Does anyone have GCS for C Programmers?

[chris]

So I had previously mentioned doing a quick experiment to try to splice a GCS and GCSP game together to see if I could gift a regular GCS game with mutant superpowers (adjustable screen size, look up and down, live inventory management, jumping in ceiling levels, etc.) and not getting it to work.

So I've... kinda got it working, sorta.

If you grab a copy of ENGINE.EXE from a GCSP game (POW, BATTLE, SUB, SPDARK, etc. ?) and place it in your GCS/ENGINE directory, you can test run your games like this: engine u1 o1 b1 pYOURGAME a64 (1 being the level number to run, YOURGAME being the directory where your game is. Also add s1 t g for sound, music, and god mode respectively). A few problems I've noticed: weapon system seems to be incompatible in some way, you hear hi-ya! sounds over and over and none of the weapons work (might be fixable by adjusting TXT files, haven't looked into it). Some sounds mapped differently. Other possible minor glitchiness involving platforms. HUD glitches obviously but that's probably easily fixable with the right VGA files.

You can even replace P.EXE with ENGINE.EXE so that testing levels will use GCSP when testing and it won't miss a beat.

Here's where I'm stuck though. If you try to run a compiled game with ENGINE.EXE it crashes. According to the GCSP docs, here are the command line args for ENGINE (mostly the same arguments for P.EXE and PNOCOMP.EXE):

d Compile final game .ENG files. Runs through THEATERS.TXT.
t play music if sound blaster selected. ( 's1' option)
g God mode, invincible player.
x assume video already in graphics mode X when ENGINE.EXE loads.
f load precompiled universe info from .bin files.
j use joystick for control
m use mouse for control
l fatbits for slow computers
c clear *.bin files for running with clean slate
unnn specify which univ??.txt file to load (nnn is decimal number)
onnn specify which objdef??.txt file to load (nnn is decimal number)
bnnn specify which backg??.vga file to use, and which p??.pal.
ennn specify which entry point in theaters.txt to start at.
sn Specify sound support type. s1=Sound Blaster, s3= PC Speaker
annn Specify which universe attribute bits to use.
hnnn Specify difficulty level 0 (hardest) through 3 (easy) Def=0
pname Specify subdirectory name to use for all universe data

so from what I understand, "engine d pYOURGAME" should generate the .ENG files we need to output and run a final game. But when I try this, I get a Pygmy error 114 (pygmy load file not found). I have tried putting every pygmy file I can think of in the game and engine directories to no avail. A2.COM (Pygmy Forth compiler), GUARD.COM, PYGMY.DAT (a copy of GUARD.COM), various 4TH files, etc. and just can't get it to stop complaining. I'm out of ideas. If you guys wanna give it a try have at it

Obviously if we had a copy of GCS for Programmers this would be much easier lol. Alas. Anyone got Kevin's email address? Maybe I'll try asking him.

Also, did you notice the s3 command gives you PC speaker sound? Pretty cool! And I assume s2 = ADLIB. Maybe if you copy over some of those Nick Macki SND files you could get that working? I dunno, probably not, just thinking out loud. Would be cool to make the GCS sound like an old Apogee game lol.

I've actually been up to some interesting and occasionally successful experiments with the GCS lately, I'll have to share them sometime soon.

[lgb3d]

Love hearing from you Chris. That documentation you shared major changed my GCS game creation experience and product..

I'm not going to say this correct as I'm not looking at the documentation or my computer right now..

That documentation at one point mentions this information pertains to the family of GCS game creation. They're acknowledging that there are different versions and yes a lot of it works with our current version but some aspects might not and are catered to specific Renditions of the GCS. But at the same time the documentation is not complete some of it is missing we are lucky to have what we do..

Discovered some features that the level editor is not capable of doing you have to slip in after your final test before making final. Example the platforms that move you can code the mathematics into the platform in the editor and put it in the attribute box. But the actual attribute that would make it in level teleport or platform that moved the player that attribute number has to be put in Universe text just before you press make final. Same for animation commands that you cannot make with the level editor. Like you have to make a template with the level editor that's stored in the object Library in a different file format. So what I do is I take the animation text file that is generated for the specific level number with the level number as a file type.. rescript that and keep it in an alternate file as every time you test the level the one found in your engine directory will always be Rewritten to reflect what is in the object Library. Well after I've done my final test I take my desired final from my alternate Library and confirm that that image handle numbers match the current handle numbers for the graphics in object text. I slip my new animation text for the level into the engine directory and press make final works good..

So that is example of a loophole to get around the process of level creation and how the test or make final functions actually compile using the editor.

