Platform Masters development (Apr 7, 2011) - Carnivalesta's final remake

[Direwolf56]

"There no limit to..." Kabam!

[omgitsaoe]

How large are the popcorn sizes...?

[ulillillia]

It doesn't matter. It's part of the background scenery. Converting dollars to Egani, and accounting for a 150% inflation over the course of 61 years, something costing 100 Egani is the same as $2. Find your typical fair or festival that sells popcorn at that kind of price and that's the size it is, probably a 2 oz bag.

[damazywlodarczyk]

carnivalesta i suppose it's like... festivus?

[CarryLarry]

Oh goodness, I watched this video and I got very hungry and also I want to play ring toss

[ulillillia]

There is another change/adjustment that I can foresee in this world - adding tables for eating at (placed between the stands), adding more stands out to 650 or 700 feet out and more from 900 to 950 through 1450 to 1500 (there is some uncertainty as to the distance allowed to the various rides). Stands will just be duplicated as needed. It's probably the easiest and best way to do it. It'll at least make the place much more lively and active.

[Makron5]

Do they sell corndogs at this carnival? What about gyros and such?

[ulillillia]

There is a hot dog and a corn dog stand (the latter being in the most distant row).

[Makron5]

I want this game when it is released.

[AstonishingAce]

Giant pretzels are an excellent idea, at least as a carnival food.

You'd buy one, cut it into parts, and there's pretzel enough for the whole family.

Aside from that, it would probably become popular simply for the novelty of having it being so big.

You'd probably need special equipment to handle cooking such a large pretzel. Maybe you could use something like a grill, but I'm not really sure if pretzel dough is something that can be grilled...

[AstonishingAce]

Another idea for how to cook a giant pretzel:

Some pizzerias have very wide ovens designed to cook multiple pizzas. They put each uncooked pizza side by side in the oven and then cook them all at once.

Such an oven would have enough width to fit a 5 foot wide pretzel, and the height wouldn't be a problem because even a giant pretzel doesn't need to be much taller than a pizza.

Depth would be the only concern, as I assume most such ovens would only have depth enough to cook half a giant pretzel.

[AstonishingAce]

You could overcome that limitation by having the giant pretzel slowly spin around the middle front of the open oven. With care, I believe you could have the pretzel even cooked.

Now you just need to find a paper plate big enough to hold it...

I have no ideas for that one.

[ulillillia]

The pretzel itself is not actually 5 feet wide. That's the length of the string if it was all spread out in one long line. I don't know the actual ratios between string size and the resulting pretzel size, but it's still a good 18 to 24 inches I'd say, easily doable with pizza ovens.

[Max22]

I'm pretty much just pizza. Strictly pizza.

[theNuclearscooby]

I think the lava ladder should have real lava for comedic purposes.

[ManfredMitchum]

Love the ferris wheel. Reminds me of a gif you have on your site that I really liked - a ferris wheel under some moving clouds.

[ulillillia]

That's almost what it's based on. This game, however, takes that animation to an extreme and is much more realistic. The clouds in that animated GIF moves way too fast and are extremely simple (I made it with MSPaint on my Windows 98 system I had). In PM, the clouds move at a realistic speed, around 20 to 30 mph (I'd have to check my programming for the exact value).

[krilli]

Wonderful. That looks really really beautiful. This is art, true art. Can't wait to play.

[ulillillia]

It isn't 100% complete, but very, very close. I'll need to finish the Sentus Mountains world in order to get true 100% completion in terms of the scenery. I'm working on finishing Ronnisa Plains at the moment. If you liked this world, you should also look at Lake Keveran - it's also very pretty.

[ulillillia]

A smoother rotation would require more frames. To get more frames, I'd have to shrink the Hero Wheel down to about 70% of the current size to get twice as many frames. It's just not possible. Besides, it's moving roughly a whole pixel each frame and all the background scenery does that so it fits in quite nicely actually.

