Rodas Cross: ARPG for the SNES

So I been working on this game for a very looooooooooooooog time. It used to me a GBA game. I converted it to a SNES, as the latter is my true love.

I think it's a good to show it in its current state, as I have in high regards to the opinions of the members here. You can help me steer the wheel in the right direction.

What's done:
1. Characters with different states (not all graphics animations completed)
2. Ringmenu system
3. Menus for status check, sorting items, save/load, etc.
4. Tilemap and map transitions
5. Script system for "scenes"
6. Weapons with different effects (e.g. boomerang stuns enemies, etc)
7. AI system similar to Final Fantasy XII's Gambit System
8. Healing items (not all graphics animations completed)
9. Different monsters with different AIs (need more).
10. Npcs with random movement and dialogue (place holder graphics as in now)
11. Save/Load system

What needs to be done:
1. Day/Night system
2. Magic System (I'm thinking of only a few spells)
3. Map creation
4. 2 player mode
5. Completed sound engine, as the current one is very limited
5. Debugging
6. Debugging
7. Debugging
8. Debugging
9. Debugging
Also, more debugging.

Some screenshots from bsnes





I paid various artist for most of the graphics you see here. The rest are "free to used kind" found in sites like itch.io.

My brother and I plan to compose the music. Simple tunes.

My plan is to release it on Steam this year, as it had been already been greenlit.
I also would like to release it in catridge form if possible.
I would like to make a Kickstarter for this regard, but I need the proper advice and connections first.

I will release a video and later a demo later this month.

I REALLY wan to release the game in some form this year, as I been working on this for too long.

Any question(s)?
Please, advice me.

EDIT0:
Video capture software (Icecream) caused some lag.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8CSLIY_EkVg
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XEHw88WqrK4

EDIT1:
Added demo file!
https://github.com/kaffeeware/hello-wor ... _v1_03.smc

Maybe make the "R" bigger in the title screen or move the sword to the other side? I misread it as "Trodas Cross" on first pass.

Merge the sword with the "R" in "Rodas", and make the sword/R take up the entire height of the text (both lines). I'm not an artist, but this is what I'm referring to:


You might also experiment with the "C" in Cross being somehow merged with the lower curve of the sword/R, but that might look tacky. From a graphic design/signage standpoint (I worked at an engraving company for some time, and my mother owned one for 30+ years), it would probably be hard to read.

Great to finally see some more good looking SNES homebrew in the works! Really enjoying the pixel artwork.

That's great!!
Seems like a very nice RPG game.

Because of this phrase and the fact that rodas means wheels on my native language (Portuguese), I tought it would be a racing related ARPG.
I don't think you should care about this, just move forward and keep us updated about your progress.
A gameplay video (of the SNES version) would be nice, if possible.

I watched the trailer, and the ingame graphics and ringmenu look very good. What makes any RPG is the story, but can't comment on that yet.

I didn't like the font, or the text UI colors. Black/white is harsh, and the font wasn't that easy to read. It had too big distances between letters, making some parts look like bad kerning.

On your screenshots, the status screen's background is bad. It makes it almost impossible to read anything. I would also use a different color than light blue for the text. In the ingame shot, I would also adjust the HP/MP bar colors.

Woaw, this project looks amazing!

The GBA version video trailer looks really nice - do you plan to release both the SNES and GBA version, or only the SNES one?

Regarding the SNES version, the screenshots looks great, but I'm really looking forward a gameplay video to see the game in action.

The characters graphics are really beautiful, I love them. The only thing I'm not very fond of are the "cross" on the character sheet background: The black & white BG has too much contrast, and it make it harder to read the actual numbers on the foreground. Maybe try a "black and soft grey" pattern?

Anyway, good luck with the project, and I'm eager to see the next screenshot / devlog / video here!

Ah. That makes sense. I will try moving it to the right. Now that I think about it, the font logo is too small. I need to change it too.



I will try it. But doing so requires a skill I don't have.



Thank you.




Ah. "Wheel" kind of goes with the theme of the game. Just a coincidence though.




Thank you for the feedback. I kind of like the bg cross pattern though. It looks like a designer purse. Weird looking for a game.
I will try to do what drludos suggested and lower the contrast. See how it goes.



Can you be more specific? My initial idea was to have a color gradient using hdma for the bars, but it complicates the code for such a small detail. Will see...




