#152853 - thedopefish - Fri Mar 21, 2008 7:39 pm
Did somebody say they wanted a DS port of Tyrian?
Well, here you go: http://vespenegas.com/tyrian.html
You can thank the OpenTyrian guys for doing all the hard work to make this possible.
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#152861 - Sir_Voe - Fri Mar 21, 2008 9:58 pm
I had never heard of Tyrian before, but I can see you've done a great job on this. Very playable speed, even with bullets flying everywhere. Any plans for the bottom screen yet?
Thanks for introducing me to this great vertical shooter, and keep up the good work.
#152868 - MasterMan - Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:50 am
Networking is in you todo or it won't happen?
Thanks for this great port :)
#152871 - Markzilla - Sat Mar 22, 2008 1:29 am
Gameplay is nearly perfect, but the letters in the menus are very difficult to read.
#152897 - ETkoala - Sat Mar 22, 2008 10:12 am
i played this game as a child :O
#152913 - Michoko - Sat Mar 22, 2008 2:46 pm
I'm impressed! Very good port!
And to be honest, I didn't think that the NDS SDL implementation was allowing such advanced code, especially at this frame rate!
Maybe I should have a closer look at it, since it seems to be a viable option for some games.
#152939 - Tassu - Sun Mar 23, 2008 1:18 am
This brings back memories. Thanks for the port, great work!
#152945 - Markzilla - Sun Mar 23, 2008 4:26 am
After some testing, the Arcade mode works flawlessly, but there are a few problems with the full game, namely loading.
#152950 - motfok - Sun Mar 23, 2008 6:46 am
Wow, I loved this game as a kid, it brings back memories. Thank you!
#152980 - Cimi - Sun Mar 23, 2008 5:54 pm
thanks for the port.
A little suggestion: provide a GAMMA control or just increase saturation (?!?)
See the linux port, much more vivid colors: [Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
I've seen them from the DS (opera ds), so it's not the quality of the screen, just they are actually more vivid.
A question: which is the difference between detail levels?
Last edited by Cimi on Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
#153031 - ExeterV - Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:36 pm
Nice, I was wondering how that OpenTyrian thing was coming along.
Would it be possible to move the complete GUI to the lower screen and leave the upper screen for just the playing field? As it is now, there are scaling problems which make the sprites look not so good, and the fonts extremely difficult to read. Since the playing field without the GUI is awfully close in size to the DS 256x192 resolution, it would be a great improvement.
On a tangent, I'll never understand why the DS doesn't have two 320x200 screens. Seems like a no-brainer design decision, considering all the direct DOS ports it could've had without the need for additional graphics hackery.
#153032 - tepples - Mon Mar 24, 2008 12:55 pm
For one thing, the NES/SNES/GBA/DS tiled graphics architecture is designed for a screen that is roughly a power of 2 pixels in width. A 320-pixel-wide screen would have doubled the required VRAM for bitmap modes, as they would need to be 512 pixels across, which is the next bigger power of 2.
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#153040 - jetboy - Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:29 pm
Excellent port!
Would it be possible to make spftware scaling of the screen?
Or to turnoff scaling so we could see scrollable part of the screen but without scaling artefacts? Would be usefull for reading texts.
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#153057 - thedopefish - Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:07 pm
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm still undecided about networking. I may work on adding that later; for now I'm concentrating on more important issues.
The detail levels adjust how much of the fancy graphical effects are rendered. The easiest way to explain it is to just fiddle with the setting while playing a complicated level (some examples: Tyrian from Ep1, Gyges from Ep2, Lava Run from Ep4).
The text readability problem is one of my top priorities for the next release.
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#153060 - Cimi - Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:29 pm
| thedopefish wrote: |
Thanks for the feedback.
I'm still undecided about networking. I may work on adding that later; for now I'm concentrating on more important issues.
The detail levels adjust how much of the fancy graphical effects are rendered. The easiest way to explain it is to just fiddle with the setting while playing a complicated level (some examples: Tyrian from Ep1, Gyges from Ep2, Lava Run from Ep4).
The text readability problem is one of my top priorities for the next release. |
how about vibrant colors?
Did you understand what I mean?
#153062 - ExeterV - Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:01 pm
| thedopefish wrote: |
Thanks for the feedback.
The text readability problem is one of my top priorities for the next release. |
That's nice to hear. I can also confirm the problem with loading that Markzilla mentioned, a Guru Meditation error happens when I try to load a saved game. Anyway, here's a quick mockup to illustrate what I meant when I mentioned moving the GUI to the other screen. This way, only 8 pixels would be lost from each axis without any scaling of the playing area.
