HBF can now be played on a LAN with up to four players!

Not because there are no news it means I'm doing nothing,  I was focus on net playing, not an easy topic, but as usual I love the concept "learning by doing", so this is the result of that process.

What's new in the game?

• New unit Camera, all camera code moved from Game to new unit
• New achievement "Finish the Labyrinth with a partner"
• Now bat moves faster
• TPlayerHandler.GetClosestHeroAt() fixed
• When a platform is pushed, some particles are rendered
• Stalactite has now some alpha
• Fixed an issue with casting interfaces (suddenly it crashes...)
• Mine now rotates a bit
• Fixed offsets of lightmaps in darkness
• Minimum resolution is 1024x768
• All release inventory code moved from Game to Hero
• Hero can have a partner on top of it
• Monologues are now created on demand
• Now when loosing a fight, owned runes are released, beware!
• New Mine.Shake property
• New trigger Follow()
• New service GameService.GetEvents
• When hero touches the ceil it liberates some Particles
• Camera lerp enhancements to make the usage easier
• Now Liquid might have a Tide
• Rays colors changed in order to look better
• Now Camera does all movements with interpolation, new method for lock/unlock
• New Weapon properties Range and Quantity
• Now Camera can focus any entity
• New property TGameSprite.Triggers, so that any entity can execute any trigger/s
• Doors can now be closed after being opened
• Fixed an issue with the stalactite particles
• New property Items.IsAutoso can be auto activated after they are taken
• New triggers: AchievementDone(), ExecuteIfEqual(), ExecuteIfNotEqual(), KillAll() and Focus()
• New Weapon.Maximum (as bullets)
• New weapon Bow
• Now extras can be automatic applied (like live)
• Entities can execute triggers OnCreate, OnDestroy and OnTake
• Monologues are delayed
• Better Door states
• Annoying bug changes have been fixed
• Camera follows hero in a more stable manner
• New inventory functions ActivateFirst() and Push()
• New change action (to cycle weapons)
• Snowball generates different particles than before
• Items are not draw when exiting a level
• Game can now be set to fullscreen/window at any time with Alt+Enter
• Background also tries to adapt to camera Z
• New Item.Detail property
• Bell item sounds more continuous rather than per volume
• New golden bow and golder arrow items
• Arrow can have now an angle depending on how long the action button is pressed
• Scores moved from inventory to players class
• Map read cells event improved
• When in shop background is rendered as sepia to make contrast
• Entity.Excite() code refactored
• HBF now can be played remotely (new menu option)
• New host/port settings
• New hero property Scope: local, remote
• New dialog type Abort()
• New level...
• Better handling of network delayed games
• TCPClient/TCPServer connected properties not used during game (seems they they corrupt network buffers)
• Entities inside a thread/task using random functions will take a local Copy
• Closing dialogs won't unlock the game if still locking pending messages
• Better control of locked situations (visual messages VS waiting network)
• New TNetBuffer PeakX()
• New sound when hero is underwater
• New item Water of Rhand
• Menus now can show dialogs
• Session id is send in every message, so client can refuse their own messages
• Coins moved from inventory to TPlayerHandler class
• TPlayerHandler refactored, now it is easier to follow the code
• Dialogs, question can persist after callback
• SessionId is send in all net messages so that clients can ignore messages at their own discretion
• Terminal animation is different
• Now input is in the form of K;J1;J2;J3
• New screen Sync
• Input read improved
• New Hero.JoyId
• Inventory moved to Players class
• Stalactite now also also falls when top tile disappears
• TCameraHelper.CoversAllPlayers() now does not take into account heroes that have already entered then door
• New GameServices.GetImpersonateKeys()
• Players iteration improved shorting edges (first/last)
• Hero sessionId moved to Players class
• New message to request the list of sessions
• Now servers controls the maximum amount of players
• Now game can be played with up to 4 players
• Hero.Scope moved to Players class
• New callback TPlayerHandler.GetPlayers()
• New TPlayerHandler.MinPlayer() / TPlayerHandler.MaxPlayer()
• Player removed from inventory
• Added player Alias so when joining network games, players can be identified
• New TPlayerHandler.FindPlayer(session)
• New TNetBuffer Readstring & AddString, so now strings can me send in net protocol
• if master leaves the game, then server finds a new master
• New TPlayerHandler.GetSlots()
• Game can now do multi-ping
• NetworkPlayer concept removed (everything is in player and slots)
• New TPlayerHandler.RemoveSlot()
• More robust network control
• Remote locks improved
• New concept in network code channel (rq, all, target)
• Max zoom improved
• TPlayerHandler.GetDistance performance improved
• Wand item now glows
• Now when hitting enemies a white effect is done
• Pushing moving blocks improved
• When playing over net, camera focus on local player
• Blind and Many players achievements are now configurable
• New skin for player 2 (tough still ugly...)
• Avoid Z players overlapping
• Network locking simplified
• Now HBF comes with a standalone server called GameServer.exe
• Now dialogs are rendered correctly when title is short
• Now network seed is taken from ticks and not from network, this makes the game more deterministic
• Server now sends back the available slots
• Network input is stored in a buffer so if we receive more than one packet all packages are processed in order
• Reading joy process improved
• Now game check if there is enough input devices
• CheckPoint is back to Hero class
• More control over disconnected sessions
• Now TSpriteEngine uses TColony<T> as a main iterator class
• Cannon had a AV when hero is dead
• New THUd.Visible
• New TPlayerHandler.RandomPlayer()
• Now when entering Door a red flash is shown
• When no lives and going to main menu, the in game menu will not be displayed
• Falling controller is not always created by default
• Some non used songs deleted

