DKC Atlas Forum

[Qyzbud]

Spoiler!

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:

Are you still drunk?

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

There's a good lad.

[djsubtronic]

Guys I need your help in deciding what playable characters should be available. I was initially thinking of using just Diddy and Dixie as in DKC2. Would that be cool or would people prefer to have all four playable? I can't seem to think of an interesting way to make that concept work. Different players for different levels? Not sure if that would work. So if anyone has ideas, please throw them out here. Or if you all prefer just having two playable Kongs then I'll stick with Diddy and Dixie.

[Phyreburnz]

Well, I always thought an interesting combination would be DK and Dixie. But, obviously you want to use Diddy. I think it would be cool to use two Kongs that weren't playable together in the original DKC games (Diddy-Kiddy, Dixie-DK, DK-Kiddy), but that's just me.

[slym]

i'm agree with phyreburnz , making a new combo like Diddy-Kiddy, Dixie-DK, DK-Kiddy could be cool

[djsubtronic]

Hmmm, maybe I will go with Diddy and Kiddy then. Although I was thinking of sticking with Dixie cuz she has the helicopter ability.

Anyway, a new update. Not really much different. Fixed a few bugs, added DK coins, and started working on the steel barrel engine. As you can see, it's a bit crazy now since the barrels move and bounce really retardedly. Hoping to sort that out over the next day or two. I also added depth of field for the background layers, what is everyone's opinion on that?

[Qyzbud]

Wow, those steel kegs are pretty messed up! Weird behaviour...

The depth of field effect is a nice idea, and I really like the concept of it, but I think it would have to be done juuuuust right in order to look good. The thing is, the main terrain layer in each level has a significant amount of 'implied' depth, just in itself... and if there's no DOF effect on the near/far aspects of the terrain layer, it'd likely look really flat (rather than having the 3D-ish look it was meant to have) with unfocused background/foreground layers either side.

Just my two cents.

As for the Kong selection options; I don't think you should ever be limited on a per-level basis — I think that would be disappointing, and probably frustrating. I would love for Kiddy to be in it, even though he's never really been a favourite of mine. The poor fella is just so under-represented, and seems to have been all but forgotten — especially by the official game developers.

Really, there's a strong case for the inclusion of each of the four Kongs, but I would love to see what you can do with Kiddy's water bounce move.

And yeah; pairing previously unpaired Kongs is a must! I reckon Kiddy and DK would be awesome as a 'tough guys' team...

[djsubtronic]

Maybe I can make an option to turn DOF on or off.

Thanks for the feedback Qyzbud. I might just go with Diddy and Kiddy then. Unless someone can think of a really interesting way to include all four. I mean, if you lose one player, who do you get in the next DK barrel? I can't think of a decent way to pull it off.

[Phyreburnz]

Other than the way Leocore did it in his project to switch between the four characters... I don't know... maybe change the colour of the "DK" to correspond with the Kong (Blue for Kiddy, Pink for Dixie, Red for DK, and maybe Yellow for Diddy)... but you'd still have to do a similar thing and have the colours change like how Leo has the heads above change... or have a certain order in which way they come out and have it cycle, like DK first, Diddy second, Dixie third, and Kiddy fourth, then the fifth barrel you get it will be back to DK (and of course it would have to skip over the Kong you are playing at that time... so if you're Diddy, the first DK barrel you throw will be DK, then the second barrel you throw it will be Dixie...) But that seems way over-complicated to me... Just throwing ideas out there.

The inclusion of four characters would make an awesome co-op mode possibility... although it might get boring if your character doesn't get picked from the barrel!

[djsubtronic]

If using more than two, I'd probably alter the barrel somehow (different colour like you said, or maybe even have their face on the barrel somehow). Having them come out in a sequence makes sense from a gameplay point of view. To be honest I am not sure I am able to handle the burden of four playable Kongs. I doubt I will ever introduce a co-op mode as my plan was to make a single player game. I'm leaning towards Diddy & Kiddy as the "tough guys" team (as Qyzbud said), or go back to the old school and have Diddy back with Dixie (due to more diversity between the players).

[Super Luigi!]

Whatever you decide to do, let the decision be in your best interest. Also, great progress on your game. Oh, and why do you have Dixie's head as the life counter again?