No. I only plan to do the SNES version now.




This is a great idea! Thank you.

Thank you everyone! Hopefully I can finish this.

Ha ha sorry to dogpile on the name / title screen, but when my eyes initially parsed it they ended up reading the two lines reversed and mangled as "Cross Roads".

Anyhow, looks nice. Will the music from the trailer appear in game?

The HP/MP bar colors poke my eyes. Making them gradients based on the same colors would have the same issue. I'm not sure what's the official term for that, too much contrast? Jumping out too much?

Although I've liked the crosses pattern on the 1st screenshot, depending on the way you look at them, it can be seen as swastikas.
I know that it just sounds completely ridiculous, (and I'm pretty sure your intention is not that) but be careful since (as far as I remember) some countries had banned the use of this symbol and are "anal" about things that even remotelly resembles it!

Please, can someone else confirm (or deny) if I'm just "being paranoid" about that or this can be really a problem?

You -- the individual Fisher on this forum -- are seeing swastikas in something that was obviously not designed to contain swastikas (rephrased: there are no intended swastikas by the author(s)). Mazes have been part of human games for thousands of years.

This psychological phenomenon is called pareidolia, sort of as a form of pattern recognition. Humans on some level are wired to do this, but every person is different (ex. people on the Autism scale tend to notice it easier, bless their hearts). It's a long-standing human behaviour, nothing new. But just because you see something (or "how" your brain interprets it) doesn't mean that was the intended purpose. Differentiating -- and acknowledging -- those two things is very important.

This happens regularly for Europeans and Americans when visiting an Asian country for the first time, and have to look at their maps. Oh my god! There are swastikas everywhere on this map! I'm offended! No, there are not swastikas everywhere; the symbol used represents a worship temple, usually of Buddhist nature. Sadly, Japan gave in to this idiocy with their tourist maps, which just goes to show how overly sensitive people are. Rather than learn about the culture and say "hey, things here are different", they feel the need to impose their own beliefs on that of another culture. I do not agree with this. Education is the solution to this, not changing map symbols.

It could also be a problem that in the title screen, someone sees the sword tip and feels it's extremely phallic, resembling that of a penis. "Don't you see it? It looks phallic! Like a dong! What do you mean you don't see the resemblance? It's right there! How offensive!" I run into this type of thought process multiple times a week now, and it all boils down to the individual seeing what they *want* to see.

This is a very different situation compared to, say, Tepples' game called Concentration Room, which was originally named Concentration Camp. I personally had no problem with the original name, but he changed it because it could be deemed offensive to some. To me, that's a more cut-and-dry case, particularly due to some of the imagery that came with it. (For those wondering: I think he should've kept the original name and imagery, but that's just me)

Could this be a problem? Sure. Should it be something the game developer worries about RIGHT NOW? A very resounding NO!

So, here's what olddb should do about it right now: nothing! Worry about it later if it becomes an actual problem -- say, for example, you do a public beta test and find that a large number of German or Polish players are noticing swastikas and find it "a bit odd/unsettling". You can change your maze algorithm (if randomly-generated) or level layouts (if statically-generated) later on! Maze/map generation is a super neat/cool thing, but very intricate (it's almost an art form, IMO); if you end up having to redo this, you might look at some of the code in Nethack to see how their randomly-generated dungeons are done. Focus on making your game for now. Do not let this hinder your progress! Stay focused on your game and embrace your love/passion of doing it.

I had to look very hard but eventually I noticed where the "swatiskas" are. To be honest, swatiskas are only supposed to be offensive if they are either 45° rotated and/or they are black on a white circle on a red backdrop. If both the color sheme and the orientation has nothing to do with the nazi symbol, it's fine assuming nobody should be offended as koitsu pointed out. So yeah, I +1 what Koitsu said.

As for the game, it looks nice. I'm looking forward to it !
I could be interested about the music driver since doing a SNES music/SFX driver is something I always wanted to do and it seems I lack the time to develop full games anymore.

I'm a big proponent of inoffensive swastikas. It's a symbol with a positive meaning, so don't let the nazis have that one. They have had it for long enough already. And unintentional swastikas showing up anywhere really should not be a problem to anyone.

Ideologically, I fully agree, unfortunately it's way too late.

