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(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_99.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_99.png)



Most Recent Update: Sunday January 15 (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=22145.msg675524#msg675524)


Overview:

Hello again TIGSource!  It's been a while!

I've been working on a new game for a bit, and it's finally getting to the part where I'm feeling less embarrassed to let people see it.  So!  Dev Log Time!

The game is called "The Elements of Magic", and as should probably come as no real surprise to anyone who has followed my last few games, it is another Shmup. This one is a bit more traditional than Negative Spacecraft (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=13946.0) was, however.  It should still manage to do at least a few neat things, even if the design isn't quite so far "out there" this time.

The basic story is one of a young magician trying to learn how to become a wizard.  Rest assured however!  I am very aware of exactly how trope-filled and cliched this is, and am taking steps to try to make sure that it ends up at least a LITTLE more interesting than that.

Gameplay-wise, it is sort of like a loose cross between an intricate pattern-based shooter, and megaman.  There are levels that you can go to from the main "hub", and upon completing them, you earn a new weapon with unique and (hopefully) interesting properties.
Also, I'm trying an experiment with it, in terms of multiplayer.  It currently supports up to 4 players, but all players are not equal!  One of the players is always the "main player", and everyone else is a small, indestructible helper, looking sort of like a magical equivalent of the options from Gradius.

The helpers can attack (although they're nowhere near as strong as the main player) but they also tend to have useful secondary skills that can help keep the main player alive.  (Small, localized bullet clears, creating walls to hide behind, shields, etc.)  One of my design goals is to make them useful and fun, without trivializing the game.  (I don't want a Sonic 2/3 "Tails" scenario, where the optimum strategy turns out to be something unfun, like having the main player hide in a corner while the options do all the work.  Hoping for something more asymmetrically co-op, like the hawk in 8 eyes.

Basically, this game is my attempt to make a shmup that I can play with my friends who think shmups are too hard.  Since the helpers are indestructible, their main goal is to help the main player.  So if they're good, then great!  You can do awesome!  If they aren't... they can still be helpful, and they probably won't actually HURT anything.  So yeah.  This is a game that I hope passes the "can I play it with my mom" test of accessibility. :)

Anyway!  I'm enjoying working on it a lot, and it is getting fairly fun!  Wish me luck!

First update!
Since it's a log, I figure I'll start out with at least some details about what I've done this week.

Answer:  Several things!

• Finally finished the last couple of things I needed to call my cut-scene script engine "done".  Now I can add pointless exposition to distract people from the otherwise exciting boss fights!  (Don't worry, they're fully skippable. :))
• Tweaked up the phoenix boss fight a bit.  Made some of the attacks a little smoother.
• Did some scripting for the dragon/phoenix fight.  It is getting cool!  (My goal is to get that completely scripted by the end of this weekend.)
• Exchanged some emails with the guy who is going to be doing music for me.  Hooray for music!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/CutScene10-08-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/CutScene10-08-11.png)  (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PhoenixBoss-10-07-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PhoenixBoss-10-07-11.png)  (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DragonBoss-10-07-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DragonBoss-10-07-11.png)

it looks reallly good. the art and the concept both.

not made in flash this time? looks like the xna icon?

Royal whales, nice!

> Wish me luck!
Good luck!

That is a cool-looking art style. The GUI looks a bit barren, though. I think you could try using a more medieval-looking font (http://www.dafont.com/theme.php?cat=401) - this site has a lot of them.

Thanks!  Yeah, this is my "maybe I should finally get around to learning XNA" project.  On the downside, the windows-only bit sucks, but am really digging the overall faster execution and better hardware support.  (Can finally realistically target 60 fps while still having interesting stuff going on.  And shaders are fun!)


Yeah, the GUI is almost entirely placeholder.  It is in desperate need of an overhaul; it just hasn't gotten one yet.  That said, those fonts are rad, and I think I may have to snag a few, since that is a much better selection of gothic fonts than I had.   Thanks!



Technically, that is, in fact the PRINCE of Whales. ;)

I don't think so. If you're doing this to learn a new piece of technology don't focus on shipping it out to every platform. Save that for your "maybe I should get around to learning multi platform development" project. XNA is a crazy powerful tool, and is worth your time figuring out in my humble opinion. Once you know it you can use it for nice prototyping, mobile and console games, or the real deal (ie: this).

Looking good so far. Keep it up.

 TWILIGHT SPARKLE?

Nice art style, looks fun.

