Alright, felt like the topic over at MaxCoderz was [ and has been ] stale. So I guess posting this here where everyone can see it, may not be such a bad idea.

For those of you that have been chilling in SAX/IRC [ #ti on efnet! join it, love it! ] chat you probably have seen me picking back up on Metroid Infinity some. I don't know how far this will go this time. But I am at least working on something, right?

Anyway, what I have so far:

• A decently fast platforming engine [ it slows down with AI on the screen, which bugs me ]
  
• 3 different kinds of AI enemies. That can be killed!
  
• Obtainable items! [ gun and morph ball ]
  
• Openable doors [ shoot to open ]
  
• Pretty large map [ in reality, it's as many screens as my original Metroid was [ almost ] ]
  
• Adjustable jump height, togglable rain.
  

This is the game itself

And here is a quick screenshot.

This is a link to a screencap of the game.

So, now for my questions. How should I handle the HUD? [ mockups preferred, any suggestion accepted ] And I really don't want to change the entire map/mapping engine. So making it 7x12 or 8x8 or something like that per screen would suck :/

Should I have it be more open exploration like Super Metroid, or enclosed underground dwelling like NES Metroid?

How bad [ in your opinion ] does the engine slow down [ if at all ] when enemy AI is on-screen? Be brutally honest

Oh and if you have sprites you feel should be in the game that aren't on the spritesheet the game uses [ Pic1 ] then feel free to post them here! I am still in need for some good boss sprites, and perhaps a good chozo statue or something. Anything really.

Your screenshot isn't animating at all?

Alright, fixed. Google Sites doesn't like letting hotlinked GIF images animate for whatever reason. Should work now.

interesting screenshot. I see the slowdown you are mentioning, not really sure if it interferes with game play or not.

As to the hud.. hmm.. will have to give that some thought.

Nice engine, impressive screenie, and amusing use of the debug console you have to change jump and pain. I also see the slowdown; does it interfere with gameplay and make it feel un-fluid, or do you get used to it?

It breaks gameplay in that AI isn't on every screen, so the reaction times change. And I will also mention, the engine slows down more when there is one of those wall crawlers, than one of those straight line things, than when a metroid is on the scree. Simply because of how complex the AI is

Any chance of posting code? maybe a reorganization of how you are doing things might eliminate your problem?

Ok, first off MI0RUN


Code:


MILVL

Code:


MIAI1 This is the AI that goes back and forth in a straight line

Code:


MIAI2 This is the most complex one, it follows the wall to it's "left"

Code:

Note, if you put one of these midair, they act very funny

MIAI3 These seek and eat your face, nothing stops them, so they are easy to code

Code:


Ok, that should be everything. Does that help TIFreak?

::EDIT::

Alright, see the sprite in my signature? The one of Samus just standing there. I need someone to make me a sprite like that, but of Samus facing the player. I have made a simple stand-in sprite, but it kinda sucks :/

Thanks in advance!

Cheers on helping me work on Doors CS, by the way. Metroid Infinity works nicely on the XLib compatibility libraries I inherited from Iambian, although your original 2007 Metroid works somewhat less well.

Hmm it looks like a flying jelly bean.Anyway i think i might acually get a Calculator just to start doing stuff like this.

You should, it's a lot of fun, and it's very self-fulfilling to be able to make a limited device do amazing and creative stuff.

http://cl.ly/1H0L is an update by the way

What's a good thirteen or so years between updates, eh?

I am sure at some point I am going to get this working on a calculator, but... that seems to be less my speed these days. I haven't done too much coding at all, but I fancied a play with a development environment called GB Studio targeted at making quick to assemble games for the Game Boy, and whilst it is more geared towards things that may not be quite like what I wanted it to do, I figured with a bit of work tweaking sprites, and connecting boxes, I could get something together in no time.

So I whipped together something super quick as a proof of concept to myself that this could actually be fun. Here's a link to an mp4 of that in action, the jumping isn't quite right, but tweaks and tweaks.

Honestly it was kind of refreshing to see this little sprite move that fast, hah. Speaking of sprites, I went through my old stack of papers from the early aughts, and put together a little timeline of all the Samus sprites I ever worked on, including an awful lot of tries at the Varia suit.



Color coded, purple ones were never used, with the notable attempts at 16px tall models and all the extra suits. Green are what got used in games as far as I know, with the last set being the ones I had planned for this game. And the blue set was ones I had used in some demos, but tweaked to produce the last one.