demagogue on 8/2/2012 at 17:27
I like that it generally all works as a game; not all homebrew games get that far. It looks the part; that's good. And it has the things I want to see in levels like this. So it has all the infrastructure there.
The controls are wonky. That's the biggest issue IMO. It's not so much a delay, but I don't get the feeling he starts moving on a dime when I push move, and stops on a dime when I stop, so I can actually tend to run into things (edit: or like Henke, off platforms) just trying to handle the controls. And he doesn't jump or shoot on a dime when I push those things. The jump animation itself is a tad slow and you're kind of weaving him around mid-jump which is a bit wonky... I mean it's good you can move him mid-jump; it just doesn't feel very crisp, maybe because it's a slow jump (?), needs a little more energy maybe, and it's short on animation (he's like rising up still in a half-standing-pose. Getting him to really crouch down and leap up, and crouch a bit while he's jumping, just some more frames packed in there would make it feel better. Actually the sluggish feel of movement too may partly be an animation thing; could use a few frames of him starting movement & stopping). The throwing sword I think should be sped up a bit too, and maybe things get thrown back a bit when hit so the sword looks like it has some inertia. The feel I remember from NES-era games (the good ones) are really crisp controls with the sprite, so he moves & jumps & shoots on a dime and the animations are quick, fluid & crisp. I mean it's a platform game, so crisp control of running & jumping is your bread & butter.
Edit: I'm starting to think that most of the issue period, aside from things going a bit slow, is more & more fluid animation to get the feeling of inertia and momentum and fluidity with the movement and jumping. That feeling is how one tends to gauge when to stop and when to jump. Not such a big addition but would add a lot of value.
icemann on 8/2/2012 at 18:35
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
You do know it's called "Dragon's Lair", not "Dragonslair", right?
Also... WHY? A port of a terrible port of a game that barely had any gameplay to begin with?
Yes I do. I keep forgetting to type it the correct way, my bad. It's not so much of a port, as a remake with my attempts to fix alot of what was wrong in the original game.
gunsmoke: Attempted the same solution for the dll issues that I did for this one and no luck so might be a while to fix the dll issues for Fishing Time. Though I intend to keep at it.
Quote Posted by henke
Played it. Only two levels?
The precision jumping isn't very fun, you need to have almost walked off the edge in many places before you hit the jump button to make it. And I don't like it when enemies spawn right where I'm currently standing, makes it impossible to defend yourself. Also I wouldn't mind if you bastardised the original a bit and added in gameplay elements of your own. How about a button that raises your shield so you can protect from projectile attacks? A sprint-button would be nice too!
That said, it certainly
is playable. Which I guess is a big step up from the original. So good job! :D
I know it's not much being 2 levels, hence being a demo. I spent the majority of my time converting over all the art in photoshop + getting the physics and enemies working right. The 2nd level I whipped up in a night. Doesn't take long at all to do in the editor. People are welcome to make as many levels as they like once I have the editor out there.
I had been thinking about adding in entirely new gameplay elements (ie a double jump ability once you acquire a set of boots + the shield idea had occurred to me also). The enemy spawns are easy to fix. Sprint ability I will think on. The precision jumps are simple to fix also.
Quote Posted by demagogue
The controls are wonky. That's the biggest issue IMO. It's not so much a delay, but I don't get the feeling he starts moving on a dime when I push move, and stops on a dime when I stop, so I can actually tend to run into things (edit: or like Henke, off platforms) just trying to handle the controls. And he doesn't jump or shoot on a dime when I push those things. The jump animation itself is a tad slow and you're kind of weaving him around mid-jump which is a bit wonky... I mean it's good you can move him mid-jump; it just doesn't feel very crisp, maybe because it's a slow jump (?), needs a little more energy maybe, and it's short on animation (he's like rising up still in a half-standing-pose. Getting him to really crouch down and leap up, and crouch a bit while he's jumping, just some more frames packed in there would make it feel better. Actually the sluggish feel of movement too may partly be an animation thing; could use a few frames of him starting movement & stopping). The throwing sword I think should be sped up a bit too, and maybe things get thrown back a bit when hit so the sword looks like it has some inertia. The feel I remember from NES-era games (the good ones) are really crisp controls with the sprite, so he moves & jumps & shoots on a dime and the animations are quick, fluid & crisp. I mean it's a platform game, so crisp control of running & jumping is your bread & butter.
