Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

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NovaSquirrel
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

GValiente wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:18 pm Looks great.

Have you thought about using something like the DSP-1?
DSP-1 is tempting, but I want my game to work on the Super Everdrive X5 so that more people can play it on a real SNES. That said, if I do a separate game later that expands on this gameplay and makes it the main game, I'd probably either use DSP-1 or make it for GBA so I can explore the concept more thoroughly.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by Nikku4211 »

The mode 7 platforming reminds me of this Jimmy Neutron GBA game.

It'd be awesome to see it on the SNES, but if you want it to be on GBA, I guess GBA can do more on top of that with its mode 2.
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Individualised
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by Individualised »

GBA can handle a full texture-mapped 3D platformer given the right programmer.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by SNES AYE »

NovaSquirrel wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:43 pm
GValiente wrote: Mon Apr 10, 2023 9:18 pm Looks great.

Have you thought about using something like the DSP-1?
DSP-1 is tempting, but I want my game to work on the Super Everdrive X5 so that more people can play it on a real SNES. That said, if I do a separate game later that expands on this gameplay and makes it the main game, I'd probably either use DSP-1 or make it for GBA so I can explore the concept more thoroughly.
Yeah, I definitely want to see how far it can be taken on SNES first. And I think, with further code optimization and some other tricks here and there, you could probably manage a handful of sprites in that Mode 7 level and still have it running well and in line with some of the official SNES games that use Mode 7 for rotating courses and the like.

I wonder if looking at the code in a game like say Street Racer could give some hints. As those guys seemed to have done a lot there with the stock SNES, even managing a four player mode, so four Mode 7 tracks in view plus potentially 16 racers on-screen at once at times.

You've clearly got the talent and drive to do some special stuff on SNES, and there's certainly not much exciting happening in the homebrew scene for it outwith a handful of titles I've seen, so I'm grateful for people like you actually making quality games on the system I'm in here to learn more about developing for and hopefully play more new homebrew releases on in the future.
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NovaSquirrel
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

SNES AYE wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 1:14 am I wonder if looking at the code in a game like say Street Racer could give some hints. As those guys seemed to have done a lot there with the stock SNES, even managing a four player mode, so four Mode 7 tracks in view plus potentially 16 racers on-screen at once at times.
It looks like Street Racer only changes the camera rotation and nothing else, which reduces the processor load a lot because that means you can replace most of the math with lookup tables. I did try taking out the zooming effect but it made jumps feel a lot less satisfying, which is a sacrifice I'm not willing to make.

It's probably possible to set up some tables to accommodate both rotation and zooming, but I think I prefer just putting enemies and other moving objects directly on the mode 7 plane, since I think it actually looks really good for this kind of gameplay, just different. The big disadvantage is that everything has to stay on the ground, but I feel like a game where you have to dodge obstacles in the air probably calls for some different game design and a different camera anyway. I can explore that if I eventually do a DSP-1 game like this.

Assuming I do go with Jumping Flash! style gameplay, where you collect all of some item and head to the exit, I'd probably use the one or two real sprites I can currently use on indicators that help show where the items are.
SNES AYE wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 1:14 am You've clearly got the talent and drive to do some special stuff on SNES, and there's certainly not much exciting happening in the homebrew scene for it outwith a handful of titles I've seen, so I'm grateful for people like you actually making quality games on the system I'm in here to learn more about developing for and hopefully play more new homebrew releases on in the future.
Thanks! I'm hoping that my game can inspire people to try developing for SNES; I genuinely think it's easier to program than the NES is, but no one's giving it a chance because they think it's too hard, so maybe I can help convince people to try by talking about my own experiences. If not, at least I can contribute one cool game to the library.
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gif showing off the software-rendered sprites
gif showing off the software-rendered sprites
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by SNES AYE »

That's very interesting. I've never heard anyone say it's easier to develop for SNES than NES. Do you mean more that the SNES is just less restricted than NES in terms of all the hardware limitations you have to make games fit within, or that you actually think the SNES code and stuff is easier to work with once you learn it?

Either way, yeah, great to see someone genuinely enthusiastic about SNES and doing some great work towards one more actual releasable game on it to boot. It's absolutely something I want to see more of and wholeheartedly support. So major props to you.

Very nice little effect and mechanic with the tiles moving around the level there.

Can't wait to see more of your game. :D
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NovaSquirrel
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

SNES AYE wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 2:54 pm Do you mean more that it's just less restricted than NES in terms of all the hardware limitations you have to make games fit within, or that you actually think the SNES code and stuff is easier to work with once you learn it?
I feel like my game logic is a lot simpler and shorter because of 16-bit registers and 16-bit operations, and it's nice that the limits are higher so it's easier to stay under them. But I also feel like there are a ton of features that games often have that are complicated on NES that become trivial on SNES because of the extra hardware features, or improvements to how the features work.

Status bars are a pretty good example. For a typical NES status bar, you need to change the scrolling mid-frame, need to use interrupts or sprite zero to figure out where to do that, and need to care about timing for the actual scroll change, and then there's the complication where if you're doing vertical scrolling (which itself is more complicated on NES because the maps are not a power of 2 in height) you need to care about keeping the level and status bar separate.

