BZFlag for DS!

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SkillDude
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BZFlag for DS!

Post by SkillDude »

I dunno whether anyone has thought about it, but wouldn't it be cool if BZFlag could be on the Nintendo DS? My friends and I came up with the controls, set ups, and everything, taking into effect the all the specs. of the DS. I will show you below what these are, and I've even made an edited pic of what it would look like!

First of all, the DS has two screens, so it was pretty reasonable to use the top for the 3-D action, and the bottom for the radar. I have good coordination between these two, (thanks to MKDS) and my friends thought it was also reasonable. Each screen had only 256 x 192 pixels, so it's really hard to squeeze in everything. We came up with the best set-up and here it is (Full size too):

Top Screen:
Image
Bottom Screen:
Image

Now I will explain everything on the screens, and the controls and features in detail:

BZFlag DS could take advantage of the Surround Sound, and the Microphone (Chatting with voice like in Metroid Prime Hunters).

On the top screen, you'll see your score in big letters, and then each player's names and scores, plus their flags, and the little symbols.
The number of shots you have is located on the left side of the screen.
Your flag, if any, will be shown in the lower left hand side of the screen, and the current status of your tank on the right.

The bottom screen has a dashed box, which is where your stylus goes to tell the tank to stop (Like with the mouse, eh?). The bigger box is the box that lets you go far as you put your stylus farther out. On the upper-left hand side, is a little glasses/binoculars symbol (can't draw on comp.!) that lets you of course, snipe with lasers, and zoom in. The plus and minus signs in the lower-left hand corner are to zoom in and out of the radar to see more or less. The question mark is where the flag label is to tell you what the held flag does. We realized if too much text got in the way, it would irritate many, so pushing this will make the text appear for flag hint, and pushing it again will make it disappear.

We think that the Nintendo WFC can be used to play online. The largest amount of players will most likely be up to 8 tanks, with a lag of 300 or so. We also think that servers that only limit 8 players will automatically be seen on the server list, and that people can create an alternative server for just DS players.

Other features we thought might be cool were multi-card local play, with up to 8 players/bots. Single-card play which is limited to 4 tanks (like I said before, we made sure the game can handle stuff), and then there's a single player mode with bots that you can set a level of skill (1-10). My friends thought it would be cool to create maps easily with the touchscreen, but I came in and said that it would be hard to integrate code with servers, and that nintendo would've had to provide the servers for you to host them on, so that was gone, but maybe the game could just create maps reading its own code, so you can still play local play with created maps. We also think that random maps would be established if there was no map specified. Custom controls should also be an added feature so that you can change it, just like the BZFlag right now! Also, you can change the effects that happen throughout the game in a similar interface like the one on BZFlag!

We also found another hurdle to jump over... Memory. Of course, BZFlag uses textures and quite a few servers used them. Usually around 1 MB or less would work out for the DS, but some servers have more, and you would want to be able to play there, so we decided that you should be able to buy a memory expansion pack that fits in your GBA slot, (Of course, we took this from the DS Online Browser) so you can have maybe up to 30 MB of extra memory! Plenty more to play on any server.

But I still haven't explained the controls, so I'll do that now.

We came up with a very suitable set up for playing the game on the DS. We made up two sets of controls, Touchscreen and Button modes. Whichever is most suitable, (Depending on whether you use keyboard or mouse alot), will make you choose the more appropriate choice.

Touchscreen Controls
Obviously, you have the touchscreen to move in the box.
You tap the touchscreen and youll shoot unless you push one of the buttons on-screen.
Your left hand is available to hold the let hand side of the DS naturally, which has the "L" button and the D-pad.
The "L" button does the same thing as right-clicking on the mouse, viewing/locking onto your opponent.
The D-pad up button will make you jump,
and D-pad Down lets you drop flag.
You can change these settings in the custom keys menu I talked about above.

Button Controls
The D-pad lets you move.
The "B" button is used to shoot.
The "L" button still locks on.
The "R" button will let you jump. (Easily accessible while shooting)
The "X" button drops flag (Not used often)
The "Y" button zooms the radar out.
The "A" button zooms it in.
The "Start" button is used for binoculars, and the "Select" button is used to bring up the info box about the flag labels.

