Green Onions - The I-Ching Saga

[Ñuño Martínez]

I had to create this thread a lot of time ago. My fault. :(

In my new job we created a small game studio, and I'm near to finish the first game. Of course, it is programmed in Object Pascal and using my Allegro.pas (http://allegro-pas.sf.net/) port. 8)

The game title is "Green Onions - The I-Ching Saga", and it's based in a comic book by my pal Iván Sarnago (http://www.ivansarnago.com/). First beta was presented in a retro-event in my town a few weeks ago, and they liked it a lot.

Here you have "the Grandmother of All Dragons", the final boss of the game.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVKW7I_WcAIj5Jm.png:large

As you see, it's a retro game. I'm using the MSX-1 specifications as guide, but it is not a perfect simulation. ::)

[farcodev]

Pretty neat :)
Reminds me some shooter on Amstrad ;)

[Ñuño Martínez]

Pretty neat :)
Reminds me some shooter on Amstrad ;)
That was the idea: an old school shooter. So, if you see that, then we did it correctly. :D

I was improving the graphics: Better backgrounds, better score bar and use of multicolor-texts. The last was possible on MSX due the way it stores the video images (Much like ZX but different), and several games used it that way.

Here you have the new intro screen:

http://www.piopiojuegos.es/imagenes/proyectos/goiching/pantallazo-1.png

Now I'm working on the configuration dialog/screen. You can see more screen shots in the official web page (http://www.piopiojuegos.es/juegos/goiching#pantallazos).

[Rodrigo Robles]

This really looks a MSX game!

Man, how I miss my old MSX...

[paul_nicholls]

Nice work man! :)

[Ñuño Martínez]

This really looks a MSX game!

Man, how I miss my old MSX... Me too.


Nice work man! :) Thanks.

Today, the development is in a halt, because we're working on the on-line shop and other stuff needed for the business. But game is almost finished.

[Matthias]

Great old school style :-)!

[Ñuño Martínez]

Hey. I'm still here.

The game itself is finished (including installation script), but there's no publishing date yet. :(

Anyway, few people has tested it and they liked a lot. :)

[Ñuño Martínez]

How can I express how frustrated I am? Not about the game but about the customer.

He insisted to add one more stage an a bonus stage. That forced me to change some internals of the engine (my fault because I created a custom engine that isn't very flexible) so bugs arose everywhere. Now it doesn't work. Also people told me that Allegro 4 has issues with Windows 10 (some stuff don't work).

I think that I should rewrite everything creating a more flexible engine or find a yet created engine that I can use. Anyway I did a very bad work here. :(

[de_jean_7777]

How can I express how frustrated I am? Not about the game but about the customer.

He insisted to add one more stage an a bonus stage. That forced me to change some internals of the engine (my fault because I created a custom engine that isn't very flexible) so bugs arose everywhere. Now it doesn't work. Also people told me that Allegro 4 has issues with Windows 10 (some stuff don't work).

I think that I should rewrite everything creating a more flexible engine or find a yet created engine that I can use. Anyway I did a very bad work here. :(

Often small changes lead me to break everything in a project. Hopefully you manage to find a decent engine or create a better one. Wouldn't say you did bad work. It's ok for the intended scope, it's just that the scope got bigger.

[Ñuño Martínez]

It was hard (I'm under emotional and psychological illness, long story) but I recovered an old copy, I made it run and I've modified some stuff that should make it easy to add the new stages without breaking it out again. Wish me luck.

[turrican]

Nice game, my friend. Where can I buy this?

[Ñuño Martínez]

There's no release date yet, just a "completion date". Game will be released when the customer open their comic store. I hope in two months.

Also, I'm not sure how much it will cost. It may be for free, but that's not a promise.

[turrican]

Customers, customers... The black in the sky.

Finally if customer denies to open the comic store, have you considered Steam Greenlight?

[SilverWarior]

Finally if customer denies to open the comic store, have you considered Steam Greenlight?

Since the game was made for customer it is customer's decision of where and when will or will not the game be released.

[Ñuño Martínez]

Just what SilverWarrior said.

Anyway, the game will be show this week-end in a local computer event. I'll tell you.

[phibermon]

Hope the game goes down well at the event :)

[farcodev]

Good luck! ;)

[Ñuño Martínez]

Thanks.

I've just finished the game (Release Candidate 5). The last boss is almost impossible. I hope they like it.

[Ñuño Martínez]

Hey, Green Onions is back.

It was long. So long that the game became unplayable in current systems (mostly Windows10) so I have to rewrite it before release (I think we'll beat Duke Nukem Forever record :D).

I was working for some time porting the game to the latest MinGRo version, and I'm being very careful to not enter in a development hell as I did with the previous one. Current MinGRo has some flaws and lacks but it is quite more stable than the one I used in the first incarnation. It is being hard to resist the temptation of modify MinGRo to fix it, but I had to minimize such modifications to severe bugfixing only and document any other flaw to work on it only when game is finished.

There's still a lot of work but I must finish it this month. I can use the old one to copy code or use it as a template for the re-implementation so it isn't as hard as it was.

[Ñuño Martínez]

Duke Nukem Forever ghost is flying around...

A lot happened (personal and professional), time goes by and the game is still under development (yuk!). I'm streaming the process, that is helping a lot to keep me in the mood, so if you want to see how Pascal game developing looks like, and what's the actual process, go for it (https://www.twitch.tv/piopiojuegos/videos). Mostly in Spanish though.

[paul_nicholls]

Well good luck mate! :)
cheers,
Paul

[Ñuño Martínez]

Thanks Paul. :)

So I can say the game is finished :triumphant: But can't publish it yet because all the hair that appears only when the project is about to be released. You know. For example, game backgrounds that are quite bland (except level 5 (http://www.piopiojuegos.es/imagenes/juegos/goiching/pantallazo-4.png) one) so I have to add some detail to them.

Anyway, here you have the "You Win!" screen to celebrate:

https://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=1565&d=1615986831


Attachment:
1565

[Jonax]

Congratz to the win :)

[de_jean_7777]

Yeah, always when a project needs to go public you become aware of all the issues :D Looks cool.

[Ñuño Martínez]

That's it: The game was released!

It was on Saturday that I uploaded the installation program for Windows to itch.io. And several people downloaded it. And even donated some money! :o

I planed some updates because the release was pretty chaothical. Mainly is to add the English user manual, the English language to the installer (the game has English texts) and use the bundle so the icth's app will be able to manage the game without an installer.

So if you want to get it, here you have (https://piopiojuegos.itch.io/goiching).