New Entry: The Order of Mazes

[tomdd]

Just spotted this compo so thought I would enter a new game I've been working on for the last couple of months. It's about 80% complete with the game engine done and just the final parts of level design left. The game is a homage to many of my favourite Spectrum games, incorporating elements of each of them and adding some new ideas. Won't give too much away at the moment but here are some highlights:

• Procedurally generated mazes so every new game is different
• Real time combat
• A quest to find stolen mythical items hidden in the mazes
• Inbuilt minimap to help navigate
• Lots of treasure chests to loot
• and lots of monsters to make things a little more interesting

Have attached a couple of snaps, will add more as it gets closer to completion

TomDD

Attachments:

[Ivanzx]

Hello TomDD, and welcome to the ZX Dev!
Are you the TomD from WoS fórums?

By the way, another fantastic entry, and I like the way you are teasing us, showing only menus screens
Take a seat and feel comfortable, looking forward to seeing and Reading more about your game!

[rmartins]

It's starting to get crowded here.
Which is a good thing.

Welcome to the "Band Wagon"

[javiperez]

Oct 5, 2015 22:00:20 GMT tomdd said:

Just spotted this compo so thought I would enter a new game I've been working on for the last couple of months. It's about 80% complete with the game engine done and just the final parts of level design left. The game is a homage to many of my favourite Spectrum games, incorporating elements of each of them and adding some new ideas. Won't give too much away at the moment but here are some highlights:

• Procedurally generated mazes so every new game is different
• Real time combat
• A quest to find stolen mythical items hidden in the mazes
• Inbuilt minimap to help navigate
• Lots of treasure chests to loot
• and lots of monsters to make things a little more interesting

Have attached a couple of snaps, will add more as it gets closer to completion

TomDD

Welcom to the compo TomDD!
This procedurally generated mazes reminds me of Fred's random maze generator, I believe this game was also very popular in the UK.

Will have a close eye at your progress!

[tomdd]

Oct 5, 2015 23:50:45 GMT Ivanzx said:

Hello TomDD, and welcome to the ZX Dev!
Are you the TomD from WoS fórums?

By the way, another fantastic entry, and I like the way you are teasing us, showing only menus screens
Take a seat and feel comfortable, looking forward to seeing and Reading more about your game!

Hi Yes thats me.

As another teaser here is a screen shot from the in-built mini map function. Don't worry will share some in-game screens as soon as I sort the graphics :-)



TomDD aka TomD for WoS

[climacus]

Wellcome!!!
Another game. Great!!!

I like so much the desing of the screens. Very very beautiful work.

[Ivanzx]

Wow, looks like the game will have a good amount of things!
By the way, I loved your Zelda-type of game you planned years ago... what happened to it? It was amazing!

[tomdd]

Oct 7, 2015 8:51:06 GMT Ivanzx said:

Wow, looks like the game will have a good amount of things!
By the way, I loved your Zelda-type of game you planned years ago... what happened to it? It was amazing!

Funny you should mention that as this new game is me trying to get back into coding properly so I can finish the damn thing exercise :-) I was never fully happy with the presentation of Flynn's Adventure as I really wanted a Zelda feel and it just didn't work with the small play area, 8x8 movement and really clunky combat. So I went back to the drawing board and that coupled with some real world things stalled the whole project.

Anyway I've now got two new game engines which I'm prototyping and I decided to write a brand new not related game to fully test the first one out. The Order of Mazes game engine is a flip screen approach with smooth character movements and much better combat. It will be interesting to see what everybody thinks once it is released. The big programming advantage of this version is it requires minimal memory for the screen generation so more room for the rest of the game. The biggest disadvantage is the number of sprites you can have on screen at once is limited and flip screen isn't exactly what I wanted

The second is the old 8x8 movement but with a much larger player size 24x16 instead of 16x16. This looks and plays much better than the original but uses tons of memory to get the scrolling smooth (a lot of pre-loaded ld de,0000 push de). I did go down this avenue for a while and even wrote some compression routines to help but decided to give option one a go first. Just in case your interested here is a screen shot of this engine in action, obviously you can't see the the lovely smooth scrolling :-)



So the project is on hold till I've got a game engine I'm happy with, you will see option 1 when I release The Order of Mazes.

TomDD

[rmartins]

Lovely Player Sprite, Great paper scroll graphic, specially the bottom part of the paper scroll.

Graphical tip

Avoid tilting the paper scroll graphic, because it makes the squareness of the play area too obvious.

You should also avoid that black one pixel border around the play area.
Not having the border will make the graphics blend smoother with the scroll graphic, specially if you avoid sprites with sharp edges (same color pixel on sides, i.e. resembling a border). Randomness is key for a good result here.

Here is a quick & dirt edit


Notice the difference between left and right edge.
Left is very noticeable, still looks very straight, right is more jagged and wavy, hence breaks the linear look.

Lighter color/shades improves contrast but hurt blending.
Using darker color shades (dark white/gray on scroll, and dark shades on play area), also helps blending, but will force you to remove color shades and using dithering instead.

[tomdd]

Thanks for the tips rmartins, I'll definitely bear them in mind when I eventually get back to Flynn's Adventure, probably in a few months mind as Fallout 4 is out next month :-)

Quick update on the development of The Order of Mazes as I'm finally happy with the level graphics, so another teaser screenshot this time in-game.

TomDD

[Ivanzx]

Oct 8, 2015 21:36:45 GMT tomdd said:

Thanks for the tips rmartins, I'll definitely bear them in mind when I eventually get back to Flynn's Adventure, probably in a few months mind as Fallout 4 is out next month :-)

Quick update on the development of The Order of Mazes as I'm finally happy with the level graphics, so another teaser screenshot this time in-game.

TomDD

View Attachment

UuuoooOoooooOOOooohhh! I love it!!

[rmartins]

Oct 8, 2015 21:36:45 GMT tomdd said:

Thanks for the tips rmartins, I'll definitely bear them in mind when I eventually get back to Flynn's Adventure, probably in a few months mind as Fallout 4 is out next month :-)

Quick update on the development of The Order of Mazes as I'm finally happy with the level graphics, so another teaser screenshot this time in-game.

TomDD

You are welcome.

From what you show us, playing the maze is like a ZOOM IN experience of the level map, right ?
Will we be able to peek at the map, or ZOOM OUT, to see where we are ?

[tomdd]

Yes the main action takes place in the ZOOM in map view and you just press a key to get the mini map screen showing where you are and some status updates. The mini map only shows places you have visited with the rest concealed, and on the ZOOM in you can only see parts of the screen in the line of sight of your player.

TomDD

[catweazle]

Wow, this looks great!! The maze generation looks terrific, and I love the sense of perspective in the graphics!

[climacus]

It seems very interesting. And I love the the design of the screens