What's new in libraries?

• DirectZ removed from sprite properties
• Map does not longer creates a default camera
• In TSpriteEngine.SpritesAt() there was an overloaded version that didn't use the spatial grid, speed boost!
• Particles adaptive view fixed
• TArrayEx<T>.Delete fixed
• Object names are no longer used in release mode
• Now maps have infinite loops again
• Now sprite quads have a default Tag
• TSpriteEngine.Find(name) was not working at all!
• Maps now use frustum to check boundaries
• Improving frustum in 2d maps rendering
• New Map.FindTrigger()
• New Trigger Context, so that engine knows when to execute the trigger (create,destroy,taken)
• New buffer default size
• New TPerspectiveCamera and TBasicCamera
• Sprite engine searches are faster
• New particles property RandomDirection
• TInput now can keep track of now many frames a certain button was pressed
• TSprite.SetAngle() now does not apply matrix if camera is not set
• New inline TRGB _R(), _G(), _B() _A() and _32()
• New laser aspect
• Horizontal and vertical gradiants now take into account alpha channel
• Blur() performance improved
• TLayer now have a Glow property so that tiles can be glowed
• New TRandomHelper useful for threads, otherwise random generators are corrupted and net game is not deterministic
• Particles use their own random generator
• TSurface.AverageColor() fixed
• Now when creating Direct3D, flag D3DCREATE_FPU_PRESERVE is used
• Many raise moved to their own function (performance)
• Fixed a Lock() issue in TSound
• New TParticles.IsSystemDown()
• New classes TRingBuffer<T>, TSet<T> and TColony<T>
• Now system can handle up to 4 gamepads
• TInput improved
• New TJoyData.JoyReleased()
• Now levels are loaded with rtti
• Triggers now can have a counter (executed when counter = 0)
• Finally joy direction pressed are no longer simulated
• Shadow and Glow helpers classes are not created by default
• Queue particles are not created by default
• Collection iterators improved

And that's all folks.

HBF is not alone anymore, say hello to a new player.

Like a month ago I was thinking, why not add a second player?, but as usual new ideas bring new challenges.

Adding a second player to the game means many aspects of the game have to be modified, like who enters the Shop, how Items are split, some enemies need to decide the proper victim, how to handle when heroes are far away from each other, what do to when one die, change the behavior of the Door, who enters the Fight, rewrite most of the input system, etc.

That was as usual very funny. The most difficult part was to handle the Camera and order of sprites, so I decide so change the 2d engine to be more 3d (visually still the same), so now Camera can play with Z axis, then many Z issues appear..., so I had to revisit all game.

But anyway, the work is done after some tough weeks :-)



Found binaries at OneDrive
 
HBF)

• Now two players can play the game, big improvement
• Now when a coin is taken it executes a different particle
• Now levels starts differently
• Item cross code improved
• Sprite.AttachedSprite code improved
• New emerge particle
• Now Focus element blinks
• New FadeIn() styles
• New HUD layout
• Keys code is now handled directly in the inventory class
• Now checkpoints are handled in the player class
• Camera now needs to cover correctly all situations (when one hero dies and checkpoint cannot be covered by camera when in two players, etc)
• Now doors still closed when taking the key and can only be opened by the owner of the key
• When in two players, if one player looses of lives, then he releases all inventory so that the other player can take it
• When in two players, if one player looses of lives and the other player has already entered the door, then the level finishes
• Input reading code optimized
• Now Fight, Shop and Inventory can only be used by the player that activate it
• Shop/Inventory/Items code improved
• Fight changed a bit
• New heart item
• New class TPlayers
• New extra TPresent
• New EntityType Magma
• Scepter is no longer spawned in Lava
• If hero looses the Rune Fight he also looses his coins
• Now when finishing level, camera focus and zoom on Door
• Now aspect ratio can be selected (4:3, 19:9, 16:10), so game should fit properly with all resolutions
• Camera Lerp now also takes into account Z
• Drawing air moved from hero to HUD
• Now heroes are able to push many blocks in a row either vertical or horizontal
• Some interfaces were not set to nil on destroy

