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HTML5 Rock Raiders Remake


risingstar64
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sheepandshepherd
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- When the tile in the duggmap is 0, it's always a wall, correct? Is it a wall any other time?
- Does drilling a wall simply mean setting the tile type to "ground" and marking it as not a wall?
- When a raider drills a tile, what determines if adjacent walls are also drilled?

 

1) That's correct.

2) That's how I'd do it, anyway. Probably in the same "finish drilling" function that generates the ore/crystal items.

3) Ah, I forgot to mention this one, since GeoTool (as a map editor) had to ignore this behavior. The engine requires any wall tiles to exist in at least 2x2 "chunks", or they'll collapse. The straightforward way to test this is to check each of a wall's 4 corners for whether or not they're part of a chunk, and if none of them are, destroy the wall. Do this for all of the drilled wall's neighbors (if they're walls).

 

One of the vanilla levels actually has a wall that's "invalid", not part of a 2x2 chunk. It collapses immediately upon starting the level. But another complication to consider is that hidden caverns are counted as "walls" by the engine until they're discovered, so 1-unit-thick walls don't collapse if there's a hidden cavern on the other side. To handle both cases, it'd be useful to have a "isWallOrHidden" function to use instead of just "isWall" in the "isPartOfChunk" test; depends on how your engine works though.

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risingstar64

As spring break has come and went, it seems like a good time for an update.

 

As mentioned in the last update, I've been in the process of adding a lot of content, and I'm happy to say that the currently supported file types for all 33 original levels (8 tutorial and 25 main levels) have been converted and added to the game. To go along with this, the game now uses the original scrolling level select menu and images, as well as the original ore/crystal count portion of the UI. The original loading screen has been added and is now the first loaded resource. Upon being loaded, this script adds itself to the assetLoader, replacing the normal black background and white loading text. Numerous bugfixes have also been implemented, as well as a minor rework of the level converter to handle some edge cases, and some code cleanup related to Raider AI.

 

Because things seem to be very stable at this point, I've gone ahead and updated the gh-pages branch with these new changes (meaning they can now be tested on the live site) but keep in mind that there is still a lot of work to be done and more file conversion to do before many of the levels will work as expected. In particular, most levels have been given a placeholder objective of collecting 5 energy crystals, and things like emerge maps and erode maps have not yet been converted as there isn't any monster AI or lava erosion just yet. Additionally, at least one level appears to have some kind of offset between the tilemap and the objectList file, and a few levels fail to load in entirely. I suspect that these are indicative of edge cases not being correctly handled by the map converter, and will be investigating them at some point down the line.

As always, if anyone runs across any bugs while playing, please let me know! Expect some vehicles and dynamite (along with proper level objectives) some time in the near future, so that more levels will actually be playable :)

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Seriously, you have made amazing progress on this, very quickly and consistently!

I'm honestly replaying the levels fairly often, if for no other reason than to try and build as much as I can before my Raiders drop off the fifth Energy Crystal and ended the level.

In so doing, I have encountered the only significant bug I can remember:

 

*When I create a build site before the Tool Store has all the materials it needs for it - or possibly once the material demands outpace the Tool Store's supply - the Raiders often abandon building it.* (Note: The specifics of the conditions that trigger the bug might be a bit off.)

 

I love what's there so far. The last thing I want to do is delay the addition of Raider-training, dynamite, and/or vehicles - so the only request I have is for some bits of HUD [even in just a temp form] that show building requirements before you select/place them, and something that shows building progress during construction. Even the currently-existing Debug Mode HUD for build progress is pretty bad, as the font color is really hard to read. Other than that, though, it's AMAZING!!!

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risingstar64
14 minutes ago, DoubleBro7 said:

Seriously, you have made amazing progress on this, very quickly and consistently!

I'm honestly replaying the levels fairly often, if for no other reason than to try and build as much as I can before my Raiders drop off the fifth Energy Crystal and ended the level.

In so doing, I have encountered the only significant bug I can remember:

 

*When I create a build site before the Tool Store has all the materials it needs for it - or possibly once the material demands outpace the Tool Store's supply - the Raiders often abandon building it.* (Note: The specifics of the conditions that trigger the bug might be a bit off.)

