DKC Atlas Forum

[djsubtronic]

As a fan of the DKC series since they first came out, as a child I always wanted to create my own version of the game. Same gameplay but my own worlds/levels/bosses etc. I used to make huge books with level plans and game ideas since the age of 11.

It wasn't until much later, when I was 16 back in 2002, that I decided to program my own DK engine from scratch using Visual Basic 6. So no assistance from game-making engines like MMF2 or Construct etc but just purely coded from scratch. Some 1000 sprite frames, 5000 lines of code, and a month later, things got really messy and unmanageable and I realised that I had stepped into something I couldn't practically complete. The result, although glitchy and a way off the gameplay mechanics of the original, was still pretty impressive to me at the time. Here's a simple video of what I had before I abandoned the project:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1bpTm9q ... e=youtu.be

Excuse the map names (lol). It included a simple level maker to make the levels.

Anyway, many years later I started playing all the DKC series again on SNES and got my hands on those childhood books again. Stumbled upon this site and decided to give the whole make-your-own-DKC-clone another go, this time I feel lazy so instead of programming it in .NET from the ground up, I'm using Construct 2. I'm really impressed by the DKC4 project on this site, and it has helped me realise that it is indeed possible. What I want is to finally realise my childhood vision, and since it's just me working without a team it's going to be a lot of hard work, but I wanted to share my progress here.

This is done entirely on Construct Classic using sprites from online sprite sheets and sounds from the few I already had on my old DKC project. Here's what I've got so far after about 3-4 man-days of work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkRlG6I_ ... e=youtu.be

Thanks for reading/watching! Please share your thoughts...!

[Simion32]

It seems there are a lot of us trying to do exactly this.
Very, very nice for a first trial demo!

Of course my efforts are much longer and drawn out, and I basically took it to the top of all possible expectations.

5000 lines of code

That's absolutely nothing. My project is well over 60,000 lines already just for the game engine alone. And I haven't even gotten to the actual gameplay code yet (that's a long way off though, compared to my current progress). I've been trying to build the "perfect DKC engine" since 2005, and I finally am on a version I can stick with (no crappy user interface and no sluggishness). *EDITED

[leo_core]

I liked what I saw, also liked seeing his determination.
I hope you go ahead with your DKC Construct project, make a fan of DKC game is really tough. You want to put what kongs playable on your project?

[djsubtronic]

It seems there are a lot of us trying to do exactly this.
Very, very nice for a first trial demo!

Of course my efforts are much longer and drawn out, and I basically took it to the top of all possible expectations.

5000 lines of code

That's absolutely nothing. My project is well over 60,000 lines already just for the game engine alone. And I haven't even gotten to the actual gameplay code yet (that's a long way off though, compared to my current progress). I've been trying to build the "perfect DKC engine" since 2005, and I finally am on a version I can stick with (no crappy user interface and no sluggishness). *EDITED

Thanks. Yeah, 5000 isn't a lot but it was mostly unreusable code, very inefficient, and kinda poor to be honest. That was only with the limited functionality it had. It would have ended up a complete mess if I tried to complete it. I am very impressed by what I've seen of your projects. Do you plan to release your engine?

I liked what I saw, also liked seeing his determination.
I hope you go ahead with your DKC Construct project, make a fan of DKC game is really tough. You want to put what kongs playable on your project?

Thanks, yeah it is more complicated than I thought once you start getting into it. I really liked your videos and amazed by how much you guys have done in the DKC4 project. I wanted to put only 2 Kongs like in the originals but after seeing your one with all 4 of them it has given me ideas. Depends on how lazy I feel lol.

[djsubtronic]

Just a small update... barrels are complicated!!

[Simion32]

Thanks. Yeah, 5000 isn't a lot but it was mostly unreusable code, very inefficient, and kinda poor to be honest. That was only with the limited functionality it had. It would have ended up a complete mess if I tried to complete it. I am very impressed by what I've seen of your projects. Do you plan to release your engine?

Well a lot of the code in both DELTA and DKCRE undergoes renovations every so often due to some spurious codebase enhancement that I pulled out of the blue. Then there's the NitroGUI code which probably is over half of those 60K lines, and I'm not finished with that (have a long ways to go before I have anything as close to as easy as the .NET form builder - but I think it's possible to some degree).

