My GM shmups - Last Chance,MEGATANK, Flying V, XYX, ZPF

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Oh that glitch happens with ZPF too, its really obvious with Ko and her legs not shifting.
And I love that bullet style, but a well-known user of it is The Border Team/Reimu and Yukari from Touhou 8.
I wanted to stay far away as possible using anything resembling that series as a suggestion.
Not that I hate the series, I don't want to see comparisons.

[Rozyrg]

Oh yeah, I never got feedback from my own ship suggestions.

Derp..sorry about that, got caught up replying to other matters. Those egg ships are all pretty damn cool. If I put one in, I'd probably model it off the Fire Shark biplane. I'd say secret ship #1 is somewhere between the classic Raiden jet (the blue 2P version) and the Ray series fighter; but that's still worth considering.

Also, I honestly don't know how you unlock that particular one in Tyrian 2000, all I had way back when was the unregistered shareware version of the original (which had an INSANE amount of secrets on it's own.) Banana blast FTW.
--
As for the animation glitch, I'm well aware of it... I've been putting off fixing that for way too long (might knock that out if I can tonight). It has to do with how it checks the key as released, so when you just jump to the next direction, it goes kinda screwy.

I've been thinking about upping the powerup upgrade limit for awhile too, might go ahead with that as well, although the current maximum firepower might remain so. Even after limiting it's ROF, one of those new ships eats bosses for breakfast!

Anyways, thanks for the suggestions. This will certainly help.

[S20-TBL]

Also, I honestly don't know how you unlock that particular one in Tyrian 2000, all I had way back when was the unregistered shareware version of the original (which had an INSANE amount of secrets on it's own.) Banana blast FTW.

Everytime I hear "Tyrian" I remember the Beer Mug.

@ SSK: Re: Touhou, and I don't blame you, that series has wormed its way everywhere I think a good way to avoid it altogether would be to pull off something like Strikers 1945's Hayate. Make the drones stay about 50 pixels below its target and keep shooting while you hold down the fire button, then return to your side when they're through. If you tap, they'll stick by your sides and fire sporadic spreads.

Alternatively, you could simply have the drones change angles when you tap-shoot, and stay at an angle if you hold the fire button long enough, until you release it.

[raigon50]

Have you ever thought about having a character select screen? I'm perfectly fine with how to choose characters now, but I was thinking it may look a bit lazy for a finished version of the game. If you do one, I'd image it be the last thing you do. Just a thought.

[Rozyrg]

Definitely, now that you mention it at least...lol. I hadn't really thought about it before. It shouldn't be much of a problem, the only part I'd put off for later would be bigger pics of the ships specifically for that (maybe something like in 19XX.)

That might be a good place for a name entry,too... I could knock out 2 birds with one stone.

[Drum]

So I have been posting on the dev board for some time and I only got around to clicking on this thread the other day after S20-TBL referenced ZPF for an HUD example. Why am I so dumb? You are doing awesome stuff.

[Rozyrg]

So I have been posting on the dev board for some time and I only got around to clicking on this thread the other day after S20-TBL referenced ZPF for an HUD example. Why am I so dumb? You are doing awesome stuff.

Thank you!

Ok..here's the current (very barebones) select screen in 2p mode:

You can change your name here, which the game will remember and display on the hiscores table (it's in a fairly small font there to keep from cluttering things further, though.) Changing your ship obviously cycles through the pilot images, too. Obviously, it needs a lot of jazzing up; but the basic functionality is there.

I've also added level 3 upgrades for everything.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Seems easy in concept to fancy up to me.
- Make a border between the two portraits and the sides to hide the cropping.
- Get the ships to rotate next to the portrait ala Raiden
- Make the name insert go after the character select.

[Rozyrg]

I just wanted to keep the name part separate so you can just enter it once and not have to mess with it ever again; but you could still change it if you wanted. The 'Start' thing will probably be gone soon, though, allowing you to start by hitting fire with the ship you want selected. I have changed it to show the ship you've selected next to the portrait, which shows off it's default weapon while you're deciding.

Thanks again for all the feedback, guys. There's so many little things you'd simply forget to do on your own.

