Ideas?

Comments

• AndreL Posts: 1,004

  2007-01-24 21:53 edited 2007-01-24 21:53

  Well, rich benson is done with version one of an "asset manager" that allows you from a windows app to drag assets in and out of the eeprom, so that's done and will be released this week. And I am working on the SRAM expansion card which will allows more advanced 3D graphics and large frame buffers to be handled.
  
  Andre'
• fred2 Posts: 47

  2007-01-25 09:34 edited 2007-01-25 09:34

  I am thinking of writing a version of TRAC, an extensible text language that I initially implemented on
  a PDP8. Particularly designed for small memory machines of that era. I wrote a number of versions
  for other machines that were made in those days. There's a TRAC web page on the net, I don't have
  the url at the moment.
  
  Gotta get some display problems out of the way first and then see about using some of the TV/VGA
  terminal programs.
  
  Fred2
• Ym2413a Posts: 630

  2007-01-25 15:37 edited 2007-01-25 15:37

  Well those all sound like really cool projects!
  
  I'm wondering if anyone is planning on writing any little games for this thing.
  I know back in the early days, I got into programming as a kid for the fact of writing my own games.
  Now I write automation software and databases apps.
  
  I still enjoy kicking up my shoes and playing old 8bit video games in my free time.
  (btw) Dr.Hydra is awesome! It's the best game on the Hydra todate!
  
  --Andrew Arsenault
• Brian_B Posts: 841

  2007-01-25 17:21 edited 2007-01-25 17:21

  Hi,
  I'm trying to write some learning games for my kids , but as normal I have bigger eyes than my stomach
  
  Brian
• AndreL Posts: 1,004

  2007-01-25 23:39 edited 2007-01-25 23:39

  Writing games is like quantum mechanics, seems like you get it when watching a discovery channel special, but trying to do the math yourself is a whole other thing. Games are so complex on so many levels, the only way to get good at them is to just write them. And sooner or later, it clicks and the "design pattern" for games materializes in your brain and you see how to put these monsters together. I usually recommend, pong, breakout, asteroids, space invaders, centipide clones in that order. After doing all those you have a good idea of a 2D game takes. But, if you have the hydra and book it covers all the game dev stuff is pretty linear fashion, so all the tools and techniques and thought process are there.
  
  Andre'
• JT Cook Posts: 487

  2007-01-26 07:25 edited 2007-01-26 07:25

  I hope people out there·will make·some games for the Hydra, I have been playing the same ones for almost 8 months.
• Ym2413a Posts: 630

  2007-01-27 17:53 edited 2007-01-27 17:53

  I'm going to get around to writing some games.
  After I get done playing with the engines. ^^
• AndreL Posts: 1,004

  2007-01-27 22:21 edited 2007-01-27 22:21

  The engines make game dev pretty easy though, you can put a game together in a matter of a week or 2, the biggest challenge is asset management. All of use wrote various tools to convert bitmaps to engine format and the propellers color space, yada yada, that's the biggest pain. So one thing is definitely makea little tool chain, since typing in bitmaps with 1's and 0's is a pain!
  
  Andre'
• Dennis Ferron Posts: 480

  2007-01-30 01:25 edited 2007-01-30 01:25

  Well I have 2 different game ideas, not sure which one to do:
  
  - Model railroad game where you lay down tiles for straight track, curve track, cross section, etc. Object of the game is to create a layout that gets some amount of people, chemicals, or freight (depending on the type of cars) from one place to another without the trains hitting each other and with a limited budget for track.
  
  - or -
  
  - NASA Constellation Moon mission game where you try to develop and launch a spacecraft to conduct lunar missions. The twist is that all of the parts you build your launch stack out of have random failures built in, but the percent% of time the failures happen is related to the number of test launches you conduct and how good the engineers you hire are. So you have to choose, do you spend your budget and time on extra testing, or do you rush ahead and cross your fingers and hope it doesn't blow up? The way the game would work is that you would have to deal with public opinion; when you do a successful mission your public opinion goes up and you get more money and more time to keep trying, but if you try too hard and cause a disaster that maybe kills your astronauts, then your public opinion goes way down and you get less time and money.
• Ym2413a Posts: 630

  2007-01-30 18:09 edited 2007-01-30 18:09

  Dennis your ideas are really cool!!
• AndreL Posts: 1,004

  2007-01-31 01:49 edited 2007-01-31 01:49

  Also, I would like to see the power glove or better yet, a dance dance mat with a NES connector interfaced to the HYDRA and make a dancing game [noparse]:)[/noparse]
  
  Andre'