Three Bobs - Game for Windows, Linux and iPhone [Archive]

Relfos

24-01-2011, 02:16 AM

Hello!
After working with C++ for some time, I came back to Pascal, and here is my current project, Three Bobs.
It is about three different cat-balls, each one with a different ability, a mix of a puzzle game and a platformer.
I've been working on it since beginning of this month, and this is going to be a commercial project, since I want to show that commercial games can also be made with Pascal.

Maybe some of you remember the LEAF engine, that I released some years ago, I improved it greatly, and here it is, the first game using it. I'm going to release versions for Windows, Linux, Mac and iPhone, I'm using FPC, both the Windows and Linux versions are already working.
The problem is, I still don't have an iPhone, I need to buy one, and so, I did not start yet porting it, but I've read that FPC fully supports iPhone, and I really hope so, I dont' want to rewrite the game in C!
If anyone here have some experience working with FPC and iPhone (and openGL ES), please tell me your experience.
Also, I'm looking for some pascal crossplatform library (with support for iPhone) for decoding ogg or mp3, is one of the things I'm missing (I'm using OpenAL for sound, but using wav files for music is not aceptable)

Two videos, the first one is a small intro, and the second one, with some gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnhvvkvyIiQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4a--5UDmwk

Please tell me what you think, thank you!

WILL

24-01-2011, 05:42 AM

Hey, what a great looking game so far. :)

Well whatever language you use, you'll need a Mac to compile for the iPhone. No IFs, ANDs or BUTs. There may be work-arounds, but if you want your game working on a physical iPhone or even an iPod Touch, you need the iOS SDK obtained by signing up (for FREE) to the Apple Developer program that will install to a Mac for use with Xcode. This part is a must no matter what language you use.

If you want to use FPC, then that's no problem as FPC has scripts that integrate the compiler with Xcode allowing you to use templates that use the FPC compiler instead and do Object Pascal syntax highlighting instead of that for Objective-C.

So in short, that's your road to the iOS platform. Others have posted Pascal-made apps to the iTunes App Store quite easily. For example there is; Drawn, Hedgewars and Stoney's efforts as well.

Vinzvega

24-01-2011, 06:32 AM

Hi Relfos !

Amazing : Definetely. Technicaly cool and a I love the game design (Scene with barrels is great)
I'm happy to know you come back on Pascal Scene with leaf : I liked play with few years ago. Improved engine is yet available ?

Good luck for the commercial road !

Ñuño Martínez

24-01-2011, 01:07 PM

Nice game. I hope we can play with it soon. :) Will you sell Linux versions of the game? There are very few commertial games for Linux. :(

And I want to see these improvements to your LEAF engine too. May be you remember I asked for it some time ago. Will you release it for free?

chronozphere

24-01-2011, 05:02 PM

That looks really nice. Colorfull graphics. Me likes! :)

A few tips:

Some people may find the bouncing noise annoying after playing for a long time. Maybe you can change it to make it less obvious, or play different sounds for more variation. Also, when you are inside a building, it would be nice to have thick walls. Now they are just simple poly's. You might also want to replace your explosion particles with more transparent ones. You can now clearly distinguish the different particles.

I noticed every object has a shadow. What kind of technique do you use for shadowing?

Keep it up. Would love to see more! ;)

Relfos

24-01-2011, 09:29 PM

Thank you all for the replies! And is really nice to know that others already released games for iPhone :)

Hi Relfos !
I'm happy to know you come back on Pascal Scene with leaf : I liked play with few years ago. Improved engine is yet available ?

And I want to see these improvements to your LEAF engine too. May be you remember I asked for it some time ago. Will you release it for free?
I'm still thinking what to do about the engine, I'll probably release it to the community in the future, but for now, I just use it for my projects, afterall, I spent years working on it, so I want to make good use of it before giving it for free. Also, what I've seen of other projects like GLScene, everything is component based, and my engine doesn't use any components or forms, it is 100% non visual code, so I don't know how much interest there is for a engine like this.

