What's New?


7th December 1998:
  • Well, as you've probably noticed, I haven't worked on Paralemmings for over a year. God, I'm starting to feel old. Anyway, don't expect me to continue this project any time soon. If I will continue it, I think I'll completely rewrite it, anyway. I did too many VERY stupid things, back then.
    22nd November 1997:
  • As it's weekend, I didn't expect a reaction from DMA. They lived up to my expectation.
  • Added a LOT of new sprites, check the Screenshot page. Thanks, Han!
  • Removed the logo, as it took quite some time to download to the lynx.
  • Forgot to UPLOAD my page yesterday. STUPID!
    21st November:
  • Guess what? No reaction from DMA again!
  • I decided to upload my early, semi-buggie beta preview demo. So I
  • Updated the Download page. You can now download a version which is very limitedly (?) playable version. You can shoot the bi-plane. Once hit, it crashes and a jet flies over instead.
  • Added a single new screenshot, with a crashing bi-plane in it. Check the Screenshot page.
    20th November:
  • Still no reaction from DMA. If there isn't one tomorrow, I'll mail them again.
  • Got the rest of the sprites back from Han. Almost all sprites were converted to the good palette yesterday, except a few. Now these have been corrected too. I will convert some tomorrow, so you can expect a few new screenshots then.
  • Have been ill at home today. Didn't program anything. I am going to school tomorrow, however.
  • And the 4th day...
    19th November:
  • Again, no reaction from DMA.
  • Today, I had WAY to much homework to do anything lynx-programming-related. Too bad as I
  • Recieved sprites from Han. Now the palette is correct, and I can port them directly into the game. This is, like, 5 minutes of work. Maybe even less.
  • Updated the Tool page. Now includes a link to his page about an infrared multiplayer device. This will be xtremely cool when finished.
  • The 3rd day in succession I updated my pages.
    18th November:
  • Today there wasn't a reaction of DMA either.
  • GREATLY improved the code which caused the planes to crash after being shot. In the previous version, there was a QAD solution (Quick And Dirty) in. It was full of bugs, like the lemmings sometimes freezed, sometimes they moved their arms and feet slower after a plane was shot, and so forth. You couldn't move the gun or fire bullets while the plane was crashing. Also, the code to move the plane was very basic, and coded directly in the main game loop. Yuk! That's NOT nice coding. Now I have written a decent function to move the plane, either crashing or flying, while the player is still able to fire or aim.
  • Han basicly trashed my title screen. I never though it was perfect, but he thought it was trash. I dared him to produce something better, and I'm waiting eagerly.
  • Read on several sources, like the rec.games.video.atari newsgroup, and the Atari HQ page that Atari is rumoured to be sold to ????. To who is not clear. Activision is a candidate, as they also recently aquired the rights (not just a licence, but all the rights) for Astroids and BattleZone.
  • For the first time since 6th November, I've updated my page 2 days in a row!
    17th November:
  • Didn't quite achieve my plan of updating my page daily. Oh well.
  • This weekend, I wrote to DMA Design and asked them if I could use the lemmings characters. So far, they haven't answer yet. But I think positively: at least they didn't say "NO" straight away.
  • As soon as and if they agree, I'll upload a little-bit-playable version. At the moment, the version I have enables you to shoot the planes, not the lemmings yet, and you can't aim yet. But you can play it...
  • Made a default palette for Han. Han was, luckily, willing to draw sprites, but he did not know exactly which colors to use. After a fight with Paint Shop Pro and Paint, I finally came up with something more or less usable.
  • To test if the above worked, I knocked up some sort of title-screen. Check it out at the Screenshots page.
  • Recieved some examples from Matthias on how to play .WAV files on the lynx. Now I need some time to experiment with it, and then I could add some. Not many though, as they use huge quantities of valuable memory.
  • Spent a large part of the weekend playing a demo of GTA (Grand Theft Auto), a game under development by (coincedently) DMA Design. You play a bad guy, need to steel people's cars, do some missions for the local maffia etc. It's great fun and looks great.
  • Last week, I had some nasty school things to do. I'll try to work more on the game this week.
  • Finished Beneath A Steel Sky somewhere last week. Great game! But now I can focus on lynx programming again. Which is fun as well.
