Sir Penta

Community Forums/Showcase/Sir Penta

Taron(Posted 2010) [#1]
Alright, here I go again with another unfinished game. It started only as my first openGL exercise, but it gets more and more interesting. The day shall come that I finish all my little game ideas... pffff, right.

Eitherway, you'll probably have to have openGL 2.0 or higher, I think.

Sir Penta (serpent, uhm, snake, funny?)





Download latest version:
Sir Penta v0.2j

Instructions:
- wiggle carefully left & right to move forward. As you grow longer you get faster!
- leap forward holding left mousebutton. Longer = Stronger!
- don't launch at yourself too fast, you'll bite yourself!
- eat to grow. Doesn't matter what you eat, except yourself!

- stay in the warm light. As you go into colder regions you cool down until you shiver and become immobile. Eating warms you up a little, too.

- keep spiders off your back. They'll suck dry your tail and poison it. But it'll heal overtime unless they drained it too much and it falls off.

There you go, that's it. It's just a prototype so far and will become something a whole lot more complex.


puki(Posted 2010) [#2]
This looks interesting.


Grisu(Posted 2010) [#3]
Same style as your other game. Like it.

Could you make it possible to increase the resolution? Or can't the engine handle that?


Taron(Posted 2010) [#4]
Yes, sure, it runs fullscreen at 1680x1050 on my machine, but I'm scared about it anywhere else as it is already, hahaha. I will make it all optional!

I'm dinking around with the idea of making a series of games, taking place in a sciencelab. GATTACATTA as genetic engineering experiment, this one as biomechanic test terrarium (that's all still to come for Sir Penta!), Nanobot challenge races and so forth. They'll all have a similar style and might even link up at some point, not sure. I might call it all Taronium Labs, haha. ;}

THANKS, already, that's for sure! All noted!


Grisu(Posted 2010) [#5]
Beware of the feature creep. :)


Andres(Posted 2010) [#6]
looks like a snake/bug simulator :P


MGE(Posted 2010) [#7]
And so ends my ability to run the Taron engine. I guess I'm too old tech. bummer.... I knew it was bound to happen. sniff! :(


Taron(Posted 2010) [#8]
Awww...darn. I was very worried about that. Our laptop is too old, too. Not that that's any consolation. I'll have to see if I can create an alternate version that simply skips all the GLSL shader stuff.

I'm really sorry, Dave. :{


therevills(Posted 2010) [#9]
This is really cool :)

I really like how the spider follows you and how it darts away. I couldnt eat the spider though (can you?).

I ended up just repeatly tapping the mouse button and turning with the mouse to move in the direction I wanted... proberly got RSI now ;)


Andres(Posted 2010) [#10]
I ate the spider for many times, cound't tell what are the arguments to eat it, but i did it. First time i thought that you need to stare at the spider for some time so the snake opens it's mouth, but it probably has something to do with your size too. The bug gets bigger too when it sucks on you.


Chalky(Posted 2010) [#11]
Very clever and smooth as silk on my ancient rig. :)


Taron(Posted 2010) [#12]
Hahaha, well, you have to be fast enough to catch the spiders. Therefore you have to be longer, too. Aim for the head of the spider!

Bugs grow over time, too, by the way. The spider grows when it sucks on you. If you swallow a spider that's bigger, you get bigger, too! If the spider or a bug gets to a certain size it will leave the battlefield, so to say.

Chalky, you've got one heck of an ancient rig, I'd say! :}

THANKS everyone! I'm glad you're giving it a whirl already.

I'm still using this as my openGL learning sandbox and will soon upload an update, I think/hope. I've already done a few minor improvements, but they big stuff is still to come!


Andres(Posted 2010) [#13]
An idea i got from your project (BMX). Left mouse button to do something:



Taron(Posted 2010) [#14]
Looks cute and squirmy...but I'm not sure what the grass and snake images are supposed to be?! I havn't investigated the code, yet. Just saw those to compile it.
(only left mouse spawns the lil' snakes...)

