Cromozome V0.8


PokeParadox

Founder of Pirate Games - Penjin Coder
Staff member
Joined
Dec 8, 2005
Messages
6,603
Age
40
Location
UK
Website
pokeparadox.itch.io
WEBSITE
https://github.com/pokeparadox
YOUTUBE
pokeparadox
EDIT: Screenshots on CromoZome Wiki page
Here is the changelog:
  • Changed volume handling code in Music and Sound classes.
  • Implemented a collision detection fix.
  • Some memory leaks plugged.
  • Removed redundant state files.
  • Some minor restructuring, hopefully adding performance.
  • Fixed the bug that crashes out of the game (Thanks Parkydr).
  • Added particle effects to high-score name entry screen.
  • Added framebuffer effect to high-score name entry screen (Thanks YakumoFuji).
  • New in game music by Magnar!
OK It REALLY shouldn't crash this time! I've tested it and tested it and tested it some more!
One nice thing is that the game actually has some proper music in-game, composed by Magnar. There are two versions of this music one with speech and one without. The one with speech is included and the one without will be available from the Game's wiki page in due course. Also the source will be updated shortly!

Download for GP2X here or on the archive
Source code
CromoZome Wiki page
PokeParadox's DevBlog
 
Your site seems to be down, so both the screenshot and download links are not working. However, everything is fine on the archive:

http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,27,2244

The game has an original concept and is already fun to play. I like how you start with different classes and further alter them by watching what you eat. Playing it can involve as much strategy as arcade reflexes :)

I noticed a few things that could be improved:

- When you select 'Back' from the Choose Your CromoZome menu, you get no time delay to take your thumb off B, and instantly get bounced back to the same menu. You can avoid this by pressing X however.

- The GBAX2007 splash screen gets shown after every hiscore input, and there's no way to skip it.

- The AI moves way to fast for me, so how about a difficulty setting? Or perhaps the game could just start a bit easier and get harder as you go on playing.

- I don't know if this was because I ate too many red zomes, but after a while the snake no longer responded to input, I could only move it in certain directions (downleft and downright).

Thanks for the game, keep up the good work! :)
 
I must admit, I'm not very good at this game.. I just seem to randomly die and see a high scores list, or randomly get longer. Can you release a video on how to play it?
 
Alex. said:
Your site seems to be down, so both the screenshot and download links are not working. However, everything is fine on the archive:

http://archive.gp2x.de/cgi-bin/cfiles.cgi?0,0,0,0,27,2244

The game has an original concept and is already fun to play. I like how you start with different classes and further alter them by watching what you eat. Playing it can involve as much strategy as arcade reflexes :)

I noticed a few things that could be improved:

- When you select 'Back' from the Choose Your CromoZome menu, you get no time delay to take your thumb off B, and instantly get bounced back to the same menu. You can avoid this by pressing X however.

- The GBAX2007 splash screen gets shown after every hiscore input, and there's no way to skip it.

- The AI moves way to fast for me, so how about a difficulty setting? Or perhaps the game could just start a bit easier and get harder as you go on playing.

- I don't know if this was because I ate too many red zomes, but after a while the snake no longer responded to input, I could only move it in certain directions (downleft and downright).

Thanks for the game, keep up the good work! :)



Hmmm The site seems to be working fine here, but I'm still unsure why the screenshot is not displaying...

- I am planning to remove the Compo screen in the next version so it will this problem...

- The difficulty could be seen as the starting 'Zome (thanks for abberviation ;)) colour.
If you pick blue and use a only eat blue and green strategy, you should keep your Zome nippy! :)

- I'm not sure about that one, sounds like a bug to me... I'll see if I can reproduce that!
Thanks for the comments, it's all I want good or bad :)


Senor Quack said:
I must admit, I'm not very good at this game.. I just seem to randomly die and see a high scores list, or randomly get longer. Can you release a video on how to play it?
Random death also seems like a bug, again I will try to recreate it. I'm also not sure what you mean by randomly get longer...
In any case I do intend to make a video very soon as well as uploading the other music track by Magnar. Also comments on the new in game music might be appreciated :)
 
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OK, I have uploaded a video to Youtube... It is VERY blurry because I only have my digital camera to take a video with and my BoB hasn't yet arrived through the post!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMWc0dGd9iQ

Hopefully it answers questions on how to play the game... :)

EDIT: I've also added both of the music downloads from Magnar to the wiki page, so you now have a choice of wether to have the speech in the background. :)
 
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Welp, I watched the demo youtube video and it cleared up a few things but, well opened up some more hehe.

