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Zatikon is back and free to play! https://www.chroniclogic.com/zatikon.htm

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Messages - Chicken1

#1
Chronic Logic News / 6/30/05
August 05, 2005, 05:56:09 AM
Capital job, fellows.

The swing interface is real and tight feeling, and the ball physics are near spot-on (though sometimes the tree collision was a bit wonky).

The feel of the game is really unlike any other golf game I've played -- actually getting to walk, crawl, jump, drive, and wade to your ball is a great experience.

The robot theme also really engadges me -- as does the large drum-like thing on hole nine, which I still can't manage to hit my ball into.

I played through twice with my younger brother. (I'm currently on the opposite coast of the US from him, so it's nice to be able to do something once in a while.) If there were a way to just stay on one hole play around, this would be a fun way to chat once in a while.

Now the other comments:

Not much else to say other than that the animations realllly need tweening (or the walking animation needs to be more quantized). Then, I thrive on stylistic consistency.

It is somewhat disconcerting that the birds in the sky are view-aligned and not world-aligned.

The chat line limit is quite a bit too short. (also, messages should persist longer and a chat history - perhaps console-style retractable history - should be availible). Otherwise, it is quite playable via the internet twixt Michigan and California (mind you, I was serving and my brother is quite a bit more lag-tolerent than I).

Showing the complete ball history as a line is a great idea. It somehow makes the game feel more complete.

The texture banding / dithering / nearest-neibor-sampling in the sky is unfortunate. It might be stylistically justified, but I think that using flat-shaded quads might be more reasonable.

The sound is truely empty. Vacant. I want some background something (though I suppose I could just play music myself). The setting really lends itself to something gentle, orchestral, with an electronic twist (ambient noise music with more strings).

The cart physics, as has been noted, could use some tuning. I'm not going to sweat it, myself. It really is a hard thing to get right.

The occasional flicker of green (guessing collision hull) around the cart looks like some excess debug output that isn't getting turned off properly.

I think that this game brings the tight physics-based gameplay that I've come to expect from Chronic Logic to a game with stark and striking visual style (something new that I hope persists with future releases).

I look forward to the final.
#2
General Discussion / Level Editor
August 28, 2004, 05:04:46 AM
So, I decided that there should be a level editor for the game and being impatient (and a CS student) I wrote one.

Before you get all excited: this isn't ready for the consumption of mere mortals yet -- and it doesn't cover key points like, hmm, lights, enemies, platforms, level begin and end, level type, and pretty much anything other than simply modifying the tiles in the level. I have gone a ways tward figuring out the level format and I was sort of hoping that some of the other (more technically inclined) fans or perhaps even some of you Chronic Logic programmers could help me out on the rest.

Ok, that aside, here's the url of my subversion (if you don't know what it is -- like CVS but newer) repository:
http://dyn.tchow.com/svn_public/goulash/" target="_blank">http://dyn.tchow.com/svn_public/goulash/

The other bits:
- compiles and runs on linux with SDL, probably could make it run on windows, but that isn't really a priority right now.
- The level data is obfuscated with a key. I'm not sure if the key is tied to product key, and would appreciate input as to if it is (i.e. can it load the levels that came with your game?)
- Hm... I retain copyright on this source code, but you may use it and freely distribute it as long as it isn't integrated into any commercial products (not like you'd want to, but still).

Finally, let me reemphasize:
This is SOURCE CODE ONLY and FOR LINUX so most of y'all won't be able to run it -- but you aren't missing out much.

For those that want to help, gish_level.h / .cpp is the place to look for source code pertaining to level loading and gish_level_format is my description of the format. gish_observations is my thoughts over the course of several grueling sessions with a hex editor and a dissassembler (and gdb!).

Anyway, I hope I come back after the weekend to find some interesting thoughts, posts, or (one hopes) a complete doc set for the level format including lights, enemies, and objects.

--Jim