crusher's Project Page

[crusher]

I figured I'd open a project page as well.

Continuing the wonderful journey of GBA programming, I've tried to make a scrolling engine. The GBA has built in scrolling. All good one might think. But that's far from the case. The maximum size of a background is 512x512. It's very small. So how do you make those �ber long scrolling levels? By dynamically updating the background map currently loaded in memory... of course!

Basically it works like this.. The GBA screen is 240x160 pixels in size and the minimum background size is 256x256. So that means that you have 16 pixels on X and 96 on Y that are not shown at the moment. You may very well call this "empty" space a cache. So when the screen scrolls, you need to update the parts of the background that are off-screen and switch those for new background data. Pretty clever concept really.

So I'm working on such an engine right now. Here you can see the current progress. I will gladly give you the source of what I have done so far, if you ask for it.

Try it on your favorite GBA emulator (VBA)...

[Shadow X]

cruser you silly hacker

nice job on the scrolling

the graphics are almost 2D

[crusher]

Why thank you Shadow...

But I fail to see how it's "almost" 2D...

[Skinner8]

cruser sux am i rite

[crusher]

i thinX u r stupid IMO

ROFL

[madcrow]

Nice work. Now you just have to add all the other things a game needs like sprites, an AI some kewl music... For an example of the best homebrew GBA programming take a look at http://www.pouet.net/prodlist.php?ty...rm3=&x=13&y=13

some of the 3d stuff that gets done in those demos is just CRAZY! Demo programming is nice cuz all you have to worry about is FX, no AI code.

[crusher]

Hey thanks for the link madcrow. I'll make sure to check it out later.

I'm gonna try to work with some vector graphics soon, so I can display 3D cubes and stuff on the GBA. I just need to get the hang out cos and sin, as I never quite figured out how it works...

Oh and I'll make a full-fledged game soon enough. That's my intentions anyways.

[Shadow X]

hmm i think i need to start my own project page


ima try to make a demo game too. well see who's better

although imo, that eye game was aweomse

[crusher]

Eye game... it wasn't even a game f00!

If you are gonna try making something for GBA, just ask me and I'll pinpoint you to all necessary information.

[Shadow X]

well... do it now

edit: please

[crusher]

First we have this page: http://www.cs.rit.edu/~tjh8300/CowBite/CowBiteSpec.htm
It's an invaluable source of information about the GBA hardware. You will need it, I guarantee you that.

Then we have www.gbadev.org
The best GBA programming community site. They have both open source stuff and a great forum for information.

I also recommend you to check out http://www.thepernproject.com/
There are some GBA programming tutorials there. Pretty good stuff.

And lastly, I recommend you to download this book http://www.jharbour.com/gameboy/
It's free of charge and a very good read if you are a beginner. He's pretty lousy at explaining some stuff but you will eventually get a hang of it if you just try to figure out stuff yourself.

That's all I got. Enjoy mon ami!

[Shadow X]

Thanks, Fatman

edit: :O!

[AKUMA™]

Make a game called Fast Food Fighters and put all the mascots from all the famous franchises in there. It could have fatalities where you could dip somebody in a deep fryer, cook them on a grill, run them through a slicer or some shit. And when people throw fireballs they could be like flaming mcnuggets or hotsauce, or even a hot ham n' cheese. Colonel Sanders and Ronald McDonald could be the bosses too. That would be the shit.

[crusher]

Do I smell the next 10 million seller? I just think I do...

[AKUMA™]

Do I smell the next 10 million seller? I just think I do...

Hell yeah! Then you could release minor upgraded versions of the game like Capcom did for Street Fighter II, like Super Fast Food Fighters Upsized Edition lol