[furryfan420]

cool

[liimikas]

i remember when this was in the ealry stages :D

i don't like the ferries wheel, the colours are too out of ordinary,weird, out of place, too bright and the text font is strange.

just my opinion

[freebryd]

When are we gonna get a beta?

[ulillillia]

There's over a 99% chance of a beta being released, though at first only for the demo. The first demo won't be released for over even a whole year yet - I've only recently crossed the halfway point.

[freebryd]

@ulillillia cool. When are you going to update your blog?

[ulillillia]

I've got a start on it, with the major headlines that I can readily recall done (minus photos). The dream journal and daily entries remain. I'm hoping I finish no later than April 30.

[benzo12]

Will the current interface be the one used in the final game? Personally, I think it would look better if the "time" "speed" and "lives" text had it's own custom sprites drawn, rather than using a font with rainbow coloring.

[ulillillia]

They are mostly final. There are 3 things that I'm missing though - height, boss HP, and Air. A few of the icons could use some updating as well. The clock for time is likely have moving hands, reflecting the minutes and seconds remaining. The coin on score is uncertain as to whether or not I want to use it.

[TheFarSide]

Uli can I play any of these games or visit any of the booths you're explaining? I want to visit Soda Pop World thank you :(

[ulillillia]

Unfortunately, no. They're all in the background and Platform Masters is purely 2D.

[ulillillia]

The background is not actually black. There's green from the hills and mountains (with occasional bits of white from the houses and the like on them (let alone the bright area where the city is)). The sky fades from near black at the top to a very dark bluish color. Throw in the stars and you've got a lot of variety. Alpha channel should only be used for parts of the image intended to be transparent (like water) or smoothing out rough edes (anti-aliasing). Use the actual color otherwise.

[UltraBibendum]

Do you think you might move some of the small rides like the haunted house up among the stands? Usually rides are somewhat segregated from food areas, but not this much. Often food stands are arranged around a square with paths leading away in each direction to various rides. Great work so far, I love all the individual stands.

[ulillillia]

I'd either have to have more stands or more rides for that to happen. The 400-foot spacing will remain.

[AxeInfection]

Where do I get this game?

[ulillillia]

Regnow or Steam. It'll be over a year before it's released though - I've only just crossed the halfway point.

[aisti81]

If the mud-dream is your all time favourite, then what would be second best dream, the highest ranking that is? Or does a close contender even exist

[ulillillia]

There is a close contender, of which holds the record for the best story. It's one that revolves around a cave that has restaurants underwater, except this water was oddly breathable by humans. Search my dream journal's fun dreams - it's one of the first 11 listed.

[ulillillia]

Alpha is for transparency, often for antialiasing (of which I rarely use). The darkening effect was originally created as a grayscale layer with the multiply mode (preserving the original base colors and opacity with it).

[SnowflakePillow0]

The end of the video really shows how much new stuff you've put in. Great job!

[ulillillia]

Carnivalesta is central to the game's story so I wanted a lot of detail. This is as close to the final version as I'll get for now. I got bored of working on Platform Masters. Given the recent patterns, I'll return in a month or two. At least I'm kind of working on updating my site.

[SnowflakePillow0]

What is the Hero Wheel's circumference in feet?

[SnowflakePillow0]

How high is the highest point of the roller coasters in the background?

[ulillillia]

The famous "Pixels*Scaling=CU" formula answers that. The furthest roller coaster track is the highest - 112 pixels at a scaling of 32. 112*32 is 3584 CU (525.653 feet, 160.22 meters). The Hero Wheel's capsules (of which are connected to the outer rim) has a diameter of 270 pixels and it has a scaling of 8. That's 270*8 or 2160 CU (316.8 feet, 96.56 meters). Multiplying by pi (to convert diameter to circumference) gives 6785.84 CU (995.26 feet, 303.35 meters).