Well, it definitely sucks when compared to a lot of other options I could have taken.  Flash, being basically cross-platform for free.  Or Python + PyGame.  Or even C++ with SDL or openGL would have been easier to port later, if I wanted to.

But you're right, as far as "hey let's learn a language" projects, it's not bad.  And it does look like a pretty solid setup for prototyping.  (Usually I use flash for that, but this looks around as fast, with the added benefit that I can read joysticks. ;))

I, uh, think you might be thinking of the Elements of Harmony.  Sorry, these are magic.  Easy mistake to make!

Dang, from the screenshots this looks superb. The art style looks wonderful (and readable to boot!), and I think it meshes with the concept really well. Looking forward to seeing how this progresses!

oh no u didn't..

The art style on this is fantastic; I'm really excited to see it in motion!

Haha, the art style is deliberately chosen to try to make my [ultimately fairly simplistic] drawings look cooler than they actually are, through the creative application of shaders and post-process.  It's basically the Geometry Wars trick, except I figured "glowing neon lines against a black background, with some accumulation buffer tricks thrown in" were getting overdone, so tried to come up with something people hadn't seen as much of.

Glad it seems to be working!  :)

:whome:


I'm actually really pleased with how it looks in-motion.  The paper textures don't follow the bullets, but rather work sort of like magical cartoon plaid shirts (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UnmovingPlaid) and are more static.  I really like how it looks, but... I'm also admittedly really biased. ;)  Hopefully everyone else likes it as much when they get to see it in motion as well!

(One unfortunate side effect I've noticed though is that videos tend to make the paper texture almost impossible to see.  Everything just turns all blurry. :( )


Quickie update:
Spent the weekend writing cut scenes.  Do you know, when you have a cut scene engine that just takes plaintext scripts and animates them on screen with little faces, it is really really easy to blow your whole weekend making imaginary people have imaginary conversations?  True story!  It reminds me of how much fun my friends and I used to have with those old "make your own comics by drawing art around and filling in word bubbles".

Anyway, as a result, didn't quite finish the dragon boss scripting over the weekend like I wanted to.  Hopefully this week!  Then I can move on to the "fun" of dealing with menus and UI. :P  (Protip:  Writing UI is not actually that fun!)

Love the art style.

The conversation looks a bit South Park though. The rest of the artwork feels nice, papery and abstract, and then I've got this Canadian from South Park in front of me and the text is on an alpha'd box instead of paper as well.

I think If you added the constraint to your art that you weren't allowed to put features on faces then it would keep it papery, and less drawn-on. You can still use body language to communicate their emotions.

I've never been too big on shmup games but you've caught my attention with the paper look and gameplay description. I agree with st33d about dropping face features, though, and his other comments about the cutscene screenshot. It just doesn't look as papery as it should.

This is good feedback.  Honestly, the portraits are the part of the art I feel weakest about right now (well, aside from UI, but I KNOW that is placeholder) and wasn't really sure what to do.  They're big enough that my shader-tricks don't obscure them as much, so it's easier to see how simplistic they are.

I'm a little worried that no face might make them a little creepy, but I will give it a shot next time I get a chance.  (Easy to test at least.)  I agree that they probably need SOMETHING though.

(Also, the black text box DOES have a texture pattern, but I've been thinking it might be better a different color.  It was originally black for reasons that, upon reflection, no longer even apply, so I'll probably experiment with that too this week.)

Yay feedback!  Thanks!  (And thanks to everyone who has said they like the art style while we're at it too.  Knowing when things are looking ok is also helpful!  But knowing when something isn't working is super valuable!)

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NewUI-10-14-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NewUI-10-14-11.png)

Update!

Spent the week working on tweaking levels, boss attacks, and some basic bugfixing.  Got a good start on my in-game menus too, although they're not really far enough to show.  (Right now they're just 4 words on the screen, with the highlight changing based on key presses - not too exciting yet.)

One thing I AM happy with though, is that I finally got around to cleaning up the UI sidebar a little bit.  I'm still not completely happy with it (The word "Concentration" looks at the size I had to use for it to fit.  (I'll probably give it another pass this weekend.)  Still though, I feel it is a big improvement over what I was using before, and no longer have to be QUITE so quick about reassuring people that the UI is placeholder.  (Old picture (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/DragonBoss-10-07-11.png), for reference!)

