obtuse thunder
Working title: Bombleman
The second addition to Pebble Land ( #1349798312647327744 being the first), Bombleman will leverage the existing server infrastructure I have in place to provide an online, multiplayer battling experience!
Three ways to play:
First time using figma to plan out all of the menus and screens!
obtuse thunder
Made all of the sprites/tiles for thhe start, here are some screen mockups for each platform:
Basalt
Diorite/Flint (I don't think this will fit on aplite)
chalk
Emery
Gabbro
silver maple
Do you predict the same controls as Pebble Park? I think they’d work well overall. Especially if you just put bomb drops on the back button, as tempting as 4 directions with the buttons would be
silver maple
Hey wait. You put this together extremely quickly. Are these sprites pulled from an actual Bomber man/sprite resource?
Or am I making an angry, jealous face at you about how fast this was
obtuse thunder
Do you predict the same controls as Pebble Park? I think they’d work well overal...
Same movement! I was actually really struggling to figure out what button to put bombs on, completely forgot about the back button. That’s a good idea!
obtuse thunder
Hey wait. You put this together extremely quickly. Are these sprites pulled from...
Hehe I did use the pebble park sprites as the outline for the players, and there weren’t that many other tiles to make. Those screenshots have almost every tile, I can drop the spritesheets if you’re interested
obtuse thunder
background tiles rendered on the watches:
obtuse thunder
schmoovin around and placing dummy bombs
(it’s really awkward to press all 4 buttons when it’s not on my wrist)
silver maple
Vibrations on bomb explosions based on proximity could be a fun feature (this is scope creep before the core is even done)
If only the speaker API existed for some at least 20% different Bomberman music
obtuse thunder
ooo that’s a fun idea
obtuse thunder
Base game mechanics complete!
Next step: complete single player mode
silver maple
(If you saw that, it won’t apply, so ignore it 👀)
obtuse thunder
haha i started taking a peek, i’ll propose my current unorganized brain dumps instead
It’s going to be a challenge for sure, not something i’ve done before
silver maple
https://github.com/noxs-jj/Bomberman_42/blob/master/src/ia/ia.class.cpp
this one might be less bad to work with
silver maple
haha i started taking a peek, i’ll propose my current unorganized brain dumps in...
Back in paper mode 
The heuristics that the AI needs to understand its next move don’t feel crazy there are just a lot of them
Fastest-safest path to placing a bomb in line with the most active player on the screen, randomized on ties is probably a fast start but I don’t have a brain for figuring it out without paper.
(That file above is actually a super clean representation for ideas too like “kamikaze mode” as they called it which allows the bot to place a bomb on itself, regardless of the situation it is in and if it can even get away safely)
obtuse thunder
ugh the pathfinding algorithm is going to be a pain in my butt, algos aren’t really my strong suit but this is a great way to practice!
silver maple
Send a query to Claude every time you want the bot to move. E z p z best smartest bot
obtuse thunder
I like the idea of different cpu personalities, like coward (prioritizes safety), aggressive (prioritizes killing players), lazy (takes longer to think), hoarder (prioritizes items), demolitionist (prioritizes destroying rocks)
silver maple
Yeah that’d be a fun way to route the logic to different pathways and let them interact with each other more. You could always map it to colors of the Bombermen too like Pac Man ghosts (does bomberman actually already map personality to color?)
obtuse thunder
Dunno if they're already like that, but i could make it happen!
Further thought, the online part of the code is going to be closed source, but the offline mode could be open sourced in pebbleland-snippets
silver maple
Hey some people pay good money to Anthropic to produce results like that
obtuse thunder
Path finding! 🗺️ This is path from CPU 2 (black) to Player (white)
Score is: 1 for empty squares, 2 for rocks, walls are completely blocking
Right now I just grab the first successful path, regardless of score, for fastest computation. If I want to later I can generate all possible paths and pick the one with the lowest score (fastest path), but the CPUs don't have to be that smart.
silver maple
What is that you’re using to represent the paths on the left?
obtuse thunder
And also square safety scores. Where can a CPU safely stand? Where should they go when they're in danger? The higher the score, the safer the square.