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]
#153065 - Cimi - Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:40 pm
| ExeterV wrote: |
| thedopefish wrote: | Thanks for the feedback.
The text readability problem is one of my top priorities for the next release. |
That's nice to hear. I can also confirm the problem with loading that Markzilla mentioned, a Guru Meditation error happens when I try to load a saved game. Anyway, here's a quick mockup to illustrate what I meant when I mentioned moving the GUI to the other screen. This way, only 8 pixels would be lost from each axis without any scaling of the playing area.
[Images not permitted - Click here to view it] |
great!!!
lovin' it
#153084 - Myran - Mon Mar 24, 2008 9:10 pm
Great job! I love Tyrian :)
I get a bunch of Guru Meditation errors though :\ I get them when I try to load any save other than the autosave (Last Level), and I can't finish the Deliani level in Episode 4, it always crashes at a different place on the level, I've tried dozens of times now and I can never quite make it.
#153163 - thedopefish - Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:21 pm
I'm still busy working on the next release. To address a few more concerns from the thread:
| Cimi wrote: |
how about vibrant colors?
Did you understand what I mean? |
Yeah, I hadn't noticed it before, but now that you mention it, I see what you're talking about. The game has a gamma control built-in, but there's currently no easy way to change the value. I'll try bumping up the default a bit and see if that improves the colors; otherwise I guess I'll have to add a UI (probably similar to the volume controls).
| ExeterV wrote: |
| Anyway, here's a quick mockup to illustrate what I meant when I mentioned moving the GUI to the other screen. |
I've implemented something very similar to this for the actual gameplay. For the upgrade ship menus and so forth, I'm thinking of just leaving it unscaled and letting you scroll left or right (if necessary). I'm also putting in an option to keep everything scaled, as it currently is, in case anyone prefers that.
| Markzilla wrote: |
| but there are a few problems with the full game, namely loading. |
| ExeterV wrote: |
| I can also confirm the problem with loading that Markzilla mentioned, a Guru Meditation error happens when I try to load a saved game. |
| Myran wrote: |
| I get a bunch of Guru Meditation errors though :\ I get them when I try to load any save other than the autosave (Last Level), and I can't finish the Deliani level in Episode 4, it always crashes at a different place on the level, I've tried dozens of times now and I can never quite make it. |
I'm attempting to track down and fix the Guru Meditation errors as best I can. I personally am not having issues with loading or saving, however. For you guys that are experiencing crashes, what homebrew devices are you using? Also, it would help if you could send me your TYRIAN.SAV file (assuming it always crashes when you try to load)--my email address is on my website.
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#153166 - Lazy1 - Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:23 pm
There are ways to smooth out the hardware scaling, actually quite few threads on here discuss it and show several ways doing it.
#153170 - Markzilla - Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:01 am
I'm running a CycloDS Evolution.
#153237 - thedopefish - Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:56 pm
Thanks to the save files sent to me by a couple of you, I've fixed the crash bug with loading. I'm nearly ready for the next release, look for it within the next day or two.
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#153239 - Potent1 - Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:00 pm
Hey thanks a lot. Looks great.
#153242 - medisyn - Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:31 pm
| thedopefish wrote: |
| Thanks to the save files sent to me by a couple of you, I've fixed the crash bug with loading. I'm nearly ready for the next release, look for it within the next day or two. |
Awesome I cant wait until the next release!
#153245 - bob1bob - Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:57 pm
You are a god amongst men.
#153249 - simonjhall - Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:31 am
Great stuff. Never played the original, but it reminds me of ProjectX on the Amiga. Awesome stuff.
I've got a question though: why is it that when the ship moves from one side of the screen to another, its shadow changes sides?
Also when someone shoots at me if I move, the invisible plane that the bullets that they fire is on is different to the plane that the original bad guy was on. So if I move, the bullets don't move the same way as the bad guy moves. Do you know what I mean?
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#153255 - Myran - Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:31 am
| simonjhall wrote: |
I've got a question though: why is it that when the ship moves from one side of the screen to another, its shadow changes sides?
Also when someone shoots at me if I move, the invisible plane that the bullets that they fire is on is different to the plane that the original bad guy was on. So if I move, the bullets don't move the same way as the bad guy moves. Do you know what I mean? |
The shadow moves more than the ship because the lightsource is in the middle of the playing field and pretty far down (close to the ship, so not a sun/star), and since it doesn't move at all in the y-axis it has to either be far up or moving along with you, and since it can't be far up (due to the x-axis movement) it has to be static in the x-axis, moving with you in the y-axis (although a bit further along the path) and i guess the distance between you and the light source in the z-axis seems to be about 5 times the distance between you and the ground.