[Qyzbud]

If using more than two [Kongs], I'd probably alter the barrel somehow ([...] maybe even have their face on the barrel somehow)

I like this idea! It might take a bit of work, as the barrels shake around, so each frame ought to have a a variation of the Kong's face to match it... it'd be simpler to just have an 'unattached' icon/label to indicate which Kong's in the barrel, but a face on the barrel would be much cooler... it'd be a good spriting project!

I love the idea of the Kongs being available in a sequence... I don't think there are any points in the trilogy where it is imperative to have a particular Kong to get through the level, so that somewhat 'luck of the draw' (not really 'luck', but you get me) aspect could really make things fun and interesting, without breaking the game's flow. I think either a 'random Kong' each time or a predefined sequence would be great... so long as people don't start killing off their least favourites intentionally just to get the 'better' one! That would be sad...
Fatal favouritism makes Dixie cry.
(even though she'd usually be the favourite, I'm sure!)

To be honest I am not sure I am able to handle the burden of four playable Kongs

I really wouldn't blame you — it's a cool idea, but a lot of work. I guess just keep going the way you are, but keep an open mind about the possibilities. So long as you don't bite off more than you can chew, which can leave you (and your project!) feeling bloated.

I'm leaning towards Diddy & Kiddy as the "tough guys" team (as Qyzbud said)

I reckon it really has to be DK and Kiddy as the tough guys... Diddy's great, but a bit of a lightweight for that role.

I doubt I will ever introduce a co-op mode as my plan was to make a single player game

Absolutely fair enough. I would thoroughly love to encounter at some point a 4-player game where each player controls a different Kong. I guess it would somewhat resemble the Smash Bros format, but with a bit less fighting (perhaps) and a bit more platforming. That would be another project, though... I wouldn't ask that of you! Might be something Simion's projects will help us to accomplish, or even Leo_core's 'DKC4' fangame, down the track...

If not, I might have to make it myself...

[djsubtronic]

Oh, and why do you have Dixie's head as the life counter again?

Thanks. That icon is there for no apparent reason whatsoever.

Qyzbud, the project is already getting quite bloated and I can feel Construct struggling to keep up. And there is still so much more to do. It would be a real shame and also make me very angry if I have to quit because the platform couldn't handle it. So I'll most definitely be sticking with just two Kongs. If by the end of it, all went well, four Kongs can probably be lined up for sequel some day. Now it's just a matter of deciding who's gonna accompany Diddy.

[leo_core]

Great progress! keep up this good work!! Any predictions for a playable beta?

[djsubtronic]

Leo, it's quite playable right now but I want to iron out some bugs first. Especially the crazy possessed steel barrels. The controls are hard coded though and it's the key setup I used on SNES emulators for DK before I got an Xbox controller. I use WSAD for movement, J for jump, and left alt for run. It works well for me, wonder what other people think? Before you think it's weird, try it out on DK on an emulator if you can!

[djsubtronic]

Another update...changed the level finally as it was getting boring. Among various bug fixes, I also added a dynamic camera shifting engine, so the camera moves appropriately in order to increase visibility of your surroundings and the direction you have to go. Steel barrels are still a little crazy.

[VideoViking]

What other enemies do you have planned for your game? Seeing Kritter, Buzz, Krook and Krimp is okay, but I would like to see some variety in your demos. How would baddies like Re-Koil, Gnawty, Kutlass, Bristles and the other guys act in your current tests?

[Qyzbud]

Things are looking pretty slick — excellent work!

Those steel barrels are much better behaved now, so that's awesome. It's good to see a level of this scope, and the camera's working nicely... it's all making for a very DKC-like experience.

I feel I should point out that the amount of 'slide' Diddy exhibits after cartwheeling a few enemies in a row seems excessive — like he doesn't have enough traction on the ground surface. It's been that way for the past few videos you've posted, I just kept forgetting to mention it. Hopefully it's an easy tweak!

Great update, keep us posted!

