Deva preview

MRC webmaster JohnHassink has uploaded a game-preview video to YouTube from Deva. The project in development is an MSX2 platformer and has influences from games like Psycho World and Fantasm Soldier II. The video showcases some stages with several weapon options and some nice parallax-scrolling environments. norakomi, well-known from the MSX2 game Manbow2, is also involved in this project as programmer. The preview already gives us a good impression of this game, certainly a promising future!

Relevant link: Deva project

Comments (36)

By mth

Champion (430)

13-06-2010, 22:53

Indeed the platforms and jumps and backgrounds remind me of Fantasm Soldier II, while the monsters and weapons remind me of Psycho World. The animations in the background remind me of Ys 3; I think Fantasm Soldier only had static backgrounds. And I like the music. Looks very promising!

By Google

By JohnHassink

wayward son (3183)

13-06-2010, 23:10

Thank you!

Indeed, Fantasm Soldier II had static backgrounds, expect for the final 'Act', which has some flame animations.

This graphics and music, BTW, are very 'conceptual'; things will ofcourse change during development.

One more thing - we're looking for extra help on GFX design.

By Latok

msx guru (3022)

13-06-2010, 23:32

Wow, there is a great feel to this game, judging by this preview. And idd, it breaths Fantasm Soldier II all over. Then again, it also looks like Core Dump sources have been found after all ^________^

By pitpan

Prophet (2560)

14-06-2010, 10:07

Very nice indeed. Love the main sprite design in dark colours. Keep working!

By ro

Prophet (3591)

14-06-2010, 11:15

WOOOOT! that looks freakin' good !
The sprite animation is fantastic, as are the general GFX. Very well coded...

Dunno 'bout SFX, but I'm more than willing to provide some PSG based SFX
(using SEE3)

By viejo_archivero

Paragon (1295)

14-06-2010, 15:02

Looking *really* good! With tricky map designs and balanced weapons this game could be a must. Congrats to the development team, keep up the good work!

By PingPong

Paragon (2015)

14-06-2010, 17:03

Extremely good start

By norakomi

Paladin (952)

14-06-2010, 17:18

thank you all for the positive feedback.
Deva is a game that uses screenmodes 4 and 5.
Title screens, demos and menus will be made in screen 5,
while the game itself is in screen 4, which allows the parallax scroll at such a high speed.

We are looking for anyone who is capable of drawing in either screenmode 4 or 5.
As you see in the youtube demo a lot of levels have already been planned out, but much needs to
be changed and added.

Screen 4 allows fast scrolls and big moving objects, which need to be thought out and drawn.

I hereby like to call for your help, because unfortunately our graphic designer, Robert, has
limited time, and development of Deva has been put on hold.

To see this game coming complete we are looking for anyone who can help with:
level designs
demo grapx designs
monster (software- & hardwaresprites)

Thank you !

bartfuture at gmail.com

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3876)

14-06-2010, 17:21

Great preview! It could be a true classic.
I would insist by adding more frames for sprite animations.
As you use screen 4 you can spend all the spare VRAM to store sprite animations.

By Latok

msx guru (3022)

14-06-2010, 17:25

It would be a shame if this game won't see daylight. I think here's a role for MRC. You should be able to ask for help on the frontpage. Either in a newsposting, or even better, in a banner at the top of the screen.

That will be much more effective than a cry for help in a reaction to a preview.

By spl

Paragon (1230)

14-06-2010, 18:24

Great job! Hope this game will be released

By Ivan

Scribe (8942)

14-06-2010, 19:47

Awesome!!! Much, much better than Fantasm Soldier (smooth animations and scroll, fast as hell!).

By Manuel

Enlighted (7237)

14-06-2010, 20:42

Absolutely superb stuff! I do hope a graphician will step up!

By Edwin

Paragon (1116)

14-06-2010, 20:58

Looks pretty good! Definitely a good update since the early demo!

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

14-06-2010, 21:56

The current graphician (is this a word????) will become more active again in the near future (I was/am very busy with eh... doing stuff with my daughter and girlfriend), but some help would be nice. A lot of work (demographics in screen 5 and levelgraphics in screen 4) has to be done before we can release Deva.

But thanks for all the great compliments!

By AuroraMSX

Paragon (1851)

14-06-2010, 22:37

I can only find one word for this: Awesome!

By Maggoo

Paladin (834)

15-06-2010, 00:55

Love it. This has a little "Turrican" feel as well !

By muffie

Paladin (933)

15-06-2010, 03:18

Impressive...
Can't you use 9958 smooth scrolling on all directions?

By Hrothgar

Champion (341)

15-06-2010, 09:07

Why 9958? 9938 can do the trick vertically as well, and horizontally if you don't mind wobbly edges.
(Might also be a good time to try my trick of colour masking instead of classic border masking for Screen 4 edges. No idea if that's possible CPU-wise...)

By wolf_

Ambassador (9124)

15-06-2010, 09:43

smooth scrolling obviously doesn't work well with multilayers

By Hrothgar

Champion (341)

15-06-2010, 12:09

Which is one of the points I made in the relevant forum thread, but I was corrected by one of the developers here.
And at least vertically I don't see a problem at all, judging by the video that could be a bit smoother.

