NEW Elma Clone

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 14:24

Elma Clone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2xFnnomDoI

Thought you might be interested.

By the way, can you give me some suggestions?
Name, new features, constructive critics, anything...

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 18 Nov 2008, 14:32

lol, another wannabe-elma. Although it seems to be better than most clones, i have to ask: why?

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 14:36

I find it FUN to play around with programming languages. After some time, I needed a bigger project. Thus the elma clone was born.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Nov 2008, 14:56

tho ur programming skialz seems to be nice, but anyway i dont think if anyone will be interested in playing this..

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 15:01

No problem, people are already asking.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Nov 2008, 15:14

rly? then maybe up is somewhere (ex. up.k10x.net) and post teh link?

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 15:17

I'm sorry, as stated: closed beta.

The_BoneLESS · Post by **The_BoneLESS** » 18 Nov 2008, 15:40

seems to use the same (or at least similar) physics engine as x-moto,
therefore, i will never show any interest in the game.

Note: The game visually looks very nice, i just have too much love for elma physics.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 15:52

I didn't know of X-moto before now.....
The physics engine I am using is not even operating in the same dimension. (It's 3D)
Goal is to make the physics as close as possible as in the original elma. It is not finished just yet.

zebra · Post by **zebra** » 18 Nov 2008, 17:11

Eizon wrote:I didn't know of X-moto before now.....
The physics engine I am using is not even operating in the same dimension. (It's 3D)
Goal is to make the physics as close as possible as in the original elma. It is not finished just yet.

ok

good luck when implementing bounces and stuff

ye the physics have to very close to elma for ppl like me to get interested.

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 18 Nov 2008, 22:19

why dont you just rewrite original physics and voila, no problem at all

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 18 Nov 2008, 22:32

mila

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 18 Nov 2008, 22:34

Care to give me the algorithm? Copy-paste?

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 18 Nov 2008, 23:40

it would take me prolly 2 weeks to rewrite from asm code so i'm not going to do that (yet)

teajay · Post by **teajay** » 18 Nov 2008, 23:42

migarlos' evil plan is to rewrite elma, and to publish it as elastomila. In stores for a little less 20 bucks, with online gameplay, server fee for a month included. So you're out of luck, I guess.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 19 Nov 2008, 01:53

I was rather considering freeware.

People ain't going to buy it anyway. "World of Goo" is one of the sweetest games in recent times, though it has about 95 % piracy-ratio.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 19 Nov 2008, 04:21

Eizon, if you can make an almost exact duplicate of elma's physics, add different levels and some extraq features like ghost etc. that would be cool, but i'm afraid you'll find most of us are too attached to the physics.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 19 Nov 2008, 04:49

Though I will try to copy the physics as close as possible, it will never be as good as the original. I know that.

However, the major amount of players of elma is not hard core gamers. This is a game for the "casual gamers". I myself can't even perform a simple "pumping" (believe that is the therm for braking and jumping trick?). About 20-50% of all school kids in this area has tried elma, or may be even playing it during school classes.

The game will be easy to understand, hopefully harder to master. And of course very customizable. I'm thinking about custom levelformat (already implemented), online capabilities, moving apples and platforms, orbital gravity, environment conditions, 2d3d (super paper mario anyone?), and whatever more...

Sadly, I suck hard in elma, so I expect that some are interested in beta-testing when the time comes.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 19 Nov 2008, 08:00

i could do teh though im not pr0 at all, but could find enough time

Xiphias · Post by **Xiphias** » 19 Nov 2008, 09:35

I'd like to be beta tester

a few guys from the elma scene as beta testers would be optimal for you i guess =)

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 19 Nov 2008, 14:45

I will inform when I open for beta-testing. Though you can expect that it will take some time. I have a lot of exams now (stupid chemistry). And for course, programming takes a lot of time.

In the meantime, anyone with decent 3D modelling skills can start making levels. My game supports clean .fbx and .x files, in total covers almost every 3D package out there. Collision detection operates on the XY plane. Starting, apples and killers positions are determined by a text document following the syntax:

#Start
x-position,y-position,0
#Goal
x-position,y-position,0
x-position,y-position,0
#Apple
x-position,y-position,0
x-position,y-position,0
x-position,y-position,0
#Killer
x-position,y-position,0
x-position,y-position,0
#End

More features will be embedded in this file format, such as triggers for apple gravity, moving objects, etc. Hopefully I can manage to even create a in-game level-editor, but that is lower priority. To compensate, in-game connection with a master-server for downloadable levels should be easier and more practical for gamers.

Xiphias · Post by **Xiphias** » 19 Nov 2008, 17:25

damn I wish I didn't stop 3d modeling xD I could have done some killer levels lol

well we all have all the time there is I guess.. just post a reply here when you have a new beta =)

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 19 Nov 2008, 17:45

Will do.

