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Help Wanted > Anybody fancy making a games compilation?

#35766 - Wriggler - Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:29 pm

Hey guys,

Well the last few weeks I've been toying around with the idea of putting together a giant GBA games compilation, along the sort of lines of mario party/wario ware/fusion frenzy etc.

I thought it would be fun if I slung together a framework for the title, and then allowed lots of different developers (that's you!) to make the minigames for it.

After approaching several of the "forum's best" and gathering ideas (thanks guys!), I've almost finished the debug framework. I've made a couple of minigames as examples, and I'm confident that it will be easy for other people to make other minigames just the same. More importantly, the produced mini-games should fit into the framework with virtually no effort.

Whilst I'm not quite ready for announce the specifics, I've got a couple of bits and bobs to show. Take a look at:

The ROM so far... (138k) and The grand design document (52k)

The framework sets up sound and things, doing most of the hard work for you. All you have to do is the fun bit; e.g. making the game! I'll release the full source if this turns into a viable project, and I'll provide help as best I can on how to make your mini-game.

So... the big question is... anybody want to get started on a mini-game? There's no point going ahead with this if there's no interest, so I'd like to see who wants to donate some time to it... Anyone?

Ben

#35769 - Fatnickc - Thu Feb 10, 2005 5:50 pm

I wouldn't mind making a little mini game. Any requirements?

#35780 - Wriggler - Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:40 pm

Update: I've added some music and sfx to the rom, just to prove that it really does have a sound engine :) Please don't pay any attention to the quality of sound or graphics yet, they are just placeholders!

Thanks for the reply Fatnickc, there are a few requirements outlined in the design doc. The long and short of it is: games should be less than a minute in length, and should suit the style of the rest of the rom. That's about it.

As for coding inside the framework, here's an example:

The sound engine will be initialised already, and the music and sound effects loaded. All you need to do is choose the music track you want to play, and write something like this:

Code:
playSound(HappyMusic);
playSound(MenuSelectSFX);


Pretty easy huh? As for your mini-game itself, well here's the framework part of the ball and cup example:

Code:

// Ball and Cup Mini-Game
// Example for GBA Compilation.
// By Ben Ward, 2005
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


// This is the standard minigame header that your app
// *must* include. It sets everything up for you.
#include "miniGameHeader.h"


// Entry point function prototype. This is the function
// referenced in the first bit of the MINIGAME structure.
bool ballAndCupRun(void);



// Here is your MINIGAME structure. Look at the comments
// for what should be in each field.
const MINIGAME game_ballAndCup =
{
  ballAndCupRun,      //Entry function- Where does your code start?
  "Ball And Cup",      //Minigame name- What's it called?
  "Follow the ball!",   //Description- Briefly give the player instructions
  "Choose a cup",      //What does the D-Pad do?
  "Confirm",         //What does the A button do?
  0,               //What does the B button do?
  0,               //What does the Left Trigger do?
  0                  //What does the Right Trigger do? 
};


The rest of the file is yours to do whatever you please with. As long as the pointer in the MINIGAME structure points to your minigame's entry point, you're set!

The framework provides basic initialisation stuff for you, like gSprites[0-128].attribute[0-4] are your sprite attributes, etc. Most of it's based around Dovoto's tutorials, as well as my own research. Everything is compiled in DevKitArm, and I've included Visual Studio project and makefiles for you to work with.

(Note- the above is still in development, so don't take it for gospel yet. It might change!)

Hope that all sounds ok.

Ben

#35782 - expos1994 - Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:51 pm

Sounds like fun. I might try my hand at it. The only mini-game compilation I've played is Warioware (GBA). Those games last seconds not one minute. You are shooting for one minute games?

Some of the examples are pretty complicated like: Side scrolling shooter, top down shooter, super off-road, bomberman, punch-out, etc. each of these type games could take weeks to develop. Maybe trimmed down versions with one element from these types of game would work.

The Warioware games were quite simple (sniff the snot, cut the meat, brush the teeth, walk link into a cave, jump over a boulder, etc.) Is this what you are looking for or something a little more complicated?

I think I could make some Warioware type games. But I don't know about remaking super off-road or punch-out.

#35783 - Wriggler - Thu Feb 10, 2005 8:56 pm

expos1994 wrote:
I think I could make some Warioware type games. But I don't know about remaking super off-road or punch-out.


Well hopefully that would be the beauty of it. Personally I'd like to make games with a bit more "meat" on them (rather than the 2-3 second Wario Ware games). To be honest though, if you wanted to make a game which lasted only a few seconds I wouldn't have a problem with that.

If you're a confident GBA coder, you might want to try your hand at something tougher (like punch-out or such). If you're a beginner, how about pong or breakout? Both styles of games would have an important place in the rom in my opinion!

Ben

#35786 - tepples - Thu Feb 10, 2005 9:14 pm

expos1994 wrote:
The only mini-game compilation I've played is Warioware (GBA). Those games last seconds not one minute. You are shooting for one minute games?

Yeah, like Mario Party, Feel The Magic, or WarioWare's boss stages, which take about a half minute to a minute to complete.

Quote:
Some of the examples are pretty complicated like: Side scrolling shooter, top down shooter, super off-road, bomberman, punch-out, etc.

"Top-down shooter" and "Punch-Out!!" were well-done in WarioWare's boss stages.

If you want to make WarioWare style games, you could string together about ten related screens of three seconds each and then call that a minigame.
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#35867 - Fatnickc - Fri Feb 11, 2005 5:56 pm

How do we test without having the header file required?