Also I forgot to mention in my previous post, the diabolisation of this symbol is by far not the only major change the "western world" since the second world war ; a lot of other things in today's overall ultra-liberal mentalities are directly connected to over-reaction to the horrors of cancentration camps, gaz chambers and holocaust.


That's weird coming from the mouth of an american, considering americans are the worst offenders of this - sometimes even unintentionally, since they don't ask anything but everyone else wants do do everything the american way.

I guess part of it was that Japan lost a world war in the 1940s while it was allied with a country whose ruling party had a swastika for a logo, and Japan doesn't want to be associated with that anymore.


The old story is on my website, though you may have to look at the revision history of a redirect.


EDIT: A pitch for a Concentration Room sequel used to be here. I removed it for not being pertinent to Rodas Cross. I personally strongly oppose the values of the antagonist in the pitch, just as I strongly oppose the values of the organization that is the antagonist of Id Software's Wolfenstein 3D.

Good point. Not neccessarily the first thing that the japanese tourism industry wants to get associated with.

At first glance the crosses looked like an interesting/simple geometrical pattern to me, at second glance the pattern did shortly remind me about nazi symbolism, too, and at third glance my eyes had lost that pattern and I thought that I were mistaken or paranoid about it. But now that Fisher had mentioned it, too: It's hard not to see right-facing swastikas in there. To some level you could avoid the nazi association by mirroring the whole pattern horizontally.

Darker text background would be good, and you could maybe try using some color instead of using black/gray, like dark+darker green, or dark+darker sepia, or whatever. Making the blue text brighter would also increase the contrast.

Hmmm, the energy bars might be really popping out a bit, especially with the dark scene underneath of them. Red bars aren't so uncommon, maybe it's the blue bar that's looking a bit unique/uncommon... roughly reminding me about 1960's red/blue color printing techniques. Or well, at least it's so in the screenshot, on real TV it might appear differently.

As I posted before, I think it's ridiculous that some people see these kind of things where they really don't exist and that's certanly NOT the author's intention.
Maybe I just wasn't clear enough in that statement, and (even if I don't want to admit) there are still some big language barriers to me.

As a guy who was practically lynched by "the politically correct patrol" on my social network, I wroted it as a word of warning.
I don't want anyone to be insulted like I was, specially the developer of a very promising game.

I agree with this! Someone must remove the "evil" this symbol means to some people.

Totally agree with that, although this can take some time.

Well, this took an unexpected turn.

The thing is, I NOW see swastikas too! If I concentrate in the white pattern, I see crosses (like intended). But if I concentrate on the
black, I see swastikas.

For now, I will follow koitsu's advice and leave it as it is. I hope to offend no one by doing so.


I know your a Secret of Mana fan. Me too.
The music in the trailer was actually composed by Kikuta! It was an album released under the Creative Commons Attribution license.
My idea for the original GBA version was to use some of the musics in that album as the game soundtrack. I was using one of the GBA's direct input for the music and the other for the sound effects. I worked alright, if not for the massive size the game gained by adding whole tracks. Later, I chopped the music into pieces (intros, chorus, verses) eliminating repetition.

Now with the SNES, I know no way to transcribe a .mp3/.wav into midi/.s3s (format which I'm using as a base for the music).



I will try a more pale blue and red. Thanks for the observation.



My driver is extremely simple as in right now. It only plays samples in order using the SPC700 timers. I'm also getting random buzzes at initialization in hardware, but not in emulators.

Ah! Now I remember that album. It's been a few years since I listened to it. I had forgotten that curiosity that it was CC licensed. It'd probably be fun to use it as the soundtrack to a video game. (...ha ha what if you advertised the game with "Soundtrack by Hiroki Kikuta" ??? I bet he'd be surprised.)

As for transcription, that's still usually best a task for humans at this point.

Added two short videos op.

Here's a different cross pattern to try, so that players will not see a certain symbol in negative space and draw the wrong conclusion.

Thank you.
Will be on top of my priorities. I guess, you will be in the game credits now.

Another option is to increase the spacing in one axis only, so the black-to-white ratio doesn't change so much:


Can anyone see anything offensive in this pattern?

Why is this still being discussed or beat on like a dead horse? The author stated what was being done:


There is no problem to solve. Someone will eventually see something offensive -- this is literally confirmation bias, and that isn't the fault of the author or the mazes. The author has already publicly stated he/she has no "pro-swastika" agenda. That's it. Nothing else need be said/done. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Don't give in to confirmation bias -- be subjective.

