#79861 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 16, 2006 4:12 pm
Check out my first complete game. Hope you all enjoy it. Plays great on VBA or on hardware via a flash cart. It is as good as or better than Lumines in the gameplay dept. imo (Gleam has specials), has great music, and skinned levels. Comments would be greatly appreciated.
http://akumaatr.nintendev.com/gleam.html
Screens/images at the bottom of the page!
#79873 - tepples - Sun Apr 16, 2006 5:27 pm
Please take the following comments as constructive criticism.
Size efficiency issues
17.6 MB compressed, 30 MB uncompressed? Ouch. I opened the .gba file with a wav editor (18157 Hz) and heard the game music. Everything from 678126 to 30704388 is uncompressed wave data. Couldn't you have used the GSM Player code for 5:1 compression? Or would that have taken too much CPU time?
Control issues
Issue: High score entry does not account for people with no middle initial. At least Tetris (GB, NES) allows spaces in high score entry names.
Issue: No sound to tell that A and B in high score entry are autorepeated, which could cause premature entry of three identical letters. At least Tetris (GB) has such a sound.
Issue: A and B for rotate are autorepeated. They are not autorepeated in Tetris (NES/GB/SNES/N64/GBC/GBA/PS2/GCN/DS), Dr. Mario (NES/GB/SNES/N64/GBA), or That Other Game (PSP).
Issue: Autorepeat is too slow for Control Pad left and right. Tetris Blast (GB), Tetris Attack (SNES/GB/N64/GBC/GBA), and That Other Game (PSP) use a much faster autorepeat system (10-15 frame initial delay, then repeat every 2 frames).
Issue: L and R to move the piece as far as possible to the left or right don't always work.
Issue: No pause feature; instead, Start activates an item. You could have bound activate item to L+R or B+A.
Now some gameplay differences that may or may not be intentional
Issue: Not all six four-colored squares are present. Specifically, there are no pieces with three of one color and one of the other.
| Code: |
Present:
X X O O O X O O
X X O O X O X X
Absent:
O X O O
X X O X |
Issue: Sweeper isn't synchronized with the music, unlike Parappa (PS1), Amplitude (PS2), and That Other Game (PSP).
Issue: Strange sweeper behavior in this case:
| Code: |
| | | |
X O | | | |
X O | O O | | |
| O O | | |
X O -> | X X O -> . . O -> O O -> O . |
X O | X X O . . O O O O . |
|
The behavior in That Other Game (PSP) is to evaluate each column only once as the sweeper enters it. Reminds me of Flare (for Java platform).
Shinin', shinin', shinin'...
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#79878 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 16, 2006 6:40 pm
Apologies for the large rom, and the fact that there is no pause functionality. These were due to limitations in my audio library -- I would improve these things if I weren't moving on from this project. I can make the source/assets avail. if someone would like to pursue these improvements (possibly use a better audio library/find better sound fx/whatever).
Your issues with high score entries didn't really bother me (hence why it is how it is). You can back up characters with the B button before committing your entry (having space character would be nice though, I think I can add that easily, i'll try to do that today).
I suppose that left and right block movement is a little too slow. I'll speed this up if I do a rebuild for the other problem you mentioned -- the fact that two block types are missing. I don't know how I overlooked this (thanks for pointing this out) :-) I will check the code when I get home, fix that bug and increase the block horz. motion thing, rebuild and repost the rom.
The strange wiper behavior thing you described is intentional. The wiper/deletion rules I set are actually maintained by this use case -- Lumines makes an exception to it's own gameplay rules imo for this case to make things easier on the player. if squares are part of a larger "to be deleted" group in Gleam, and the wiper has passed them, they will be deleted. the player is expected to be mindful of wiper position in this one case or get burned.
sorry that you didn't have any positive feedback :-/
#79883 - keldon - Sun Apr 16, 2006 7:22 pm
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| sorry that you didn't have any positive feedback :-/ |
Constructive criticism has positive effects.
#79892 - tepples - Sun Apr 16, 2006 10:31 pm
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| Apologies for the large rom, and the fact that there is no pause functionality. These were due to limitations in my audio library -- I would improve these things if I weren't moving on from this project. I can make the source/assets avail. |
If so, I can add them to Luminesweeper, an already working engine. It might give me another excuse to work on something that I haven't touched for 6 months.
| Quote: |
| Your issues with high score entries didn't really bother me (hence why it is how it is). You can back up characters with the B button before committing your entry |
Unless I'm currently on the second character, press A, and then have autorepeat commit my entry.
| Quote: |
| I'll speed this up if I do a rebuild for the other problem you mentioned -- the fact that two block types are missing. I don't know how I overlooked this (thanks for pointing this out) :-) |
Lumines generates each of the four blocks independently. In effect, this means the checker appears 1/8 of the time, the half-and-half 1/4, each 3-and-1 1/4, and each solid 1/16.