I've lost a bit of hair experimenting with C programmers game trying to swap files like what your experiment detailed and got very similar results.. but something that stood out to me.. a GCSE programmers game and one that are engine produce are different formats. So yes simply swapping out the program is going to give you something during editing but in the final it is going to crash because it's looking for a different format. I'm not looking at my computer right now so I'm going to say this wrong when we compiled the game with the editor it says something like it is compiling a Sac file but at the end we wind up with Bin files.. something like that whereas the C programmers version retain the sac file . So the issue in my mind is how are editor is programmed to compile compared to how C programmers final version compiles which would result in a Frankenstein or a critical error if we tried blending the two because they do not perfectly align.. like we're sending some mixed signals commands or request for for files and file types that are not going to exist..

Not that I've gotten very deep into it but a little while back I downloaded the free version of Visual Studio and there's a learning curve to how that program operates. I'm not well-versed. But my goal is to open and try to glean something from files like what you described and compare them from a GCSE programmer game to our game engine..

Like you said aspects of it work but there's a little confusion in there because the whole line of code is not a perfect parallel. Why not just find the code that does work and perform a surgery. Example the code that pertains to HUD size and function and view size. Like there's only so much we can do with readouts text modifying the placement of things in HUD there's no way to address where the radar Lays.. but something tells me in that code I could just make that radar function completely Disappear by erasing a line..

I've gotten somewhat good at learning reading and writing 4th script, and in the past had some experience with c and I'm not 100% sure I could figure it out but it would be worth a shot..

FYI a long time ago you told me you figured out how to make doors pivot open instead of sliding to the side, that one still boggles me I know the engines capable of it we have seen it it has to be some attribute on the door in the universe text.. meaning I'm not going to see that final output until after make final similar to the other trick I described above. Unless it's something simplistic in the level editor.

FYI my game is coming along great I always feel like I'm right near finish but there's always so many Loose Ends to make. Like I've got a level or two that I desire to finish left for the game but the major part is going back and filling in all of the graphics for GCS menu I have hundreds of at this point and ensuring that globally in my game all the animations work together to follow a story timeline based upon events or Milestones the player has achieved.. my game is more or less going for that open world with a few different mission objectives.

But so far it is the polar opposite of the status quo GCS game.. I am proud of it every time I test it I am pleased. Like some of it is pretty humorous some of it is pretty visceral, but it all melts together so well especially with the use of GCS menu graphics and fli animation.. in the major part for sure is the soundtrack. One of our group members schizoid has made phenomenal GCS music for this project like never heard before truly a master of the GCS MIDI Flipping Fantastic proof of what the GCS was capable of.. I would just hate to leave anything out and people think the GCS couldn't have done this or that.

Great hearing from you, and if I sincerely I believe the solution is stepping away from the editor and working with what the editor spits out modifying the code at that point because my novice experience tells me our gcs compiler functions and spits out a different result compared to gcsc programmers.. it's either that or doing a surgery with specific lines of code

[chris]

Hey man good to hear from you too, I've really been blown away by the things you've figured out as far as weapons, animations, and Forth. I've got a few experiments I want to try at some point, like whether an animation can create a pickup item, and if I could create an enemy set that does nothing but store various 8-sided objects (like chairs, etc.). But I guess for the latter I could just create a non-enemy solid as the GCSP manual explains. As you mention, there's a lot of cool stuff you can do that the level editor isn't capable of, and if you catch the file after testing the level you can make text edits to it to do cool stuff. For instance, you can create slanted polygon floors and ceilings which is pretty cool. Years ago I wrote a program that would automatically inject or modify certain objects in the level automatically, so as soon as you test the level it'll catch the new file and merge everything for you. But yeah, annoyingly it appears the level editor has a WLD file that is then turned into a TXT file before it is made into a binary file. Changes you make to the TXT file are not saved so you have to keep re-injecting it.

So I got a little further on the GCS-GCSP engine surgery! If you add ">error.txt" to the command line it'll spit out errors to a text file you can review later. I discovered that some files need a dash (-) before the level number. GUARD1.4TH, OBJDEF1.TXT, and UNIV1.TXT all need to be copied and renamed to GUARD-1.4TH, OBJDEF-1.TXT, and UNIV-1.TXT respectively. No idea why but that clears those errors. Then I get to error 90, no P.PAL file found, and also reports its last location as the end of PICKUPS.TXT. Both of these files seem fine, not sure what's going on now, but at any rate I got a little further. So close to making this work.

