[CANCELLED] Marilyn Fan-game Project Thread

[LameGuy64]

Since February 2nd of this year, I've decided to cancel this project mainly due to the lack of interest from the Marilyn fan-base and that I have pretty much ran out of good ideas to add to this game... Sorry if this disappointed a lot of you guys despite the surprising number of views this thread got.

If anyone wants to though, I can release the complete source code of the most recent version of this game alongside its tools and data files if someone else wants to take over this project instead.

Additional details can be found here.

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I've been working on this project since November 2013 but I decided to show it late as my little attempt to surprise you guys ... Man have I grown up so fast.

This is a fan-game project starring an original character named Marilyn created by a fellow dA artist named Kenny Anderson who I'am a fan of his works and original characters. One time I thought it would be a really cool idea to make a homebrew game starring one's original character (preferably Marilyn) and so, this project was eventually born! And I believe this is the first OC based fan-game to be a homebrew game.

Technical Features:

• Fast loading times and clean disc structure
• Compilation-friendly and MeidoMenu 1.2 compatible
• CD-XA music streaming and sound effects
• Supports widescreen mode (doesn't look good on most emulators though)
• Automatic NTSC/PAL selection
• Smooth scrolling
• Parallax background scrolling of up to 4 layers
• Particle effects
• Simple script system for dialog events

Demo video:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v_KjxZavPg[/youtube]

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Download the latest version of the game here:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/rkd9y ... (0.12a).7z

Source code:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/vzsmt ... _Source.7z

[Shendo]

Looks awesome. A huge thumb up And it's nice that you'll implement widescreen.
I ran the proto on PS2, works and plays fine.

I'll be watching this thread with interest.

[LameGuy64]

Looks awesome. A huge thumb up And it's nice that you'll implement widescreen.
I ran the proto on PS2, works and plays fine.

I'll be watching this thread with interest.

With the advent of widescreen TVs and after experimenting with odd screen resolutions, I thought it would be really cool to see a PS1 game have a real widescreen mode and is probably something no one has done before.

And I'm glad you're interested about this project.

[t0rxe]

The game is coming along nicely
Sony has a widescreen example under the Psy-Q samples directory.

[Shendo]

Yeah, a few games had widescreen modes (Colin McRae Rally and Pac-Man World come to mind)
but it was not that common. I remember playing Pac-Man as a kid and wondering what
this "widescreen tv" option is, it makes everything squashed .

Recently I replayed the game and I was really glad they added the option.

[bizarro2011]

congratulation, you have my vote.
but ,this year will be difficult.
soon my project.

[LameGuy64]

I thought of doing daily updates about this project to keep you guys interested. Well, I've recently implemented 'object entities' such as coins and power-ups as well as projectiles with collision detection:


Here's a complete sprite sheet of Marilyn in various power-up forms:
http://rgbaguy.deviantart.com/art/A-Bun ... -426652914

I'm going to implement some fancy particle effects for the fireballs soon.

[LameGuy64]

I have now implemented particles (using pseudo-translucent GsBOXFs):

I've also optimized the code a bit and compiled it with the -O2 switch as it was slowing down badly in widescreen mode and have changed the controls to feel a bit floaty like in the Super Mario Bros. games.

Now I'll be adding some test enemies.

[mrhaboobi]

Looking forward to this, and excited to see the code, especially if well documented

[Shendo]

If slowdowns occur because of the number of sprite objects on the screen there is an easy fix to this.

It happened on my Sokoban game also.
I have 2 layers with 19x16 grid consisting of 12x12 sprites and with bigger maps
it started to be slow (2 VSyncs needed to draw everything).

So I changed that behavior and instead used VRAM2VRAM copy function
to construct stage and a single sprite object to plot it on the screen.

After that everything was flying because instead of possible 608 sprites on screen I have only one.

Hope this helps

[LameGuy64]

If slowdowns occur because of the number of sprite objects on the screen there is an easy fix to this.

