dRxLaX

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:03 pm

Why didn't anyone mention dRxLax when you guys were naming all the great four player homebrews on the DC? As you pointed ou there's quite a few, but dRxLax is *BY FAR* the best. Sometimes I worry that no one plays dRxLax since it hardly ever gets mentioned...it's a really amazing game. One of the best multiplayer games ever written for any console, homebrew or commercial. It much, much more than deserves your attention any time you've got two or three people over.

...word is bondage...

krog · Post by **krog** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 2:21 pm

Why didn't anyone mention dRxLax when you guys were naming all the great four player homebrews on the DC? As you pointed ou there's quite a few, but dRxLax is *BY FAR* the best. Sometimes I worry that no one plays dRxLax since it hardly ever gets mentioned...it's a really amazing game. One of the best multiplayer games ever written for any console, homebrew or commercial. It much, much more than deserves your attention any time you've got two or three people over.

I'm with you. dRxLaX is by far my favorite multiplayer homebrew. I always get people who don't know a thing about the DC or homebrew sucked into a game and they're hooked instantly.

Back on topic though this sounds like a very cool game and I hope that it does come out for DC!!!!

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 5:28 pm

dRxLax? How come Ive missed it? I heard about it now in this thread and checked it out. It seems really neat. Ill download it and try.

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 12:37 pm

To stay off-topic : I tried dRxLax now. Really fun game! Strange its not often mentioned. Sad thing development was stopped. Some more weapons and even coolor gfx could make it a masterpiece.
Btw, don't judge it form the screens, its very cool when played. Even so, these screens are quite nice :
http://www.uk.playright.dk/screens.php?id=13308

dRxL · Post by **dRxL** » Sat Feb 18, 2006 8:45 pm

dRxLaX has not been cancelled.

There just haven't been any releases for "a bit". Now try to imagine how cool the version that I've been secretly working on for the last 3 odd years would be

Unfortunately, no such work has been undertaken (by me at least).

I do however hope to have time this spring (2006) for finishing what I started. Thats what I have my fingers crossed for.

And thank you for the kind words =)

Post by **Christuserloeser** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:16 am

One of my favorite DC hb games. Love it as it is, still it's fantastic to hear you are working on a new release

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 12:39 pm

Nice to hear from you. Ill look forward to any improvements, even if the game is great as it is.

Nico0020 · Post by **Nico0020** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 1:53 pm

wow i had never even touched this game, nor heard anything about it untill now. I dled it last night and burnt it, I must say this has got to be in my top 5 fav homebrew games for DC. It reminds me of how much my friends and I played the cool herders demo. I love the colors and effects, if an update was in store i would be oh so happy lol. great job!

MetaFox · Post by **MetaFox** » Sun Feb 19, 2006 2:09 pm

Hey dRxL! It's nice to see that you're still around.

Are you still planning on making a dRxLaX special edition? That's one of the releases I remember really getting excited about way back when.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 4:01 pm

Wow, dRxL! So cool to see you here. And still planning to work on dRxLax, too!

I've been playing around with the game's source code in my spare time recently. I'm not much of a coder, but your game is really one of the main reasons why I set up the dev environment. I thought you'd abandoned it, but I really wanted to see a completed version (I wouldn't have released anything without seeking your permission, of course).

The only working change that I currently have in my version is a config screen where each player can set up the handling and such of his ship, eventually I envisioned that the player would also be able to equip certain weapons or attacks on this screen and I was thinking of maybe also bringing back the feature that one of the earlier versions of the game had where you could select between two different ship types during gameplay.

However, what I've been working with mostly though is trying to add music visualizations in the background. Actually, I'm trying to figure out if there's any good way to make the visualizations interact with the gameplay...I wish there was, but nothing seems to work well enough.

Of course, I also want to try getting some AI in there even though that's way beyond my ability at the moment.

Essentially, I'm just using your game as a sandbox to play around with Dreamcast development and see what I can do.

When you do return to working on the game, I'll get in contact with you because I have some ideas that really ought to be included in the game even if I never make a release of my version.

...word is bondage...

dRxL · Post by **dRxL** » Tue Feb 21, 2006 10:22 pm

Wow, are you really working with that horrible code? I actually took up work on the game about 2 years ago to try and add a few quick fixes, but I had to give it up 'cause it seemed that all my horrible bugs were balancing each other in some sort of twisted equilibrium. Even the gentlest tweaks that I would try rendered the compiled code a crashing mess.
How you?ve managed to implement a working menu system is beyond me, and I think perhaps a tribute to your patience.

So the finished version would be a fresh start with all the added programming experience I?ve gained since the first dRxLaX and the benefit of better code libraries.

I think I?ll aim for some sort of open framework with a lua compiler thrown in for good measure to allow people to customize the game to their liking.
A bit like the ?beats of rage? thingie, with the slight difference that this system should be more open for designing new gameplay mechanics, not just swap out some animations.

I?ve always had this dream of modifications small enough to fit on a VMU.

Oh and feel free to release your improved dRxLaX code if you feel like doing it, I?d love to see what you?ve made of it.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 1:36 pm

dRxL wrote:Oh and feel free to release your improved dRxLaX code if you feel like doing it, I?d love to see what you?ve made of it.

Nothing worth releasing now. The config screen lets you set things with no limit, so it's not fair and often breaks the game. It ought to use some sort of "rubberband" system where you can only increase certain values to a certain point before other value start decreasing to compensate, but I haven't done that yet.