Now you may be wondering, if all the controls are used, where's the button to exit? Well, if you press "Start" 3 times in repeated succession, it'll bring up a menu similar to the one when you press the Escape key. (Except it'll be touch-controlled!)

As you can see, I just wanted to tell everyone about my idea (and with the help of my friends!) helped give an idea of what the game could be like if BZFlag could be on the DS. We took almost everything into thought, and we hope you'll like our ideas. Nevertheless, whether you think this is a cool idea, or a lame one, share your opinion, I'm willing to hear what you think!
Last edited by SkillDude on Thu Apr 26, 2007 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Grace F »

Well im very impressed. You seem to have out alot of effort into this idea.

With the controls, I don't have a DS so I don't know how well they will work.
sigonasr2 wrote:The question mark is where the flag hint is.
Flag hint? :? To see where the other teams flags are?
sigonasr2 wrote:On the top screen, you'll see your score in big letters, and then each player's names and scores, plus their flags, and the little symbols.
The number of shots you have is located on the left side of the screen.
Your flag, if any, will be shown in the lower left hand side of the screen, and the current status of your tank on the right.
Will the players names|flags|and +/- symbols be able to be hidden from screen?
I quite like the setup of the top screen, it's organised :)
sigonasr2 wrote:Other features we thought might be cool were multi-card local play, with up to 8 players/bots. Single-card play which is limited to 4 tanks (like I said before, we made sure the game can handle stuff), and then there's a single player mode with bots that you can set a level of skill (1-10). My friends thought it would be cool to create maps easily with the touchscreen, but I came in and said that it would be hard to integrate code with servers, and that nintendo would've had to provide the servers for you to host them on, so that was gone, but maybe the game could just create maps reading its own code, so you can still play local play with created maps. We also think that random maps would be established if there was no map specified. Custom controls should also be an added feature so that you can change it, just like the BZFlag right now! Also, you can change the effects that happen throughout the game in a similar interface like the one on BZFlag!
This sounds good to me, but what will happen from here?

I still think most people would be sticking to playing BZFlag on their PC :)
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Post by SkillDude »

Grace F wrote:With the controls, I don't have a DS so I don't know how well they will work.
A Nintendo DS Lite looks like this: http://www.mobilewhack.com/images/nintendo-ds_lite.jpg
Grace F wrote:Flag hint? :? To see where the other teams flags are?
Maybe I worded it wrong, it should be Flag label. When you press "f" on your keyboard while your playing, it will show what the current flag you're holding does.
Grace F wrote:This sounds good to me, but what will happen from here?

I still think most people would be sticking to playing BZFlag on their PC :)
I have to agree, the computer is what this game was created for, and I have to agree it seems a little more simpler to learn keys rather than buttons. (or vice versa...) I think that playing BZFlag on the go is pretty cool though, because sometimes I can't use the comp, I'll whip out my DS and play BZFlag DS. (If this was a fantasy)
Grave F wrote:Well im very impressed. You seem to have out alot of effort into this idea.
Thanks for the comment! :D
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Post by Grace F »

Yea it would be good to just take out a DS or something alike and start playing BZFlag in some random place, fantasy or not.

The DS looks cool, seems really hard though to learn BZFlag on it :)
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Post by joevano »

Great idea, code it up and submit it...