    12th Noveber:
  • Updated my pages. That's this page and the todo page. Satisfied now, Han? :)
  • You can expect a limeted PLAYABLE demo real soon, I could release it now, but the jet is ugly at the moment, and I want you to be able to aim at least left-up, up and right-up. At the moment only up is supported.
  • Got even more cool sprites from Han, as well as some inter-mission anim's. They are gonna be cool once implemented.
  • Talking about jets, I expect Iraq to fire at a U2 spy plane quite soon. One way or another, there will probably be a war there. In the papers I read they had quite some dirty chemical sh|t ready. Could Nostadamus have been right after all? Surely hope not.......
  • Got the jet almost fixed up. The wings, nose-cone, and exaustport are still transparent, at the moment. I'll soon fix that too, don't worry.
  • Got some software sprite collision to work. Now I can shoot the plane, after which it crashes. There were several little bugs in the beginning, like the plane crashing up into the sky, instead of hitting the ground.
  • Spent the best part of the time between this and the previous update on getting the hardware sprite collision detecion (scrabble, anyone?) to work. It didn't. It still doesn't. I gave up temporately.
  • Downloaded Quake 2 demo. Finished it straigth away. It's COOL! You really should check it out.
  • In the weekend, (Sunday, to be more precise) I was at a computer fair. There I bought the adventure game Beneath A Steel Sky for the huge amount of ƒ 1,--. That's little more than $0.50 USD, or a little under 0.30 English pounds. It's from the same guys who did Broken Sword I and II. I have BSI, and it's GREAT. I'll soon buy BSII as well. Anyway, BASS is hugely atmospheric and absorbing. Shouldn't play it too much while I'm still working on ParaLemmings.
  • Odear, haven't updated my page for 6 whole days. I haven't been doing nothing, you know. I was just too busy (and tired) to update my page daily. But 6 whole days is WAY to much. Sorry. Expect new updates on a daily basis again. Although I don't know exactly if I'll be able to maintain it this time.
    6th November:
  • The hardware sprite collision detection is still being a bit of a problem. I'll try some more, else I have to write my own sprite collision routines.
  • Found my mail again. Turned out I had dragged it into another folder...
  • AAAGGHHHH!!!!! My lynx-email folder has mysteriously disappeared! It's gone! All the mail I had seems to be gone! AAGGHH!
  • Got even more sprites from Han. They are absolutely totally extremely cool. Some really had me ROFL. Hope to implements some this weekend.
    5th November:
  • Didn't do that much, except go to bed early.
  • Tried sprite-collision-detection. Doen't work yet. So, I need to check some examples, as currently it's quite frustrating.
    4th November:
  • Updated the todo page again.
  • I decided not to upload my new version, as it's just a very little different than the version already at the download page.
  • Began on implementing bullets. I had tons of homework, and am really tired, so I did not do that much. I now have one bullet flying when you press "b". Just one. You can't aim it yet. It doesn't even kill. Or damage. Basically, It's just a moving pixel. It's just a little step to make it lethal, though. Expect a lethal version of this wannabee-killer-pixel flying straight up, tomorrow.
    3rd November:
  • Updated the Todo Page
  • Spent 3 hours on the maths for the bullet's course. The formulae Han, Jeroen and I came up with, doesn't quite work the way it should. As it's getting quite late now, I deciede I'll just alter the game to fit a formula that does work the way it should, instead of the other way around. I did not code a single line, as I spent the best part of the evening on the bloody formula. This is what was the case: I wanted to turn the gun from left to right in 128 steps, but it turns out to be FAR easier if I do so in 180 steps. So tomorrow I'll mess up the game's code do so.
  • ParaLemmings is listed in the Robert Jung's FAQ! He's the guy who maintains a list of Frequently Asked Question for the lynx. See the Links page.
  • Posted in rec.games.video.atari. Although the people in there seem to be doing nothing except saying "Atari's coming back with the Jaguar 128" or "Atari's coming back thanks to BattleSphere", I noticed a few Lynx-oriented postings. So I took a shot.
    2nd November:
  • Han's school exams begin tomorrow. I'd like to take the opportunity to wish him good luck. Ehh, Han, good luck!