Still haven't gotten around to doing much new with the cutscenes (haven't even had a chance to try erasing everyone's face yet) but I figure that's slightly lower priority right now anyway.  There will be plenty of time for that in a week or two, but right now I'm trying to get things in to shape for an IGF entry. [mostly because I find it a good way to force myself into motivation, rather than any hope of being nominated]  So for now, the title screen, pause screen, and input selection screens are all higher on the list.

Still though, happy with my progress!  I'm ALMOST exactly where I figured I'd need to be by this weekend in order to get everything done, so that's a good sign, at least!

Anyway - Onward!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PauseMenu-10-16-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PauseMenu-10-16-11.png)

Guess who has a fancy new pause menu!  Here is a hint!  It is me!

Also, some misc other polish - Slightly revamped UI (visible on the right) and some under-the-hood fixes.  Also, I now support screen resolutions other than 1024x768.  (My composer was having trouble running at full speed on my laptop, but it apparently runs fine at 640x480)  I hope people won't actually run at these terrible terrible resolutions unless they have to, but probably nice to provide the option at least!

Anyway, bed time. (Way past bed time, truth be told.)  More to do tomorrow!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TitleScreen-10-17-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/TitleScreen-10-17-11.png)

Well, got a new title screen.  Or really, just a title screen at all.  It looks a little better in motion (all the motes drift up from the book and do additive blending on each other) but it still feels a little barren.  I'll probably want to deal with it later, but for now I'm mostly just content to have something there.

Spent a lot of time doing boring UI stuff, but it's boring UI stuff that needs to be done.  And the game feels better for having it done which is nice.  Looking forward to finishing it and not having to think about UI again for a bit though.

Also, started adding music!  Which makes things feel... cooler.  It probably makes it at least 20% cooler.

7 hours plus some change until IGF deadline...  Crunch crunch crunch!

Quickie update:

Whew!  Got things done!  And while there are still a few things I wish I had finished in time, they can wait.  Got the core game experience in at least.  Just need some polish.

Meanwhile, have a video I made of part of one of the levels!

Youtube Link!! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWt8Kuy2C9U)

Ok, going to bed.

wow, that looks really nice! i'm not sure i like the paper ui frame though..

Quick update today.  Got the nice UI in for controller swapping and general setup.  Now you can actually move around the main menu using any controller, and whoever hits "start game" will be in control once the game stars.  (As the main player.)  Much better than before where the ui for choosing who was player 1 was "edit the source code and recompile"

Also - Options screens!  Finally an in-game way to tweak things like screen resolution, smoothing, volume, etc.  (Menus are boring though, so I'm too lazy to get a screenshot for now.)  This was a pain to set up, but at least I'll only have to do it once, and now can go back to ignoring it.  (And it really is necessary - the game normally runs pretty solidly at 60fps at 1024x786, but on a few old laptops, it really benefits from being able to lower the screen resolution...)


The metaphor I'm going for is that the game basically takes place as a story in a book, and so everything that looks "normalish" is the UI and frame, and everything that is in the game world is a paper cutout on a page.  (Tried some mockups of having the whole thing papery, but it was kind of weird looking, and I wasn't sold on it.)  Don't know yet if this works well or not, but will definitely take note that you didn't like it!  (I'm not even pretending to still be objective at this point, so basically am relying on other people to tell me when things are off.: P)



Also:  TIGJAM!  Anyone else going to be at TIGJam?  I will be at TIGJam!  Come by and say hi if you're there!  (I won't get in until friday evening though - bah!)  I will probably be the beared guy either coding in a corner, or trying to lure passers-by close enough that I can thrust a controller into their hands and try to get a group game of Elements of Magic together.  (I haven't had a chance to play with more than 2 people yet - am hoping I can find a USB hub and get some 4-way action going!)

Anyway, no pictures today, because menus are boring and it's late and I'm sleepy.

Update:  More UI!  Getting sick of it, even though not done yet.  May write another boss pattern tonight as my reward to myself.

But got some more UI sugar in.  In particular, got the "mistake" system running.

It's a lot like extra lives, except with a few key differences!

It starts a lot like extra lives.  You have a little indicator on the HUD telling you how many "mistakes" you can still afford.  Every time you get blown up, one fills in:

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Mistakes_10-20-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Mistakes_10-20-11.png)

The thing is - after you use up all your mistakes, you don't just get booted out to the main menu or anything.  You get a brief cutscene, to the effect of "I don't think we're learning anything at this point, any more.  Want to keep going, or call it quits?"

