New Game! (3.3): Paddles

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 1:51am

paddles-big

paddlesgameplay

A new game to play in Renoise! Features MIDI controls, sound FX, a CPU opponent, multiplayer and more!

To learn more about the game, visit the official page here, or click the Button!

The game should not interfere with whatever project you have open, but to be safe, it is always recommended to save your work before using any tools, including this one. Sound support was accomplished without using OSC, so at first it may appear to mess with your project file, but rest assured that when you exit/stop the game, or turn off the sound feature, your project should remain unaffected.

Have fun!

Download

Raegae · January 6, 2021, 5:25am

: O Super cool and inspiring ; D Thanx !!
--------> testing …

stoiximan · January 6, 2021, 2:02pm

Thanks a good game to relax at times where music making gets us tired

Raul · January 6, 2021, 2:18pm

The power of the API! Still don’t want to learn how to make LUA tools?

Jonas · January 6, 2021, 7:02pm

Got this error notice when closing down the tool gui, then after having the sound of the ball bounce still playing in the pattern editor, I pressed ctrl + n in Renoise to start a fresh project;

"‘C:\Users\pluge\AppData\Roaming\Renoise\V3.3.0\Scripts\Tools\mom.MOMarmalade.Paddles.xrnx\main.lua’ failed in one of its notifiers.
The notifier will be disabled to prevent further errors.

Please contact the author (MOMarmalade [xephyrpanda@yahoo.com]) for assistance…

std::logic_error: ‘trying to access a nil object of type ‘class RenoiseSong’. the object is not or no longer available.’
stack traceback:
[C]: ?
[C]: in function ‘__index’
[string “do…”]:37: in function <[string “do…”]:35>
main.lua:517: in function main.lua:326"

Orangalang · January 7, 2021, 4:27am

Ah, thank you Djeroek! It’s not a harmful error, and I think most people probably wouldn’t encounter it anyway, but I’ll release an update ASAP to fix the issue

Update! The error has been fixed! However, I do want to release an update that will pause the game when the Paddles window is closed. But for now, this will avoid the error you encountered

Raul · January 7, 2021, 12:01pm

@Orangalang. Here is a suggestion to improve the code…

Do not access the entire table, only access each object. Will be faster.

song.patterns[firstpattern].tracks[1]:line(1):note_column(1)

change it for:

song:pattern(firstpattern):track(1):line(1):note_column(1)

Another case:

song.instruments[1].sample_device_chains[1]:device(2).parameters[3].value

change it for:

song:instrument(1):sample_device_chain(1):device(2):parameter(3).value

Always use the colon :, the two parentheses () and the singular name. Do the same with all cases. Probably, inside your tool it does not have much importance, but it is a good way to get used to it.

Your game has surprised me! It is clear that you know how to program.

One question, is the bounce random or do you get it redirected based on movement up or down?

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 2:10am

Thank you for the good info @Raul! I did read about using (): instead of []. but didn’t want to get too caught up in optimization and risk never releasing the game. But now that you point it out, I’ll be refactoring my code to use this from now on, and I’ll release an update to Paddles that will incorporate this too

The ball’s direction/velocity change is a result of where it touches the paddle:

Dead center: no effect
Above center: adds velocity upward
Below center: adds velocity downward

This can be used to slow or speed the ball, depending on which direction the ball is traveling (up or down) when it hits the paddle.

If you set the Paddle Size to 1 though, the direction/velocity change becomes totally random.

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 2:13am

Update! Some new features have been added into the game, including variable game speed, variable trail length, and paint mode. I have also incorporated the code improvements recommended by @Raul, and fully eliminated the error found by @Jonas !

The biggest performance bottleneck is updating the bitmaps each frame, so if you’re struggling to push frames, the best thing you can do is limit the trail length, or reduce the game speed.

If the ball flickers during movement, you can increase/turn off Renoise’s FPS limit to help alleviate this.

Have fun!

Raul · January 12, 2021, 2:58pm

@Orangalang Can you think of another similar game, like chess? I have recently come to think that I would be able to build such a game with the Renoise API. But I do not have time

Renoise Chess?

4tey · January 12, 2021, 3:37pm

Ok Claude Shannon, how is paddles related to chess(?) NVM, will you be writing the lua chess engine? (https://github.com/soumith/sunfish.lua/blob/master/sunfish.lua)

toimp · January 12, 2021, 3:43pm

@Orangalang Very good work. The way you setup the pixel grid got me inspired to try this approach for my own little pianoroll tool.

Raul · January 12, 2021, 3:53pm

It will be that both are a game that can be programmed. Yes, chess is also a game with “moving elements”.

4tey · January 12, 2021, 3:56pm

I figured you were working on a more simplistic level Raul hence the ‘NVM’ in my post

Raul · January 12, 2021, 4:00pm

Certainly not simple

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 8:21pm

I do have some other ideas I’ve been considering I don’t want to give any hints at the moment though

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 7:44pm

Thank you @toimp, very kind words! I’m interested to see where you go with the idea

toimp · January 17, 2021, 12:54pm

Sneak peek:

Nothing special yet, currently trying to optimize the rendering performance. VB seems pretty hungry on refreshing complex grids.

Edit: Made a twitter post to show the current state in action: https://twitter.com/xoonx/status/1350788024465055744

Orangalang · January 12, 2021, 8:19pm

Woah!! That looks so cool! Reminds me of FL’s piano roll (which I loooove)!
Yeah, the best solution I came up with is to monitor individual items for changes (in this case, individual notes on the piano roll), and only update bitmaps that have changed. Monitoring for changes isn’t even close to as expensive as updating all those bitmaps.

toimp · January 12, 2021, 9:14pm

Yep, that was intended. Love the fl piano roll, too. I currently use buttons to render this grid, it’s fast enough but changing color slows it down. Only happens, when you scroll through. I use a timer to fresh it every 50ms during scrolling. Its currently just render the current track. Note drawing is next on my list. I’ll upload it to github, when its ready to use.