| Quote: |
| The strange wiper behavior thing you described is intentional. The wiper/deletion rules I set are actually maintained by this use case -- Lumines makes an exception to it's own gameplay rules imo for this case to make things easier on the player. if squares are part of a larger "to be deleted" group in Gleam, and the wiper has passed them, they will be deleted. the player is expected to be mindful of wiper position in this one case or get burned. |
Having to watch the timeline is true of Lumines as well, as if you make a square with the sweeper on its left half, you get a half-delete. (Luminesweeper has the same behavior since mid-July 2005.) However, cascades under this rule won't cause a half-delete except in some rare cases involving the special blocks.
| Quote: |
| sorry that you didn't have any positive feedback :-/ |
The lack of pausing and the slow horizontal movement kept me from getting into a groove to the point where I could properly evaluate the intentional differences in behavior, such as the powerup system. But if I'm being harsh, imagine what Nintendo lot check would have said. I wish you luck with the next version.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#79917 - AkumaATR - Mon Apr 17, 2006 2:43 am
A won't commit your entry. Only start will. I see why you were so specific about your comments now... I suspected maybe you were the one behind Luminesweeper ;-)
#79922 - AkumaATR - Mon Apr 17, 2006 3:42 am
I posted a new version. The rom/changes can be found at:
http://akumaatr.nintendev.com/gleam.html
#80154 - Kojote - Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:08 am
if it works on my supercard i give it a go later on :)
_________________
Kojote
PDRoms - Retroguru - Giana's Return - Speckdrumm
#80199 - tepples - Wed Apr 19, 2006 10:39 pm
It has improved, but the autorepeat on rotation keys still throws me off.
Now I can see that scoring is based on the width of a contiguous combo minus one, times the number of raw blocks removed. (Unlike in Lumines, discontiguous combos don't count.) Were the monochrome and empty bonuses left out on purpose?
It's a bit too easy. For one thing, it seems to give out too many special blocks (Lumines gives approximately one per 32 tetriminos starting after the 75th), and for another, it didn't get fast before I got the "bad ending" with score 8337. By the way, what affects the ending I get?
It stops after each level, which is jarring. Lumines fades the background out, fades the playfield to the new tileset, and fades the new background in.
"Sped up motion": The best way to do this is to make the delay between the first two motions (the "autorepeat delay") comparatively large (e.g. 12 frames) and then the subsequent delay between motions (the "autorepeat period") smaller.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#81041 - tepples - Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:30 pm
(I hope the admins say it's OK to double post/bump after a week)
OK, now I'm confused. How did Gleam's PageRank rise so quickly?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#81142 - AkumaATR - Thu Apr 27, 2006 5:59 am
like i said tepples, my goal was not to clone every little aspect of lumines' gameplay, although clearly i wanted it to be similar (in other words, feel similar -- i'm not concerned with how often Lumines gives people specials -- Gleam isn't Lumines). i know you spent a lot of effort on this for your lumines clone, and that's great. i am very happy with the gameplay in gleam, and feel that i pulled off what i wanted to asthetically.
i see that you posted in my digg post's comments that your version is a more accurate clone, and despite submitting gleam to gbadev.org more than once, it never made the main page (i can't help but wonder why). that combined with the fact that you for the most part only criticized my project (i appreciate constructive criticism, but you really had next to nothing positive to say about it in the least which makes me think you must be offended by it's mere existence alongside luminesweeper or something).
that said, i did take some shortcuts when implementing gleam, such as using hardware for fades/etc., this is why the fading in and out of levels happens as it does.
Last edited by AkumaATR on Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:39 am; edited 1 time in total
#81144 - AkumaATR - Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:05 am
wow, just found that you also hijacked my fifteen minutes on kotaku with this comment
"Gleam is not the only Lumines clone on the GBA. Luminesweeper is more faithful to the PSP game in look and feel, and it's much smaller (ca. 4 MB) because it uses audio compression on its music. If you don't like the example skins that come with it, there's a skin editor. There's even a version that runs on the inexpensive GBA Movie Player. And when you get tired of Lumines, you can switch it to Minesweeper mode (hence the name)."
couldn't you have submitted your work to these sites on it's own merit? no offense, and you made me say it, but last time i checked (haven't played it lately), luminesweeper wasn't on the same level in the music/gfx dept.
#81145 - AkumaATR - Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:08 am
also did you piggybacking on retro-gaming i see. so you basically googled gleam and added a plug to your stuff, which wasn't just a plug, but also a simultaneous diss of gleam. totally lame.
