Wow, that's so awesome. And the touch-lcd shield looks quite good as well (for the super cheap price it is sold). Does it run at full speed or is it slowed down?
Pt-Mask draws on the two buffers to get 3 shades of grey. Is there an equivalent to get 4 shades or is it necessary to use two Pt-Off ?
No there isn't. But the reason Pt-Mask has only 3-level gray is that the fourth color/combination is transparent, so you don't need to have always square shapes.
The idea with the port is nice, but I couldn't get it working well. The other issue is that not everyone has a link cable and I always like to make it playable on a single calc.
Yeah, but I will definitely finish this. I went quite far with what I've done for now, so stopping atm wouldn't be right imo. And you probably will get a better game since I have more time now.
I've been working on this the last two weeks but I couldn't really finish a lot. I hoped to complete it for this weekend, so I still would have had the saturday for making it nice, optimize and zip it, make a nice description file etc. But since I had so much work to do for school the last days, couldn't brace up myself to code and had a lot of trouble with axe (code that used to work was suddenly not working anymore, random errors) yesterday (at least two full hours of debugging with producing anything new), I sadly have to say: I can't finish this for sunday. I planned the time a bit to tight, not scheduling the trouble I could have. So I won't enter this for the contest. The better news is that this game will be finished someday - not now, but I think if I do it a bit at a time I can finish it in a month.
So that's it for now. Maybe I can participate in the next contest with an entry if I have more time.
Is it possible to write to the back buffer ? Like Text(X,Y,PTR,L3) (not in the commands) or Text(X,Y,PTR)r (not in the commands) or Fix 51 // Text(X,Y,PTR) (not in the commands) or with any routine you have ?
Sadly, no. The text command is an OS routine by TI, so it isn't possible to write text to any other buffer than the main. You have to write it to the front buffer and copy the part you want to the back buffer. If it is a whole line, the copy() function is the right one, otherwise you might have to make your one routine or use the pt-Get() function several times (lot of size and takes some time). The last possibility would be to use your own font and just 'sprite' it there.
Also, if you add multiple sets of teleporters per map, make sure to color/number/letter-code them
You can place up to 2 sets of teleporters per map. In the screeny you can see that hovering with the cursor over teleporter highlights the linked pad. In the board game the teleporters where color-coded, but I'm not sure if I want to add that here (It wouldn't be that hard though).
No, the teleporters aren't like portals, more like flat pads on the ground. In the board game version there is the possibility to place nukes, and those can get teleported as well if you lay them on a teleporter.
In my head yes, but not implemented yet. There will be two or three different opponents (e.g. offensive, defensive and medium) and the choice to play against a friend.
what all, exactly, is going to be included? how many units are there, and what sorts of special tiles? is the map randomly generated on every play?
There will be four maps. You can edit them with the app and transfer them to other calcs if you want to share the maps. In this version, there won't be a random map generator, but I will create a few sample ones so you can test it without having to make them yourself.
As you may have seen in the screeny of the editor, there are 4 slots for units for each player. Both players have always the same units at the beginning. There are three types:
Tank (range: 3 blocks, straight; ability to destroy blocks)
Howitzer (range: 2 blocks; can shot over a block/wall)
Rocket Launcher(range: 3 blocks, arbitrary; can shot around walls)
In game mode, you can select one of your tanks. You can choose to either move on field (straight or diagonally if nothing is in the way) or to shoot. All possible fields will be indicated/highlighted and you select the field to make an action. Each turn you can make two moves, then it's the opponent's turn.
Tiles are:
Empty field (you can move there or shoot through)
Block (You can't move there and only howitzers can shoot across)
Teleporter (if you move there and the linked pad isn't blocked, you get teleported to the linked pad.)
I hope that answered your qustions
I will add a spoiler in the first post with all the exact rules later.
As said, I can't finish this for the contest, but I will work on it since I put a lot of effort in it. Since now only two weeks are left until the contest ends, I decided to post what I've been working on the last few weeks. The game I'm making is a strategy board game. Each player has a specified amount of tanks placed on a map and tries to survive longer that the opponent(s).
Spoiler For History of the game:
The history of the game started in 7th grade, when me and my friends where bored in class and randomly started to build little papercraft tanks. We made little maps and just played with them in the breaks. We decided to lay down rules and created different sized boards with walls and teleporters etc. Also, each tank has different features and characteristics, e.g. there are regular tanks (long range, straight shot), howitzers (short range, ability to shoot over walls) and rocket launchers (long range, missiles can go around corners). Later we also added helicopters and fighters. A bit crushed but they are still alive!
In 8th grade, our maths teacher gave us TI calculators and we all where like "Oh, this thing is complicated (compared to the little casios we were using before)". However, we found out that it is programmable so we learned to make little games in TI-Basic. One of the games I made was quite similar to the board game, it was extremely buggy but still fun to play.
I learned to program with xLib the next summer and tried to make another version of it (still with a lot of bugs). It had a map editor and better graphics.
I took a little break from calc programming after that and started C++ for PC, so as you can guess, I made "Console TanX" for PC. There are actually 3 different versions of that game, a strategy version, one for multiplayer (up to 4 players) and another one with AI enemies. The last two are all action games, where every player moves at the same time. All of them are in ascii style, because I failed so often with graphics Random (but pronounceable) name generator for computer enemies included!
Then I came back to calc programming last year with axe, and a few months ago, I came up with isometric graphics. The contest inspired me to redo the TanX in 3D-ish style.
The graphics are almost done and the editor and the main menu are already finished. The game will be like the first board game version, so players take turns after each other. Since a lot is already done and the game like this is a classic for me and my friends, I won't change the rules or the main setup. The board will be viewed from above, you won't be able to move the camera.
The tilemapper (not the latest version) and the editor: The gray is perfect on a TI-83+
Feel free to ask questions and let me know what you think.
The fonts won't affect the Calc that much, it only looks weird at first, until it is restored. Interrupts will always lead to a crash if not reinstalled.
Maybe add that programs compiled to Axe Fusion won't crash when axe isn't installed. E. g. let it return to homescreen when the axe app can't be found.
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