A Real Rpg (grapical)

[Jeffrey]

I am working on converting my text based RPG to a fully graphical one. One where you can move around to different buildings, etc. This game would not be unlike Zelda. I have made a very quick engine that closely mimics the Upbeat engine from ticalc.org. This engine basically moves a dot around in a maze and lets you talk to "people".

So far I have decided that I will make a map that will be shown at the beginning of each level (players could buy stuff here, whatever). Then their campaign begins. But I have no clue what it will be like, so I need ideas. Will it be a battle sequence, or will it use the same engine that the town part did? A little background on the game: it is a comletely mondern game, with realistic weapons and gameplay, no monsters, magic, or supernatural stuff, here. Its like Rambo, except as an rpg. lol.

I also need a random map generator to save space. How would I go about that? I know that there is a maze program in the basic games archives at the cirrus site, but my link isnt working right.

If you have any ideas on the gameplay, please reply.

[Babyboy]

1st of all, forget about the random map thing, if your going to make walls and such you would be better off using sprites or pics.

next, the weapons sys would be pretty easy, have a string for each weapon with its attributes, if you want you can have a special sprite for the weapon that you can superimpose onto a PIC of your battle area, as for the battle area, you on the left, an enemy on the right, your gun superimposrd on, maybe a little sprite for firing graphics, use LBL's for firing, and have GETKEY commands to activate them


Hoper that helped


A little advice from a BabyBoy

[JesusFreak]

sry hoper??

[Babyboy]

A fast graphics engine





confusing a BabyBoy

[JesusFreak]

i am confused

like a sprite prgm?

Edit:
opps. the pic prgm, the prgm takes 2 second and a pic about 1/2 the screen.(4 seconds for full screen)

I do not use a prgm to do the work, i do it my self takes about one hr. to do but much more worth the time and is smaller than a pt by pt prgm, i use Line(
About (<(less than) 3000K for a full screen maze)

[JesusFreak]

.C.
. . ......
. . . .
. ..... .
.
. ..... .
. . . .

Like that (with c the character and a pic (overhead view))

[Jeffrey]

Ok, thanks JesusFreak, I e-mailed u.

See the thing with the sprites and pics are they are extremely unefficient. I have already used up about 2000 bytes with the gui and the engine. I cant afford to waste much more space.

Oh, and JesusFreak, sure I could use your help. I just need someone else to help since I have to get this game out by September (which sounds like a long way) but I have about 10 other projects to do, so sure. Also, if you would like, you could become a member of my TI-83 programming community, Falcon TI. E-mail me at jeffreyjamal01@hotmail.com if you are interested. Also my AIM is WeezerFanJeffrey.

[Arcane Wizard]

About the battle sequence, use the same engine if you can, if it's too slow then I suggest you do the sequence thing.

As for random map generator, if you want to do a maze I suggest you have a look at one of Maarten's programs called MazeRacer (which you can find on the cirrus site, or click here) which can create fully random mazes that are always solvable. If you're not going for mazes then you could just load some random values in a list like so:
For(X,1,225
RandInt(1,999->LMAP(X
End
Then, when loading the current screen you do this:

current screen->X
LMAP(X)->Rand
For(X,1,10 //10 objects in the screen
RandInt(1,95->A //random x position
RandInt(1,63->B //random y position
RandInt(1,25->C //random object
If C=1://draw tree
If C=2://draw building
//etc
End

Since it uses the same seed if you load the same screen you always have the same objects on that screen, in this code you end up with a list called LMAP with 225 screens, and you could even optimize it more so that 1 number generates an entire map of 225 screens.

Rand->LMAP(1

And then:

screen number->X
LMAP(1->Rand
For(Ø,1,X
RandInt(1,999
End
Ans->Rand
For(X,1,10 //10 objects in the screen
RandInt(1,95->A //random x position
RandInt(1,63->B //random y position
RandInt(1,25->C //random object
If C=1://draw tree
If C=2://draw building
//etc
End

Then you could always add some routines to check if it's not puttnig a tree on top of a house or a routine to create towns, instead of puttnig a building somewhere, put a flag for a town there and generate 10 buildings around it afterwards.

[Jeffrey]

That was entirely helpful! Thank you very much for your time and help!

[JesusFreak]

I joined his team (him and me now) and i got a few Qs like:

I started a random map prgm (not really a question)

If i make a city (a flag) how do i save it so that the game knows that there is a city there

also how do i do that check so it doesn't write over a tree, the code is a little different,

ü is -> (store)

[Arcane Wizard]

City:

//standard loading sequence:
current screen->X
LMAP(X)->Rand
For(X,1,30,3
RandInt(1,95->L1(X
RandInt(1,63->L1(X+1
RandInt(1,25->L1(X+2

If L1(X+2)=1:Then //a city !
For(X,X,X+12,3 //generate 4 buildings (12/3=4)
L1(X)+RandInt(-40,40->L1(X //position of building is relative to position of city
L1(X+1)+RandInt(-20,20->L1(X+1
RandInt(2,6->L1(X+2 //save a building, 2=house, 3=town center, 4=guards etc
//draw building
End
//draw object
End

Check if place is free:
Now, you could do this by checking the list but this is slow, very slow, so you could use a string if you did it on the homescreen (1 object takes 1 place) but on the graphscreen every object occupies a lot of pixels so I suggest using pixeltest.

