Takeshi Studios

Stealth: Welcome to the updates page... This page will keep you up to date on our progress. Since weve made the decision to program our games in C++, i am the only programmer for now untill either some of the others learn how to use it or if we need something written in another language. This is going to be a big project, especially since i have to write it from scratch (with the exception of a few graphics and sound libraries, which i will have to add to anyway to make them do what i need), so it may take quite a while, but i plan on making as much of my code as possible reusable, so it can be put into our other games which will decrease the ammount of time it takes to write them.

8-9-97: I finally decided to add this page... so far, we have most of the sprites, music and backgrounds done... and i have a very small portion of the program done (really just the presenting screen so i could make sure i can do this...). Right now i am working on adding to a sprite drawing routine i have so they can be easily drawn and "clipped" if they are supposed to be on the screen at the time.

8-18-97: I now have the clipping function finished (WOOHOO!) took long enough didnt it? You wouldnt believe how many different things i tried... but the thing that matters is that i have one that works now. Anyway, im on to the tiled scrolling routine. This will be what moves the level across the screen. (i know some of you are like "duh") so um... i guess thats it for today.

9-1-97: Finished that tiled-scroller now. It does 2 layers right now, foreground and background. Now ill be working on our tile/level/sprite editor. Although alot of the graphics are done, theyll have to be imported into my editor and saved in a special way before i can put them in our game.

9-3-97: Ive decided to add a page with test programs ive written so you can see what ive been up to. So far i only have 1 worth showing off. It uses the sprite-clipping and tile-scrolling functions ive written. Im writing this on a 486 DX 66, and the speed is decent, but id like it to be faster. Im not sure how it will act on other machines right now so please E-mail me your comments if you download it.

9-20-97: Due to problems with tripod i havent been able to add to the updates page for a while. Now, the storyline has changed, some of the music has changed, and Ive finished the level editor. Ive taught the others to draw sprites in a freeware paint program i had in a way i can use them in the game (they knew how to draw, the palet just has to be just right) so i dont have to write a sprite/tile editor. As soon as the sprites are drawn and at least one level is finished, i can start writing the actual game.

10-7-97: Raz has gotten a little ways into making the Pristine Palisade level, ive taken sprites of sonic from an emulator (since we dont have any of our own of anybody fully drawn yet) so i could write a semi-generic sprite movement routine. Its coming along well, except for gravity... right now it works moving one pixel at a time, but when i try to skip pixels (for speed, and which is needed when i add acceleration to it) sonic falls through the ground. Ill be working on that and i should have a test program up soon... the palette for the sprites and the level differ though... sonic is green right now. i may not bother with that part for a while... if hes still that way in the program i upload we can just say its Ashura (Sonic's brother as you may or may not know).

10-18-97: The gravity is fixed, the "generic" movement routine is almost perfect. Ive also fixed the Palet on sonic, so he is his normal colors now. Once we get sprites finished, ill work on making specific movement functions, which shouldnt take that long if i build off the one i already have. The demo is up on the demos page now.

12-15-97: I know its been a while since the last update, ive been busy with alot of things. Im finished with (surprise) a second demo. This one has rings. I would do something similar to what i did to add those to add other things, but moving objects (like enemies) need special routines written. Till ive got more, this is it.

12-16-97: Something i forgot in the last update, if youve noticed im using Dos4GW now, because of the memory limit in non-protected mode dos. This means i have to use the Watcom C compiler, and *gasp* my sound code wont work with it (because its 16 bit code, im compiling in 32 bit). So untill i figure out how to convert that (it was a major pain just converting the other stuff) there wont be any sound, sorry. But this game has already passed what "Twisted Mettle" was, and be assured that no matter how long this takes im not going to stop before its finished.

2-6-97: I havent gotten much done because of a sort of "personal crisis", which has also affected TS. Now as far as TS goes, things seem to be up and running again after a few changes. And as for the game.. KNUCKLES CAN LOSE RINGS AND DIE NOW! WOOHOO!

3-20-97: Well if it isnt one thing its another.. the "crisis" is over, and i had started back to work, but a couple of weeks ago my computer crashed. The IO board and modem were fried, once i got new ones Win95 didnt want to work, so i tried reinstalling it, and it deleted the partition tables on my HD, which means... its now blank as far as the computer is concerned. I was able to get full source code to Ring Rush back because luckily i had sent that to Smoke, but beyond that, its all gone. Since Knuckles' movement was pretty basic in that anyway, im going to rewrite it from scratch because it was poorly coded the first time and i had trouble adding the pieces i did add. Also, HIGHLY against my original plans, ive talked it over with the rest of TS and ive decided to release what i had done of the next demo since it wont be finished anyway. Knuckles' movement is timed better, (ie. all his animations are at the correct speed, on my computer anyway. i will be working on a speed fix later.) a couple of extra animations, if youll look close enough youll see them, plus, he can lose rings and die. Also, i was in the middle of implimenting a downhill effect, which partially works, but only on hills that slope to the left. And since im not able to take it out, there is a debug mode which you enter by pressing tab. Sorry, the monitors only appear, they dont work. Please read the Readme file for more info. Now, as for continuing LoS, i expect it to take at least a month and a half before im caught up.. so just keep watching this page. You never know whatll happen.

5-18-97: I'm baaaack! Sorry for the lack of updates, i'm a very busy person :P. But, for the past few weeks ive been working almost nonstop on the game in my spare time. I've already caught up (actually over 3 weeks ago) and now i've come alot further than that. I wont tell you how much farther though, dont want to spoil the suprize. Itll take a little while longer, but i promise this one will be worth the wait. Also, I've removed Smoke's status, he hasnt done much of anything since waaaaay back when he gave me the sound code that only worked on my old compiler, so untill i have him programming for me again, he's just my archivist. Sorry Smoke. And one last thing, since i havent been getting much mail from you (Come on! if i get no feedback, youll be lucky if i still release this publicly) it's not worth checking juno just to find it empty, so please use my new address. (Not new actually, but its new to you.. i guess) MStealthA@aol.com