Omnimaga

Calculator Community => Other Calc-Related Projects and Ideas => TI-Nspire => Topic started by: LD_Chimpman on December 30, 2013, 12:25:44 pm

Title: nFinity
Post by: LD_Chimpman on December 30, 2013, 12:25:44 pm
nFinity is a randomly generated sidescrolling exploration game. The goal for this game was to have as much of it randomized as possible.

Download available in my post below! (http://ourl.ca/20403/372532)

(http://i.imgur.com/N5aFAve.gif)
Demo of the title screen-of course, pulsing random colors

The most visible right now is the randomized color scheme. The combination of background color, terrain color, and character color are different every time you generate a level. I have calculated there to be 4,558,916,353,692,300,000,000 possible color combinations.
(http://i.imgur.com/FACp9O6.png)(http://i.imgur.com/ktucgx0.png)
Desert at midday                                                                                      Sunset landscape

Additionally, the terrain is varied. This feature is in a very early stage. Currently, only small hills and plateaus can spawn, as well as a single fern. Now that I have learned how to clone objects/classes, this feature will be greatly expanded in the future. Much larger mountains will be able to spawn, and more and diverse plant life will also appear. I even experimented with making the player be a randomized shape, but after some "intersting" results I figured it would be best to keep a simple square for the player shape.

In it's current state, this is more of a demo. You can move around and jump in the environment, and generate a new level at the push of a button, but it's not much of a "game" quite yet. I am thinking of the gameplay being based around you exploring the environment collecting random objects, but I'm interested to hear suggestions from the community.
Here are a few more screenshots demonstrating the randomized visuals
Spoiler For Spoiler:
(http://i.imgur.com/C5ckfQq.png)(http://i.imgur.com/Qqu0pbM.png)(http://i.imgur.com/LVKX7DK.png)(http://i.imgur.com/IXw7ccE.png)(http://i.imgur.com/433Q5gN.png)
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: LDStudios on December 30, 2013, 12:28:04 pm
looking good, but you have to get rid of those thin lines between hills and the horizon  :P
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: LD_Chimpman on December 30, 2013, 12:30:06 pm
Quote from: LDStudios on December 30, 2013, 12:28:04 pm
looking good, but you have to get rid of those thin lines between hills and the horizon  :P
Those are from the Student Software being dumb. They don't appear when the program is run on the nSpire. I could edit the screenshots in a photo editor to get rid of them but these are early screenshots anyways - they will be replaced later.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 30, 2013, 12:33:27 pm
Seems interesting. Also the lines between hills kinda reminded me of Atari games at first. :P

(http://www.8-bitcentral.com/images/blog/2013/princessRescueScreen.jpg)
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: fb39ca4 on December 30, 2013, 03:40:33 pm
Super Mario Bros. on a 2600? That's impressive.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on December 30, 2013, 11:50:07 pm
Yeah I was amazed when I saw this, especially considering it had music. Too bad the cartridge now cost $500 on Ebay due to Nintendo sending a C&D to AtariAges. It used to be $30 there. It would have been nice in the 2600 collection, along with Halo 2600 and hopefully soon Zippy the Porcupine if it doesn't suffer the same fate as Princess Rescue.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: The_King on December 31, 2013, 02:27:35 pm
hey chimp ( if i can call u that :P)

