View Full Version : The demo of my own game is released!
Some of you may remember I needed Terragen artists a while back. Well, I needed them for this project. I've done all Terragen work myself now.
And now, you can check it out yourself!
Here are some screenshots:
http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot1tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot1.jpg)http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot2tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot2.jpg)http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot3tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot3.jpg)
If the game looks interesting, you can download it here:
http://www.eaglered.net/download/StarataDEMO.exe
If you want to know more, read the readme that comes with the game.
In case you have more questions, you can post them here.
And this is NOT a spyware program... :)
Original monk
24-03-04, 15:57
veery nice :)
and comes in handy for at work :)
goe gedaan maarten !
great job
Thats pretty sweet, its too hard for me tho :\
Psyco Groupie
24-03-04, 16:27
this looks like my childhood spent on my atari 1024 ;P
*downloads*
Very fun lil game :)
nicely programmed.
The only advice i can offer is:
ADD SOMETHIN THAT RECOVERS SHIELD/HEALTH!!!
(if there isnt one)
The highest score i have achieved on EASY mode is 5129
Normal and hard are just impossible for me :)
The enemy bullets are hard to see, but yes, excellent game, and very very playable ;)
•Super|\|ova•
24-03-04, 16:44
Reminds me of the C64 game I loved called 1942 :eek:
Originally posted by •Super|\|ova•
Reminds me of the C64 game I loved called 1942 :eek:
WOW, i played that game. it was teh pwn :lol:
C64 > all
http://www.imageshack.us/img1/149/staratascore.jpg
nice game ;)
Mighty Max
24-03-04, 16:50
Very nice done Maarten.
But something that you could fix/add:
An Escape/Back button in the options. Not only having the user guess it is ESC / let him do this with the mouse
Neocrons_coward
24-03-04, 16:51
Originally posted by Maarten
Some of you may remember I needed Terragen artists a while back. Well, I needed them for this project. I've done all Terragen work myself now.
And now, you can check it out yourself!
Here are some screenshots:
http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot1tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot1.jpg)http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot2tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot2.jpg)http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot3tn.jpg (http://www.eaglered.net/starata/shot3.jpg)
If the game looks interesting, you can download it here:
http://www.eaglered.net/download/StarataDEMO.exe
If you want to know more, read the readme that comes with the game.
In case you have more questions, you can post them here.
And this is NOT a spyware program... :)
Congrats mate... I see your dream was fulfilled where as mine went tits up.. My staff left the project and its still rotting at its http://escapefromunderworld.tripod.com I am gonna get it alive one day as the creator of it wants it dead and not to be used but he never copyrighted it so i am gonna steal his idea change the name and then get it working up and running
Man
Jock Rockwell
24-03-04, 17:11
Gj very nice game indeed.
PS. Stingray is the win!
Richard Angelus
24-03-04, 17:49
around 38k points in normal :D
this program sucks for the same reason the skillmanagers suck -
the default resolution.
but from the screenie here, doesnt look too bad.
Psyco Groupie
24-03-04, 17:58
eeek you cant alt/tab and get back ... had a popup and it froze the dispaly of the game :/
n1 n1 n1 n1 n1 n1 n1 n1, is the full game also free ?
Thanks guys.
More versions of the demo will be released to fix/upgrade things.
What did the popup say when you alt-tabbed, Psyco Groupie?
L0KI, what bullets exactly are hard to see?
And is the game really that hard? I can play on easy and barely get hit.
Mighty Max
24-03-04, 20:12
Maybe its FPS dependend? the things are really really fast for me.
Its doable but very difficult.
at least you cant look on all missles/dots coming over you. they are too small for their speed.
P4 3gh - HT, 800mhz fsb, 1gb twinx RAM and ati 9800xt....
Not going to fast for me... ;)
(Did the installer look familiar? ;))
The full version will also be free, yes.
Website will be up very soon.
RATE! :D
Mighty Max
24-03-04, 20:47
Must has myself slowless been, played again fine.
But another tip for the ui. Move the <> buttons for next/prev ship side by side with the ships name. I had to search the < button after i reached the end.
Where it is atm it gets a bit lost beside the big ship image
wow u made it urself i tryed making a game in visual basic a picture went left and right thats all :) i was happy with it
That is a sweet ass game dude. Hope you are well chuffed. :D
Psyco Groupie
24-03-04, 21:12
not the game popup - msn poped up and minimised the game, when i clicked it on the taskbar again it came up in a window with a black background, the music kept going all through this
There you are Eagle :) Cougar ask me to pk you well atleast I know where you are..... but now i have to start a Charecter on Uranus :(
I'll see if I can release a "hotfix" that fixes the bad visibility of enemy bullets...
