The problem is not making money with something learnt for free, it's making money from the person who taught for free. In the case of your student, it would be a nice sign of gratitude if he gave you, his teacher, a free copy of the CD. Or at least send you a couple of MP3s so that you could enjoy what he's done with what you gave him without having to pay.Robert wrote:I'm a guitar teacher. If I gave someone a free lesson on the basics of guitar and s/he went on to produce a CD and made money, I'd have no problem with that.
Doing a better game engine - some thoughts on ice blocks
Moderator: Moderators
...and find a way to show gratitude towards them. Giving a ROM is not such a good idea because he can't be sure they will not go behind his back and release it to the public.Jeroen wrote:It's kinda hard for sivak to go back and find everyone who helped him.
Maybe give them a nice discount (a lot more than $3) on the cart if they want to buy it? Like, give up the profit for these particular copies.
I don't know how well this would work, let alone if it would, but avoiding subpixels and going strictly with counters, one could have a set count down before moving in a particular direction, then, when the person stops, this same delay can be repeated, unless the person jumps or walks against the counter. The jump would reset the delay to 0, unless the fall makes contact with the ice, and moving in the opposite direction would simply make the delay counter expire faster.
To accomodate for small movements in opposite direction (when lining up a jump or simply to stop) the delay would need to check for a direction change and null if the full delay isn't met when going the opposite direction(this could open up a possibility for quicksand that doesn't allow movement unless the delay is longer, then the influence on movement could be reduced, etc).
Please ask if something confuses you, I get that a lot.
To accomodate for small movements in opposite direction (when lining up a jump or simply to stop) the delay would need to check for a direction change and null if the full delay isn't met when going the opposite direction(this could open up a possibility for quicksand that doesn't allow movement unless the delay is longer, then the influence on movement could be reduced, etc).
Please ask if something confuses you, I get that a lot.
Well I don't know but it seems sivak only comes to this board either to advertise his products or to ask for hep, which is what bothers me. He never helps other NES-devers like pretty much everyone else here does.
Anyway it's just my opinion - if you guys have no problem with spending time to help him only to have him exploit your idea to make him money it's not my problem.
And again it's not like if developing a video games was a hard tedious work or anything. For me it's just a fun hobby and if I have no times to do it I don't do it (that's why I don't make much progress). I don't think anyone will ever be able to feed his family by programing NES games again, Neil Baldwin is the only one here would knowns what this is, anyone else mentioning it will just make me laugh.
Anyway it's just my opinion - if you guys have no problem with spending time to help him only to have him exploit your idea to make him money it's not my problem.
And again it's not like if developing a video games was a hard tedious work or anything. For me it's just a fun hobby and if I have no times to do it I don't do it (that's why I don't make much progress). I don't think anyone will ever be able to feed his family by programing NES games again, Neil Baldwin is the only one here would knowns what this is, anyone else mentioning it will just make me laugh.
Useless, lumbering half-wits don't scare us.
At the very least, he's shown that someone can learn NES programming, make decent games, and publish them in cartridge format. That should be inspiring to many. I'm not wild on the closed nature of it, but hell, show me others here who are open about everything and have been able to pull off publishing. For all I know, the two don't really go together, for whatever reason. Until we have tens of people here like that, I don't think it's a problem. I think it's useful to have a spectrum of developer types.Bregalad wrote:Well I don't know but it seems sivak only comes to this board either to advertise his products or to ask for hep, which is what bothers me. He never helps other NES-devers like pretty much everyone else here does.
You should probably stop posting publicly. Not sure if you realize this but ANYONE can read ALL of the information here, and use it for ANY REASON they want. Even if you ask posters if they plan on profiting first (which you don't) someone else could come along later and steal your brilliant ideas.Bregalad wrote:Anyway it's just my opinion - if you guys have no problem with spending time to help him only to have him exploit your idea to make him money it's not my problem.
