#1GAM Racing game on the Gameboy – Day 3

A few more developments on the racing game were begun tonight and a change of focus seemed to serve me well for once.

I was having a few issues with the background layer scrolling new tile row correctly last night and they were still occurring today so I just commented out the scrolling code for the moment and instead started on some quick sprites and getting some debug info to help me determine which tiles the car is colliding with currently, all whilst keeping variable usage down (so yeah, I’m reusing variables inside loops more now, yay RAM efficiency!)

Nothing too tough tonight but it’s good to have some more data and in-game debugging more of a possibility!

I’ll probably use the white lines as restore points should you explode off-track. They’ll need regular spacing, but that shouldn’t be too tough to sort out tomorrow perhaps? Updated screeny below, with sprites and X ‘n’ Y coordinates in the window (first 3 characters per line).

Racing game sprites and in-game debugging

Getting back into One Game A Month

So, after a long spell away from it, I’ve signed myself back up for One Game a Month, this means that I’ll start, develop and finish One Game, every month, for as long a chain as possible.

Each month has an optional theme to it and this months is “Home” So, what to make?

Well, I’ve got some gameboy development I want to do and after having posted some pics, I’m going to make a racing game in GBDK with some cunning background scrolling to generate courses. So far I’ve made my initial set of course background tiles, knocked up a quick UI using the window layer and some shonky scrolling going on, pic below.

Scrolling background - left, window layer on the right
Scrolling background – left, window layer on the right

So, where am I at with GBDK so far then?

I figured now’s probably as good a time as any to look through and see where I’m at in terms of features I have working / would like to have working or at least working better.

Gameboy Controller Input

Seems to be all there, but occasionally (rarely) misses tap commands for some reason, I can’t fathom this one out though.

Background, Window and Sprite Handling

kawaaiii
The sprites were still cute, thanks to my lil PHP tool 😀

This has come along really nicely since when I begun my journey with GBDK, to the point where I now have my own tool to convert png files into usable GBDK data and export it out a plain VRAM for usage in other tools.
Whilst the game itself turned out pretty poorly, the tools I developed were vital for Global Game Jam 2016, making sprites of that size purely in 8×8 groups of pixels would be horrendous!

Sound

Sound effects are pretty much there but I’m still without the right method to convert music from a program into byte code and back into a tune on the Gameboy.

Multiple Bank Handling

Seems to be all good, I’ll be doing some crazier bank switching antics in the coming weeks, with an eye into starting and finishing a scrolling shooter, orrr possibly a racing game, it depends on my mood I guess.