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This is my first SMS game i programmed and its proberly not going to be the last thing i program for the SMS.
The game is called Falldown and is a reprogrammed flash game. (Don't quite know if there is any copyrights on it.)

Do me a favor and post some comments of it compared to that it is my first project and tell me if there is some things i can improve it with.
And post your score ;)

Falldown_1.0.rar (6.97 KB)

Falldown for SMS v0.1

Red on black text is kind of hard to read. On a real system, column 1 is likely to be cut off by the edge of the TV. You also have some grammar errors.

The ball can overlap the walls if you press the opposite direction after falling off the edge. It is as if the wall is very thin. A more "solid" feeling would be good.

When the ball gets to the bottom of the screen it wobbles around a bit oddly :)

The motion is simplistic, it would be better to have some momentum, acceleration, etc.

It feels like it is scrolling in large chunks with a long delay in between, to make it slower at the start. It'd be better to scroll at 60fps, just in smaller amounts. 8.8 fixed point is pretty easy to use for this kind of thing, I can explain more if necessary. It also seems odd that the ball moves proportionally faster at the same time.

Why not have the score on-screen all the time, as sprites?

Why use such a nasty palette? Especially for the photo. The "ball" could look a lot nicer.

It might be nice to have an animated "rolling" ball.

I forgot my score :)

Not bad!

Maybe you could use this kind of graphics later:

It seem a bit slow tough at the beginning and it don't work in dega, i get a game over screen directly.

Score: 931

Interesting. I think you should first focus on improving the core gameplay a little because going on fixing the glitches and improving graphics.

- Add basic physic (acceleration, etc.).
- Display the score and maybe include some scoring rules such as : the closest the landing platfom is to bottom of the screen the more you get point, however falling on the void kills you.
- You can add obstacle mid-air to make it interesting.

Keep up the good work!

Yeah red text on black screen dont look good. (And I even study it in school color and such :/)

Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure.

Please don't remind me about grammar problems it make me kinda mad inside because its something which can't be improved by my own help even though i red it several times, but ofc i will seek a person who can help me with it if im going to make some serious shit!

The overlapping should't be dificult to fix but I said to myself that it dosn't matter when i goes fast.

Hehe yeah the bouncing in the bottom look abit funny and should't either be hard to fix.

In the original game im not sure there isnt actually acceleration.
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/falldown

The game has 30fps I think or It should have.. and it scrolls 2 lines every frame. And yes its abit odd that the ball moves faster propertionel to the speed, somehow it dosnt quite make the game more difficult.
But yes Maxin I could use some good advise about timing, the only delay i really used was "call WaitForVBlankNoInt".

Doohh yea Sprites on screen as score don't know why I didnt think of that really...

Hmm yeah the palette I seme just to use the once from the bitmap to tile converter. Is there any good threads about graphic on the forum?

The ball is preatty simple and yes I gues i could make it scrolling and I was also thinking of a menu where tou can choose diffirent kind of balls maybe with different kind of stats such as color, weight and roll speed.

Grz think I will hold my layout but I will try to make somekind og random function for the map generation instead of using and high scaled bitmap and I know the game is slow in the beginning but I simple tested it on an emulater which runs its fast compared to others and I also have to test it on different emulators and on a real system aswell.(If I had the opportunity.)

Obstacles could actually be a real good idea eventhough the original game dosnt have it. I could make some obstacles when you hit them the game runs faster or slower.

Thanks for the good replys it was really usefull actually but im not sure I actually will improve my project, I might start on something new instead of ripping of others game ;)

That's a pretty interesting game.
Just some additional ideas:

- I've noticed the plafoms follow a pretty much preset pattern. You should really add some randomness.

- You should really add some smooth scrolling to the game. I would suggest either taking a look at the source for Aypok's Digger Chan (http://www.smspower.org/dev/competition/2006.html) or my old platform game engine (http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9600&highlight=engine)

- Maybe you could add a two-player mode, like on this game: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=2722. Lots of fun! =)

By the way, in what language is your game coded on?

Edit: Okay, I see. You are actually using smooth scrolling, and the program was coded in ASM.

jensjoachim wrote

Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure.

First column. The one that gets blanked for horizontal scrolling.

jensjoachim wrote

The game has 30fps I think or It should have.. and it scrolls 2 lines every frame.