If you call it quits, you just go back to the level select screen and can try again as normal.  If, however, you choose to soldier on, then you basically just stop caring about mistakes, and can play until you finish the level.  You won't unlock any new weapons or anything.  But you can keep playing, and see the rest of the level at least.

Also, the "mistakes" indicator changes, to make it clear you no longer care about it:
(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Mistakes_10-20-11_b.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Mistakes_10-20-11_b.png)

It's a lot like (and heavily inspired by) the option in the recent Rock Band games to finish a song even after you've failed it.  My original plan was to put in a "practice mode" where you could go play levels you had beaten.  But I think [hope?] this will be friendlier.  Instead of "YOU DIED, GO BACK TO START", I can give them "You died, want to keep going anyway?"

Looking forward to seeing how it plays out in playtests!

Man, the art style is incredible.

I like the idea that you'll let them continue to play the level even though they've failed. Maybe they won't progress, but they'll at least get to finish out the level and get to know it better.

Also, the UI's looking pretty nice. Fits with the style, and is pretty unintrusive.

From the screenshots, it also looks insane. Looking forward to dodging all those bullets, heh.

The ability to keep playing even though you've failed has existed for a long time, even in old DDR games (home versions) because it's a great idea for games that require practice. You should have it as an option you can turn off though, so people that just want to to beat it don't have to restart it manually.

Oh I know it's been around.  Rock Band just happens to be the one I've played most recently that had me thinking of it.

As for having it an option - I'm not sure that's really necessary.  (Assuming I understand what you mean, anyway?  Are we talking like a "set it in the options menu" kind of option, that would just remove the "level failed" prompt, and just auto-restart intead?)  Right now, continuing doesn't happen automatically.  When they fail too much, they get a menu.  One of the options (the second one in fact) is "restart level".  (The default is "keep going")

Guess I'll find out when I run a few more playtests and see what people who aren't me think when they hit it.


re: art - :)  Glad you like it!

re: difficulty - it is currently tuned to what I think is normal.  The sad truth of the matter though, is that whatever the game creator thinks is "normal difficulty" is almost always what everyone else considers "dude wtf" difficulty.  Just because I've played it SO MUCH and know all the ins and outs of all the challenges really really well..

Don't worry though!  There will be a difficulty selector. :)

My usual strategy is just to tune for myself, and then call that "hard mode", and then make it easier for "normal mode".  And maybe a mode that I can't beat, just for all the crazy bullet-hell lovers out there who are better at it than me.  (There are a lot of them, from what I can tell from watching youtube!)

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PhoenixBoss_10-23-11_b.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/PhoenixBoss_10-23-11_b.png)

This weekend was TIGJam!  It was exhausting!  Yet also hella-fun!

I saw a lot of really cool people, and their myriad cool projects, and it was great!

I also managed a LITTLE bit of dev work.  And while part of it was boring yet vital (options screen now actually saves options, such as screen resolution, fullscreen vs. windowed, volume, etc, rather than discarding it on program exit) some of it was also simply fun.  (Wrote a new boss pattern.)
   
(Writing new boss patterns is usually my reward to myself for good behavior, such as doing boring yet vital stuff like UI and options saving. ;))

Anyway!  Here is a new pattern!  This marks the "over half done" mark for that fight.  (Have finished 3 out of 5 planned patterns.)  Then I can get on with the serious business of spamming you all with pictures of something other than a phoenix lighting things on fire.

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HomingGun_10-26-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/HomingGun_10-26-11.png)

Update!

Been a boring week of writing engine code.  Fixing crash bugs, handling some state changes more elegantly, tweaking fonts, enabling the "restart this level" menu option, and adding a "wait for vsync" option to the options screen.

So I decided I'd done enough boring stuff, and it was time to treat myself to a fun task or two.  So I wrote a new gun.  I needed a better "Starter weapon".  I had one partly formed, but it was basically the same as the water gun (Wide spread unfocused, narrow beam focused - the one I've used in most of my screenshots so far) except less fun in every way.  So I gave it an overhaul.  (One of my goals is to have all the guns be distinct mechanically anyway, so there was too much overlap here, even without the massive difference in fun.)

It had some interesting design challenges.  Since it's the gun you start with, it needs to be:

• Useful enough that you can beat levels with it.
• Un-useful enough that you still have a reason to use other guns once you earn them.
• General enough to be useful in most circumstances.  (I have some plans for some pretty specialized guns.  Since this is the basic gun, this needs to NOT be one of them.)
• Unique enough that the decision to use (or not use it) is interesting and meaningful.
• Simple enough mechanically to not require extended explanation.  (or ideally, ANY explanation.)
• Fun/satisfying enough that you play the game long enough to see other stuff, and don't just give up because your attacks are lame and not fun to use.