I tried a couple of elma-clones just now. As well as the original elma. X-moto feels very static in comparison. Missing the suspension, though there was some very cool levels. But the staticness made the game very difficult to predict and play. And who the hell can complete a map huge as hell without dying! Immense amount of frustration.

I also found the flash clone that I find even worse. Extremely static, though it is actually a little more fun to play. Adrenaline Challange: http://www.crazymonkeygames.com/adrenal ... lenge.html (A game my friends always played in economy classes, because .exe files was blocked)

Another clone is Trails Mountain Hights, extremely difficult. http://www.miniclip.com/games/trials-mo ... eights/en/
Another very close to TMH is TG motocross2 http://www.teagames.com/games/tgmotocross2/play.php

The original is more dynamic. The suspension is probably the most vital point. This is where I have problems with my clone. I can't seem to get the correct dampening and spring effect, though it feels much better than any of the clones I tried. Also the gravity, wheel-torque and friction feels wrong, somewhat slow.

Now back to chemistry.....

The_BoneLESS · Post by **The_BoneLESS** » 19 Nov 2008, 17:55

glad to see you are taking all those informations in consideration.

elasticity might be the most important part of elastomania.

pawq · Post by **pawq** » 19 Nov 2008, 18:19

for me, it even is

FinMan · Post by **FinMan** » 19 Nov 2008, 20:07

Agree with bone, elasticity is the most important part of fun in elma.

Nice job, man. Keep working!

zworqy · Post by **zworqy** » 19 Nov 2008, 20:43

The_BoneLESS wrote:elasticity might be the most important part of elastomania.

Hence the name

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 20 Nov 2008, 00:45

Eizon - when coding levels, you might want to take a look at some GAA nominated levels, for ideas you know, to get yourself acquainted with what the scene considers a good level.

Bismuth · Post by **Bismuth** » 20 Nov 2008, 01:37

The_BoneLESS wrote:glad to see you are taking all those informations in consideration.

elasticity might be the most important part of elastomania.

Yeah, the name says it. But I think the most important part is actually mania

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 20 Nov 2008, 02:26

But I think you can agree that the game is what it is, exactly because of the elasto AND the mania.

However, this should not be misunderstood with the following quote:

Manic patients may need to be hospitalized to protect themselves and others.

Or perhaps it should...

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mania

teajay · Post by **teajay** » 20 Nov 2008, 23:29

Maybe you could create a sturdier helmet, I really can't get used to it the way it is handled in elma.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 21 Nov 2008, 03:24

What do you mean? So that you won't die from a little touch?

western · Post by **western** » 22 Nov 2008, 18:07

you seem to have much motivation (as for now).

yep, since you're at it for the creation of a game similar to elma to practice your programming skills, why not make it a little bit different? so people can try the elma clone with the life meter and find it funny!

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 23 Nov 2008, 00:50

Not a bad idea. Could try making the health meter dependent on velocity on head impact.

Anyway, programming is not as hard as you think it is. It depends greatly on mathematical understanding (repeat understanding, not skills), but mostly on google-fu! This is like my first playable game, overall first application over 300 lines of code.

However, I'm having great trouble with the spring system. As I depend on the BEPUphysics library command "new Spring(boxa, boxb, posa, posb, strength, damp, min, max, break)", options are few. For some reason, when creating left and right wheel-connection, the first created is always 10-100 times stronger. The dampening system works horribly as well. I'll look more on it after exams...

western · Post by **western** » 23 Nov 2008, 05:18

yes, of course it relies on logic and mathematics. patience and motivation, too.

as for the springness, you think you can link it to a mathematical function such as sinus, but of decreasing strength over time? ofter two or three weaves (cycles), it'd of course pretty much be gone away.

show me what you think. I kind of like that kind of intellectual work...

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 23 Nov 2008, 12:17

western posts make me always laugh

some ez help for eizon -
1. don't ever use any libraries for any bigger project (except the ones where you know 100% it does everything you need - like opnegl or smth), try to do that physics yourself, shouldn't be a big deal
2. leave all fancy things like various lev formats or other shit to be finished at the end. If you don't manage to get the main system to work smoothly, noone would play it anyway

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 23 Nov 2008, 13:15

I've tried to to some basic 2D and 3D collision detections. Works okay, but XNA supports only native AABB (Axis Aligned Bounding Box) and Bounding Sphere. Kinda messes up a lot when trying to operate with triangle mesh. I don't really want to start my first project with complex mathematical collision detection ether.

I've tried havok, Nvidia/Ageia PhysX and BEPUphysics. The last one being the simplest and most XNA-compatible.

