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[N]

I trust you, it's looking awesome already!

[captainbinky]

The Gameboy didn't really have any blur at all, did it?

Gosh, it had loads! You could barely see anything when the screen scrolled!  :D

[muku]

The Gameboy didn't really have any blur at all, did it?

Gosh, it had loads! You could barely see anything when the screen scrolled!  :D

Heh, looking at it that way, you're right... it's been years since I've had one of those things in my hands That's more like motion blur though and not the static directional blur I'm doing here. In fact, motion blur wouldn't be too difficult to implement either, hmmmm... but first to actually finish the game

[UltraJMan]

The Gameboy didn't really have any blur at all, did it?

Gosh, it had loads! You could barely see anything when the screen scrolled!  :D

Heh, looking at it that way, you're right... it's been years since I've had one of those things in my hands That's more like motion blur though and not the static directional blur I'm doing here. In fact, motion blur wouldn't be too difficult to implement either, hmmmm... but first to actually finish the game

I was just playing my original Gameboy for old time's sake a few weeks back. That thing really did have some serious blur issues, I still won't forget trying to find the brightest spot for playing without getting glare... good times.

[PHeMoX]

Yup, definitely plenty of motion blur side effects, I guess that's why the hand held was way ahead of it's time.  It's probably still my favorite hand held.

[muku]

There's now a demo available in the first post. There still might be some technical hiccups, so if you have any problems, please run the game from a console window and report the error message you get.

Currently it's Windows only (tested on Win2K and Vista), but if there's someone here who uses D and is on another platform, I'd like to send them the code for compilation. I will release the source publically anyway, but only when it's completely done.

And thanks must go to Multifaros for letting me use his music! He rocks!

[Will Vale]

Works OK for me on XP. It's quite slow, but only in an authentic retro kind of way (I assume?)

I love how you're only drawing the track a short distance ahead, but you have the vanishing point on the static background for infinite depth - I can remember some other early 3D games that did something similar.

Colours and static blur look good too.

Cheers,

Will

[muku]

Works OK for me on XP. It's quite slow, but only in an authentic retro kind of way (I assume?)

Thanks for the feedback. The ship starts out quite slow, but should get faster as the music picks up and the track gets more downhill. But since I got the same comment from UltraJMan, maybe I'll speed it up a little, but actually I think it's already pretty hectic once things pick up.

Or is this more a comment about the apparently limited framerate? I intentionally limited animation of the track to discrete steps so it looks more retro. If you're not sure the game performs as well as it should, run it from the console, you'll get an average FPS printout when it quits.

[trabitboy]

waou really good gameboy vibe, I like the jerkiness
a lot, reminds me of cpc wireframe 3D 

[captainbinky]

The Gameboy didn't really have any blur at all, did it?

Gosh, it had loads! You could barely see anything when the screen scrolled!  :D

Heh, looking at it that way, you're right... it's been years since I've had one of those things in my hands That's more like motion blur though and not the static directional blur I'm doing here. In fact, motion blur wouldn't be too difficult to implement either, hmmmm... but first to actually finish the game

Just downloaded the game - neat! Great stuff so far! 

I see what you mean now with the blur - the screenshots weren't showing for me before so I thought you meant screen blur like you'd get if you didn't clear the screen each frame and instead drew a transparent polygon on top of it, and then the new frame on top of that. Sort of screen smear if you get me?

But the bleeding blur type effect you've got looks pretty funky!

[Will Vale]

Or is this more a comment about the apparently limited framerate?

I like the limited framerate, it definitely adds retroness. I was more concerned about the gameplay speed - the downhill bits feel great, but the uphill bits feel like waiting for more downhill bits.

That said, I'll have to try some other tracks - I only played the first one - to get a better feel for the overall balance.

Incidentally, if you get to implementing the LCD afterimage, can I suggest that you tie that to real time rather than the stepped frame times? The idea being that on the real thing the fade is continuous and smooth even though the updates aren't. I think having one smooth-over-time element on screen will make everything feel more fluid and responsive even though the rest of the display update is artificially slow.

e.g.


  space
t OOOO
i OOOO
m OOOO
e OOOO
  oOOOO
  .OOOO
   OOOO
   OOOO
   oOOOO
   .OOOO
    OOOO
    OOOO


The big Os are a four-pixel sprite moving to the right - these are the pixels you're already plotting, updating every fourth frame for the sake of argument, and the little os and dots are the fading ghost pixels which get updated every single frame.

Does that make any sense? It sounded good in my head, but you never know...

[UltraJMan]

I think as far as the speed issue goes, maybe a comrpomise could be to speed up the uphill bits just slightly, those seem to drag quite a lot but the rest feels balanced.

[muku]

Great suggestions! Going off the feedback I got so far, I'll probably decrease the variance in ship speeds a bit so that the fastest bits stay as they are but the uphill sections are faster (as UltraJMan said).

EDIT: I recall now why I did it the way it is now, it's because I wanted to capture that feeling from the original AS where you go over a hill and suddenly everything starts racing by. With lower variance in speed, I'm a bit worried that might get lost. But I'll try to find a compromise.

That LCD blur idea sounds good. You'd still get ghost images which are several pixels apart because of the limited on-screen framerate, but it might look neat. I'll see whether I have time to give it a try.

[trabitboy]

this demake really turned well !
I keep coming back to it for a daily fix 

[muku]

Wow, thanks trabitboy, that's great to hear.


The (hopefully) final version is online. Changes from the demo:

• Sexy new intro screen.
• Minimap and speedometer on the HUD.
• Made the slow sections a bit faster.
• Increased chain bonus multiplier.
• Award bonus system implemented. There are various things you can do which will give you a percentage bonus when the game ends.
• Minor last-minute layout changes.

I feel these changes have given the game quite some more polish, so be sure to re-download if you have the demo already.

Also, if there is interest, I could put up an "expansion pack" with more Multifaros songs. On the other hand, you can use whatever songs you want anyway, so maybe it's not needed.

Enjoy. I'm pretty happy about how it turned out. Thanks again to UltraJMan and Multifaros.