25+ years late to the party... but was it worth it? A billion % YES!

Having never been to a demoparty before, it was about time I did. Being my first I really had no idea what to expect, I mean NO idea.

OK I've been slack with the Amiga 68k assembler over the last couple of years, but it's still in my heart. I've seen plenty of demos on YouTube, and even watched comps live, but really had no idea what the whole experience would be like.

Nova 17 - Budleigh Salterton, UK's only demoparty

I'm lucky enough to live about 2 hours away from the venue, and being UK's only demoparty, this year I thought I'd try my best to get there. The stars and moons aligned and I DID!

On arrival with not 100% sure if I was at the right place, I was quickly reassured when I saw like minded people hanging out at the back of the hall. With a quick glance in the venue I could see the arrays of old school hardware lined up on the tables.

Announcing to the small group outside it was my first time, the friendly faces soon set me up with what I needed to know. Find a spot and settle in for the ride. I knew only one person that would be here, and that was DJ h0ffman, a regular on the demo scene.

So what demo did I submit for comps?

OK OK, so in an ideal world, I would have loved to have worked on my first ever Amiga demo. Realistically, I'm still in such early days with Amiga dev, this was going to be impossible. When I confirmed I was attending the event, time already wasn't on my side to be producing anything half decent to enter competitions with. Again, being new to the scene, I wasn't sure on what was expected from a demo, how the comps even worked, nothing really.

I saw there was a 'Wild' entry point, a comp that didn't have any limitations. I've been currently been working a lot with Augmented Reality recently, and had a small idea I could possibly get together in time.  I made a start. The idea would be to use the Amiga 500 floppy startup image as an AR marker image to kick off a demo in AR. Built in Unity, I found and bought some 3D assets... Amiga 500, floppy disks, Commodore Monitor, tank mouse... these would be my props that appeared in the AR experience. The demo would then see Amiga related demo/game items appear, e.g. the Amiga bouncing ball demo starting on the screen and then breaking through it's boundaries, bouncing around the virtual AR Amiga and monitor. I wanted Lemmings to drop from the sky and start marching across the hardware.  Sine wave text shooting through the sides of the monitor's display. Nothing spectacular, but this would be my nod to the Amiga and demo scene.

Unfortunately, with time already not on my side, my work load increased leading up to the party, and I was left with a started project that just wasn't going to get finished in time for Nova 17. Instead I've decided to carry on with this side project after the party and get it to a great place where I can submit it to a comp at some point in the future!

So what did I do?!

With the mindset of not submitting anything this time around, I pretty much sat back, absorbed the vibe, and was constantly entertained with the conversations and activities going on. Work and family life have been to the max over the last couple of years, and I rarely get a chance to work on my own side projects. I started a game idea at the start of the year, so I used my time over the weekend to make further progress with the game. It was such a great environment to get my head down and code for passion, rather than trying to hit deadlines and fulfil client's requirements.

EDIT: - This project turned in to my first published game on the Google Play and Apple App stores... PingIt 1984 http://pingit1984.com

back to the party...

I have to say what an amazingly friendly place it was. Many people introduced themselves to me, and when I wanted to find out about the kit they had brought along, everyone was happy to share and talk about their love. What really hit me about the party was how everyone was just so friendly. I guess a whole room with like minded people fuelled with a passion of old school computing combined with a party atmosphere, good times were had by all.

The heads down of last minute tweaks and pure passion went well in to the nights. I ended up each night finding a quiet corner and crashing on an air bed and sleeping bag. With events like these, you don't really need sleep, you're fuelled on passion and the energy of the people around you.

So was it just Commodore Amigas?

NO! I think Amiga was probably the most popular hardware there, but there were also Atari STs, ZX Spectrums, BBC Micros, old gen consoles... The absolute highlight for me, it was the first time I'd seen a Vectrex in action, in real life!

One of the comps this year was a homebrew beer competition. Sure enough there were 2 kegs of homebrewed beer for us all to help ourselves to and eventually vote for.

Beach Bacon

It's tradition for the party on the final night, after the comp entries and the party music is turned down. The group head down to the moon lit beach with a mini music blaster, cool beats and a mega pack of bacon. A spot is found down the beach not to disturb anyone and bacon is cooked on a camp fire which is distributed in white baps amongst the group. The setting and chilled beats are a perfect finish to the long day.

The results are in...

On the final day, people rise and start to mingle for the last time with old and new friends. Jack Box was fired up on the large screen and was a great way for the whole party to have some final fun as we waited for the results to be called out. As the results were announced it was great to see hard work recognised and generally a lot of fun reflecting over the weekend.

After an awesome weekend of fun it was time to set off home to reality. I didn't know what to expect before the weekend, and left with passion, inspiration and new friends. I really do hope I can make it regularly over the coming years. And HECK maybe I'll even submit a demo!!

