Games with zero External Media

Community Forums/Showcase/Games with zero External Media

QuietBloke(Posted 2007) [#1]
OK.. so for last couple of weeks Ive been playing with the idea of creating a simple framework to allow games to be written using no external media.
Ive come up with what Im calling Block games. The graphics are very low res (160x120) zoomed x4 for display purposes. 16 colour fixed pallette. A couple of methods allow simple sounds to be generated.
I knocked up a space invaders game to try it out and it's damm fun writing it. It still needs a bit of work but it gives a good idea of what its all about.
anyways.. in case anyone is interested.. or bored.. or curious.. or whatever here is the source ( like I said.. no external media :) ).

I would be interested if it works OK on the older machines out there. btw.. dont worry if you cant get more than 30FPS.. thats a fast as it's supposed to go !.

Oh yeah. Press F2 to smooth the graphics display. F1 to go back to square blocks. ESC will quit the app.
In the game. P to start a game. Cursor keys move the player. Space key fires a shot.

First the framework. Save this first file as TBlockGame.bmx.



and here is the Invaders game. Save as BlockInvaders.bmx. Compile and run. :)




_33(Posted 2007) [#2]
[ codebox ]
[ /codebox ]


QuietBloke(Posted 2007) [#3]
aye.. yeah.. sorry... silly me. Fixed


Steve Elliott(Posted 2007) [#4]
Interesting idea - thanks for sharing.


ImaginaryHuman(Posted 2007) [#5]
Hmm, definitely very retro, but cool that you did this with no media. I was half expecting something kind of procedural though. ?


QuietBloke(Posted 2007) [#6]
cheers.. I was going more for a sort of cut back Basic. Limited speed, graphics, sounds. That leaves me free to concentrate on gameplay.
As for the games you can write.. I was aiming more for simple stuff.. the sort of thing I might have seen printed in a computer magazine back when I were a lad.
In fact as a personnal goal I kind of had in the back of my head that the game source code cannot exceed 32K.

The resolution was set very low to start with as I didnt know what sort of performace I would get.
Also it is far easier to define the sprite graphics when the detail is so low.
As it happens my laptop even at its slowest CPU setting can reach almost 100fps. So.. there is a chance I can up the resolution.. maybe Ill try 320x240.. and of course the colour pallette is fixed but there is no reason or speed hit in increasing the number of colours or even allowing the pallette to be modified.

Anyway.. thanx for taking a look. Sorry about the 'procedural' disapointment :)


SoggyP(Posted 2007) [#7]
Hello.

If you look at the top of the blitz3d beginners area (link in sig) you'll see the community space invaders thread. The work done in there on producing programmed media was excellent (not pimping myself, by the way) and should give you an idea of what is capable of being produced in this way.

Goodbye.


QuietBloke(Posted 2007) [#8]
Hi SoggyP.. how does your game generate sounds ?.. I cant seem to find code to do it... I only found the player shooting sound which seems to have the sound file stored in data.

I see what you mean about the graphics... hmmm... I currently only allow individual pixels to be set in the sprite images. Maybe I should extend the framework to allow lines to be drawn. Not really required now but if I up the resolution it would be handy.