[SnowflakePillow0]

@ulillillia According to my calculations, this means the top speed of the roller coaster would be a thrilling 125.38 miles per hour.

[ulillillia]

That would be from the highest point to ground level. The roller coaster doesn't get to ground level. It does, however, drop 107 pixels (for 502.19 feet). I'm getting 125.291 mph for the top speed in my calculations (from the top to ground level) and this is without drag or friction and assumes a starting speed of exactly 0 from the very top.

[lolledopke]

How much RAM does the game use?

[ulillillia]

My target maximum is 96 MB. From malloc not working, there will be some waste, but 96 MB is the limit I've set.

[exactspace]

@ulillillia 96 sounds like a ton. Really, that much? Would you say most of the time it would be around half that? What do you mean malloc not working? Is allocation not working right for you?

[ulillillia]

Today's games hover around 1 GB, if not more. 96 MB is tiny compared to that (less than 10%). I've given up on malloc about 18 months ago. Fighting it caused a delay in working on PM and its programming for nearly 2/3 of a year. It was only graphics that was I working on, but I didn't have much motive for doing it and fighting malloc took out nearly all of it. I've found a work around but it will result in some waste. See question 1.5 on PM's FAQ for details.

[The7thCircuit]

@exactspace

96 sounds like a ton.

96mb of ram

a ton

2011

[ulillillia]

It's a world, not a level. There are 16 playable levels in this world (like any other world), and probably 3 or 4 for the story. Carnivalesta is central to the game's story so I wanted to put a lot of detail into it. The length of this video really tells you the level of detail I went into. It will be the game's most detailed world of them all. Lake Keveran took 3 or so days. Carnivalesta took 17 or 18.

[Zeavo2]

what are you feelings about the idea of people writing Platform Masters fanfiction? I rememeber someone leaving a comment on an older video of yours asking about it, i think he said he was going to do it.

[ulillillia]

Right now, there's no point in fanfiction since almost nothing is known about the game's story and what there is in the game. I also don't have registered copyright (pointless at the moment since I'm not completed, far from it).

[Zeavo2]

I'm assuming the games described in the stalls at the carnival will not actually be playable for us. If the game is a huge hit and Nintendo hires you to develop a remake for the Wii, will you make those stalls like playable minigames!

I want those slush drink flavors! delicious!

[ulillillia]

They can't be playable because you can't go into the background. In a 3D remake, however, that'd be a different subject.

[Zeavo2]

i absolutely love asian food. It's a good thing, because I lived in Korea for 18 months! It's very healthy cuisine, too! When I left for Korea, I weighed 167---somewhat overweight for someone my age. I returned home a few weeks ago to find I weighed 132 pounds: A total loss of 35 pounds! Wow! And Korean food is so delicious, but it's healthy!

cool, this game has its own currency! my book i'm writing has its own currency too.

[hariseldon13]

there's so much stuff in the background I can barely make out where the platforms are.

[ulillillia]

The platforms move faster than anything in the foreground, simply because they're closer. All platforms and game objects are 100 feet away. The closest of the stands are 150 feet away. The furthest mountains are 64,000 feet away which is why they're hard to see.

[hariseldon13]

@ulillillia Thanks for the reply. I realise what you're saying, but what I meant was if you're just standing still it takes me a while to figure out where the platforms are cause there's so much going on in the background. Maybe when you're actually playing the game it's easier. I really like the backgrounds in the other levels cause they're more sparse and it's instantly clear what's going on. Anyway, keep up the work cause I do want to play this game when it's released.

[ulillillia]

There isn't much motion in this video, done to keep the file size down. In normal play, there will be a lot of motion. Unless waiting for a dynamic platform to come, you'll almost always be in motion. Even the enemies will move quite a bit.

[DeoMachina]

I love pizza too

[junglesky]

Looks great so far! Do you have a Funnel Cake stand? That's definitely a carnival classic!

