The perfect fall/jump

[Ralf]

I'd say most Spectrum games don't use proper laws of physics. To be specific they don't use things described
here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceleration

Modern games may be different as they ofen use sophisticated physics engines. It's possible as modern computers
have a lot of CPU power which games from the 80s lacked.

In Spectrum games the speed of falling is generally constant, not v(t)=v0+at like in real world. Check Manic Miner as example.

And actually nobody complains about it. It's a part of gaming convention, just like things that killed enemies
dissappear or hero keeps gun in right hand when walking right but in left hand when walking left

----------------------------
In my games like Janosik or Wunderwaffe (they use the same adjusted engine) I used the following logic:

- player has a status like standing on a ground, jumping or falling

- jump has defined number of steps, each step=one frame of the game

-first you go quickly up by 2 pixels, then slowly up by 1 pixel, then for a moment don't change your height,
then slowly down by 1 pixel, then quickly down by 2 pixels

- when you are going down during jump at any time it can be interrupted if your feet hit some floor

- when jump ends and you are still in the air, player changes status from jumping to falling

- during falling you fall with constant speed of 2 pixels until you hit the ground

So yes. I didn't use accelaration when falling. I believe it would make everything harder to code
and there wouldn't be any noticable improvement in the gameplay.

[Morkin]

I quite like this - if it was a boulder being shoved off a cliff, it's landing roughly where I'd probably expect it to land (if it was a game). As already mentioned it does seem to stop moving right a bit too early though, I'd probably try to get it to land flush on the third tile along the bottom, but maybe that's just my OCD..

On the other hand it'd probably seem more odd if it was a sprite falling that way. Unless it's a game in which you control a boulder...

Two questions:

- what's with the gubbins in the top border? Something about interrupts I guess
- what's that tile doing in the middle of the screen?

[Ast A. Moore]

- what's with the gubbins in the top border?

It’s a pretty standard way to visually estimate the time a routine takes to execute in relation to the duration of a frame. You set the border to a particular color, then change it at the beginning of the piece of code you wish to time, then change the color back at the end of that piece of code.

[Ersh]

If we were to use the laws of physics, we would probably eschew a jump table. Instead, we would give the sprite an initial vertical velocity (henceforth known as u). At any instant in time during the jump, the velocity of the sprite can be calculated as

Code: Select all

v = u + at

where v is the velocity at time t, t is the current time in seconds and a is the acceleration (on Earth, the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 metres per second, but we make it negative of course since we're going down).

Essentially, when the player jumps, you want to set delta-y (the change in y) to a starting value, and every frame, subtract your acceleration from delta-y, then add delta-y to the y coord of the sprite. To simulate terminal velocity (and more importantly, prevent overflow ), you'll probably want to cap delta-y at a certain value.

For added precision, you may choose to use fixed-point coordinates, by storing them as 16-bit values (the upper 8 bits being the integer part, which you use for plotting on the screen, and the lower 8 bits being the fractional part). This is really only for physics-heavy games however - you're certainly not going to need it for a Manic Miner clone!

That's the way I've always done it. It's pretty fast unless, of course, you have a lot of objects. It's easy to add some bounce on impact as well.

[djnzx48]

IMO it's the landing part that doesn't look quite right - the ball just seems to gently come to a halt when it reaches the ground. It would look better if it continued to accelerate.

Bouncing probably isn't too complicated to do. Just flip the sign of the acceleration vector and reduce it by some factor, say a half, when you hit a floor or ceiling.

I would argue that proper physics is important in a platform game. I was never a fan of the characteristic triangular jump in games like Dynamite Dan, and I much preferred Manic Miner's curved jumps. It doesn't matter so much in arcade adventures, as the focus there isn't on precise movements and timing. But when a game involves a lot of platforms and dodging around, a nice jump curve can definitely improve the feel of the gameplay.

[redballoon]

[R-Tape]

The main reason it doesn't look right, is that the ball suddenly stopped moving forward while falling.

My picture is misleading—it allows horizontal movement during fall and I just stopped pressing the key.

In my games like Janosik or Wunderwaffe (they use the same adjusted engine) I used the following logic:
-first you go quickly up by 2 pixels, then slowly up by 1 pixel, then for a moment don't change your height,
then slowly down by 1 pixel, then quickly down by 2 pixels
- during falling you fall with constant speed of 2 pixels until you hit the ground
So yes. I didn't use accelaration when falling. I believe it would make everything harder to code
and there wouldn't be any noticable improvement in the gameplay.

I hope you don't my saying, but the jump/fall physics in your games is characteristically strange! I like it, and it's part of their personality, but Janosik and Wunderwaffe do feel like you're jumping in microgravity. IMO it's not hard to program, and it's worth experimenting with more acceleration: 1,2,4, 8 pixels.

Two questions:

- what's with the gubbins in the top border? Something about interrupts I guess
- what's that tile doing in the middle of the screen?

-Yep, as Ast says, it's a timing thing*: set the border colour to red* before a routine, then another colour after it. The bigger the red band the longer it takes (bear in mind that top to bottom is 1 frame - 1/50th of a second). You see in this case the red band gets wider as the fall distance is greater. That's because a fall of 1 pixel needs checking once, and 8 needs checking 8 times (though I don't need to do it that way—needs improving).
-The middle tile is for collision checking. I'm pretty rusty, and am going back to basics! The trouble is, it's taken me hours to code what takes a seasoned AGD user 15 minutes! I plan to persevere though; I'm a big fan of AGD, but it's time I tried something that allows me to go down any path I want.

*doesn't have to be red of course, you can also use magenta
**and speaking of Gubbins, where is @MatGubbins these days?

IMO it's the landing part that doesn't look quite right - the ball just seems to gently come to a halt when it reaches the ground. It would look better if it continued to accelerate.

Bouncing probably isn't too complicated to do. Just flip the sign of the acceleration vector and reduce it by some factor, say a half, when you hit a floor or ceiling.

Agreed. I think in El Stompo and Sunbucket the fall goes to a full 16 pixels at its maximum. Bouncing would be easy enough, but not appropriate for this (it's just a placeholder sprite).

I would argue that proper physics is important in a platform game. I was never a fan of the characteristic triangular jump in games like Dynamite Dan, and I much preferred Manic Miner's curved jumps. It doesn't matter so much in arcade adventures, as the focus there isn't on precise movements and timing. But when a game involves a lot of platforms and dodging around, a nice jump curve can definitely improve the feel of the gameplay.

I'm glad to see a large diversity of approaches, so I'm glad that not every Speccy game has the same 'perfect' jump. As a fan of naffness, I quite like the triangle jump. I never really thought about it, but now you mention, I'm surprised to see that Dynamite Dan has one. It's an incredibly accomplished game, and includes trampoline bounces and allsorts, but to have the same jump as Farenheit3000??!!

...vid link.

Nice. I guess the exaggeration and base over apex jumps demonstrate that one should forget theory and go with whatever looks good!

[Ast A. Moore]

*doesn't have to be red of course, you can also use magenta

Oh, I don’t know, Dave. I think magenta skews the timing a little bit. Better stick with red.

[R-Tape]

Oh, I don’t know, Dave. I think magenta skews the timing a little bit. Better stick with red.

Bloody hell you're right! I'm no hardware expert, but I guess the CPULA takes longer to find ink 3 than 2 when it sprays the border.



And the less said about cyan the better

[Ast A. Moore]

And the less said about cyan the better

Oh, cyan is just plain evil. Evil, I say!