OK, first some ideas I had:
1. I am always losing track of where my chromosome is on the screen. The game keeps randomly whittling me down to just a few ball segments (which further unscores how bad I am at it) and then I have no idea which chromosome I am. You have a yellow circle around the head segment, but I can hardly make that out against a white background.

2.The sound volume goes way up when the high score entry screen (with particle effects) appears, then back to normal at the main menu.

3.Let the blue sements add speed more gradually, I think they move it up to ridiculous uncontrollable levels too fast.

4. You seem to be having problems with too many pellets on the screen at once, performance-wise, and I'm having problems keeping track of all the pellets myself, hehe. Why not make them bigger but fewer in number, then I could probably tell what's in my chromosome snake better, and performance would increase.

5.To answer your question about a screenshot in the forum posts, no I can't see any at this time.

But man I gotta say I'm still not sure if I know whether or not I'm supposed to touch the other chromosome snakes or not.. or whether it's my chromo's head or tail segment color that means anything. Or under what condition the game ends (when I'm down to no segments?)

That said, the music is nice and I'm looking forward to the framework source. This game is well on its way to being polished now that you have the crashes fixed, don't stop now!
 
Senor Quack said:
Welp, I watched the demo youtube video and it cleared up a few things but, well opened up some more hehe.

OK, first some ideas I had:
1. I am always losing track of where my chromosome is on the screen. The game keeps randomly whittling me down to just a few ball segments (which further unscores how bad I am at it) and then I have no idea which chromosome I am. You have a yellow circle around the head segment, but I can hardly make that out against a white background.
Problem noted. I wanted the indicator to be subtle... but maybe yellow it is too subtle! I would still appreciate if anyone wants to improve the sprite images etc, I don't consider myself as an artist and I prefer to be coding! :)
That being said, I will see what I can do to improve the indicator.
QUOTE

2.The sound volume goes way up when the high score entry screen (with particle effects) appears, then back to normal at the main menu.


Hmmm I'll look into that one too...

QUOTE

3.Let the blue sements add speed more gradually, I think they move it up to ridiculous uncontrollable levels too fast.


OK if you start as blue, then you get a bonus for eating the same colour. Also your top speed is higher! If you need to slow down then eat more red!
To make more gradual changes to the speed I would have to use floats or fixed point and my fixed point class is still giving me problems :p
QUOTE

4. You seem to be having problems with too many pellets on the screen at once, performance-wise, and I'm having problems keeping track of all the pellets myself, hehe. Why not make them bigger but fewer in number, then I could probably tell what's in my chromosome snake better, and performance would increase.


Hmmm it will always be a problem when you reach the "limit" If you are really good at dodging... or if you leave the dmo mode running too long you can see how many it takes to slow the game engine down.
Honestly it's quite high, and even though I wrote the game, I often die before it slows down. But please if any continually breaks into the slowdown limit, then it would be worth seeing what could be done?
Also it is simply the number of collision tests that is the performance hog. The actual sprites are shared by all the CromoZomes to keep mem usage low and performance high :)
QUOTE

5.To answer your question about a screenshot in the forum posts, no I can't see any at this time.


Ah yes, I ended up editing the screenshot out and added a link to the wiki instead...

QUOTE

But man I gotta say I'm still not sure if I know whether or not I'm supposed to touch the other chromosome snakes or not.. or whether it's my chromo's head or tail segment color that means anything. Or under what condition the game ends (when I'm down to no segments?)

That said, the music is nice and I'm looking forward to the framework source. This game is well on its way to being polished now that you have the crashes fixed, don't stop now!



OK... basically you are safest approaching enemies from the side! And the significant segment is the head segment. and the next segment you eat ;) The game ends when you have all segments eaten, but there seems to be a random death bug... I first noticed it personally in my demonstration video... which is just luck of the draw... I'll look into that when I have time.

Glad you like the new music, Magnar will be no doubt pleased also :) The older source is still there, but obviously I will release the up to date source, I've just been busy with real life ™ the last few days... Obviously anyone can use the source in anyway they want to make their own games, and I hope they do :)
CromoZome is like an example of how to use the features I provide... or something like that.
As always, thanks for the comments. :)

EDIT: Source code
 
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Keep it up! Thanks for the vid.

The menu music seems to start too loud for me maybe reduce it a bit. I think it is better to have it start off quiet than loud. :)

The ingame music goes well with the game :), its good that you have 2 options of voice/no voice. (Not that the voices are bad but it sort of distracts you)

I did get the randomly dieing bug once otherwise it ran fine.
 
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