I eventually settled on "homing shots", since that's a good, beginner friendly mechanic. (everyone understands it, and it makes boss fights easier, since you can still deal damage even if you're not directly under the boss.) It's something most people can understand fairly intuitively with minimal prepping.  (They start shooting, and notice their shots start chasing down enemies - they figure it out quick.  And even if they don't understand it, it doesn't matter - it works anyway without them having to do anything special.)

I didn't make ALL The shots homing though.  The gun does about half its damage through homing projectiles, and half by shooting straight ahead.  (no spread, since the homing basically provides the same benefit as spread - not having to be directly under your target)  This is so that there is still SOME incentive to stay aimed at the boss.  You can do damage even if you're off in a corner cowering while you dodge, but it will be less.  You are rewarded for getting in there and mixing it up though. :)

So anyway, yeah.  Have a screenshot of me abusing some sea-horses with the newly-minted homing shots.

Also for the curious, here is a before (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/CutScene10-08-11.png) and after (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/NewFont_10-25-11_d.png) comparison of the fonts.  Comments welcome!

Quickie update:

Mostly boring bugfixes, followed by being sick over the weekend and accomplishing nearly nothing.  Bleah.

Wrote a boss pattern, intended to be the final phoenix/dragon part of the fight, but an not terribly happy with it, so it will probably end up being tossed and redone differently.  (My original plan for the phoenix/dragon fight was for it to start off with the dragon relatively tame, and with the phoenix doing most of the work while the dragon was passive, and gradually ratchet it up to where the dragon was attacking the phoenix more and more violently, making it more and more hazardous to the player.  Now that I actually see it in action though, I think that it is too confusing having the dragon actually shoot projectiles, so I think I will just keep him at the mid-level of biting things.)

Moderately frustrating when a set piece doesn't work as well in practice as it did in my head, but so it goes.  Hooray for rough prototyping at least - better to find this out now, after about a few hours of scripting than later, after more work has been sunk into it.

In other news, feeling very happy with the homing shots.  Have been playing with them since I put them in, and I think they are pretty close to exactly where they need to be.  They do a good job of offering interesting tradeoffs:

• They give you a way to attack an enemy without sitting directly below it (normally a pretty dangerous place to be)
• They offer a good risk/reward incentive to actually GET below it if you want full damage.  (Relying just on the homing portion means you are doing around half damage.)
• They're interestingly distinct from the water gun also, since several bosses spawn sub enemies, which tend to distract the homing shots, meaning you often end up doing less damage than you might want.  (Whereas the water gun lets you focus entirely on whatever is straight ahead.)

So overall very happy with the new gun.  Will probably put in the fire gun soon too.  Now if I could just get the fire LEVEL (and associated boss fight) finished, I'd be quite happy.

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/PhoenixBoss_11-02-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/PhoenixBoss_11-02-11.png)

Well, rewrote the final fire boss attack.  It probably needs a bit of tuning, but at least it looks pretty now!  I think that thematically I like the penultimate one the best, but this one is solid.  Or at least it will be with some polish, I think.  And hectic.  Definitely hectic.  Now to just shore up the rest of the fire level and I can move on to something else.  (Feel like I've been working on fire all month.)

Tweaked it a bit on the bus on the way to work today, and decided to reorder them.  (Putting the one I like best last - it fits better thematically too)  Wrote up a real end-level cutscene too, since the previous one was just a placeholder.  Feeling pretty good about this level now!  (Now I just need to throw a few new more enemies into the level itself, so that it has more than just two. :P)

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Volcano_11-07-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Volcano_11-07-11.png)

Updates!

First and foremost, I am happy to report that I have passed the most important review I had scheduled.  The dreaded Mom review.  Since the game was started, my goal was "I want a challenging bullet-hell shmup that I can play with my Mom and that she can still have fun with, in spite of not usually playing things more exciting than windows solitaire."

I had her play some games with me, and after some confusion on the first round, she was flying around like a pro, and VERY HAPPY with the whole "you mean I get to help play and block things from hitting you and don't have to worry about dying or anything?" aspect of the game.  After the first round, she had the idea down.  After the second, she was being legitimately helpful.  And (while it's hard to tell sometimes, because as a mother, she's contractually obligated to like everything I make no matter how hideous) she seemed to be having fun?