Edit: BTW, I want to clarify something here. My main concern, and why I keep harping on about how this is a non-problem, is that this kind of unnecessary focus will kill the homebrew author's passion/interest/drive to continue working on the game. I don't want them to lose that spirit or enjoyment. Some of the best stuff we've seen in homebrew communities has been from people who stay focused on what their heart is set on doing. I want folks worrying about "swastikas in the map" to really ponder that.

I will play the beta or demo and give feedback. Also if you are doing a cartridge release many other members here use Paul at infiniteneslives.com

And here's how the old pattern would look like flipped horizontally, but that's still risking that somebody will sooner or later say that...
If you look at it in a mirror while playing the title music backwards, then you will hear the game clearly saying "my sweet fecist!"
The other two new patterns posted earlier above are looking nice, too (but risk to offend advocates for respecting traditional asian symbols).
Either way: You got yourself into real troubles!

Ocarina of Time had similar problems with Islamic material, and that was published by a Big Company(tm).

So anyway: I have an SNES PowerPak and can probably cut out some time to try private test versions if needed. Because I'm not an expert at the specific genre, you'll end up with feedback from a novice, which is valuable in its own right.

Lol.

So many options.



Thank you. I will have something ready by next week.



Thanks.

Edit: Added Demo file to OP.

Let me know what you think!

Still got trouble uploading sound cleanly in real hardware. Just re-power the snes, until sound its clear.

Thank you.

It looks like you're missing some DSP register initialization. Specifically...
- Zero out the two echo volume registers ($2C and $3C)
- Zero out pitch modulation ($2D)
These two will guarantee your sound plays back fine every time you start up the game.

Here is my patch as a series of PAR (Pro Action Replay) codes...

9080ED20
9080EE8F
9080EF2C
9080F0F2
9080F18F
9080F200
9080F3F3
9080F48F
9080F53C
9080F6F2
9080F78F
9080F800
9080F9F3
9080FA8F
9080FB2D
9080FCF2
9080FD8F
9080FE00
9080FFF3
8081D9ED
8081DA02

Ah! Thank you so much!
I thought it had something to do with my initializing routine timing out or something similar.

I'm surprised that bsnes don't emulate this at all.
In fact, I had found a couple of things more that bsnes don't emulate.
1. Chaging color out of vblank causes color glitches.
2. Polling pad during vblank causes wrong polls. (This is emulated by no$cash.)

I'm using a 2016 debug version, so that may be it?

Anyway, thank you again.

What did you think of the demo overall?

bsnes' "accuracy" profile does indeed emulate this, which you should be using for development if at all possible.


Only during the 3 scanlines in which the auto joypad readout is in progress. $4218+ can be read correctly at any time when the lowest bit of $4212 is clear. (newer higan emulates this, bsnes-plus v4 will also)

I've attached official manual references for these statements (this is for olddb's benefit). Note the description of $4200 bit 0 and $4212 bit 0. I'm also including caution #16 which covers some edge cases as well.

(2018/08/29 Edit: attachments removed.)

In my own words:

Caution: When starting to read the controller, it may take up to 3 fields (50 ms) for some third-party controllers to wake up and return updated input. During this period, they return previous input, which may cause poorly designed game loops to see spurious presses as if the buttons had been held throughout the period when the controller was not read. This can be worked around in either of two ways:

A. Edge detection: Calculate which buttons were pressed in this frame and not in the last one. This can be calculated as cur_keys & (last_keys ^ $FFFF) or as cur_keys & (last_keys ^ cur_keys). My code since Concentration Room (2009) calls this the new_keys mechanism.

B. Ignore data from automatic reading for at least 3 fields. For example, a program may turn on automatic reading, start a palette fade effect, and then once the fade completes, start paying attention to the data in $4218-F.

Thanks a lot for releasing a demo!

I've been playing it for about 20 minutes, and here's my feedback so far.

First of all, congratulations for the project. I'm totally impressed by your demo, it feels like the basis of a commercial-grade game (much like Anguna on GBA).