Oh yeah...here's the updated hiscore table displaying the players' names:

[S20-TBL]

Blast, I keep forgetting to ask.

Rozyrg: Dude, how did you pull off that castle entrance in ZPF stage 2? Was that part of a tiled section or did you scroll in that background from the right? I need to do the same since having to create a faux cloud cover in order to hide background changing just slows everything down terribly.

(I did notice those spiked platforms in the middle of the stage were just objects, though. They popped into view all of a sudden )

Nice work on the scoreboard, by the way. Is that a custom one or did you use the native GM scoreboard?

[Rozyrg]

Trying to remember... there's a few things going on there. I put off making that kind of transition for the longest time for a reason.

OK..

1. All the trees, clouds, etc. are separate objects (although they lack any events) controlled another object that sets their speeds and makes sure they loop correctly.

2. The repeating wall at the bottom of the forest parts and the walls in the castle sections are another kind of object that simply draws the same image multiple times.

3. The actual castle face is two of another kind of object for bg details like that (the same kind used for the naughty statue at the start of the stage ), one placed behind the player, one placed in front.

What happens is that, right before you see the front of the castle, the looping instructions for the existing background controller objects are switched to off, and set to self destruct once their last sections go off screen. Immediately after, new ones are created, except they start off to the right rather than filling the screen immediately (which is what the default ones do.) I just timed the creation and speed of the detail objects (the two sections of the castle face) well enough that they'd A:blend together and look like one image and B: mask the transition of the other bg elements.

(I did notice those spiked platforms in the middle of the stage were just objects, though. They popped into view all of a sudden )

Yeah, there were supposed to be little soldiers that stood on them and shot at you (kinda like in Lords of Thunder); but it got busy enough with enemies at that part that I never got around to finishing them or making the transitions smooth. I might've left it like that so it'd be easier to time when to make one after the other and have it look right..I dunno.

Nice work on the scoreboard, by the way. Is that a custom one or did you use the native GM scoreboard?

Thanks! It's a custom one... I honestly can't remember the last time I used the default table, that thing is awful. If you don't want to mess with writing code to add/remove/shift around scores (that had me scratching my head for awhile...I'm pretty certain there's still a few bugs in mine), it's pretty easy to hijack the default functions and just display it however you want.

Some other thread on here I remember talking about possibly using the default 'name' fields to store other stuff like stage reached,ship used, difficulty etc. (since it gives you a nice long string to work with) but I never actually tried it. <_<

[S20-TBL]

Thanks! So you use objects instead of actual backgrounds. I think I'll test that and see which one is less RAM-intensive than the other.

[Rozyrg]

No problem.

Yeah, only ZpUltra and Flying V use backgrounds (and that's just for the lowest layer.)

I've been curious about tiles; but I can't quite wrap my head around the concept quite yet and I know it's a little late in the game to reinvent the wheel, anyways. I've heard it's actually not great for moving objects; but it seems like it'd be at least somewhat more efficient graphics wise... just swapping out a tile here or there rather than having a whole separate image for a minor cosmetic change.

---------
As for updates, I just put in a little ending sequence.

Nothing fancy yet, it just shows the credits sequence I already had in there after the last level and then a special ending pic. I won't say what it is (other than it's not necessarily related to the game); but basically I was getting frustrated with something I was working on in Photoshop and thought I might see if it looked any better at a lower res. It did.

Also, my first sad attempt at laying out the game manual. I at least found a PDF template for the DVD cover/insert; but as for the manual part itself...no luck.

[S20-TBL]

Tiles are nifty---if you can optimize the sheets. It's possible to create entire layers of animated backgrounds using tiles, unlike the default backgrounds, and you can even scroll them. The problem is, constructing entire levels using tiles will require you to do some amount of coding using the tile-related functions should you want to loop your backgrounds, if you don't plan on using large pre-constructed rooms (which I use). Best to leave them for future games instead.

As for the DVD booklet dimensions, here ya go:

Total width: 240mm (2-page spread)
Single page width: 120mm
Height: 180mm
Bleed: 3mm, all edges
Text clearance: 2mm including the spine

Sources:
http://www.mediacopy.co.uk/artwork_dvd_inserts.htm
http://www.hvs.co.uk/printdimsbookletdvd.html

BTW, the dragon in the DVD manual...I thought that was a sac hanging out of its mouth until I realized it was a fireball...