Press Alt+F12 in Meka to see what happens each frame. It seems like it scrolled 2 lines at a time, and adjusts the speed by changing how many frames it waits before scrolling.

jensjoachim wrote

Hmm yeah the palette I seme just to use the once from the bitmap to tile converter.

...which comes from your bitmap. Your image editor ought to let you choose a palette - it seems to be defaulting to a "standard" set of colours.

It's a pretty good attempt for a first game on a system, so congratulations. :) I think the others have offered some good advice and it's good to see you interested in coding something else for the SMS. Keep up the good work!

Maxim wrote

jensjoachim wrote

Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure.

First column. The one that gets blanked for horizontal scrolling.

I haven't tested it, but that column gets blanked because of crap being shown there when horizontally scrolling (I need to hack a game ROM one of these days to see what is shown there on a horizontal scroller).

Most emulators seem to simply shift the whole screen not taking into account what is actually shown in the first 8 pixels when the "blank" register isn't set. But I'm pretty sure the first 8 pixels are very visible on most TVs, at least I recall being able to make them out last I looked on a CRT. So there is no need to blank the first column unless you do horizontal scrolling.

On many TVs, the leftmost 8 pixels are to some extend occluded; the rightmost 248 are somewhat centred in the display. It varies a lot from TV to TV though.

When it's blanked, it's filled with the overscan colour. If you scroll a few pixels then you get some junk in the space to the left of the first complete tile There was an investigation of this back in the prehistoric era but it may be of limited use.

The colunm is likely not to be shown when scroll is being used or is it always like that?

What image editor are you using Maxim?

Btw I would like to test it on my own SMS aswell but what programmer should I buy?
The only requirments I have for it is that it can program EProms which the SMS use and some PICs but don't know anything about programmer but I pretty much what the cheapest one and I prefer USB connecting.

Author	Message
jensjoachim Joined: 16 Jul 2009 Posts: 30 Location: Denmark	Falldown v0.1 Released Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:49 pm
	This is my first SMS game i programmed and its proberly not going to be the last thing i program for the SMS. The game is called Falldown and is a reprogrammed flash game. (Don't quite know if there is any copyrights on it.) Do me a favor and post some comments of it compared to that it is my first project and tell me if there is some things i can improve it with. And post your score ;) Falldown_1.0.rar (6.97 KB) Falldown for SMS v0.1

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14982 Location: London	Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 5:30 pm
	Red on black text is kind of hard to read. On a real system, column 1 is likely to be cut off by the edge of the TV. You also have some grammar errors. The ball can overlap the walls if you press the opposite direction after falling off the edge. It is as if the wall is very thin. A more "solid" feeling would be good. When the ball gets to the bottom of the screen it wobbles around a bit oddly :) The motion is simplistic, it would be better to have some momentum, acceleration, etc. It feels like it is scrolling in large chunks with a long delay in between, to make it slower at the start. It'd be better to scroll at 60fps, just in smaller amounts. 8.8 fixed point is pretty easy to use for this kind of thing, I can explain more if necessary. It also seems odd that the ball moves proportionally faster at the same time. Why not have the score on-screen all the time, as sprites? Why use such a nasty palette? Especially for the photo. The "ball" could look a lot nicer. It might be nice to have an animated "rolling" ball. I forgot my score :)

Grz- Joined: 26 Apr 2008 Posts: 16 Location: France	Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2009 7:24 pm
Grz- Joined: 26 Apr 2008 Posts: 16 Location: France	Not bad! Maybe you could use this kind of graphics later: It seem a bit slow tough at the beginning and it don't work in dega, i get a game over screen directly. Score: 931

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8708 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 12:57 am
	Interesting. I think you should first focus on improving the core gameplay a little because going on fixing the glitches and improving graphics. - Add basic physic (acceleration, etc.). - Display the score and maybe include some scoring rules such as : the closest the landing platfom is to bottom of the screen the more you get point, however falling on the void kills you. - You can add obstacle mid-air to make it interesting. Keep up the good work!

