Supernatural Olympics - gliding above the clouds

Gliding just above the clouds faster than the speed of sound.

What are The Supernatural Olympics?

Last updated: Apr 25, 2007 (level 10 update)
Level 5 update on Sep 27, 2007 (new additions due to new plans, other general changes scattered around)

1 The future of the game

These are future plans and they may be changed, postponed, or removed altogether. The "motive" area in section 2's table is the priority and how likely I am to add that feature. The features are explained in greater detail in section 2.2.

1.1 The next update, 2.5

Gamestudio's limitations and annoyances made it frustrating and hard enough to even finish the 2.4 release primarily because of the var's short range and the complex algorithms needed to improve the accuracy. Lite-C was my only hope at the time until I came up with using regular C instead. I first needed to gain skills to be able to make games in C and now that I got most of them (as of Sep 27, 2007), the remake of the 2.5 version has already started. From the day I started at the fastest possible, it'll take 125 days to complete the game in full (calculated estimate), but more realistically, it'll probably be by the end of 2008 before it's released. There's no guarentee of this though.

In this version, as I have it planned, I'm converting the entire game to C. Not only that, but major enhancements to the look and feel. This checklist goes in great depth and tells what I've done and what I'm currently doing. In short, I want to add these features:

Character - made bigger, and more realistic
Shadows - making it behave more realistically
Complete scenery redo - the scenery made far more enhanced and a lot more realistic (especially lighting), even including 3D-behaving lakes - the whole scene is going to be redone from scratch, the mountains, hills, city, and clouds too
Slopes - I can finally add them and better than my original intent a year ago as well! The terrain spans 90 miles with smooth slope grade changes! As of Sep 27, 2007, only programming this feature remains.
Water - You splash around in this stuff (ain't that obvious?), but only in certain areas - the slopes feature allows for this
New and enhanced abilities - Adding the bounce, insta-teleport, and leviburst abilities (the latter not seen in the game since it wasn't thought of on the 2.4 release) are for starters but slopes and water have different or enhanced effects
Video-capture system - record your stunts*
New challenge system - a totally redesigned challenge system made much more like Olympics, now including 2 tournaments and an all-new rank system. Make use of insta-teleport and watch everything go by in a blur! As of Sep 17, 2007, 17 challenges have been thought of and 16 was my goal.
A "quick run" tutorial system to get you up and running in no time, but the extended version goes in greater detail with preferences on how much detail you want to go into.

1.2 The following update, 2.6

For the 2.6 update, these are my main plans, of which may find themselves in the 2.5 or 2.7 updates:

Video-capture system - record your stunts without affecting gameplay*
Adding the "endless mud lake" world, which is a very simple world and quick and easy to do (well, except the house)*
Adding objects - run into them, use them for extra height, or just ignore them*
Sound effects - you crashed, but no sound occurs; you jump 200,000 feet high and no sound occurs - boring, isn't it?*
Make the game demo available, of which I once had a solution for on how to do

* Before this feature can be added reliably, I need to find out how to change the size of an array. That is, instead of having "unsigned char ImageData[153600]", I want to change the 153600 to, say, 204800 (as for having loading a larger image or going from 24-bit to 32-bit). I can't just access it right away or the program just crashes.

1.3 Later in the future

Beyond The Supernatural Olympics would be a 2D RPG game that is much more sophisticated than this game is. It will feature battles, character development, a story, character interaction, shops, towns, caves, and all that sort of things you'd find in an RPG game. The plans have been worked out; it's only gaining the necessary experience with programming that remains. Most of the details are classified as to what they are of.

Getting into 3D would be next and making a simple 3D game would probably be next on the list. George Game 13 would follow, of which is my do-anything platform game much like the 2.5 version of this game is, only far more enhanced and much more like a real game (like my 2D RPG game). Then there's a 3D RPG game that very closely mimics my mind game and a cross between George Game 13 and my 2D RPG game.

2 Future features

2.1 Quick overview

These are features I want to add, and I either can't at the moment, or are planned and not yet added. Some future features may never be added and some may be pushed back.