Although I must say, I never had any problems with this... :)
maybe im just shit at the game m8.
Dont take my criticism to heart, im used to being good at things the first time i try them ;)
Top down arcade shooters rock. I'm a total arcade junkie so I should love this.
I'm gonna download this and try it asap. :D
An option to alter screen resolution would be handy, preferably before the game boots up.
hey brams, u guys should try to make it multiplayer and have it come w/ neolauncher pro.
and have a window of it able to come up like MM's browser so people can play w/ eachother while they are playing neocron.
would be great to see people saying in OOC: "Lookin for people to play starata!"
people could meet in restraunts and play ;]
picture see'ing people sitting down in plaza2 playin it ;D
also would be great for people to be able to watch while the others are playing.
or maybe you could even talk to MJS and see if he is willing to buy it to put it in neocron itself as a little arcade area.
Full version will most likely have multiplayer support.
But there will be no relation to NLpro or Neocron whatsoever.. This game isn't browser based, so you wont be able to play it in MM's ingame browser.
Or... at least not in the near future.. ;)
The only relation is that NLpro and this game come frome the same "software house". (My/our game add-ons will be published under BlackWard -- instead of my own company creITive).
Richard Angelus
25-03-04, 05:23
finished the Demo in normal with around 40k points :D
nice game
Originally posted by BramTops
Full version will most likely have multiplayer support.
But there will be no relation to NLpro or Neocron whatsoever.. This game isn't browser based, so you wont be able to play it in MM's ingame browser.
Or... at least not in the near future.. ;)
The only relation is that NLpro and this game come frome the same "software house". (My/our game add-ons will be published under BlackWard -- instead of my own company creITive). no no i mean it should be an option to download that w/ NLpro and could open in a window LIKE the browser, not in it ;]
New in the Neocron stores!
Tsunami Gameboy! :p
But anyway, I want to start on the "hotfix" now, but what needs fixing exactly?
I will increase the size of the yellow bullets in level 1. Anything else?
Mighty Max
25-03-04, 22:43
2. A Back or Exit button at options Menu (for mouse users :p )
3. Add an Exit button to the Ranking (for mouse users :p )
4. Move the < > buttons when you select your ship next to the name, the < is sthg lost left to the ships image
Think that are the things i recognized
:edit:
Then for the next session for your progger:
5. ALT+TAB is completely not working here, meaning after surfaces get lost, they dont get redrawn. (In Menu)
6. Credits should be exited when you press any key, even the mouse button (yeah i know im a mouse spoiled kiddy :p )
PS: Dont mean that to be crtism only, i like the style of that game and looks well put together, so just some things that will help to smooth it when you release it.
Euhm, some small things I can do myself, but I need the programmer for adding new buttons and he is quite busy...
Here you go, this should improve the visibility of the enemy bullets:
http://www.eaglered.net/download/StarataDEMOfix.exe
Has anyone checked the readme yet? :D
Glad you guys like the game :)
The alt-tab issue will take some more time to fix, but i'll work on the other stuff soon. I think we must be able to have a small code / graphics update by next tuesday- back buttons and a little more mouse support (no mouse supported flying yet though).
About the < and > buttons; would they be better left and right of the ships name, or left and right of the picture?
Mighty Max
26-03-04, 10:36
Hi Sponzi,
hehe extra created a forum account for that ?
The <> next to the ships name, there had i looked for them first, before i realized it left of the ship image.
If you need any help on the ALT+Tab issue just let Maarten PM me on ICQ/MSN :D
Greets
MightyMax
Originally posted by Shujin
or maybe you could even talk to MJS and see if he is willing to buy it to put it in neocron itself as a little arcade area.
it would so much own to have arcades in neocron.
This game is 1337 it owns Very good work there
Mighty Max
26-03-04, 11:59
Another bug:
- When you enter a name when starting a new game, there is no limit in adding new chars. But after you reached a certain length, adding new chars has some odd behaviour like changing the last char over and over again (not to what u pressed sthg other). After again a certain number of chars the game dropps to desktop. No error simple termiation.
Damn !!!!
Im really happy to see that people remember the C64... what a comp ! ;)
Originally posted by Mighty Max
Another bug:
- When you enter a name when starting a new game... the game dropps to desktop. No error simple termiation.
