ScrollGIN(tm) is a Scrolling engine intended for platform based games, as well as overhead RPG type games. It is heavily based off 8 bit scrolling engines of the mid 80's.
It is currently using DirectX 11 as the primary render (though a DirectX 7 Renderer also exists, but it no longer maintained) so the game requires Windows 7 or higher and the graphics adapter must support Shader Model 5.
For the game to build properly you need Visual Studio 2013. The Community Edition of VS 2013 is free!
You also need to set the environment variable BEEMOUT ot the path you would like the game to build to, such as "D:\BuildOut". You can set environment variables in the windows system settings.
If you build from the command line you could do:
set BEEMOUT="D:\BuildOut" MSBuild SCrollGIN.vcxproj
January 22, 2015
While the game isn't really maintained anymore I did write a DirectX 11 renderer for it, mostly so that I could learn the DX11 API before attempting to put it into a larger project. It's not really doing any DX11 stuff, and the shaders written for it are pretty close to Shader Model 1, but it has at least the gist of the graphics pipeline.
May 26, 2012
I'm not really resurrecting this project or anything. I just thought I'd make the project open source. There isn't really much reason to develop this project further as better technologies exist.
Basically this project was my introduction to Windows game development, as all my previous experience was in DOS. Looking back on this code, it is very crude, not well organized, and it runs really bad on modern computers due to the way it used DirectDraw.
I may dabble around with this project a little more, but any major development is unlinkely. I'm just happy that I got the game and tools building again.
== The log is now in chronological order ==
April 07, 2002
I finished the tile manager class. Due to problems I had to use a specific size, which can easily be changed. The library is still not implemented.
Strangely, when creating tiles, the program won't display the tile that was last created, I'm not sure why, but I'll have to find out.
I've created both a full screen, and windowed disply. The windowed display does not work correctly, the full screen does. However when quitting after using full screen display an error occurs, this does not happen with window mode.
That problem with an error in full screen mode, was simply because I was releasing the backbuffer after the primary, I am so damn happy that I figured it out. Now I just need to get windowed mode to work, and I'll be happy.
April 08, 2002
Generated the viewport class. It's heavily based off of Ian Parberry's from ned's turkey farm, only designed for a real 2d universe with x and y. I've tested it and it works quite well. I have not tested it's draw background feature yet.
I also added a timer. I used the one from ned's turkey farm, because it suits my needs, and if I wrote my own timer I'd do something similar to that anyway.
May 02, 2002
I finally did some work on this. I've mainly been working on the tile library, but I haven't implimented it yet. What I have done is fixed up the windowed mode, sadly it doesn't clip correctly.
May 04, 2002
I've been putting in a little work. DirectInput is now active and works. You can use left and right arrows to scroll the demo screen right and left. I had to updated a problem with the viewport manager.
May 07, 2002
Implimented the library feature. Tiles can now be loaded from a library built by Libellus ex Imago.
May 14, 2002
The problem with the last tile in the tile manager not being displayed has been fixed.
June 06, 2002
Fixed the problem with the program not being active when starting up in fullscreen mode.
June 24, 2002
I haven't worked on this program for a while because I've been working on the Map Editor. Now that the map editor is somewhat complete, I have implimented the CMapBoard class and now the programm will load a map and draw it on the screen. I've also made an optimization to the Viewport class.
June 29, 2002
Well I haven't really done to much, but I'd like to make a note of what is left to do in the project.
Actual things that need to be done for ScrollGIN: Impliment Background Class ( CBackground ) This class will be used to manage the paralax scrolling of a background image. It will be able to do a number of effects with a given background image.
Impliment Sprite Class ( CSprite ) This class will manage
imagesused as sprites.
Impliment Object Class ( CObject ) This class will represent
an object. It will contain attached sprites, and what to
do with them.
Impliment Pause functionality into the timer.
Impliment Object Manager class ( CObjectManager ) This class
will manage objects, and report collisions between
objects, as well as destroy and create objects. This
will only be a base class, and derived classes will be
required for each ScrollGIN game.
Things for actual ScrollGIN games: (These classes will be specific for each individual engine.) Intelligent Object class ( CIntelligentObject ) This will be a derived class from CObject, it will be different for each ScrollGIN game. This will manage how gravity works and such.
June 29, 2002 (Supplimental) I've created the spite class. It works pretty damn good, but I want to impliment the ability to reverse a sprite.
Implimented all obove mentioned itmes. I have tested all
member functions and they seem to work properly.
Right now I have a test sprite and it displays the flying
ned from Ned's turkey farm wherever the mouse is. It's
looks pretty damn cool.
July 02, 2002 I've implimented a class called CImage. This class contains one image, and can do a few things to it. It stores how to successfully reload a given image. This class is now used by the CTileManager and CSprite classes.
I beleive this will make it significantly easiers to upgrade
to Direct3D or even OpenGL for that matter.
July 02, 2002 (Supplimental) The joystick has been implimented.
July 03, 2002 Object class has been implimented. I created a really retarded looking dude, but he is made up of several sprites so it's pretty cool.
I need to improve the object class somewhat for the multiple sprite thing.
