Some proof-of-concept game demo stuff

[Virmir]

Hello!

Below is the result of me playing with game editor stuff for the past few days. Can I get some folks to test this out? At this point I basically want to know if this thing actually works (nicely) for other people.

http://urocyon.virmir.com/rpg/VirmirRPG.zip

HOW TO PLAY: Just unzip the file anywhere and double click on "engine.exe" (or "engine").

ARROW KEYS - Move around
SPACE - Talk

You can't really do anything much but walk around and talk to Virmir-Clone and Virgeta.

Basic things I'm interested in:

Does it work?
Does it work well-- is it laggy or jumpy or anything?
Does it lag your computer in any way at all, or cause any funny things to happen?
Is this an okay-sized window to play an RPG in?
Can you hear the music?

Thanks!


If you're interested, I made this with Sphere RPG (site is down at time of posting... )

[Dragyn]

Sure, I'll poke it for a bit.  I'll update my post here afterwards.

EDIT:

Well...it runs smoothly (I found the FPS meter...my machine ran it at a varying number of frames between 60 and 90, so no problems there).  So yeah, no lag here.

I personally prefer a larger window, but it wouldn't be the first game I played around that size. I just like to use the whole of my screen.

Music played, was clear, no skipping.  (Kind of a short track, but it's proof of concept. :P). 

And I racked up 102 talks with Virgeta before I decided it was an adequate test. :P

So yeah...let's see more, Vir!

[Selden]

No problems here.  Music comes through loud and clear, there's no lag and the window size is okay.  Looks promising!

[Geary]

Full screen certainly needs to be an option. 

[Virmir]

UPDATES!

I've uploaded what I have so far!

http://urocyon.virmir.com/rpg/VirmirRPG.zip

HOW TO PLAY: Just unzip the file anywhere and double click on "engine.exe" (or "engine").

ARROW KEYS - Move around
SPACE - Talk
ALT - Menu back/cancel key
ENTER - Bring up the main menu
L - Change party leader

New stuff:

Pressing ENTER brings up the main menu. You can't do much, but I have most of the skeletal stuff done, which means I'm now in a position to make it actually do stuff.

Pressing L switches your party leader (who you walk around as). Lucile has been added to your party.

I decided to go with a 4:3 aspect ratio because making it widescreen just felt wrong. The vertical height has therefore been increased to match.

If you wish to make the game full screen, you need to run the separate "config.exe" file in the install directory. Don't switch the driver DLLs. Click on Configure Driver and check "fullscreen".  This will run the game full screen (at 1024x768), but since you are probably on a widescreen monitor, the image will be stretched.  If you don't like the stretched image, you will need to add padding to the sides to fill it out to the closest resolution your video card supports.  This is probably going to be the following

16:10
You want to pad to 1280x800, so add 256 horizontally and 32 vertically.

16:9 (Newer monitors)
I think you want 1280x768, so add 256 horizontally and 0 vertically.

If people want to verify the above, it would be helpful. Obviously it is unacceptable to ask people to do this nonsense for the real game, so I will look into making some preset values in an easy switch or something.

Thanks for all the feedback, folks!

[Dragyn]

Perfect timing!  I just got my laptop back yesterday (right before leaving for my familial New Year's celebration), and set it back up today.

Alright.  Testing, here we go!

Lucile!  Functional, and switching rapidly back and forth doesn't seem to have confused Wandering Virmir, in that he continued to give Lucile Lucile captions, and Virmir Vir-captions.

Next Test:  Fullscreen!
Uh oh. 
That...didn't work at all.  Checking the Fullscreen box in config.exe > Configure Driver gives me a major bug.  The starting Virmir chat box appears, full screen, and pressing Space does close it...but I have no control once it loads up the world.  I can see grass, trees, and Player Virmir, but pressing the arrow keys doesn't make him move--instead, I get a little chirping noise (which sounds a lot like an error beep).

So...I'm not sure what that means.  Anything you want me to try?

[Dragyn]

Hmm...further investigation reveals that the sounds I hear are, in fact, the Menu navigation sounds.  The game seems to be running underneath the visible layer...it's just not updating my screen.

[Dragyn]

AH HAH!

A breakthrough!

If I check BOTH fullscreen, AS WELL AS V-Sync, then the game runs smoothly, with fullscreen.  Apparently, fullscreen requires V-sync.

[Tvorsk]

Depends on your graphics driver.
The only reason vsync might help here that I can think of, though, would be that the driver accepts backbuffer swaps only at start of frame. That'd be very, very, VERY odd - so I guess that this checkbox switches some more things inside the game engine besides just what it says. :)

[Dragyn]

Can't say for sure, Tvorsk.  Either way, it's what made it work for me.

(I still maintain this needs WASD controls...)

[Virmir]

Hmmm... in that same config program, there is an input tab where you can change the directional arrows to what you want. (These won't change the other controls as those are hard coded in the game, though I plan on making those configurable too.)

[Faxz]

Nice to meet you,Virmir.(you are so cu~te.>W<) I am a Taiwanese student. I found your arts on furaffinity and found this website. I very very like your arts! And I also shared some to my bahamut(巴哈姆特,a taiwan's Forum) Furry Fans Club, but most people are lazy to follow your arts.(even some people only like adult arts...)  But now I see you want to make a RPGgame! It's so~ exciting to me. Wait until you makes it up. I will share it to club and my friends. And I believe they will be an advertisement to let them know you. On the other hand, I have a little little wish. I hope can see you TF in this game >< what ever be taur or be feral, of course transformation is better.>"<  Oh!No!No! Virmirgon is more better.>///<   The Foxdragohu'hil'heen'' is also great.>W<   I realy like your transformation art style.

Sorry for my bad english if you read to hard.   Finally. Come on! you can do it! Go! Go! Go!

[Virmir]

Welcome, Faxz!

I haven't had much time to work on this lately, but I do want to do more with it in the future once some other larger projects wind down. Glad you like what you see so far! And yes, there will be TF. ;)

[Faxz]

It's OK. I can wait. A slow fire makes sweet malt. I believe you will make a good job!
("there will be TF"！Oh~ so nice >///<)

[Newker]

thank you for making this, please continue, this is a wondrous creation. i love Lucile's determination