Awesome, though, you're making me quite happy! Rock on and go on...that could become something really fun!


Andres(Posted 2010) [#15]
Its cute only for those who dont have phobia :D The images werent anything special so i commented them out. And i do have a typo about the mouse button in previous post.


Taron(Posted 2010) [#16]
Updated (v0.2f) download in first post!

I was planning on doing some more openGL research and instead ended up writing a new fractal noise procedural for the background, haha. Fun, though.

Spider is a little easier to catch now, plus I've delayed it until you're large enough to catch one!

Andres, yeah, I figured you're not using them...hehe, but you forgot to comment them out (not that it mattered). I realized that phobias may well be triggered by my lil' snake and particularely the spiders. In your case it's more like worm and leech phobias that could go wild, hahaha! SWEEET!
Let's call all of this therapeutical! :}


Taron(Posted 2010) [#17]
I know FBO!

Dudes, what a trip! LOL! Hold down "T" for a drugged up snake...

Updated(v0.2g) download in first post!
Loads of cosmetics and a giant leap by having figured out how to setup and use FBOs as well as some more fragment shader explorations. I'm getting more and more pumped, but have to watch out now not to go over my head with this. I think I'm already half a mile above it, haha, but well...what a trip!


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#18]
hmmm, this version gives me a "mostly" black screen... I say mostly black because see all the text fine but no background and only a very faint image of the snake.


Taron(Posted 2010) [#19]
Oha...shite. FBO's making trouble then. Thanks for letting me know!

Updated(v0.2h) in first post!
Added a check, if FBO was available or not. You won't see the trip without openGL 2.0 or higher. :{

I mean, I could do a texture buffer copy, but it would slow it down dramatically, I'm afraid. Real shame.

ATI, hmmm...doh. I only have Nvidia 7300 and my laptop is beyond any hope to begin with (intel mobile 910/930). Not sure what ATI wants and which openGL version it supports.


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#20]
that doesn't seem to fix it... I'm running ATI catalyst drivers 9.12 which support opengl 3.2.


Taron(Posted 2010) [#21]
Yeah, I've read into ATI vs Nvidia troubles and can't battle it just yet. I'll see that I write a little FBO source to look at later in the openGL thread.

Thanks again for checking it out, though. I really hope we can figure it out. I certainly won't be able to do that alone. But then...nearly nothing I've figured out on my own, so far, in regards to openGL, pfff. Digging through all I can find online and only a few courageous leaps led me to hear. Long, long road ahead...


Taron(Posted 2010) [#22]
Hey dmaz, try the update! I made a test with FBO and found out that the circumstances given don't benefit from FBO as much as a simple PBO copy. So I tried that and it works beautifully.

Update (v0.2i)

I hope that does it. If not, would you mind showing a snapshot? That might give me a better idea what's going on... only if it's not too much hassle for you, of course. Thanks in advance and anyway!
(sorry for the double post!)

OMG, dmaz, I've just noticed something that makes me wonder how the previous FBO version could've worked in the first place. Try the new _FBO version, too, please!


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#23]
version i seems worse... at least in h I could kind of just barely make out the worm shape....

www.ooeyug.com/tmp/version_i.png

www.ooeyug.com/tmp/version_h.png

if you put those in a paint program you can see that they do both draw the elements to the screen but the latest version is almost completely black except for the ui.


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2010) [#24]
Get EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION


Taron(Posted 2010) [#25]
Is that FBO or without FBO, if I may ask?
And thanks for putting those up! Seems rather like a GLSL problem to me.

Hey BS, are you running Nvidia, ATI or Intel Mobile as GFX board?
Thanks for letting me know!

Well, hell, I've updated to v0.2j. I disabled mipmapping, flushed neatly and collected the garbage a little more faithfully at the end (not that that makes any difference, but while I was at it!)

