I started making a game

[bluaki]

lol should this not go in the tec board? 

Does Tec have his own board?

I didn't intend for this thread to end up with technical programming-related replies, but instead I wanted opinions on the game's features and design that I described

[Thyme]

Does Tec have his own board?

I didn't intend for this thread to end up with technical programming-related replies, but instead I wanted opinions on the game's features and design that I described

ah
so, video games board, then

[ncba93ivyase]

How exactly did you start on the music editor? What are you using? It's something I really want to get into and now I feel pretty jealous because what you have looks pretty good.

Also, it looks pretty similar to Nanoloop, and that's a good thing.

lol should this not go in the tec board? 

no because then it'll just die

[Mando Pandango]

I've seen worse music editor designs. What you have is effectively what's called a piano roll.

If you haven't yet, allow separate tracks for different "instruments," and allow for percussion instruments.

Also I'm not quite how to describe this next suggestion, but it's a fairly common feature in music editors. Make it so that you open up a new pattern, lay down the notes in that pattern, and then put that pattern in certain places in the overview of the song. So you can just paste down blocks of notes that you want in certain places and quickly edit multiple parts of the song at once. Hopefully that makes sense.

[bluaki]

How exactly did you start on the music editor? What are you using? It's something I really want to get into and now I feel pretty jealous because what you have looks pretty good.

Also, it looks pretty similar to Nanoloop, and that's a good thing.
no because then it'll just die

Actually, it's not done yet and that picture wasn't rendered by the game itself.

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking about. The interface I just showed? One of the first things I made for my game was a basic menu system, with its current working prompt types including list (a scrollable vertical series of buttons, used for main menu and pause menu), message dialog (shows text at the top and buttons at the bottom), text entry, and tile grid (a rectangular set of buttons listing the tiles that can be used in map editing). This is essentially an extension of that for one more menu type, using many of the same structures and functions as those other types. It's all drawn using SDL's rectangle-drawing and text rendering functions.

For the music synthesis itself, like I mentioned in the previous post, I'm limiting it to easily-generated "instrument" types like square and sawtooth. The waveform of those is generated from the frequency by simple arithmetic and it's just added together for multiple notes playing simultaneously (or maybe averaged together; I don't know if that'd sound any good and intend to try it). SDL has audio functions that simply ask me to write a function that fills the waveform buffer for it.

I've seen worse music editor designs. What you have is effectively what's called a piano roll.

If you haven't yet, allow separate tracks for different "instruments," and allow for percussion instruments.

Also I'm not quite how to describe this next suggestion, but it's a fairly common feature in music editors. Make it so that you open up a new pattern, lay down the notes in that pattern, and then put that pattern in certain places in the overview of the song. So you can just paste down blocks of notes that you want in certain places and quickly edit multiple parts of the song at once. Hopefully that makes sense.

What I have planned has each note labeled with which instrument plays it (notated by the color), but they're not divided into any sort of "tracks" beyond that. What purpose do tracks serve in something like this?

At least to start with, I'm only using instrument sounds which are easily synthesized, which tend to be the chiptune-ish ones and exclude percussion instruments. Strings are the only realistic instrument type for which I'm aware of synthesizing algorithms. Maybe I'll add fancier instruments and/or sampling eventually, but not for a long time in development.

I understand what you mean by linking together parts of the song for maintaining changes across several duplicate segments, though I feel like that would overcomplicate certain things quite a bit so I'll leave it out and simply consider adding it eventually and much later. But this point does make me realize that block select and copy+paste would be pretty useful so I'll try adding it after I finish the other stuff I mentioned in that post.

[Mando Pandango]

What I have planned has each note labeled with which instrument plays it (notated by the color), but they're not divided into any sort of "tracks" beyond that. What purpose do tracks serve in something like this?

Mostly so you can have two different instruments in unison if you want. What you have works.

At least to start with, I'm only using instrument sounds which are easily synthesized, which tend to be the chiptune-ish ones and exclude percussion instruments. Strings are the only realistic instrument type for which I'm aware of synthesizing algorithms. Maybe I'll add fancier instruments and/or sampling eventually, but not for a long time in development.

All you need for percussion is a simple noise channel, like what the NES used.

[bluaki]

I finished at least the primary functionality of that bgm editor. It's only missing some non-essential (albeit useful) things like mouse support, copy+pasting a selection, renaming a song after it was created, quit confirmation for unsaved changes, cleaner font, and setting a loop point (to return to some specific point rather than the very beginning of the song after finishing). Feel free to post any other suggestion about this small part of my game.

downloads, keybindings, and some more description is all at http://bluaki.dyndns.org/heromapper/

[spoiler=actual screenshot][/spoiler]

the current progress with the rest of the game happens to be in the same program, but it's not really in a state worth trying so just choose the composer option on the main menu

[ncba93ivyase]

why no source code

[6M69I69B9]

i have NO fucking clue what anybody is talking about in here.  im so casual like fuck 

anyway, i wonder if there's going to be some secret stages or some cameo

[Mando Pandango]

i have NO fucking clue what anybody is talking about in here.  im so casual like fuck 

anyway, i wonder if there's going to be some secret stages or some cameo

i don't understand any of the programming jargon if that makes you feel better

[Zach]

This reminds of Outsider RPG. I still regret that we never really got it going. A Boyah RPG would be less interesting but still fun to work on nonetheless.

[Mando Pandango]

how is this anything like outsider rpg

[bluaki]

This game will have battles that are (primarily) Zelda-like, not turn-based RPG. Its editing versatility might eventually be enough to allow turn-based battles, however.

why no source code

Because it's probably ugly and I haven't decided on a license yet
but those don't really matter, so I just added a link to the source on that page.

I'm only used to writing/compiling code for GCC and with GNU utilities, so I don't know if it's at all compatible with Xcode or whatever else. Does Xcode even have/use Make?

[ncba93ivyase]

This game will have battles that are (primarily) Zelda-like, not turn-based RPG. Its editing versatility might eventually be enough to allow turn-based battles, however.
Because it's probably ugly and I haven't decided on a license yet
but those don't really matter, so I just added a link to the source on that page.

I'm only used to writing/compiling code for GCC and with GNU utilities, so I don't know if it's at all compatible with Xcode or whatever else. Does Xcode even have/use Make?

i believe it does but i never even touch xcode

It definitely installs make with other utilities when you install Xcode, so it may or may not actually use it. It doesn't really matter since I compile everything through the command line anyways.

[Zach]

how is this anything like outsider rpg

It wasn't that the game concept reminded me of Outsider RPG - it was the fact that bluaki was posting about making a video game. Boyah and Outsider are forever linked in my mind, so it reminded me that we were going to make a video game once.