On SNES... you can just put a status bar on its own layer, like Super Mario World does, or if you want to do it with a mid-frame split then HDMA makes that trivial.

It's definitely a lot more to learn, and Hello World requires more code, but I feel like once you're past the point where you're going through tutorials and making simple games it's definitely easier to do SNES. Of course all of that is just the code side of things, but I do personally find it a lot easier to draw graphics that look good when I have more colors to work with.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by Pokun »

I definitely think the NES is easier to get into initially, the SNES just has so many more hardware features you need to learn how to use before you can make anything at all. Once you get over that hurdle they are probably very similar. The NES has some limitations that makes it more challenging, like the BG color attributes, but the SNES has its own peculiarities, like the scattered sprite attributes and the separate assembly language for the APU.

For a skilled programmer (which I'm not) the SNES might be easier, and yeah for an artist, lower resolution and limited colors is generally harder to work with because small details like exact pixel positions matters so much more.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by 93143 »

Nice work with the Mode 7 stage. I like the parallax effect in that one video - it's something I've thought about (if I live 300 years there will be a sequel to F-Zero using the SA-1), and it's neat to see it implemented.

I chose to start with the SNES rather than the NES, not because I thought it would be easier (though some things are), but because I didn't want to pick up habits and assumptions that I would then have to unlearn. I've seen this actually happen to people - for instance, I think I recall somebody assuming OAM DMA had to happen every frame on SNES, simply because it does on NES. And NES programmers seem to keep forgetting that the SNES has hardware multipliers...

Individualised wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:02 pmGBA can handle a full texture-mapped 3D platformer given the right programmer.
The SNES probably can too, if "the right programmer" means someone who knows Super FX...

Doom was a bit choppy, but it was hit hard by the fact that everything renders in columns, which is the opposite of how the Super FX wants to do things. Simple two-axis affine texturing from an uncompressed source can be done in 11 cycles per pixel, or 9 if you don't need to wrap, and if you're rendering in horizontal lines (or using Mode 7 or intermediate buffering) you don't suffer nearly as much from pixel cache stall. Also, I believe there are approaches to VSD that have been devised since Doom that generalize well and are less expensive than runtime BSP trees, although zero-overdraw might be a tall order...

Star Fox (and presumably other games based on its engine) did multi-axis vertex transforms when it wasn't strictly necessary. Modest amounts of camera pitch could be faked with software Y-shearing, and modest amounts of roll (if necessary, which for a platformer it probably isn't) could be faked via OPT+linescroll, leaving yaw as the only required rotation transform.

Vortex has been noted as an example of a game that really suffered from the lack of GSU-side double buffering. It ran at 21 MHz and the frame was actually done fairly quickly, but it then had to wait multiple Vsyncs for the SNES to empty the framebuffer. Since cost is no longer the obstacle it was back in the day, and the GSU2 supports more than enough RAM to double buffer anything the SNES can handle without tearing, the solution is obvious.


...and then there's Super Mario RPG, which is arguably a 3D platformer and probably didn't actually need the SA-1...

EDIT: Sorry for hijacking your thread to ramble about this. If someone eventually decides to respond, perhaps a different thread could be made... or I could start one... I'll consider excising this bit and posting it elsewhere, if I can convince myself it's important enough for its own thread.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

There's been a whole lot of graphical improvement on the mode 7 levels! I gave the player character a lot more animation than she had before, and I added a lot of decorations, which make it feel a lot more like an actual world. From here I would like to add some sort of HUD to show how many items you need to collect before you can go through the goal, and I'll probably give them a more creative design than just hearts.

I added the ability to take blocks and slide them somewhere, which I think is how attacking enemies will work, though the focus is a lot more on platforming and exploration than on combat.

Video showing off the new animations and decoration, and probably enough gameplay that it's probably a reasonably complete level?
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gif showing off sliding and pushing blocks
gif showing off sliding and pushing blocks
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calima
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by calima »

When you're holding a block, there's no indication that you have it? Would be good to add, I think.
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

calima wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 12:03 am When you're holding a block, there's no indication that you have it? Would be good to add, I think.
Yeah that would be another good thing to put in a HUD
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by SNES AYE »

NovaSquirrel wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 8:11 am
calima wrote: Sun Apr 23, 2023 12:03 am When you're holding a block, there's no indication that you have it? Would be good to add, I think.
Yeah that would be another good thing to put in a HUD
Could possibly show this via the player holding a smaller sprite of the block above their head, so it looks like they're actually carrying it. :)
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by SNES AYE »

I forgot to say, it's looking very cool with the added details. :)
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Re: Nova the Squirrel 2 (WIP)

Post by NovaSquirrel »

SNES AYE wrote: Tue Apr 25, 2023 1:14 am Could possibly show this via the player holding a smaller sprite of the block above their head, so it looks like they're actually carrying it. :)
I might, though that would double the number of player animation frames needed and I'm not sure that's something I'd want to do. Plus it might not look as good visually.

I'm working on a HUD but I'm doing a minimal look like the main game has. I think this works fine; I might put it in a little frame or something but it's nice to have more of the view unobstructed, even if it's just sky.
There's also an animation on the fans, so they actually look like fans now.
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gif showing off a new fan animation
gif showing off a new fan animation
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