Yeah if we had the C code it would be so much easier to tweak things, add and remove features from the engine, etc. Also it probably wouldn't take any C code at all to compile a GCS game into a GCSP game and easily get all the cool extra features.

I've had some luck writing some DOS applications that augment the engine a little bit by reading and writing memory registers, etc. and when I'm ready and get it cleaned up, I'll share some of this code. It's really hacky stuff that I probably wouldn't have to do if only I had the C source code

As far as revolving doors, yeah I should write a tutorial on that, I think I've got most of the code cracked. It can all be done from the level editor, want me to share that info? It's pretty cool stuff.

Can't wait to see your project when it's done. I've actually just started a project, but lately I've gotten so into engine hackery that I haven't done any actual game design lol.

[lgb3d]

Totally hard to work a project when you're enticed to keep tweaking with the engine or attributes it's like you have a point a point B but every time you make a discovery your sidetracked and have to go back through everything that you've made.. like the Duke Nukem Forever curse..

when I discovered unique ways of tweaking lighting registers I was like wow my explosions illuminate this room. But then I noticed I needed to go through each level in my game and selectively based upon if it's daylight or a dark room set attributes for each and every wall in the entire game I had already came so far in... was it worth it oh heck yeah it looks great it plays great I'm Blown Away by how smooth the game plays with all the animations and lighting effects occurring. But so many discoveries and so much headache traveling back instead of making forward progress with the overall project. Like I did those sewer floors and I made the floor animations do some pretty crazy things.. I had enough of that shenanigans I guarantee I'm not going to make it another level with a liquid floor for a long time those were very labor-intensive levels built the whole level before I made those discoveries. So much backtracking.

Yes if you could make tutorials I would 100% be in favor. I think at this point in history with our experience and age what we do with the engine shouldn't just be make a fun game it should be a engine flex.. most modern Gamers might scoff at our projects, but people who experienced the engine would love it, including Kevin.

You notice my fire bomb weapon how it spawns an animation that loops that spawns more animations around it. Well that's because it is spawning an animated object that is placed in the level meaning that it appears ib the object text, and all I do is attach the handle number of the animation to the animation I want it to spawn from. Using an animated object your initial animated object you can program in the position or the offset from the reference point so it does not land directly on top of the initial object that spawned it.

But it might be easier to Simply use a symmetrical object in the editor program it to be an inventory item with the appropriate values and then have your animated object reference that handle number, but in that case your animations Center is going to be exactly where your symmetrical object appears. So if it was a guard who died the gun is going to land directly on top of him there might be a bit of pixel Clash.

I recently programmed in a inventory type a bag of gold as well rubies that the player can gather that increase two universal registers values, like the presents on Santa rescue. And I'm thinking the easy way is to make alternate ending based upon how much loot you are carrying because if you're carrying all that loot that means health and weapons don't have much space in your inventory.

But if it had been a fantasy type project the player could interact with Merchant characters Ruby's or gold could be utilized as more of a currency deposit said inventory objects and animation would spawn new inventory item. And that could be a really unique application for the question you're thinking can you make an animated object spawn and inventory item.. But so the player could not simply pick up their currency again there would have to be a trap door or something that opens and the player must enter it drop said inventory objects and when the total currency is paid trap door closes and player can no longer access his currency that he deposited. Merchant disappears and if player wants to do that again he's going to have to gather more currency and find an alternate Merchant. As these inventory objects modify the universal register value, there could be another alternate one that functions a different register. Perhaps that's what the merchant gives the player, example give me three rubies and I will give you the magic to increase the damage of your explosions, you script into your explosion animation skip to frame if register value equals, and on those frames it demonstrates a larger explosion with larger blast radius or different blast type.

I thought a lot about scripting a currency using these type inventory items, but the animation receiving has to be very specific and since you have a limited number of frames with animations created in the editor due to limitations of file size, you would not want a lot of this currency in the game it would have to be like an Easter egg hunt like you put 10 of them in the game so there's enough room in that animated Merchant to calculate what number you have and how much it's requesting and keep track..

I played Santa's rescue more times than I should have, and I've experienced difficulty ending the game a few times because I think I picked up and sat down objects in the wrong pattern which confuses the animation that ends the game.

So it would have to be something simplistic to apply a currency not large numbers. If Universal register 9 equals 5 skip next, if Universal register 9 equals skip next.. later in the animation If Universal register nine not equal to five skip next, if Universal register 9 not equal to 4 skip next.. leaving enough room later in the animation for a variety of other calculations. So the function of a merchant in a game would be easier with less currency available in the game. To deceive the player into thinking the number count is greater, it could be something along the lines of a bag of gold equals 20 gold pieces. The merchant animation request 80 gold pieces so the player knows I have to drop four.