Were you there? Do you wish you were there? Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd

Porting Nimble Jim over to the OUYA, easy enough? Of course it is!

So last November I got involved with the #SpeccyJam event and entered my game Nimble Jim for Windows, now it's time for the OUYA...

Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd

As you'll know we only had a week to produce a game in the style of a ZX Spectrum game which could run on any platform. Because it's my favourite language I wrote my game in C# and the easiest platform to get up to speed quickly is Windows. Even though it was rushed, I actually designed my code structure to be as generic as possible with the mindset of porting to other platforms. This meant I could actually choose different game engines to display and my main game code wouldn't need to change.

Because of speed and the opportunity to port to multiple platforms I chose XNA/Monogame to render my game. Actually the game I finally submitted was just XNA for Windows. As time was tight I just didn't get a chance to test or submit the game on Android/Linux/OUYA, so stuck with Windows.

That was a few weeks ago now and it's been bugging me that I didn't get a chance to produce for different platforms. So I managed to get a small bit of time over the winter break to have a bit of a play with MonoGame and the different platform options.

Port the game to mobile devices?

From past experience I know it actually takes a bit of time to get the controls just right for mobile devices playing games. People like Orange Pixel have really nailed it with their mobile games, (http://www.orangepixel.net/). Yes I managed to create an Android project and it ran my code on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4), however at the moment in my code I've only got checks for key presses for the Windows version.

The OUYA

I was one of the original backers for the OUYA KickStarter project, hoping I'd have the console months/weeks ahead of launch to get familiar and start coding for it. OK there were delays and only received it a couple of days before launch day which has left a bitter taste in my mouth. STILL, it's a console, and a console I can easily port code to!!

So I have mixed feelings about the OUYA, but essentially would love to produce a game for the OUYA console. In MonoGame they have a project template for the OUYA, oh wait, I wrote my code using MonoGame :) Just create an OUYA project just like the Android project I thought and away I go... no... there's a few hoops to jump through first!

Hoops?! What hoops?

I'm just going to give you a brief run down of the steps I took to get working on the OUYA, but please visit here: https://devs.ouya.tv/developers/docs/mono-game for more details and will probably be kept up to date with changes.

First of all you need to sign up to be an OUYA Developer on the website: https://devs.ouya.tv/ this registers you and lets you download the latest OUYA Development Kit ODK.

Make sure you download the latest MonoGame build. There are more up to date branches of the code, but I used the latest stable release (MonoGame 3.0.1 for Visual Studio 2010). I can't remember if it's included with MonoGame or part of the ODK, there is a more up to date OUYA library to use with MonoGame, you just open the solution, build, then copy the output to a safe location and reference your project to the new library.

Connect your OUYA to your PC via USB cable, I've seen online a few people have had problems with windows not installing the driver straight away. I'm using Windows 7 and it updated drivers as soon as I plugged it and didn't have any problems.

I did have to update Google USB drivers .inf file with some OUYA information. I also had to add a line of text to the ADB USB .ini file so that the ADB manager could see the OUYA console. I wont go in to detail here, but all the details you need can be found right here: https://devs.ouya.tv/developers/docs/setup

Lastly make sure your OUYA is setup for developer mode in the Advanced Options, this will allow for it to communicate to your PC and deploy apps etc...

Those are the setup steps I took. Back to my Visual Studio project, I found I have to Rebuild my project and then Deploy which sends all the files over to the OUYA and installs them. Then I can hit the Play button and my game almost instantly starts playing on the OUYA!! At the moment this only seems to work in Debug mode, when I try Release mode, it deploys but won't run from Visual Studio. I have to go to my Play menu on the OUYA and I can see my game in the menu options where I can run it.

I hope this has all been useful for you?! I made a quick video giving the overview here:

Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd

#SpeccyJam is over - Nimble Jim submitted!

Finally got my #SpeccyJam game packaged up and submitted. What a week!

Took me a while, but finally came up with a name, Nimble Jim. I think the name fits perfectly for a tongue in cheek ZX Spectrum platformer. I also took some time out from coding to knock up a cheesy loading screen:

I thought some of you might be interested in how I put this together so here's some screen grabs of my steps. As you can see I'm no pixel artist, I'm just a coder. Instead of asking one of my talented artist friends to collaborate, I wanted to keep as authentic as possible as so many Spectrum games where made by 1 man bands.

You can see that initially I just flushed out roughly the elements I wanted and the composition. When it came to drawing Jim I wanted him to be full of action, so I Googled a cartoon character running, dropped on to a layer in Photoshop and roughly traced the shape. It actually came together surprisingly well. With the text I used a couple fonts and turned off anti-alias settings to get a true pixelated look. I did still have to go in at pixel level and tidy up any dodgy letters.

