Roller Coaster Tycoon Engine Prototype 0.2

[timfrombriz]

Hey guys,

Been tinkering away on my little toy...
http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?t=54638

Here is version 0.2, not too much to see yet, but the main engine behind the scenes is really tight, efficient and designed with the future in mind

- Now renders in DirectX instead of GDI
- Killed All bugs so everything is 100% stable (ie. Moving a window past the screen edge crashed, mouse pointer didnt clip on edge of screen)
- Improved Window/Mouse functionality and how it integrates with Windows
- Behind the scenes stuff mainly, just to get it really optimized for speed

Next part Im working on will be the real guts, the Mapping system, Tile Heights, Vertical faces, sprites, big maps. I got it all blueprinted, and hope to have a prototype ready by September.

Download 0.2 by the link below...
http://anotherprophecy.com/system/scrip ... %200.2.zip



Appreciate Feedback - Motivates me to work so I can show off new features

[JacobD88]

Fantastic work

Downloading now!

With your plans for the map array, seen as you mentioned "Big Maps" are you going to permit very large maps of 1000's by 1000's of tiles al la OTTD? Or just double or triple size? I always found the RCT engine very limiting in map sizes (as with all the CS games)

EDIT: You may want to fix the link; it only downloads "IsoMatrix", with no suffix, i had to manually rename it to a zip file

[Redirect Left]

Question, why? Don't fix something that ain't broke, and RCT was one of the least broken games of its years.

Apart from RCT:3. Don't get me started on that one.

[Lord Aro]

Question, why? Don't fix something that ain't broke, and RCT was one of the least broken games of its years.

Why not? The same reason TTDPatch and OTTD got made, i guess - add more features, fix any bugs and just to explore your coding skills

Will take a look at this, it looks interesting

[Purno]

Question, why? Don't fix something that ain't broke, and RCT was one of the least broken games of its years.

So was TT. He isn't fixing anything, and he doesn't say anything is broken. And *because* RCT is a damn epic game (apart from RCT3, which was epic fail), I'm really looking forward to a project which expands the fun I had in RCT, similar to how OpenTTD expands the fun from TT, even though it wasn't broken.



So, good job. Even though a chuck of tiles is rather boring to look at, I know code-wise it isn't that simple Keep it up and keep us informed

[lobster]

This is impressive. Do go on.

[XeryusTC]

Question, why? Don't fix something that ain't broke, and RCT was one of the least broken games of its years.

It may not be broken, but there are certainly points that can be improved.

Very impressive btw, I have just one small comment though: is it at all possible for you to also make it run under Linux and possibly Mac? I would certainly love to be able to play RCT on Linux once I get around to reinstalling that again

[Alberth]

I'd love a Linux version too, but the other topic says: "It renders solely using Windows GDI, no SDL, no DirectX, no OpenGL". ( http://www.tt-forums.net/viewtopic.php?p=947264#p947264 )
So I guess we have to wait until MS ports his GDI to Linux

It's a pity you're not using C or C++, the BASIC may be portable, the inline ASM is going to be a nightmare.

Any chance of releasing source code?

[lobster]

and possibly Mac?

This. I only own Macs.

[Illegal_Alien]

Locomotion is using the same (or a modified version) of this engine. Maybe an idea?

[timfrombriz]

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it.

At this moment, Im making good progress on the mapping system, but juggling personal life requirements around it, so I dont get much time in the day to implement, but rather sit at work pondering how to solve the next issue in the engine, lol.

This isn't going to be a remake of Rollercoaster Tycoon, I dont want to be sued, and the RCT name still makes $$$ so someone will be pissed if I did. What this project is aiming to do is implement a engine design that mimics RCT 1/2 and Locomotion, during the trial I will use RCT graphics to do testing/demos, but making a RCT clone is too risky legally. One day RCT may fissle out enough that Atari dont give a crap about the franchise anymore but with talk of RCT 4 I dont think thats likely. RCT 2 isnt broke either in my opinion as discussed by some, but I would like some added features into the game, how about a terrain tool to make mountains (was in RCT 1 but taken out of RCT 2), bigger maps and allowing more peeps, day/night time and lighting effects in the world, there just a few things I can think of.

Once I have a solid game engine, I may start to consider game ideas, something in the midst of Cities in Motion/Transport Giant / Industry Giant 2 / Transport Tycoon, or maybe something unique, like a Mall Tycoon in isometric view. Don't know for sure, but that's not where I'm focused on at the moment.

The engine is coded in Visual Basic, and at this stage Im keeping it closed source, because its my personal hobby. Thus, Mac and Linux wont be supported any time soon, but I want to port it to C++ one day, but because my strength is in VB, and because it allows me to quickly develop, I think its a good platform to build a solid prototype. At this stage, performance isnt a bottleneck.

[Redirect Left]

during the trial I will use RCT graphics to do testing/demos,

You do realise Atari will own the rights to RCT, and all materials within, right? Meaning those textures/graphics are more than likely copyrighted. You should probably try throwing together some quick textures, for the sake of real immunity from Atari/Sawyer.

[JacobD88]

during the trial I will use RCT graphics to do testing/demos,

You should probably try throwing together some quick textures, for the sake of real immunity from Atari/Sawyer.

Or search around the RCT sites out there and use graphics that have been released openly to the public domain. Fortunately, with RCT been such a popular game, there's pretty much a sprite replacement for all elements out there if you search around

Only issue would be continuity of quality and style using public domain sprites. So maybe making your own or finding a permanent artist to assist you would be better (Afterall, CS did this with TTO/TTD) as then you get the continuity and hopefully, close working relationship, that will bring your engine forward

[Leanden]

You could also do what Openttd did in its early years (I think) which is require you to import the graphics from the original purchased game files.

[JacobD88]

That is true; at least that way if any legal issues arise it falls on the user to explain why they don't own a purchased copy of RCT as you haven't distributed anything that's copyrighted

[Kevo00]

Once I have a solid game engine, I may start to consider game ideas, something in the midst of Cities in Motion/Transport Giant / Industry Giant 2 / Transport Tycoon, or maybe something unique, like a Mall Tycoon in isometric view. Don't know for sure, but that's not where I'm focused on at the moment.

I would genuinely love to see a good quality property development game in isometric view. Or some sort of retail tycoon game, where you manage a chain of hypermarkets or similar.

[maquinista]

Looks nice.

The processor usage is over 50% on my Pentium 4.
Locomotion had the same problem, It takes a lot of processing cycles on my CPU.

[Daan Timmer]

Pentium 4.

[K.Y.Chung]

It should be a great encouragement for me to continue developing add-on objects for lomo as I see the hope for an open-source clone of lomo. Keep going on, and I should give donation if it comes true

[maquinista]

Pentium 4.

I am not an expert about PC hardware. I know that It runs at 3Ghz and It has 1 Gb of RAM. The OS is Windows XP.