More Tetris

[carlfoxmarten]

I thought I'd post some of what's on my current TODO list for the tetris project:

• Add a background:
  Should include a sky and some ground, but levels can be indicated by the following:
  • Trees
  • Bushes
  • Flowers
  • Hills
  • Clouds
  • Cliffs (towards later levels)
  • Waterfalls (usually off the sides of cliffs. May have some trouble animating them)
• Add an Options screen:
  I'm not yet sure what to put here, but something about background music, enabling sound effects, graphics detail, etc. would be a good idea.
• Add sound effects:
  A light thud for blocks landing gently, a slightly heavier thunk for blocks dropped from a higher height, some kind of explosion for when a row gets removed (or maybe a cool disappear sound, I'm not sure), etc.
• Add background music:
  A friend has offered to make me a Techno remix of the original Tetris background music, but you can be sure that if I include that, I'll provide an alternative option as well as the choice of turning it off...
• Add an in-game menu:
  To pause the game and let the user change settings without having to restart their game.
• Add levels of difficulty:
  Because one level isn't challenging enough.
• Add a highscore list:
  To record how well you've done. I'll probably use SQLite to keep things relatively simple.
• Tweak or rewrite the font engine:
  To add multiple brightness levels. Right now, fonts don't look that great and could use some extra zing.
• Write a shaders module:
  To allow me to use shaders on a variety of platforms and even on some lower-end systems, including low-end Intel graphics cards.

Current status is that things look and play fairly well, but certain aspects could be greatly improved, such as block textures (I'd like to use a bump map, but that requires I use a shader so far as I know, thus the need for a shaders module).
I also seem to have lost some of my enthusiasm for work on this project, partly due to finally fixing textures (now I don't have a big challenge staring me in the face, just a bunch of smaller ones).

I want something big and difficult! Not small and difficult!
(sounds weird, I know)

Comments

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'd suggest finding a different Russian tune.

[carlfoxmarten]

I'm definitely open to suggestions.

I keep thinking about trying to "write" my own music for it, but I'd have to lug my computer over to the piano first...

[teric.livejournal.com]

Something big and difficult? Try implementing a skinned, animated mesh.

[carlfoxmarten]

So far I'm settling for small and complicated by working on the highscore system.
(it shouldn't take me very long, the hardest part will be storing the scores)

A skinned, animated mesh.
I understand the animated part, does skinned mean textured?

[teric.livejournal.com]

Textured, yes, but more than that. It means that the mesh is set up with a 'bone' structure, and that each bone is 'jointed'. The textures, instead of being statically applied to each segment of the mesh, are actually weighted across the joints, so that they stretch as the joints move (gives the mesh a much more natural look, instead of having it look like a bunch of jointed blocks).

[carlfoxmarten]

That shouldn't be too difficult, the way I'm handling textures already gives each polygon's vertex a UV coordinate to use on the texture, so if I move the vertices, the textures will follow suit with no extra work.

The only problem comes in when storing the bone structure and moving the vertices...
(somehow I don't think that the Wavefront Object format doesn't support bones)