#81164 - tepples - Thu Apr 27, 2006 3:08 pm
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| and despite submitting gleam to gbadev.org more than once, it never made the main page (i can't help but wonder why). |
I don't handle the front page. I'm just a forum moderator.
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| you also hijacked my fifteen minutes on kotaku with this comment |
Your news item is above the fold. My comment is way below the fold.
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| couldn't you have submitted your work to these sites on it's own merit? |
I sent a link to my page to tips@kotaku, but nobody responded, except that I got a commenting invite immediately after I submitted. I (perhaps mistakenly) took that as permission to post a link to my page.
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| so you basically googled gleam |
No, I googled gba lumines. If Bandai hadn't signed that PSP exclusivity deal, then the first page would be filled with things about the official game.
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| a simultaneous diss of gleam |
I answered the complaints of the people on the boards. No disrespect was intended.
Let me put it this way: It's like somebody posting about Verticube after the release of Kaikai's game.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#81470 - headspin - Sat Apr 29, 2006 10:21 am
| Quote: |
| I answered the complaints of the people on the boards. No disrespect was intended. |
Are all these posts answering the complaints of people on the boards?
| Quote: |
| OK, now I'm confused. How did Gleam's PageRank rise so quickly? |
Does this more accurately explain your actions?
| Quote: |
| Gleam is not the only Lumines clone on the GBA. Luminesweeper is more faithful to the PSP game in look and feel, and it's much smaller (ca. 4 MB) because it uses audio compression on its music. If you don't like the example skins that come with it, there's a skin editor. There's even a version that runs on the inexpensive GBA Movie Player. And when you get tired of Lumines, you can switch it to Minesweeper mode (hence the name). |
| Quote: |
| There is a more accurate Lumines clone for GBA, and it is called Luminesweeper. |
| Quote: |
| If you want to try a Lumines knockoff for GBA that's truer to the PSP game than Gleam is, check out Luminesweeper. It has a regulation size (16x10) playfield, the control feels crisper, and the audio is synchronized (as in the PSP game). In addition, it's a much smaller download, and there's even a version that works on a GBA Movie Player (but without music). Another bonus: If you're handy with an audio editor and an image editor, you can make your own skins. |
| Quote: |
| Gleam is an OK game, but if you want a more accurate representation of what the gameplay of Lumines (for PSP) feels like, try Luminesweeper, also for Game Boy Advance. |
| Quote: |
| And now it has music (currently ?borrowed? from In The Groove). |
_________________
Warhawk DS | Manic Miner: The Lost Levels | The Detective Game
#81483 - tepples - Sat Apr 29, 2006 2:00 pm
Yes they were.
I recognize that I may have gone too far. Should I have just said "Gleam is good for a first try, and it is not the only Lumines clone on the GBA" and left it at that? But unfortunately, I cannot repair the damage except on boards that allow me to edit or delete my comments.
As for the PageRank, how can a page that doesn't mention "GBA" or "Lumines" be #2 for the query 'gba lumines'?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#81486 - headspin - Sat Apr 29, 2006 2:14 pm
Tepples, I respect you and everything you do for the scene, but you definately should have said something like "another lumines clone is called luminesweeper" or something, rather than say what yours has that his dosn't. I know you have good intentions here by giving people another option for your game (which I love btw which is why I made custom skins for it). It just comes across as though your trying to promote your own wares on the back of it.
Don't worry about it, like you said you can't reverse what you've posted, but at least people can see you didn't mean it like that.
As for PageRank, who knows how Google ranks pages, some sites pay Google money to be ranked higher. My guess is that he has just posted on sites that get spidered by Google bots more often. Perhaps this is a sign to make a new game. After all, you did get a new DS donated from all of us ;)
_________________
Warhawk DS | Manic Miner: The Lost Levels | The Detective Game
#81511 - zzo38computer - Sat Apr 29, 2006 5:04 pm
This game won't run on SuperCard CF (it just stops at the GameBoy logo, and it mess up picture on bottom)
EDIT: It will run in GBA mode. In DS mode, when it switches to GBA, the logo is wrong in the header. You should correct that for maximum compatibility
Also, I would recomend changing controls, so START=Pause Game, SELECT=Use Item
_________________
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#81604 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:07 pm
Here's the thing. I was actually not so upset that Tepples promoted his work the way he did. I was actually just upset that in his sea of criticisms (about how my game doesn't play exactly like Lumines, even though I stated more than once that I wasn't trying to clone the gameplay of Lumines down to the atomic level, and was more focused on presentation, for ex.) he couldn't stomach at least one compliment. When some people outside of the scene respond like this, it's easy to chalk up as someone unappreciative/demanding. It's harder when it comes from someone within the scene -- Tepples more than anyone would know that a project like this can take a lot of time (I wrote all of the tools I used to make Gleam minus the compiler/toolchain, even down to the interrupts processing level -- so it did take me quite some time). I realize that Tepples has been in the scene a long time, I guess that's why I took it so personally (a "good job" in some form or fashion would have been nice, or at least a simple nod in my direction). Also, I am less than a state away; there aren't exactly tons of people in the homebrew scene -- he's someone I might have the opportunity to work with in the future, etc. I think Gleam is a damn fine project, not just "good for a first try." :-)
Last edited by AkumaATR on Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:15 pm; edited 2 times in total
#81605 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:13 pm
| zzo38computer wrote: |
EDIT: It will run in GBA mode. In DS mode, when it switches to GBA, the logo is wrong in the header. You should correct that for maximum compatibility
|
Wow, that sounds like it might be causing the issue that people are having running it on linkers (I am clueless in regards to this as I only have a flash cart). Sadly, I don't really know what you mean by "the logo is wrong" in the header. Can you elaborate so that I can look into fixing this? The final stage of my build process was to run:
arm-elf-objcopy -O binary $(PROJECT).elf $(PROJECT).gba
Did I miss some rom-fixing/prepping step or something?