So...  Success so far!  And I've already played it with my more bullet-hell-loving friends, so it seems fun on both ends of the spectrum.  Which I'm very happy with!  So asymmetric multiplayer is working well!

Other minor victories this week...  Fixed some random crash bugs related to switching screen resolution, tweaked the fire level a bit, and programmed some volcanoes.

I am fairly happy with the volcanoes.

Quickie update, before the weekend.  (Which sadly will be taken up more with out-of-town relatives being in-town than skyrim-binges or all-night-coding-sessions.)

Fancy Text is Go!

It sounds boring, but it turns out that writing a text renderer that can handle all the crap like changing fonts or color or whatever mid-line is less trivial than I had hoped.  It's done though, and a new class "FancyText" now graces my library.

Now to put it to some use!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/WindGun_11-14-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/WindGun_11-14-11.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/WindGun_11-14-11_b.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/WindGun_11-14-11_b.png)

More stuff!

Finally got around to making my weapon-select menu.  So you don't have to change constants and recompile to change weapons, etc.  Much improved!

So to celebrate, I spent sunday making a new weapon!  Finally got around to writing the wind gun.  It's fun!  The basic shot is a super-wide spread. (although pretty weak on damage, unless you get up in their face and "shotgun" it)  The focus mode is the fun part though.  Your spread drops dramatically, but you get to summon giant tornados.  Which mostly stay where you put them, although they'll try to slowly follow you around.  They're a lot slower than you are though, so you can leave them someplace (like right under something highly dangerous) and run away, and they'll keep hitting it for you.

Oh, and they're piercing too.  (i. e. can go through enemies.)

It's a fun weapon!  I ran through the existing levels and bosses with it for some testing, and was pleased with how it made me play totally different.  The spread is probably the best gun so far for dealing with casual level spam.  The tornado itself though made for some interesting boss fighting though.  (The ability to not sit under the phoenix during his "sacred fire" attack made it pretty neat, but the fact that I had to run back in to replace it from time to time, [as well as the fact that it does less damage if you are only hitting with the tornado part] made the fight challenging in different ways.

So.  Fun stuff!

Very nice work you have here, looks like a nice change of pace from Negative Spacecraft! A (belated) welcome to XNA as well, I hope you find the platform powerful. ;D

No download of a demo or anything though? this makes me a sad :panda:.

Thanks!  I am indeed enjoying XNA quite a bit.  (Spent the first month or so just giggling and saying things like "OMG I can have AS MANY BULLETS AS I WANT OMG OMG!")  Had forgotten how much I love having hardware acceleration and more direct hardware access.  (Yay, shaders!)

Demo will probably happen at some point, but while the screenshots look all pretty, they cleverly hide just how much basic user infrastructure is still missing. :P  I'll almost certainly do one once I get a little further along, but it's not quite to the point where I feel like that would be useful.  (Would like to get another level or two done first also...)

But Soon! (tm)

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_b.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_b.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_c.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_c.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_d.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11_d.png)

Updaaaaate!

Up with friends for thanksgiving, and their family lives on a mountain, as it turns out.

There is snow here!

Also, I made [2/3 of] a new boss!  People who played Boss Rush may recognize him - He's fairly similar.  (He was in Negative Spacecraft too, come to think of it.  I think he's becoming my version of the DopeFish.)

Anyway, it was snowing here, so perhaps not entirely coincidentally, this boss is weather themed.  Astute observers may notice that there is a new background in these pictures as well, such as one might use if one were, say, designing an air-themed level or something similar.  To pick an example at random.

Anyway, most of the rest of the changes this week two weeks are back end things, such as fixing support in my asset loader for loading things with a hit-radius smaller than the bitmap.  Well, and designing a bunch of enemies for a wind-themed level.  They all have crappy placeholder art (ovals at the moment) so I'll probably wait until next week to bother with screenshots for them.

Anyway, onward!  Feeling good about this update!  At this rate I'll have a 3rd level soon, and maybe actually bump up my "%-done" counter on the thread by one.

Updates!

Mostly involved with making new bosses etc, but still.

Let's see.  First off, I made the last and final attack pattern for the cloud.  It's the one where he shoots lightning bolts.  Unfortunately the pattern is not terribly photogenic.  Mostly it is about running around while the cloud chases you with lightning.  Also, the lightning looks way better in motion.  But here is a crappy screen grab of it at least!



Updates!

Mostly involved with making new bosses etc, but still.

