about the programming end, i'm very curious about the whole structure behind it, how deep you have to go.

Very cool, has always been a dream of mine.

Sweet. I too, would like to hear how much of a similarity/difference there is between making PC-related and Nintendo-related software; as well as what design plans you have for this bundle of joy...

Maybe overkill can do a post-mortem after we finish the game, just sort of shedding some light on how this was done. Short of that, if you want to PM me, I know a bit about the programming side, and just about everything regarding the restrictions.

EDIT: Here's a bit from Overkill when I talked to him about doing a post-mortem.

YIKES. So it's harder than TI-84, basically, and that everything has to be measured arithmatically, instead of geometrically? Even in 2D, that's a tremendous pain in the tookus. I couldn't imagine! ~.~

And yet now, that obscure leveling system that GB RPG's used and alternative physics engines that their platformers use makes total sense. There's a good reason why SML2 feels floaty and vertically steady compared with other titles...

Man, FINALLY.

Liking the sound of this, interested to see how the process goes  :)

The tech side sounds fascinating/annoying. Looking forward to your updades.

Wow, the screensshots look really nice. Looking forward to this. :)

@baconman: Glad that little bit of info was able to help you understand a few things.

@everyone: Here's an update. Or, wait a minute... (http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/6ce54f95d5fac1c91c5d3a4eed924d45.png) ???

All of my love.
(http://i.imgur.com/he7Vp.png)

release date: 2105, after kramlack rage-quitted approximately 58 times and nagged eternally

~ obligatory ass post thanks for cloning final fantasy ~

Pretty impressive coding for that system.  It's not an easy one to deal with by any measure .. good luck with it.

I can't really argue with anything here because it's all true. Thanks Ein.

Nice. Now visit my fake-ass Gameboy RPG devlog and tell me how many rules I'm breaking  :lol:

Keep the updates coming

Hardcore! Looks really solid so far. Keep up the good work.

After some pain... Progress!

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72165/gb_rpg_screen9.png) Game Boy Color

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/72165/gb_rpg_screen9_dmg.png) Game Boy (DMG)

While most of the data here is cheesed placeholders, the timer pictured here is updated roughly once every minute.

Here is the storage definition used for the timer, nothing fancy, just a few byte variables in the BSS section:
It counts the number of vblank interrupts in a "step counter". When that hits 60, the second counter is incremented. When that hits 60, the minute counter is incremented. When that hits 60, the hour counter is incremented. If you hit 99 hours, none of that happens, the timer just stops.

Oh, also, what you see on the menu screenshot near the top of the screen is a crazy round trip to draw the updated timer numbers. First, in the main loop, it converts the minutes and hours into BCD (binary coded decimal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary-coded_decimal)) formats. Then it prints those numbers as tiles to a null-terminated temporary buffer, which gets transformed into unrolled loop code in system RAM that copies those tiles. Then during vblank, that unrolled loop is called to actually draw those numbers to the screen.

Here is some print-loop-unroll code, for those interested:

Now I realistically can work on useful programming things, like the other menus, and making the stat screen no longer hardcoded. Cool.

Also hard to tell from here, but you can move the cursor around, and the description text for the menu item selected will update by buffering strings in a similar unrolled-for-vblank manner.

I'm considering doing the inventory menu next!

Wow I can see why Kramlack was so critical on my 8-Bit style. This is impressive man! :D Well done man :)

Ah, good ol' ASM, how I don't miss you at all .. >_>

This game reminds me why I like when developers make a game in the end of a console's lifespan: the hardware is so well known that it's possible to do games that pushes the system to the limit. Judging by that awesome gradient you guys are doing it. :)

(http://i.imgur.com/puNCw.gif)

Woah! Slow down! There's no update here.

I'm just swinging by to say this is alive and kicking, and that Overkill is currently making some tools to manage the code better.

A small somewhat-update is that I've decided to add a room where you meet my current avatar. I haven't heard back from Overkill about this, so there's a chance it could get blasted out of existence. If it works out though, no details on whether it'll be a hidden room or part of the story, or even a button based code to get to, but. I'll leave an image of my avatar here for when I decide to change it again.

