[WARING] I really hope I'll be able to edit this post... otherwise I'll have to start a new thread every time I want to change the first post xD [/WARNING]

Hello Battle of the Bits. I am Decinoge, a still wannabe "artistic" game developer, and specially a big n00b.

I'm making this thread in a hope to start a "kind" of development blog for my current (and future to be my first finished) project. I'm doing this because I wanted to get back into some willing and massive productive community like this. The powerful spirit going through this portal bits and bytes can be felt as soon as you enter.

Enough with the sassy chat, time to talk about the project.

The project is supposed to create a platform action game. Much like a Metroid exploration, but free design and with close encounter combat like a Kirby.

The game is being developed as a homebrew for Game Boy Advance. This will be super cool because there's a bunch of emulators for different platforms meaning portability is checked, and well... if you own a SuperCard or any other device to run homebrews on a real GBA or a Nintendo DS, you can play it as it is meant too.

However many aspects of the project are still secrecy. That's why no name yet.

So... lets start showing some work done.
My decision to get back to this project came (I guess) from this drawing:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/20080607.png

That is an initial sketch of the world involved. I had abandoned this project years ago, and the ideas were so back with such a strength, that after this drawing I couldn't refuse getting back to it.

So I've decided to create a visual picture of what feeling do I want. At some other place, I've come with a very good description with internet pictures:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/init.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/juniorkimbroughsoffa.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/kimbro2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/stripes-live.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/epic-fail-demotivational-poster-1221370840.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/81762297.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/936full-a-fistful-of-dollars-screenshot.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/yojimbo_592x299.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/usagiyojimbo_0.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/bedtime-story.gif

A 4bit-Blues-Rock-Epic-Western-Samurai-Story. Those were the words in my mind.

So i started making some stuff on the GBA. There's already a bunch of tools created to work with the machine. I am using the DevKitARM that comes on the DevKitPro.org. Also many tools from a guy that names himself Conarac, specially his GBA hardware interaction library.

It was very easy to load and view both tile maps from BMP images (the tool GRIT says it all).
Results:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/012-1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/013-2.png

Then I advanced to the engine, collisions and maps. However I don't want to have to code by hand arrays of collision tiles. So I've decided to use a tool for that. The chose tool was Tiled Map Editor (google it).

This would allow me to create layers of "information" for the engine. Each tile has various layers of information for physics, camera, and player. However Tiled Map Editor doesn't exactly exports into a GBA friendly format.

So I programmed a very simple parser in processing.org, that would pic up Tiled saved files, and export .c and .h files to compile with the project.
The parser:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/015-1.png

Stuff worked well, and i was able to have a map fully functioning with various collisions and interactions for the character.

This is a sample from the early map:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/028.png

A screen-shot from Tiled Map Editor with the "engine" tiles properly placed:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/029.png

A video of everything working:
http://www.vimeo.com/35290145

This engine possesses the following types of tile interaction:
*SOLID TILES
*JUMPABLE TILES - you can jump to them from under.
*LADDERS TILES
*WALL LADDERS TILES
*VITE/POLE TILES
*HANGING TILES
*2 INCLINATIONS RAMP TILES

So things were going so well that a friend insisted this engine needed a name. I never understood why should I name my engines, but I think he wanted me to grow more "emotionally attacked" to my code.

The name I've decided is __ *Blues Engine __ (said "star blues engine"), and here is a logo i made:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/008-3.png


Eventually I went to the next stage, getting big scenarios into the machine.
If you notice, the map picture above is a 512x512 picture. That is maximum of a map that the GBA allows to have in hardware.

Other sizes are 256x256, 256x512, and 512x256. But that's on the Visual Memory of the machine. On the ram you can virtually have any size you want. So the trick is to just copy to the screen the tiles you need.

Well, i'm just talking about this cause the tests produced some very cool results:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/038-1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/039-1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/040.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/041-1.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/042.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/043.png

So I was able to code it, as well as different scrolling speeds for the different backgrounds, and the ability to design it. So I've decided to plan on the next real big scenario for the game.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/007-3.png

Which resulted in this:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/bg0_img.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/bg1_img.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/bg2_img.png

Which is the scenario I will use for my first DEMO release.
Also, I've decided that this not far demo will also include character animations.
That is what I am about to start programming after this post.

But before I decided to make the HUMAN CHARACTER STANDARD animations:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/025-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/026.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/027-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/028-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/029-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/030-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/031-1.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/032.gif

These will serve the purpose of eventually "design" any human character on top of these animations. As you can see, they are nothing more than a naked human body.

The same goes for all the graphics presented so far and for the future demo. They are NOT anything like how the game will look. That is still in the secret of the gods. All these serve the purpose of defining the limitations and functions of the ENGINE.

They are not a game.

This I hope to start working on once I get the engine done. I'm the only person working on this project, and I was given only 2 hands and 1 brain. But I guess that's well enough =P.