Anyone, who can report that it does work? :{


maximo(Posted 2010) [#26]
hi sir Taron, one question

why is sir penta blured the closer to head you come and more sharp and detailed closer to tail. It make him look like his head is deeper down in the screen z axiz and tail closer to our eyes, giving him depth, kinda confusing since this is 2d game. It be better if details were more visible even when closer to head


Taron(Posted 2010) [#27]
YAY! More than anything, it tells me that it runs for you, YEHAH! :}}}

I've updated the existing version with a harder edge to the segments. However, the reason it looks that way is because it's the same fuzzy segment scaled smaller and smaller, making the edge sharper. I never minded the effect too much, but for you I've made a sharper version which shows the stylized scaling a bit nicer everywhere, too. I'm sure it still isn't entire what your asking for, but I like the compromise and thank you for making me check into that!

YAY, it works...I'm just a bit happier now. Every now and then it feels great to know somebody else gets to at least see what I'm doing. :}


_Skully(Posted 2010) [#28]
I could have swore I posted in this thread... must have navigated away before I hit post.

One thing I suggest, and I've started doing is posting both GL and DX compiled code... on my laptop running DX is at least 10x slower... I probably just need to update my DX installation. But some people have the reverse, where their DX rocks and their GL is painfully slow or glitchy.

When I was playing this... which was shortly after you posted it, I was having trouble with the controls using my laptop pad... trying to sway the head back and forth and steer at the same time I found difficult. It might be one of those "seemed like a good idea at the time" control schemes... not sure.. I'm the worst for trying new control systems and then having others say that its not intuitive... oh well, trial and error sometimes.

I'll try it again tonight with a mouse. But I think just using the up arrow (or mouse button) for movement and then sway the head using code might work better... just a suggestion.

Can I not eat the spiders? They are obviously trying to avoid the spider head but I could not find a way to eat them. I want to eat the spiders or wrap and constrict them to make them explode!

The visuals are awesome... very nice indeed! with some tweaks to the controls you will have something here.


Taron(Posted 2010) [#29]
Another YAY! It works, hahaha! :}
(even if only for a select few, it seems.) :{
Eitherway, you dart forward if you click left mouse button. It's the attack, but you can use it to move as well to some degree. The idea is to "be the snake", haha. With the mouse it's actually quite a blast, you'll see. Mild circles make it go real steady. You need to develop a feel for it, but then it's quite unique and I think plenty of fun. It's experimental, of course.

THANK YOU for trying, I'm very happy for more feedback as I'm updating it constantly (currently). Soon it will be one of the weirder tower defence like games, but that'll come soon...


_Skully(Posted 2010) [#30]
OK, Just had another go at this now that I know about the mouse click thing lol.. don't know how I didnt notice that before.

On my laptop things move pretty quick until the snake gets any kind of length...3 inches... then it gets really hard to move the snake. Does the spider paralyze the snake too?

I think this would be better in full screen mode as well because the mouse keeps going off the play board and opening windows making it very difficult to control the snake as well. Then it gets pulled back... are you centering the mouse location on every loop?

If you can get the speed more consistent there is definitely a game here.. you could even use point in poly type routines to allow the snake to circle things to gain points as well as eating the food...

again... beautiful graphics.. I wish I could make graphics like that!


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#31]
Is that FBO or without FBO, if I may ask?
that was without "t" pressed... the 2 pics were i and h with h being SirPenta_FBO


Boiled Sweets(Posted 2010) [#32]
Same problem.

With on board intel gfx


Taron(Posted 2010) [#33]
@_Skully: The cold paralizes the snake, the spiders just suck the tail dead. I center the mouse after a small margin away from center. The new version will have that a bit tighter, but superfast motions might throw the mouse out. At the end I will have a resolution choice including fullscreen. What do you mean by point in poly? Puzzles me a bit, hehe, but sounds interesting! :} ...and thanks again! :)

@ dmaz: Thanks, I don't know what to do right now, but I'll see that I write a little source to see if we can track down the problem. As far as I know I've done the FBO routine by the book, but GLSL is a bit shakey and ARB. Not sure if I should just go with openGL 2.0 and ignore ARB? We'll see.