  • Failed to implement gameplay this weekend. That is, if you think aiming a gun from the left to the right is gameplay, then I DID get gameplay in. For everyone else, I think Monday or Tuesday the game will be very basicly playable.
  • Updated the Download, Screenshots and the Todo pages.
  • Improved the GAC (Gun Aiming Code). If you aimed the gun at certain angles, the plane would slow down. After you aimed the gun at something else, the plane would regain it's old speed. Turned out the code wasn't efficient at all, but I knew it was a quick and dirty solution. Now it's a little better, and further impovements are expected for tomorrow. See the Todo page for more details.
  • Threw in some basic gun-aiming code. Now I can aim the gun.
  • Manually made all the frames for the turret. Due to a bug/design flaw/thinking other than I do, in the program I downloaded from Lynx Gen. II, which converts PCX to files I use to produce sprites, I couln't easily port them over without rewriting a large part of my own util. So, as the frames were not that big, I decided to encode them manually. Halfway I found out there were 25 of those frames, so after all it probably would have been faster if I'd rewritten part of my own utility.
  • Rewrote a lot of the code to allow multiple lemmings. Multiple lemmings were possible, but only very limited: All at the same hight. Now, I have a much greater flexibility on what I can do with them.
  • Implemented a Bi-plane. I thought only the jet was becoming a little boring, so I decided to dedicate a little of my valuable time to get a new plane in. It's in now.
  • Broke the jet. Well, not the jet itself, just it's colors. While trying to implement the above mentioned bi-plane, I messed up the colorpalette, so the jet is now a big piece of dirt moving across the screen.
  • Fixed a faulty frame. There was a frame of a falling lemming, which on it's own is quite sad for the lemming in question, but due to a '0x04' which should have been '0x05', only the upperpart of his body was drawn! For a blink of a second, the poor lemming was cut in half. Luckily, Dr. Laurens fixed the problem.
    1st November:
  • Updated the todo page, and the What's this-page. Not much, just a little.
  • Recieved a message from Matthias (see the tools page), he has updated his transmit-program.
  • Went to dancing lessons this evening. Was a good bit of fun.
  • Coded quite a lot, almost am at the point that the game is ready to begin implementing (dare I say it) Gameplay!. Perhaps tomorrow evening....
  • Last night (or early this morning), I converted all of the lemming's falling frames. They will feature in a version I hope to upload this evening. Don't kill me if I don't, though.
  • Added a screenshot of the demo below.
  • Was so busy coding last evening and night, that I was too tired to upload an improved file. It is here now! It features a jet flying, dropping a lemming once in a while.
    31st October:
  • Converted one of Han's sprites. Check the schreenshot page. I shall upload the demo with the jet in it later this evening.
  • Got even more new sprites from Han. Some are real funny. Expect some more screenshots soon!
  • Added Carl Forhan's homepage to the tools page.
  • I was a fool! In ALL my pages, I had written my own email address wrong! Thanks Carl for noticing.
  • Got quite some reactions. Most were saying "You can't do it with Lemmings, as they are copyrighted." I knew that, but I'm just a fan of Lemmings, and I would like to see this as an ode to them. I shall mail Psygnosis, and BEG them to allow me to these magnificent animals in my little game.
  • At school, Han, Jeroen and I came up with some very cool inter-mission idea's. It's gonna be real cool...
  • Posted in alt.games.lynx, to tell the world I'm doing ParaLemmings.
  • Added a visitors counter.
    30th October:
  • Uploaded older version to download page. I thought it would be nice if I could show you how things were once. This version only was fast enough for one lemming. See below for details on this old version. The new one can easily handle 10 lemmings, an probably much more.
  • Made the download page. As from now on I'm really coding the game, I thought it would be nice to let the world know how far I am so far. Well, at the moment, that's not far. You can't do anything at the moment, but it does show something of what to expect in the near future.
  • Began on individual sprite handling. I now have 10 lemmings falling and rising again. At the moment, their y coordinate is the same, but expect that to change tomorrow. See the screenshots page.
  • Removed Scan. As I test a lot, I got bored by waiting all the time for a picture to download to the lynx, which was only for the show. It will be in a final version (probably), but not now.
