Lockjaw: The Tetromino Game

Thread in 'Discussion' started by tepples, 13 Jun 2006.

  1. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    LOCKJAW 0.26 is out


    0.26 (2006-12-15)
    • Option to allow game to proceed in the background (requested by Ezzelin). However, Windows doesn't appear to pass joystick presses to the game running in the background. FCE Ultra has what appears to be exactly the same problem.
    • Added Game Boy and NES speed curves.
    • Options and Game Keys are accessed through title screen, not gimmick selection.
    • Option to hide playfield without changing the skin.
    • Rearranged rules section of options to correspond more closely to the sequence of operations for each tetromino.
    • Soft or hard drop set to "lock on release" no longer produces double locks at 20G.
    • Disable initial hard drop when set to "lock" and entry delay is greater than 0 but less than DAS delay.
    • Checks for 4x4 squares top to bottom per comparison with The New Tetris (N64).
    • Finer grained selections in entry delay (requested by matt_hatter83) and lock delay (requested by caffeine). They now are at 50ms increments at the low end.
    • Expanded TGM speed curve to 12 sections. One comparatively slow section at 20G was added to Master before Death-equivalent starts (now Death 0 is equivalent to Master 600, not 500), and one faster section was added to the end of Death based on info posted to wiki by colour_thief.
    • Added H.R. Derby gimmick: Like Marathon, but every line you clear other than with a home run or a T-spin gives you garbage.
    • Ready Go animation is 1.2 seconds, not 2.0 seconds.
    • Preliminary support for Game Boy Advance, with experimental paged options replacing scrolling options.

    Game Boy Advance is now a supported platform. All gimmicks and 20 of the options are present and working.

    OMG I BAL33TED X!!!1111 [​IMG] It's OK, as long as it's fixed.

    By "keypresses", I meant presses on the joystick as well. I don't know how to make Allegro and Windows split the focus between the keyboard-and-mouse-focused application and a separate joypad-focused application. FCE Ultra, an NES emulator for Windows, has the same problem with exactly the same symptoms. If you can program a fix for this, patches are welcome.

    "second screen" eh? There aren't any 2-player DS games that work this way, are there? [​IMG]
     
  2. hide playfield blocks = coolness. home run derby's interesting.
     
  3. Now all we need is a linux port...


    EDIT:

    GBA version bug: some rotation modes display the L J and T pieces 1 line too high in the next column.


    And what happened to the "5, 4, 3, 2, 1" ?
     
  4. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    That should be as easy as the Mac port, provided that any of us 1. has Linux and 2. knows how to compile things from source.

    That one happens in the Allegro version too. Will be fixed next version.

    Right now, the goal countdown is played through the sound effect system, and the GBA version lacks a wav driver. Did you want a visual display of the countdown too?
     
  5. cdsboy

    cdsboy Unregistered

    Like tepples said, a linux port would be easy. If you want to do it yourself i can help you find a guide on compiling in lunux and help you where ever you run into problems. Also I managed to get this version up and running on mac, expect it to be uploaded with in the next few days.
     
  6. Yay!

    Me

    Practically me...


    I need to know what libraries I need to compile this game (specifically their linux names) and which version of gcc I should use.
     
  7. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    They're all listed on the download page: LOCKJAW Download#Library source code But all you really need apart from glibc is Allegro; you can disable the other three libraries in the source code.

    Shouldn't matter too much. LOCKJAW is tested in all these environments:
    • GCC 3.4.2 Windows (MinGW 3.1.0)
    • GCC 4.1.1 GBA (devkitARM R19b)
    • GCC 4.x Mac (ask cdsboy)
     
  8. So... it seems like when you get 210 lines in Game Boy speed curve, the pieces suddenly slow down in the PC version, and stop falling in the GBA version. Is there a reason for this? Also, I was wondering what the entry delay and lock delay values meant on the GBA version. They seem to be from 0-59, which is different than the PC version. Perhaps this is frame delay? What would be a the equivalent entry delay in these values for TAP?


    Hmmm... you've got a point about the Joystick not working on a background window. Still, there's no harm leaving it in as an option. Lots of programs have pause on inactive as an option, and there may be a better reason for this option in the future (recording playback?). I'll let you know if I find out anything about background control, though.
     
  9. Both versions work on a logical frame rate of 60 fps, as do most SMG implementations. In the PC version, actual times are displayed, but a lot of the players know the number of frames they are looking for without knowing how much time that is,


    Feature request: In the PC version, display number of frames as well as a time in the options.


    The timings for TAP (Master and TA Death) is in the wiki.
     