It felt very odd to put a domain name on the splash screen, I almost didn't, but if domain names were about in the old days I'm pretty sure they would have had them on the loading screen so I kept it in.

I left the colouring towards the end of the process, you'll see that I used many guides to block out 8x8 pixels. As we all know the limitations, only 2 colours were allowed per 8x8 block. If I had more time I probably would have moved/redrawn some of the items to take advantage of the colour blocks. I also would have improved the ghosts, but hey.

Cramming in features like there was no tomorrow

As I got closer to the deadline, my brain was exploding with new ideas to add to the game. Knowing the time limits I had to be strict! Stuff I HAD to nail:

• Finish full game flow, and make sure it was water tight.
• You can see from above that I managed to get a cheesy loading screen in to the game.
• The ZX Spectrum border, yes I got this in, even flashed with game play events.
• Sounds! OK so I started with a native computer BEEP sound, but this wasn't compatible with platforms other than Windows. So I downloaded a BEEP wav, put it in to Audacity and made some simple sound effects. These were dropped in to the game and played on events, e.g. enemy spawn, killed, pick up item...

Anything else is a bonus

Having got in the above anything else was a bonus, here are some other features I managed to get in:

• More maps! I was able to knock out 5 basic maps, my code just reads a text file, so it's so easy to produce new maps.
• Enemies, I wanted to expand the enemy types and make each level interesting, even though the ghosts are cool enough for a basic game ;) So I added:
• Spikes which are static items, but over time the spikes raise and lower to make the player think about their timing.
• Bats were also added which just have a simple horizontal path, they seem simple, but they do catch you out!
• A BOSS! Yup I managed to squeeze in a basic boss level, he's big and all he does is jump in your direction. Sounds easy enough to beat, but you have to time your running and jumping!
• Scrolling text, yup I went there.
• ELEVATORS!! I was so happy I crammed this in, ability to add elevators to maps. Not only does it change how the player navigates the map, but also the ghosts!

Lets take a quick look

Here's a video of what I submitted. To make it more watchable, I used cheats to move through the levels quicker ;)

DOWNLOAD IT NOW

Here's a link to download the game I submitted to the #SpeccyJam:

DOWNLOAD GAME

Only available on Windows, extract the 2 files then launch the EXE file.

Conclusion

WHAT A GREAT WEEK! THANK YOU #SPECCYJAM!

Please check out all the other entries here: http://www.speccyjam.com/games/, there really are some great games here.

... and you can check out Nimble Jim's very own page here: http://www.speccyjam.com/games/nimble-jim/

OK Nimble Jim isn't the greatest game in the world, it's just a tongue in cheek effort, however I've been really inspired making it. It's been great working with limitations, and seeing all the other efforts for #SpeccyJam. Looking through Google + YouTube for ZX Spectrum games has brought back so many amazing memories, and I'm sure it has for everyone else.

30 years on, I spent a lot of my childhood playing games on the ZX Sepctrum, it was only until this week that I realised the Spectrum only used 15 fixed colours. I think this is proof that the games created back in the day had so much fun, engagement and creativeness.

What's next??

There's some unfinished business here... I had so many ideas I wanted to get in the game, now the jam is over I really want to try them out. That's right you haven't heard the last of Nimble Jim! My aim is to put together 50-100 levels, and then launch the game on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and the OUYA.

Something I would love to do is actually port Nimble Jim to a true ZX Spectrum, yup learn machine code for the awesome machine and get Nimble Jim running where he belongs! Then... maybe produce Nimble Jim 2 in the style of an Amiga game?! Watch this space!!

Please download my game and let me know your thoughts, be honest! Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd

#SpeccyJam progress after day 2/3

The game is well under way now, and it feels good

Been too busy coding for #SpeccyJam so I didn't get a chance to blog end of day 2, this will be a day 2+3 super combo. Right lets get to it...

Day 2

After day 1 I had a very simple game mechanic and render engine, I had to now get to the nitty gritty and start getting the whole game structured.

Short video of Day 2 progress:


The areas I covered:

• Basic states to the game manager, menu, level start, playing, end of life.
• Points scored for items collected.
• Started to manage the HUD, top bar and also 'press key'/'level00'.
• Improved collision detection and introduced lives.

Day 3

Absolutely buzzing and raring to go, I've managed to squeeze time in my lunch break and after work keen to get this game nailed!