[djsubtronic]

Thanks Qyzbud. I actually tried a new approach to mapping the levels (plus in this instance I didn't want to spend ages designing a level). The test level terrain is actually an exact replica of Ghostly Grove. I used your map viewer, created a single PNG of the entire level. I was a bit skeptical of mapping levels this way but after discovering it uses the same amount of RAM and storage space as building levels block by block, and that it has no impact on performance, I might use this method for all levels. Just single PNG files. This way a level can literally be painted.

I'll look into Diddy's rolling acceleration. Tweaking it should be easy enough.

What other enemies do you have planned for your game? Seeing Kritter, Buzz, Krook and Krimp is okay, but I would like to see some variety in your demos. How would baddies like Re-Koil, Gnawty, Kutlass, Bristles and the other guys act in your current tests?

Adding new enemies is not a priority for me at the moment. I need to get the functionality working first before adding more enemies. The demos are not for variety in enemies but for new functionality added. Once the engines are relatively bug-free and complete, adding new enemies will only take a few minutes.

[djsubtronic]

Small update... tweaked Diddy's multi-attack speed to be a bit slower. Qyzbud, what do you think?
Other than that, fixed more bugs with the steel barrels (still not 100%). More camera shift tweaks and a whole lot of bug fixes.

[Phyreburnz]

I was wondering why all of the regular barrels just immediately smashed once they hit a baddy. Usually those barrels continue to roll and destroy enemies, rather than just smash with one hit (I'm not sure what the "rule" was in DKC2 or 3, but in the first, barrels with steel rims would continue to roll while ones with green vines would break after one enemy was hit).

[djsubtronic]

Well, since I am not including vine barrels, I decided to make the wooden ones break on any impact, while the steel ones will be the rolling ones.

[Qyzbud]

It is a bit funny having steel-rimmed wooden barrels break as soon as they come into contact with the ground... I understand that Vine Barrels do that (and TNT Barrels), but I think the steel-rimmed wooden barrels should at least be allowed to roll along the ground until they hit something (be it a baddy or a wall)... multiple baddies could be skittled with these bad boys in the DKC games — at least DKC & DKC2... can't remember if it was the same in DKC3, but I imagine so. Steel Kegs have the advantage of rolling through multiple baddies, and bouncing off walls — plus being ridden on! That's plenty of extra features to set them apart.

With regard to your previous posts:

I recognised Ghostly Grove — one of my favourite levels, actually.

I wonder if the engine you're working with is capable of doing that 'moonbeam' effect that was so breathtaking in the original game. That would be a nice touch.

As for Diddy's cartwheels, the speed does look a bit better, although it's hard to tell from this video due to him only hitting a couple of enemies in succession. And it's not so much his speed, but his momentum that looks off to me; the way he seems to 'slide' a lot when changing directions mid-cartwheel is what draws my attention to this. I'll have to take a look at this in a future video, as there's not much to go by in this one.

I actually tried a new approach to mapping the levels [...] Just single PNG files. This way a level can literally be painted.

That's actually a pretty exciting prospect... if you (and/or anyone you recruit for the task) wanted to, you could create artistically beautiful levels where no two parts are identical... every pixel part of a unique aspect of an original, non tile-based environment. Lots of work (and perhaps it'd still be best to reuse aspects of the design, for numerous reasons), but it could be pretty amazing with the right designers working on the project.

Do you know if there's much of a performance hit working with full-colour PNGs vs. 8-bit colour? I'm assuming you've got an 8-bit image in place at the moment, as that's what I use for my maps. I wonder if the complexity, colour depth, dimensions etc. of the level terrain image would affect performance significantly...

[Simion32]

If the designers of construct did any optimization to 8bit mode whatsoever, yes it would.

Oh, and file format is irrelevant to speed, because when an image is being displayed it must be a raw uncompressed byte array at the monitor's current color depth. (For instance, DELTA always uses 32bit mode, but can utilize 8bit PNGs.)

8-bit images (...)

But He can't be running the game at only 8 bits. There's enough different things that palette glitches would have become prominent by now. Perhaps 16/(24?)/32 bits.