So there's a lot of potential for Unique gameplay if we can get animated objects to spawn inventory items.

[chris]

I got a little further on the GCSP transplant. The following files are required: P.PAL, P.TBL, and P0.PAL. After adding those, I don't get anymore errors, but the game boots up to level 1, no warp-to points work, and no .ENG files are created. Bummer. Since it's not giving me errors, I'm completely flying blind at this point and don't know what's wrong. Which sucks because I feel like I'm so close getting this to work.

Tip on the liquid floor: if you make a platform with negative height, you'll clip into the floor and it'll look like you're swimming. Combine that with the elevator trick you did and maybe you can get the player to bob up and down. The GCSP engine also seems to have some built-in way to do this but I haven't played with it. I did it with Metalhead back in the day for a trap that would cause you to fall into a pit.

Can a fluid only spawn another fluid, or can it spawn any species type? If it can spawn a normal symmetrical object then maybe it can spawn an inventory item. Not sure, I tried playing with it a little but I'm very new to fluid txt hacking.

Yeah I was playing with the inventory system not too long ago and found some interesting quirks:
1) The increment/decrement universe register on pickup/drop definitely opens up some possibilities. And combine that with a platform that sets a register and maybe a platform that surrounds it that decrements, and you could create a hotspot on the floor where an object should be placed, and if your item is dropped in that specific location, you could have some event fire. A magic item placed on a pedestal, a trap you set for an enemy, etc.
2) The jetpack works the same where you can also have it set a register (presumably to set a platform that raises you up). But this is weird... it deletes itself when you get close to it. Why? No other objects behave this way.
3) The bigbomb type (timebomb) is awesome. The way it works is you assign it a register in an attribute box and have an animated object set it to 100 or so. It'll count down automatically. When it reaches 0, the item explodes. If you happen to be holding the inventory item, it will kill you. You could do something cool with this.
4) For the life of me I can't find a function of type 10 and 11 (basinvfunct). I guess they don't do anything.
5) A key serves no function. Anything can actually be a key. Want a door to only open if you have a gas mask? You can do that. So you could use a type 8 object to both act as a key and serve as a universe register if you wanted to.
6) In the last level of Industrial Killers there's an object that when picked up lights up the room temporarily like a flare. What's interesting is it never makes it into your inventory after pressing enter. How did they do that? According to the GCSP manual there's an attibute bitnotake 256 that prevents an item from hitting your inventory. So if I understand correctly, setting the "no radar" checkbox should set this flag, but I can't get it to work.
7) Type #4 is awesome, don't sleep on this. You can display a VGA file on the screen as if it were a text message. Like a treasure map or puzzle or something. It also says there's a way to programmatically call a VGA file by concatenating a number into it. I could not get this working at all and I tried just about everything I could think of, sadly.
8) Here's one reason I'd love to see if inventory can be created from a fluid. What if you set a bomb (type 1) object next to an animated object that reacts to branch if shot. Pressing the "b" key would blow up the bomb, trigger the animation, and then if the animation could create another bomb and ready itself to react again, you could essentially turn the "b" key into a custom action button that works indefinitely. The button could do pretty much whatever you wanted by setting universe registers, etc. Just a thought.
9) I distinctly remember back in the day there was a GCS patch on the psky ftp. I think it claimed among other things there was a feature added that if you had something in one of the red boxes, the item would vanish from inventory when switching levels (like how keys disappear in Wolfenstein and Doom). I don't remember if this patch was needed for most people or not, but it's got me wondering if this is something the engine can do out of the box, and what that parameter would have been. I tried finding this patch on the Wayback Machine but it seems lost to time

If you want to make a merchant system here's what I'd do (what I was gonna do in Metalhead). Have animated objects that when touched, delete themselves and add 1 to a register. Then when you find the merchant, maybe you either walk up to the item or storage unit you want, then walk back up to the merchant to confirm. He'll subtract the amount from the universe register (I think to subtract 1 from a register you have to "add 256" or 257, it's weird). Then the storage unit with the stuff you wanted unlocks, or an invisible wall disappears so you can grab the item now. I wouldn't use actual inventory to manage money since we have no way to programmatically make it disappear (unless I can solve that Industrial Killers mystery). If you really wanted to go the inventory route maybe the merchant could kick you out of the store for trying to take your money back but you'd still get away with a small amount of shoplifting.

I'll see if I get time to put that door tutorial together today