Let's see.  First off, I made the last and final attack pattern for the cloud.  It's the one where he shoots lightning bolts.  Unfortunately the pattern is not terribly photogenic.  Mostly it is about running around while the cloud chases you with lightning.  Also, the lightning looks way better in motion.  But here is a crappy screen grab of it at least!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-28-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-28-11.png)


Moving on, I also started working on the actual final boss of the wind level.  Two attacks done on him, so he's about half way finished.  I'm sure I'll end up tweaking them later.  (My usual boss work pattern seems to be to rough out the pattern while I'm on the bus to work, and pretend it's done, and then gradually fix things that bug me about it as I play it.)

Anyway, here's the wind boss, a dapper gryphon.

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-10-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-10-11.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-12-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-12-11.png)

Anyway, that's all for this update.  Onwards!

Does Mr. Cloud summon a rainbow at any point? That was a pretty cool attack.

Sadly, the cloud has lost his rainbow-generating powers as part of his demotion to mid-boss.  Partly because I'm trying to keep the midbosses down to a manageable number of patterns (3 is the goal) and partly because there is a different boss that may be somewhat rainbow themed and I'm trying to avoid overlap. :)

But who knows!  My current plan is to have unlockable "challenge fights" where you can go fight bosses you've already seen, but with them using new attacks.  There might be rainbows in the cloud's future yet.

Mostly I figure that's a bonus goal for me, which I'll play with once I have the basic game levels fleshed out and more workable.  My aim is to get 4-5 complete, playable levels finished, and as well as the bits of gameflow that aren't done yet, and release that as a demo for feedback, while I work on the rest.

So tl;dr version:  Cloud rainbows - not yet, but maybe! :)

This looks awesome! I love the style, but the book interface doesn't seem to match.

Good luck,
Laxwolf

Love the style of this game. Refreshing.

Thanks!


Also thanks!  Yeah - I've had mixed results with the book framing + paper-cutout art.  Several people have gone "oh neat, I love how the world is all paper and it's all in a book!"  But you're also not the first to say "neat, but why is the frame a book, I'm not sure that fits."

Not sure what to do to make them fit together better, other than making the book frame look more cartoony/paper textury?  Dunno.  If anyone has any good ideas, I'm open to suggestions here!




Anyway, random update!  Had a good week of productivity on the trains.  Managed to average about one new attack per day, except for the day when it was too crowded for me to take out my laptop. :)

Also tightened up some of the existing attacks, and got everything in a better order, to boot.  Wind level is actually super-close to done now.  Just needs some tuning/tweaks for the actual level itself and some minor code for a unique level mechanic.  After that... Woo!  I can mark that level done, and increment my "percent done" counter up by 20% or whatever.

So yeah.  Here are some screenshots.  They look better in motion, but so it goes:

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-15-11_b.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-15-11_b.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-15-11_c.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-15-11_c.png)

Game is looking really great, nice job with it.

One suggestion for the book and art is to put some sort of framing device to blend the game in with the book a little more. Some sort of border transition so as to not make it such a contrast. But have to say am loving the look of the game.

Still alive!

Holidays were busy, and I didn't get half as much done as I hoped, but still managed to eek out enough time to write some new guns for the player, as well as force some friends into helping me playtest.

I'll write up the new guns in a future post though.  Because tonight, I want to talk about what I wrote on the bus home today, because I think it is rad.

I've never been completely happy with the drop shadows, but I had them to a place where they weren't bad, so I was focusing on other things.  Over break though, I saw some neat cut-paper art, and thought "dang, my stuff really doesn't look like that yet, does it?  What is still missing?"

Anyway, long story short, I thought of some ways to make things look (hopefully!) better, and rewrote some shaders.  (Also did some optimization, and the whole thing only takes two passes now, instead of three! Woo!)

Here are the results:  I'm interested in feedback on them!  I think they look neater now, but I am also heavily biased, and have a tendency to think ANY problem that I solved in a way that feels clever is a better solution.  :)

Before: (Old shader)
(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/CloudMiniboss_11-25-11.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-16-11.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GryphonBoss_12-16-11.png)

After: (New shader!!)
(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Shader_After_1-5-12.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Shader_After_1-5-12.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Shader_After_b_1-5-12.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Shader_After_b_1-5-12.png)

You'll probably need to click on an actual picture to see the difference - it's not too noticeable from the thumbnails.  Which is probably a good indication that it's not actually that huge a change, but I still am happy that it's in at least.  Not only is the algorithm a lot cleaner now, but I finally got to make the edges a bit fuzzier, which I've been wanting to do for ages.

