Radish Engine (SMBX Engine Remake)

[warioeagle]

Going to post a quick summary of plans/changes since the original post a well as a check list of stuff being worked on or planned to be worked on (will change frequently as stuff is done or added).

Summary: My SMBX engine remake, code named Radish or Radish Engine, is being worked on in Game Maker 8.1 and may be moved to Java depending on how customizable GM8 will let the engine be. Currently working on the gameplay engine with the editor coming later.

Placing this in spoilers to limit space in case the list gets too long
Checklist (Green is done and working, red for working but needs tweaks, default/black for planned):

Demo:
Basic movement: walk/jump/duck/looking up
Spin Jump: No duck jumping as spin jump will be like the butt stump of current Mario games or drill jump of Marissa World where down in the air will spin and make you go down faster
Running
Power up sprite change: Tested with fire cactus. A bit tedious, but very simple
Power up projectiles: Fireballs, ice balls, hammers, etc
Power up physics change (IE: floating/hovering)
Swimming (both sprite and physics change)
Flying: Decided to add this, but limited to multiple jumps at full speed, meaning more like SMB3 than SMW's game breaking flying
Ice/slippery physics: Everyone loves ice levels, right?
HP system: Like Zelda/SMB2 (US version) with hearts that can be upgraded with 3 by default

Other gameplay elements:
Moving parts: Moving platforms and layer 2 shenanigans
Coin store: Power ups, health refills, extra lives, etc here
Dragon Coin store: Health upgrades, possible abilities unlocked (Undecided on spin jump being unlocked or not)
Bought pathways on the map: Extra levels for completionists, bonus levels for coins/stores, shortcuts, etc

I'm probably forgetting something, but I'll add it as I think of it.

Original post here:

After seeing the trouble Terry was having with replacing graphics and a brief discussion about remaking the engine, I've decided to just that. This is a big project and I will need help with ideas and, in the far future, testers. Any programmers that will like to help with code ideas will be helpful too.

Here's a list of features I hope to implement into the new engine:

• It's going to be written in C# as that's what I have most knowledge of.
  XNA will also be used as updating my graphics driver made it possible. (Possibly concreting the engine to Windows, sorry Mac and other OS users)
  SMW physics over SMB3 physics. (Possibly a way to modify per level)
  ASMT/A2MT graphics/music by default. (The ones from the replacement thread)
  Easier way to replace graphics. (Similar to SMBX, but nothing hard coded)
  Easier way to replace music.
  Level editor with a way to change/create your own intro.
  Way to add blocks/NPCs/effects and have them work.

I'll update this list when I come up with more. If there's anything else people would like to see added to the list, let me know and I'll add it.

Here's a few questions I'd like some opinions on:

Graphics: Shall I make them individual sprites or follow many games and making them sprite sheets that change location per animation (Both SMBX and SMW do this)?

Sizes: Shall I make these easier to adjust as well? This will be done by adding a file with the replacement saying the new height and width of the sprite and hitbox.

Sizes2: There are characters (or at least just Link) who are always big in SMBX. Shall I keep this in the new engine, make all the characters have small forms, or make this adjustable too like in the previous question?

Please note that most of these questions are for future reference and don't mean instant progress. I hope there isn't a problem with this being here. If so, could it be moved to the proper place?

[kil3]

XNA will also be used as updating my graphics driver made it possible. (Possibly concreting the engine to Windows, sorry Mac and other OS users)

Surely they're used to it by now.

[warioeagle]

Would anyone consider it cheating if I used the XNA Platformer Starter Kit as a basis for starting? That takes away most of the frustration of figuring out physics and collision, but will still require work to dial in the physics how I want, make animations work the way I plan, etc.

While the starter kit would be an instant boost forward to the realm of testing, I'll still need to work hard to get the game to work how I want. It is most of the hard work done though and it'll allow sooner demos of the engine to be released.

[Aposke]

Would anyone consider it cheating if I used the XNA Platformer Starter Kit as a basis for starting?

Whatever helps your cause man.
I'm glad to see that someone's started working on a new engine, maybe Slynk will join as well (I'll direct him to this thread)

[warioeagle]

maybe Slynk will join as well (I'll direct him to this thread)

If he can help with C#/XNA, I'd like the help. I'll share the engine with him and maybe split up some of the work. I think if handle correctly, I can have a coder or two help me out.

