Sega CD used this technique a lot to fake 3D environments. Silo here is a great example of a game that looks like it could be a real time 3D game, but it cleverly interweaves FMV with sprites.
Do you mean Slipheed? Because that game is insane
Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
21–30 of 53 posts
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does pseudo 3D vs video based approach mean for these games?
You draw the 2D projection of 3D objects manually instead of drawing 3D geometry and the hardware draws the 2D projection to the screen. The other is the gameplay is a video of a 3D scene that has been prerendered on a more powerful machine.
That's exactly right. The issue I ran into is that the Playdate's CPU doesn't have a lot of juice, and spends a lot of time every frame just filling the screen. There's no specialized blitting hardware or GPU. Hence realtime sprite scaling is not feasible.
I tried making some pre-scaled sprites, and the ROM footprint had to be pretty large to afford enough size steps for reasonably smooth motion as the train moved past objects. Even then, all that sprite drawing was starting to dip the frame rate.
So, I experimented with a pre-rendered approach, and that was a huge unlock. Eventually I was able to wrangle it into something that I think worked even better in the end! The pre-rendered video based approach allowed way more elaborate detail and I didn't have to worry about frame rate anymore.
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#23Hi everybody. I'm Hunter, the developer of the game. I saw an uptick in sales over the past few hours and managed to trace it back here. So pleasantly surprised to see Zero Zero on HN! Thank you so much for the support and I hope all you Playdate owners out there enjoy the game!!
Great job, I’m glad someone finally made a Densha-De-Go-like! Such a great gameplay concept!
Question: is the route accurate to a real train, or is it fictional?
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#24Sega CD used this technique a lot to fake 3D environments. Silo here is a great example of a game that looks like it could be a real time 3D game, but it cleverly interweaves FMV with sprites.
Do you mean Slipheed? Because that game is insane
Was curious and looked it up. I think everyone's auto correct is a bit hardcore this evening. It's Silpheed
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#25Hi everybody. I'm Hunter, the developer of the game. I saw an uptick in sales over the past few hours and managed to trace it back here. So pleasantly surprised to see Zero Zero on HN! Thank you so much for the support and I hope all you Playdate owners out there enjoy the game!!
Great job, I’m glad someone finally made a Densha-De-Go-like! Such a great gameplay concept! Question: is the route accurate to a real train, or is it fictional?
It's loosely based on a 6-station stretch of the Fuji Kyuukou line in Yamanashi. Not sure my environment art really did the real life area justice, but that's how I derived the stations and spacing between them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujikyuko_Line
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#26Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#27Don't have a Playdate, but I'm really enjoying the soundtrack (https://hunty.bandcamp.com/album/zero-zero-perfect-stop-orig...). The instruments for the departure melodies are perfect -- they sound just like the Tokyo metro!
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#28Don't have a Playdate, but I'm really enjoying the soundtrack ( https://hunty.bandcamp.com/album/zero-zero-perfect-stop-orig... ). The instruments for the departure melodies are perfect -- they sound just like the Tokyo metro!
I think I found my new ringtone :)
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#29Aw.
Check out BVE and OpenBVE, the train simulators. Exactly the same problem - stop precisely at the stations and keep to schedule. Subways and railroads in Japan, the US, and Korea are modeled in great detail.
Re: Playdate Game Zero Zero: Perfect Stop
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
You draw the 2D projection of 3D objects manually instead of drawing 3D geometry and the hardware draws the 2D projection to the screen. The other is the gameplay is a video of a 3D scene that has been prerendered on a more powerful machine.
That's exactly right. The issue I ran into is that the Playdate's CPU doesn't have a lot of juice, and spends a lot of time every frame just filling the screen. There's no specialized blitting hardware or GPU. Hence realtime sprite scaling is not feasible. I tried making some pre-scaled sprites, and the ROM footprint had to be pretty large to afford enough size steps for reasonably smooth motion as the train moved pa…
> Hence realtime sprite scaling is not feasible.
Playdate got STM32F746 (ARM Cortex-M7F) at 180 MHz. 320 kB SRAM (and 16 MB of other RAM, maybe PSRAM?). DSP and saturation instructions are included.
The display is 400x240 1bpp.
Surely that's more than enough juice for sprite scaling? (Might need to copy graphics data to SRAM and even to do it in tiles for better performance.)
Although your video based implementation is pretty cool.