 

I love what's there so far. The last thing I want to do is delay the addition of Raider-training, dynamite, and/or vehicles - so the only request I have is for some bits of HUD [even in just a temp form] that show building requirements before you select/place them, and something that shows building progress during construction. Even the currently-existing Debug Mode HUD for build progress is pretty bad, as the font color is really hard to read. Other than that, though, it's AMAZING!!!

Thank you for the feedback, and especially for taking the time to write up the bug you encountered!

 

I noticed this bug with the building sites as well when I was doing a little playtesting yesterday, which surprised me because I was sure I had fixed it a few weeks ago. My guess is that one of the commits I made relating to the task lists this past week caused tasks that have been added to the tasksUnavailable list to get stuck there, rather than moving back to available when their requirements are met. If this is indeed the cause, then it means that a building site will currently get abandoned if the tool store or a raider doesn't have one or more required resources, even if those resources are acquired later. Part of the reason I've been slow in addressing this bug is that I intend to tweak the way raiders select a new task when not under the player's instruction, a change that will enable me to throw out the tasksUnavailable list entirely and should (hopefully) fix this bug in the process.

 

Additionally, I have noticed that if you right click a building site while a raider is selected, this can cause the raider to think they are placing a resource that they aren't holding. This is a consequence of the sort of hacky way that I chose to identify the issuing of walk commands, and will be easy to fix.

 

Finally, you are absolutely right about debug mode and lack of clarity surrounding building requirements and placed resources. At the very least, I need to adjust some font colors and sizes, and make the placed ore and crystal count easier to identify and read. I've primarily been using my browser console to print out and tweak objects and variables recently, and as such have not kept up very well with some aspects of the in-game GUI and debug mode. 

 

Once again, the feedback is greatly appreciated :) Hopefully this weekend I can find time to get around to some of this stuff.

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11 hours ago, risingstar64 said:

Thank you for the feedback, and especially for taking the time to write up the bug you encountered!

 

I noticed this bug with the building sites as well when I was doing a little playtesting yesterday, which surprised me because I was sure I had fixed it a few weeks ago. My guess is that one of the commits I made relating to the task lists this past week caused tasks that have been added to the tasksUnavailable list to get stuck there, rather than moving back to available when their requirements are met. If this is indeed the cause, then it means that a building site will currently get abandoned if the tool store or a raider doesn't have one or more required resources, even if those resources are acquired later. Part of the reason I've been slow in addressing this bug is that I intend to tweak the way raiders select a new task when not under the player's instruction, a change that will enable me to throw out the tasksUnavailable list entirely and should (hopefully) fix this bug in the process.

 

Additionally, I have noticed that if you right click a building site while a raider is selected, this can cause the raider to think they are placing a resource that they aren't holding. This is a consequence of the sort of hacky way that I chose to identify the issuing of walk commands, and will be easy to fix.

 

Finally, you are absolutely right about debug mode and lack of clarity surrounding building requirements and placed resources. At the very least, I need to adjust some font colors and sizes, and make the placed ore and crystal count easier to identify and read. I've primarily been using my browser console to print out and tweak objects and variables recently, and as such have not kept up very well with some aspects of the in-game GUI and debug mode. 

 

Once again, the feedback is greatly appreciated :) Hopefully this weekend I can find time to get around to some of this stuff.

*Small clarification - once you get to said building-recipes/construction-progress GUI, would you please implement them into non-debug mode as well as debug? Thanks!*

 

Once again, thank you so much for all the tireless effort you've put in, and good luck with everything!

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Rotation issues seem to be a common theme among LRR tools, as Map Creator has it wrong and I just ran into this issue as well, but your rotations are off.

 

Spoiler

PmAjjAj.png


The grey brick part of the Tool Store should be pointed left. Keep in mind the "heading" you get from the CFG goes CCW, not CW (Map Creator gets this wrong, as did I.)

Also, the map there kind of looks off: Compare it to the original game or MC:

 

Spoiler

lF54QLG.png

You're missing the two corners adjacent to the Tool Store.

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risingstar64
3 hours ago, darkf said:

Rotation issues seem to be a common theme among LRR tools, as Map Creator has it wrong and I just ran into this issue as well, but your rotations are off.

Thanks for pointing this out, I haven't played around with the OL angles in awhile so I'll have to go back and take a look at that. 

 

3 hours ago, darkf said:

You're missing the two corners adjacent to the Tool Store.