[SenpaiSamaKun]

From DA

"Oh hurp, I forgot to give my own comment didn't I?
I think the illustrations are good too, but the shading makes them look a bit too round, like they're made out of multiple frames.
I like the stylization, its just that combined with the foreshortening makes them look asymmetrical with the shading as is.
But since its just a manual illustration, its nothing to care about."

And I saw the sac too! Lot of visual tricks that happen only in black and white.

[Rozyrg]

Yep. I've seen more than a few old NES/SNES manuals with stuff shooting fireballs and it almost always looks weird. It's hard to show off all the details on the character you need to and contrast them properly to make it look like fire/plasma/whatever.

I agree about the asymmetry. I wanted to keep it all fairly rough and consistent where I wouldn't be tweaking the lines to hell and back in PS, so yeah, what I put down on paper is what you get on the page. I know that probably seems lazy; but that's definitely me... messy and lazy. Wait till you see the cover. <_<

(Honestly, if it looks like I'm actually going to pull this thing off and it drives me crazy enough before then, I'll redo it. Damn perfectionism)

@S20 : THANK YOU!

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Oh perfectionism is just showing you care, don't be so harsh on yourself.
And I've gotten lazy myself. coughthatlastmessagecough
Its better artwork than most manuals I see anyway.
Adobe Illustrator and SAI have line adjustment tools for little tweaks if you wanna shave off a good amount of minutes off that process.
And you did get that message right? Spread the word or just wait a week or two?

[Rozyrg]

I'd say to go ahead. Most of what I've done since then is just adding to what you've shown. The only thing I'd do is with the L3 boss one, make sure to note it's a glitch causing him to spawn twice.

Also......

HOLY SHITBURGERS

I was going through and downsampling a bunch of sfx to get the size down (as well as the loading time), it crossed my mind to see what would happen if I checked 'preload' off on all of them. For some reason, doing that basically killed *all* the slowdown and the framerate is damn near flawless!! O_O

Now I know this PC and or GM is screwy!

edit: I tried this with Flying V too to make sure I wasn't just going crazy (since it has the worst framerate of the 3 I've been working on, especially with the fx turned up.) It seems like it will eventually taper back down, presumably when everything I've skipped loading before has been loaded; but the difference in playability it makes it still stunning.

[BPzeBanshee]

Rozyrg man, let me know when you update so I can test it on my Legacy machine (now with Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs installed).

And put in a Framerate counter!

[Rozyrg]

Sure thing!

I'm still tinkering with Flying V.... I went ahead and put the fps counter in that and I've found out a few things already. It seems like once it's loaded them, there's no going back, even if I use sound_discard to try to free the memory. For instance, if I *start* on level 3 (by far the biggest framerate killer), it's very smooth, the multi-sectioned trains still might knock down the fps by 5 or so; but it's not anywhere as much of an instantly noticeable hit. However, if I start on a previous level and go through the normal progression, it deteriorates noticeably..any of the train sections in the level can easily knock the framerate below 40 (I think the lowest it's gone is 31 or so.)

Granted, it's STILL smoother than it was before; but I'd still like to figure out what's going on. If unloading the sounds doesn't do the trick, my next guess would be the sprites (considering I've got some fairly large ones in there); but I have no idea how GM8 handles that since they removed the 'preload' options for them. <_<

edit: found a handy DLL called Cleanmem that seemed to do the trick!

Here it is if you want to try it out (as always, DOWNLOAD, not quick play, please.)

I'll put up one for XYX later... interested to see the results (as opposed to utterly terrified...lol) My main concern doing it this way is that your PC might stutter when it simultaneously has to load and play the sounds; but I guess we'll see.

[SenpaiSamaKun]

Uploaded XYX myself in mediafire.
http://www.mediafire.com/?9i52wy1l6yaibky

Need to replay Flying V, I don't think I ever completed it.
As for the framerate problem, maybe increased memory use from longer play?

When slowdown gets that specific, its hard to find the exact problem.

