Newbie question, is a upward scrolling shmup possible?

[Senpai-Tankard]

Hello,
I am a newbie to this and have ran into several user interface issues. The issues are entirely on my end, but I was confused on how to set a couple of options. I noticed after I created my character and created a backdrop, that the screen is set to automatically scroll right. I had initially set everything up for the game to scroll upwards more like Jackal or 1943 ect. Was also hoping there would be an easy way to toggle these based on level or area, as I do not want to scroll when fighting a boss, and one level I would like the screen to scroll in different directions. Is this possible? I am new to the coding side as well, but I am slowly figuring some things out.

 

[tbizzle]

No upwards or downwards scrolling yet. Only right or left.

 

[SHLIM]

No upwards or downwards scrolling yet. Only right or left.

is there any reason why it hasnt been implemented already? is upward scrolling hard to do?
i was also wondering if it was possible to do a 4 way scrolling effect?

 

[tbizzle]

Yes upwards/downwards scrolling is not easy at the moment. 4 way scrolling is a no also.

 

[SHLIM]

Yes upwards/downwards scrolling is not easy at the moment. 4 way scrolling is a no also.

no sounds like a challenge to me
how did games like mario 3 allow upward scrolling? for example level 1 gives you a raccoon tail and you can fly upwards to some coins. is anything like this possible in NM?

 

[tbizzle]

no sounds like a challenge to me
how did games like mario 3 allow upward scrolling? for example level 1 gives you a raccoon tail and you can fly upwards to some coins. is anything like this possible in NM?

Yeah it is possible, but 5 years of NESmaker and I think only one person has pulled it off. Oink and Boink game.

 

[SHLIM]

Yeah it is possible, but 5 years of NESmaker and I think only one person has pulled it off. Oink and Boink game.

interesting, ill have to check that out! maybe the reason why more games dont take advantage is because most ppl are just using whatever scripts are available and have no coding experience? id imagine things like that (if hard to do) will only appear in 1/100 games anyway.
But as its possible, then we are in theory 75% towards a 4 way scroller, were just missing downwards scroll, and someone to incorporate it all together!

 

[cramske]

Someone has def made a 4 way scroller. Not sure if it was on NESmaker. but I think so. Was on an earlier version. I know it is possible to do all the way scrolling! 4 ways up down left right whatever you want. Just need to understand the code and be able to tweek the correct way. I cant help you! If I find the game or topic Ill link it to you here. Good luck! and let us all know when you figure it out !

 

[smilehero65]

Four-way scrolling like the old NES RPGs is possible. Besides the fact that all NES is capable of can be done with the program, Joe himself showed us two years ago a four-way scrolling in the Nintendo Quest game.

Vertical Scrolling and Horizontal Scrolling could be easily achieved depending on the screen you're on (think of Metroid or SMB2)

What I would find extremely hard to pull off however, is diagonal scrolling like SMB3. That would require some cartridge hardware tricks.

 

[ProjectAsinus]

Hello,
I am a newbie to this and have ran into several user interface issues. The issues are entirely on my end, but I was confused on how to set a couple of options. I noticed after I created my character and created a backdrop, that the screen is set to automatically scroll right. I had initially set everything up for the game to scroll upwards more like Jackal or 1943 ect. Was also hoping there would be an easy way to toggle these based on level or area, as I do not want to scroll when fighting a boss, and one level I would like the screen to scroll in different directions. Is this possible? I am new to the coding side as well, but I am slowly figuring some things out.

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible. In fact I’ve been wondering the same thing. My game was originally going to be a vertical shmup until I realized it’s apparently hard to do at the moment and I don’t know much about code yet. Not sure why it would be any different to implement than horizontal scrolling, but I haven’t really looked too deep into it.

 

[smilehero65]

I don’t see why it wouldn’t be possible. In fact I’ve been wondering the same thing. My game was originally going to be a vertical shmup until I realized it’s apparently hard to do at the moment and I don’t know much about code yet. Not sure why it would be any different to implement than horizontal scrolling, but I haven’t really looked too deep into it.

It is not solved yet... but this was as close as someone got:

[4.5.9] Vertical Scrolling?

 

[ProjectAsinus]

It is not solved yet... but this was as close as someone got:

[4.5.9] Vertical Scrolling?

Something that I would like to note, is that a pretty recent NES game called Micro Mages features automatic vertical scrolling. I know that wasn’t made with NESMaker, but it should be possible there as well. NESMaker should be capable of anything non NESMaker games are. So if other games are able to do it, there must be something we’re all somehow collectively missing. I’m just not sure what that could be. In the thread you linked, they tried replacing all x values with y values in the script, and that clearly isn’t the solution. But that’s what I had in mind initially. After this Byte-Off, I plan to do a lot of research into this. My plans for my next game coincidentally hinge on the ability to scroll vertically, especially diagonally, so I’m glad I saw this thread. If it’s been done before, no doubt it’s doable now. We just gotta figure out how. Though it might take a while.

 

[smilehero65]

Something that I would like to note, is that a pretty recent NES game called Micro Mages features automatic vertical scrolling. I know that wasn’t made with NESMaker, but it should be possible there as well. NESMaker should be capable of anything non NESMaker games are. So if other games are able to do it, there must be something we’re all somehow collectively missing. I’m just not sure what that could be. In the thread you linked, they tried replacing all x values with y values in the script, and that clearly isn’t the solution. But that’s what I had in mind initially. After this Byte-Off, I plan to do a lot of research into this. My plans for my next game coincidentally hinge on the ability to scroll vertically, especially diagonally, so I’m glad I saw this thread. If it’s been done before, no doubt it’s doable now. We just gotta figure out how. Though it might take a while.

I hope you make great findings!
I feel that vertical scrolling is just hard for NESMaker at the moment, because for NES games it was just as easy to pull off as horizontal scrolling.
However, the use of both vertical and horizontal was limited, and only reserved most of the time to alter the use of them on specific screens.



Only in this type of zones, the screen only goes vertical. When entering from a horizontal scrolling area, a trigger activates an option to change it to vertical (that was the easy explanation)

What was actually hard for the NES was the diagonal scrolling seen in Super Mario Bros 3, which is handled by using the MMC3 chip. Even that came up with a few bugs like the garbage tiles at the edge of the screen.
You may familiarize with the topic by following Displaced Gamers in YouTube

NES Scrolling Basics featuring Super Mario Bros. - Behind the Code

 

[dale_coop]

There's something you need to understand... NESmaker is designed to be as versatile as possible, to cater to a wide range of projects and be more user-friendly (both in terms of UI and the "no need to code" thing). However, to achieve this, the engine implements things in a way that handles many cases, even if your projects don't require them. The result is that the engine is not optimized at all and is quite heavy, leading to slower performance. Adding features like vertical or four-directional scrolling would require even more code and computation. NESmaker can't handle all of that natively; it would require a significant amount of code cleanup, optimization, and bug fixes.

What I mean to say is, if you've reached the point where you want to implement four-directional scrolling via code in your project, I believe you don't really need NESmaker at all. On the contrary, it might hinder your project.