The order of precedence of the various map files was a bit tricky, I'll go back and look at this at some point too.

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  • 2 weeks later...

By the way, love the progress! Reinforcement so soon, and dynamite already on the way - seriously, awesome work dude! Just wanted to let you know about a bug I ran into both now and right before you did any of the work on dynamite - occasionally, when I go to make a building, the GUI vanishes, with the top left square highlighted in that red 'building-invalid' color. This only seems to happen in some levels. Also, have you extended reinforcibility to corner walls? I know it wasn't in the original game, but I could never tell if it did anything to balance the game, and would therefore not mind if corners could be reinforced here.

 

 

Would be more specific/might re-edit this later today, but I got class. Talk later!

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risingstar64
2 hours ago, DoubleBro7 said:

By the way, love the progress! Reinforcement so soon, and dynamite already on the way - seriously, awesome work dude! Just wanted to let you know about a bug I ran into both now and right before you did any of the work on dynamite - occasionally, when I go to make a building, the GUI vanishes, with the top left square highlighted in that red 'building-invalid' color. This only seems to happen in some levels. Also, have you extended reinforcibility to corner walls? I know it wasn't in the original game, but I could never tell if it did anything to balance the game, and would therefore not mind if corners could be reinforced here.

 

 

Would be more specific/might re-edit this later today, but I got class. Talk later!

Glad you like it :) Thanks to some restructuring I did recently for task selection, as well as moving forward with dummy task objects rather than reworking the task system from the ground up, I've been able to complete reinforcements and most of dynamite much faster than expected. As of now, any wall (barring solid rock) can be reinforced, so that includes corners. As for the building error you described, that used to happen when the BuildingPlacer was hovering over an invalid space (one outside the level grid). I know I addressed this bug a month or two ago, but I must have missed a corner case that is occurring on some levels. If you think of it, please let me know what level you experienced this error in, and I'll be sure to fix it with the dynamite update. 

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<Currently referring to levels by number because I don't have a list of level names. System is "x-y": x referring to row, y referring to column.>

 

I'm happy how quickly you went to address the bug... but it seems it likely has little to do with the out-of-bounds issue, as, now, every level in the first 4 rows has the bug. I even tried mucking about with camera position before attempting the duplicate the bug, only to get the same result. 1-1 was fine when I last posted, but now - after this latest commit, I think - it [sometimes?!] shares the previously mentioned bug w/ 2-1, 2-2, 3-1, 3-2, 3-3, 4-1, 4-2, and possibly more. (3-1 might have been unaffected before the last commit as well - I don't remember precisely.) To reiterate; before, I never encountered the bug on 1-1. Now, it happens most of the time I play that level.

 

More[?] detailed description of bug: When I click to choose a building, the top left square on the screen goes red, and I can't do anything except pause/quit. Tested with both Tool Store and Teleport Pad on multiple [not every] levels. (Incidentally,  I found that it triggers in 1-1 regardless of whether the raiders have reached their Tool Store yet.) So I've just been going into levels and trying to place a building site, either straight away or after upgrading TS to level 1 or 2, and then the bug triggers.

 

Oh, and lastly, corners can be reinforced as of now, but what I meant was: does the reinforcement code apply the same effect to corners as they do for walls? Because I think that even after your latest patch to the reinforcement code, there were still a few cases where landslides occurred out of walls that had already been reinforced.

 

 

*I don't mean to be putting down your latest efforts by any means, however.* While this does seem like the biggest bug in a released build thus far, that title is not a lofty one by any stretch of the imagination, and this one only barely clears that bar. This is just a small setback, and I'm sure you'll be able to identify and address the issue in a jiffy!

I have faith in you, and I appreciate both your speed and dedication to this project, as both have been absolutely heartwarming to behold thus far. 

 

P.S. - Again, I would love to have dedicated more time to this response, but I felt like I was able to come up with a good amount of quality response/data in ~60min. Hopefully this is helpful, and I didn't gloss over any giant details.

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risingstar64

That's so interesting. I have just a few more questions for you, f you have a moment. How are you testing the game currently? Are you using the live github.io site, or are you downloading and running the game locally? If you are using the live site, I haven't updated it to master yet, so it doesn't have my most recent patch for out of bounds coordinates. Regardless though, that doesn't sound like your issue. Since I am having trouble replicating it on my own machine, it would be a huge help for me if you could open the console in your browser, and paste or share a screenshot of the error message you are receiving. In chrome, the developer console can be opened using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + shift + i. 
Thanks again for all of the support, and please, don't worry about hurting my feelings. I can handle a little criticism ;)

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Sorry for the delay! I thought I posted this earlier.