[djsubtronic]

It's only gonna be me and I doubt I'd be able to draw anything half decent without using the artwork already present in DKC, with perhaps a few additions, so unless someone here wants to contribute level PNGs it's unfortunately unlikely that any beautiful and original creations will ever see the light of day. As for the bits, I actually have no idea. I couldn't save the PNG directly off your map viewer, I used the Chrome plugin that saves an entire webpage as a PNG to save that page, then copied the relevant map area into Photoshop and saved that as a PNG using whatever Photoshop defaults to, which I doubt is 8-bit. How does one check? I saw no change in performance/memory usage at all, so assuming it's 24 or 32 bit, reducing it should only bring improvements overall (whether noticeable or not).

Edit: Looked in file properties of the PNG and it says 32-bit. However I just realised that it's probably a moot point, since I don't load the map dynamically into Construct, I just paste it into its image viewer. So it is what it is.

Edit2: I took y'all's advice and made the wooden barrels roll until they hit a wall. However, I also made it so they break when they hit an enemy. Multiple enemy kills will be reserved only for steel barrels.

[djsubtronic]

Here's tonight's update. Sorted out the banana bunch collected animation - the individual bananas used to fly out in some random direction but now they fly out properly. And I implemented the light ray effect as seen in Ghostly Grove. At the moment there is only one variation and it doesn't look too great, but I will polish the rays up soon. Also excuse the random cutoff at the top of some the rays when Diddy's up high on the ropes. I will eventually position them properly. Diddy's momentum has also been tweaked, hopefully the direction changes and multi-enemy cartwheel movements should be better now.

Enjoy!

[Super Luigi!]

You should wait and see what the others think, but to me, your game is looking better by the day! I'll tell you what I tell everybody on this Atlas who does a great job on his or her project that I can't directly help with: Great job! Keep up the good work! Wonderful ability!

Oh, and Qyzbud, it's funny you should mention a four player game where each character controls a Kong. There's a fangame I know that does just that. Maybe, if someone like, oh I don't know, MYSELF, where to change the player graphics, you could have your wish.

[djsubtronic]

I thought I'd upload the EXE for you guys to try out. If you have a USB Xbox controller, plug it in and use the left stick and usual buttons. If using keyboard, WSAD to move, J to jump, and ALT to cartwheel/run.

Enjoy!
http://www.mediafire.com/?70cwp7bw8daankb

[VideoViking]

NOTE: You must have the DirectX August 2008 redistributable package installed in order to play this beta.

EDIT: can you do an alternate version that has these keyboard controls listed below? I've been so used to using the arrow keys as my control pad since my days using ZSNES and that emulator where you can play CPS-2 ROMS. The WASD keys threw me off. Also, if you hold the Alt key for too long, you're going to get a ton of dings, more so when you hold down a second key.

Arrow Keys - Control
A key - Attack/Accelerate
Z key - Jump

[Simion32]

Arrows to control, Z becomes Y, and X becomes B.

Although that's my opinion, it's the default setup that I use. WASD control should just die.

EDIT: For the love of bananas i have to use JoyToKey to even play this properly. Any chance of using a gamepad (directly), or is that beyond Construct's capability?

[Simion32]

And... the physics are really "sticky" and Diddy slides too much when he does move.

I also managed to get him to freeze while holding a steel barrel, and the barrel floated out of diddy's hands in the direction opposite that being held. What the?

[Simion32]

Glitches Galore!

--barrel randomly turned into a steel keg after being picked up

--seems that the ability to test quick reflexes on a real game pad has exposed numerous bugs.

--also, this happens:

just__no.png (204.67 KiB) Viewed 94775 times

--OH NO IT DIDN'T JUST.... after letting it sit out of focus (minimized) the game music stopped, and after a few seconds past this the whole exe crashed.

--steel keg just got stuck on a wall in the middle of trying to bounce (the steep slope area near start by the Buzz)

[VideoViking]

Diddy bypassing the level's parameter. Grab a barrel, then press the jump button repeatedly to climb over the steep slope at the start of the level.

[djsubtronic]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

Ignore barrel related bugs for now. Some of them are legacy left over bugs, I should probably re-add all the barrels again. I'm not sure about gamepads because I haven't got one, but it works fine with an Xbox 360 USB controller. You should just be able to plug it in and play.

Other bugs like going over the end of levels and stuff is to be expected since I haven't done any work on that. I should have mentioned that earlier.

The music doesn't loop yet, again not something I have done at all. Not sure why the EXE crashed though. Can you recall what you were doing or where in the level you were when it happened?

