Dangerous Asteroids W.I.P.
Community Forums/Showcase/Dangerous Asteroids W.I.P.
| ||
Screenshot: Hey Blitzers ! I'm developing an Asteroids-like game, would you like to try it out ? Altough not yet complete, it's already enjoyable. Control your ship with arrow keys, fire with left control. Avoid the asteroids, collect bonus energy by shooting the robots and gain more power getting the bonus weapons. Available in the 'work in progress' section of my website: http://www.sergiomarcello.com Or download it directly: http://www.sergiomarcello.com/wip/asteroids.zip Let me know your comments on this. Suggestions and critics are more than welcome :) [EDIT] In this game I've coded a sound engine which produces different explosion sounds each time; I would like to know your opinion on it; does the game 'sounds' good ? [/EDIT] Regards, Sergio. |
| ||
| Just had a quick play on this and I liked it. Good little Asteroids game. Couple of things I noticed: - It says 'succeded' instead of 'successful' in the info screen. - Mouse cursor is drawn behind text. This may be intentional but I find it distracting. - Player shots dont make any sound. - I was re-spawned directly on top of an asteroid once, and was immediately destroyed. - Got some slowdown when things got a bit busy. My machine is pretty crap, but it may be worth using delta timing or something? Yeah, the explosions sounded good to me. Well done. |
| ||
| Thank you big10p :) I'll make the changes you suggested in the next release. For the slowdown when things got busy, I'm quite puzzled on how to do that. But I'll dig into it. So the sound engine works fine - that's good to know ! Sergio. |
| ||
| For the slowdown when things got busy, I'm quite puzzled on how to do that. But I'll dig into it. Are you using a single surface sprite system, like Sprite Candy? If you're using plain old blitz sprites, this'll probably be the main culprit of killing the frame rate when things get busy. |
| ||
| Yes I'm using SpriteCandy. Do you have some hint on how to do delta timing with it ? |
| ||
| Sorry, no, I don't have Sprite Candy. Lot's of others do though, so I'm sure someone else will be able to help. |
| ||
| I've optimized the code now, and when things go busy the game does not suffer anymore :) @big10p, would you mind to re-load the game again, and try it out ? I'm quite interested on this speed issue. You find the download link at the top of this thread. Sergio. |
| ||
| Semar- Not bad at all. For me, the playability would improve if there was slightly less intertia on the ship. I have a decent system, so speed should not be a problem, but I get a jerk about every 3-4 seconds, which looks irritating. This may be a Blitz problem rather than anything specific you are doing in your code. |
| ||
| Hi Nomen luni, thank you very much for your answer and suggestions. << Less inertia on the ship >> ---> You mean, I guess, that the ship must stop faster rather than continue to move, when no thrust is pressed ? I'll look definately into it. About the jerk, I'm very sad to hear that. I'm using no timer in the game - except in the Help screen - and SpriteCandy works with an internal timing that again, does not use any kind of timer, only the good old MilliSecs(). So I really don't know now how to avoid that jerk which, as I understand from you, happens every 3-4 seconds and therefore it's not related to the amount of sprites running on the screen. This puzzles me really :-/ May I ask you to explain in details what happens ? Does the 'jerky' phenomen affect all the sprites, or only a few ? Does this jerk effect is noticeable also in other Blitz games, or only in my one ? Sergio. |
| ||
| Yes you understand correctly what I mean by inertia. Just a suggestion. See what others think. Actually, I see the same phenomenon in my own game which I am working on. It's as if the whole thing skips a frame every 3-4 seconds, so it affects all sprites and is not dependent on how much is going on. I am doing the same as you in my game. i.e: Set a frame rate, and don't use any timers. If anyone else knows a way round the problem, I would love to hear it. |
| ||
| It may have to do with VSync - the vertical synchronisation of the monitor. You may try, in your own game, if using Flip False or Flip True makes some difference. Another thing which I would do, is to update the drivers of the graphics card. By the way Nomen luni, how do you find the 'sound engine' of my game ? Do you like how the game 'sounds', or do you find it boring ? Sergio. |
| ||
| I still get a bit of slowdown but I don't think it's as bad as it was before. |
| ||
| Thank you big10p. Seems to have speeded up quite a bit then :) Where do you still get a bit of slowdown ? When lots of explosions take place ? Or - overall - when lots of asteroids are running, despite of there are explosions or not ? By the way, do you experience any 'jerky' effect with this game ? Sergio. |
| ||
| I haven't noticed any real jerkiness. I just get the ocassional slowdown when there are lots of sprites on-screen. Overall, it's pretty smooth, really. |
| ||
| Sorry, semar, I meant to get back to you sooner. I haven't tried the flip true/false thing yet because I have just done a complete reinstall and I don't have the backup of my game with me. What I have noticed, though, is that my game was jerky on both my new gfx card (8800GTS) and my old one (6600GT, same as yours). I think the cause is my 'monitor'. I'm using a Samsung LCD tv which also has a monitor input and suspect this is the culprit. |
| ||
| Thank you Nomen luni for your feedback - and no problem, better late that never :) Now that you've mentioned the monitor, I guess too that it could be the reason. I've tested my game on different pcs, and so far it runs smooth on all - and also I don't use any timer, since SpriteCandy makes only use of MilliSecs() to sync all the object movements. So I would suggest you to update your monitor drivers; you may have some nice surprise in terms of performances :) Regards, Sergio. P.S. A new version is also avaliable. The astroship has now less inertia, as suggested by big10p, the bullets have a nice glow effect attached, and the bullet/asteroid collision is optimized and does not slow down the game anymore :) I must confess, I would *do* appreciate more feedback =) |
| ||
| Yeah no millisecs() in my code. It just uses a fixed framerate, by which I mean I set the framerate in Blitz and do nothing else. Unfortunately, there are no new drivers for my tv. Anyone else round here got an LCD tv for a monitor? If so, I would be interested to hear how Semar's game runs for you. |
   |