BB)

• Doing a render to target and losing the surfaces does not work, it raises an AV, why?!
• Sleep properties in Particles now talk about milliseconds rather than steps
• Lightmaps now also interpolate alpha channel
• Some internal array improvements (aligned to next power of two)
• Surface.Blur() quality improved
• TArrayEx<T> improved
• Now the 2d engine is completely dine in 3d, so that one can freely play with the camera
• Fonts performance improved
• New TCamera2D.Rotate()
• Shadow silhouette improved (a bit of blur applied)
• New TMenu.Find() in order to find menu items and optionally be able to modify them
• New events for particles OnBefore/OnAfter Create/Tick
• gamepad set to DISCL_NONEXCLUSIVE

New aspect ratio option)

 HBF now is accompanied by his partner ABB (say what?)

Camera zoom out to fit both players (until a certain point)

HBF now in 64 bits!

I had a silly bug (typical one that works on WIN32 and does not in WIN64):

    FillChar(d3ddm, SizeOf(d3ddm), 0);  <-- this line didn't exists
    if Failed(FD3D.GetAdapterDisplayMode(D3DADAPTER_DEFAULT, d3ddm)) then
      raise Exception.Create('Error retrieving display modes');

    FD3Dpp.BackBufferFormat := d3ddm.Format;

So now there is a 64 bits version, I guess only math is faster, but this would be only noticeable when lots of  particles are rendered, but let's see..

Found binaries at OneDrive

Anyway, I also was able to change the following:

HBF)

• Now HBF also comes in 64 bits flavour
• Now Diamond emits light
• As usual some minor map changes...
• Some new blurred backgrounds
• ell/Boom/Chest/Fires/Lava/Mine/Planet are now glowed
• Liquid splash is now done with particles
• Enemies won't discover anything
• New toxic particles
• New excited particles
• New particles when Hover is excited
• Magnet also attracts Keys and Scepter
• New sound failure.wav
• Gatashi's laser when collides draw some particles
• Now all mechanic enemies can be excited
• Now when correcting gravities, moving platforms are take it into account
• New worm, fits better in the game
• New bell and shoes, more retro
• Planet changed
• Ice floor is now properly applied when gravity is up
• Snowball now also stops fire
• Static sprites do not longer correct gravity orientation
• New warp based on particles
• New spark based on particles
• New Achievement "finish labyrinth blinded"
• Main menu does some new effects
• Ending now is a bit different (guess what!)

BB)

• Multiplication texture error fixed (not happy about it)
• Sprite hash for buffers now takes into account shadows
• New concept TBufferHelper, in order to handle the buffer easier and avoid some double links
• Removed effects and filters from surfaces (makes no sense, sprites dictate the behaviour)
• Added surface filter to Materials
• Fixed massive bug in Move32() POP ESI rather than POP EDI
• D3D buffer preparation improved (VertexType is now precalculated)
• Now TFloat is double when in 64 bits
• New Particle emitter Movement type
• Stream buffer when decompressing changed from 16kb to 64kb
• Finally DirectX works in 64 bits
• New TSurface.ExtractPoints()
• New TParticles First()/Last()
• Now particles are able to do formations based on a bitmap

ChessKISS still alive

ChessKISS won two minor leagues, I'm very proud of this little creature :-)

Nothing spectacular, but hey..., I think soon I will try to create a new version, let's see

Found binary at OneDrive

62ND AMATEUR SERIES

Final Standings

39.0 - ChessKiss 1.7c 64-bit
36.0 - Dorpsgek Cosmopolitan 2 64-bit
30.5 - Isa 1.9.51 64-bit
29.0 - Obender 03.2016 64-bit
25.5 - Blitzkrieg rev337 64-bit
22.5 - Barbarossa 0.4.0 DJ 64-bit
21.5 - Cinnamon 2.0 64-bit
20.0 - BigLion 2.23x