And since the shadow is quite a bit larger than the ship (they are drawn as the same size but since the shadow is further away it's larger) that means the light source has to be smaller than the ship.
When the camera moves the bullets seems to move slightly more than the enemies, that means they are higher up, which is logical because they are drawn above the ships.
I hope this made sense..
#153294 - thedopefish - Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:38 pm
Version 0.2 is now available from the website.
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#153297 - Kojote - Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:12 pm
thanks for this excellent update!
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#153298 - Cimi - Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:20 pm
| thedopefish wrote: |
| Version 0.2 is now available from the website. |
I never expected such that :)
Colors are more vibrant, load/save works great.
Now I can only suggest to update the lower screen in both battle & menus.
For battles yeah I prefer the mockup posted days ago (not just with the tyran logo, but with the ship), for the menus maybe at least a tyrian logo
#153299 - Markzilla - Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:24 pm
Incredibly improved. In particular, I like the trick you did using L/R as scroll buttons on the menu.
#153304 - nanou - Fri Mar 28, 2008 12:49 am
Great stuff, only three things bug me, in order:
- Can't assign B to anything, it cancels input.
- I've accidentally exited the game 3 times, I think because B on the in-game screen will prompt to exit to title. The prompt is a bit quirky, hence actually exiting.
- The 'story' text screens are full width, so you miss some of the text. Not a big deal to me, and probably a pain to fix.
Another concern is speed but that's difficult to complain about. I'm surprised it's as good as it is, which is quite playable.
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#153306 - medisyn - Fri Mar 28, 2008 3:13 am
Awesome the new build is working great for me. Saving is working on my EZ-Flash V. A friend of mine is going to get a flash card just to play this game. He loves Tyrian.
#153307 - Markzilla - Fri Mar 28, 2008 4:07 am
| nanou wrote: |
Great stuff, only three things bug me, in order:
- The 'story' text screens are full width, so you miss some of the text. Not a big deal to me, and probably a pain to fix.
|
Hint: Press L or R twice.
#153308 - nanou - Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:39 am
Ah thanks, I hadn't noticed.
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#153309 - Sir_Voe - Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:17 am
Great update. I have an idea for a control configuration for use with the touch screen steering where you could standard fire with L, fire left weapon with dpad left, right weapon with dpad right, and right and left weapons with dpad up. Just a thought. Thanks again.
#153332 - thedopefish - Fri Mar 28, 2008 5:13 pm
Thanks for all the feedback everyone.
| nanou wrote: |
| - Can't assign B to anything, it cancels input. |
Indeed; there's also a similar issue with L and R, unless you're using the scaled video mode). This is a simple fix.
| Sir_Voe wrote: |
| I have an idea for a control configuration for use with the touch screen steering where you could standard fire with L, fire left weapon with dpad left, right weapon with dpad right, and right and left weapons with dpad up. Just a thought. |
This should be mostly doable already. The only catch is dpad-up: Tyrian does not let you fire both sidekicks with a single key (however it does let you do so with a single mouse or joystick button; go figure). I'll consider adding this capability however, as it is a useful feature (the other alternative is to enable the "Joystick", but then I have to make sure a single button press doesn't register as both a joystick button and a keyboard key, or else weird things will happen).
| Cimi wrote: |
| For battles yeah I prefer the mockup posted days ago (not just with the tyran logo, but with the ship), for the menus maybe at least a tyrian logo |
Now that I seem to have covered all the major issues, I can spend some time on interface improvements. The mockup looks good, maybe I'll shoot for something like that and see what I come up with.
| bob1bob wrote: |
| You are a god amongst men. |
No, I'm just a programmer who enjoys old games, and has enough motivation to port them to our favorite handheld platform :)
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#153339 - Romaap - Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:45 pm
| thedopefish wrote: |
| Sir_Voe wrote: | | I have an idea for a control configuration for use with the touch screen steering where you could standard fire with L, fire left weapon with dpad left, right weapon with dpad right, and right and left weapons with dpad up. Just a thought. |
This should be mostly doable already. The only catch is dpad-up: Tyrian does not let you fire both sidekicks with a single key (however it does let you do so with a single mouse or joystick button; go figure). I'll consider adding this capability however, as it is a useful feature (the other alternative is to enable the "Joystick", but then I have to make sure a single button press doesn't register as both a joystick button and a keyboard key, or else weird things will happen).
|
you could show a little joystick on the touch screen wich can be "grabbed" with the stylus
#153567 - Cimi - Wed Apr 02, 2008 2:04 am
planned features for 0.3?
still excited :)
#153625 - Cimi - Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:27 am
#153702 - the warlock - Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:41 am
Hey, don't know if this has been reported already, but I'm getting a crash (Guru meditiation error) every time I try to go through the level Camanis in episode 3. The crash happens toward the end of the level, after the announcer says "Large enemy approaching" but before the boss shows up, and it happens every time.