EDIT: Thanks for the heads up on that Connor and Andy.

thank you,

This project looks AMAZING and totally addictive! Please tell me that it's going strong?

@Ein: You're welcome.

@Enker: It's hard to say it's going strong. I mean, neither of us are near the breaking point of quitting, but as Overkill mentioned before, simple tasks that would take a day or two with other forms of code are now taking months with the GameBoy hardware, so this will be a long project.

I'd like to say FEZ long, but then I want to cry.

"Boxes"

Did you mean "bokses" or "boks"?

Kramlack Boklord, lord of the boks

Bokchoylord

Oh shi-

let me guess: boktai

What? This has nothing to do with Boktai...

EDIT: Oh wait, the sunlight right? Not really. It was originally just from looking at caves in SNES games that had light pouring in, but yeah, I guess it looks more like Boktai with the flickering going on.

EDIT2: I need to be quicker on picking this stuff up.

let me guess: sunlight

Those colours are great.

I expect credit and 25% royalties for the inspiration.

What royalties, no one told me about royalties. I'm selling carts at a loss Ashkin, so you better be ready to pay me!

Thanks for the update. I guess it looks like a box with a face? The closest thing that comes to mind are those "mimic" treasure chests, except this one looks like it's not going to attack you

Good luck on the code

LOVING THIS

(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/cf0269b61dc20ee31bf0f6d266e60fc6.gif)

Daaaaamn, girrrrrl.

 :-*

(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/4d12611885e5bc95755fe70c2ac545be.png)
(http://neuropod.net/imagehost/uploads/1ed6f0a14cbd5431093c0b90071da9d4.png)

EDIT: Added another one based off something Overkill mentioned to me earlier. Two now becomes three boxes.

any is fine as long the content in them is beautiful... stop looking at the appearance of things and look at their messages!

also, one of your gameboys has a darker black at the bottom..? why

Do you mean the one Overkill put up (the lighter one)? That's the one as it is in-game, I believe with a filter to desaturate the colours (as they'd look on a GameBoy Colour screen). The ones I'm posting are from my own set of mock colours and what not. Long story short, nothing is final, colour-wise.

GEEZ MAN

(http://puu.sh/mR1Y)

ps it isn't black so i'm GEEZ MAN'd too

Did you really need to post about that in this thread? Also I have no idea, it was originally two colours, but then I figured it would be impossible to notice and changed it to all black, so I guess I only changed one instead of all of them.

is my derailing hurting your delicate, canadian heart

Considering you just page'd my question about the game, yes.

Would it be possible to combine the middle box shape with the down arrow thing inside the box like in the bottom one (maybe have it move a little up and down if you can spare a sprite?) That'd be the one that looks best to me. Failing that, just go with the middle one.

Game looks great, by the way. Been following this thread for a bit but never really posted, I'm looking forward to this.

Yes, any of the options can be combined, and yes to the little arrow inside the box being a sprite actually. My only concern (that I brought up when Overkill suggested it) is that it takes the place of a character, which is spared if we use either of the other arrows.

I like the second one the best.

I love the graphics. And the tininess.

I'm liking the middle one.

Middle one, with the arrow like in the first. Definitely have it bob or something to draw attention.

Just stopped by to let everyone know that Overkill broke a bone in his arm/wrist. So he's got that in a cast for 6-12 weeks. He's still able to type, but...

sup

Yeah I broke my scaphoid bone pretty bad. I can still type, but everything else has basically been fucked for left hand/arm. I'm hoping to still make progress on this though, but it's gonna go slow.

I've survived one week! I get the see the doctor on April 23, hopefully I can get this cast removed at that point, and get back to my typical life.

hey
hey kramlack
unblock me on msn
;o

Figured I'd update this while I'm back. This game is dead, in relation to me leaving a week ago, but Overkill and I are still working on a GBC homebrew. Stay tuned?