[Rozyrg]

I sent the latest one with the fps counter and the other stuff to BPzeBanshee for testing relevant to that issue. I wanted to wait till I had the third unlockable ship in there.. an actual unlocking mechanism in there might be nice,too.. and cleaned up some other stuff (like unfinished enemies that borrow graphics from other ones) before I put it up for yall to play around with.

Anyways, as for the lag, what seemed to finally do the trick was using the Cleanmem extension along with manually unloading the sounds (by the same script I use to play them.) It seems the cause is the messy way GM handles certain game assets by default, (supposedly) loading them into memory multiple times and letting them basically just sit there. I was just looking for a way to unload some of the larger level gfx when I stumbled onto this.

Even after playing through a bunch of levels in sequence on both games to make sure there wasn't any noticeable deterioration in fps, I still have this weird feeling that I dreamed it all and that'll go back to being slow and laggy as soon as I play it again, though. Kinda scared to work on it now. >_>

Need to replay Flying V, I don't think I ever completed it.

If you fought the vertical moving trains in level 3, that's pretty much the highlight IMO. Part of the reason working on the game became so frustrating (on my netbook at least) was it kept looking like I'd have to simply remove them eventually. Very discouraging when making something cool like that is usually what really pushes you forward in the first place.

As for the rest, the last things I added to level 3 were these sideways moving trains; but I think I kinda half-assed them or left them unfinished (that and they are guaranteed to lag this PC, even after these new discoveries.) The boss is just the old level 1 boss (Z Emperor), so if you've played the older versions, it's nothing you haven't seen already. Level 2 is a bit beefier since V2, though.. the large green enemies toward the middle are probably my favorites next to the vertical trains.

Now that it's actually playable on here again, there is a possibility I'll eventually go back and actually finish it, though (at least as a self-contained demo rather than a full game), fixing some niggling problems (gimpy targeting with the Dual, Tentacle shots going off screen, enemies firing point blank, AND MANY MORE!)

[S20-TBL]

Maybe you don't have to remove the trains. If each car is loaded as a separate object with an external sprite asset, you only have to delete the sprite from memory when the object is destroyed. For example, if the car goes a certain distance offscreen, you could destroy it and call the sprite_delete function. This gives a reasonable deduction in RAM usage.

[Rozyrg]

Doh! I don't think I was clear (staying up all night working on this stuff and being a touch drunk will do that I guess.) I meant that that was my worry before I figured out this little 'cheat'; but now that it actually runs nice, I can actually work on it at home without being massively frustrated with it and finishing has become a possibility.

I'll definitely keep that in mind, though. It seems the main limitation now will be how much I can cram into one level or section before the memory load drags the performance back down again; but that should be a good way to counteract it. :3

[S20-TBL]

Sorry, I re-read your post again... my mistake. >_>

Anyway, I've discovered a major reason for GM lag is actually music loading. At first I thought it was just the backgrounds, but even after optimizing my background usage and reducing the number of files I used, I still found my memory usage at an all-time high despite being reduced to around 75% of the original count. Then I turned off the object that handles music file loading and dramatically reduced the RAM usage to around 21% of the original.

Cleanmem actually shines here by removing the stress on the RAM that was caused by loading music files. By default, they will just sit on the RAM after being loaded, like you said. But using Cleanmem removes that bulk and leaves the rest of the level assets to load as-is, even if you only call it once at the start of a room. I did this and my average memory usage for said room never exceeded the same 21% that was taken up when the music file wasn't loaded, during its entire duration.

[Rozyrg]

Wow, that's pretty impressive! I'm forced to wonder why this isn't packed in with GM to begin with now.

Yeah, I know it's important to learn to optimize and unload stuff on your own, especially starting out; but still. >_>
--------------------------------
edit:

Just added a third ship and the basic unlocking mechanisms for all three. I settled on something kinda boring; but the goofy one was definitely covered already. It's more a fun tribute to another game than anything particularly goofy or silly.

Anyways, here are the requirements:

1: Beat the game on Original or higher
2: Get a certain number of Perfect Clears (no deaths) depending on the difficulty. These don't have to be done in a row or in order anything.
3: Clear the game in one credit.

