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Topics - Iambian
16
« on: February 07, 2012, 12:32:29 pm »
The image that I have posted is not the version that I am proposing. What is posted is my preexisting version, dating back to 2006-2007. It runs at a nice 8.73 FPS @ 6MHz according to Wabbitemu (fastcopy doesn't like it at 15MHz). Now... what I am trying to say is that I don't think 8.73 FPS is fast enough. Me, Runer112, and (I think) ZippyDee was chatting late last night. Runer112 was trying to help ZippyDee with something about a flood fill algorithm and the manner in which he was doing it reminded me about my old 2D cellular automata program, so at one point, I innocently showed the main code to this program to Runer112 on IRC and asked him to optimize it. He basically went "wtf?" at my code and wrote it off as unoptimizable, so then we sort of went around talking about how it works, and trying to explain to him the insane method I was using to do the job. And then, at some point he suggested something that I realized I was already doing in E:SoR. Why not do 2D-CA on a vertically-aligned buffer? Yup. So now that's what I'm working on. Vertically-aligned goodness. Now, this new version is not going to sport that flashy menu system, more or less because version 1.3 had a menu bug that would cause the calc to crash almost randomly. I never really figured out what was causing the problem. But try it out at your own risk. I'm also attaching that package. Because I'm not going with something fancy, I figured I'd go with something more intuitive instead. Like image thumbnails of what you're trying to save or load against what was already done in the 2D play field. Like the original, you'll be able to change the rulesets right from underneath an already in-progress field. That is, it'll pause when you try to quit and continue from where you left off (if you don't exit the program, that is). So, yeah. I'm taking a small break from E:SoR (or rather, hop back and forth between the two) to work on this small, but satisfying project. Also, I plan on having default images built in so you can select them if you don't have the pic files of what you want. EDIT: FWIW, by "2D Cellular Automata", I'm referring to 2 two-state system in a Moore neighborhood, which is what Conway's Game of Life is run on.
17
« on: January 20, 2012, 09:48:34 pm »
Since what I'm doing with my calculator will eat too many batteries across what it's doing (it's a secret), I strapped my calculator down to a breadboard and hooked in a spare stripped cellphone charger to supply it with the juice that it needs for the fraction of the price. And so, I leave this with you:  The tape probably wasn't necessary but I wanted it strapped in good. Also, this makes operating the calc a bit more difficult. Whatever works, I guess. The voltage source is probably 5V. Not sure. Most likely. It's a cellphone charger after all. Doesn't really matter to me. Just as long as the calc powers on and doesn't complain to me about low batteries. Which it did when I had a 5V regulator in the circuit (leftover from a previous project). That's what the capacitors were in for, but I guess they might help keep the calc going long enough to reach a place where it can shut down if the power cuts. I haven't tested that one. Should I? And no, my calc isn't trying to call out for help... yeah. Let's go with that. I was just... um. Too lazy to shoot another photo? Right, right, exactly! That'll be my story. It's believable, right? EDIT: Quick 15-30 minute project. Most of that time spent was in locating the supplies.
18
« on: November 28, 2011, 03:46:36 pm »
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19
« on: November 26, 2011, 04:11:26 am »
It spits out an angle that you can use to aim at targets given a delta X and Y. See the ReadME.
NOTE: This has not been tested. Please test this thing to see if it conforms to what the readme says. When I went about testing it, it drove me insane. I probably just need sleep.
Attached to this post is what I have so far. When I can verify that it works, I'll post another with source included in it. The arctangent routine that is used in the Axiom was sourced from CaDan. Please test it.
Arghablabbles. (This post will be edited as stuff is changed)
EDIT: Attachment replaced with one that actually works. This is to be version 0.02 of this Axiom. Thank you very much for your patience. I will continue to make this "better". And by better, I mean smaller with acceptable losses in accuracy, and also to make the routine "native" to the dimensions I gave it, rather than some hack job to make it "work". Also, source is included.
20
« on: November 21, 2011, 10:20:13 pm »
After looking around the internet, I came across something that's just so much better than what the doctor's office is stocked with. You know, the poor as hell scales that don't even describe what sort of pain you're going through. You can find the posting here at Hyperbole and a Half. If you are or know a med student, they'll get a laugh out of this, then carry it around for its sheer utility. I also took the liberty of formatting it to fit on a letter-sized paper.
