sidescrolling game engine
rockbot
Almost there
Jan 14th
[lang_pt-br]É com imenso prazer que damos a partida para a finalização da versão 1.0 do nosso querido jogo/motor estilo Mega Man (Rockman). Em uma longa jornada, nos deparamos com muitos percalços trabalhando no tempo livre de cada um sem receber um tostão, mas muito felizes pelo reconhecimento que o jogo já recebeu, mesmo antes de ter uma versão realmente estável.
Lembranças à parte, o que significa o RC no nome desta versão? RC é sigla para Versão Candidata (a se tornar a final, do inglês Release Candidate), ou seja, uma versão já estável e polida o suficiente para até poder vir a se tornar a própria versão final; o que não é o caso do Rockbot pois planejamos pelo menos mais um RC após este. Resumindo, nenhuma feature nova será implementada, nenhum bug crítico (exceto por alguns específicos de uma plataforma) deve existir até a versão final ser lançada, após o qual, começa o trabalho na versão 1.1 que será basicamente uma versão com melhorias, nada radical.
Um aviso para os usuários Android: por conta de uma limitação no SDK nativo, você deve desinstalar a versão anterior antes de instalar a nova. Estamos procurando a solução para o problema a fim de ser possível atualizar normalmente o app.
Novidades desta versão:
- Todos os estágios foram revisados e melhorados
- Nova versão para Nintendo Wii (obrigado ao Akira Faganello pelos testes)
- Plataformas agora mostram uma animação quando ativadas
- Editor suporta opção “beaten” para msotrar estágios como quando revisitados após derrotadosEditor can swap stages order
- Melhor balanço entre armas e vulnerabilidades
- Correções para o congelamento quando usado pelo Dynamite no jogador
- Correspondência direta entre número de estádio e de arma
- Correções no colorcycle
- Limpeza no código do editor com remoção de ponteiros desnecessários
- Novas imagens para os controles de tela do Android
- Estágios reordenados (o skullcastle#1 era o quinto na ordem)
- Correções para armas não aparecendo no menu de armas
- A arma de congelamento agora dispara projéteis normais após ter sido ativada
- Introdução melhorada
- Final de jogo melhorado
- Melhoria nos tempos de duração da intangibilidade após ser atingido (tanto para jogador, inimigos e chefes)
- Melhor menu de configuração, podendo setar botões e pedindo para reiniciar após mudar configuração de vídeo
Como de costume, o jogo pode ser obtido em nossa página de downloads.
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[lang_en]It is with enormous pleasure that we do the kick off for version 1.0 our our dear game/engine, Mega Man(Rockman)-style. In a long journey we faced several obstacles working on each person free time without any gains, but happy with the acknowledge that Rockbot already received, even without a real stable version.
Rememberings aside, what the RC in this version name means? RC is short for Release Candidate, a version already stable and polished enought to even becode the final release; that is not the case of Rockbot, as we already have plans for a second RC. In short, no new features to be implemented, no critical bugs (except for a feew platform-specific) must exists until the final version to be released, after what we start working on 1.1 that will be just an incremental release, nothing radical.
A warning for Android users: due to a limitation in the native SDK, you must uninstall previous version before installing a new one. We are looking for a solution to this issue, so users can upgrade it normally.
- All stages were revised and improved
- New port for Nintendo Wii (thanks to Akira Faganello for testing)
- Platforms now have some nice animation when activated
- Editor supports “beaten” mode to see how finished stages will look if revisited
- Editor can swap stages order
- Better weapon balance and vulnerabilities
- Fixes for Dynamite when he uses freeze on player
- Direct correspondence between stage-number and weapon-number
- Fixes in colorcycle
- Clean editor code to remove several uneeded pointers
- New images for Android on-screen controls
- Reordered stages (skullcastle#1 was the 5th one)
- Fixes for weapons not showing in the weapons-menu
- Freeze weapon shoots normal projectiles after activated
- Improved intro
- Improved ending
- Better intangible timing after hit (both player, enemies and bosses)
- Improve config menu, ask for restart when changing video mode, change keys.
As usual, the game can be obtained from our downloads page.
[/lang_en]
Hunter’s First Post
Oct 2nd
Hello, I am Hunter Trammell, an artist helping Iuri with his amazing game, Rockbot: Kyoto Evolution!!
Though while I did have fun playing the game, I think I had more fun re-doing the art, and working on some new art.
But again, this game is AMAZINGLY AWESOME. But be warned; the game is as Tough As Nails! Are You?
The Kyoto police-bots are going to win this fight! Even if they lose all of their lives and Health packs in the process.
This game is well-coded, however there are still glitches and bugs to be squished with the Linux Boots.