-1 (CPU cannot go there)0 (CPU will die if standing there)time remaining + distance (farther from bomb = safer, max score = 15, so never as safe as a empty or item square)20 (actually they should be -1 since CPU can't go here. Whoops, will change)2122 (CPU should want to go here the most!)
obtuse thunder
What is that you’re using to represent the paths on the left?
🫣
...if you know a better way please let me know...
silver maple
Me: "This person is a genius with purpose built tooling! This is why they were able to crank this out so fast"
You: "------------------------------ <"
(This is absolutely the exact thing I'd do. You just made it look really good that is a sick, scary function)
silver maple
And also square safety scores. Where can a CPU safely stand? Where should they g...
Let me complicate this. If the rocks were 20 to tell the CPU "you can go here, but you need to clear a path", you could rely on safety scores of regions around the CPU to let it decide what to do.
-1 -1 -1
21 20 21 < CPU here
21 -1 0
The CPU can know "I could clear 20 but I have no where to go if I drop a bomb, lemme just chill" (or it can understand it can get to that square before its bomb explodes but after the square clears from 0 to 21)
But maybe you can do that with other flags. Just thinking if maybe it does make sense that walls and rocks are different
(With the above, the logic of one of the Bomberman could be a goal to make every square 21. It'll clear rocks, pick up items, blow up other CPUs and Players, as much as it can so that everything is 21, assuming a CPU/player is not 21)
obtuse thunder
Yeah that could work, i'll see how it shapes up once i actually start implementing
obtuse thunder
(With the above, the logic of one of the Bomberman could be a goal to make every...
The A n n i h i l a t o r
silver maple
He does not see yellow or blue Bomberman. He simply sees 23 and knows it must become 21
obtuse thunder
3 CPU types for now, only stopping b/c I'm out of time for the night:
human playerCPU playeritemclosest player
This is after items appeared so hoarder (red) targets the closest item instead!
silver maple
You’ve also crafted an interesting logic puzzle game where you see the current paths available in the terminal and using those you determine where the actual human player is on the screen
I’m very excited to see how the decision matrix evolves especially as you add a second player to the screen. It’s gonna get wild
obtuse thunder
What about... a demonstration of a full game with CPU logic running? 👀 (too long to upload to discord lol) https://youtube.com/shorts/0AK73_P9kB4?feature=share
Same thing as before: white is human, red wants closest items, blue wants other CPUs, black wants humans
Biggest changes:
obtuse thunder
thankfully the added pathing logic doesn’t bog down the P2D 😮💨
silver maple
My excitement is immeasurable. I love Bomberman so much.
As a very early piece of feedback, I’d consider either an option or just a different default for the flashing invulnerability. Something about it both in the top video and the one on the pebble is very hurt-y to my eyes
Maybe only flash every other row on the bomberman instead of the entire thing
silver maple
Biggest changes:
* Now CPUs can move along their paths, place bombs, dodge bombs...
I think the big three pieces of logic, optionally, that I can think of are the ice map, the conveyor belt map (Super Bomberman 5/R), and the falling blocks for sudden death.
Net de Bomberman has/had some interesting ideas that might be more relevant to what you’re doing than the other ones, though with a couple extra rows/columns than you have
To blow up your entire scope again. Maps here are simple enough you could let players (me!) start matches with our own maps by entering some sort of ASCII representation of a map into a PKJS config or otherwise. The default map above in the first video could just be
1acacaca2
abcbcbcba
cccacaccc
cbcbcbcbc
cccacaccc
abcbcbcba
3acacaca4
thanks for all of your feedback!!
obtuse thunder
Maybe only flash every other row on the bomberman instead of the entire thing
def need to work on invulnerability (it also messes up the walking animation). Every other row is technically doable within the graphics engine using line callbacks, or i could make a second set of sprites. not sure which is more annoying. or i could figure out a different way to represent it
obtuse thunder
Net de Bomberman has/had some interesting ideas that might be more relevant to w...