Ideas are only good if someone codes it, and the developers have their hands full with the platforms they do support now. Does the DS support OpenGL (not something they call openGL, but real OpenGL)? Can it connect to the internet? You seem to have done lots of research to come up with 8 players at 300ms lag, how did you test? I don't have a DS so I don't know the answers to these questions... but if it does, your code would be a welcome addition, I am sure.
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Post by BinarySpike »

Donny Baker, you can get a Wifi hookup for your DS. Which means that the DS could run right off the bzflag tracker. I'm not sure if the DS's come with Wifi already installed inside of them.
Sigonasr2 wrote:and the Microphone (Chatting with voice like in Metroid Prime Hunters).
Of course, but who is going to program that? it's not even in the main bzflag... (and it might never be for some time)

Sigonasr2 wrote:and that nintendo would've had to provide the servers for you to host them on,
You sure? DS has standard 802.11 You could connect it to the bzflag tracker just like the PCs
Donny Baker wrote:Does the DS support OpenGL (not something they call openGL, but real OpenGL)?
Not sure about the DS, but you could swap out the OpenGL calls to the calls on DS. It would run just the same, maybe even more efficient because DS is standard video. While OpenGL is implemented driver wise.
Sigonasr2 wrote:We think that the Nintendo WFC can be used to play online. The largest amount of players will most likely be up to 8 tanks, with a lag of 300 or so. We also think that servers that only limit 8 players will automatically be seen on the server list, and that people can create an alternative server for just DS players.
Depends on what is hosting, and the bandwidth of the hosting device.

8 players is around 500kbps IIRC, so then it just depends on the pingtime of the server. Once you go over the bandwidth then lag become exponential to players.

It would be best to host server through the bzflag tracker, as this a non-profit open-source game. I believe you have to pay for hosting Nintendo WFC servers? (as they use a proprietary format)

The DS hosting ability would be small. As for an integrated map editor. That sounds *good*. Something simple (maybe a top-down block editor?)

Limit DS hosting capability to your Wifi, A DS does not have nearly enough power to host an internet game.

And over a wifi you could easily get 50+ players on a computer host. And bzflag is on computers already. You could host the server from your PC and all your friends could play on their DS. Bring a laptop to the coffee shop and host from it, and all your friends playing from your DS.
(as DS's are much cheaper than laptops ;)

Signasr2 wrote:Top Screen:
Image
The font for the player list is very large. Maybe an alternate screen for showing players and score?
Signasr2 wrote:Memory. Of course, BZFlag uses textures and quite a few servers used them. Usually around 1 MB or less would work out for the DS, but some servers have more
The DS almost literally has the power of the old Nintendo 64.

DS has 4MB memory.
CPU: ARM9 67Mhz and ARM7 33Mhz processors



Ok first off bzflag is meant to be run at 640x480. Running it on such a tiny screen would mean loss of *much* detail. You can take down detail to get smaller sizes for memory reasons. Rain, mirrors, clouds and celestial bodies could all be changed drastically.
Porting bzflag so far would mean massive change to the real bzflag as well. Meaning many good changes could be made to run faster.


All in all it's a great idea. I suggest porting bzflag to a tablet or something similar first.
I'm only worried about what Nintendo would say when we tried to get it licensed ;)
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Post by CannonBallGuy »

"Patches Welcome". :)
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Post by halo3 »

i think this is a very good idea and maybe u could make a version for psp also ;)
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IMHO

Post by Palomides »

I think this would be a ridiculous effort for the developers, even though the idea is kinda cool. Gaming systems like this get out of date very quickly, and unlike computers, they tend to go through radical hardware changes with high frequency.

Also, have you ever played BZFlag at a resolution below even 800x600? It gets EXTREMELY pixelly, and textures are basically useless.

Coming from a state of complete ignorance on the subject, how would you get BZFlag onto a DS short of mass-manufacture anyways?
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Post by that exploding tank »

BinarySpike wrote:I'm not sure if the DS's come with Wifi already installed inside of them.
The DS is ready to connect to any router that supports 802.11g.
BinarySpike wrote:The DS hosting ability would be small. As for an integrated map editor. That sounds *good*. Something simple (maybe a top-down block editor?)
I wouldn't think that for a version 1.0 for the DS would be able to include a map editor and a server hoster, especially the server hoster. 802.11g is great for playing a game, but can severely limit the amount of players on a server, since lag increases expotentially. As for the map editor, it would be a heckuvalot easier to use a PC for this instead of the DS's buttons.
BinarySpike wrote:The DS almost literally has the power of the old Nintendo 64.

