Just wanted to let everybody on tigsource know there's been tons of updates. Graphics engine overhauls, AI improvements, progress on gameplay, added tutorials. All sorts of things!

I've updated the first post with a new screenshot and a trailer.

Let me know what you guys think.

I may have missed it, but any way we can play?

Yup; right over here

Edited my original post to include this link, which I stupidly omitted XD

Thanks for letting me know about that  

EDIT: just uploaded a version fixing some bugs with vulcan (gun type 1) weapons. Also the gun sprites now look prettier.

Back during Ludum Dare 24, I made this.

Now its been a number of months and the game's running great! Most of the devlog activity's been on gamejolt and they've been swell giving me feedback.

But I'd love to hear what everybody on Tigsource thinks, especially now as I'm winding up for a proper release that should hopefully include some more public exposure.

DEMO here

[CLICK FOR TRAILER]

Ludum Dare 24's theme was evolution, and Space Rig Zeta is centered around upgradeable ships that evolve over time. The player can grab powerups as loot from fallen enemies and between waves to keep up in the arms race with the evolving AI. The AI selects the most successful ship from each wave to evolve into the next wave's series of ships.

As far as the SHMUP gameplay goes, you'll probably feel more like a boss then the typical SHMUP singleplane. There are also a lot of missiles. Like Macross/Robotech a lot.  Bullets also shoot down missiles (but they are still scary.)

UPDATE:

So I never bothered to properly learn inheritance until now, but I've now built a bullet generation system that reads patterns built by a PatternGenerator which I'm now working on adding Oscillators (angle/fire speed/bullet speed) to, as well as additional pattern types (Only got "PatternSpread" and "PatternSingle" : PatternGenerators). That stuff should be really fast now, though!



Its like I'm really a touhou

He is firing bullets out of his butt.

I am very mature.

I'm excited to see what you come up with for the bullet system though.

Best initial devlog post in existence

Absolutely love the title screen. Just enough detail to convey the objects, uuber clean!

Liking the game, you've got a neat and coherent visual style and I'm impressed by the size of the game world.

Other then that, maybe I didn't play far enough, but most of the mechanics seemed pretty straight forward. They are well executed and tightened up, which is in itself a pretty rare achievement. The jumping didn't feel particularly uncooperative and I dove right into the challenging level content straight away.

Pretty solid project overall, congrats on finishing it!

[New stuff!]

Hey everybody. Still alive and trying to find the root of some bugs.

I'm thinking the one with the tutorial is because finding docking poitns that are active is somehow not working. The new ship has an inactive docking point and I think its generating a false positive for the tutorial even though I engineered the if statement specifically not to. Perplexing.

Still not sure about the screen size bug. I'm thinking maybe your card doesn't want to support views, veracity. Either that or my advanced drawing scriptset isn't working. I think I'm going to code an actual debug sequence for when the game starts with displays and status remarks, including barfing out raw numbers so the game will tell me what it thinks your resolution is. Improper screen-size detection may be at the root of many issues.

New stuff!

• First, now that combat is working (with liberties taken as to the definition of working in that it's present) I'm going to be re-adding weapon upgrades and re-hashing the old weapons into the current script based weapon system. This means:
• Adding arms dealers/refit stations. These will be like the resource dropoffs in that you dock up to do a specific function. In this case, to swap out guns with different guns for maximum difference. I've got a neat clamshell looking design that'll make it easy to swap guns without unsightly pop-in. Diegesis worst nightmare!
• Afterward, I'll be trying out a new approach to ship upgrading. Check out some sprite tests and mockups for maximum pretty. Also please do subscribe to my tumblr for additional updates on my day to day shenanigans with Periapsis. The plan is to, when you want to upgrade to the next ship tier or swap out your current one, you just find a holder near a station that may or may not have the module you want at that moment, then back in and slip into something more comfortable.

New super secret build (okay, not really secret but potentially unstable again. I don't want to merge it with my IndieCade build.)

Czec it out.

New stuff for this build:
-Added 'cynic' difficulty. Early prototype of the full game featureset.
-Re-enabled the survival mode enemy code. Try getting resources and dropping them off while fighting. Great challenge.
-Completely revamped bullet collision. Its now faster and more accurate.
-Bullet collision now reflects a bullets ahape, so the chevron shaped 'frag' bullets from explosions actually have a higher hit chance.
-Fixed a showstopper error in the tutorial robot's AI.

EDIT: fixed another showstopper bug related to an image name change.

Indeed, cheers!

Loving the graphics, saw your screenshot in the Screenshot Saturday thread.

Love the concept. How far do you think you can obfuscate it into advanced puzzles? If the current mechanics can go pretty far then I'm with this

The problem where everything's way off to the right of the screen remains for me.

When the drone said "...to assist in your basic survival", he didn't seem to advance the tutorial at all, and I got this error:


__________________________________________
ERROR in
action number 1
of End Step Event
for object world:

In script helpbot_think:
Error in code at line 9:
       if data.ore[0]+data.ore[1]+data.ore[2]=0 && instance_number(obj_dockpoint)>0 && obj_dockpoint.active=true
                                                                                                     ^
at position 100: Unknown variable active

Oops, staging error, that's an easy fix.

Could you get a screenshot for me? What the game should be doing (and does in every case so far save yours, which is of utmost interest to me) is sizing a view to your screen size, then calculating its position so its at the center of the room (on the UI) but I suppose if the view doesn't initialize then it all goes to crap.

Once I get a screenshot I'll see about fixing this, then I'll update the current build with that and a fix for the tutorial bot.

I'm getting your link as:
http://%27http//periapsis.projectstardust.com'

Don't put the quotes between :// and com. For others' convenience, here it is.

Can't wait to play the new demo!

Fixed the link, it works fine unquoted like you said . Let me know how your play goes. This is my IndieCade build so I'd love some feedback.

Hey everybody, just wanted to let you all know there's a new build. You can get it here

Here's what's new:
-New first level with SHMUP style gameplay.
-Old first level is now the second level.
-Secondary weapons.
-New, extremely buffed mining grenade.
-Mining grenade jettisons just behind your ship. Fling it into opponents with your momentum.

Be careful, the build isn't thoroughly tested. My usual drinking buddies/beta testers were busy ("Not now, playing witcher 2") so there may be some more bugs then usual.

I'd really appreciate any text dumps of errors and the conditions in which they occur.

Also the game-over system kind of works now, since you can't eject int he first level. The second level respawn after eject code SHOULD work in theory, but I didn't have time to test it.

Also no feature vid this release because fraps hates me and has decided to drag my FPS down massively when in use. I'll see about producing one for this build and the next set of features I'm working on.

Okay, fixed it up. It was a format problem, I thought you had to put the URL in quotes for some reason.

Thanks for the feedback, veracity, I kept it in mind when I revised the HUD. The current build doesn't have it yet but I'm planning a release soon. The minimaps bigger and the blips don't look like stars, among other changes.

I posted at length about what I'm doing at the moment on tumblr. If you guys feel like getting more insight into my shenanigans, it's all there and on my twitter right now. I'm going to go post a screnshot of the revised HUD up there after I post this.