  • Began on the actual game. Before this, I was practically xperimenting on what could be done with the Sprite-enigine, and how to use the keypad. Now I really began.
  • Talked to Han on the phone, and while talking, we came up with an idea for an intro for the game, and for some other cool idea's. Expect to read/see some of them soon.
    29th October:
  • After I finished my homework, I spent THREE HOURS tracing a bug which didn't really existed!! THREE hours! I have found a cure, but how, I don't know. I don't even know what the cause of the bug was either. Before I started, sprites were just fine. Then, I altered something, NOT related to sprites. Then the sprites started to blink. THREE hours, a LOT of swearing, and 693 recompiles later, all of a sudden the blinking was gone. I wish I had used my evening better...
  • Got a mail from Matthias on how he times his games. Great idea, I hope to implement it soon. See Todo page.
  • Corrected the date at the Screenshot page about the scan.
  • Added "What's this"-page. When I was almost sleeping last night, I got a great idea: tell people what the game is going to be like. Not a too bad idea, is it? AAAHHHHH! I just forgot the main issue yesterday, can you believe it?!?! Anyway, just before school I hacked something up.
    28th October:
  • Spent the ENTIRE evening on writing these pages. It took longer than I had wanted to (of course), but it was worth it, I think.
  • Sir, that's not entirely correct(*). I gave myself the time to remove a bug from spr2sprh. See the tools page for the program. Due to this bug, an extra comma was added at the begin of each sprite defenition. This is now fixzed. * Quote from "Independance Day". It's what the former head of the CIA tells the president after the president told the old man there's no area 51. Which there is, in my opinion. Anyway...
    27th October:
  • Adopted the program mentioned below to overlay resizing lemmings on it. Weird.
  • Wrote a lynx program to display the below-mentioned scan. It's a very strange xperience to see your own picture on a hand-held gaming-console :)
  • Converted a scanned image of me to a usefull sprite. See screenshots page.
  • Wrote a pascal program to help convert PCX-files to a format useful for me. Took a little time, but it's a really important tool. Now I will be able to actually use the sprites Han produced for me.
  • Got some beautiful sprites from Han, who has also helped me excellently with the formulae.
  • While we should have been working at school, Jeroen Vermeulen, Han Crijns and myself worked out the formulae necessary for the course of the bullets. As the lynx is not made for math, it's not that good at it. So, I need to pre-calculate all the needed values beforehand on the pc, and save them in such a manner that I can use it easily on the lynx. That still needs to be done, see the Things to do page.
    26th October:
  • Put the background in the sprite test program. That ALSO works. Man, this project might even be completed!
  • Found out a way to convert the background I already had, to something which was usable as a sprite. I wrote a program in Turbo Pascal for this, and it worked the right away! I mean, usually I have to correct my programs umpteen times, but not this time! See the screenshot page for the background.
    The night of 25th to 26th October
  • Wrote a little test-program for the sprite. Man, this sprite-engine is useful.
  • Converted a single animation frame I already had to sprite-format.
  • FINALLY found out how Suzy (the Lynx Sprite-engine) works! This REALLY was vital.
    The last week(s) before 25th October
  • Learned the basics of 62c02 asm. programming. Thought it would be needed to understand the sprite-engine. It helped, but that's all, it wasn't needed that much.
    The end of Summer Holiday
  • Got some actual animations going. It was awfully slow, though. 2 moving Lemmings walked at a good speed, any more slows it down way too much.
  • Drawed all the lemming frames needed. I have manually redrawn all the frames I needed - Falling and walking lemmings.
  • Created a background screen. Looked quite good. Check the screenshots page.
  • Build the cable to transfer my progs to the lynx. Somehow it doesn't work on the Lynx I, though.
  • Began on ParaLemmings. As I did not have a way to transfer the program to the Lynx, I tested my progs using the great Handy Lynx Emulator. See the Tools page.
  • Learned C. I did know too many other languages, but not C yet. Isn't that difficult, actually.
  • Downloaded some programs to code lynx-games. Most of them are for the Atari, and as such unusable for me. There also was a C-compiler for the PC which I currently use. See the Tools page.
    This page was created by Laurens Simonis using the latest beta of Panther and PSP 4.1.