First off, yes, at the times when I wrote the last two posts, I had just finished up some improvised play-testing sessions. However, I have had to bounce around between tasks a lot today, so I haven't been able to stick with it. For that matter, everything I've talked about so far has been after a session or two of play/improvised play-testing - I don't consider myself competent enough to look into the console/code myself; however, if a screenshot of the console would help, that seems simple enough.

Secondly, whenever I play the game, I go to rystills.github.io. (If it matters, I also often load the game in a new tab to play offline elsewhere, but if I do, I always refresh once I get back online) I'm stuck with a Chromebook, so I'm on Chrome OS with no real ability to install programs.

 

I only had time to take a brief look before posting, but when I tried to duplicate the bug/glitch, the game worked as intended instead almost all the time! Only time I ran into it was on level 6-1.  Now that the game is more fully updated, it looks like most levels work... some of the time. I still get the glitch fairly often on most levels, but I haven't had quite the same burst of play-testing energy like I did earlier. Any tips on how to attach a screen-cap to the post? I can't figure out the 'insert other media' button.

 

 

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risingstar64

No worries, I check back here periodically, so whenever you get around to responding I am sure to see it sooner or later. I'm not too familiar with chromebooks, but you should at least be able to take a screenshot with the 'prtsc' (printscreen) key. An image of the console after the error has occurred would be extremely helpful :) If the insert media button is not working, you could always paste the image into imgur (http://imgur.com/) and paste the URL here. Once I see the console output, I should be able to fix it within minutes.

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So, I was going to insert my screenshot, but it seems the problem has been fixed by now! I've yet to come across it again, so it seems to be solved! 

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You continue to do nothing but amazing work! I eagerly look forward to each new addition. The only issues I've found since my last post are - in all likelihood - not even bugs, merely natural consequences of the bit-by-bit release approach that I'm so thoroughly enjoying. (ie, as of this moment, Raiders don't seem to be fully programmed to leave a build-site before it finishes, leading to units getting trapped inside if under the wrong circumstances.)

 

Not to rush this particular aspect over others, but any idea what is up with the other levels that makes the game not load them properly? Following your work has renewed my casual interest in programming, so I ask merely out of curiosity, not a request for re-prioritization.

 

Update on 4-15: OMFG VEHICLE SUPPORT 2 DAYS AFTER MY BIRTHDAY! I know it's basically  just dumb luck that it happened that way but thank you!!!

Edited by DoubleBro7
Wanted to add something that I didn't feel warranted a new comment
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risingstar64

Funny you should mention it; I've been thinking a lot recently about why it might be that some levels simply do not load in properly. If I had to guess, I'd say it is one of the following:

-these level files incorporated object types that I did not account for when building the level converter

-these level files broke the naming scheme without me realizing it, causing the game to fail to locate them

-these level files had an unusual layout, causing the script responsible for determining which spaces are initially revealed to hit an unexpected corner case

This is high up in my list of priorities, so I will most likely take a look soon and fix as many as I can. The reason I have been slow to address them is that many of these levels rely on the use of vehicles to complete them (especially the levels which require you to traverse water or lava), so even if I fixed them, they would not be able to be 'beaten' with the current amount of content (*hint* ;)). I also intend to go through and replace the temporary level objectives with the proper objectives for each level pretty soon.

 

As for Raiders getting trapped in a building site, I haven't given this too much thought yet. I may make it so that Units that become trapped simply need to be teleported to the LMS explorer, or give them some kind of ability to escape by sliding past the edge of buildings when trapped.

 

There have been a number of miscellaneous changes and additions since my last update, so I'll probably write something up in the near future :)

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risingstar64

It has been a few weeks since the previous update, so I'd like to summarize the changes that have been made since then:

 

-The biggest change is that as of today, vehicles are supported! At the moment the hover scout and small digger have been added to the game. I will be going through and adding each vehicle, along with the proper building and resource requirements, in the near future.

 

-Dynamite has been added, which can be used to blow up hard rock walls (for the time being, dynamite does not inflict damage on Raiders, as they do not yet have a directive telling them to run away from dynamite once it has been placed).