Here is the typical type of Makefile I used for most of my projects:
http://home.comcast.net/~jason.cecil/files/rain_demo/Makefile
#81612 - Quirky - Sun Apr 30, 2006 4:44 pm
I imagine it means that you didn't add the Nintendo 'magic cookie' to the header. Most flashing software (the program that copies the game from the computer to the cartridge) fixes the header, so you probably didn't notice.
There are several tools on gbadev to sort out this minor problem - just add the header fix after the elf -> gba step in your Makefile.
http://www.gbadev.org/tools.php?section=Header
#81613 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:01 pm
| Quirky wrote: |
I imagine it means that you didn't add the Nintendo 'magic cookie' to the header. Most flashing software (the program that copies the game from the computer to the cartridge) fixes the header, so you probably didn't notice.
There are several tools on gbadev to sort out this minor problem - just add the header fix after the elf -> gba step in your Makefile.
http://www.gbadev.org/tools.php?section=Header |
Great -- seems simple enough. Thanks for the info./link -- will post a newer version w/ fixed header tonight when I'm back home.
#81614 - tepples - Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:01 pm
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| I was actually just upset that in his sea of criticisms (about how my game doesn't play exactly like Lumines, even though I stated more than once that I wasn't trying to clone the gameplay of Lumines down to the atomic level, and was more focused on presentation, for ex.) |
If it's not a Lumines clone, then why did the sites with mega-PageRank portray it as one?
| Quote: |
| he couldn't stomach at least one compliment. |
I wish I could have thought of a compliment, but when the play control doesn't match the standards set by contemporary puzzle games for Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, and Sony PSP, it's difficult to think of one. In fact, one of the reasons I developed Tetanus On Drugs (a clone of Mute Fantasies' Tetripz) was the poor play control in Tetripz. Should I make a Very Simple Demo(tm) with source code as to what a modern tris-type game's control should feel like? I'm willing to work with you on this issue.
| Quote: |
| Tepples more than anyone would know that a project like this can take a lot of time (I wrote all of the tools I used to make Gleam minus the compiler/toolchain, even down to the interrupts processing level -- so it did take me quite some time). |
I understand how much work it can be. I wrote everything in Luminesweeper except devkitARM and Toast.
| Quote: |
| I realize that Tepples has been in the scene a long time, I guess that's why I took it so personally (a "good job" in some form or fashion would have been nice, or at least a simple nod in my direction). |
Please take what I said as prefixed with "Good job so far, but here are things to work on".
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#81644 - SimonB - Sun Apr 30, 2006 9:07 pm
| AkumaATR wrote: |
| and despite submitting gleam to gbadev.org more than once, it never made the main page (i can't help but wonder why). |
As not to keep you in suspense any longer...
We have a backlog of stuff to post on the site. We are just 2 people, both of whom are working time and a half if not more. Unfortunately this means we cant post stuff as they are submitted. It is rather unfortunate but I can assure you that there is no evil plot in force here and your game will be mentioned on the main page as soon as krom is back. Whenever I have some time to spare I try to work on the backend and let krom do the main page updates, but krom hasnt been answering his phone in 2 weeks so im not really sure when this will be.
#81655 - AkumaATR - Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:09 pm
| SimonB wrote: |
| It is rather unfortunate but I can assure you that there is no evil plot in force here and your game will be mentioned on the main page as soon as krom is back. |
Cool, no worries, and apologies for being obnoxious.
#81658 - AkumaATR - Mon May 01, 2006 12:03 am
patched rom header, should work w/ efa linker II etc. now
#82904 - tepples - Thu May 11, 2006 2:37 am
Luminous and Gleem are brands of toothpaste ;-)
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.