Nice game. I hope we can play with it soon. :) Will you sell Linux versions of the game? There are very few commertial games for Linux. :( Yes, I will release if for Linux, is true there's few commercial games there, so that's one of the reasons I'm investing some time porting it :)

I noticed every object has a shadow. What kind of technique do you use for shadowing?

The engine supports both shadow mapping and shadow volumes (the latter is the technique used in the video). One of the nice things of this engine is that it scales the features automatically based on the hardware it is running, so on a high end pc it makes full use of GLSL shaders, and on weaker pcs, it just uses the old openGL fixed pipeline.
The engine even runs on Nintendo DS, however the lack of floating point and only 4mb of memory makes the game unplayable there.
Also thank you for the tips, I will look into it! The explosion itself is not alpha blended because I was trying to achieve something similar to the explosions on Zelda: Wind Waker. I probably need to sort the particles to avoid the popping, maybe then it looks better.

WILL

25-01-2011, 04:32 PM

Yes, I will release if for Linux, is true there's few commercial games there, so that's one of the reasons I'm investing some time porting it :)

Hmmm should I ask if it'll be likely that I can eventually play your game on my Mac? :) If the code is already Windows/Linux compatible, I can't see why it wouldn't compile for Mac OS X if you had access to one. It would even take you one step closer to getting the game onto an iOS device.

Relfos

25-01-2011, 05:13 PM

Hmmm should I ask if it'll be likely that I can eventually play your game on my Mac? :) If the code is already Windows/Linux compatible, I can't see why it wouldn't compile for Mac OS X if you had access to one. It would even take you one step closer to getting the game onto an iOS device.

Yes, it should, and will run on Mac, I'm going to buy one next month, so I can start porting this to both Mac and iPhone :)

Relfos

01-04-2011, 09:58 PM

I'm here again with some more news about this project.
It is already running on Windows, Linux, Mac and iPhone, I'm now thinking about supporting Android in the future, but sadly there's not much info about FPC + Android around yet.

Here's a new video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rltPN1bX6LA

Traveler

02-04-2011, 10:38 AM

Wow. this is looking quite good. The music is odd though, it sort of works, but it doesn't seem to fit this type of game imo. The sound effects go nicely with the music though. Whereas the bumping sound in the last video tends to be a bit annoying after a while, it's much better in this video.
I also like the newer graphics. It's more colorful this time.

Keep it up!

WILL

02-04-2011, 07:17 PM

Relfos

12-04-2011, 11:58 AM

Lookin' good Relfos!

A lot of work has obviously gone into this so far, especially if it's already supported on multiple platforms. When you say iPhone do you also mean there will be an iPad (or universal iOS) version too?

I can see some neat cell-shading you've added to the graphics no? Works well for visual effect.

Let us (me especially) know when this game goes out into the App Store or goes on sale. :)

I don't have an iPad for testing, but it should work fine, I think.
And yes, it has cel shading, fully implemented on the CPU, as the game does not use shaders.

For anyone interested in beta testing the game (if you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad), there some positions open, signup here
http://bit.ly/gpGMnT

code_glitch

12-04-2011, 04:18 PM

Hey will, you aren't saying you have an iPad do you? Damn I wouldnt mind an iPad2. Reminds me, I might get my hands on one of the first gen ones for next weekend, just for the weekend, but hey; lets hope I don't get converted to the apple side also now; Ive been from Win32 -> ubuntu 9.x -> SUSE -> ubuntu 10.10+ so hooray. Personally I prefer APT over YUM (no wars please).

Just a thought relfos: how much CPU power does an iPad have compared to a desktop CPU? I should think the A chip from apple is quite hot on its' tail right? I remember they make some killer ARM chips still, right? Oh, and what library is this written with or is it stand alone from the ground up?

cheers,
looks nice.

Relfos

12-04-2011, 04:41 PM

I think the iPad 2 has a 1.2ghz dual core or something like that, so it is quite good.
About the game, it is written in a custom pascal engine, with some bits of objective-c for the iOS port.
I will probably release a comercial license for the engine later, as lots of people have shown interest in it :)

code_glitch

12-04-2011, 06:39 PM

Nice stuff then, might look into that after all, and a dual core ARM chip? Thats some heavy stuff.