Feature	Brief description	Can it be added?	Target version***	Motive*	Notes**
Scenery features
Slopes	An uneven landscape, from a few small rises and falls to giant mountains	Yes	2.5	350!!!	0, 1
Labels	Text displaying heights and other details of the scenery	Yes	2.7?	4	0, 3
Objects	Light poles, buildings, and other things you can crash into or use for extra height	Uncertain	2.6	70	1, 5, 6, 9
Adding stars	When up 20+ miles, you can start to see the stars, even in the day time.	Yes	2.5	25	0, 1
Day/night cycle	The changing of day into night and back again	No (don't have any reliable methods yet)	2.7 or 2.8??	3	2, 9
Enhanced character	The character shown is to be more than double the width and height and have more realistic lighting	Yes	2.5	25	0, 5
Fix the lighting	The lighting for the scenery used the wrong formula and needs to be redone	Yes	2.5	60	0
Enhanced ground fog	A much smoother more dynamic ground fog effect	Yes	2.5	110!	0, 2
Dynamic fog intensity	Fog behaves more realistically, depending on the scaling of the scenery.	Yes	2.5	90	0, 2
Water	Splash around in it and change the color and opacity of it	Yes	2.5	40	0, 2
3D-behaving lakes	Large lakes in the background that behave in a 3D-like manner	Yes	2.5 or 2.6	150!!	0
Abilities
Pitched gliding	Pitch upwards and downwards while gliding	Yes	2.5	240!!	1
Bounce ability	Bounce around when direct impact speed is at least 100 mph	Yes	2.5	180!!	0, 1
Leviburst	Hover in the air and burst around at great speed and acceleration	Yes	2.5	70	0
Insta-teleport	Warp to anywhere on the terrain map in mere seconds	Yes	2.5	100	0
Customization
Enhanced time control	Set time control to any value and with no reductions in the frame rate	Yes	2.5	80	0, 1, 2
Dynamic fog color	Change the fog color to whatever you want	Yes	2.5 or 2.6	30	0, 2
Dynamic text and background colors	Change the text and text background colors to whatever you want	Yes	2.5 or 2.6	4.5	0, 2
Antialiasing	Get much smoother motion rather than the "bump" effect	Yes, but with problems	2.6?	110!	6, 8, 9, 11, 12
Resolution	Be able to change the resolution	No	2.6?	60	6, 9, 10
Run in full screen	Rather than windowed mode, being able to run in full screen is nice	No	2.6?	80	9, 10
Warning level	Prevent some warnings from being displayed	Yes	2.5	50	0
Game-related features
Enhanced challenge system	A more natural challenge system, much more like the Olympics, including a rank system	Yes	2.5	150!	0
More challenges	More challenges for getting scores and testing your skills	Yes	Indefinite	75	0
Endless Mud Lake world	A world featuring an infinitely large lake of mud	Limited by my knowledge	2.6 or 2.7	15	1, 5, 6
City in Water world	A theme-park like world where a city is built in water	Limited by my knowledge	3.0??	20	1, 2, 5, 6
Adding drag	Drag is rare in my mind game, mainly in water	Yes	2.5	8	0, 1, 3
Archery game	An archery game on the supernatural level	Yes	2.6 or 2.7	75	1, 5, 9
Multiplayer interaction	Have more than one player play the game and compete with each other or just have fun together	Limited by my knowledge	2.6 or 2.7	2	2, 3, 9, 10
Special effects
Pound stomp shockwave	A shockwave is created when the pound stomp is used.	Yes	2.5 or 2.6	30	0, 2
Flare effect enhancement	Make the flare effect behave as it really does in my mind game	Yes	2.5 or 2.6	25	0, 11
Motion blur	When moving at high speeds, objects in the background become blurred in streaks	Sort of	2.6	2.2	2, 3, 6, 11
Other features
Adding sound	You jump, crash, cause a shockwave, etc., and no sound occurs - how boring	Somewhat	2.6?	15	7
Other units of measurement	Not everyone knows what miles or feet are, so adding metric support is useful	Yes	2.5	40	1
The spinning board	A board that spins extremely fast giving easy supersonic speeds and great height	Uncertain	2.7??	12	1, 8, 9
Game demo	The computer plays the scene	Unknown	2.6?	5	3, 9
A graphical, clickable user interface	Using more images and allowing for mouse clicks instead of text only and the keyboard	Limited by my knowledge	2.6 or 2.7	15	5, 6, 9, 10
Enhanced tutorial	A quick-run to get started in minutes and customizable detailed tutorial detail levels	Yes	2.5	30	0

Table footnotes:
* The higher the motive (times better than neutral; base motive - gradual neutralization not taken into account), the more likely I am to implement it. With anything much above 100, it's almost guarenteed to be implemented. I'd have ten times the motive and could sustain working on it 100 times longer for adding something with 120 than with 12 and thus ten times as likely to implement the feature. It sort of functions as a priority. Motive does have a 10% margin of error at best, however, 15% on the high end.
** These notes are summed up as follows:

0 - I have no known problems with adding this feature outside minor ones such as the usual case of fixing my own bugs.
1 - This feature cannot be added with using Gamestudio due to the var's low range and/or accuracy. Using C, I don't have this restriction and thus could be added if no other problems are present.
2 - This feature cannot be added with using Gamestudio due to its other limitations and/or annoyances. Using C, I don't have this restriction and thus could be added if no other problems are present.
3 - The low motive may prolong the addition of this feature quite a bit.
4 - I'm short on ideas for adding this feature. Your suggestions will speed up the process.
5 - Adding this feature involves creating new images and may take quite a long time to do and would increase the download size as a result.
6 - I need to learn how to dynamically change the number of elements in an array, or even dynamically create and remove arrays, for best use of this feature (That is, going from "unsigned char ImageData[153600]" to "unsigned char ImageData[204800]".). Either that, or it's wasting memory.
7 - I could use vocalized effects for some sound effects or use FLStudio and use music to get sound effects.
8 - This feature requires the addition of another feature in order to add.
9 - I don't yet know how to add this feature.
10 - I need to learn more Windows-based programming things (likely what function(s) to use to do it) before this feature can be added. They must work on Windows 98 and not use DirectX in order to be acceptable.
11 - Adding this feature could have a fairly big boost on memory requirements.
12 - There is a technical problem with being able to add this feature. I may not have other limits or issues (see other notes, if any), but an important problem prevents the practicality of adding this feature.
99 - This feature is done in full and will, with a 99% certainty, find its way into the next update.

*** This is the approximate, targetted release version I have intended for having this feature available by. It does not guarentee that it will be released on or before this version, but combined with motive and how important it is as well as any technical limitations I may have, this is an approximation.

2.2 Further details

Here is a much more in-depth explanation of the features than the table above gives.

2.2.1 Scenery features

These features involve enhancements to the scenery and related essential graphical parts of the game.

Slopes: Flat, level ground extending infinitely in all directions - how boring! Mountains peaking 4 miles high, and deep lakes and an otherwise varied terrain - how exciting! That's what this feature is all about. With flat, level terrain extending infinitely in all directions, there isn't much there. But, if the terrain was varied, numerous enhancements beyond just varied terrain are possible. Jumping takes on a whole new design along with the float run, bounce stomp, fall-glide-hop, bounce ability, and many other abilities have far different behavior and are far more varied. On level terrain, all these involve going straight up leaving the horizontal speed unaffected. With a varied terrain, the direction you're sent off at varies with the slope. If falling at 1000 mph and the bounce stomp was used and you impacted a 45� slope, you'd bounce at a perfect right angle going 1000 mph horizontally with no vertical speed. If it was a 30� slope (or about a 2:1 or 5:3 slope), however, the angle change is 60� causing the vertical speed to get halved at 500 mph and the horizontal the speed reduced by a factor of the cosine of 30�, or just over 866 mph. The bounce ability would have 707 1/9 mph horizontall on the 45� slope (500 if perpendicular), and 433 mph vertically with 750 mph horizontally. Instead of adding 50 mph to the vertical speed when jumping when still on the ground, the same effect applies as with the other abilities. In a common vision I have of this feature, I'm float-running up a mountain toward the left on a 4:1 slope (about 15�) about 1000 feet below the clouds. The slope remains quite level for some time as I slowly head toward the clouds. The slope gets steeper to about a 2:1 slope (roughly 28�) then a 1:1 slope (exactly 45�) and I jump and immediately use the flash attack heading toward and into the clouds. Another scene is where I'm on top of the highest mountain just over 4 miles high and I'm overlooking the clouds drifting along far below. I charge up the speed blast and blast off reaching well over 1000 mph. I already worked out the fine details for this feature and even have the possibility of you being able to make your own terrain map. Collision and mechanics have already been worked out. I have an extremely high motive for adding this feature, so high that it's otherwise guarenteed to be added. This animation very accurately explains the feature and how it works and behaves.

Labels: Ever want to know how high a mountain is or the name of a lake in the background, if any? How about it's distance from you in feet, miles, meters, or kilometers (or maybe coordinate units)? Having labels is what this is for. I have low motive for adding this and very low priority.

Objects: If varied terrain wasn't enough, how about the addition of being able to jump on light poles or buildings and use them as a source of height? A 12-foot light pole may not seem like much, but it easily escalates to over 200 extra feet of height. A 10-story building at about 130 feet tall could escalate into several thousand feet of extra height on top of the 8 2/3 or so miles possible with flat ground.

Adding stars: When you get up extremely high, like 120,000 feet above the ground (that's around 22 3/4 miles or 36 7/12 kilometers), you can start seeing stars, even in the day time. Only the brightest stars will appear first but as the height increases, the sky gets darker and the stars become more visible. I only need to work out the fine details of this system (how to implement it and finding out what the "starting" point is for the brightest of stars).