Let's say every object has a pixel turned on right in the center (done so testing if it is free for character and other objects is easy fast) and that every object is 6*6 pixels.

current screen->X
LMAP(X)->Rand
For(X,1,10 //10 objects in the screen
Repeat Ø //generate new position until it is free
RandInt(1,15->L1(X //90/6=15, so there can be 15 objects from left to right of the screen
RandInt(1,10->L1(X+1 //60/6=10, so there can be 10 objects from top to bottom of the screen
RandInt(1,25->L1(X+2
0=Pxl-Test(6L1(X+1)+3,6L1(X)+3->Ø //check if other object has been drawn here
End
//if place is free
If L1(X+2)=1: //generate town, use pixel test again for each building.
If L1(X+2)=7: //draw tree, remember that 2 through 6 are buildings for the city and that the coordinaes stored in L1 have to be multiplied by 6 and a pixel must be on in the center of the sprite
//etc
End

[JesusFreak]

now were getting somewhere, a Demo of the battle engine will be out soon, (2 out the 5 have the pictures done but all other is done)

I tried the above but can't get it to work very well so i will send it to you, we are have Tree, rock, grass, and a house(might be a city later and is limted to one) tiles that 10 load in under 3 seconds (or four) and 20 in under 6 (or 7)
what other tiles do you sugest
i am trying to make a moving sand, water tile but haven't started yet

[JesusFreak]

whats a GUI?

[james]

I really dont think that a fully graphical basic game should be made.I am speaking out of experience,i have made a fully grapchical dbz rpg(sry i lost it,i would have given it to u)
and it toke up way to much mem and time.Also the graphics are really hard to do,unless u have the unlimited pic software(dont know what it is called,havent touched basic in a year).This game that i was making in basic was probably the most important factor for me to learn asm.
If u need help with anything,i will give u a hand but i suggest learning asm and doing it then.
good luck

[Arcane Wizard]

GUI = Graphical User Interface
It's something the user sees and can interact with, graphical menu's are GUI's.

As for fully graphical basic games, it's not that hard at all, when you're making pong it can be very easily done to make it fully graphical but when you're making an rpg it can also be done, just requires a bit more work. In fact I'm working on a rpg which is going to be fully graphical, I've got everything in my head how I'm going to do it exept for the combat system and multiplayer function which I probably won't add. It's still very subject to changes, espesially the character generation and buildings, which might be replaced with graphical menu's. I also haven't chosen which way I'm going to do enemy's but I've got some ideas ready.

[JesusFreak]

do you need help, i can send you a copy of my fully graphical battle engine which i can help you make a new one based on mine and it would be kelw, i can send it tomarrow if you want, it is almost finished.

[Arcane Wizard]

Nope don't need any help, but I'd appreciate it if you could send a commented version of that battle engine (if it's like where you walk around with your character and press a key to poke with your sword and it hits the enemy and stuff) or just give some theory behind it (preferably just tell some of the theory/thoughts behind it so I can learn it without having to plow thorugh pages of code.

[Jeffrey]

Well, basically we are using a three pronged attack on the game, using 3 engines to be unified as one. The way we are doing it is one random map engine, a battle sequence engine, and a character engine that moves the character around a map. Basically the random map generator would create a map, then the character engine moves the plot that looks like a square around on the map. Because basic is EXTREMELY slow, it prohobits us from using a custom sprite that actually looks like a person.

Once you engage in a battle it would take you to the battle engine, which is like advance wars. Thats kinda like how the game runs, advance wars for gba.

We dont have the character engine done yet, it just needs customized to fit the random map. But once we finish it, we'll send it.

I recommend using text for your character on the graph because it only takes up one token. A square made out of pixels would take up many more tokens that the one character that looks like a square. Its either the square, or a lone pixel, so the square is obviusly the better choice!

[Arcane Wizard]

Never mind then, I'm not making an rts. I'm going to do it like I described earlyer but I haven't given the battle sequence any thought at all yet, it'll take a while before I get to that anyway. In fact i'll probably change the entire development document a couple of times.

As for the sprites, basic isn't that slow and I've had wizards with staves, shoes and hats running around as if they forgot to take of their boots of speed.

[Jeffrey]

Lol. How did you get them to go that fast and still use pixel test?