[Slynk]

Just checked my email. I'd love to help ^^ I have a lot of XNA/C# experience. I recommend finding an open source xna platformer engine to make as a base for the project. If you use the platformer kit, you'll probably just bloat the project.

Here's one: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cgidotnet/

It's 3.1 based so it'd need tweaking. But get the kit too, just for a good reference.

Your questions:

Graphics -- Doesn't matter. You can always use XNA's tools to batch the images into a sprite sheet later.

Sizes -- XNA's very lenient with image sizes. Keep them scaled to world size though. (Don't make a tiny mario image and then make a giant goomba... unless you want a giant goomba but you know what I mean.)

Sizes2: Don't include any copyright infringing content. Let the user break copyright laws ;) If "they" want to set playable_character2.image="link.png" let them XD

Don't know how much time I can dedicate to this since I'll be going back to school in august and I'm desperately looking for a job but I'll try to help. ^^ Also, Sony might come and rip my hard drives out of my pc for leaking some ps3 encryption keys so if I disappear...

[warioeagle]

Just checked my email. I'd love to help ^^ I have a lot of XNA/C# experience. I recommend finding an open source xna platformer engine to make as a base for the project. If you use the platformer kit, you'll probably just bloat the project.

Here's one: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cgidotnet/

It's 3.1 based so it'd need tweaking. But get the kit too, just for a good reference.

I can't download it. I see no files to download. If you can link me to the files, I'll check it out.

Your questions:

Sizes2: Don't include any copyright infringing content. Let the user break copyright laws ;) If "they" want to set playable_character2.image="link.png" let them XD

I didn't mean the sprite. I didn't plan to use actual Link. I'm going to use the graphics Terry uses in his SMBX replacements. I meant the always big part (Link being the example). Should I have a character with no small size/hit box?

[Slynk]

Apparently the project's been removed. Lame : /

As far as hitboxes go, just let them be definable dimensions that the developer can set per power up. A powerup can be a programmable instance of a given character with its own image, hit box, and attack script.

[warioeagle]

Well, graphics and dimensions I was going to let the player adjust. I also thought about letting physics be customizable (gravity and such). I don't know about making the power ups themselves be customizable is a good idea though. That may be pushing it a little much.

I don't have a huge amount of experience with C#/XNA, so I'm basically going off the starter kit right now. If you have code snippets you want to share for certain things, then feel free to share them.

[Slynk]

Just some thoughts as to the structuring the project:

You'll want an editor (obviously) that's a windows form with an XNA control object (it's a little complicated to set up... unless the stupid tutorial has been finally updated. Seriously took me a day to convert the 3.1 tutorial to 4.0 and even then it worked only half the time XD)

You'll want a game skeleton that doesn't get edited. This should get copied to a project folder when making a new game with the editor.

You'll want to think ahead of time as to a scripting solution. Apparently C# can be used itself as a scripting language. I've never used it as such but it's worth looking into.

Look at the XML+XNA tutorials. You can easily define levels, enemies, message boxes, etc in xml files.

Just some things to keep in mind ^^

[warioeagle]

Made something for people interested in the project to follow the progress without me having to spam to forums with ever little update. I'll make it look better later. I just want a place to keep people informed on the engine.

http://warioeagle.wordpress.com/

Also, make sure to check it out in case I post an update video there before posting it here. I plan to post videos whenever Slynk and I make significant progress. A video should be coming soon to show the physics in action.

[Slynk]

I'll be updating my progress here:

http://coderslynk.blogspot.com/

^^

[Patashu]

Can LUA support be added to C#/XNA? If so then you can have outside users program their own sprites based on your engine's API.

I envision something like an update() method you'd fill in using LUA, methods you could use to see what's on screen e.g. getPlayerX(), getSurroundingBlocks(), stuff to look at sprites etc then methods you could call to notify the engine of what you've changed like your sprite's new position, any sprites or events it's raised (you'd make every sprite and event possible to generate enumerated so they can be called in a globally uniform way of course!)...

[warioeagle]

I believe you can do your own sprites. As long as the sprites are evenly spaced in the sheet and you keep the order the same, I think it will still work. It's like SMBX in the way that the sprites must be in the same order, but I don't think size matters.

For example, Terry gave me a sheet of Demo and it worked, but was too small. I doubled the image size and it still worked with no change to the code.