Day/night cycle: Let's say you set the time control to 100x time. In only 36 seconds, an hour in the game has gone by and in only 864 seconds (14.4 minutes), a whole day has gone by. Currently, the only problem is that I don't know how to reliably add this feature. I know the formula so that's not the problem. It's how to get the image dynamically changed. This would require figuring out how to change the size of an array (and/or create a new array) to store temporary data to use. The problem here is that it would require quite a bit of reloading of files (The AlphaBlend function requires premultiplication which modifies color values of transparent pixels, and in order to get what I had before, the image needs to be reloaded and reprocessed). This is what I mean by not knowing how to reliably do it.

Enhanced character: He's barely 50 pixels in size, the lighting is odd and flawed, and the walking motion is low-end. It's grade D. That's the current version. The new version is more than twice the width and height (5 4/9 times the number of pixels), has much more realistic lighting, and a more realistic walking and running behavior. This makes the character look and behave better. It's of moderately high motive and since the character is required, extremely high priority.

Fix the lighting: Plus, minus, divide, ex. Oops! That should be plus, minus, ex, divide instead. The lighting used the wrong formula, primarily because I didn't know triginometry functions like the cosine, of which is essential for more realistic lighting. There's no known way of reproducing the lighting effect I currently have, even with two Suns. Due to my intent on redoing practically all of the scenery, this is likely going to be fixed quite quickly.

Enhanced ground fog: With Gamestudio, I could only make layers disappear and reappear to get enhanced ground fog. I couldn't modify any of the image data due to limitations. With C, I no longer have this restriction and I can freely modify the image data. The enhanced ground fog would involve far more than 54 or even 60 or 120 channels as my previous versions of this enhancement had. Nope. Try 256 channels. That's so precise, it's at the limit of 24-bit color. Even with 54 channels, it's hard to see the effects, but 256 is far beyond that. This is almost certainly going to be added in the 2.5 release.

Dynamic fog intensity: When you changed the scaling in the 2.4 version (made with Gamestudio), the fog intensity always remained the same, even if very close up or at the edge of visibility. There was no work around since I couldn't modify the image data, one somewhat annoying limitation of Gamestudio. With C, I can modify the fog intensity without any trouble (version 1.1 of "The Interactive Animation" demonstrates this very well), and it's far more natural as well. This feature is quite easy to add so it's almost certainly going to find it's way into the 2.5 version.

Water: What's water? I don't see any! In the previous version, there was no water mainly because of the flat, level terrain. Small little "dents" could be added to allow for water, but it wouldn't be realistic like that. With Gamestudio's var having low range and precision, having water would just be too complex to work with (the city thing is about as complex as I had to get and adding water would be just about as complex). With the slopes feature added and the allowing of varied terrain, low-lying areas could very well have water. This could allow for lakes, puddles, and other pools of water and have a much more natural design. Combined with the other enhancements C offers, you could get a high-end demonstration of the effects water has in my mind game, what very few times I do go in it. Try using the fall-glide or pound stomp when underwater and see what happens. Also, if you don't like the medium gray water color, why not change it to whatever you want? Okay, so yellow or pink water is very odd, especially for a lake, but not only can you change the color, you can change the opacity and wave heights (undecided with wave heights) as well. Because of the slopes feature being so high motivatational to being added and that lakes and the related are included, this feature is almost certainly going to be added with the slopes feature, and likely with the 2.5 update.

3D-behaving lakes: Off in the distant background beyond the first hills, there are a few lakes scattered around. Unlike my animations where they are nothing more than horizontal lines extending infinitely in both directions, these have natural shapes with uneven shorelines. When low, near the shorelines, they cannot be seen that well since high hills block the view. However, on top of the highest mountain, they're very easily seen. These are frequently encountered in my visions. The motion is very smooth (though, as of Sep 27, 2007, the fine details have yet to be worked out). If you jumped from level ground, you could easily see the "stretching" effect and toss in a bounce stomp and/or flash attack for extra height (and speed), the effect is clearly noticed and seems so smooth. Though it could be added to some extent with Gamestudio, it would mean creating close to 300 panels for even low-res lakes, but in my visions, even 1200 isn't unusual. The main vision I get is where I'm gliding along peacefully at 800 mph with the flare effect in action and I'm watching the lakes whiz by. This lake is large at roughly 9.5 miles wide by 4 miles further out. Other smaller lakes are in the vicinity. On top of the tallest mountain, you'll still see the closest part of the lakes at 1280x1024 resolution, but not quite with 1024x768 or 1152x864. The lake's scaling hovers around 314.8 so it'd move quite noticeably at 800 mph. As of Sep 27, 2007, the details are being worked out to a finer degree, but this is all that's known.

2.2.2 Abilities

These features involve character abilities like the flash attack or speed blast are. They enhance the motion and/or movement of the character.

