So i am in need of some creepy and eerie ambiance and themes for my game Nightmare, and i know we have some people with music knowledge (or at least the software) and so i am putting in my request for some creepy ambiance.  I don't want anything with percussion or piano, more like various synth sounds and/or strings.  Tracks that are 1 time only are needed, as well as some tracks that have the ability to be looped as a background. 

The feel i am going for is abandoned hospital/psychiatric ward, the feeling that you are alone, and something is terribly wrong.  Not that there might be monsters, but there might even be something wrong with the very reality you are experiencing. 

Of course credit will be given in full and i will have your eternal gratitude since i am horrendous at coming up with sounds/music.  really, *any* ambiance you can come up with would be appreciated.  Thanks!

This is something i just created like 5 min ago after a brainwave over the problem i have been having with Portal.  A long time ago i envisioned Portal as a large program that copied data around so that it never exceeded the code limit, but this was impossible because of absolute jumps and calls, and because the code was so changing that counting the bytes was impossible. 

But what if the program was page based, and i don't mean like RAM pages, but virtual pages.  Each page would be a separate program, compiled separately so that each one of them was compiled to be executed at $9D95.  Each program page would be the same length as all of the others, and so swapping them would be easy.  The only thing needed is a way for the swap to happen without messing with the current execution.  For this i have created a custom header for every program to be included, as a common space where the swapping happens.  There is also a program that takes multiple programs as input and outputs a program that contains all of the programs compiled into 1.

Any program can switch to any of the other programs at any time.  Simply by following the following syntax. #Goto SWP, where # is the program page they want to jump to.  SWP is a label that is inside of the included header, that performs the swap and execution handling, which is actually quite simple. After the swap happens, execution resumes as normal from the beginning of that page and program.  Return still brings you back to the homescreen, and all OS calls behave the same.  You can have as many pages as can fit in RAM, and they can be any size, as long as each page themselves don't exceed the code limit.

I will release the code in a sec after i create a user friendly generator to combine programs, because as of right now it only works with 2 programs named P1 and P2.

So a small revival of the sonic idea a couple days ago got me looking at the sonic thread on UTI, and the first thing i looked at were the ways they were implementing the physics.  I hate to say it, but i think they were going around it the wrong way.  And i don't say this because i claim my way is better, but because there is a site dedicated to the physics of the original sonic

http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Physics_Guide

and it gives very explicit (and very different) algorithms to calculate the physics.  It covers all the quirks and features, right down to the very method it implements for things like sonic running on ceilings and such.  Note that writing an actual accurate physics engine is not what is needed for sonic, since there are numerous times in the game where you do things like run on the ceiling, or stay on the ground when you should be flying off.  

Keeping all of this new info in mind, i wrote a quick demo using the same concepts and algorithms from the original sonic.  The largest feature is the 5 mode directional physics.  The player can be in 1 of any 5 modes at a time:

1:Floor mode
2:Right wall mode
3:Left wall mode
4:Ceiling mode
5:Air mode

whenever the player is in one of the first 4 modes, he is stuck to that direction.  For example if the player is in Floor mode, the player can only move left and right, and then the engine moves the player up or down to make him level with the ground.  When the player starts going up a hill, it eventually changes to Right Wall mode.  Now gravity is basically acting to the right.  The player moves up and down, and the engine makes sure he sticks to the wall left to right.  This happens through all 360 degrees of possible walls.

Without the 5th mode, the player would always stick to the wall and never fall off, even if you were on the ceiling.  For this, whenever the player is in ceiling mode, if the velocity is lower than a certain value, the player enters Air Mode.  Where he is floating in mid air, and follows a trajectory until he hits a wall, where the player re enters one of the 4 modes.