Both look good, but I actually prefer the crisp shadows of the first one.. Sorry!  ;D

That's totally fair!  I've received enough comments both ways that I may leave both in, at this point.  I have a toggle to switch between them right now anyway, as a debug - would be easy enough to make it an option, and the flat shadows have the advantage of only requiring shader model 2.0 (instead of 3.0 for the soft ones) so I may just stick it in the options menu and call it a day.

Personally, I think I prefer the fuzzy ones, but yeah.  Easy enough to support both!

(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_29.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_29.png)(http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_99.png) (http://paperdino.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/fire_99.png)


Update!

Got some neat things done this week!

First of, I finally finished the wind level, and am very happy with how it ended up.  Some of this was just writing cut scenes and hooking them up.  But part of it was writing the core mechanic for the level, which I think turned out really well.

The wind level, see, is structured like a race.  You actually meet the boss first thing in the level, and then he zooms off.  You have to reach the end of the level before he does, or else he gets there and gets bored, and you have to start the level over.  The way this plays out in game terms is that there is a little meter on the side of the screen showing both your and his progress.  He moves steadily along the track at a constant rate.  You move faster or slower depending on where you are on the screen.  So if you stay at the bottom of the screen, he'll outspeed you quite handily, and you'll end up in trouble.  On the other hand, if you manage to stay near the middle or top of the screen throughout the level, you'll easily overtake him.

It should go without saying of course that the top of the screen tends to be more dangerous, since that's where enemies spawn from.

Anyway, there's a visual cue as well - the background scrolls faster the faster you are going - so it's fairly easy to tell when you're going fast vs. slow.  But I really like what it does to the level.  I don't think I've actually lost yet, but I've come close a couple of times.  It's actually not that hard to outspeed the boss - when you're at the top of the screen, you're moving 2-3 times faster than he is.  But it's easy to end up behind, either because you're worried and hiding from enemies in the level or whatever.  (Or because I was mean, and made the miniboss fight stop you in your tracks, while the boss runs on ahead. >:))

It ends up feeling a little like the final fight in Portal - it's not that you have to do anything especially hard, but having a meter there threatening you makes the whole thing feel more tense, even if the meter doesn't actually go fast enough to be a serious threat.  Just the fact that you know that the game is timing you about something makes things scarier somehow.


In other news, I finally got around to making built-in screenshots, rather than relying on shift+printscreen.  This is good for a couple of reasons.  First, it means I no longer have to deal with editing out the window-frame if I want to have my screenshots just show the game-screen.  (Since I can just save out the frame buffer directly.)  It also means I no longer have to go load up a paint program to paste images into.  And the inclusion of some basic code to increment the filenames means that I can just hit the screenshot button whenever something is neat happens and make sure everything goes into a separate file.

But it also means that I can set up a neat "screenshot mode" where it just takes a new screenshot every couple of seconds.  Which makes the game kind of annoying to play (screenshot taking takes around 1-2 seconds, during which the game pauses) but means that I end up with a lot of screenshots that I can then go sort through looking for good ones.  (This is a much better system than what I used before, where I would try to play the game and hit alt+printscreen mid-game, to catch neat things, and inevitably end up dead as a result.)  So, all in all a win!

Since the only pictures I had of the new shader in action were of the wind bosses, I figured I'd use this as an excuse to take some more screenshots of the fire bosses, so that's what the screenshots for the week are of.

In other news, I think I have a couple of new weapons to play with that I haven't talked about in this dev blog yet, but I'll probably save them for another entry, since they're kind of neat, and I will probably want to sit and talk about them for a while.  And this post is getting long enough as it is. :P

The race idea sounds a bit like Kingdom Grandprix (http://"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_Grand_Prix") - which makes it pretty cool :)

Your screenshots look really nice too - I'm looking forwards to this!

AHH!  That must be the game!

I've never actually played Kingdom Grand Prix, but when I described my racing level to a friend, he said "that sounds neat - it reminds me of some raceing shmup my roommate was showing me, but I forget the name.  I think it had the same mechanic."

Ever since then, I've been wondering about the mysterious racing shmup, and I'm pretty sure this is the one!  From the wikipedia article at least, it sounds like the basic mechanic (race - move faster by being higher up) is the same.  And my friend's roommate is a Sega Saturn fan, so it all fits.

Thanks!  I think you solved my mystery!

Looks nice, interesting style.