[ulillillia]

There isn't a funnel cake stand directly - the donut stand takes this role (since funnel cakes and donuts seem to be the same, just shaped differently).

[lordcyrus]

Googlash

[napalmrain]

High Flying Darts is my favorite booth.

[sickboyhxc]

The background scenery looks amazing.

[jeytr]

I can't wait until your game is released, it looks like it has great gameplay.

[BIGDADDYPIMPHUSTLER]

Why do you put so much work into the scenery?

[Makron5]

where do I download it?

[ulillillia]

You won't be able to download it for more than a year yet. It's still only in early development (well, more like the middle of development). There will be public betas before the final release, but only of the trial version. After the official release, public betas will be available for the full game.

[ZidaneTribal93]

Did platform masters idea spawn through one of your mind games?

[ulillillia]

No. The idea came out of a random thought in January of 2009, but didn't become official until April of 2009. This game is now 2 years in the making and it's got more than a year left. I've otherwise gotten bored of working on PM so progress will stop for a bit. I'll return again, as has been the case for years. You have to keep in mind in just 3 weeks, I put on about 200 hours' worth of work on it.

[LeftInBlank]

ullillia assuming you are not italian, pizza is a foreign food for you since it's a very well known italian food, therefore it doesn't make sense when you say you don't like foreign food since your diet is basicly foreign food.

[Volvox9]

Strictly Pizza: The Unofficial Biography of Ulillillia

[GThanatos]

hey uli, don't you think that it would look much better if you just made it so, that all those stands appear in different layers? every layer repeats itself pretty quickly as it is, if you assigned one stand to, say, 3 different layers, that would greatly increase the diversity you could achieve within each layer.

[ulillillia]

To do that, I'd have to make multiple size variations which will eat up considerably more memory and would take quite a while to do. Using StretchBlt and the like won't work because who wants to play a game with a 5 or 6 fps frame rate?

[Maldunn]

Wow you really went all out on this one! So much detail and great work! Also I think this may be your longest individual video segment on youtube.

[ulillillia]

It is, nearly double the next longest. With the lack of movement and scene changing, I was getting a very high compression ratio. Still, I had an 18% chance of failure on the 2-hour 600 MB upload. If it failed 90% of the way through (given the "failed (aborted)" notice), it'd have wasted 2 hours and, since I was about to go to bed, the video would've been pushed back to today. Luckily, it didn't happen. Good thing for my now 768 Kbps upload speed (since March 1).

[IknowWhatImherefor]

i have to agree that the background almost wholly engulfs the player and foreground as it is very busy. But on the flipside, I like the detail in the stands and games

[Moymia]

Me and my circle are avid enthusiasts of Platform Masters and usually gather up on Sundays to partake in joyous chatter over the game, still one perpetual question haunts our very being, what is the nationality of the main character? We often exchange copious amounts of arguments like "Engads! That ruffian sure has a formidable jumping power thus i deem him a Black Person" or "Nay my brethren tis obvious this is a Jew due to the copious amounts of score points he has amassed!" what say thee?

[ulillillia]

Undefined. When I made him, I just chose colors that made sense. Platform Masters is unique when it comes to score - it rivals even pinball machines. You can actually being scoring at a rate of 23 billion points per minute at the fastest (that I'm aware of). Notice how grabbing the gold bullion near the end added 600,000 points. This is based on difficulty 4. They're worth 30,000 on difficulty 0 and a shocking 15 million on difficulty 8.

[fize4ever]

I love this update! x)

[lneh]

Stunning detail.

It's too bad soothsayers are still scamming people in 2073.

[baphomet58]

I confirm that I am attracted to this character as a homosexual male. Those short shorts really do it for me. This is a day one buy for me. I will also buy any DLC you create.

[ulillillia]

Those are actually longer than shorts and shorter than jeans/pants. I don't know the actual name for these.  I've heard "capris", but spell checkers flag this as not being a word....