Say tokumaru asks that exact same question, looking for advice. You help him because you think he won't make money. Then someone else a year later reads the thread and makes a game using your idea. If that game is never released was your time wasted? What happens when the game is given out free but you aren't thanked? If that game is sold are you then suddenly being ripped off? You have lost absolutely nothing in all cases, but somehow money changes how you feel even though you have no plans to capitalize on it.
It's just your hobby, so you spend a couple minutes answering a question. No code, just a quick idea like acceleration. Then Sivak takes that idea and works for many months to make a game. How is that exploiting you?
It's kind of hard to split when individual posts mention both the on topic and the off topic.tokumaru wrote:I agree to not getting things too heated, but even then I believe a split is in order.Jeroen wrote:Mmmmm if this gets out of hand we might need split. Let's try not to get things too heated.
Then watermark that shit. Ideally, with games being distributed on EPROM or flash instead of mask ROMs, it should be possible to make each copy traceable.tokumaru wrote:Giving a ROM is not such a good idea because he can't be sure they will not go behind his back and release it to the public.
This board shows only part of the part of the scene that Sivak inhabits. The rest is NA and #nesdev.Bregalad wrote:Well I don't know but it seems sivak only comes to this board either to advertise his products or to ask for hep, which is what bothers me. He never helps other NES-devers like pretty much everyone else here does.
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UncleSporky
- Posts: 388
- Joined: Sat Nov 17, 2007 8:44 pm
As others have said, ice and sludge rqeuire a more complex physics system. ReaperSMS pretty much got it.
Every frame, you add velocity (which may be negative) to the player's x and y values. Also, every frame you add acceleration (which may be negative) to the player's velocity values. Acceleration needs to be a force that acts to move the player downwards (y axis gravity) and a force that varies based on current velocity to slowly stop the player's movement (x axis friction). Jumping temporarily sets y velocity to a high number which will slowly be decremented by gravity. Moving left or right modifies x acceleration and counteracts friction (or ignores it altogether).
You have a different maximum velocity based on how quickly you want the player to move, so while on the ground and in sludge this value would change. You have a different acceleration based on how quickly you want the player to speed up to that maximum velocity, so while on the ground and on ice this value would be very small. When no direction is being pressed, friction would also be low as well (meaning the rate that velocity is moved towards 0).
As for the other topic in this thread...I hate talking about people as if they weren't there. I hope the discussion doesn't bother you too much Sivak. These forums are a free source of information and I'm really glad for that, that any of us can use the information we find however we want. Personally I'd really love to know more about how your games are put together, I asked before and didn't get a lot of info. But I understand that people can be busy or not forthcoming for various reasons, sometimes it's hard to explain how you did things. Some short blog entries or a developer diary of some sort would be of great interest to me, if you'd be willing.
Every frame, you add velocity (which may be negative) to the player's x and y values. Also, every frame you add acceleration (which may be negative) to the player's velocity values. Acceleration needs to be a force that acts to move the player downwards (y axis gravity) and a force that varies based on current velocity to slowly stop the player's movement (x axis friction). Jumping temporarily sets y velocity to a high number which will slowly be decremented by gravity. Moving left or right modifies x acceleration and counteracts friction (or ignores it altogether).
You have a different maximum velocity based on how quickly you want the player to move, so while on the ground and in sludge this value would change. You have a different acceleration based on how quickly you want the player to speed up to that maximum velocity, so while on the ground and on ice this value would be very small. When no direction is being pressed, friction would also be low as well (meaning the rate that velocity is moved towards 0).
As for the other topic in this thread...I hate talking about people as if they weren't there. I hope the discussion doesn't bother you too much Sivak. These forums are a free source of information and I'm really glad for that, that any of us can use the information we find however we want. Personally I'd really love to know more about how your games are put together, I asked before and didn't get a lot of info. But I understand that people can be busy or not forthcoming for various reasons, sometimes it's hard to explain how you did things. Some short blog entries or a developer diary of some sort would be of great interest to me, if you'd be willing.