@BS: Sorry, intel mobile seems to be hopeless to me, I couldn't get a shader to run on it, not even a texture buffer. At least not on 910/915. Thanks for testing, though!


_JIM(Posted 2010) [#34]
I think he meant that it would be cool to be able to strangle things, and for that, use a "point is inside poly" routine. ( Click! )


Taron(Posted 2010) [#35]
Why not just say "collision routine", haha! I've got several in there already including reflecting off a segment of the snake. It's a bit tricky, because they're tightly packed, but yeah, I can put that in, too. Strangling I'd like to avoid, because that'll be really, really tough, but trapping could interesting. Even then, it'll be tough...ehhhh...darn, I really wanted to avoid that. Let's see... I might give it a whirl! ;)

Thanks for the clarification and both suggestions! :}
OMG I should be so ashamed of myself, haha...the things I've learned from that code example, haha! I had no idea that you can use ".." to add lines to a command, pfffff. Neigher did I realize that you can use array.length to get the length of any array[]. How on earth did I even get to where I am now, LOL! Thanks, mate! :D


_Skully(Posted 2010) [#36]
I just thought you could have stuff on the screen that you get bonus points for if you encircle them with the snake... in fact.. it would be nice that if you encircle a spider that it dies... right now it feels like its a battle between the snake and the imortal spiders.


Taron(Posted 2010) [#37]
Haha, once you get a hang of it, you catch every spider. You just need to be warm enough. 80 segments upwards makes you fast enough. Aim for the head of the spider!

I have something planned, which is far wilder then encircling stuff for points, you'll see! ;) ...but I do like the idea, too.

Initially I thought of actually doing something completely outrageous, but it might be too crazy. Therefore I write it here for you just for the fun of it:
- after each level you need to lay an egg to get into the next stage via reincarnation, so to say. (That I might actually do, not sure yet!)
<now for the wild stuff>
- you need to find a mate first and then do a snake-mating swirlaround. These mates could have different traits, which you'd inherit as next generation. Different kinds of motions, attacks, powers.
- depending on the kinds of powers the other snake might have, you'd have to be careful in the approach, hahaha.
<back to the original plan>
- you have to keep your egg in a warm spot and guard it until it hatches. Then you die and get reborn...

Pretty insane, hm?!


_Skully(Posted 2010) [#38]
It has merit! I think I would have to see the implementation to fully "Get it" and to tell if it would work.. but the idea is sound!

Seeing that I keep missing the major points of the game, perhaps adding instructions at the beginning might help ;)


Taron(Posted 2010) [#39]
yEAH, I really need to add a tutorial mode and all that fancy stuff! :}
Thanks for encouraging me, really! I mean, I hope I'll do right by thanking for that, hahaha! Fun it is for sure!


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#40]
I like the egg idea...


Taron(Posted 2010) [#41]
Yoh, dmaz, thanks! Hey, I've written an FBO source for you to check out...
GLSL + FBO

Maybe we can chew a little threw that, see if there's a solution to be found?!

Once it is found, I will release my AwesomeGlassPongDude game... LOL!

Just updated SirPenta again. Nothing major, but hopefully it runs on ATI now?!


Taron(Posted 2010) [#42]
UPDATED, hoping to solve ATI compatibility. Not sure...


dmaz(Posted 2010) [#43]
nope...


Taron(Posted 2010) [#44]
I'm using the openGL Programing thread for a while until it is resolved. I've posted a new source up there...
FBO + GLSL

Well, you know the thread. Would you mind trying the latest source I've posted in #25!? That would be very nice. I can't figure out how there could still something be wrong? But SirPenta doesn't have those updates, yet. AmazingGlassPongDude, though! :|

Thanks in advance!