MARCH OF THE MINNOWS

Final Standings

19.0 - ChessKiss 1.7c 64-bit
19.0 - Obender 03.2016 64-bit
15.5 - Blitzkrieg rev337 64-bit
15.0 - RamJet 0.13
14.5 - NGplay 9.86 64-bit
14.5 - Napoleon 1.6.0b 64-bit
13.5 - Isa 1.9.51 64-bit
13.5 - Soldat III 0.178 64-bit
13.0 - Cinnamon 2.0 64-bit
10.5 - BigLion 2.23x
10.5 - Ecce 1.0 64-bit
8.5 - Abbess 2016.11.12
8.0 - Smash 1.0 3 64-bit

When performance matters

First entry of the year, one month and half later... , found binaries at OneDrive

I've been focus this past two months on improving the performance, in some screens mixing many elements, enemies, particles, lasers, liquids and moving backgrounds was affecting the performance, so I did what I love, to dig into the code and start measuring and comparing, I'm quite happy with the results, now I can throw many particles here and there that performance is not affected.

I did focus on DirectX buffers: hash created only when needed, buffers only sorted when needed, tailor-made drawing triangle functions, RGB to int conversions.

Surfaces are now generated faster when they are in 32 bits.

Also the new TFastPool<T> used in particles it excels, and indexed array for fast access with a pool mechanism in the same structure (maybe I will explained in another post)

What's new:

BB)
Clear camera also clear perturbation values
New StartSize/EndSize particle properties, autoSize particle removed
Camera constructor does not longer sets the size in the constructor
All primitives now use InView() to check whether this primitive has to be rendered or not
Line with thickness is now done properly with perpendicular vectors
Now GlowLine() uses a line with thickness
Now particles have X and Y radius
Fixed some Z issues in primitives Line() and Triangle()
New TScreen.WaitBehaviour, buffers can be only resorted when creating new buffers
General improvement in the hash keys of the maps
New TLayer.FindProperty()
Glow rendering improved
Particles now can have a trail
New TMath.CircleInRectangle(): bool
TScreen.DrawSurface() fully improved
Particles.Gravity is now a vector
TScreen.Circles() now has a solid parameter
TRGB.Multiply() & Add() improved
New TRGB.ToInt32()
TScreen.TexCol_Triangle() improved
TVectorEx non operators improved
Particle Editor/Engine vastly improved
New TRGB.AsString()
New TPriorityQueue<T>
New TScreen.CircleGlow()
New TScreen.LineGlow()
New TVectorEx.AsString()
Particles can have Attractors
More triangle buffer optimizations
Added BigFile to Particles
New TFastPool<T>
New TParticleEmitter Sleep and SleepEvery properties
Now Particles uses TFastPool<TParticle2D>
Particles can be glowed
Alpha32 surface detection improved
Particles generated in Sphere fixed
All internal sin/cos calculations in particles are done in RAD so no conversion needed (extra multiplications)
Particle generator loop improved
Render buffer improved
Color performance in buffer improved for surfaces
Queue<T> improved
TPolygon.GetHash() improved
TScreen.FillSurface() improved
Surface cache improved
Sprites now maintain the hash of the buffers
Surface.AndMask() performance improved
Buffer hash generation had collisions (bad key)
Now particles work by time and not steps
Now TObjectEx implements IGroup
Added friction to particles
Some critical functions checks are executed only in debug mode
Particles now do some kind of occlusion via BB
New particles spread mode Expand
Now particles can take the form of shapes
Now Particles can have up to 8 different textures by default
An emitter can be inactive

HBF)
Cables throws more sparks
Camera size is update when resolution is changed
In menu the text scroller is left/right
New ColorTile element
Fixed an issue when a throwable weapon landed on a moving platform
Now reverse Disintegration works 100%
Now there is a global Gravity
Now color tiles got a tail
Lasergrid was not shown properly
New Path helper to create entities following map attributes
New enemy Rotator
Shover is shown properly when gravity is up
New Achievement "burn the block!"
Hero input code moved to Hero class
Added moving tapes to some levels
New element Wheel (HL2?)
Now all entities might target a tile (by name) and do something
Lava melting ice code fixed
Now demos can also track input from attack and action
New item Wand
Hero does no longer breathe in lava
Some elements now are glowed
TGameSprite.IsUnderneathOf() improved
Game can now load particles from map and/or triggers
Beetle and Titan show sparks when colliding
Flame was not working properly
Background are no longer mandatory in each level
Handling of entities on top of tapes improved
Arrows emit particles when collide
Now boomerang returns when collides with an item
All particles effect are now read froma file
New fireworks with forms
Hero's dust when landing is now done with particles
Air bubbles is now done with particles
In game menus, input is reset to not interfere with hero input
Hero now is got a candle on dark screens
Some backgrounds are now blurred