I also managed to get him to freeze while holding a steel barrel, and the barrel floated out of diddy's hands in the direction opposite that being held. What the?

How did you get this to happen?

--seems that the ability to test quick reflexes on a real game pad has exposed numerous bugs.

Are you able to elaborate? Also, that screenshot you posted, how on earth did that happen? I have never seen that happen.

[Simion32]

I use a program called JoyToKey (because your game doesn't pick up a normal gamepad — it seems Construct probably is relying on it being an XInput controller, which is a very bad assumption!).

This is the controller:

Spoiler!

Logitech Dual Action USB Gamepad

I got it to crash several times all in different places. The first time, I was sitting next to the pixel-stretched "void" (which always happens right there). I have Visual Studio installed and that catches the crash, so if I want to I can ignore the VS crash dialog and continue playing (VS acts like it wants to debug your program, but the game keeps running until VS forces it to close!).

As for the "steel keg floating out of diddy's hands" bug, I just was messing around trying to THROW it and it seemed stuck to diddy and wouldn't go away. Diddy just froze and the barrel did that weird movement (like it was following the camera but in reverse?).

[djsubtronic]

I think it probably does rely on XInput so unfortunately mapping is the only way to get it to work on other controllers. I will look into supporting other controllers, there should be plugins around.

Regarding the barrel bug, I can't say I've had that happen lately, but hopefully that'll be sorted as I am still not done getting rid of all the barrel-related bugs. But the crashing/pixel stretched area, I have no idea why that's happening

[Simion32]

I just tried my XBOX360 controller (no I don't have the actual system, I only have the USB controller for debugging my game engine), and it doesn't pick that up either (I'm NOT using the default M$ XInput drivers because those drivers are fundamentally flawed by design. (They count the L and R triggers as one single slidable button!) I'm using XBCD).

As for the pixel stretch bug, I have no idea either, except maybe... Construct could be hitting my GPU's texture size limit and the bitmap cannot be fully dispalyed? You may have to split up the bitmap into segments of 1024px or maybe 512px wide (because not all cards do huge textures - that's just the way it is).

[djsubtronic]

It must require the usual XInput drivers then. Probably just how Construct works.

Can you let me know your specs?

[Simion32]

*edited above post: should have said XBOX360. (No, I don't have the actual console.)

That's a major problem, because most controllers I know of are not XInput. Only the newer ones might be. And XInput is severely crippled, I will not accept it as some standard. It's too half-baked to be a standard.

Specs:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6300 @ 1.86GHz
Instruction sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
GPU: GeForce 7300 LE
http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-7300-LE-PCI-E-card-388.html

[djsubtronic]

7300LE is pretty old, so you could be right about the texture size limit being the cause of that weird problem. I'll wait for some more feedback.

[leo_core]

Man, I really enjoyed testing your engine!
You alone are doing an incredible job, lacks settings, but for a first beta, is fantastic! The camera works great!!

[djsubtronic]

Thanks leo, appreciate the kind words. If you find any glaring bugs (not related to barrels) then please posts.

Also I confirmed the texture thing is definitely because of the size limit. I'll look into splitting the single map image into smaller chunks for better compatibility with older cards.

[Simion32]

*it hits me* So Construct uses 3D acceleration? OK then... yeah, you're going to have lots of weird limits imposed on you.

Really funny/out-of-place because DELTA doesn't use 3D acceleration, but doesn't have to worry about weird size limits at all (can eat all RAM if it needs to). Where did the simple concept of a 2D framebuffer go these days?

[leo_core]

Where did the simple concept of a 2D framebuffer go these days?

I completely agree on this point! Also we have this problem in our project using MMF2, we have to "slice" the graphics of the level to save memory consumption.

[djsubtronic]

True, but at least we have shaders to make up for it

[Simion32]

Yes, but there's a caveat: You are limited by the GPU RAM. Typically, systems have much, much more system RAM available. So, the size and ammount of graphics you can use is more limited, even thought it's all extremely fast.

The one thing that's not fast on a GPU is uploading textures/bitmaps, and next slowest is copying parts of bitmaps to other bitmaps (hardware blitting). My CPU can literally beat my GPU at blits in general.