Maybe after I work on that and some weapons changes including an all new one attack that I've always though would be great (you completely encircle an opponent with your trail and it makes them spin out of control), I'll release a version, with non-interactive MP3 visualizations, too.

dRxL wrote:I?ve always had this dream of modifications small enough to fit on a VMU.

Yeah, that would be a great idea, especially if mods could be made in-game as well as on a PC. Then some sort of site could be set up where people could swap mods as well as cool replays and other stuff like that. Maybe high-score competitions, too, if there was a one-player game. Then, of course...online play would be teh c00lest of all!

You know, earlier versions of the entire game are small enough to fit on a VMU. Dan Potter wrote a program that allows you to execute BINs saved to a VMU, so I keep the Midwest Classic version of dRxLax on one of my VMUs ready to be loaded form there just for the hell of it.

...word is bondage...

Imerion · Post by **Imerion** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 2:42 pm

However, what I've been working with mostly though is trying to add music visualizations in the background. Actually, I'm trying to figure out if there's any good way to make the visualizations interact with the gameplay...I wish there was, but nothing seems to work well enough.

Nice idea! I was thinking about interactive backgrounds while playing it a few days ago. Recently, a friend of mine showed me an asteroids-like game called "Geometry Wars Evolved" if I remember right. The background in that game was i grid which sorta bended in when the ship moved. Its hard to explain, but this pic kinda shows it : http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/viewer. ... 1&shotId=0
Something like that would rock.

You know, earlier versions of the entire game are small enough to fit on a VMU. Dan Potter wrote a program that allows you to execute BINs saved to a VMU, so I keep the Midwest Classic version of dRxLax on one of my VMUs ready to be loaded form there just for the hell of it.

That is cool! Ive never heard of that being possible. But how do you load the game if its on a vmu?

curt_grymala · Post by **curt_grymala** » Wed Feb 22, 2006 8:27 pm

dRxL - I'm surprised to see you post here, and I'm even more shocked to see that you are still planning on updating dRxLax at some point. I figured you had moved on well past the DC, especially after I saw your post about Xbox tools over at CV. It's great to see that you still hold a little bit of a flame for the DC.

dRxLax truly is one of the most fun 4-player homebrew games available for the DC. It would be great to see some improvements made to the game. Maybe, if there are any active artists left in the community, you could get some new graphics for the game (while the game play is outstanding, the graphics could use some work). It would also be cool to see some different levels/playing areas.

I honestly haven't played dRxLax in probably 2 years, but I still remember how much fun it was to play with a group. I would love to see an update.

Tonfa · Post by **Tonfa** » Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:55 pm

This game is Awesome beyond awesome. So awesome in fact, a word needs to be made up just FOR it. Ahem. Yes, this is one of my favorites. Awesome mix of retro feeling graphics, mixed with fun multiplayer.

Sweater Fish · Post by **Sweater Fish** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 1:46 pm

Imerion wrote:Nice idea! I was thinking about interactive backgrounds while playing it a few days ago. Recently, a friend of mine showed me an asteroids-like game called "Geometry Wars Evolved" if I remember right. The background in that game was i grid which sorta bended in when the ship moved. Its hard to explain, but this pic kinda shows it : http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/viewer. ... 1&shotId=0
Something like that would rock.

Hm, that might be a better idea. I've been working with sort of cloud-like and amorphous visualizations because I always pictured the game in some sort of organic setting. But maybe that's why I'm having trouble. A grid or other patterned thing that reacts to music might interact better with the players.

Those pictures of Geometry Wars looks great, I've heard a lot about the game, but never had a chance to play it. The new game from Kenta Cho/ABA Games is supposed to be based on the Geometry Wars concept, so maybe I should try it out.

That is cool! Ive never heard of that being possible. But how do you load the game if its on a vmu?

That's what the Dan Potter's program does. It's called VMU Load and you burn that to a CD like you would DC Load or some other boot disc (I have it on a single disc that combines with a single menu multiple bootdiscs from SCUMMVM and Neo DC to dcplaya to Pro Action Replay to VMU Load, etc.). So you start up VMU Load from a disc and it scans your VMUs for VMU Load files that are actually Dreamcast executables (1ST_READ.BINs) wrapped up in a special format that you transferred to the VMU from your computer with a Nexus cable. It's not particularly useful these days, but Dan wrote it way back when the only option for booting homebrew stuff on the DC was either to selfboot every compile individually or to build a serial cable by hand. Actually, I'm not sure it was even useful back then, but it's a cool little bit of obscurity in the DC homebrew history.

...word is bondage...

c99koder · Post by **c99koder** » Tue Feb 28, 2006 9:40 pm

DCBlap had VMU downloadable levels and themes, but there wasn't enough interest in them so I pulled them from the site a long time ago. Not enough people still use PlanetWeb / DreamPassport to make it worthwhile.

If anyone ever gets lwip working with the Dreamcast's modem, then we'll probably see a lot more online stuff. I have plenty of online projects I'd like to work on, but only working on BBA / LAN adapters makes the audience too small to really bother with.

Though, BBA/LAN users are in for a treat in a few months...

-Sam

dRxLaX

despite all things pointing to the contrary

Re: despite all things pointing to the contrary

most impressing

Re: most impressing