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OS/2 Shareware BBS: 8 Other
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1995-08-29
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Parallax Dive Demo
Copyright 1995, Greg Ratajik.
CompuServe : 74555,542
Internet : 74555.542@compuserve.com
Voice : (305)/340-7985
(CompuServe is where I provide
primary support)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The intent of this demonstration is to show what parallax
scrolling can look like under OS/2 Warp. I would also like to get
feedback from the OS/2 community, by asking the question "Would
you be willing to purchase an OS/2 Shoot-em-up 2D scrolling game
for between $20-$30, with great graphics and sound?". OS/2 is a
great platform to code to, and it is getting to be a better platform for
writing games. I am interested in writing some games for OS/2, but
would like to get some feedback from you first. Please drop me a
note at any of the above addresses, and let me know what you
think. I also hang out at USENET rec.game.programmers, if you
would like to respond there. I would also be interested on what type
of performance you expereince on your machine. I've got a very slow video
card, yet the demo seems to run fairly fast. Let me know how it's goes
on your hardware.
Thanks!
WHAT'S NEW: The Beta of the game toolkit has been released! It
has the (new) beta of the GAMESRVR, which allows you to view
this demo in full-screen mode. See the readme.1st file for
info on how install the GAMESRVR. To see the demo in Full-
screen, start the demo up, and then press ALT-(keypad)HOME, or
select the "Full Screen" option from the main menu.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I. General.
For the last few weeks, I've been working on an OS/2
side-scrolling shoot-em-up game. Last night, I wrote the code to do
basic background multiple bit-map scrolling (Parallax) I thought the
scrolling made an interesting program in and of itself, so I'm
releasing it as demo. I should point out that it IS just a demo of the
scrolling engine, nothing more. The game it is part of will (I hope)
be out in the next month or so, at least in demo form. While this
demo has a lot of the game code in it, it has been disabled.
I would very highly recommend getting the Lander demo off
of CompuServe, as it has a version of the GAMESRVR that will let
this demo enter full screen (Download DIVEFS2.ZIPfrom CIS forum
GAMDEV, Install the GAMESRVR, start this demo, and then press
ALT-KeypadHome to go into full-screen mode) It makes the game
run both much smoother and faster. (I wanted to include the
GAMESRVR with the demo, but have not got an answer back
yet if that would be okay. If it is, I will include it in the game, and
will re-upload this demo with it.)
I plan on releasing the source code for this parallax demo
after the game has been released. It's fairly simple to do, more so if
you're blitting using the Dive API's.
II. Problems with the Demo.
If you have problems with this demo, please let me know at
one of the above mail drops (I prefer CompuServe or the Internet).
If you notice or run in to one of the below problems, I already know,
so you don't need to send me any mail in regards to it :)
1. The graphics in this demo were made just for the demo.
Another words, they are not very good. The graphics in the game
are being rendered on a high-end graphics system (I hope...), so
should be much better.
2. You may have noticed that the BMP's are fairly large.
The current engine only scrolls an entire bitmap, loaded from a file.
I will more than likely change this to a some sort of tiling. You can
change the bitmaps if you like, but be aware that the palette should
be the same for each bitmap. To sinc the palettes up, you can get
the GBM packing from almost any place OS/2 software is at.
3. The left and right arrows control direction, 1-9 control
speed. Yes, I know, different combinations of this do strange
things. When scrolling left, it's okay, but right tends to be a little off.
I was going to fix this, but it turned out to be a neat effect, so I've left
it in.
4. The code for this demo is %100 in C... so the graphics aren't
as fast as they could be. The released version will have blit routines
that are fairly faster, as they'll be in asm.
III. The Game.
I hope to be releasing at least a demo of the game
sometime soon. The engine that controls it is fairly unique, in that
every sprite on the screen is it's own thread. Contrary to popular
belief, this appears to be a viable approach under OS/2. The
system response and graphics speed stays very fast, even with a
fair number of animating,hit-detecting, moving sprites (40+).
I've been out of game programming for a number of years (I
started on the C-64 about 13 years ago), but hope I'll be able to do
some more in the future. It's intense coding, but a lot of fun.
If I have the time this weekend, I may release a parallax demo
with some sprites, to make it a little more interesting.
VII. Other shareware/PD programs to look for:
(OS/2 Programs I've written over the years)
o EasyPlay - MM/PM program to play AVI, WAV, VOC, FLI, and
any other file types MM/PM uses. Features
the ability to scan an entire drive for
files, and play all lists files. Makes use of
threads for ALL file searching/playing (including
PowerThreads!)
o NetChat - This program allows many users to have Chat
sessions over the LAN. It allows each user to set
up Conference groups and security levels. Each
Conference can have as many users as you want
Chatting. This is similar to CompuServer's CB, or
a BBS's multi-node chat area. (This program is free
when you use QuikWare to register EasyPlay
o NetMail - Improved net massaging (i.e. "Blue Boxes")
This program gives you better control of
system level LAN messages. You can enter message
subjects, set priority levels, and type in longer
messages.
NetMail allows each user to set up their own
message groups, along with global message groups.
Each user can choose which groups to receive
messages from, and what groups to send messages to.
NetMail also let's you choose whether to get
the message in the traditional VIO BlueBox (but
better looking!), a PM Message Box, or to display
no message but to retrieve it at a latter time.
This program makes Net Massaging easier to
use, and less annoying to the recipients.
o DeleteDir - A simple full-screen program to delete a
directory and all files/directories that are children to
it.
o ChkPath - Will check the path's you set in your
config.sys, and let you know if you've got problems.
o Pwh - Path'ed Where. Will search a path for a file. PWH
will tell you every place it hit's the file. Very useful
for checking what version of a program you using.
o MDD - Multiple make directory. MDD will create a
multiple directories (i.e. if you wanted to make
C:\GREG\PROGRAM\SOURCE20\MDD\RELEASE, MDD
could do it in one shot.)
o WHO - Will display information about all users of a
LAN/Domain.
o QWHO - Displays all user ID's currently on a LAN/Domain.
o Vtree - Visual directory tree.
o EDCNFG - PM based program that will verify everything's
okay in your config.sys, keep track/retro changes into
multiple config's, and edit/setup a config.sys
o HPMLib - Library tracking system
o HPMCook - Cooking software
o HPMDiet - Dieting software
o JOGGER - OS/2 Program for runners.
o DosText - Change the message a OS/2 program gives when
running it from DOS.
Program Utilities/Toolkits:
o AniButtn - Two-state animated pushbuttons that you can
easily replace any pushbutton with.
o VidButtn - Just like AniButtn, but will full-frame
animation. (The ones in EasyPlay works exactly like a
pushbutton, but have up to 17 frames of animation!)
o DynoHelp - Dynamic Help toolkit (late '95)
o Pops - Dynamic Pop-up menu toolkit (late '95)