On a tech note:
1)
Given the imposibility of using a proper 3D engine (because on-rails shooters works better with 3D), i decided to use a small trick you might found interesting:
2D Skybox.
You see, what you see on the screenshots are not proper 3D, but different images distorted by panoramic shots:
Spoiler
There are 4 pictures taken there: North, South, East and West.
I setup a scene in Blender, and i render only 4 faces: North, South, East and West, and merge those 4 pictures together. When the whole picture is complete, I send it to SB as a BG (GRP5) and zoom it in. With that, I can archieve the illusion of perspective, on a weird way that's it.
The cons is that, given the compression, it will look grainy and objects and enemies can be too obvius to see. Just look at the screenshots i made. This con can be fixed if I sacrifice 360º turns in pro of more resolution.
Other one is that it won't look too good with heavy-detailed enviorments, IMO. I haven't made heavy-detailed scenarios, but I can easily imagine what the result would be.
2)
Following
this guide, i managed to import several sounds that comes very handy: Gunshots, ricochets, enviorment sound like Glass Breaking. However, there's an important note you guys might be interested:
If the sound is too short, SmileBASIC
will play the sound twice or 3 times before stopping. To avoid that behavior, you have to add "junk" to the array you're parsing to WAVSETA, so the system can "detect" that the sound is more larger that it really is, so it won't play the sound more times than needed. Using
PUSH <array>,128 should be enough, however, you need to push several times, so you may want to run it on a FOR loop.
While the rhythm of the west life didn't lie on the edge of a gun, it wasn't without it's complications... On the shoulders of the fathers lies a heavy burden: The burden to protect in middle of wilderness...
This game is for the 2017 End Contest. Is an first-person on-rails western shooter, done in a similar way as light-gun arcade games! In this arcade game, you fight against mercyless gangs while exploring the old west searching for your beloved ones. Show that you're up to the expectations and draw!
Top: North and East; Bottom: South and West
This gives me more space to compress the image, and therefore, more quality. Still looks grainy, but is way better than the previous method.
However, i had to rearrange the BG tiles so i can have the illusion of 360º turns, and modify the animation coordinates, since the result is too big. If i zoom out the BG, you will see this:
What is happening is that i draw the whole GRP5 on BG layers, then i copy the bottom and place it alongside the Top picture, then i copy the BG result and paste it more futher. You never tend to do a real 360º turns, because that would require to warp the BG layer in middle of an animation, and that would be bothersome. However, since this is an on-rails shooter, you will only see what i want you to see.
Also, i added new statements for the DATA: Now you can load a different BG in mid-game. But this is going to change on the future, since i want to use GLOAD instead of LOAD. (I load a chuncks of BG, save them on an array, and paste them on GRP5 in mid-game).
And last one, that i forgot to mention: I have a test level ready! Includes enemies (more like idle targets), dialogue and animation, just like a on-rails shooter!!!
NOTE: Spanish text is still untouched. This will change obviously.
When the armors are gone, the hearts are revealed. Hearts are the main life you have, and all the metrics are based on it. The difference with the Armor is that Armor can be recovered, but not hearts:
Text could change in the future.