[I’m a Windows guy, so… yeah..] If you find any glitches in the PC/Mac/Linux or any other ports, please don’t be upset.
Iuri is hard at work on coding this project, and I’m working on the art and my own projects. [Plus highschool]
My Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/hunter.trammell.96
My Twitter:
https://twitter.com/HunterTrammell2
My Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/NitrogenFrozenMoss
I might do a Q&A or something on here later on down the line of Rockbot’s development.
I want to thank those of you who downloaded and enjoyed the game. It means a lot to us at Upperland.
I hope to see you guys very soon. 🙂
Rockbot 1.0 – beta 6 released
Sep 29th
[lang_pt-br]Este é uma versão bastante melhorada principalmente na resolução de bugs em relação ao beta anterior, esperamos que vocês gostem!
Disponível na página de downloads.
Melhorias desta versão:
- Inteligência Artificial amplamente melhorada
- Vários novos inimigos
- Novos logos para Upperland e homenagem aos 25 anos de mega Man
- Game Over quando o número de vidas fica abaixo de zero
- Várias correções e melhorias no editor
- Função parábola para pulos de inimigos e projéteis
- Maior tempo de invencibilidade dos inimigos e chefes quando atingidos
- Maior dano recebido pelo jogador
- Posicionamento usa números reais para fazer diagonal exata para um ponto
- A seleção entre Betabot e Rockbot é feita apenas na opção “new game”
- Melhores créditos no fim do jogo
- Novos gráficos do novo colaborador Hunter Trammell
- Melhor velocidade no Playstation 2 e PSP
- Melhores fundos de tela para os estágios
- Aumentado tamanho do estágio inicial
[/lang_pt-br]
[lang_en]This is a higly improved version over the previous one, with several bugs fixed. We hope you enjoy it!
Available in the downloads page.
Improvements in this version:
- Highly improved artificial inteligence
- Several new enemies
- New logos for Upperland and Mega Man’s 25th anniversary
- Game over when lives goes under zero
- Several corrections and improvements in editor
- Parabole function for jumps ad projectiles
- Higher time for enemies and bosses invencible time after hit
- Higher damage taken by player
- Positioning use float points for exact diagonal to a point
- Selection between Rockbot and Betabot is done only on “new game”
- Better credits on ending
- Better graphics from our new partner Hunter Trammell
- Better speed on Playstation 2 and PSP
- Better stage backgrounds
- Bigger initial stage size
[/lang_en]
Using Editor – Part #1
Sep 24th
Now that Rockbot is reaching the 1.0 version (ETA first semester of 2014), it is time for other people to start making games by using the editor. As, for what I know, this was only used by me, the user interface can be confusing. So I will explain the basics of editing players, enemies, bosses, objects, maps with this tool in hope someone find useful. The posts on this series will not follow the tab order, but a logical one, as there is no sense in creating an enemy without a map to put them.
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Game Properties:
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Name: the name of the game you are creating/editing
Special Item #1: Remember Mega man 2 items #1, #2 and #3? Rush Jet/Coil? Same thing. Pick, between the items you created the one player will be able to call upon selecting on weapons menu. The items can be created at “Objects” tab.
Special Item #2: Same as above.
Semi-Charged Shot: The editor allows you to create projectiles at “Projectiles” tab. You must create one that is the semi-charged and set it here. Why this is here and there isn’t the full charged shot? Because this one is common to all players, while the full can be set differently for each player.
Stage-Faces: Remember the Mega Man 2-10 stage select screen with 8 bosses and later Dr. Wily face? Well, here you can set the icon image for each stage. The stage name is editable at “Stages” tab. For each stage, you set an image.
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Stages:
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A stage consists of three maps, that can be linked (remember climbing a ladder on Mega man and the screen scrolls up-down slowly? This was a map transition) between themselves. The stage tab edit have a name, usually the boss name, and, for each player, two diaglos; one in the stage beggining and another when reaching the stage’s boss. You can set, in this tab, the stage name, boss name, boss face (that will appear on the dialog, not to be mistaken with the stage select face), answer player is where you select witch player you are editing the dialog for – the boss dialog is the same for them all, but the player text is not. Also stage dialogs is used on start of the stage, while boss dialogs is the one used when you reach the boss room to face him for the first time. If a stage is already beaten, no dialogs will be shown, as the boss room is now empty.
Note that boss face can be any face you like, the player can speak with someone else, like a companion or communication center, like in Megaman X series.
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Players:
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Here you can edit some aspects of the character the gamer will control while playing your game.
Name: Player name. This will appear on dialogs the player speaks.
Hit Points: Hotal damage points the player can receive. Default is 28, we recommend to keep this way or lower only, as the game does not support other values much well because of the number of lines in the energy bar.
