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Legend of Tux

News

Legend of Tux version 0.6 released on January 2, 2010! Download it at SourceForge

Added Legend of Tux to SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/legendoftux/

Domain name registered: http://www.legendoftux.com

Legend of Tux version 0.4 released on November 8, 2009!

Windows and Linux binaries loaded to www.legendoftux.com.

Concept

I started development on the Legend of Tux a in August 2009. I wanted to create a game that combined the gameplay of a Mega Man game and the original Legend of Zelda. I had developed a Zelda clone using updated graphics in 2003, using ClanLib libraries. In 2006 I created an engine for a tux Zelda style game using SDL, but it wasn't very good. I didn't have much time to devote to it, since I was working on a master's degree in industrial engineering outside of my full time job.

The controls are simple. Use the arrow keys (or a,s,d,w) to move and spacebar to attack. Press f to throw your hat boomerang, which will stun enemies. Hold spacebar to charge your sword to shoot it. Collect a power orb to get a 3x attack power boost against enemies of that color. Defeat all enemies in a room to move to the next room. Clear all 16 rooms to complete a level. Finish all eight levels to win the game.

Gameplay is completely linear. Move one room to the next until you reach the boss room and defeat the boss. The one aspect that I hate the most about Zelda style games is trying to determine where to go next.

The Legend of Tux is free software. The source code is available on SourceForge. I am attempting to document the entire software development process.

Controls

Click image to enlarge

Screenshots

Screenshots of stable release, version 0.4

Ubuntu Linux 9.04 compilation

Running under Ubuntu Linux 9.04 Live

Running under Mandriva 2010 Live

Windows compilation

Running under Windows Vista

Archived Screenshots

Patch Notes

Version 0.7 Patch Notes (In Development)

• Began adding code to support a gamepad or joystick; Everything is working great, except for the case when the gamepad stick axis returns to the neutral position
• Added license documentation for all the sound effects and music on the Adding Music page; I also updated the three sound effects using files from a creative commons library site; The old sound effects were also free and redistributable, but I can't remember exactly where I got them

Version 0.6 Patch Notes (Stable Release)

• Added ability to save which levels have been completed by pressing "v" from the title menu; Pressing "l" on the title menu will load the saved game; Additional menu options will need to be added
• Added "Loading" message on startup; On slower systems, it may take around 30 seconds to load all of the image files
• The player can no longer move while swinging the sword
• Fixed collision detection problem of player being able to walk horizontally through an enemy without getting hit
• Got SDL_ttf working, and I wrote my own custom methods to display text to the screen
• Added level play time and FPS for debugging display at the top of the screen
• Added unique music for each stage
• Added boss music for the last room in each level
• Added Sound Effects
  • Sword swing
  • Enemy Defeated
  • Orb Pickup
• Added charge meter at the top of the screen that fills up as the sword is charged; Once the meter is full, the charge level increases; There is a current maximum of 3 levels, but currently the charge levels do not produce any different effects

Archived Patch Notes

Levels

Eight levels must be completed to win the game.

Issues

• If the boomerang hasn't returned to the player when the player moves to another room, then the boomerang will be at the same location in the next room and return to the player
• The player can repeatedly press "F" to shoot the boomerang over again
• Need pause or inventory select screen
• After installing on a new system, it can take 15 to 30 seconds to load the title screen. Need to add a "loading" screen
  • Loading message added, but a progress bar is also needed
• The first time after downloading the zip from the website, extracting, and running, the program exited after the title screen. Subsequent attempts have not had the problem
  • Seems to have been an isolated case... I haven't seen this problem again, so it may have been related to the memory leak or other problems that I fixed
• Just noticed that it is possible to walk through horizontal moving snowmen, if the snowman moves through the middle of your body. The collision algorithm doesn't detect when a smaller object moves through a larger object, without intersecting any of the bounding box vertices.
  • Fixed in version 0.6
• Need unique background music for each stage
  • Added in version 0.6
• Need unique enemies for each stage
• Need better enemy AI, and differing AI for different types of enemies
• Need options screen to change sound/music volume, change control options, etc
• Need ability to save and continue
  • Preliminary save/load code added, but a screen is needed to manage saving and loading files... or implement an autosave feature
• Add additional powerups
• Add boss enemies
• New enemy killed animation
• Make better level complete screen
• Add two rows of blocks to the tops of all rooms, so that the player won't overlap with the status bar
• Add sound effects
  • Sword Swing
  • Enemy killed
  • Level select: selected level changed, invalid level selected
  • Orb pickup
  • Player hit
  • Boomerang
  • Sword swing, orb pickup, and enemy killed sounds added in version 0.6

• Tried running Legend of Tux on a Windows XP system, but the game screen ran slowly; The Task Manager reported 98 to 99% CPU usage. Maybe the problem is because I compiled under Vista, but my Vista is running 32 bit. On the other hand, there was barely any loading time to get to the title screen; On my Windows Vista machine, the CPU usage was about 50% on the title screen, and varied between 18% to 27% on the game loop screens; Increasing the TICK_INTERVAL from 33 to 100 reduced the CPU usage on the game loop screen to between 6% and 11%, however it was only running at 10 FPS; I also found that I was missing SDL_Delay statements in my Title screen and Level Select screen; Adding delays in those loops seemed to bring the overall CPU usage down to the 20-30% range on the Vista machine.

• Anyone know how to roll debs? I could use a tutorial so that I can build a package for Ubuntu

• A sword really doesn't suit Tux... I think I'm going to have him throw snowflakes or snowballs instead; Maybe a candycane striped pole

• Have a meter gauge at the top that fills as the player charges the weapon
  • Added in version 0.6

• Convert BMP files to PNG and add the SDL image library code to read PNG files, so that the amount of disk space used to store images is reduced

• Is the "arial.ttf" file in the Linux /usr/local/share/fonts directory redistributable?

Resolved Issues

Software Docs

Setting up the Development Environment

Brainstorming

Requirements Definition

Level Design

Finding Memory Leaks

Adding Music (View credits for music and sound effects here)

Installing on Linux

Saving and Loading

Collision Detection

Setting up SDL_ttf

Influences

Developers

Levi D Smith - Sole designer and developer of Legend of Tux, including level design, object rendering, graphics, and testing