3H-GDC m.V: Something Special (winner: BeanDog)

Sean T. McBeth · 2006-02-24T12:48:17

3H-GDC m.V download submissions Winners: BeanDog d000hg DrPetter Summary: For the fifth competition I want to do something special. Some of my fondest programming memories began years ago with a copy of an old Borland C compiler (4.52, to be precise, with worse C++ support than VC6) that had a wonderfully featureful CONIO library. You can actually see one of my efforts from those days in my Showcase -- the ASCII Fish Tank. So, this time you will all be competing on a level playing field in terms of graphical quality. ASCII art is not the Theme of this competition, that is still to be determined, but submissions must fit this style. Hopefully with the focus taken completely off graphics, some deeper gameplay can be developed. Date/Time: The contest will be held on Saturday, February 11th, 5PM Eastern Standard Time (2200 GMT). Prizes: a Pi T-shirt or a Perl T-shirt. (courtesy of the right-honorable Frunicus Maximus) 3 months of GDNet+ (via the pockets of capn_midnight) Sumbission: Previous Submissions can be found on the contest website. Theme: The Stars The past four contests were "Black and White," "Fire," "Crackers", and "CARTS". The emphasis is originality in interpretation. With the Crackers theme there were entries that featured fire crackers, saltines, people "cracking" windows open to prevent leathal doses of methane gas, and southern honkeys. ADDITIONALLY: this particular contest will be an ASCII "graphics" competition. There are plenty of ASCII art libraries available, though I highly suggest the .NET 2.0 Console Class. It has everything you will need, and even has a Beep method! W00t! If you decide to use a graphics API and copy the style of a console application, your program must be as near of an emulation to a real console application as possible. In general, this usually means a minimum of using a monospaced type-font, 16 foreground colors and 8 background colors, and 80 columns by 25 rows, though there are many console applications that are capable of higher performance. Rules:Submissions must meet a predetermined theme (which will be revealed 15 minutes before the beginning of the contest) Any Language (C, Java, C#, Python, &#106avascript, Brainf***, I don't care) or API (SDL, Allegro, PyGame, JOGL, etc) are acceptable, as long as you handle all distribution yourself (Ideally include all assemblies. You *may* link to a direct download, but a download page is UNNACEPTABLE. One click should be all I need to download the components I need). Do not assume the Judges have any particular machine setup. Judges will inform users of their machine setups. So called "Game Makers" are NOT acceptable. The process must require you to write a significant portion of code to produce a stand alone executable. If you are not certain if your particular system constitutes a "Game Maker," then ask in the thread. Judges reserve the right to disqualify entries that they deem were made with an unnaceptable "Game Maker" based on their own subjective definition of the term. You may use any base code that you have written. You may post this code in a source tag in the forum on Friday night before the competition to keep the playing field even (anyone may use it if they want), if you so choose. Judges will judge on a full binary version of the software. They will not compile the software. Source code is not required, though you may request source code to be posted with your submission. Judging will be conducted by a panel of non-competitors Judging will be based mostly on overall gameplay and originallity of game design. Graphics will be a minor part, but mainly in the fluidity of the graphics (stuttering, tearing, flickering graphics will be very bad)*. We understand that content will be light, that graphics will be underdeveloped, that input MIGHT be a bit akward. Gameplay is the key. prizes (when available) are listed above runners up receive nothing. we will attempt to pursue full legal action against nefarious ne'er-do-wells (those that would upload destructive code). Three hours is plenty of time to make a classic arcade game, or something new with simple gameplay. Check out the previous contest to see what was done. Gameplay is what this contest is about. 3H-GDC m.II 3H-GDC m.III 3H-GDC m.IV If anyone wants to volunteer as a Judge, please post here and list your machine specs as well as your pertinent software running on your computer. For example, I'm: Processor: Pentium4 2.4GHz Memory: 768MB RDRAM GFX: Radeon 9800 Sound: SB Audigy 2 OS: Windows XP Pro SP2 Other Software: Java 5, .Net 1.1, .Net 2.0, DX9c (October 05), MDX 9 (August 05) *this time, everyone's graphics will be practically the same. [Edited by - capn_midnight on February 15, 2006 7:40:51 AM]

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by capn_midnight February 01, 2006 10:22 AM

213 comments, last by capn_midnight 18 years, 2 months ago

nagromo

676

February 03, 2006 06:51 PM

Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
Quote:Original post by Extrarius
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
[...]fixed 80 columns by 25 rows[...]
No 80x50? I much prefer square characters (8x8)

I talked about this with michalson.

So that would be a no?

Have you decided on whether the mouse is OK?

nagromo

676

February 03, 2006 06:57 PM

Quote:Original post by d000hg
...

Fair enough. In which case, is there a fixed set of colours I should use? Does anyone know rgb values - or how can I find them out?

...

The four bits are red, green, blue, and intensity. The intensity bit determines whether the r,g,b bits being on means 0x80 or 0xFF. (I.E. 0x008080 or 0xFFFFFF are allowed, but not 0x80FFFF)

If you don't get what I mean, take a look at the screenshot on the first page.

I'd recommend skipping DirectX and using the Win32 console functions, though. It took me about a half hour to look at Ben Ryves' page and write a few wrapper functions to allow me to easily use the console with double buffering. It's plenty fast, unlike GDI, and there isn't any jitter or anything.

d000hg

1,208

February 04, 2006 03:01 PM

I found the colours - in the properties for the DOS command prompt in XP, you can set the colours.

matt_j

106

February 04, 2006 04:41 PM

I've created around 300 colors with the given 16, using the "dither" characters:
Video

Start menu:

GDNet web page:

[Edited by - matt_j on February 4, 2006 4:41:43 PM]

capn_midnight

1,708

Author

February 04, 2006 10:18 PM

Quote:Original post by nagromo
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
Quote:Original post by Extrarius
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
[...]fixed 80 columns by 25 rows[...]
No 80x50? I much prefer square characters (8x8)

I talked about this with michalson.

So that would be a no?

Have you decided on whether the mouse is OK?

*sigh*

Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
As for the screen buffer size, any "standard" combination of columns and rows are acceptable, most libraries I've seen allow the selection of an aribitrary number of columns and rows, so this is acceptable.

and mouse is fine.

[Formerly "capn_midnight". See some of my projects. Find me on twitter tumblr G+ Github.]

d000hg

1,208

February 06, 2006 08:35 AM

Hey someone donate some prizes for me to win!

And thanks for the clarifications capn.

Are you guys going for the 'trying to make as detailed a scene as possible' approach with dithering etc, or a simple approach like CartRunner from the last contest?
Who's actually planning to enter, anyway?

capn_midnight

1,708

Author

February 06, 2006 10:08 AM

Quote:Original post by d000hg
Are you guys going for the 'trying to make as detailed a scene as possible' approach with dithering etc, or a simple approach like CartRunner from the last contest?

Quote:Original post by capn_midnight
Quote:Original post by Daerax
Quote:Original post by capn_midnight

*this time, everyone's graphics will be practically the same.

Not if Ben Ryves chooses to enter.

He summons functionality (from another plane?) that simply should not be possible into devices that one would normally not think capable of subtraction or addition. Like 3D raytracers. On watches. Analogue Wrist Watches. Hehe.

I should note that I expect ASCII *art* graphics, not regular graphics rendered in shaded ASCII characters.