Has Shield: If the player can use a shield button to avoid being hit by projectiles.
Max Shots: How many simultaneous projectiles from regular weapon (special weapons taken from bosses hay their own limit) the player can fire up at same time in the screen (one one of those vanishes, you can fire up more).
Touch Damage Reductor: The player can take less damage from touching enemies. Minimal damage is always 1, but if the touch damage is 4 and you set this to 1, the player takes only 3 points of damage reduced from his total energy points.
Jump Gravity: This is the value substracted from player’s jump speed each frame he is moved when the jump if going from ground to up, or increasing speed when going down in the jump. Higher values make the jump shorter, while higher values make is longer and slower.
Jump Speed: initial jump speed. You can combine this value with gravity to make a really slow or fast jump. Player with both and find values you like.
Move speed: how fast the character moves. Two is a value similar to Mega Man, higher is faster.
Can Slide: If enabled, the player will slide can can pass small holes of only one tile size where normally the player can’t fit; otherwise it will dash and the player height isn’t affected by the movement.
Charged Shot: The projectile this player fires when fully charged.
The graphics used by the player can’t be set from the editor yet, instead it uses the pN.png file from data/images/sprites folder, where N is the number of the player, eg p1.png, p2.png.
Mighty no 9
Sep 14th
You all know that Rockbot is inspirated by Mega Man (Rockman) classic game series, and I am a big fan of Kenji Inafune, the designer of the series.
So, well, he left Capcom, that later simply killer all Megaman projects, sadly. So, he is now at his own company, and asked US for help! That is it! We can help out to make a spiritual sucessor of Megaman, a game called Might no 9!
So, you can go to Kickstarter page, and donate money to the project, as I already did of course. For just $20 you can get to fund the game and get it for free when it is launched! And more, they will hear US, the funding team, about HOW we want the game!
Cool, isn’t? We could not be happier with the idea, as Rockbot was also created with the same principle: make the platform action old style games alive!
Please, you also need to donate and help! Let’s do something amazing together.
1.0 Beta 5 (finnaly) released
Aug 4th
[lang_pt-br]No dia em que o 12º doutor (Doctor Who) é anunciado, o 5º beta do Rockbot também é!
Peguem na nossa página de downloads enquanto ainda está quente como pão da manhã.[/lang_pt-br]
[lang_en]The 12th Doctor (Doctor Who) is announced, the 5th beta of Rockbot is also announced!
Grab it while hot in our downloads page.
[/lang_en]
No new is good news
Jul 30th
[lang_pt-br]Como o Rockbot é um projeto, basicamente de uma pessoa, às vezes eu preciso tirar “férias” dele, para descansar, jogar videogames e relaxar um pouco, principalmente quando o meu trabalho do dia a dia me deixa sem vontade de programar (leia-se, eu estou em um projeto chato). E foi isto que ocorreu nos últimos dois meses, joguei muito Playstation 3, espaireci e agora, aos poucos estou voltando.
Reorganizei bastante a lista de tarefas pela frente, tornando cada versão beta menor e adicionando um sétimo beta à lista. Estas últimas versões tendem a demorar mais pois eu tenho que encarar alguns bugs que vem desde o início do projeto, e apesar de pouco impactantes, tendem a ser muito difíceis de resolver. Enfim, de maneira geral, o que teremos pela frente é:
BETA5 (DONE): lots of bug-fixes, skull castle stage intro with path indicator, move some classes to sub-folders in project, experimental android port, remove threads, fix dynamic background flickering, centewred-weapon can be destroyed, fixed technobot colorcycle affecting menus, fix crash when leaving game, fix turn in NPCs, add in-game config, a beaten stage can have a different tileset and background, NPC with static background, add weapon support in editor and more, .
BETA5 (Ongoing): stages adjustments, replace copyrighted tiles by free or custom ones, break bosses artificial inteligence into new chain system, add option for PSP to change between fullscreen or windowed, fix for transition screen and dynamic backgrounds, gravity-level for NPCs, destroy NPC centered-weapon by using TNT Flash, editor adjustments and code cleaning.
BETA6: better teleporting stop-method by checking first non-blocking tile (from bottom to top), better ending credits, move drawing methods to draw class, bolts and shop, AI jump-up and jump-down, fix max projectile logic for weapons, setup rock and beta differences.
BETA7: fix for 3rd level of tiles on transition screen, remove build warnings in all platforms, implement different frame sizes in game collision, create spawn-npc AI action, NPC death AI, action, NPC hit AI action, optimize memory usage by using game_data directly when a copy is not needed, new/better intro.