DS has 4MB memory.
CPU: ARM9 67Mhz and ARM7 33Mhz processors
This is great, because I have only seen 2 maps that have textures above 4MB. You can also disable downloading large textures locally.
BinarySpike wrote:I'm only worried about what Nintendo would say when we tried to get it licensed
To be honest, I think that Nintendo will want to distribute a cheap game that they don't have to spend money on to develop. Of course, they might charge the $9.99 per game for production and distrubution costs, but this is much lower than the standard $29.99 per game that comes from gaming companies.
Palomides wrote:I think this would be a ridiculous effort for the developers
I wouldn't think that the same developers would work on this. They might share code together, but not much else.
Palomides wrote:Coming from a state of complete ignorance on the subject, how would you get BZFlag onto a DS short of mass-manufacture anyways?
You couldn't. That's why I'm suggesting the $9.99 per game in production costs.
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Post by JeffM »

that exploding tank
umm rellay, you should look into console game development and third party development fees before you sling around numbers.

you have to pay Nintendo to make your game ( you license there technology to make it). Then you pay them again to make the carts. Then you pay a publisher to distribute them. Nintendo dosn't publish third party games ( that's what first party developers are for ). They don't NEED cheap games, as people are buying the current 40 and 50$ as fast as they can. There isn't a lot of room for profit in a 10$ game. And Nintendo isn't making DSs and games just to be nice. They are in this for the money.

You'd basically be redoing the game from scratch ( we need more then 4 megs of ram just to boot the game , not even counting textures ). To do this legitimately, you'd have to get a publisher and then become a licensed Nintendo third party developer.

If you went the "home brew" route, then your basically on your own, and can never sell/manufacture carts, as that is against the Nintendo license.

If your looking at doing it on the DS linunx ports, note that they need a 32 meg ram expansion cart, and that just because you have Linux doesn't mean you have hardware accelerated open GL and support for all the things you need. In fact on such a slow CPU you'd NOT want Linux there taking up cycles and ram.

sigonasr2
Kudos on all the interface work you've done, you thought it all out it seems.

But the coding aspect of this is a huge task, you have to treat it as if it's a new project, I can not see how this mini version and the main game can share code. A DS/PSP/Cell phone version would have to be so optimized for it's low end platform that you'd have to make very sweeping changes to the entire codebase. Not to mention that many of them will use custom assembly language code to run at playable speeds.

Sure it'd be nice to have a little tank game on a portable, but it may as well be another game. On the DS, your not just going to whip it out and play online anywhere, it needs very specific hardware and conditions to play over the internet. The PSP has less restrictions. A cell phone has the last, but then you get into an entirely different thing.

For a legit home brew console port, the XNA system is the only thing close to being feasible with an open source type project.
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Post by too much loving »

Hehe... I looked at the wiki for the upcoming NEO1973 open source Linux phone. Somebody actually did ask for a 3D hardware acceleration chip.Now if each of us bought an open source Linux phone..... :)

http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Wish_List ... celeration
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Post by SkillDude »

Thanks for all the posts everyone. I have to agree that the production of the game, if possible, will not only be a new project in itself, but would be quite limited in its features. I will tell my friends about this. As for 3D Hardware Acceleration, hopefully we can find a better device that will be portable, but easy to use to play BzFlag. I liked all the comments, and it got me thinking too.

I can see it now... BzFlag with virtual helmets! :shock:

LOL...
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Post by *Boinkage*! »

Id love to see this. I have a DS lite. It could be kinda hard to make through, but you could copy most of the critical data and change a large chunk to fit it into a DS.
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Post by CannonBallGuy »

*Boinkage*! wrote:Id love to see this. I have a DS lite. It could be kinda hard to make through, but you could copy most of the critical data and change a large chunk to fit it into a DS.
Did you read any of the above posts?
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Post by Spazzy McGee »

sigonasr2 wrote:Hopefully we can find a better device that will be portable, but easy to use to play BzFlag.
Hmm.... Better device.... Portable.... Easy to use.... What? Surely not a laptop?
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Post by meeba »

I think a PSP would be able to support BZFlag... but I don't know how well we'd be able to put it on one. A big argument against it, like the DS, is the small screen. Also, having enough buttons available to work the controls is an issue... and then there's radar.