21
« on: November 10, 2011, 11:07:11 pm »
Jokes aside, has anyone actually played the game? If so, is it worth buying?
22
« on: November 08, 2011, 08:19:19 pm »
It's true, ain't it? 
23
« on: May 11, 2011, 08:45:22 pm »
With the reboot of CaDan comes a request for characters to star in the official rebuild. A total of eight playable characters is possible in the selection screen, though I'm going to have to slim it down to three if I can't get anyone to provide stuff. I'm also requesting bosses and their information, of which there will be 6 main bosses and 6 mini bosses. Though I don't have the sprites with me, I'm also requesting a 32x32 portrait sprite and mask (I'll fill in the details if you don't want to do that part), and a corresponding 8x8 game play sprite.
So far, I have three player characters. One serious and two jokes.
1. DevBlock - The unfortunate test character in almost every one of my games. First featured in Fishy, and often mistaken for a puzzle piece from another unrelated game, he gets thrown into the CaDan universe, where he's totally clueless, as usual. His script tells him to be annoyed at everyone and fight anyone for any reason, so that there will be conflict, even if unjustified. The first boss tells him this right then and there.
2. Netham45 (pre-lobsterification) - Completely unaware of the new environment. Won't move unless fully focused with the task at hand, and tends to give everything he's got once that focus is there. Strange things are flying at him, so his natural response is to blast 'em out of the sky. Takes the form of a spork.
3. Netham45 (post-lobsterification) - The future of Netham45, his temperament has changed dramatically after becoming a blue lobster and becoming the proud owner of his own FISHTANK CITY. The enemies all claim that he owes them payments on some sort of mortgage that doesn't exist. This Netham wants these guys to "Produce the Note" and prove once and for all that these guys are frauds and they have absolutely no claim to his city / 50-foot-tall-giant-fighting-robot. Lobster-y type attacks ensure the enemy's demise.
So far, I have one boss character:
1. 404 Boss Not Found - The placeholder boss for the series. A repeat occurrence until all boss and miniboss slots are filled. Each time it appears, it'll let the players in on some of the details about the environment all the player characters are trapped in, and discuss the fact that they NEED to fight to please the gods of CaDan. Always have flimsy as hell excuses for fighting, but at least they're more real than any other excuse other bosses can come up with. They ought to be.
-------------
So, let's get creative here. I understand that Geekboy has already gathered a bit of information for his own edition of CaDan. I'm not trying to compete with that, but I do have permission from him to copy over some assets. What I want is verification that the appropriate owner of those assets provide that permission as well.
Uh. Wow. That was a little long.
24
« on: April 26, 2011, 12:05:19 pm »
I'm not sure how many people have this problem, but when I try to log on to EFNet using my IRC chat client, I cannot connect. According to the server messages, the proxy that the cellphone service that I have uses is blacklisted, so I am unable to connect to anywhere on the EFNet network.
That being said, I would like to suggest a separate page where one can view a mobile version of OmnomIRC. It needn't be anything fancy, but I'd like to be able to chat without having to scroll several screens to get between the chat and the chatbox. In the mobile version of Opera (I've got an Optimus M, running Android 2.2.1) that separation is due to the names list being in between.
In short, I would like to see a mobile version of OmnomIRC.
Thanks for your time and all the cherries!
25
« on: April 21, 2011, 12:58:32 pm »
As some people here know, I've had a few problems with my laptop. This time, it wasn't out of necessity, but out of comfort.
The LCD cable that connects the motherboard to the LCD (and the inverter) was frayed, and I did do a repair on it to make sure that it at least worked. It did, but it left ugly red lines on the screen that sometimes devolved back to what it was before the inverter got severed. But enough on that, what I did was I purchased a whole new wire from eBay for much cheaper than when I last looked (~$25 now), and installed it. The job took an hour, and now, I'm happy to report that the screen's crystal clear.
In short, it's be the best $25 I've spent on my laptop for this year. I'll post pics of what the the uninstalled "ghetto-rigged" cable looked like... whenever I can get around to doing it. No pics on the job itself since I was a little too excited in fixing my laptop.
So... I watched How To Train Your Dragon (Blu-Ray) and I was surprised by the results. Very happy. I'm feeling better about eBay already.