by the way is it lua or assembly
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: fb39ca4 on December 31, 2013, 02:56:40 pm
Quote from: hking1 on December 31, 2013, 02:27:35 pm
by the way is it lua or assembly
Given that the cause of the glitches is the student software, I'd imagine it is Lua.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Dapianokid on December 31, 2013, 07:52:47 pm
You should have a way to change the extent of the randomness.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: shmibs on December 31, 2013, 08:14:19 pm
this looks pretty cool =) you should go for a Knytt Stories (http://nifflas.ni2.se/?page=Knytt+Stories)-like aesthetic.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Sorunome on January 04, 2014, 12:23:06 pm
Sounds like a pretty interesting concept :)
Title: More ferns
Post by: LD_Chimpman on January 04, 2014, 12:50:12 pm
I was testing cloned objects today and got it to work with ferns, so now a random number of ferns can spawn instead of just one. From here, I should be able to apply the same technique to the terrain so more interesting landscapes can form. Later I might add more kinds of plant life too, but it's kind of a pain since in order to get ferns to be the same color as the ground I have it saved as a long set of polygon coordinates. Here's some screens of the ferns (and I edited out the lines this time ;) ):
Spoiler For Spoiler:
(http://i.imgur.com/FVLq6tV.png)(http://i.imgur.com/6cq6MVE.png)(http://i.imgur.com/g7dSl2g.png)
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Official.Xian on January 05, 2014, 10:24:56 am
This seems pretty cool! How does it look on B&W Touchpad?
Title: Better terrain
Post by: LD_Chimpman on January 05, 2014, 03:16:25 pm
Randomized terrain is now in full swing!
Now more diverse landscapes can form with each level generation. Combined with the ferns I fixed earlier, it looks a lot more interesting than the first screens I posted. Here are new ones:
Spoiler For Spoiler:
(http://i.imgur.com/imFJWsl.png)(http://i.imgur.com/SnNqtN8.png)(http://i.imgur.com/5c4j3sR.png)(http://i.imgur.com/Kv3fMGu.png)(http://i.imgur.com/tDuufuB.png)(http://i.imgur.com/wohipKf.png)

I feel like nFinity has reached the point where I'd want to share it with the community, so I also have attached the .tns file for it for you all to mess around with. As stated before, there's not much to do yet other than move/jump around the terrain and generate new ones (hence me not bothering to upload a GIF of gameplay), but it's still interesting to see the unique visual style that forms each time. I tried to keep the randomness at a balanced medium for this version, but in the future I will add in the requested feature to be able to choose the nature of the randomness (ex more/less ferns, taller/flatter terrain, might even have preset color ranges for more natural color selections).

Now that the randomized framework is down pretty solid, I hope to move to the gameplay phase of this project. I am open to suggestions as to what the actual gameplay would be, so definitely let me know your ideas. One I was pondering was to have a set number of generated levels for you to switch between, and switch between them to get past obstacles (almost like different dimensions)... I will see.

Quote from: Official.Xian on January 05, 2014, 10:24:56 am
This seems pretty cool! How does it look on B&W Touchpad?
I don't own one so I wouldn't know, but try out the .tns and let me know!
Title: Re: Re: nFinity
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 06, 2014, 11:54:04 am
Looks very good. I will try this in the Student software later  :)
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: LD_Chimpman on January 06, 2014, 02:13:51 pm
Quote from: DJ Omnimaga on January 06, 2014, 11:54:04 am
Looks very good. I will try this in the Student software later  :)

Just note that it's not really optimized for the student software so those glitchy lines will appear (I fixed the horizontal ones but vertical ones are still there) and the title screen will be pulsing very quickly.

On another note, I am thinking about changing the graphics, as I'm aware that plain squares look quite boring, though it still has to be very basic (no sprites, as I have to be able to set the color). I'll probably make the terrain have rounded corners to look more natural, and for the character I'll have a set collection of character shapes, one of which will be randomly chosen each time. And per request by the main branch of LD, grass will also be added in the next update to spice up the landscape.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Official.Xian on January 19, 2014, 02:52:01 pm
I'm downloading it to my Nspire now, can't wait to try it!
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Official.Xian on January 19, 2014, 02:56:11 pm
Wow... Needs to be written with a compatibility mode for the B&W touchpad. >_< Everything is so dark! Would greatly appreciate source and/or a rewrite. If you're OK with it, I can write the colors to be better for the B&W. :)
Title: Re: Re: nFinity
Post by: DJ Omnimaga on January 19, 2014, 03:12:08 pm
Btw, for squares, one idea I had is to create maps so for example the grass is a checkerboard of green and darker green. It would be kinda like Sonic and while it would look simple it would still look cool.
Title: Re: nFinity
Post by: Official.Xian on July 10, 2014, 08:36:42 am
No more updates?