Edit: I'm starting to think that most of the issue period, aside from things going a bit slow, is more & more fluid animation to get the feeling of inertia and momentum and fluidity with the movement and jumping. That feeling is how one tends to gauge when to stop and when to jump. Not such a big addition but would add a lot of value.
Hmm. Well for the movement frames I got all the frames from the original game. The original game does a 6 frame movement loop when moving in the same direction. For crouched movement I did it alittle differently to the original (in the NES version when you crouched you would crawl on the ground in a sense, where as in mine I went for your more traditional style crouch) so those are my sprites in there, and I'll admit that there's about half the amount of sprites for that.
The slow jump falling was a direct copying of what the original game did. Early in development I had much quicker falls in. Easy enough to add back in. I'll just need to edit the 2nd level a little. I get what you mean on the jumping/in flight animation. You mean something along the lines of how Prince of Persia did it in a sense. Once again on that I was merely doing what the original did.
Your not the first to comment on the slowness of dagger throwing, so I'll be sure to speed that up in the next version. Another quick to fix issue.
For alot of the development I was running the original game on an emulator and seeing how it did things, then coded it in. Jumping in the original game is even slower. Slower in that if you wanted to jump you would first bend down, then leap. All the while not being able to shoot/throw daggers at enemies until you were in flight.
I appreciate all the feedback so far. All of this will go into later changes/fixes/etc.
gunsmoke on 9/2/2012 at 15:08
Hey, thanks for attempting (once again) to get Fishing Time up and running. I appreciate the efforts, and if it someday magically comes together, let me (us) know!. Thanks again!
icemann on 9/2/2012 at 17:36
Will do certainly if and when I can get it fixed. I've done some testing and located the exact source of the issues. Fixing that issue will be alittle tricky. But I'll keep at it.
gunsmoke on 15/2/2012 at 16:45
+1 to icemann :thumb:
icemann on 22/3/2012 at 04:48
Version 0.36 of the demo was released today, which includes the following:
* Improved jumping (overall faster, direction of jump is now fixed and now if you attempt to switch direction mid-flight it will cancel movement in the direction your jumping in and have you go straight down which allows for precision jumps).
* Faster shooting
* Contact with the wooden spikes now does not insta-kill anymore, unless you are directly underneath them. Simply trying to walk into them now just results in you being pushed back.
* Improved level design for the 2nd level.
Download Link:
(
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ah4ynoache7dnl4)
If reports are fine after this release, I'll bundle the level editor with the download and get to work on the rest of the game. Hope you enjoy the new version.
Al_B on 30/3/2012 at 21:44
Wow - what a difference. I'm sure that took an awful lot of time to tweak the feel of the game for little visible effect but it feels so much more natural to jump, throw daggers and navigate the levels - congratulations.
If you want to take it further I'd be tempted to get the introduction and get something that follows on from the second level.
icemann on 31/3/2012 at 07:18
Already on it :D.
Inline Image:
http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/535881_10151071642805760_312990417_n.jpg(screenshot taken in the level editor)
And for a comparison shot taken from the original NES game:
Inline Image:
http://sphotos-e.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/558938_10150896848305760_330657547_n.jpgI've got the tile dimensions of the NES original worked out now which has resulted in much better tile graphics this time round. Over the last 2 days I've converted over 3/4 of the third level tile graphics (in the original game the first level was the draw bridge dragon battle, 2nd being the trip past the wooden spikes and door ghosts, then the third being a mine-like level starting with an elevator ride where if you pick the wrong exit you could end up back at the 1st or 2nd level).
The tricky parts to development of the level will be moving platforms and gravity wells which push the player upwards. Was quite tricky getting through the NES version just to take the screenshots of it + the new enemies which are present in it.
icemann on 29/6/2012 at 10:16
Thank you. Work will be beginning on demo 4 soon, so be expecting updates in the future once I get to work on it.