EDIT: I should mention that earlier this year, I ran yet another repair on my laptop charger. Those suckers don't last. But when I dissected the faulty part, I found out exactly why they're so flimsy. The connectors were just (poorly) crimped on. Wth?
26
« on: April 18, 2011, 01:52:23 pm »
Like the story involving the pucrunch decompressor, I had this little idea pop up in my head while I was at work. I know, I suck at writing, but hey. It's what you get when you're bored and trying to go to sleep. So I ended up writing this in at the bottom of my CaDan script spec sheet. Completely random. Enjoy at your own risk.
In the deepest, darkest portions of the house, where mold grows and the
programmers, likewise, there sits one curious nearly balded, pasty-faced
person. Not quite a man, not quite a child, but full of the sort of energy
that you'd only find when chatting it up on IRC or some odd obscure chat
medium like that. A total IRC junkie and a programmer all rolled into one. a
disasterous combination, if you were to ask anyone. Just give the wretch some
Mountain Dew (since we all know they love the stuff), and watch the fingers
rap away on the keyboard, working on the next big thing. The next graping
calculator game. Except today is different for this person, for today,
something gets added into his beautiful, yet incomplete game.
"Compile... compile dammit! Compile!" the programmer screams at the monitor.
The black box of a command prompt flicker in and out of the desktop as he
repeatedly hits the batch script's icon, hoping for a good, error-free
compile. No word yet on whether or not there's a success, but that red text
on the screen screaming "ERROR" ought to be a heads-up on how "well" things
are going.
A few more edits into the vast number of lines in the file, a few more sips
of that cool elixier known as Mtn Dew. A few more curse words screeched at the
computer shortly before something appears to go right. And out on the screen
flows the beautiful words and numbers of a successful compile job. The sort
that tells its own little tale of all the bits and bytes that pass through its
scrupulous, ever-gazing eyes. The statistics of the compile job, the little
echoes that remind the programmer of those little quirks in the source, all
of which are found on that black screen, just shortly after it disappears into
nothingness, leaving only a newly-minted file containing the fruits of all
the hard work over the past years.
"YES! And now... to test this program out..."
Meanwhile, on another timeline, on another galaxy, far far away from the alien
homeworld this coder belonged to, here on Earth at around god-knows-what-year,
the Vikings Berk celebrated in full Hiccup and Toothless' victory over the
Red Death. There won't be any real description, since we've all seen the movie
but as Toothless flew straight up with Hiccup with his friends, something odd,
something completely out of the blue happened.
Everywhere around the teens and their dragons, small fairy-like creatures
popped out of nowhere. Everyone stopped what they were doing and hovered in
mid-air, completely stunned from the sudden appearance of these... things.
Time seemed to stand still as they hovered right above Berk, trying to
identify these foriegn things. And then, one by one, they started shooting
slow-moving glowing orbs at the dragons in an eerily syncrhonized patter,
filling the area around them in these energy-filled spheres, floating, if not
flying straight at them!
It just wasn't their day, was it? Snotlout and Fishlegs got shot right out of
the sky the second the gang was attacked. The twins made a move to try to
save the two but they also got shot out. All that's left now is Hiccup riding
his Night Fury.
Toothless and Hiccup, working as one, weaved in and out and between the
patterns of incoming lights, almost expertly, almost... almost like someone
else was watching above them and controlling their exact movements. There was
just no way in hell they could know where everything was simultaneously...
until they too got hit from the neverending torrent of lights.
The pair fell sharply, like a rock, to ... well. A bigger rock. The Earth. To
their doom. "Toothless! Hang on buddy! We're gonna make it!" Hiccup tried to
reassure his best bud, but he knows they aren't going to make it. They were
all going to die... right about... now? Whoa! Wait a second. They're back up
in the clouds...
And now, back on the alien planet, the crazy-mad overlord... erh. Programmer.
Has decided to give that game of his a nice run-through.
"Mwahaha! I've done it! I've finally made a game that combines my favorite
movie with my favorite type of game! I've finally made a HTTYD Danmaku!"