Relfos

09-05-2011, 03:15 PM

Hi again!
There's a new video of this project!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xrRQuZ4dBs
The game is almost finished :)

Vinzvega

29-05-2011, 09:18 AM

Hi Relfos !

Very happy for you ! The game looks awesome, gfx is great :)
You have find designer for charachers ? :)
--> Have you a web site for this game ? or a mailing list outside PGD ?

second little question :
I would love to make cross plateforme code on iphone with fpc, I took a look to fpc site, but no more for instance.
What is your experience about cross dev with fpc in this field ?
Is it difficult for a pure object-pascal man ? :))

by, and good luck for commercial road. :)

Relfos

29-05-2011, 10:10 AM

Hi Vinzvega!

You have find designer for charachers ? :)
Yes, I paid a cartoonist to redesign the characters, they look much better now!

--> Have you a web site for this game ? or a mailing list outside PGD ?
There is a website for the game, is still under construction though. http://sushiquest.net/

second little question :
I would love to make cross plateforme code on iphone with fpc, I took a look to fpc site, but no more for instance.
What is your experience about cross dev with fpc in this field ?
Is it difficult for a pure object-pascal man ? :))

Well, it is a bit difficult, you have to spend lots of time searching for documentation.
In the end my code features a mix of Objective-C and Pascal for the iPhone version, and pure pascal for all others platforms.
I think now there is a way to work in iPhone without using Objective-C, but you'll have to use something called Objective-Pascal, I don't know much about that.

by, and good luck for commercial road. :)
Thank you! :)

Vinzvega

29-05-2011, 02:58 PM

Hi Vinzvega!

Yes, I paid a cartoonist to redesign the characters, they look much better now!

There is a website for the game, is still under construction though. http://sushiquest.net/

Well, it is a bit difficult, you have to spend lots of time searching for documentation.
In the end my code features a mix of Objective-C and Pascal for the iPhone version, and pure pascal for all others platforms.
I think now there is a way to work in iPhone without using Objective-C, but you'll have to use something called Objective-Pascal, I don't know much about that.

Thank you! :)

Nice site ! I very hope you'll have good back on it.

For the cross platefom side (ios), unfortunally, it was my impression, and you confirm it.
technicaly, it is very hard for me, to dig in your path.
So I think I'll continue to integrate stuff on higher level and waiting for less complicated path to ios with pascalobject.

this morning, I'll take your old version of leaf2 (2008) and trying to integrate it on Delphi XE2 (beta5) throught my OO components (www.objectupstudio.com) and, apart char/ansichar and bigindian stuff, that's work well.
:)
--> I try in xe2 by curiosity : see if embeded osx compiler can handle your code.
--> I'm pretty agree with you to not componentize always all stuffs like video game libs, but I think we can find a middle path for it.

Read you soon, Relfos, do not foget to poke us when your game is ready, my ipad on startink block ! ;)

Vinz

WILL

29-05-2011, 06:53 PM

Yes, I paid a cartoonist to redesign the characters, they look much better now!

May I ask you what kind of expense this was and if you don't mind could you send me a PM with their information or how you can get a hold of them or see some of their work? I'm currently looking to shop out the complete remaking of all my Garland's Quest graphics.

arthurprs

30-05-2011, 01:03 AM

Everything looks great, graphics, music, shadows, etc.. :D

Nice work :)

Relfos

07-06-2011, 08:53 PM

Everything looks great, graphics, music, shadows, etc.. :D

Nice work :)
Thanks!

This game was just released on iTunes!
For anyone interested in buying it, here is the link
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/sushi-quest/id441003304?mt=8

Stoney

08-06-2011, 03:02 PM

I'm really glad that another Pascal game has been released for iOS devices.
I'm using an iPod Touch 4 by the way. The game does not seem to have Retina display support.

But I have to say I had some trouble with the game: The menu buttons (in the main menu and level select menu) only work if I click on the text and not the buttons itself. Especially with the main menu this is kind of hard as the text moves quite fast.
Also I was expecting the controls to work the way around (swipe down to move the player down instead of swipe down to move the player up), which let me to believe that the game was broken because the tutorial just said along the lines: "Just move your finger around to move your blob". Also if the player reached a "wall" or any boundary of other kind, swiping in the direction of the boundary moves the player in the other axis. That is a bit off-putting especially when I need to grab an item in smaller spaces and my player blob is unnecessarily moving around. It also seems that not all of my swipes are registered.