  10. Hmm...

    Not sure which one to get, so I'll get both.


    I can't find jgpalleg on here. Any ideas?
     
  11. cdsboy

    cdsboy Unregistered


  12. This was requested before.


    And turned down with mention of keeping it in msecs with regard to Europeans whose games supposedly run at 50fps.

    And promptly rebutted that nowadays virtually all European TVs and consoles can do 60fps so it's a non-issue.

    And not replied since.
     
  13. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    One simple reason: I suck at that part of the Game Boy version (gravity 1/3G, no lock delay, DAS 1/9G) and can't make 210 lines in order to test the program. Does it get fast again at 220? If so, I think I found and fixed the bug.

    This time it will be fixed, first in the GBA version where I've done an experimental rewrite of the options framework for more generality, then once I port the GBA option screen to the PC version.

    JPGalleg isn't a high-profile library, so it's probably not in Debian, so you might have to compile it from source and static link it into the executable.
     
  14. Did I say I was using Debian?


    Oh, and another feature request, following on from our discussion about the small pieces: A new rotation system that is like Arika, but prefers to wall kick to the left first when rotating anticlockwise.
     
  15. On the PC version, anyway, the pieces started going fast again around 220 in the Game Boy speed curve. So you might have nailed it. If you want to check it, you could always set the Game Boy speed curve and then override the delay and lock settings.


    I started thinking a little about the frame delays: there is already an option to make the lock delay set by the speed curve, but not so for the other delays and options. Clearly, there are more curves, since the other timings change over time in, for example, TAP. Perhaps a more abstract approach to curves would be useful? Curves could be created so that any option could change at any given point in a game (defined by certain criteria, such as lines, score, time, grade, level, etc). These curves could either be made with an ingame interface or perhaps a configuration file that defined a list of conditions that would trigger option changes. Speed could then be changed to a normal option, and then the current speed curves could be defined much like they already are. Then, in the options screen, all options could be set as either default for the curve or overridden. Thoughts?
     
  16. there could be a custom curve, which reads instructions from a text file with precise timings for are, lock delay, etc.
     
  17. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    LOCKJAW 0.27 is out


    0.27 (2006-12-20)

    • GBA version includes a valid header (requested by Ezzelin).
    • Fixed incorrect spawn orientations for Game Boy rotation system (0.25? regression, reported by Lardarse).
    • Fixed incorrect win/loss sound early in 180 seconds (0.25 regression).
    • New randomizer 10-piece Bag, including the domino and both trominoes.
    • GBA version now reports entry and lock delays in both frames and milliseconds.
    • Possibly fixed off-by-one in Game Boy speed curve section computation, which caused an incorrect slowdown in 210-219 section (reported by Ezzelin).
    No, but Google did [​IMG]

    What would it be called? Arika Rotation System Extended (ARSE)?

    Entry delay (ARE) and sideways (DAS) delay are interpreted as maximum values; a speed curve can set it lower. README says of those options:
    The only reason I treated lock delay differently was because I anticipated players turning it down and turning it up.

    Except how would those instructions be expressed? I seem to remember that the speed on 0-199 and 200-399 of Master smoothly increases.
     
  18. jujube

    jujube Unregistered

    Tepples-like the 10 bag randomizer. Maybe a new gimmick for 2.8 with a matrix-style tetris-in-tetris game where you have a domino attached to a tromino spawning from the centre, the next 8 dominos displayed on left and 8 trominos on the right or vice versa. The trominos falling in a random fixed rotation with the dominos rotating and sliding around the tromino until you get the pentamino you desire. Once the entire piece hit bottom the next combined dom-trom would fall. Would be playable with a ps style gamepad:


    Dpad-move entire pent l,r,soft drop,hard drop

    a,b,x,y-move dom to desired side of trom as pent is falling, then same button again to slide dom to different position along that side of trom (hard to explain)

    L,R-rotate dom


    Would probably need extra wide-tall playing field somewhat proportional to tetris 10-20. Thanks for 2.7 very keewwwl
     
  19. You were close, though. It is Debian-based...


    I'll see if I can get it to run through WINE as well, while I'm up here.


    And as for ARSE... I think that Mirrored Arika or Symmetric Arika would be a good name.
     
  20. (ARS is not the preferred term because it was only used in TGM:ACE, where it was rather different than all prior TGM rotation implementations. ARS is a horrible frankenstein mish mash of the SRS and TGM rotation systems.)


    DTET has symmetric TGM rotation. It layers a bunch of stuff on top of it, but it's got the symmetrical TGM rotations as a base.
     

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