So this is a basic tech demo just for fun, there is no scrolling, just a small map.  Its all tile based, there are 16 tiles, and each one of them has its own angle associated with it.  Use arrow keys to move and second to jump.  Oh and also note that this is not a project of any kind, i could never bring myself to start a project as large as sonic

So i just wanted a thread to talk about the scripting engine i wrote for Nightmare, i call it Nscript because of Nightmare script Its a very simple scripting language with simple and easy to understand syntax.  For example to create an object:

#ActionActor #Global Sound background_loop1 ambiance.wav
#ActionActor specifies the type of the object.  Currently it can only be of type ActionActor (any object ingame) or Trigger (triggers events).
#Global means that this object can be used by all scripts
Sound means that it is a Sound object
background_loop1 is the name of the object
ambiance.wav is the input into creating the object, in this case it tell the object to use the sound file ambiance.wav

then i can do things like

background_loop1 play
background_loop1 pause
background_loop1 stop
background_loop1 playLoop
I can also create objects that are visually present in the world

#ActionActor StaticImage flashlight flashlight.bmp
creates an Image object with no special properties with the image of a flashlight taken from file flashlight.bmp.  I can then use some special object commands like:

flashlight addToWorld 50 50           puts the flashlight into the world at coordinates 50,50
flashlight move 20 20 10               moves the flashlight 20 units to the right and 20 units down in the space of 10 frames
Now this is all fine and dandy, but how do you do those cool things like closing a door when you get close to it?  Well that involves a new type of object called a Trigger object.  Here is how you create one:

#Trigger TriggerRect door_close 50 50 80 80
this command creates a TriggerRect object.  This object triggers when the player is within the region defined by 50,50 and 80,80.  For the trigger to activate code, you need an entrance point.

If door_close
door_1 close
Sleep
the IF tells the trigger that "when the player comes into your area of 50,50 80,80, start this code right here!".  It then closes the door and goes back to sleep.  Going to sleep just means that the script isnt doing anything.  The only way to wake the script up is for one of its triggers to wake it up and start some code.  So this is our final script example

#ActionActor Door door_1 unlocked open 0
#Trigger TriggerRect door_close 50 50 80 80
door_1 addToWorld 50 60
Sleep

If door_close
door_1 close
door_1 lock
Terminate
this script creates a door and a trigger, and when the player walks by the door, the script closes it, locks it, and then stops executing.

Alright i have finally finished my sandbox to where it is workable and very very fun to play with It has a handy dandy interface that takes up a crapload of space, but is very shiny and fun The screenshot runs a bit fast unfortunately, especially the simulation parts, but i cant seem to fix that.  Here are the controls for the sandbox:

Arrow Keys: Move cursor
2nd: Press and Hold in empty space to create a box
       Press on a box to highlight it
Alpha: Press and Drag to highlight an area
Mode: Start Physics Simulation
Del: Delete Selected Boxes
Clear: Exit

And then there are menu functions.  There are 2 menu's, main and selected.  The selected menu only appears when you have one or more object selected.  The menu is activated by pressing one of the F1-F5 keys, and then the menu selection is chosen using the F1-F5 keys

Main Menu:
All: Highlights all objects
Clr: Erases all objects
Glob: Set global forces in the world
Save: Save the current state of the world
Load: Load the most recent saved state

Highlight Menu:
Copy: Create a copy of the current selection onto the cursor.  Press and hold the copy button to get a preview shadow of your copy selection and move your cursor to place.
Push: Press and hold to create a force onto all selected objects.  Release Push button to apply force and enter simulation
Move: Press and hold to move current objects
Game: You lost it
Edit: Edit the Mass objects as a group (1-24) and set whether or not the highlighted objects are static or not

So over the course of my time programing, i have had numerous game ideas and concept code that was just never realized.  The concepts were there, the ideas were there, even sometimes a lot of code was written, but it all ended in nothing.  Here are some of the ideas i have had over the years that i never actually finished

Everything's Eventual
Based off the short story from Stephan King, you are offered a job after a secret company learns of your unique ability to control peoples actions by writing special types of messages.  They employ you as a special sort of assassin, working from a small town, where they set you up in a small house, with minimal cash, and provide you with anything you could ever need.  It would be a text based game, where you can navigate your house, small city, and your computer terminal.  Using your computer, you receive targets via email, and you send them messages to make them commit suicide.  After playing the game for a bit and completing several challenges, you hear about the suicide of a refutable cancer researching doctor for no reason, you start to suspect your employers.  You can actually then chose to send emails to your supervisors to kill them and escape your city to find the company and shut them down, stay in your city and lead a small life, or remain under the employment and get arrested when the police find out what you are doing.  Its a multi-ending story, and i thought it would be very fun to code, but it really never got going.