[Microwavish]

@ulillillia They're flood pants

[confirmed4brawl]

@Microwavish things are coming up milhouse

[ulillillia]

Who's Milhouse? Or, what are you referring to?

[drian5]

@ulillillia Milhouse is a character from the TV show 'The Simpsons'. That is a quote of his that relates to flood pants.

[HylianSpirit]

I love the background. It reminds me of Casino Night/Carnival Night in Sonic. Those are my favorites.

I also love the tall buildings and lightning in Chemical Plant.

[ulillillia]

I've never seen a Sonic game with actual lightning (Death Egg zone in Sonic 3 is as close as it gets, but it's not through storms and the like). Chemical Plant doesn't have lightning. Did you mean lighting?

[MrWeirdGuy]

Sometimes it seems a little hard to find your character on the screen if you turn away for a moment. So here's an idea: Add a flashing arrow that floats a couple pixels over the player's head that could be turned on/off in the options menu.

[ulillillia]

Since the character has to otherwise be this size for an assortment of reasons, a blinking arrow would be very handy. Very good idea! The arrow will be black with adjacent white to maximize contrast. There's another 1/3 of a page on that design document....

[ParasyteEvil]

I love that every stand in Carnivalesta has a story and description. It reminds of Bioware games. In Mass Effect and Dragon Age every small detail has a story, history, and reason to be there. Everything feels cohesive and consistent. It makes the world in the game just that more believable. Keep up the great work, I can't wait for you to finish the game!

[simopen]

This is amazingly detailed! You've made a whole world. Also, Sweet and Sour chicken Is delicious.

[ulillillia]

It's not quite done yet and I can't finish until the Sentus Mountains are finished 100%. Carnivalesta still actually has quite a bit left to do, due to story stuff. The story stuff can wait though. I'm considering working on world 13 (Mount Sentusia) or 12 (still classified) next, likely 13. 13 is essentially about half done thanks to the Sentus Mountains (the mountains need to be updated, due to texture changes). Rocks poking out of the lava and bubbles remain.

[giganticdrill]

degrease me

[lonebard]

What was the background sound at 1639 seconds into this video?

[ulillillia]

I checked both 1639 seconds based on the game's clock and also 16 minutes 39 seconds and I don't hear anything. Do you, perhaps, have a typo? I checked around within 5 seconds of these two times.

[lonebard]

@ulillillia Sorry I meant 1639 total seconds in the video duration. Which translates to roughly around 27:24 after you say "whatever it is" theres a noise in the background. At first I thought maybe it was someone in your house yelling but after another few listens I believe its a sound effect from the music you're listening to? I assume its a video game soundtrack and isn't a clean version but was recorded from ingame play some it still retains some sound effect. I might be wrong though.

[ulillillia]

It's at 1643, not 1639 (referencing my original archived video). I can hear it, but I can't tell what it is. I'm 85% certain it's not the music (Bubsy's carnival music played at around 85% true speed or so). All of my music doesn't have the sound effects included, except the Jumping Flash ones where there is a slight bit of wind that I can't get rid of. It is ingame play that I get the music through, using (line-in to record it).

[lonebard]

@ulillillia Interesting. Maybe its a ghost.

[ShinigamiKiba]

WOW This looks gorgeous now!

Keep it up man!

[Dragon555]

Wow, the background is looking really busy now.

Also I'd recommend sweet and sour chicken, it's a popular asian dish if you ever feel like trying something new one day.

[ulillillia]

Chicken is meat and thus it's immediately taken off my list. I very strongly dislike meat - it's actually been 230 million seconds since I last had meat (sodas as well).

[GrocerGoodwill]

Here's how you can remember the difference between centripetal and centrifugal: "Fugue" is Latin for "flight", and "petere" is Latin for "seek". So centrifugal force is flying from the center, and centripetal force is seeking the center.

[ulillillia]

Oh, so in the case of the High Runner ride, it would be centifugal force. Now, whether or not I calculated it right, that I don't know....

