Playing Catchup

Controller Input
I need to make sure I can use the PS2 controller with TGE. This is accomplished using a PS2->USB converter that I bought awhile back. I want to make sure all of the buttons, the tilt, and the whammy bar are functional because a game without the controller could get pretty boring.

After a little bit of testing I found that I was able to connect the controller and map all of the buttons within TGE. I currently have an issue with the Whammy bar not functioning and I believe this has to do with the PS2 Analog Control setting. I will have to look into this more later as it is not a requirement to get the Whammy bar Functioning.

Source Media Types
I made the decision to go with MP3s as they are the most widely used media source I know of and easy to obtain. The basic level of the game requires me to play the MP3 and then load objects across the screen as I record input from the controller and make logical decisions relating to score and other game elements. This is pretty basic when it comes to the MP3 side of things: play, stop, rewind, etc.

One thing I wanted to look into was isolating the guitar track in an MP3 to give the game a more realistic guitar feel, like in the PS2 version. The impact on the engine is the ability to play 2+ MP3s at once time and individually mute them as the song goes on.

This resource incorporates Fmod within TGE and I will be attempting to implement it at a later date:
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=2305

Songfile Input
The Freetar Hero editor lets you create songfiles to play along with mp3s. The program stores the data as XML files. That means I need to be able to read XML files and parse them from within TGE.

Last night I used the following resource to create a console XML parser. I will use this to parse the data out of the XML for the game information. I had to make a modification (which I documented in the thread) to read Text Nodes.

http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=9031

Next up I plan to read the Song data from the file and schedule the creation of individual notes in the gameworld.

My current prototype plan:

- Calculate the XML File length and determine an estimated Load Time.
- Create an Active Note structure or object that will store the current active note. Any input from the controller will be matched against the Active Note for determining whether the input was accurate or not.
- Read the Error Time property to determine how long a note will be the Active Note. A note will be set to active while:
Active Note Time - Error Time <= Game Time <= (Active Note Time + Error Time || Another note is active)
-Determine the amount of time to display a note in the game world. This is equal to the preview of what is coming in the game as the notes slide down the fret towards the user. Called Delay Time (5 seconds?).
-Schedule the Creation of notes within the gameworld = (Note Time - Error Time - Delay Time + Load Time)
-Schedule the Cleanup of notes within the gameworld. This is sometime after the note has passed out of the active note.
-Schedule the note to be set as the Active Note = (Note Time - Error Time + Load Time)
-Schedule the note to be removed as the Active Note = (Note Time + Error Time + Load Time)