jensjoachim Joined: 16 Jul 2009 Posts: 30 Location: Denmark	Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:28 pm
	Yeah red text on black screen dont look good. (And I even study it in school color and such :/) Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure. Please don't remind me about grammar problems it make me kinda mad inside because its something which can't be improved by my own help even though i red it several times, but ofc i will seek a person who can help me with it if im going to make some serious shit! The overlapping should't be dificult to fix but I said to myself that it dosn't matter when i goes fast. Hehe yeah the bouncing in the bottom look abit funny and should't either be hard to fix. In the original game im not sure there isnt actually acceleration. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/falldown The game has 30fps I think or It should have.. and it scrolls 2 lines every frame. And yes its abit odd that the ball moves faster propertionel to the speed, somehow it dosnt quite make the game more difficult. But yes Maxin I could use some good advise about timing, the only delay i really used was "call WaitForVBlankNoInt". Doohh yea Sprites on screen as score don't know why I didnt think of that really... Hmm yeah the palette I seme just to use the once from the bitmap to tile converter. Is there any good threads about graphic on the forum? The ball is preatty simple and yes I gues i could make it scrolling and I was also thinking of a menu where tou can choose diffirent kind of balls maybe with different kind of stats such as color, weight and roll speed. Grz think I will hold my layout but I will try to make somekind og random function for the map generation instead of using and high scaled bitmap and I know the game is slow in the beginning but I simple tested it on an emulater which runs its fast compared to others and I also have to test it on different emulators and on a real system aswell.(If I had the opportunity.) Obstacles could actually be a real good idea eventhough the original game dosnt have it. I could make some obstacles when you hit them the game runs faster or slower. Thanks for the good replys it was really usefull actually but im not sure I actually will improve my project, I might start on something new instead of ripping of others game ;)

haroldoop Joined: 25 Feb 2006 Posts: 906 Location: Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil	Posted: Sun Jul 26, 2009 6:38 pm
	That's a pretty interesting game. Just some additional ideas: - I've noticed the plafoms follow a pretty much preset pattern. You should really add some randomness. - You should really add some smooth scrolling to the game. I would suggest either taking a look at the source for Aypok's Digger Chan (http://www.smspower.org/dev/competition/2006.html) or my old platform game engine (http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=9600&highlight=engine) - Maybe you could add a two-player mode, like on this game: http://www.atariage.com/software_page.html?SoftwareLabelID=2722. Lots of fun! =) By the way, in what language is your game coded on? Edit: Okay, I see. You are actually using smooth scrolling, and the program was coded in ASM.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14982 Location: London	Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 9:51 am
	jensjoachim wrote Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure. First column. The one that gets blanked for horizontal scrolling. jensjoachim wrote The game has 30fps I think or It should have.. and it scrolls 2 lines every frame. Press Alt+F12 in Meka to see what happens each frame. It seems like it scrolled 2 lines at a time, and adjusts the speed by changing how many frames it waits before scrolling. jensjoachim wrote Hmm yeah the palette I seme just to use the once from the bitmap to tile converter. ...which comes from your bitmap. Your image editor ought to let you choose a palette - it seems to be defaulting to a "standard" set of colours.

PoorAussie Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 292 Location: Australia	Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:37 pm
	It's a pretty good attempt for a first game on a system, so congratulations. :) I think the others have offered some good advice and it's good to see you interested in coding something else for the SMS. Keep up the good work!

PoorAussie Joined: 26 Aug 2008 Posts: 292 Location: Australia	Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:46 pm
	Maxim wrote jensjoachim wrote Maxim when you say first color is not likely to be shown on TVs do you mean horizontal or verticaly? Just have to be 100% sure. First column. The one that gets blanked for horizontal scrolling. I haven't tested it, but that column gets blanked because of crap being shown there when horizontally scrolling (I need to hack a game ROM one of these days to see what is shown there on a horizontal scroller). Most emulators seem to simply shift the whole screen not taking into account what is actually shown in the first 8 pixels when the "blank" register isn't set. But I'm pretty sure the first 8 pixels are very visible on most TVs, at least I recall being able to make them out last I looked on a CRT. So there is no need to blank the first column unless you do horizontal scrolling.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14982 Location: London	Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 4:29 pm
	On many TVs, the leftmost 8 pixels are to some extend occluded; the rightmost 248 are somewhat centred in the display. It varies a lot from TV to TV though. When it's blanked, it's filled with the overscan colour. If you scroll a few pixels then you get some junk in the space to the left of the first complete tile There was an investigation of this back in the prehistoric era but it may be of limited use.

jensjoachim Joined: 16 Jul 2009 Posts: 30 Location: Denmark	Posted: Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:19 pm
	The colunm is likely not to be shown when scroll is being used or is it always like that? What image editor are you using Maxim? Btw I would like to test it on my own SMS aswell but what programmer should I buy? The only requirments I have for it is that it can program EProms which the SMS use and some PICs but don't know anything about programmer but I pretty much what the cheapest one and I prefer USB connecting.

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