I’ll take a look at that version for some scope-destroying ideas, more maps and environments = more fun though!!
obtuse thunder
To blow up your entire scope again. Maps here are simple enough you could let pl...
Actually this one isn’t too crazy… 🤔 i already convert a table of integers into binary for the maps. there’s nothing to say those maps can’t be ascii 👀
main crescent
This looks great.... can I install it?
obtuse thunder
Thanks! And not quite yet
although i’m thinking about splitting up the offline and online versions into two apps so the offline one can come out sooner 🤔
main crescent
Ill have to check back in soon. Im hype
deep acorn
you are a god
haha
just a reminder
maybe you could handle user coordination in Pebble itself
timeline, wakeup, etc.
obtuse thunder
I think the two missing pieces are:
All that said, being completely self-contained on the pebble is the dream, and actually is realistic on the Time 2/Round 2 b/c of their massive available ram
chilly crater
* Right now in Park I could send a sequence of messages that say "Let's meet" "M...
So the issue here would be a simple way for the user to construct messages?
obtuse thunder
yeah, right now it's basically a menu tree for selecting a premade message, and then that single message gets sent, which is pretty cumbersome
(if you have any good ideas for making a pebble-friendly UI for this I'm all ears 👂👀👂)
chilly crater
Hmm I wonder how easy a binary tree would be. You could start with letters, then switch to selecting words once there are fewer than like 4 or something maybe?
So you'd start by choosing the starting letters to filter word choices
Potentially easier with a touchscreen, could do the standard 3x3 phone number keypad
deep acorn
maybe there's no way to message from inside the app
but
I understand the limit of timeline server
like there could be a daily event
obtuse thunder
Potentially easier with a touchscreen, could do the standard 3x3 phone number ke...
ohhh yeah on the PT2/PR2 these would be great ideas
obtuse thunder
like there could be a daily event
if i do end up doing wakeups + PKJS push notification i'd be pretty aggressive, probably like 15 minutes minimum (user configurable to 30 mins, 1/hour, 1/day)
(gonna move over to #1349798312647327744 since that’s more relevant)
obtuse thunder
@silver maple wanna design a map when you have a chance? Here's an example:
abbbbba
bbb b bbb
a babab a
bbb b bbb
abbbbba
4 b a b 2```
* 9 x 7
* `1`, `2`, `3`, `4` = player spawns
* ` ` (space) = blank square
* `a` = wall
* `b` = rock
* Theres a wall all around everything (making it 11x9 overall)
Entering via a clay config is doable now that maps are ascii, just takes time to set that all up so I'll kick that can down the road
silver maple
bbb a bbb
abbabba
1 bb bb 2
aaababaaa
3 bb bb 4
abbabba
bbb a bbb
I think that’s a legitimate map?
Hopefully it has walls down the middle with 1 space gaps that each player can get through
obtuse thunder
(There was a space missing on the end of the next to last row, but otherwise 👀)
silver maple
1 bb bb 2
baaa aaab
ba bbb ab
abb bba
ba bbb ab
baaa aaab
3 bb bb 4
Also maybe that
obtuse thunder
This video also shows an... interesting bug where one of the players gets yeeted into another dimension??? Idk what happened there. (also sorry haven't changed the invuln animation yet)
These are fun designs (i'm saving them hehehe)
silver maple
That’s great! It’s cool to be able to be able to swap things out like that. There are cool pieces in some games like the tunnels where you can’t see into it so you can go in and place a bomb and people can’t see it and being able to insert stuff like that fast seems cool for testing too
Also that map doesn’t work
Because you have to die oops
obtuse thunder
haha yeah i placed a bomb and went "wait o.o"
silver maple
Gottem. Probably just have to move those close rocks is all
obtuse thunder
but yeah making it possible to create maps and import them (later) was a great idea, thanks for suggesting it!
(tunnels sound diabolical 😨 )
obtuse thunder
i'm changing blanks from to - so that it's easier to tell when they're missing
silver maple
(But imagine using it for tunnels 👀)
1_bbbbb_2
_abb|bba_
bab-+-bab
bab_|_bab
…
_ is blank here
obtuse thunder
ohh good idea