Pitched gliding: So you just jumped up about 90 feet and decided to glide. You pick up speed but want to pitch up realizing that you're unable to. By adding this feature, you'll be able to do just that, but not just up. The formula for it is rather complex and awkward, but what fun it can be. Let's say you use the bounce stomp and the mach 2 impact sends you straight horizontally at mach 2. You'll either need to land and make big puffs burning up the ground or start a glide and pitch up right away converting all that horizontal speed into pure vertical speed. Or, maybe you've got a lot of vertical speed going up when you simply want to land. Why not pitch straight down and use the pound stomp? The pound stomp is a lot of fun though and the faster the speed, the bigger and more massive the shockwave!

Bounce ability: The bounce ability is very frequently used in my mind game, the most common after jumping, more common than the float run and speed blast (the other two commonly used abilities). Basically, the character becomes a ball and just bounces around. The speed change is the average of half and the cosine of the angle of impact. The bounce direction change is twice the perpendicular offset at the time of impact. The ability has constant 80 mph per second acceleration when used and once used, it cannot be undone until you land. Bouncing terminates when the speed of direct impact is below 100 mph. Sure you could be falling 500 mph and going 200 horizontally, but land on the right slope type and you'd land in a float run going downhill. The bouncing and 80 mph per second acceleration are my favorite parts of this ability. Although it could've been added to the 2.4 version (with an unnecessarily complex algorithm to work around the precision of the var), it is best when slopes are added.

Leviburst: Let's see, where did this one come from? At the time of the 2.4 release, this ability never existed. Then, along comes a dream that shows a new ability. That's this ability and it allows for very rapid acceleration while floating in the air. It can also be used to gradually rise off the ground or drop.

Insta-teleport: Though it existed at least a year before the 2.4 release, there wasn't any use for it in the 2.4 version. However, due to the slopes and redesigned challenge system, the need for this ability has arrived. With it, you can get to anywhere on the terrain in mere seconds, most useful for getting to the next area for a challenge or exploring a certain area to try out a stunt or two. Just like in my mind game, it's blazing fast. You may have reached 1000 mph in the free edition (2000 in the full) for version 2.4, but that's slow compared to what insta-teleport offers. I'll give you a hint: you'll cross 45 miles of terrain in just 18 seconds. Yep, 2 1/2 miles per second or 9000 mph, incredibly fast, faster than any airplanes. The importance came from the fact that slopes will alter the way challenges are played. As a result, you'll need to get from point A to point B before you can even start the next challenge (unlike simply coming to a complete stop while on the ground for version 2.4). The solution to me for this was the insta-teleport ability commonly used in my dreams and sometimes my mind game. Answer this. Point B is 30 miles away. Sure you could charge up the speed blast to get there quickly, but at 720 mph, you'll need to spend 2 1/2 minutes getting there at this average speed and yet, you need to be within a certain narrow range before the challenge can start. Why not just use insta-teleport to cover that distance in just 12 seconds and arrive exactly in the spot where you need to be and get the challenge started? That sounds a lot better. Usually, challenges aren't this far apart but it gives an idea on the importance. Yet, if you want to explore a certain area or perform stunts, you can use it to get anywhere you want and quickly though not all places are fully accessible with it. With time control, these times can be altered. Then again, what fun it would be watching everything whizzing by at 9000 mph.

2.2.3 Customization

These feature enhance the customizability of the game (such as time control, fog color, or visibility).

Enhanced time control: You start up the game and see the time control feature. You press W and the time goes to 2X. Press it again and it goes to 4 then 8, and so on to up to 64. It plays back very smoothly. You then press S and the time decreases to 32 and so on. When at 1, it changes to 1/2X and the delay between frames is increased. Press S again and it goes to 1/4X where the delay between frames becomes very noticeable. Again and again and it's 1/16X where the delay is incredibly long. That's the past. The new version (2.5) will have far more flexibility in time control and the motion will always remain smooth, even at 1/100X time. There are numerous enhancements possible, for more than I could get with Gamestudio (due to the precision of the var being so low). First, the range is increased. Rather than 1/16 to 64X, it's 1/100 to 100X, nearly ten times bigger of a range. Second, fractional values to fifteen significant figures could be used, no matter how random or odd the number. Third, the motion will remain constant and smooth, no matter what time control value you use. Fourth, instead of strictly doubling, you can set your own quick-jump scheme or just use the default of simplified square root of 2 (that is, from 1 to 1.4, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 16, 23, 32, 45, 64, then 90 (and the same for slower-than-normal times)).

Dynamic fog color: Don't like the blue color used for the fog or the more natural medium gray? How about yellow, orange, pink, red, or black fog? Go ahead and change it. The only downside is that it would require a reloading of all the images and the fog being reprocessed for each layer of scenery but since this can only happen while in the menus, where it wouldn't affect the gameplay at all.