Back to the spring. As BEPUphysics is only a pre-compiled DLL, so I don't know how it works in detail. The spring method is only initialized, and from there on, it operates itself. It does not give me any information of it current status, so I never know when it is colliding, expanding, extracting and so on. So if I don't get it to work within some reasonable time, guess I have to implement my own 3D collision detection system. I plan to do that in the future anyway.

Damn it, chemistry exam tomorrow...

totem · Post by **totem** » 23 Nov 2008, 13:50

Eizon wrote:I have to implement my own 3D collision detection system. I plan to do that in the future anyway.

good luck dude

If I were you I'd only make 2D game (with 3D-fake LGR) because a 3D clone of elma doesn't make sense in a way.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 23 Nov 2008, 14:31

You might not see it now, but 3D has a great potential of extending features. As well as immense graphic abilities (HLSL and stuff). As a small bonus, performance. My elma clone currently runs smoothly on a 600mHz machine with 32mb video ram, the original elma is lagging on the same computer.

I'm sure Little Big Planet would not have been the same in 2D, though I have not tried the game. I just finished Super Paper Mario though, a nice mix of 2D and 3D ^^

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 23 Nov 2008, 14:35

wonder why do you need any fancy collision detection if you have only 1 moving object

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 23 Nov 2008, 14:58

Bike is four objects, plus all apples, killers and flowers. And new features. Though I can easily rewrite the code for apples and other small non-moving triggers. But I still need triangle mesh, counts as several hundreds/thousands of objects that requires collision detection.

totem · Post by **totem** » 23 Nov 2008, 16:26

Eizon wrote:You might not see it now, but 3D has a great potential of extending features. As well as immense graphic abilities (HLSL and stuff).

HLSL concerns visual effects, here we were talking of physics and collision detection.
What I meant actually was this point : if you don't expect to rotate your point of view and/or give the possibility to drive with a first person view, 3D is useless and be sure 2D algortihms are much easier to write and faster at execution time.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 23 Nov 2008, 16:41

I have chosen 3D mostly because of graphics, as I want to keep most of the original gameplay. But I plan to get most out of the 3D capabilities in the future when implementing new features.

A few of them here, on my old video (2y old): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R58NIuNiNJw

teajay · Post by **teajay** » 24 Nov 2008, 20:00

Just keep it going man, I like all kinds of art and fan stuff. Don't rush it either, this will be scrap material if you're going to be hasty. In 2 years, there will be still people here to applaud you if you come up with something stable, sturdy, and playable.

Good luck.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 24 Nov 2008, 20:25

Thank you, I've already used 2 years from planning to actually do something

I originally never intended to make this game. Oh well, might as well finish it.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 28 Nov 2008, 09:10

Eizon wrote:You might not see it now, but 3D has a great potential of extending features. As well as immense graphic abilities (HLSL and stuff). As a small bonus, performance. My elma clone currently runs smoothly on a 600mHz machine with 32mb video ram, the original elma is lagging on the same computer.

I'm sure Little Big Planet would not have been the same in 2D, though I have not tried the game. I just finished Super Paper Mario though, a nice mix of 2D and 3D ^^

i used to run elma on a 687mhz pc with 256mb of video ram, and an nvidia geforce 5200 card in it, and it ran at like 18fps sometimes, but if i had like another prog open, some 6fps.

i don't know too much about programming, but is it possible to have the objects running on different variables?

milagros · Post by **milagros** » 28 Nov 2008, 14:33

SmaXa wrote:i don't know too much about programming, but is it possible to have the objects running on different variables?

ROFL

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 28 Nov 2008, 14:46

What do you mean by:

is it possible to have the objects running on different variables?

I don't follow you. Because everything runs on separate variables. It's kinda difficult otherwise.

As a sidenote: I have tried making the game "threaded" (google it) though. Had some extreme performance increase on powerful computers (about 8x on a 2,4gHz dual-core), however slowing down my own 1,8gHz single-core because of a memory leak somewhere. These tests where done on the alpha edition though, where about 10-1000 bikes where simulated.

If I can get the threading to work, I guess the game should run 60fps on my 300mHz with 16mb video memory. Don't see any real reason to go lower than that. Minimum requirements for Windows XP is 233mHz after all. On second thought, it would be kinda awesome if it works on that one, the dependency ".NET 2.0" requires minimum 400mHz.

Grace · Post by **Grace** » 28 Nov 2008, 23:41

well like i said, i don't know too much about programming. was just a suggestion.

Eizon · Post by **Eizon** » 29 Nov 2008, 14:20

I did not understand you suggestion. However programmers find it quite funny. Imagine asking a music shop to buy a piano with separate keys. http://www.zenithmusic.com/images/RX6_Grand_Piano.jpg

Instead of a suggestion, what was your request? Better performance?