[The8thHost]

Pizzas are Greek and Roman. So you are indeed fond of foreign food. But I'm just being picky, ignore me.

[ulillillia]

Pizza is often associated with Italy. I knew it's not, but I had no idea on the exact origin. Italy is Europe though, southeast Europe if I recall. Rome is essentially Italian. Greek is Greece, also Europe.

[DeBurgo]

@ulillillia ah close, Italy is south central. Greece is southeast Europe. Both are Mediterranean.

Easy way to remember East/West Europe: Anything east of Germany is Eastern Europe, anything west of it is western... excepting the northern stuff! That's all Scandanavian. This includes Denmark. But! The British Isles are northern as well, but NOT Scandanavian. They're just the British Isles (which includes Ireland!) But don't call Ireland, "British"!

Iceland is it's own thing. It's Iceland.

[ulillillia]

I was going off memory without bothering to check my globe or world maps. Italy is south central Europe. Greece is east of there.

[freedomfriestastebad]

Is your character meant to be physically attractive? Your character is very popular amongst the homosexual demographic. I estimate that 13 out of 20 homosexuals within my friend base find Platform Masters' main character very enticing due to his long hair, slim physique and incredible powers/performance abilities. I do not have data, but I would assume that this character is perhaps equally attractive to heterosexual females. Was he designed this way? Is it a marketing strategy? He is awesome

[ulillillia]

The character will get changed, mainly to include omitted animation states and improve the walk/run states. Other states could use some improvement, though not as important. Mating and the like has absolutely nothing to do with it (I have zero interest in that kind of stuff.).

[freedomfriestastebad]

@ulillillia I am glad to hear that the character will become even more detailed. I hope you are not put off by the community response to the character. People being attracted to the character just demonstrates that you have created an awesome character. People are naturally attracted to a strong, and beautiful character. In addition to his amazing abilities, and convenient looks, me and my friends assume that the character has great intellect, humour, and logic.

[ulillillia]

I'm otherwise completely unable to tell if someone is attractive or not, nor do I care about it. The hair will actually get shortened in the remake, but only by like 1 3/4 to 3 1/2 inches (which isn't all that much over the 12 or so it currently is).

[foofiter9097]

@ulillillia Then you shall live a life without regrets eh? As long as you know Women are control Freaks.... Just saying....

[lunaris30]

this looks great, the detail is amazing. one detail i am wondering about is why your character can break terminal velocity when freefalling, is wind resistance not coded in?

[ulillillia]

This question has been asked several times. I very strongly enjoy high speeds and, to get it, that's why I don't have drag present.

[b3nnic3]

Hahaha, ulillillia said "breasts."

[ulillillia]

Chicken breasts - I see this quite often in grocery stores, in the meat section (that I avoid as I very strongly dislike meats of any kind). I also see wings and thighs. I also thought of KFC when I made this (last visited about 4 years ago).

[LeGigify]

Such detail put into everything, but I wonder would it be possible to have the stars fade when you get closer to the bottom? As Carnivalesta seems to be very bright and I imagine it'd be hard to see stars in the heart of it. Just seems like that would be quite an interesting effect if it could be implemented with any ease.

[ulillillia]

It would be possible to do that and I don't have to use up any more memory. It's just that of drawing the cover used for panels over the starry sky at a certain opacity. The opacity decreases with height until a certain point. It's an indirect derivative of the formula used with lighting. However, this will cause all the mountains to appear brighter and I cannot adjust these without nearly doubling the memory needs. Then again, there's the ground fog image that I could use....

[tehclam]

your description of the Asian Gourmet stall has increased my motive to eat asian food

[lonebard]

grape?

[ulillillia]

Yes, it was grape (as is indicated by the video description). I often put extra notes and details, especially corrections, in the video descriptions.

[lonebard]

@ulillillia Sorry. I commented about grape before I read the description I was too excited.