As for releasing the source code, I plan to make it GPL'd (or something like that) once the project is nearing completion. Reason for this is I don't really want people screwing things up in the initial coding process (besides the GUI and base "do video and input" code, the game engine is also going to be VERY complex (dynamic DLL loaders, custom file formats, etc...)). I'd rather verify and build it myself and KNOW that it's 99.99999% accurate (not to mention usable).

[leo_core]

I'm enjoying seeing the evolution of your project! If I may make a suggestion, use the same font banana counter from Snes DKC, is much better visually.

[djsubtronic]

(...) quote removed by moderator

Good luck, I appreciate it's a lot of hard work coding. Since I spend most of my day at work coding, I couldn't be bothered programming another DKC engine from scratch hence why I went with Construct. Obviously lacks the flexibility but I think it has what I need to get all the functionality in place.

I'm enjoying seeing the evolution of your project! If I may make a suggestion, use the same font banana counter from Snes DKC, is much better visually.

Thanks! I always anticipate updates on your project too. I am using it for inspiration I am very much looking forward to your demo.
As for the DKC font, I actually did try it but Construct hasn't got the feature to use images as a number counter like MMF2. I might see if there is a plugin or something. Or do you know if there is a font available?

Anyway, here's another little update from today. I tweaked the jumping a bit to be more faithful to the original, and added true DKC style camera panning rather than just using Diddy as the centre point. Also quickly threw together an actual level rather than those ugly neon green boxes.



PS: I know you shouldn't be able to cartwheel the Krimps but I'm still just testing

[leo_core]

As for the DKC font, I actually did try it but Construct hasn't got the feature to use images as a number counter like MMF2. I might see if there is a plugin or something. Or do you know if there is a font available?

I just took a look at the basic Construct, I do not know if there is any way to customize the counters. But in MMF2 there are numerous ways to do this, not only editing the images counter.
I can for example create an active object that has the animation frames with the numbers using the sprites counter bananas from the SNES DKC.
Then I program so that this object active frames are changed according to the current counter value. You can do this in Construct?

I could also create my own custom counter using Alterables Values, construct has the Alterables Values?

[djsubtronic]

leo_core, yes it does. I found a plugin called SpriteFont, I got the banana counter working with the proper font now

[leo_core]

great!

[djsubtronic]

Just another small update, kinda getting the barrel picking up/putting down mechanism into place and it is proving troublesome as you can see with the glitches there.



leo and all you other geniuses out there, if you guys have any advice/tips on how to make it work better please do share.

[leo_core]

Wow! The bananas counter is looking good! If you take this project forward, it will be great!
About the system for the barrel, unfortunately I can not give you help because I do not know work with Construct.

[djsubtronic]

Hey guys I need a little help, I can't figure out how to make the barrel breaking (after being thrown) animation out of the sprites, does anyone have a GIF or similar?

Thanks

[Simion32]

It's not a whole animation. It's several sprites that fall off the screen in an arc kind of motion.

There are only two different sprite animations for the wood shards. Try using DKCRE to rip all of the sprite images, that will help you a lot.

Or, you could always try browsing The Spriter's Resource if using RE is too much effort (I don't know why it would be)...

[djsubtronic]

Ah I thought so. Cool. I've got the sprites I just wasn't sure how to move them, but I will work on that.

I finally got a chance to do some work on the project this weekend after a couple of weeks of hiatus, here's an update:

[Phyreburnz]

Awesome progress!

I'm curious, though... what is the swirly yellow thing going to be? I can pretty much guess that the red thing is either an end of the level target or flag.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks Phyreburnz. Yeah the red thing is just something I quickly threw there to make it progress to the second "level". I'll probably go with a flag, the target always annoyed me. I'm open to new ideas too.

As for the yellow thing, I have no idea. I was playing around with some of the objects available in Construct and that yellow particle thing seemed to fit in that hole in the ground. I just left it there as an archetype element.

[Phyreburnz]

I definitely think the yellow swirly thing looks cool, maybe you should make the background dark like it's night out, and the yellow things could be fireflies that produce a stationary light? I think it would be cool if you made it something special for the game, rather than just a neat looking aesthetic.

[djsubtronic]

That sounds like an awesome idea, thanks. I will see what I can do. Maybe like a spinoff of the Ghostly Grove archetype but darker, with fireflies creating light along the way.