RC1: optimization, reduce memory usage
After 1.0: Ports for Dreamcast, XBox, OSX and Wii; more optimization and code checking with cppcheck and coverity
[/lang_pt-br]
[lang_en]As Rockbot is a project, basicaly, made only by one person, sometimes I need to take “vacation” from it to rest, play videogames and relax a bit, mostly when my day-work leaves me with no desire to code (AKA, I am in a boring project). And that was what happened in the last two months, I’ve played a lot of Playstation 3, emptied the mind, and now, slowly, I’m returning.
I reorganized a lot of tasks ahead, making each beta version smaller and adding a 7th beta to the list. Those last versions tend to be really slower because I have to face off some bugs that are still from the project start and are mostly difficult to solve. Anyway, in a general way, what we have ahead is:
BETA5 (DONE): lots of bug-fixes, skull castle stage intro with path indicator, move some classes to sub-folders in project, experimental android port, remove threads, fix dynamic background flickering, centewred-weapon can be destroyed, fixed technobot colorcycle affecting menus, fix crash when leaving game, fix turn in NPCs, add in-game config, a beaten stage can have a different tileset and background, NPC with static background, add weapon support in editor and more, .
BETA5 (Ongoing): stages adjustments, replace copyrighted tiles by free or custom ones, break bosses artificial inteligence into new chain system, add option for PSP to change between fullscreen or windowed, fix for transition screen and dynamic backgrounds, gravity-level for NPCs, destroy NPC centered-weapon by using TNT Flash, editor adjustments and code cleaning.
BETA6: better teleporting stop-method by checking first non-blocking tile (from bottom to top), better ending credits, move drawing methods to draw class, bolts and shop, AI jump-up and jump-down, fix max projectile logic for weapons, setup rock and beta differences.
BETA7: fix for 3rd level of tiles on transition screen, remove build warnings in all platforms, implement different frame sizes in game collision, create spawn-npc AI action, NPC death AI, action, NPC hit AI action, optimize memory usage by using game_data directly when a copy is not needed, new/better intro.
RC1: optimization, reduce memory usage
After 1.0: Ports for Dreamcast, XBox, OSX and Wii; more optimization and code checking with cppcheck and coverity
[/lang_en]
Finally, beta4 is here!
Mar 31st
UPDATE: Fixed missing links in downloads page, sorry for that 🙂
This long awaited release has been delayied several times for adding support for a new platform, the Playstation portable (PSP) and making sure it is a solid, with few bugs version. I hope the delay will pay off and you will enjoy a great game, that still have problems and is not finished, but is finally taking shape enought for a decent test-run, as now you can finish the game from start, or simply input a password and go right to the final stage 😉
Go to the downloads page, and get it for any of the platforms supported: Windows, Ubuntu 12.10, Linux(TGZ), PSP, PS2 and Dingux (we’ll also try to make Open Pandora packages soon) give a try!
New Features:
- Memory leaks fixed
- Killing NPCs drop items
- Editable colorcycle
- Editable link to final boss teleporter room (one has 8, other has 9 teleporters)
- Editable “can fly” property for NPCs
- Better edition for boss faces on stage
- Do not show empty dialogs
- Editable Artifical Inteligences for non-boss NPCs
- Fix the old scroll-lock (screen not moving) bug
- Disappearing blocks
- NPCs returning after dead when out-of-screen
- Logic in editor for jet and coil items
- Logic in game for drop items
- Save on quit/leave
- Fix sound in PS2
- Can set NPC weapons (2) on editor
- New font, new music, new graphics
- SEVERAL, and I mean really SEVERAL bug fixes
- Interrupt charging on door, death and when leaving stage
- Save Castle stages
- Password system
- PSP Port
- 5 Skull Castle stages (with no NPCs yet)
Known Issues:
- Apebot’s stage is abnormally slow in handhelds
- Using L/R with no boss beaten shows an invalid weapon with skull as icon
- Placing Coil item to your left makes player under it, being not able to move until it disappears
Quick Preview of Beta4
Feb 27th
Boss for the second stage on Skull Castle.
Como beautiful waterfall made with the new colorcycle editor.
Second stage on castle.
Creating the first castle stage. We first edit without any graphics, so we can test it before the hard work of placing individual tiles.
New colorcycle edit tab.
New Artificial Inteligence (AI*) editing tab. You can now control the behavior for all NPCs without messing with the game’s code.
New part in editor: you can now add/edit sprites for a NPC each animation type.
Finished the editing of projectiles.
Beta 3 released (Saint Mary Edition)
Jan 28th
This release is a tribute to all people of the beloved city of Santa Maria (Saint Mary) where I lived for more than 10 years and suffered a horrible tragedy yesterday. Rockbot is with all the families and victimis at his mechanical heart.
Get it, as usual, in the downloads section.
