Lockjaw: The Tetromino Game

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

  1. Guest

    Guest Unregistered

    [​IMG]
     
  2. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    That will happen once I make the macros configurable.

    Next version displays two decimals.

    A few issues:

    1. The player could have the Up physical key bound to the Rotate Left virtual key and the Down physical key bound to the Up virtual key to simulate Microsoft Tetris for PC. In such a situation, using virtual keys in the menu wouldn't work.
    2. Having the rotation keys navigate the menus would also close debrief() if the player tries to continue playing. That's one reason why I put in the game over animation delay. (And there's actual animation in the next version.)
    3. Would the menus use Rotate Right for start and Rotate Left for back (like on the DS and Japanese PS2 games) or the other way around (like on the Xbox and U.S. PS2 games)?
    If the menu keys should be customized, it would need a separate set of menu key bindings like StepMania uses: Menu Up, Menu Down, Menu Left, Menu Right, Menu Back, Start/Pause.
     
  3. sihumchai

    sihumchai Unregistered


    By DS, you mean Nintendo [​IMG] Yes, A for start, B for back. And I also play using Gamepad, joy2key.
     
  4. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    So what button would one use for pause, exit, etc.?
     
  5. Pause should not exist in any serious competitive game. (IMO)
     
  6. i'd say set a new button for quit altogether.
     
  7. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    Not all cases of game play are "serious competitive"; most are casual. Players have solved the logistic problem of same-screen multiplayer pausing in a casual game since Street Fighter II and Tetris Attack on the Super NES, and LAN pausing on Game Boy games. Internet play shouldn't be paused, of course.

    Macro for 20 hard drops? I'll probably just hardcode Esc to the pause menu.


    Now available: version 0.05

    • Included readme.txt.
    • Debrief report shows more decimal places in time and PPM.
    • Game over plays a simple animation and sound.
    • Playfield can be stretched (with a recompile).
    • Removed hardcoded key binding help text.
    • Window is bigger in preparation for wallpaper.
    • Display mode is 15/16/24/32-bit in preparation for wallpaper.
    • Added Low Rider gimmick:
      Standard Tetris with an 8-block-tall visible playfield.
    Download LOCKJAW program and Allegro 4.0 DLL
     
  8. i like the new mellow colors. can't wait for skin support. everything seems pretty solid. great work.


    still no winamp support. =/
     
  9. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    What exactly do you mean by "winamp support"? Does Winamp misbehave while Lockjaw is running?
     
  10. yeah. the music shorts out when i have lj focused. though radioblog works fine. i'm not sure what's the deal.
     
  11. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    It screwed up in Winamp once for me, but I couldn't reproduce it. I did go investigate reducing the program's CPU use though.


    Anything else you want to see in the next version, other than a custom JPEG background?
     
  12. custom playfield background, custom blocks, custom shadows, etc. ;] why jpeg, though? wouldn't bmp or png be more accurate? macro compatability, keypresses per tetromino stat. weird how winamp works for you. i'll see what i can do. also, i'm not sure exactly what the functionality of the decreased next tetrominoe's sizes is exactly. seems like you have enough room now to make them all the same size. also, why do some appear centered, and others left-aligned?


    btw, low rider's pretty cool. i forgot my record though.


    oh yeah, along with custom background, what about custom sounds?


    edit: okay i think i know what the problem is. lockjaw takes up 99 of cpu, despite it's low mem usage, so task manager's telling me. i think once it gains focus, winamp stops playing. same with other programs.


    edit2: just made a 44.86 on 40line. wohoo. 137ppm
     
  13. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    In.

    EDIT: In.

    Most users seem to want a photoreal background (JPEG), not a cartoon background (BMP/PNG). It appears that a lot of the existing 800x600 pixel wallpaper images on the web are JPEG.

    Exactly how would you define a macro? And how would macros work for players with a USB gamepad?

    In.

    It's iCandy.

    Even with expanding the score and putting player 2's field up?

    Tetrominoes whose bounding box is 3 blocks wide will be left-aligned, while others will be centered. A lot of other Tetris brand games and SMG clones' next piece displays have the same behavior, including Tetris (GB), Tetris Blast (GB), Tetris 2 + Bombliss (Famicom), Tetris Plus (GB), Tetris DX (GBC), TGM3 (arcade), and DTET.

    I got at least 60,000.

    With the Allegro Grabber (search for grabber.exe) you can edit the sounds in lj.dat.

    I've fixed much of that.
     
  14. photoreal/cartoon? the difference i was concerned about was that they're both pretty much the same, except jpeg's compression leaves less predictable results. clutter pixels, if you will. i suspect most wallpaper's in jpeg b/c of jpeg's outrageous compression.


    was thinking in terms of double rotate and 10g das seperate buttons. i don't know how it would work for usb gamepads.
     
  15. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    Except photoreal images tend to have more fine detail that hides JPEG artifacts better than line art's flat areas do.

    I can hardcode those in the next version until I figure out how to specify a completely custom macro for each vkey. (EDIT: done.)


    137ppm scares me. How far can you get in Rhythm?
     
  16. yeah i guess background's fine. really i think i'll probably just use black anyway, but i'm afraid that the jpeg format will make it less then black (like black, but a few different shades in some clutter at different places). really it's just important that the actual blocks and such don't use jpeg.
    nahhaa, i'll make a video eventually. i think i will once i hit 37 seconds, that's my goal right now. in rhythm, i just lasted 252 lines.
    you're the man, or rather, a programming god.


    you know, i think this low rider mode might be a really good exercise, as being able to keep the stack low is very important.
     
  17. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    JPEG uses 16x16 pixel macroblocks; any flat area that fills the block won't get DCT-cluttered.

    Custom blocks use .bmp, either 256-color or true-color.

    My skill pales in comparison:
    [​IMG]
    (adds demo recording to the to-do list)

    I'm no god, but I am the man now dog.

    In fact, that's what all the gimmicks from the first post are: the seeds of etudes.
     
  18. did i hear demo recording? oh man-- this is too great.


    3.54kpp!? come now, tepples-- we need to work on this.


    have you considered tpm/kpt instead of ppm/kpp? just thinking about quadra, since it uses ppm for points per minute.
     
  19. tepples

    tepples Lockjaw developer

    In what way? Two shifts, one rotation, and one hard drop is already 4 keypresses.

    Where did those measures originate? Tetrinet, right? Googlefight! tetrinet ppm = 11,600; tetrinet tpm = 150

    That gave me an idea. Garbage per minute: in.
     
  20. in cultris, i can manage 2.7 key/block, and cultris is really awkward since it's backwards srs. has to do with never moving a piece more than twice (not more than once in i's case), by knowing when to kick off walls and when to once-back off walls. it also has a lot to do with not back tracking and changing your mind. learn kpp before ppm, in other words. (i still feel tpm/kpt sounds more accurate, especially since you use the term tetromino in the debrief, and not the term piece).
     

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