The graphics are beautiful, the music is cool, and the engine / core gameplay is solid. You successfully recreated the whole gameplay of the "Secret of" games, up to the famous ring menu. I was astounded to find that everything is working: changing characters, getting new weapons, setting the AI of the "following" character, trading weapons between characters, dialog system with PNJ, enemies, saving/loading, etc. The scrolling system is also very well done. Kudos, all of this is really impressive.
I can not imagine how long you have spent coding all this.

The game is also quite challenging in its current state, with quite a lot of maps / content for a first demo. I managed to recruit the "sorceress" character, but I didn't find anywhere to go after that: is this the end of the demo, or is there any additional content that I missed?

I also have some suggestions / personal feedback that may or may not help you:

- I find that the player character moves too slowly. I died 3 times in the demo and had to start it all over again, and, in my third attempt, I really wished that there was "run" button (like in Secret of Mana) to run through the maps I already explored. Also, the enemies moves way faster than the player, so it's really hard to avoid them when they attack you. Personally, I would increase the "walking speed" instead of adding a running button, so we can both avoid them more easily and have more fun exploring the maps.

- There is a slight delay between the "attack" button and the actual attacking frame. It makes the player vulnerable during a short windows every time he attacks, due to the animation frame where the hero "charges" his punch / sword / dagger attack. I'll remove this frame to display the "sword / dagger / punch" frame instantly after a button press, or at least I'll reduce its duration, because it feels too slow for me in this demo.

- The sprites (PNJ, enemies, chests) appears / disappears from the screen before being actually "out of the screen". I think that you only test their top-left position after a scrolling to check whether they need to be displayed / hidden. That leads to some "sprites teleportation" sometimes. It's a not deal breaker, but it'll look more polished if the sprites actually went offscreen before being hidden .

- I won't spoil it for everyone else, but I did enjoy the little "puzzle" in this demo (it took me some time to figure it out how to go to screen where you can recruit the sorceress )

P.S.: I tested in on BSNES set in PAL (50Hz) mode, without any particular filter.

Once again, congrats for all the great work. I really hope you can complete it in 2018. We got Sydney Hunter a few days ago, so if we also have your game released too, that'll be a very good year for SNES homebrews!

@Revenant
@koitsu
@tepples

Thank you for the info. This is very helpful.

@drludos

Thank you for your time. I know not anyone is up to playing uncompleted games like this.



You did everything you could in the demo.



I will have to test the walking faster. I never though of that. As for a running button, it's already coded. I disable it before releasing the demo mainly for two reasons: 1) The running animations are no completed 2) The demo can be breezed easily with it.
The running I implemented is similar the boots in Zelda 3 (SNES), where once you press the button the character goes in a straight line and can't attack while running. I find that a 'normal running button' (like Chrono Trigger) gives the player too much advantage against enemies.

Also, keep in mind that I plan on adding weapons that will greatly influence the player interaction with the enemies. For example, the shield (which its overpowered in its current state [not in the demo]) or the whip, which will allow you to pull enemies towards you.

Also, there is no magic in the demo.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, I'm more concern about the game being too easy than it being too hard.



Thank you for this.
As in right now, the attack animation is 24 frames. You can only inflict damage in the last 8. I need to change this.
I'm thinking of doing a system a system where different weapons have different startup-lag.
For example, the sword can keep the 24 frame system, but the dagger can be quicker. The axe could have even more startup time than the sword.
This way players may use the weapon the feel more comfortable with.

Another thing I may need to change is that enemies are completely invulnerable while attacking, even in their startup frames. I changed this recently to make the demo harder. I may need to tweak this.



I know what you mean. This will be in the top of my priorities.

Once again, thank you for your comments and time. Very helpful.

Wasn't sure if it was noted above, but the treasure chest appears to have a position that is delayed by one frame, i.e. while it's scrolling it will be one frame behind in position but catches up when I stop. This might apply to other sprites as well, but it's noticeable with the chest because it doesn't move.

I'm confused though, about the scope of the ROM. I was only able to find 4 screens, and no new characters? Maybe I missed something... will play again later.

Then I'd make the enemies more challenging, instead of restricting the player's abilities. The latter is much more frustrating.

(This is why I like playing Super Metroid much more than the Mega Man games, for example.)

Tried a second time, and figured out where to go to continue. I'd missed a gap in the side of one of the maps.

Anyhow, cool demo, best of luck with the rest.

@creaothceann
Interesting take.

@rainwarrior

Thank you.