Oh dang fifth! That's awesome looking!
I'd love to alpha test it. Ha ha!
Even if all I can do is walk around.
I wish we had a decent MMO made with fusion. I was working on one myself, but the project has kinda stagnated since I have almost no time to myself anymore. Maybe I should try to make time.
Jonnnnnnny! Pleeeeeease don't abandon that project like you did that last. That looks amazing!
You're my favorite kliker from Jonny RPG and The Forum Game.
I'm following your tumblr.
Also I'm loving that art style.
The mix of hand drawn and pixel art is well done.
I'm adding a reminder to my phone to try the prototype after work today.
I recommend not releasing demos because there's something about them that discourages development. maybe it's just me, but i doubt it.
originally demos were the generous 'try before you buy' arrangement, but these days playable demos seem to have time limits and a lower amount of content. To be fair, the amount of content in games these days is smaller. If you look at old rpgs the exploration maps were huge, I don't know how anyone did it. but getting back to the point, demos don't really have a use outside 'try before you buy' other than providing spoilers.
Okay, so I know it doesn't look like much, but this has actually taken quite a lot of time and effort.
It's really just a simple demonstration of the html5 canvas / javascript engine I've been working on, which aims to faithfully reproduce some of the functionality of an original gameboy. It's not an emulator and it's not a complete game engine (you'd need to code all the game logic in javascript), but it does handle all the drawing of background tiles, text, sprites, etc - and also keyboard input.
I still need to finish up the animation system, and then maybe add some features to make coding game logic a bit easier (a kind of stack-based system, like clickteam products use) - I've done it before, so hopefully it could be integrated.
This is the editor for tiles/maps/sprites:
TECHNICAL STUFF:
The background layer is tile based, with 8x8 tiles loaded from a single image file, using a layout stored in a 2d array "map". The layer covers the entire screen and maps can be any size (they scroll and also wrap at the edges). Small maps are tiled to fill the screen. There is also a function for easy blitting of bitmap fonts.
The entire background map is drawn and then saved as a single image, and then a screen-sized section of it drawn onto a canvas. To improve efficiency, the canvas is only redrawn when required (eg. if the map is scrolled). The background map image is also only redrawn when required, and only the tiles that have changed need to be redrawn.
The sprite layer contains animated sprites. These may be composed of any number of 8x8 tiles, and may be positioned anywhere on the screen. Both the individual tiles and the sprite as a whole may be flipped horizontally and/or vertically.
Although there is no limit on the number of sprites which may be shown at once, the sprite layer is redrawn every frame, so large numbers of sprites may affect performance.
The window layer is similar to the background layer, but does not scroll, does not need to cover the entire screen, and is always displayed on top of both the background and sprite layers, making it ideal for frames, dialog boxes, etc. As with the background layer, there is a function for easy blitting of bitmap fonts. Tiles or rectangular areas may be drawn to the layer or cleared, and this is the only time it is redrawn (there is no "map" and no stored image - just the canvas).
The only important feature missing (compared to an actual gameboy) is palette swapping, which simply can't be done efficiently using the canvas/javascript, unfortunately.
Looks like a fun technical challenge, I also love the simple gameboy type artwork in that little demo.
So far it looks like a gameboy style rendering engine for javascript. Do you plan on making any games with it?
That's really nice Sketchy! If you do it well and give it a bit of a push, there a chance that it could take off as a game development framework like Flixel.
Oh, I hadn't noticed that anyone replied (it is rather quiet around here) - thanks guys
The closest thing at the moment is probably Pico-8. That's the direction I was thinking of going, until I discovered it already existed http://www.lexaloffle.com/pico-8.php
One nice advantage of sticking to the Gameboy specification is that it stops me getting overly ambitious with the features I want to add.
I definitely think there's potential though. There are always people doing Gameboy themed jams and contests, and I think the Gameboy has the perfect combination of simplicity and flexibility - the limitations stop you getting too ambitious or bogged down making spectacular graphics / special effects etc, but at the same time, just about every genre of 2d game is possible.
If I can create a decent tool for editing tiles / maps / animations, and a user-friendly way of coding (it'll be Javascript obviously, but I want to make it more Clickteam style - eg. "if(enemy.x === player.x){}" would individually check all instances of the enemy object) - then it could become one of the fastest ways to make simple games
Some of this stuff looks really nice. Andy, looks like you put a lot of effort into that background there. Are you still working on that? That post was nine months ago!
Sketchy, that looks really nice! I actually learned something about how Game Boy games are made just watching that gif. Lovely interface and functionality. Just a suggestion, but I imagine that it would be helpful for developers to be able to create "groups" of tiles (like box-selecting multiple tiles, but they're not adjacent in the tilemap) - for example, an empty room in a Zelda dungeon, to place with one click instead of painting it every time. But I suppose they could arrange the tilemap in a specific way to allow that, too. Keep working on it!
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Edited by Jonny Comics