By Latok

msx guru (3022)

15-06-2010, 13:49

A V9990 version of Deva would be cool

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3876)

15-06-2010, 14:24

well, in that case fine scrolling and multilayer should be possible

By Latok

msx guru (3022)

15-06-2010, 14:26

Exactly

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

15-06-2010, 14:38

I've proposed that already bu I am the only one that is interested in the GFX9000. And Norakomi can't program for it.

By Maggoo

Paladin (834)

15-06-2010, 15:45

You can always do "more" with a more powerful GPU... You could also argue why not making this on a PC or a PS3 so we get fine scrolling or 3d effects. I think the point is to make it a MSX2 game, and considering the limitations, it looks awesome.

By Huey

Prophet (2132)

15-06-2010, 15:53

We need more SCREEN4 games. Pattern modes rule!!
It looks great. Good use of the 8? patternbanks used for animation.

1. What are the limitations on the sprite npc's? How many can you have max on a row? I'm guessing that the MC (player) uses 4 sprites on a row and npcs 2 (or more)? Is that limit handled by (fast) sprite rotation?

2. I noticed differences is the gfx. Are you guys going for flat 2d or for pseudo 3d platforms? Or are most of the current gfx only place holders for later gfx?

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3876)

15-06-2010, 17:30

Actually the 8 tilesets could be used for fine parallax. In this way you could move the far layer very slowly while the front layer moves 8 pixels at time.

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3876)

15-06-2010, 18:27

Anyway the game looks already good now. About the level graphic, I like the pseudo 3d, but I know that this makes level design harder.

Aside this, I think you should insist on the sprite animations: when you have large animated characters like the monsters I've seen or the mail character, you should have many frames of animations or the general atmosphere of the game will suffer.
You have also to carefully calibrate the length of the steps in the animation or the character will tend to slide.

By RobertVroemisse

Ambassador (1134)

16-06-2010, 09:23

We had a discussion about 2D versus pseudo 3D. Most of the levels you see in the demo are only placemarkers yes and will be replaced with 2D graphics. That's the style we have chosen.

By norakomi

Paladin (952)

17-06-2010, 01:02

@huey
1. What are the limitations on the sprite npc's? How many can you have max on a row? I'm guessing that the MC (player) uses 4 sprites on a row and npcs 2 (or more)? Is that limit handled by (fast) sprite rotation?

8 sprites per line.
the player uses 4 sprites on a row.
so on that same row you can have only 1 enemy (hardwaresprites) of 4 sprites per row or 2 enemies (hardwaresprites) of each 2 sprites per row.
but a lot of softwaresprites will be added, and there are also objects/enemies that use hardware and softwaresprites combined.
So with smart planning we can easily fill a screen with exciting material for the player to interact with.

@ artrag
Actually the 8 tilesets could be used for fine parallax. In this way you could move the far layer very slowly while the front layer moves 8 pixels at time.

i understand what you are talking about, but this wont work for deva.
it would completely change the screenbuilduproutine and unfortunately it will take slow down the engine, forcing the game into a lower framerate which i don't want.
In my eyes lots of games on msx fail because they are too slow.
Also this will require a huge change in the graphics of the far layer, which will not be for the better.

By Meits

Paragon (1527)

17-06-2010, 18:14

@ guys
wow

By PingPong

Paragon (2015)

17-06-2010, 18:27

@norakomi: you can do a fast (and simple) sprite rotation multiplexer by simply changing the sprite ptr attribute to two or more vram tables, holding the already rotated sprite planes each 8 by 8.

frame 1: use the SAT1
frame 2: use the SAT2 (sprites rotated by 8 planes)
frame 3: use the SAT2 (sprites rotated by 16 planes)
frame 4: use the SAT2 (sprites rotated by 24 planes)

in this way you could achieve rotation without rotating (moving) 512 of sprites data. just a matter of writing colors and attributes at different addresses each frame.

By Vampier

Paragon (1589)

19-06-2010, 10:55

I hope this is not going to be another platform jumper game like ValisI & II but more a game like Metroid.... that would be REALLY! cool!

By ARTRAG

Prophet (3876)

19-06-2010, 12:49

why? What is the main difference?

By JohnHassink

wayward son (3183)

20-06-2010, 16:18

Well, with Metroid, the focus is more on 'dungeon crawling' in the sense that you'll find yourself in rather labyrinthine tunnel systems etc. and you need to find certain weapon & item upgrades in order to proceed.

Although The Fantasm Soldier games partly rely on similar game elements, the stage maps are more 'open', and those games ephasize more on running/jumping between platforms whilst warding off enemy attack waves. A bit more 'action' in favor of 'searching work', so to say.

The 'arcade adventure' feel (needing a stronger weapon to force open stronger doors, finding running boots which will enable you to run through certain types of walls etc. etc.) is more dominantly present in the Metroid games.

On top of that, all Fantasm Soldier games have a strictly linear progression in stages, as where in the Metroids, you'll have to return to earlier visited areas to get somewhere you couldn't get before when you didn't have this-and-that item yet.

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