Spectrum Computing

Knight Hero, the new game from Jaime Grilo, is now available, both in black and white versions.

You can download it here: http://jg-spectrum.webnode.pt/

And the review is here: https://planetasinclair.blogspot.pt/201 ... -hero.html

Thanks for it. I played it for about 5 minutes to see what it is like.

I like the graphics. Simple but stylish. In 128 kb there is also quite a lot of nice music. I recognized some old classic Russian tune
The gameplay is unfortunately difficult. Colision detection is very unforgiving, you are far from enemy, yet the game detects a hit.

But it's great that the author has passion for making Spectrum games. I believe that with each new game it will be only better.

A very original topic!

Ralf wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2017 10:24 pm Colision detection is very unforgiving, you are far from enemy, yet the game detects a hit.

The collision detection is horrible, it somehow seems worse than AGD's strict 16px enforcement. Sprites shaped like these should be set to 13px wide or so. There's code around 34395 that I thought could be poked to solve this but it only seems to check switch collision. The usual 32028 lives POKE doesn't work either.

Would be an enjoyable game otherwise.

It actually looks like the problem is the Y* collision, which can't be changed in the AGD designer, the X has been set to be more forgiving.

*vertical to some, horizontal to others! In this case I mean vertical.

Dave knows his vertical from his horizontal, but The Outer Limits controls them both....

Infy lives pokes.

Black version: POKE 31006,0
White version:POKE 31014,0

Better collision (both versions):
POKE 36093,40

The collision poke is not perfect as it's still strict enforcement for things coming down onto the sprite's head, but it's much better for the player sprite falling onto baddies.

Completed, good game. Even though it's 'just' a platform game the chess theme makes it feel more than that.

Needs the pokes though, yet another example of a game that no-one except the author will play all the way through without snapshots or cheats.

I often wonder how hard it would be for AGD to be updated with more forgiving collision detection routines. IT is clearly an excellent product and some very talented people create some great stuff out of it but all too often I'm turned off the games produced because of the crazy collisions.

Spud wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 8:57 am I often wonder how hard it would be for AGD to be updated with more forgiving collision detection routines. IT is clearly an excellent product and some very talented people create some great stuff out of it but all too often I'm turned off the games produced because of the crazy collisions.

AGD was updated to allow the user to set thinner sprites, down to about 10px I think (on phone so can't check) and this game utilises that (12px). It doesn't allow adjustment of height collision though. Jonathan can't keep adding features to AGD forever but I think Y collision adjustment is worth considering.

Cannot collisions be readjusted by custom scripts? I have not played with AGD yet so I don't know if it'd be possible to do things like:
if collision.distance >8 then collision = False
or maybe
if collision.happens=0 then/
/hero.y = hero.y-4/collision.increment(1)/

R-Tape wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:30 am AGD was updated to allow the user to set thinner sprites, down to about 10px I think (on phone so can't check) and this game utilises that (12px). It doesn't allow adjustment of height collision though. Jonathan can't keep adding features to AGD forever but I think Y collision adjustment is worth considering.

I agree he can't continue adding features forever, but he should (or rather, I wish he could) have fixed the collisions right form the start. I recognise the complexity of collision detection but it is a thing that really does make or break a gaming experience.

Anyway, thanks to your pokes I completed it just now. Really charming little game once you get past minor the problems with the engine

hikoki wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:05 pm Cannot collisions be readjusted by custom scripts? I have not played with AGD yet so I don't know if it'd be possible to do things like:
if collision.distance >8 then collision = False
or maybe
if collision.happens=0 then/
/hero.y = hero.y-4/collision.increment(1)/

It could but it would be faffy for most AGD users. Cumbersome XY checks would have to replace the simple & versatile COLLISION command.

Spud wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 1:11 pm I recognise the complexity of collision detection but it is a thing that really does make or break a gaming experience.

I thought this would be an easy one to implement actually, but the AGD 4.7 manual below shows that Jon has already considered this and chose not to put it in.

You won't want to count the gap as part of the sprite collision detection, so you can reduce this distance to a lower pixel count. Bear in mind that this setting only affects horizontal distances, and defines to all collision detection between sprites.

Cannot you just count a number of collisions before killing the hero?

hikoki wrote: ↑Sun Jan 21, 2018 9:17 pm Cannot you just count a number of collisions before killing the hero?

Good idea. It could lead to inconsistent depths of penetration though, if a sprite is falling it could be 4 or 8 pix into a sprite before setting a counter. IMO having overly forgiving collision occasionally is much better than always unfair, so in practise would work well. We're getting off topic and this is probably something for the AGD forum but I've had a play here.

Would still be best and easiest just to have adjustable X & Y collision in the AGD designer.

If you're reading Jaime, sorry to waffle on so much about the collision checks, it's a great game

funny square, could it hold a 'izx' or 'fzx' block?

if AGD is modulair, maybe a 500bytes block is usable for "own use", and then you can try to make a little special routine there
i didnt know there is a forum about.
where can i find it?

C.Born wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2018 4:22 am funny square, could it hold a 'izx' or 'fzx' block?

if AGD is modulair, maybe a 500bytes block is usable for "own use", and then you can try to make a little special routine there
i didnt know there is a forum about.
where can i find it?

There's plenty of free space available in contended memory for patches like this. Here's the forum:

http://arcadegamedesigner.proboards.com

Looks good,
a bit pitty that agd is not downloadable without becomiong a 'member' , yet another pasword to remember.
i guess its about being carfull or some.
they/he maybe could make a download link on the homepage and keep protecting the forum links??
its not very inviting to click on a link after reading all and then first must be a member..

but i got it now from egghead

R-tape's experiment works quite well? Imho forgiving collisions allow for a harder difficulty based on well thought level design.

@C.Born you can also download AGD from the author's site: http://www.spanglefish.com/egghead/inde ... eid=397755

hikoki wrote: ↑Tue Jan 23, 2018 8:16 pm R-tape's experiment works quite well? Imho forgiving collisions allow for a harder difficulty based on well thought level design.

Too forgiving at a second look, better to change IF D > 3 to if D > 1 in the main player events IMO.