Here I leave you some other sketches:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/001-3.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/002-4.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/006-3.png

I am very sorry for this HUGE WALL OF TEXT. I promise my next posts to be much smaller, and with more pictures. This was just to make all the people potentially interested in pair with the project.

Any feed backs, questions, whatevers you want to say, are more than welcome. Specially from this point onward.

If you guys desire some kind of previous or actuall demo of what I've worked so far, you can find me on the IRC channel and ask for it directly. In here I'll restrain myself to post on the RELEASES.

Thank you n00bz.

wow, looking forward to seeing this progress

So its been some time since I've said something to the n00bz.
However I did great new developments that actually make this damn thing look like a video game.

I was able to put my magix pixels on the game, "almost" perfectly coordinated with actions and how they are supposed to work.

I had to add a few more to the pool or character standard animations I've shown previously, just to make the entire thing look better.

I will have to add a few more, and most probably a few more middle frames to the existing ones.

However the result of animations with gameplay is just... well..
I'm fucking loving it because i can't stop playing it (not blowing my own horn here, I'm actually tired of losing time with it).

I've decided the best way to show the results was with a video, so here it goes:

https://vimeo.com/37155194

Njoy, and stay n00b.

really smooth!

Oh shit, this is nice stuff. Now i must continue on my own damn 2D engines =((

Check out the NESdev "Other Retro Dev" board if you need any other assistance.

Thanks guys, and thanks b00daw.
I probably won't need it because I'm already having some assistance from the creator of the GBA interaction library that I am using.

However it is always good to know of other communities directed to homebrew. Specially one that has Megadrive (dude I so want to code on that machine someday).

Anyway, another logo for the *Blues Engine. Pixel art this time and no hand drawing.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/Decinoge/064.png

And that's pretty much it.

Cool... I'll try to learn from this experience and only post whenever I have relevant material to add so I don't get another year without posting D=

Anyway, the project grew after my last post. Not much but quite a bit.
Last time I posted I had made the main character quite complete. The only problem was that he was the ONLY character around, and his code was quite linear, and not "editable" from the outside of the engine.

From that point I conceptualized an idea of ACTORs for the game. This you could basically "edit" to become... well... pretty much whatever you wanted.

So I started with my work, and this were the first results:
http://vimeo.com/40387879

This process was quite frustrating, and no point on making a drama out of it now. Instead I've just recently created a video compiling various failed attempts from those days of development:
http://vimeo.com/61002937

Still I was able to create those concepts to a point of satisfaction.
The player itself was no longer an isolated piece of code, but actually the same exact "object" as everything else, only controlled by input.
The major advantage is that I created a system of sequencing instructions to this ACTORs to a point that I can create an enemy with the same capabilities as the player itself, or/and a big group of enemies with simple instructions (since the GBA doesn't stand much), or simply moving platforms and "lifeless" obstacles to the player. In the middle I even added a Dialogue system to the engine, which resulted in this:
http://vimeo.com/48688435

Then it came drama, changes in life, had to put the project in standby for a few months. Moved to poland, and now I'm back at it.
Right now I am "polishing" the code I have to finish this very simple game demo, so I can present the primary results of this engine.
I'm happy with the results I'm creating, and even decided to start trying the ROM in various different emulators:
http://vimeo.com/60872159

Right now I have finished scripting the actions and reactions of the various ACTORs inside a level. A very simple set, just gathering stars and taking them to a space ship.

If you guys are interested and have an emulator around, you can test my latest binary and say a thing or two:
http://goo.gl/R1ThR

I can't stress this enough, this is NOT a game. Well at least not the game I want to do with this engine. Just a test drive for the engine itself.

After this test, I will start working on creating a tool that will allow people to create games in this engine with a simple and fast GUI interface. The engine as it is now takes to damn time to get anything simple done, and to many different and separate tools.
I really plan on making this entire process much faster and enjoyable.

And by the way, I hope you notice I've been shamelessly stealing musics from here to test the engine =D.
nJoy.

Why did I never see this before? Amazing! I'm working on a metroid-ish game and now I feel like a ripoff. :()

First of all, thanks to Svetlana contribution for my project.

Now, I did some advances on the demo, not really on the engine... but that's the point.

The thing is that I'll only try to advance with the engine again, once I get my hand into creating a GUI tool to edit it, but I've promised myself not to get into that before I have at least one decent demo done.

So, I have done a 4th level. This time I've decided to go vertical and urban. Tried to give a feeling of "vertigo" to the player, the fear of falling from a high place.

Still what matters is the materials... so to be really compact on this:

The music:
Lemonade Enterprise by Svetlana

The Pixels
http://i.imgur.com/xFgQHm3.png
http://i.imgur.com/wqXIuGA.png

The Rom
http://www.decinoge.org/sbe/binaries/0102.zip

The video
http://vimeo.com/66391795

This last one if me playing and passing the level in 4:08 min.
I bet none of you n00bz can do any better... I might have to start calling you "noobs" =P.

That is all, and I hope you enjoy the material.