[leo_core]

Great progress!

I wanted to suggest something to give an impression sound "more polished" in relation to the sound of collecting bananas.

I noticed in your video that when you collect a banana and then immediately another (or several in succession, quickly) the sound effect overlaps.
Play a bit of SNES DKC any that you'll notice that the sound of collecting bananas do not overlap, if you collect a banana while the sound effect of banana collected before is still playing, the previous sound effect stops playing.

I had this problem in my project and decided as follows:
When I collect a banana, this occurs (programming for the sound effect):

Stop sound "get_banana.ogg" (even if it is not running, not matter)
Play sound "get_banana.ogg"

It was just a quick example, hope you have understood. Thus, the sound effects will not be overlapping. The same goes for other collectibles.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks leo, did what you said, it does sound more true to the original game now

[djsubtronic]

A small update. Mostly just bug fixes and cleaning things up, and minor updates and tweaks that include stuff like Diddy now speeding up as he cartwheels through multiple enemies, and now slides on the floor if crouch is pressed while he is moving.

I also added a feature I think is quite cool. Enemy sounds (such as Krimp's biting sound or Kritter's footsteps) as well as barrel crashing sounds are panned left/right according to their position on screen.

[leo_core]

Yeah! Looking good!! Keep up!

[Qyzbud]

Those are some nice improvements — it's looking more like the real thing with every update.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks guys! As always, here's my nightly update.

I finally stopped using the sounds I ripped back in 2003 for my original VB Donkey Kong remake and re-ripped high quality sounds. I didn't realise it would make such a big difference to the overall feel of the game. I've also done the swimming system now. Excuse the crude water, I will work on that.

[Super Luigi!]

You're right, the new sounds sound much better and accurate. You appear to be doing a great job, djsubtronic. With you, leo-core, Markster(?), and Simion32 all making your own games, it makes me think that I should be creating one.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks. You should definitely try. As said many times before by many, it's a LOT of hard work. I'm realising this the more work I do on the game. Every time I get a big chunk done I feel satisfied, until I realise how much more is still left. Ropes, barrel cannons, bonus levels, world maps, etc.

Anyways, here's a small update. Fixed a LOT of nasty bugs, and added the ability to float barrels on water.

[leo_core]

You're progressing quickly, keep up!

[Master clyde super]

Great progress so far
I'd give you some tips on coding, but I have no idea how to do anything related to coding, so I'm not the best person for that

[Qyzbud]

The swimming looks good! The new sounds are nice, too.

Speaking of sounds; what is that music in your latest video? I like it.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks all!

Qyzbud, it's called Notre-Dame by Parisienne.

As always, nightly update. I'm quite proud of this update, I did some nifty tricks to create the surface of the water so it isn't just a flat line. Check it out.

[slym]

wow awsome work you should tell some advice for the water to leo core because your water is really amazing

[VideoViking]

I have some suggestions:

- Could you add some DKC2 enemies to your test level?
- How are you doing the sound effects for hitting enemies and collecting items?
- For nostalgia purposes, can you use the KONG-letters sound effect from DKC1?

[djsubtronic]

Thanks slym. leo core is way ahead of me. I'm sure he already has something sorted out for water
VideoViking, I added Krook. I thought I would go with Krook cuz I like him, plus he is more complex than the basic enemy that just walks back and forth. I don't really like the KONG letter sounds from DKC1 so I didn't include those. But I used the banana/banana bunch sounds from DKC1. I'm not sure what you meant by how I am doing the sound effects?

Anyway, nightly update. I've sorted the horizontal rope functionality and among various tweaks and bug fixes I also added the underwater bubbles effect and tidal wave functionality. Enjoy. Feedback welcome as always.

[VideoViking]

When you defeat an enemy using a jump attack or roll attack, you hear two sound effects: the "Enemy Hit" noise and the voice from the enemy when they are defeated. Take Krook as an example: you hear a guitar-like sound in the background when you jump on him, followed by Krook's voice in the foreground. I wanted to know how you achieved this, because in DKC2, Rare never used the "Enemy Hit" SFX.