EDIT: If you would add an option to invert the controls, that would really be helpful in my opinion.

Relfos

08-06-2011, 03:12 PM

Hi Stoney, thanks about telling your first experience with the game!
I guess the way the input works is really strange, actually it is not about swipes, but you touch the character and the drag the screen around in the direction you want to move.
I really need to find a way to improve the controls, as currently it certaintly one of the aspects of the game that still needs polishing, but I will address that in a future update.
Also could you tell me about Retina support? I have heard that term before, but I don't really know how that works.

wagenheimer

08-06-2011, 05:31 PM

Hi! Congrats for releasing your game!

I noticed that it was translated to Portugal's Portuguese. If you want, I can help you with a translation to Brazil's Portuguese. Portugal's Portuguese is really strange to us here! :P

It still does not supports iPad? I have downloaded it to my iPad2 and it keeps running with the iPhone resolution... It's a 3D game, I think it would be not hard to add 1024x768 support to it.

Relfos

08-06-2011, 06:40 PM

Hi! Congrats for releasing your game!

I noticed that it was translated to Portugal's Portuguese. If you want, I can help you with a translation to Brazil's Portuguese. Portugal's Portuguese is really strange to us here! :P
Thanks, and sure, I'm going to add more languages in the next update. I think I have your email, were you one of the beta testers at testflight?

It still does not supports iPad? I have downloaded it to my iPad2 and it keeps running with the iPhone resolution... It's a 3D game, I think it would be not hard to add 1024x768 support to it.
Probably it is easy, the problem is that I don't have an iPad yet, so I can't test it for now, maybe if I can get hands on one, I will include support in a update.

Stoney

08-06-2011, 07:56 PM

I guess the way the input works is really strange, actually it is not about swipes, but you touch the character and the drag the screen around in the direction you want to move.

Thanks. Dragging works really well, but I honestly I couldn't tell before your post that you needed to drag. :)

Also could you tell me about Retina support? I have heard that term before, but I don't really know how that works.

iPhone 3GS and higher (also corresponding iPod devices) have a resolution of 960x640 pixels instead of 480x320 pixels. (Well, the way its handled internally is that the resolution is the same, Apple just introduced a scale parameter which is set to 2.0 on Retina devices and 1.0 on older devices. That way the application can be designed for both Retina and older devices and higher resolution textures can be loaded on Retina devices.)
Apps which don't support the higher resolution are just simply scaled and look a bit washed-out.

WILL

13-06-2011, 06:54 PM

Just got it for my iPad and I really like the game mechanics. Very innovative. Kind of like a cross between Eggerland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggerland_%28series%29) and The Lost Vikings (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Vikings). :)

I do have some testing advice for you too though:

Lots of little artifacts along the borders of your textures. Will need to clean those up or your players will have fits. :p
Controls are the one thing holding you back. I have to touch and hold my finger down for 1 or 2 seconds to get each guy to move, which is really annoying after a while. I'd rather a D-pad to use instead. Maybe add a toggle for controls in settings?
Swiping is not very accurate either. Though it is sometimes faster, I have to do it each time I move 1 space which is also very annoying after a while or when it glitches and I go the wrong way.
When I click on buttons for options, you are making me click on the actual text, this is hard to do when it's moving and may make people think your UI is unresponsive. Better to use the whole button graphic instead. It'll make for an easier UI too.

429
Screenshot showing artifacts on my iPad

Relfos

13-06-2011, 07:51 PM

Thanks for your advice, I really want to improve those small things that can make a huge difference. Sadly that texture bug still happens sometimes, I have a function that takes lots of small textures and stitches them together, but sometimes it introduces those strange borders. I will try to fix it soon.
More people also asked for a on-screen pad to control the characters, I'll add one.

And yes, you found one of my inspirations, Lost Vikings!
I did not know about Eggerland though, but from what I've seen, it also seems to have similar concepts :)