Bloxed - A tetris game

[jgroenendaal]

Hello,

My next project is a remake of a Tetris game I played and enjoyed a lot on the Archimedes called Bloxed.
Without knowing, it is actually a clone of a Sega game called Bloxeed.

I am not sure if I will maximize my project to four players in one screen.
My target will be a two player game, and probably a full screen landscape game on mobile devices targeting one player.

For now, I will include some screenshot of my progress.
There are probably many Tetris BBC Basic version playable on BBCSDL from other BBC Basic sources, I haven't seen a BBCSDL exclusive version with some nice graphics ( nice as in 32bit sprites )





Links to the original game :
YouTube Bloxed Archimedes

I hope I can make a playable version very soon!

[Richard Russell]

I haven't seen a BBCSDL exclusive version with some nice graphics ( nice as in 32bit sprites )

Nor me. I like the grabber claw in your second image, it reminds me of seaside amusement arcades.

[jgroenendaal]

Hello,

Time for a playable preview version :
https://wasm.bbcbasic.net/bbcsdl.html?a ... bloxed.bbb

You can control with the arrow keys left and right to move.
To drop, use the arrow down.
To turn or to fire when you are a rocket or a claw use the arrow up key.

You can use the mouse or press 1 to start the 1 player mode in the menu.
Other menu items do not work, yet.

When you lose as the area is filled to high, the game will stop without returning on the main menu.

Known issues :
Old shadow visible when a special block state is ended.
Discontinue key down event after block being dropped.
Prepare to play event not correctly.

I hope the self made graphics are nice and the effects are a bit up-to-date to other newer Tetris releases I have seen.

I sill have mis feelings about how the Next block is presented. I like the fact you know where the next block and state the block will appear, but it's also confusing as it's just displayed as a glitch.

Next preview version will hopefully have :
Bug fixes.
Backdrop(s)
High(er) resolution graphics

[Richard Russell]

I still have mis feelings about how the Next block is presented. I like the fact you know where the next block and state the block will appear, but it's also confusing as it's just displayed as a glitch.

I know what you mean. At first glance it looks accidental, but when you realise what's happening it makes sense.

[jgroenendaal]

Hello,

Not a big change for the moment.



I managed to create backgrounds possible, including some blur on the Tetris areas.
It will have some background cycling just like the originals did.
For the moment, I decided to use some images of my own city.
I also changed some parts of the display logic of the Next block - I prefer it this way.

[Richard Russell]

For the moment, I decided to use some images of my own city.

Love those backgrounds.

[jgroenendaal]

Hello all,

Best wishes for 2025 !
For me. I loved to continue to catch up programming and creating games again this year.

During the holidays, I made some progress on this Bloxed game.
Mostly worked on getting the game working in different (higher) resolutions and getting the 2 player mode working.



I need to finish the menu system, support for joysticks and touch screen devices, the help / demo working for a first release of the game.

Some wishes I need to figure out if I can get it working is : better audio mixing - currently - especially in two player mode - the sound playback is not the best without sound mixing.

I hope I can post another playable preview version somewhere next week!

[Richard Russell]

I need to figure out if I can get it working is : better audio mixing - currently - especially in two player mode - the sound playback is not the best without sound mixing.

I would expect you to be using PROC_mixSound() or PROC_mixSoundLevel() to play sound effects.

If the sound is still not smooth it may be because you are running it in a Chrome-based browser (e.g. Brave, Chrome, Edge, Vivaldi). In that case the audio can be 'stuttery' if the frame rate is reduced, typically because the graphics cannot be rendered in the available time.

In Firefox, or when running as a desktop application, this should not happen and the audio should play cleanly even if the frame rate is reduced.

The different behaviour seems to stem from whether audio is handled in interrupts (desktop or Firefox) or in the video rendering thread (Chrome etc.).

[jgroenendaal]

I would expect you to be using PROC_mixSound() or PROC_mixSoundLevel() to play sound effects.

I am using the mixSound at the moment, but it doesn't work as expected. I will need to debug what I am doing wrong.

I have uploaded a new version.
https://wasm.bbcbasic.net/bbcsdl.html?a ... bloxed.bbb
I just discovered that SYS "GetSystemMetrics" is an Windows only execution, is currently llimited to 640 x 512 or 1024 x 768.

You can also download a Windows version as an EXE :
https://www.groenendaal.one/bbcsdl/bloxed/b5/bloxed.exe

This can run higher resolutions.

This preview release included both 1 and 2 player fully playable.
The configuration does work, expect it only handles the keyboard as an input. The touch and joystick options are not working at the moment.
The PAUSE key can be set but has no function in this version.

Next release will include more sliding backgrounds and finally touch and joystick support.

I tried some AI music generation tools online, but the free ones I tried did produce music I liked. So I am not sure if I will put some music in the game as well.

[Richard Russell]

is currently limited to 640 x 512 or 1024 x 768.

Why don't you make it dynamically scalable to any window size (including fullscreen), as I did in Joop and Vapiki? I assumed you would probably use one or other of those conversions as a 'template' for any new work, to avoid 'reinventing the wheel'.