Dynamic text and background colors: Bored of the white text and half-transparent background? Do you wished you could change it to whatever you want? With this feature, you can change the text color, the background color (for the onscreen data covers), and the background opacity as well. Choose whatever you want.

Antialiasing: Okay, the speed blast blasted you off at 700 mph and you watch the mountains in the background zipping by. You look closely and notice the "bump", "bump", "bump" behavior. Ever want a smoother motion? Antialiasing will do just that. There's a problem with adding this feature though. There isn't a way to have an image drawn to a fractional location and be displayed as smoothed out. I already know how to do it, but my method would reduce the frame rate to just 3 fps and have 100% CPU usage as a result as well. That is very horrible, even worse than using 1/16X time in version 2.4. The concept is very easy. If a pixel is entirely solid (alpha of 255) and was to be drawn a half pixel to the right, the pixel on the far right of the image would be drawn into the pixel just to the right of it, but as half transparent (or an alpha of 128 (127.5 to be exact)). If it was 1/4 pixel to the right, it'd be 1/4 transparent (alpha of 64 (or 63.75 to be exact)). Another method would be to have it to draw to a buffer of double the size, then shrink the image down to the screen size. The problem with this is that stretching the scenes would require double the memory and until I can resolve the issue of dynamic-sized arrays (or just using whatever the maximum needed for one image is), it's not really feasible. Then, when shrinking the image (of which I know how to do), either it's going to be pixels being removed, or, what is needed, pixels being averaged together. It's this averaging effect that gives antialiasing. I thought of a 255-step system which is as precise as you can get, but even doing 2x is very heavy on the CPU. The only known solution is hardware acceleration and this is something I need to learn, like the dynamic-sized arrays.

Resolution: Before, in version 2.4, you could set the resolution to 640x480, 800x600, or 1024x768. The problem I have is that I don't know how to dynamically change the number of elements in an array. Sure I could have support for 1024x768, but if running at 640x480, it'd use the same amount of memory as it would for 1024x768. If I went with 1600x1200, running at 640x480 would use the same amount of memory as 1600x1200 (5 3/4 MB per buffer (11 1/2 total). For now, only support to 1024x768 is going to be used and the resolution would still be changed, but the memory usage will not decrease from dropping the resolution.

Run in full screen: With Gamestudio, getting full screen was easy. The problem I have now is that I don't know how to do it without using DirectX and working with Windows 98. Until I find an answer, only windowed mode is available.

Warning level: You do something and an error pops up. You do something else slightly different and another different error pops up or replaces the previous. It was errors, errors, and more errors. By having the warning level feature, the severity and frequency of the errors can be changed. At level 0, the lowest, only very important things will appear (like "file not found" errors or "infinite loop encountered" warnings which cause problems for the program.). At level 1, invalid input value errors are displayed (such as input being out of range or a problem occurred with your input (such as the scaling conflict in version 2.4 (available only in the full version). Level 2 would mention non-obvious ability usage errors or selection errors (such as an option in the menus being unselectable) as well as those covered in levels 0 and 1. The highest level, level 3, is what the current system uses - every error and warning is displayed. I'm thinking of the default as being level 1 or maybe level 2, most likely as 1.

2.2.4 Game-related features

These features involve enhancements to the game aspect of this, well, game. They are things like challenges and goals rather than just random exploration and stunt-performing. It also includes game mechanics like how something moves.

Enhanced challenge system: You choose the difficulty and start playing. Challenge started when you were at a full stop on the ground. You played the challenge and you'd come to a full stop on the ground and wait for the next one to play. That was the old way. The new system, due to the addition of slopes and a landscape, is far different. You have more than one tournament to choose from and difficulty is based on your rank. Unlike the previous version, the new version requires you to get to certain areas before you start a challenge. A simple keypress to use the insta-teleport ability will get you where you need to be in just seconds. While there, you can still move around while reading the challenge rules and waiting for the "go" indication, another new feature. While your rank increases separately for each tournament, the difficulty increases. Can you reach the highest rank? Another enhancement is the aftermath from successfully completing a challenge. Earlier, you just saw that you succeeded and that your score went up. In the new version, you'll have the indication of success, but instead of the score going up the moment of completion, you'll see the individual aspects such as time bonus, round clear bonus, and the obvious grand total. There are many fields and they all show. Like the previous version, however, higher difficulty means bigger socres. Completing the first challenge at easy would only give 200 or so points while master would give thousands. The new version, with even more difficulty settings (ranks), offers scoring into the millions. New to version 2.4 are extra bonuses which are various other things you'll need to figure out. Though, if you reach rank 3, you'll still be able to play the lower rank 1. Each rank has names too - can you find out what all of them are and what the highest rank's name is?