I can only say OOPS for that one. I'll fix it for the next update, thanks Max.
About the alt-tabbing; I don't think it'll be a problem to get it implemented, but at the moment I'm a bit busy with other things (writing a thesis and a paper.. damn deadlines), so it doesnt get a high priority yet. Maybe I'll add a small config file in which you can choose between fullscreen and windowed, and possibly some resolutions. Having the game windowed solves the alt-tab problem at least in part, be it a quick and dirty hack (but not as bad as disabling alt-tab altogether ;) )
You guys happy now with the bullet visibility with the hotfix?
Nightbrother
26-03-04, 14:02
Maarten, do you remember the old c64 game called Burnin' Rubber? Would it possible to remake that?
Way to go with the game there. I wish I had the skills to do that. :)
Burnin' Rubber is an ancient ('83) car racing game.. with a twist; the ability to jump (high!) into the air, and then land on and crush other cars. You can also run them off the road, of course, if you prefer that. Check this page (http://www.thelegacy.de/Museum/1745/) for a screenshot (not that pretty :P)
Based on the Starata code, it cant be that hard to make. So one day, we may consider making something just like it. But for the moment, there are other things to do first.
First of all, Starata will be finished. And besides that, Eagle and I both have some other project(s) to finish first, before we can start on other games. But making remakes of old games is certainly planned (Volfied (http://emustatus.rainemu.com/games/volfied.htm) being one of my personal favorites).
edit: volfied link
Originally posted by Maarten
You guys happy now with the bullet visibility with the hotfix?
nope. because i cant see anything because you guys all have monitors that can take resolutions abouve 800x600.
I'll make a fix for a lower resolution version. Small settings.cfg file in which you can pick fullscreen or windowed and either of the resolutions 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and maybe higher.
The new version will have to wait until next tuesday though.
Originally posted by Sponzie
I'll make a fix for a lower resolution version. Small settings.cfg file in which you can pick fullscreen or windowed and either of the resolutions 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, and maybe higher.
The new version will have to wait until next tuesday though.
Nice one! top banana!
OMG, your monitor can't even take 1024x768?
damn, I thought it would be a small and simple change, but I just looked at it some more .. and too much of the art and code is directly dependant on the fixed 1024x768 resolution. We made the assumption early on that everyone would be able to play it on 1024x768, and I kinda forgot the issue afterward. Yes it's bad design, so it will be fixed and changed. But I cant promise a new version for next tuesday :( its gonna take a while longer. As soon as its done, I'll put it online.
Originally posted by naimex
it would so much own to have arcades in neocron.
http://neocron.jafc.de/images/icons/icon14.gif
And then we'd be able to play classics like Donkey Kong, Centipede and Defender. :cool:
W00t, 60,000 points on Hard! Who's gonna beat me?! :D I died fighting the boss in Level 3...
Originally posted by Maarten
OMG, your monitor can't even take 1024x768?
nope, and it can only cope with 800x600 @ 60Hz
MY EYES! THE GOGGLES DO NOTHING!
Making a game isn't as easy is it seems to be.
The weirdest bugs can appear on other people's computer and you have absolutely no clue of what can be the cause.
Two weird, unexplainable bugs I've seen so far:
- Game speed is slower then it should be, for some reason playing a MIDI file with WinAMP in the background makes the game run as it is supposed to. I've only seen this bug on my own computer. Anyone else thinks the game speed on their computer is slower then it should be?
- When moving the mouse in the main menu, the screen suddenly turns very dark. You can still select New Game if you can find it and the screen brightness will be normal then, but most of the textures will have the wrong size, creating a very weird image.
One of my collegues reported this and it also happened on one of the computers at work. Anyone else experienced this problem?
I'm trying to find the cause for these bugs, so if you are experiencing these or other bugs, please report them here and give us a detailed description of your system specifications. Software and hardware.
If a small game like Starata can produce weird things like this, I'm not surprised something major as Neocron has problems running perfectly on all systems...
Mighty Max
30-03-04, 19:24
Hehe quite complex heh?
- for the game speed:I looked into your imports and it looks that you are retrieving the performance-timer data through GetTickCount(). That might cause your problem, since it is related to an interupt that can be programmed to other cycles but the standard. Some MIDI cards use that interupt too. (programable through the keyboard controller :p old DOS relict see http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Park/8933/interrupts.html)
Use other funtions like timeGetTime() - see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/multimed/htm/_win32_timegettime.asp
- menu thingy: is that a TFT? does its driver send it to energy safe mode when no wingui is used?