Demolition
This game really didnt have any plot, but was the brainchild of my desire to use a lot of cool weapons.  I wanted to be able to use a pistol, shotgun, machine gun, rocket launcher, grenades, and all other sorts of weapons realistically on the calculator.  The basic idea, was you are presented with a mission, assassinate the terrorist, whatever, the plot wasn't really thought out much.  The gameplay was what i was focused on.  I wanted totally dynamic terrain, where you could snipe supports and beams would fall.  Shooting barrels would set nearby things on fire and they would collapse and destroy other things.  You could inflict different amounts of damage to all objects until they were completely destroyed, and you were given a plethora of weapons that would interact with the physics of the world realistically.  Obviously this is a very large undertaking for even lib asisted basic, and as soon as i sat down and tried to start writing the engine, it pretty much died right there.

Unnamed Strategy Game
This was the game with the most complete code, and inspired by the Omnicalcs linking functionality.  The basic idea was you have a Base, you must defend it however possible.  The base could generate troops to defend it, and the troops could in turn build other things to defend themselves.  Like walls, fences, factories to produce gold, towers, ect... Both you and your opponent had their own screen, and between you was a screen called no mans land.  Your objective was to leave your screen, cross no mans land, infiltrate your opponents screen and destroy their base.  You had to manage developing your home base, while upgrading troops to send over to infiltrate the opponents base.  The cool thing was anybody can build anywhere, as long as they have troops to build things.  So if you get to no mans land first, you can start your own base.  And you could even build walls inside of an opponents base as long as your troops took enough gold with them.  I had code written for complete multiplayer interaction on a single screen, where you could build objects, move them around, and interact with them.  Again, though, the complexity of the game idea just never worked out for me.

So yeah, these are some major game projects that i never really completed, but i was really excited about at the time.  It just didnt work out, but if someone wanted to pick one up, id be more than happy to give them out ^^

So i was inspired by SourceCoders' broken Basic Optimizer function, and i thought about making one on the calculator, so you could optimize your Basic Programs without having to transfer them to the computer for any utility.  I quickly wrote up some code in Axe, and the optimizations have started  Currently it has support for:

Ending Parenthasis
Ending Quotes
Devlar
Powers of 10
Squared and Cubed optimizations

And there is plans and psedocode for

Implied multiplication
=0 into Not(
Negative/Positive cancellation

any other ideas of simple find and replace optimizations that i could put into the optimizer?  Obviously i cant do some of the complicated stuff, but there are some good simple replacements that can make a big difference.  And note that it ignores Strings completely Strings Should not be changed ^^.  And there also might be an option on whether to erase empty lines or not.  Some people like to keep them for readability during development, and then maybe want to take them out later.

Damn inspiration strikes again This is a small side project i have been working on, i whipped up this code in a few hours, and its already showing some promise!  Its just a small and fun arcade game called Xonix.  There are several balls bouncing around the arena.  You can move your cursor to create walls to lock in the balls into smaller containers.  But if a ball hits a wall while its being constructed, it will start to disintegrate, and if the wall disintegrates all the way to your cursor before you reach the safety of land, you lose a life.

For those interested, i had to write a flood filling algorithm in order to get the filling to work properly.  I use a special scanline filling algorithm which i have to admit is quite shiny I think ill post a demo of the filler in the Axe Algorithm thread later...

Also note that this is only a side project and does not take precedence over other Projects like PortalX This isnt actually currently being worked on, i just felt like posting what i had.