 

-Sounds now fade out based on distance from the camera, so large maps with many active raiders will not sound like as much of a cacophony.

 

-As mentioned previously, reinforcements have been added, allowing you to reinforce any walls (as long as your raider is carrying a hammer) in order to prevent landslides.

 

In addition, there have been numerous bugfixes and graphical tweaks. You can check out the full list of changes on github. Coming up, expect more vehicles, proper level objectives, and addressing issues with levels that do not load properly or do not load at all. Enjoy!

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  • 10 months later...

So, I know that this site has been in overhaul mode for a while, and sometimes life happens...

 

...but is this dead? I really don't want it to be...

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I took a look at the project and it is overall very interesting, seems like at an advanced level of completion already. Are the levels loaded directly from the game ?

I hope this is not discontinued, even if it probably is given the last posts' dates.

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risingstar64

Hey guys,

once the site went down over the summer, I decided to put this project on hiatus so that I could focus on other things. I'm glad to see the forum is fully back online again! While I don't have time to commit to the remake right now, I certainly wouldn't call it dead. My hope is to find time around the beginning of summer to make a concentrated push and get the project to a fully playable state. Of course, the project is and will remain open source, so its not going anywhere :) 

@RackoverThe level data was taken directly from the game, but I precompiled it first into a format that can be read by the browser. You can locate the level files in the 'levels' subdirectory (https://github.com/rystills/rock-raiders-remake/tree/master/levels). Each level is broken down into multiple map files, with prefixes corresponding to the type of data represented by that map (ie 01, Info_01, High_01, etc.. all describe level 1).

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  • 1 year later...

Hi everyone,

 

I just joined this project and want to show some of the latest progress here. But first of special thanks to @risingstar64 for his awesome work so far. The game is technically working and the codebase looks good.

 

My focus so far is to stick as close to the original game as possible. So pls don't ask for mod support or multiplayer... Other feedback or ideas always welcome!

 

If you can handle the disappointment :D you can try the live demo at http://rystills.github.io/rock-raiders-remake/ ("stable") or https://scarabol.github.io/rock-raiders-remake/ (development build).

 

Enough words, time for pictures!

 

https://imgur.com/a/qwDhKrs

 

Note: One has to provide the original WAD files in order to play the game. Translation is also derived from them. Luckilly there are some on google Cloud see second tab.

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39 minutes ago, Scarabol said:

Hi everyone,

 

I just joined this project and want to show some of the latest progress here. But first of special thanks to @risingstar64 for his awesome work so far. The game is technically working and the codebase looks good.

 

My focus so far is to stick as close to the original game as possible. So pls don't ask for mod support or multiplayer... Other feedback or ideas always welcome!

 

If you can handle the disappointment :D you can try the live demo at http://rystills.github.io/rock-raiders-remake/ ("stable") or https://scarabol.github.io/rock-raiders-remake/ (development build).

 

Enough words, time for pictures!

 

https://imgur.com/a/qwDhKrs

 

Note: One has to provide the original WAD files in order to play the game. Translation is also derived from them. Luckilly there are some on google Cloud see second tab.

Looks nice. 

 

But what is your plan when LEGO come and say that there is copyright on it? 

 

There have been many good remakes that have been lost this way..... 

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But what is your plan when LEGO come and say that there is copyright on it?

Transfer out of using existing LRR assets and instead entirely build your own. As you're not seeking to make any profit from this, being open-source:

a) Lego is probably not bothered enough to play a game of whack-a-mole given the source code will stil be floating around in the ether

b) I am not sure if issuing a Cease and Desist is actually in their power to halt everything. Granted, they can stop people using the Lego logo and also, probably, stop people from using LRR assets. Hence anything that is neither of those two: that is, the core functionality of this newly-made engine itself: is not the IP of Lego and thus Lego cannot strike the entire engine down.

 

Thus, to continue development, all it needs is a fresh batch of assets and the Lego logo utterly deleted.

 

At least, that's how I understand it: I have not looked into this in great detail.

 

There have been many good remakes that have been lost this way.....

Many? I only know of one: cannot remember its name or even which game it was for (LR1/LRR/LI1), but it was never released and the maker canned development of it. Most remakes just fall by the wayside as people move on.

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