Maybe there would have to be a new style of play for BZFlag if we wanted it on a smaller portable console, but at that point, it is no longer BZFlag, and I'm glad I have my laptop.
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by SkillDude »

I know I know, there is always the saying never bring back the dead posts... Well I just wanted to get word out that I have started a project similar to this idea and am actually beginning work on it. You can see some of the progress I have made today at http://battletanksds.wordpress.com/2010 ... test-demo/

It's a cool project to work with, and I really think I can do this, however it is a branch off of BZFlag and will not be able to connect nor will be compatible with BZFlag PC, thus the rename from BZFlag DS to Battle Tanks DS.

Just thought I'd let you know I'm out there. Enjoy BZFlag! =)
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by macsforme »

Nice work; keep it up.
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by FiringSquad »

Best of luck with that. It's going to be difficult, but you've made a good start.

Porting to the iPhone or iPad would require massive modification to get it to work, but perhaps the Windows 7 phone might be more doable.
Anybody know anything about that platform?
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by JeffM »

The windows 7 phone would need the same type of rewrite as other portable devices, and would be just as pointless.
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by JeffM »

All of these proprietary systems require official developer kits and developer agreements with the console maker and a publisher. All of those things cost money and take a level of organization that bzflag just does not have. While it may be technically possible with homebrew systems that is not a direction the project wishes to go as there are many other problems with it and it has a difficult distribution system.

For the wii or any other console you can't make a free disk. Nintendo and all other console makers charge a fee per disk produced, and they require a publisher and a distribution contract It's all very closed source, your console is not a computer no mater how hard you wish it to be. For a console game to happen on disk, you would have to basically make a new game with a company that has signed a deal with a publisher and go out as a commercial product. The only other "official" options are things like the XBOX live arcade XNA games that can be built by "indie" developers using a special SDK. But to do this you would have to rewrite bzflag form the ground up, and it would be a NEW game that is simply inspired by bzflag.

I find all this talk of console ports silly when the game can't even make a new release on PC, and just distract from the actual development.
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by SkillDude »

JeffM wrote:All of these proprietary systems require official developer kits and developer agreements with the console maker and a publisher.

[...]

The only other "official" options are things like the XBOX live arcade XNA games that can be built by "indie" developers using a special SDK. But to do this you would have to rewrite bzflag form the ground up, and it would be a NEW game that is simply inspired by bzflag.

I find all this talk of console ports silly when the game can't even make a new release on PC, and just distract from the actual development.
I completely agree. BZFlag is an entity of its own, and your description of "official" options are very accurate. As you have mentioned, in order to port to other consoles, phones, whatever the case may be, these usually require hacks, additional components, or unofficial software to enable and overwrite the software the original developers had in mind.

Doing these kinds of things as a hobby from a programmer's point of view is very fun though of course, which is why like I have mentioned before, only going to be based off of BZFlag, never to match the exact features, expectations, or computer aspects that BZFlag itself provides. Console ports really should simply be a basis of the game itself. "BZFlag fans may also like to try..." and so on.

It will definitely distract from development, which is why I highly discourage anyone else from wasting effort on this. It's merely a hobbyist's project that others may want to try out, if they happen to have a DS and homebrew cartridge. I am only doing this because I am not on the BZFlag development team, nor do I think I am capable of it yet. Making this itself is proving to be quite the challenge, but it is a good challenge that will teach me above and beyond for future programming careers and projects.
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by lodxcol »

my old nick is in that screenshot from 3 years ago. weird
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Re: BZFlag for DS!

Post by adam9898 »

is it possible for an Archos product to host BZFlag? i do not have it yet but am going to get it withing the next half year (the Archos 43 to be specific). i know that it is a literal mini computer and can even play flash games, but is it able to host a download game as advanced as BZFlag?

go to http://www.archos.com/products/ta/archos_43it/ to see what i am talking about if you do not know what Archos is.
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