I'm also working on some character specific pinup type stuff for the (higher difficulty) endings.. which will probably be in addition to any story bits. I know some of yall are concerned about *any* NSFW type stuff being in there at all, so let me know what you think. >_>

(Personally, I consider it PG13 material at the worst; but that's just me.)


I also put in this little gallery mode for viewing the ending screens you've earned already... it doesn't show up until you've seen at least one, though.

[Rozyrg]

Did some more testing relating to speed. Unsurprisingly, playing at Hellish or Nightmare difficulties with 2 players on some of the enemy/bullet crunch heavy levels (like 2 or 4) will pretty much drag it down to it's original speed; but like I said before, the difference in playability is still quite impressive. Just the fact I could do that without going into a single digit fps count on this PC is, actually. Not that going back to the same old crawl didn't annoy and cause me a nagging headache (which has yet to fully dissipate.)

DLLCrypt still leaves a noticeable footprint; but I did have to increase the times it's used. Seems it takes up 'just' enough memory to have an effect and I can't seem to get whatever it takes back.

Other stuff:

- Reduced the maximum lives starting out; but you can 'earn' them back
- All three secret ships are finished. They just need recolored 2P ship/bullet sprites and portraits. There's a bizarre glitch with unlocking the last one that's eluded me so far, though.
- Finally figured out how to display something while the music loads. I kinda shoehorned ZPF's background loop tester for that (which I'll be using to *hopefully* fix some of the overlapping issues, too.)

Hopefully I don't burn out before I get at least one more level done with. Even if I don't, I think I'll have enough for another 'official' demo soon. A few more songs and a silly enough nag screen (replacing the still ending pics) and I'm good to go.

[S20-TBL]

Curious, what are the general specs of the machine you usually run your games on? Sorry if this has been brought up before.

I find that fully-loaded GM games run marginally fine on an Intel Atom. Old Pentium IVs and Dual Cores, on the other hand--different story. Good luck getting games to run faster than 20-30fps on those, especially if they have lots of apps running in the background.

[Rozyrg]

I'm not sure of the exact specs; but it's a little Asus EeePC running WinXP. *checks*

Here we go, Intel Celeron, 900Mhz, 2 gigs RAM

All I know is the Vista desktop at my parent's, which they got in early 2007 and was refurbished at that.. runs all of my GM stuff much, much better. So much so that I only remember the earliest versions of ZpUltra (which had HUGE background gfx and bullets going offscreen forever) lagging on it. The only thing that consistently slows it down while I'm playing a game is Norton being the insufferable little b*tch that it is. As soon as I got this thing, I could spot stuff like memory leaks right away, so it's been very useful for testing purposes.

Banshee reported he got pretty good results with XYX on his legacy machine, too. I'm assuming this wasn't the game running at full blast (ie 2P Nightmare mode); but there's only so much you can expect. <_<

[BPzeBanshee]

My legacy machine's a Pentium III Coppermine ~1Ghz, 256 MB RAM with a dualboot setup of Windows XP Home and Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs. The latter is especially fast but has some compatibility issues with some things. I can't run Xeno Fighters R on Fundamentals due to one of its DLLs not behaving properly but GMOSSE and XYX work fine with small loading issues in regards to sprite/background loading (or maybe sound but its especially noticable).

To be public about it, the game ran perfectly after playing through Stage 1 for the first time when it was (presumably) loading sprites and stuff like that because it would freeze a little bit at some spots and then after that would run flawlessly. There are some spots on Stage 2 I believe where the sheer amount of stuff happening on the screen actually did lag the game down a little bit and I tested with default and Original difficulty settings using both checkpoints off and on. I haven't tested it in 2P Nightmare mode yet, though frankly I see no need for higher difficulties anyway - its damn hard enough to just adjust to playing this sort of speed as is.

My Dual Core iMac (2.8Ghz, with ATI Mobility Radeon 2600 Pro) with Windows XP on it runs all GM games fine, I believe it's a 2007 model though I think we got it around 2008.

In regards to the picture stuff, I couldnt really care less but at the same time I'd like to be able to play this at school without worrying about some tightass teacher freaking out over seeing NSFW material. If its not too much effort maybe a switch for PG13 vs "True" material?