More challenges: 11 official challenges, 8 added. Where's another 5 at!? Ah, slopes, water, new abilities, the signs of more possible challenges being available. However, adding slopes would make some of the previous challenges impossible to do or so varied. This prompts the more immediate need for the creation of another world - the Endless Mud Lake world. Still, there could be two tournaments available with the new features and abilities added. That's 16 challenges!

Endless Mud Lake world: It's my top favorite mud dream. It features a bridge extending to the right infinitely and perfectly level. It also features a house near the starting point and to the right, an opening to get into pool of mud. This world has been thought of for this game since around mid or late 2005. However, due to the addition of slopes making some challenges no longer possible in the main Mountainside Village world, this world is now more likely to find it's way into the game earlier than expected. The scenery is very simple - it's just a lot of mud, lots of level surfaces, and a single object with otherwise little in the way of background scenery. At least, that's how the dream actually was. Being 8 miles high, even 200 mph seems very slow judging by the scenery only.

City in Water world: Based off my top favorite of all dreams (as of Apr 25, 2007), this world involves a city theme park built in water. Those that like water would find this world very attractive. Unlike the previous two worlds, this world is set at night and you could glide from island to island, explore the buildings underwater, or even visit another dream-inspired area - a cave filled with only water with a working, running pizza restaurant underwater. This world is about as sophisticated as the first world, and it utilizes the same slope system. It introduces a special type of object - building interiors.

Adding drag: Normally, when you fall, drag prevents you from speeding up forever. In my mind game, there really is no drag when in the air. However, there is when you jump into the water.

Archery game: Archery - you use a bow to shoot an arrow at a target. Not exciting? Well, if you can shoot arrows nearly a mile high at 400 mph or even faster hitting a target a ways away, archery takes on a whole new level. After all, it is the Supernatural Olympics and things are taken to the supernatural level here. Practice mode and the Race to the Center are intended modes and games. The shooting accuracy improves the more you play the game. As skill improves, strength improves as well so it may even be possible to shoot an arrow at supersonic speeds. The usual four challenge difficulty settings are present and the greater the difficulty, the smaller and more distant the target gets. Fine details have yet to be worked out. As my visions go, I picture having shot an arrow at 320 mph at about a 50 degree angle. The "camera" follows the arrow as it zips toward a target several miles away taking several seconds to get there (time control can decrease this time). The arrow lands on the third ring from the bullseye.

Multiplayer interaction: I don't like having to use the internet in programming, the primary reason for the very low motive. However, what if you and your friends 500+ miles away can get together on a tournament and see which of you can get the best times and distances? That would be much more fun. Ah, but what about having a whole tournament with 64 or even thousands of other players and see who comes out on top? The very low motive may seriously delay the adding of this feature, a delay that could amount to a few years.

2.2.5 Special effects

These features enhance the look and feel of the game, sometimes adding more realism. The flare effect and the pound stomp shockwave are two such examples of special effects. They are not essential, but have their own unique advantages.

Pound stomp shockwave: When you use the pound stomp, a shockwave spreads out from the impact point. The fast you're going upon impact, the bigger and more intense the shockwave. Double the speed, and there's 4 times the energy being disepated out in all directions. Double the speed, the shockwave spreads out at double the speed. An impact at 720 mph would cause the shockwave to spread out about 3/5 of a mile. An impact at 1440 mph would cause the shockwave to have 4 times the energy and spread out about 6/5 of a mile. The fine details have yet to be worked out though. This feature was not possible with Gamestudio because I couldn't change the layer of a panel. It would also mean having to use lots of images to get the effect. The cropping ability I have with C only requires a single image and I can dynamically set the layer to get the shockwave to be drawn behind other objects when it goes beyond them. Also, crashing into walls can also cause the shockwave with the same effect.

Flare effect enhancement: It's so colorful! ... but it's flawed. Okay, so where's the flat at? It's in the color details. What's wrong? The effect does not match what it is in my mind game. White? White isn't in my mind game's version? 6 colors? Try 1530! Yeah, that's right, 1530! The flare effect actually cycles through the continuous spectrum. The speed at which it occurs is, however, correct as is. Because I can't modify image data with Gamestudio, I was severely limited in what I could do for it. The clones effect is correct, however, even in the way they behave. With C, the flare effect can be processed much more realistically and accurately, almost exactly as it is in my mind game.