I covered:

• The player now has to collect a number of items to progress to the next level, 10 feels like a good number, but kept it at 5 for now to speed up test time.
• I introduced the different game states on Day 2, and today I implemented using them to feedback to the user. When the player collects all the level items, or if they collide with the enemy, I now flash the screen to inform the user.
• NEW LEVEL MAP! Day 1 I wrote a routine to load in map data from a text file, today I was able to quickly slap in a new level map. Not the most exciting of levels I know, but the level maps alternate as the player progresses through each level.
• Refined the scoring, 10 points per item collected, then the player gets the remaining time on the clock as points when they complete a level. They also lose 50 points for losing a life.
• Probably the thing that I'm chuffed about the most is that I introduced a new enemy with simple AI. Same as the old enemy except that it now makes a decision to jump when they reach a drop, or if they've been walking for too long. I introduce them from level 3, and it really takes the game up a step.
• Added 2 frame sprite animations to the player and enemy. I also flip the pixels depending on if they are moving left or right.
• Finally I migrated my code to use XNA/MonoGame with the vision of hopefully deploying to Android, OUYA and Silverlight later in the week to make it easier for others to play.

Where am I? Lets sum it up

It's only end of day 3 and I'm very happy indeed. I started off not knowing if I would have time to enter the #speccyjam, and it's turning out great. I genuinely find the game fun and playable. I sometimes catch myself playing it trying to beat the levels when I'm supposed to be testing a feature. It probably just shows how sad I am, but hey, retro gaming is in my blood.

Not sure if I'll be able to get any time tomorrow for progress, but here's some stuff on my mind I want to get done soon:

• I need to add more maps for other levels.
• I would like to add a tongue in cheek splash screen.
• Add the classic ZX Spectrum borders.
• Add additional enemies, ones that travel horizontally like a bullet or a bat. And maybe one that travels vertically like lava dripping down the map.
• SOUND! I would like to add sound, I've started to add classic BEEP sounds, but they wont work on anything but a PC so I need to find myself a wav clip to use.
• If I get time I would like to make an Android version which will require adding touch screen controls.
• OH... AND I NEED TO THINK OF A NAME!!

Thank you #SpeccyJam, so far you've made my week!

Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd

I'm having a go at... #SpeccyJam !!

Making a game in the style of a ZX Spectrum game. Can't wait!

That's right, I'm taking a step back from the Amiga dev briefly and I'm making a game for the #SpeccyJam, my first ever jam! The game can be written on any platform, but must be as close to a ZXSpectrum game as possible.

So where do I start?! The jam is only a week long, fitting it around my family and day job, time is tight! Here are the rules: http://www.speccyjam.com/rules/.

Choose a platform... any platform...

My platform of choice is simply a Windows Form application written in C#. I would normally use Unity3D which I highly rate for developing pro games, however, the ZX Spectrum has a unique graphics display. The screen is made up of 32 x 24 attribute blocks, each block is 8x8 pixels. The tricky part is that each block can only display 2 colours at a time from a fixed palette of 15 colours.

If you're not familiar with ZX Spectrum games, then you'll not be aware of the crazyness that happens when sprites clash colours. Personally, unless you can implement these GFX rules, then I don't think it's a true ZX Spectrum replica game. This is why I stepped away from Unity3D and went down the Windows Form route, I felt I would have more control over rendering the screen. Also if I get time, I can just migrate my code to use MonoGame (XNA using Mono), and deploy to multiple platforms like Android, iOS, Linux etc...

Now for the game itself

I don't have a lot of time so it has to be simple. Many hours/days of my youth were spent playing Chuckie Egg and Manic Miner, these are true classics so will use these as my insperation. Not entirely sure where I'll take the game yet, but will be a simple player with a static level(s), collecting things, whilst bad things chase the player.

Day 1:

And we're OFF! First things first, I needed to nail an engine for displaying all the sprites on the screen as a base then build the game upon it. The way I achieved this was to draw the sprites in Photoshop using 2 colours, white + black. These are loaded in and I read the pixels storing them in my own data structure as rows of bytes for each attribute block. Each block has 2 colours, for Paper and Ink. This means I can chuck pixels around my data structure, and my engine will draw the pixels with the correct colours.

Next I built a map engine to read a text file describing a list of 8x8 pixel sprites to use, their colours and their position on the screen. Now this is in place, it will allow me to load multiple maps/levels with ease.

ZX Spectrum has a distinct font, so I drew each character as 8x8 sprites, using the same data structure I was easily able to chuck text on to the screen.

Finally on day 1, I needed a basic character I could move around the screen using the keys. As the map information was already implemented, I was able to quickly add very basic gravity and physics collisions with the scene. As I was on a roll I was able to duplicate the player code to use as a bad guy which ignored the user input. For good measure I quickly put in a collectable sprite, which I rotated through the limited colour palette ever frame, to try and make it look like it was flashing.

Quick screen shot:


Here's a quick video to demo my day 1 progress:


So that was day 1, really really happy with progress. I have the basis of my game, so I can just spend the rest of the week beefing it up, and hopefully make a game not only in the ZX Spectrum style, but actually FUN!

As I write this, I'm actually on day 2, but I've run out of time, so I will blog my progress tomorrow and through out the week.

Comment here or get involved on twitter: @rich_lloyd