[Slynk]

Can LUA support be added to C#/XNA? If so then you can have outside users program their own sprites based on your engine's API.

I envision something like an update() method you'd fill in using LUA, methods you could use to see what's on screen e.g. getPlayerX(), getSurroundingBlocks(), stuff to look at sprites etc then methods you could call to notify the engine of what you've changed like your sprite's new position, any sprites or events it's raised (you'd make every sprite and event possible to generate enumerated so they can be called in a globally uniform way of course!)...

That's basically the idea I'm going with, except we'll just use C# as the scripting language.

The XNA way is to have objects, including the game itself, have these functions:

constructor
Initialize()
LoadGraphicsContent()
Update()
Draw()
Unload()

So you just have an object manager that loads objects, updates them, and draws them. Pretty simple. I'll have to think of some sort of exposure system. As it is now, objects wouldn't have exposure to the player class or the tile map etc XD

[warioeagle]

Just a small update on the engine. I got the basic physics working (jump, spin jump, walk/run). Still need to fine tune it to SMW physics, but that shouldn't be too complicated. Once it's all fine tuned, I'll work on stomping, squashing, and bouncing on enemies as well as carrying objects, assuming the same physics can be used on enemies and items. The first video of the engine may have "dumb" enemies (ones that just walk off cliffs), but it'll be progress nonetheless.

[raocow]

Wow, surprised this is going pretty fast!

[Aposke]

Exited to hear more from this!
Meanwhile, I'm working on converting the music from ASMT (and later A2MT as well). So far I've converted 12 songs from their .spc files that some users have uploaded, but the majority of the songs used in ASMT are in .txt format so I'll first have to convert that into .spc by using ZSNES and then convert that into mp3 again.
It's pretty annoying but it works I guess---

[warioeagle]

This may sound like an odd request, but what about sound effects? Currently, I'm using SMW sound effects (found the wav files somewhere), but I'm not sure if I should keep them. Would Nintendo care if I'm using their sounds? More importantly, would someone be willing to make replacements?

Since I'm hoping this engine and editor will replace the no longer updated SMBX, I don't want to run into the same problems SMBX was rumored to have. Not sure if something as small as sound effects would do that, but you never know.

[raocow]

I suggest we replace all sound effects by a different guitar strum.

[warioeagle]

If someone wants to take on the task of making new sounds, I invite them to try. Any standard file playable by Windows Media Player can be used (mp3, wav, wma, etc).

For testing purposes, I'll keep the SMW sounds and some graphics that haven't been replaced yet, like blocks. Using SMW blocks will help me determine how the physics are working. While it's not a perfect measurement system, it's easy to compare how my engine works to SMW by watching how many blocks pass when jumping/gaining a full run/etc.

I was also wrong about enemies. The starter kit I'm using as a basis already has enemies smart enough to not just run off into the void. Shouldn't be hard to make that an option depending on the enemy. The first enemies will be simple ground walking enemies though. Hopping, flying, and swimming will come later.

[rubberfishy]

game sound effects made easy:
http://www.bfxr.net/

it's really fun to play around with too even if you don't need any sound effects.

[raocow]

oh my god there's a random button ahhhhhh

[warioeagle]

Well, having some trouble with the run, guys. It's kinda instant run instead of slow build up. I'm working on it though. All jumping and walking related stuff is working though. May skip running for now and work on squashing/jumping/spin bouncing enemies.

Before that, I have a question for experienced Mario players. I know squashing (making an enemy dust via spin jump) can't be jumped off already. When normal jumping off an enemy, how strong is it compared to a normal jump off the ground? I'm assuming just landing on them will bump you up a block, but what about holding the jump button? Same goes for spin bouncing. Probably a half a block or so by landing on them, but what about holding the button?

For reference, tapping jump is 3 blocks, holding is 4. Spin jump is one less on each. That's how it appeared when I tested in SMW and that's the guides I used in my engine.

[raocow]

http://tasvideos.org/GameResources/SNES ... World.html

There is some pretty precise data in there, unfortunately there doesn't seem to be anything about jumps. Still, it's a place you can keep in mind I guess?

I still think it'd be neat if the sound effects where more organic, like guitar strums or whatever. We're not limited by snes technology here peeps, we should make USE of that factor!