Great work, though. Really impressive, especially for version 0.2. I never played Tyrian back in the day, but it reminds me a lot of Raptor.
#153918 - ExeterV - Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:46 am
Alright, the loading seems to work now, which is great, and the playing field looks much better without the scaling. I'm pretty sure you can get rid of the quit option from the main menu, since it doesn't do much on the DS except make you exit the game by accident.
| thedopefish wrote: |
Now that I seem to have covered all the major issues, I can spend some time on interface improvements. The mockup looks good, maybe I'll shoot for something like that and see what I come up with.
|
If you need someone to cobble together a workable UI that's resolution-appropriate, let me know. I'm not sure what format the UI elements are supposed to be, all I have are Danc's publicly released sprite rips. With a reworked background and repositioning of the active elements (menus, text, weapon/ship graphics etc), the shop screen, as well as the map and everything outside the main game should be able to fit on the DS screen with no scrolling.
#154548 - MechaBouncer - Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:37 pm
Wow this is an awesome port! I actually have never played Tyrian before, but it reminds me a lot of another DOS vertical shooter called Raptor: Call of the Shadows. I love these kinds of games.
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Kingston SD-C02G JAPAN 2GB MicroSD
MoonShell 1.71, DSOrganize 3.1129, QuakeDS Pre3, ScummVM DS 0.11.1, Pocket Physics 0.6, OpenTyrian DS 0.3
#154601 - medisyn - Sat Apr 19, 2008 12:08 am
Any updates coming up?
#154733 - Kojote - Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:32 am
was thinking exactly the same tonight... ;)
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#154775 - thedopefish - Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:25 pm
It's your lucky day. Version 0.3 is now available from the usual place.
The most significant changes are improved stability and a fancy new bottom screen; the website and README file have the full details.
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#154870 - medisyn - Tue Apr 22, 2008 3:26 am
| thedopefish wrote: |
It's your lucky day. Version 0.3 is now available from the usual place.
The most significant changes are improved stability and a fancy new bottom screen; the website and README file have the full details. |
Love the new bottom screen! Thanks for your hard work!
#154982 - MechaBouncer - Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:50 pm
This has become one of my favorite homebrew apps. It let's me play a classic game I missed out on and plays quite well. In fact, the only problem I've had is a crash with a Guru Meditation Error when I try to quit the game. I'm not sure whether it tries to shut down, restart, or something else, but it seems to crash each time I select it. I'm using a CycloDS Evolution if that makes a difference.
EDIT:
Okay, maybe not the only problem. Has anyone else had an issue with the music skipping or not looping properly? I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, just that it sounds a bit off. I did save over my old files with the newer versions from v0.3.
Also, I'm not sure how the original game was, but does anyone notice what looks like layering issues where some objects appear behind or in front of other objects that seem out of place? I've seen a few stages where objects that seem like they'd be in the background appear in front of enemies or your own ship. I don't know if that was normal or not. It just seems like there are some cases where it looks out of place and obscures gameplay. I'm just wondering if that's normal.
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CycloDS Evolution (firmware 1.55 BETA 3) and EZFlash 3-in-1
Kingston SD-C02G JAPAN 2GB MicroSD
MoonShell 1.71, DSOrganize 3.1129, QuakeDS Pre3, ScummVM DS 0.11.1, Pocket Physics 0.6, OpenTyrian DS 0.3
#155484 - josath - Wed Apr 30, 2008 12:45 am
love this port, used to play it as a kid (actually bought a full copy of it), now I've been playing it on the train during the commute to work. My only suggestion is to up the volume of the music...i have music volume at 100% and SFX volume at 20%, and the SFX are still louder.
![[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]](http://opentyrian.googlecode.com/svn/wiki/opentyrian_torm.png){kind=link}
![[Images not permitted - Click here to view it]](http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/9473/dsgui2pg4.gif){kind=link}