Hope that might help :D
I'll have Sponzie look at that info... :)
And yes, both systems used TFT monitors... But the monitors didn't go on standby or something, the screen just got very dark, you could still see the menu if you looked very hard. And it does work on other computers that use TFT monitors...
Mighty Max
30-03-04, 19:35
The very dark is an effect of the backlight turning off. Its not standby, its energy safe.
At work i had a whole series of Samsung ones that did this every 2 mins after the last resolution change ... till they got a module replaced inside.
Any idea why the backlight of a TFT monitor would go offline? And why it only happens on some TFT monitors, not all?
Mighty Max
30-03-04, 20:51
It could be a driver issue when the screen's memory got not updated for a specified amount of time.
I really dont know exact why, but that turn very dark so you can only see the sheemes was still resident in my memory ;)
Hmm, but that doesn't explain the fact that the texture sizes are all fucked up, does it?
Mighty Max
30-03-04, 20:57
nope not really.
edit: you can MSN me if you have any questions/needs - we dont need to open a private diskussion here hehe
Other people are still welcome to join the conversation if they have any experience with bugs in the game... :)
I also still want to hear more opinions about the game so I can improve it... :)
Looks good, keep up the work. But it's a bit too challenging for me. Not easy to dodge all these bullets. :)
Originally posted by CoDi
Looks good, keep up the work. But it's a bit too challenging for me. Not easy to dodge all these bullets. :)
*slap* get back to work ! :D
Hm, I'm not using getTickCount myself (but timeGetTime).. but if I remember correctly, these problems came up since we started using FMOD for sound. Could FMOD be using getTickCount anywhere..? I'll search the code for it when I get home.. Any ideas what might be causing it otherwise?
hehe, seems you were right after all, getTickCount was used at one place in the code, that hasnt been revisited in months.. Changed it to timeGetTime. I wonder whether that's all to solve the problem :) I'll have Maarten try it again soon.
edit: hm. I just tried it out myself, and now the game is slow here as well. Until I start playing a midi in the background - then it speeds up again. And now I'm using timeGetTime() for all timing stuff. No getTickCount anymore. Any ideas?
Heavyporker
31-03-04, 18:09
Actually, it couldn't be all that hard to import emulations of the old SIMPLE arcade games?
I mean.. if mighty max can link a web browser into INSIDE Neocron... then that means java games and shit can be piped in, right? Just so make a patch that installs MM's little add-on, then spawn some "stations" inside the Holodecks that has hard-coded URLS to an internally hosted Neocron server with copies of the arcade games on it. TO make it RP, say that its from the Ceres Discs...
Eh? Eh?
Originally posted by CoDi
Looks good, keep up the work. But it's a bit too challenging for me. Not easy to dodge all these bullets. :)
Thanks, do I really need to make the Easy difficulty more easy then it already is? :)
For performance critical timing, the use of timeGetTime() may not be adequate enough. First, its resolution must *not* be 1 ms. Second, applications may change the timer resolution.
from the MSDN docs:
Windows NT: The default precision of the timeGetTime function can be five milliseconds or more, depending on the machine. You can use the timeBeginPeriod and timeEndPeriod functions to increase the precision of timeGetTime. If you do so, the minimum difference between successive values returned by timeGetTime can be as large as the minimum period value set using timeBeginPeriod and timeEndPeriod.
I suggest you to have a look at QueryPerformanceCounter() / QueryPerformanceFrequency() instead. It may look a little bit tricky to mess with the LARGE_INTEGER values in the first place, but this high resolution timer is far more stable and useful for realtime applications like games.
looks at codi's thread zoom over his head as he plays the game, with out any bugs.
thanks CoDi, I'll look into the more precise timers for the next release :) havent ever used anything else for timing then getTickCount or timeGetTime.
Instead of supporting alt-tab by resetting the rendering device and restoring all objects when needed, I thought maybe it's easier and more effective to (no, not disable alt-tab altoghether :P) make the game windowed at all times; if the window has no border, no caption, and its size equals screen size, it seems to be fullscreen with all the advantages of a windowed app (i.e. no lost devices after alt-tab) So thats mainly the pro, what are the cons I'm overlooking? Any ideas?
The only problem I can think of at the moment is that I have to set the screen resolution to the only resolution Starata currently supports (1024x768), and if something goes wrong during play <crash>, the user may have to reset his own desktop resolution...(?)
shame you just had to make it in that res to start off with... :(
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