I do like your progress, Subtronic. I hope you can show off more of your levels, and maybe other enemies and items from the series.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks VideoViking. I just used a sound effect from DKC1. There are a few enemies I think which have that sound when you defeat them. It's also the sound that you hear when Necky drops nuts on the ground. I just used that sound for all enemy jump/roll defeats. It plays the "stomp" sound and the enemy's defeat voice at the same time. I don't plan to start making levels until I have ALL the functionality done and tested. That includes all playable characters (probably going to stick with two), enemies, animal buddies, collectibles, etc. Once everything is in place I'll do the levels.

[Super Luigi!]

You're really coming along with this game of yours! Nice work! As for me, I'm not going to make my own game, even if Qyzbud makes it a requirement to stay enrolled. It's not so much the work that bothers me as it is the programming. That's a language that (for right now) I can't write.

[djsubtronic]

Well I'm using Construct Classic, it doesn't require programming at all. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Although I code for a living, I couldn't bother dealing with it outside of working hours for this project. Plus using a game maker lets me concentrate on the more important things rather than getting wound up in code. If you do want to make your own then I'd definitely recommend giving a game maker a shot.

[djsubtronic]

Nightly update as always. Got the vertical rope engine sorted. That crap was way complicated.

[Qyzbud]

Great progress, yet again... keep it up!

I like that recent track, too... Parisienne again? Any idea where I can hear more?

[djsubtronic]

thanks Qyzbud. It's Gabor Deustch - Subroutine. I also really like Love Garden by Gabor Deustch. You can probably find it on YouTube and go through related videos.

[Phyreburnz]

It seems like the barrels in the water should bob up and down more when you jump on them.

I noticed that you mentioned using two Kongs for your game; what other Kong were you going to use?

I absolutely love this project so far! I love watching your updates!

[VideoViking]

On your next test, can you add a Flitter?

[djsubtronic]

It seems like the barrels in the water should bob up and down more when you jump on them.

I noticed that you mentioned using two Kongs for your game; what other Kong were you going to use?

I absolutely love this project so far! I love watching your updates!

Thanks Phyreburnz! Your guys' support helps me drive the project further. If I stick with two Kongs, I'll probably go with Dixie. I haven't decided for sure. I would be interested to hear ideas as to how >2 Kongs can be executed. A possible idea is only allow certain Kongs on certain levels, but again, not sure how something like that can be pulled off.

I took heed of your bobbing barrels and applied some improvements today. Barrels in the water now gently bob up and down all the time, and more so when jumped on. Still kinda buggy as you'll notice the barrel won't bob down if Diddy lands on it while holding a barrel already. Gonna fix that tomorrow. Also finally (after delaying it for ages) added the effect of a breaking barrel, you can now see the broken pieces scatter very similarly to the original. I quite liked how that turned out. I also noticed a subtle effect with the dust animations, they actually move upwards. That made quite a nice improvement to the overall barrel breaking effect.

Last but not the least, I started work on barrel cannons. The engine seems fairly stable already.

VideoViking, I'll add Flitter when I'm confident of the flying enemy engine. Before duplicating the bugs into new enemies I want to be sure all the bugs are gone from the Buzzers.

And finally, the update video...

[leo_core]

You are progressing very, really impressive! Already have a name for the game?

Edit:
A curiosity, the movement of the enemies is a preprogrammed path, or they walk according to the terrain? (they can fall into holes, has gravity, etc.)

[djsubtronic]

Thanks leo. No I haven't got a name yet, I'll figure something out in due course. The enemies aren't pre programmed. They get a starting direction and walk on the terrain, with gravity and all. There are also invisible colliders which make the enemy turn around. Most of the enemies will use the same engine but there are others, like Krook for exmaple, who have other functionality like throwing the hook etc. Flying enemies are not done according to terrain or gravity. They either have X movement which is done manually by changing their X position, or Y movement similarly, or orbit movement where there is a centre point and they move in a circle around it.

Anyway, last couple of days have been bad. Ran into some weird bugs with Construct which messed up the barrels when I tried adding a TNT option. However, after two very long days of work, I managed to get it all to work, along with more types of barrel cannons.

Enjoy...

[djsubtronic]

Have you ever wondered what happens when you try to speedrun through a test level of an unfinished game, while you're drunk?!

Well, your wait is over. This is what happens:

[Qyzbud]

Seriously? A new topic for this one video?

Are you still drunk?

*merged*

[djsubtronic]

LOL, my bad. I was. I'm ok now though.