July 04, 2002 Thank goodness for our independence. I've slightly upgraded the CSprite and CSpriteManager classes.
The CSprite class now allows you to name the sprite, that
way you can get a pointer to a sprite (using CSpriteManager)
without knowing which index it is.
I've also implimented a createsprite function in the
CSpriteManager class that allows creation of a sprite
using a SSpriteCreateStruct structure.
On onother note I've created new demo graphics for a
little guy that runs around he looks really cool.
July 04, 2002 (Supplimental) I finally fixed the problem with the directinput object not being a member of the input class. Now it is a member.
July 19, 2002 Added background class. It supports up to ten different backgrounds. It can automatically determine how to display the background based on the viewport. I'm so damn glad I got it working.
One thing I'd like to do is make it so that the background
has a wider varitety of scrolling speeds.
August 06, 2002 The CImage class now has a DrawClippedImage function which does clipping itself regardless whether there is a Clipper or not, so now windowed mode is clipped.
September 05, 2002 I implemented a Direct3D8 engine as well as the DirectDraw7 engine. The Direct3D engine seems to have some downsides, so the DD7 version is prefered. To select which engine to compite it is necessary to universally define either USED3D (Direct3D) or USEDD (DirectDraw).
September 13, 2002 Made some modifications to the code, now windowed mode is not determined by a define. The Direct3D8 engine windowed mode now works correctly.
October 02, 2002 Added functions to CObject class for collision detection, also made other improvements to the code.
For demo purposes there is a crow the flys along the screen,
if the controllable object collides with it the crow moves
downward.
Sprites can also be made to loop forward, then backward
October 05, 2002 The graphics functions are now in a dll called GFXGin.dll which solidly maintains the graphics functions.
February 05, 2003 Much has been done to advance the engine. It should be noted that Collision Detection of the environment is in the making. I have made a default collision detection (at least part of it), which I will work on more as time goes by. I'm about ready to convert "Joes Copter 2" to ScrollGIN technology. Freedom Fighter will take significantly more work.
Right now I need to work on the Image Library for more
advanced support. In order to do that I need to complete
my packaging library.
As for the engine I need to complete:
The CObjectManager class (along with ability
to apply AI)
Sound Engine (Music and FX)
Tile Manager support for libraries (Need to create
better library format)
February 08, 2003 I've completed the default archtitecture adjustment it works pretty well considering. Though if the movement ratio is more than 1:2 versus x movement against y problems may persist.
February 14, 2003 I've created a CObject derivation called CCrowObject to show a basic example of how artificial intelligence on an object type basis will work.
The CCrowObject works the same as CObject except
without architecture collision detection.
February 22, 2003 Over the past couple of days I have completely redone the graphics engine. It now uses GFXG7 (GraFiX enGine directraw7). The game never uses any bitmap loading from offsets (excpet int the sense that ImageLib does). On that note ImageLib has been implimented to load both Sprites and Tiles. The old TileLibrary mode is no longer supported at all (*.ilf), only (*ilb) is supported. I don't beleive I have any ilf files under release so I didn't bother creating backward compatibility.
What is left to do:
CObjectManager class;
Sound Engine;
Thats pretty much it. I will begin developing the Object
Manager soon, and it will be designed to get an AI from the
specific program and not the engine. I have to do some
research to develop the sound engine. Joes copter 2 will
begin the development process soon, then I'll work out
freedom fighter.
February 26, 2003 The CObjectManager class is complete. Except of course for it's ability to play sounds (which will probably be part of the CObject class). In the file TestAI.cpp it can be seen how to utilize the object manager and CObject derived objects.
I just ordered a book on game audio programming, so once
it arrives I will be able to further ScrollGIN technology.
Febrary 27, 2003 Timer now supports pausing, as well as other updates to the code.
January 9, 2004 Well it has been a while since I have done, much work on this project, but I suddenly got this riduculous urge to generate a working model of Joes Copter 2. In order to accomplish this I have made some serious revisions to the game, adding a new class CScrollGINGame which holds everything to do with ScrollGIN into a class that can easily be plugged into a windows application. In the processed of developing a Joes Copter 2 demo I also discovered some bugs in the code which have now been resolved, and I made some enhancements. The Joes Copter 2 demo I have created pretty much has all the featuers of the DOS version, except it lacks sound. Plus now whether or not the game is windowed is determined by a paramer (-w or -window on the command line to make the game windowed).
Things that need to be done for ScrollGIN:
1) Add a sound engine.
2) Create a more advanced collision engine to
go along with the DefaultArchAdjust.
3) Turn the engine into a DLL hiding most of the
complex stuff, making it more simple to base
games off the ScrollGIN engine.
4) The innability for objects to go past the edge
of the map.
It's pretty amazing to think that I have been working on
this project for 2 and a half years and I still know how
it works. I hope I still have interest in game
development in the future, and I hope I finally put
a sound engine in this engine.
About:
ScrollGIN(tm) copyright(c) 2002, 2003, 2004 Blaine Myers. ScrollGIN(tm), Beem Software, and all respective logos are a trademark and/or registered trademark of Blaine Myers in the US and/or other countries. All other logos/trademarks belong to their respective owners.