Motion blur: When you go very fast, things tend to get blurred. That's what this feature is all about. Adding it has a problem. Without being able to dynamically change the number of elements in an array, it's either this effect is always there or it's always not. If one doesn't want to use it, it's just wasted memory. Unlike the antialiasing, there isn't much of a problem with this. I'd need another buffer and the drawing of the images twice (which hardly uses any CPU), each drawing only a half of a frame apart. The previous drawing is drawn on top of the current one, but as half transparent. I've used this in a past video frame rate reduction "plug-in" I made with Gamestudio and proved the concept (yeah, of course, that color averaging formula, man is it so useful!). A 4-stage system would otherwise be the same as 2, only with two extra buffers and the second-to-latest frame is drawn as 3/4 transparent, the third-to-latest is half transparent and the first processed within the quarter frame, is 1/4 transparent. My video frame rate reduction method used a 3-stage system.

2.2.6 Other features

These features don't really fit in the other categories.

Adding sound: I crashed into a cliff! Oh no! Uh, where's the sound at? Maybe the CD player is broken. Version 2.4 didn't have any sound at all, no matter what happened. I figured that one could just have music playing in the background for the case of music, but sound effects are completely different. My problem is obtaining them free and legally. I can vocalize some sounds quite well, especially winds, but others are very difficult to vocalize. The full details have yet to be worked out on just how to do so, but it seems like getting FLStudio is one option. It's not free so that tends to take motive away for getting it.

Other units of measurement: Miles and feet? What are they? How do they compare to a meter or kilometer? Not everyone understands what miles and feet are. With Gamestudio, providing alternative measurement units wasn't possible because of the very low range and accuracy of the var. With C, it's easy to convert not only metrics and English units, but also coordinate units, the fundamental measurement system used in the game. A coordinate unit is defined as the distance travelled at 1 mph for 1/10 second, which happened to be the frame delay in my animated GIFs. Scaling multiplied by the width of an object in pixels gives the width in coordinate units. Multiply by 11/75 to get feet. The same thing applies for the height. Anything involving feet and miles by default can be converted to whatever. Only the postition does not, of which is in coordinate units.

The spinning board: A board that spins. Why bother having something like that as a feature? Well, if the spinning board can toss you straight up at 1600 mph on average merely by jumping up into it, it's definitely worth adding and it can even lead to more challenges as well. This animation explains how it works and the effects in great detail, even giving the sense of how it'll behave. I still need to work out the moderate and fine details before adding this feature.

Game demo: You choose the "game demo" option in the menu but find that it don't work. The reason is only because I don't know how to implement it. My only idea is to have actions chosen at random after each "stage" then have the computer follow a set group of instructions to move the character. It could function as a free screensaver.

A graphical, clickable user interface: Text! So much text and so little time! And what's the mouse just sitting there doing nothing for when it could be used to select items on the menus without having to use the keyboard? Where's a more graphical user interface at? The current version (2.4) has lots of text and almost nothing graphics related other than a mere highlight. Even the faulty lighting looked better. This feature is all about making the user interface more graphically oriented such as a small clock for "time played", or basic scene of someone running with streaks behind for speed.

Enhanced tutorial: You start up the tutorial, learn about the wonders of an ability, the physics behind it, how to use it, then you try it out. That's how the old system worked. The new system will still have this, but includes a chapter system and a quick-run. The tutorial is split into 5 distinct chapters. The amount of detail covered is dependent on settings you choose. If you're eager to get started, just choose the "quick run" option to get started and learn the controls within just 5 to 15 minutes instead of an hour like before. Though not officially decided, I intend on narrating the tutorial while still including text. With the detailed tutorial, you can learn about the terrain, in-depth details about the abilities, and various other things. Details have yet to be worked out though (as of Sep 27, 2007).

9.1.3 The Supernatural Olympics - a high-speed action game
9.1.3-1 What is the game? - an introduction to the game
9.1.3-2 Feature comparison chart - a quick overview of the features
9.1.3-3 Scenery features - features related to the game's scenery
9.1.3-4 Special features - features rarely seen in games
9.1.3-5 On-screen information - features related to the data shown around the display
9.1.3-6 Special abilities - explains the various special abilities
9.1.3-7 Special effects - explains what the various special effects are
9.1.3-8 Challenges - details about the challenges
9.1.3-9 General features - other features
9.1.3-10 System requirements - what system requirements there are
9.1.3-11 Support, returns, updates, and upgrades - how to obtain support
9.1.3-12 Ten reasons to upgrade - the top ten reasons to upgrade to the full edition
9.1.3-13 Future plans and features - features planned for the future and the game's general future
9.1.3-14 Update checklist - an in-depth checklist for things I need to do before the next release becomes available
9.1.3-15 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - some common questions that may be asked
9.1.3-16 How to purchase - how to buy the game and complete the upgrade.
9.1.3-17 End-user license agreement - Read this first before using the software or it's components.
9.1.3-18 Download - Download the game and game manual (and any updates).
9.1.3-19 Version 3.0 overview - An overview of the upcoming version, 3.0.

Footnotes:
None.