Swiftly, he raps the keys on his calculator, trying to get his little avatar
of what was supposed to be Toothless to dodge the ever-increasing patterns
of bullets on the screen. For a moment, things were going well. Side step,
side step, back, forward, side step, back, side... aww, crap. He saw his
favorite character eat a bullet and die. "Nooooooooo! Toooooothleeeeesss!"
The crazed coder straightens his face and puts on a mask of false seriousness.
"Oh, well. Two lives left."
27
« on: April 09, 2011, 12:09:08 am »
So now that I've announced that I'm restarting CaDan, let's get straight to the point, shall we?
The script system, which allows you to create those nice, beautiful patters, is in need of some serious overhauling. Thing is, there's a few limitations on what the system can do. We're here to hammer them all out.
At the moment, I suppose only geekboy happens to have enough knowledge about the script system to actually suggest much, but I'm open to suggestions from everyone else too! After all, it's a public thread, and everyone wants a piece of CaDan action!
Anyway...
Engine details:
* (NOTE) : Henceforth, the term "register" is referred to with respect to the virtual chunks of memory with which the script system has to work with.
* Four one-byte registers reserved.
* All bullet trajectories are done in polar coordinates, with a fixed velocity.
* Instructions used to load a register with the angle needed to shoot a bullet that would intersect with the player's current position.
* Mathematical operations. At the moment, only ADD is supported, since one can always add with a negative number to achieve it.
* Bitwise logical instructions. Only AND is supported.
* Program flow changing instructions, including an unconditional jump (goto) and conditional jumps (jump), with which mathematical operations may affect the "flags". Contains subroutine instructions, but they aren't very intuitive, and requires quite a bit of keeping track of.
* Pause instructions, both single cycle and multi-cycle.
* Special memory access, given a table of allowed values to change. Originally a way to coordinate attacks between boss scripts and enemy scripts.
* Boss setup and spellcard instructions, used to load special pattern tables. They get their own registers.
* Boss takedown and special effects, including explosions and return to stage.
* Stage setup and progression instructions, including background changes, and enemy/boss creation.
* A way to run actual Z80 ASM code.
What is planned in the reboot:
* Full 8 register setup. Stage scripts will be allowed to have two banks of these, accessed by special exchange instructions.
* Spellcard animation scripts, including a fully working sprite routine and background change instructions. They get their own set of registers. Spellcards have been rather... neglected.
* Register to register support for load and math/logic instructions.
* Support for XOR and OR routines, along with actual subtraction routines. We'll go for some real multiplication and division routines, while we're at it.
* Rotation. For extracting nibbles.
* Support for relocatable scripts and associated assets.
What has been suggested in the reboot:
* Support for jump tables and loops similar to C's SWITCH command.
* Second 128 bullet table and modified interrupt scheme to handle it, accessible via slowdown command.
* Tilemapped dynamic backgrounds
What do you think? Would you suggest something else? Or more?
EDIT: Added elements to table.
28
« on: March 28, 2011, 12:20:55 pm »
Just to say. I'm in love with the idea of using pucrunch for just about everything that could be compressed. Bitmaps, tilemaps, text, it mattered not. I use it for just about everything. After messing around with it in CaDan and E:SoR, and after writing the Athena installer, I figured I might as well write an Axiom to do the decompression as well.
So here we have it. Something that decompresses pucrunch-compressed data. Useful for large games with tons of data files.
Contains two versions of the pucrunch decompressor, one for use in RAM and one for use as a Flash Application (Axe will automatically select the correct version).
Contains tools that you can use on the PC side of things to compress and package what you want.
29
« on: March 28, 2011, 10:36:20 am »
Just so you know, I'm a fan of the movie How to Train Your Dragon, and I've played Persona III, so I figured how well it would be for the characters in that movie to have the sort of problems presented in that game. I haven't really fully thought out the idea so it rested on the backburners of my imagination. Now, keep in mind that I'm a Z80 ASM coder, not a storyteller. So with what little I had, I ... uh. Really didn't do much. That was...
Some odd night a few days ago, I was working on a pucrunch decompressor Axiom and I thought about something. Completely random. Very random. So I put it here in the randomness subforum. An exact copy is found in that project's "IgnoreME.txt" file, which is... well. An alternative to the "ReadME.txt" file (it exists too!).
