Rather new to the website and wanted to take a minute to ask a few questions.

Currently in my free time, I am rewriting the game "The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap" using only the allegro library. This has proven to be interesting. You quickly realize the limitations and advantages.

Now on to my questions:

Has anyone thought of or seen a collision routine that is based on a tile engine? For instance:

// Pertaining to the map

int map[10][16] =
{{ 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0}...

// Pertaining to collision

int collide[20][32] =

{{ 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0...

Where 1 would equal collision, 0 would equal a non-colliding square.
Pixel perfect collision isn't really something that I have to be aware of in a project like this. For instance, Nintendo uses 16x16 tilesets and 8x8 collision squares in The Minish Cap.

Question 2:

I coded an animation routine from scratch when starting this project that simulates the routine used in the actual game quite well, however, would anyone recommend other animation routines? Examples welcomed.

Question 3:

I am completely new to the Allegro Library as well as the development of video games. My basic goal in this project is to learn. For instance:

Nintendo's Game Boy Advance has a screen size of 240x160 pixels. The Minish Mask uses maps that are 1024x1024, 512x1024.. (many different sizes) with 256x256 loaded into memory at a time which brings me to my question. What is the best way to implement scrolling maps?

Question 4:

Obviously a lot goes into something like this. Most people outside of the C/C++ (or any other programming) language have no idea how long and tedious it can be to code a program of any kind, much less a game. The hours of debugging alone are enough to make you want to jump from a building. So my final question is what type of conventions do you commonly use when designing a game to make the flow of the design move at a steady pace?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

• 1) Err... the collision map is larger than the map itself?

• 2) Increase an animation counter each logic cycle. When this is over a specified threshold, go to the next frame. Or what did you mean?

</li>

/* basic tile engine thingy */

BITMAP *tile[MAX_TILES]; /* array of tile bitmaps */
int map[MAP_YSIZE][MAP_XSIZE];
int camx, camy; /* current camera x and y position, in pixels */

int x, y, offsetx, offsety;

/* calculate an offset to draw the tiles with, so we can scroll by increments < 1 tile large */
offsetx = camx%TILESIZE; /* (= camx mod TILESIZE) */
offsety = camy%TILESIZE;

for (y = 0; y < SCREEN_H/TILESIZE + 1; y++)
    for (x = 0; x < SCREEN_W/TILESIZE + 1; x++)
        draw_sprite(screenbuffer, tile[map[camy/tilesize + y][camx/tilesize + x]], x*TILESIZE - offsetx, y*TILESIZE - offsety);

Ah, my bad. Didn't read your original post closely enough

Call me illiterate, but what Zelda is this? I don't think I've ever heard of this one... enlighten me!