It happened on my Sokoban game also.
I have 2 layers with 19x16 grid consisting of 12x12 sprites and with bigger maps
it started to be slow (2 VSyncs needed to draw everything).

So I changed that behavior and instead used VRAM2VRAM copy function
to construct stage and a single sprite object to plot it on the screen.

After that everything was flying because instead of possible 608 sprites on screen I have only one.

Hope this helps

I think that only applies to single screen tile maps... Mine is a full-blown side-scroller with 1 variable sized foreground layer and 4 32x16 background layers so using that method is just plain impractical. Compiling with the -O2 switch already gives it a 35% performance boost making more than 600 fast sprites possible to draw without getting a frame rate drop.

[LameGuy64]

Whoa! Kinda lost track of posting updates... But anyway, I've now implemented some test enemies to play around with and breakable tiles:

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I've also implemented a fairy character named Meibi who you can use to destroy breakable walls and hit enemies with. Not only that, you can also switch control to her for reaching hard to reach places for a short period of time which I haven't implemented yet:

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As for the technical side of things, I've developed 2 pack file formats under the extension names QLP (which stands for Quick Load Pack) and PCK (which just stands for PaCK). QLP is for loading several small files in a single read request which is a lot faster than loading several small files individually while PCK is for bypassing the 30 file per directory limit and to keep the disc look neat and tidy but each PCK file can only hold up to 85 files... I'm going to release the tools and libraries for creating and using QLP and PCK files once the competition is over.

I may release another demo of this game by the end of this week.

[LameGuy64]

Just released a new demo for you guys to enjoy! Download link is in the first post of this thread.

[Shendo]

Cool, I like it. Funny FMV also. Game works nicely.
The only complaint I have is that character slides too much which makes precise movement kinda difficult.

[LameGuy64]

The only complaint I have is that character slides too much which makes precise movement kinda difficult.

I'll address that in the next release...

[Administrator]

I feel a DTL-H2000 going your way LameGuy64 for the competition...

[LameGuy64]

Man its been like forever since I last made an update post, its kind of difficult for me to post updates of this project frequently and I'm currently working on this full-time so I can get it ready for this year's CodeBlast competition...

Well, I've now made a real first level of the game that takes place in Marilyn's home town (Urbington) which mostly acts as a prologue and tutorial level:


I've also added a simple script driven dialog system too:


As for the technical side of things, I've greatly optimized the background drawing code as I've finally figured out how to use the GsSortFastBg() function. Also, I greatly restructured and split the game's code into several files so it'll be easier for me to manage the code and I also made it cross-platform development friendly as I'm planning to port this game to other platforms which I'll be doing once I'm done with this PlayStation version.

I feel a DTL-H2000 going your way LameGuy64 for the competition...

[Shendo]

Keep up a good work. The game is shaping up really nicely.

[Administrator]

Version 0.12 still doesn't play XA audio on my SCPH-5502.
When I get my DTL-H2010 CD-ROM drive, I can start debugging because I am also seeing VSync timeouts.

[Techdisk]

Version 0.12 still doesn't play XA audio on my SCPH-5502.
When I get my DTL-H2010 CD-ROM drive, I can start debugging because I am also seeing VSync timeouts.

I have my own SCPH-5501 with a modchip that I literally got yesterday, and the current version works perfectly fine, music and all.

XA audio does mean the game music, right? I'm kinda new to this homebrew thing; I bought my PS1 second hand not knowing it was chipped and downloaded this once I found out because it looked interesting.

On the game itself, it's pretty awesome. The platforming is quite fun, and though some people might not like how "floaty" Marilyn is in the air I find it works well. I kind of liken it to how Luigi is in the GBA version of Super Mario World.
I have noticed a bit of a problem with pressing up; while it is cool that Marilyn actually looks up, it stops left and right inputs completely while up is being held down. I had a few cases where I was running along but suddenly slid to a stop because I had accidentally nudged up on my controller.

Also, I gotta comment on the Cave Story music in the demo levels, because that's kinda awesome, and how Meibi is a Nimbi from Super Paper Mario, which is also kinda awesome.