I would post this mess on fanfiction.net, but I'm not sure if it would be classified as a crossover. The content sure indicates that, but no characters are being used from PIII. Just didn't feel like it. So anyway, the copy from my file (make sure the screen's width is set to be able to display 80 columns).
Tell me what you think about my randomness.
EDIT: May contain a spoiler or two from both titles.
___________
: CREDITS |
----------/
Credits are given where credits are due. Those are in the ReadME.
_________________
: RANDOM BLURBS |
----------------/
Though Hiccup had the power of the Wild Card, there wasn't a single Persona
he enjoyed using more than his Toothless. His Night Fury. His friend.
Despite being just a facet of his overactive imagination, this fragment
seemed to him to be the most real out of them all. This fragment of his own
personality... a fragment of his own? It seems to him to be a fragment of
someone else's personality. Something much older than he was. Ancient,
perhaps. Not his. No, it couldn't possibly be his, and yet it was. It was his
Persona. One that really didn't fit in. Like himself.
Every day, he waited. Waited for that dreaded Dark Hour. Not that there was
anything wrong with it, except that it was the hidden 25th hour of the day,
but it was then, all alone in his room, he could without any strange stares
from his teammates, summon his Persona. His personal friend. His Night Fury.
Every Dark Hour he wasn't shifting around in Tartarus, he would be there, in
his room, basking in the presence of his personal guardian. The one who saved
his life many times. It was like a heaven amidst an ever-present Green Death
that permeated that Hour. It is as it should be, with his friend.
Hiccup never really knew Orpheus. Toothless was his first, and he'll never
get rid of him like he did so many times with his other Personae. Pixie?
Toothless had that one for lunch many months ago. Inugami? Got rid of him
as soon as something else came up. Odin? Didn't get along well with Toothless
so he discarded him rather quickly. Helel? Tempting, but only his Night Fury
will hold that special place in his heart.
There was just one thing Hiccup never really understood. While all the other
Persona, and every other Shadow happened to be classified by Arcana, he could
never really figure out where the Night Fury fell in the scheme of things. He
couldn't possibly be without an Arcana, but it still wasn't identifiable.
Margaret and Igor were no help, the bunch of (then) slack-jawed ninnies.
That dragon was a complete enigma to everyone, but it mattered not.
His dragon. His Night Fury. His Toothless. Damned his other more "human"
teammates. Thinking back on his very first encounter, he could still hear
those words echo out under the first full moon of his year-long adventure:
"Thou art I and I am thou. From the sea of thy soul I cometh.
I am Toothless, nommer of fishies!"
Together, both human and dragon as one, on this fateful day of January 31,
they face that which dareed to desecrate the world the two shared. On that
day, the two of them alone, rose among the stars to defend all life. To
ensure that humans, full of dreams, hopes, and desires, may continue to
dream, to hope, to desire. To ensure that all the fishies in the streams and
seas will continue to swim, to swim, and... uh. To swim? Ahem. Together,
they ensured that for all life, that there will be a February 1st.
And all the while, deep in the mind of Hiccup but unbeknownst to him,
Toothless was thinking the same thing. All of dragonkind will be safe. And
all of fishkind will be safe. For delicious nomming.
30
« on: January 12, 2011, 09:31:12 pm »
Escheron: Shadow over Ragnoth A full 4-level grayscale RPG for the 15MHz calc series (TI-83 Plus SE, TI-84+, and TI-84+SE), written in Z80 ASM and packaged as a multi-paged Flash Application. I'm officially announcing that this project has been restarted, so to that end, I'm working on getting this project back to the way it was before I restarted it, which means recoding and putting in all the menus, reworking all the data that's associated with them, and putting back in the ability to freely explore the in-game world. What's left after that and something I was unable to do in the previous code iteration is as follows: Put in NPC/character dialog, complete the battle system, put in NPCs, and add cutscenes and other automated events. With this fresh start (thanks to this shiny "new" compiler, SPASM), I should be able to get back to where I was at in a relatively short amount of time and go above and beyond that. Mostly, it's because of SPASM's built in cross-page functionality that I'm able to do this, something that TASM falls far short of. So, what am I doing right now? Gotta rebuild the menu system and the tilemapper. Below is a reference image I am using to help with the menus. EDIT: Carefully note that some of the stuff you see below will NOT be accessible in the final version of the game, mostly the debug stuff.
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