I'M BACK
This game starts again tomorrow. Going to try to get it done between now and the day that I get inspired to start AGBIC (which technically starts in 2 or 3 days).

In the meantime, here's my unfinished 7DFPS entry inspired by this game!
http://7dfps.org/2012/06/15/bowing-out/

not done.
been a weird few days.

but i've learned a lot, and there's still some time left...

Depends on how realistic you mean.

If a silhouette has distinct features and poses that are reflected in both standing and movement then it's a great way to tie their images still and moving together.
Create a walk cycle that suits the posture/clothing/etc of the standing figure, and make it unique enough that it stands out.

Somewhat related, and yes more TF2 I know, but the real triumph of character design with regard to silhouettes in TF2 in particular is this:
If a cloaked spy from the enemy team bumps into someone on your team, they flash the enemy team colour and appear as a momentary silhouette of whoever they're disguised as.
You can instantly tell what class a clumsy spy is disguised as, from across the map, with only a split-second glance of their rough shape.

Saw some of it today, played some of it today.
If you remember that it's unashamedly dumb exploitation and not just putting on airs about irony, it's not bad at all. Which is kind of the problem.
Bmup mechanics: Competent but nothing original.
Humour: Varies widely, good then lame.
Originality: Clever battles and mechanics, and then dull hack and slash, and back and forth.

The entire thing is moderate, but it's not really middle of the road, so it does have its high points, and low points.

Don't pay 60 for it, but if you like ridiculous games or you like 3d spectacle fighters where every enemy is just chaff before the scythe, it's well worth a rent or a cheap pickup.

 

Also loooooove actraiser.
Can't wait.

and now i'm sitting here puzzling at why it's so hard to make a doom clone in unity because putting a bunch of textured boxes about causes it to run incredibly slowly

How much is a bunch? I've got 100 cubes running around in my game without any problems.

Yeah, it turned out that the solution to the programming problem was sleep.
My for loop that instantiated the cubes was in Update() instead of Start()

In the span of a couple of hours, I came up with a concept, worked on it, did some basic art, did some basic code, and realized that it probably won't work

and now i'm sitting here puzzling at why it's so hard to make a doom clone in unity because putting a bunch of textured boxes about causes it to run incredibly slowly

i am suddenly very tired now

Gamemodes are in. Stat tracking and correct UI for gamemodes are in.
Now multiple players can enter as any character they want on the menu, and the game auto-starts when enough players lock in.

Left to do:
add boost sound
add controls and general help to menu
enforce player limits on entry menu
add splash screens/credits
tweak menu design, add prompts (press start, press escape, play again, etc)
track down any other bugs I might want to kill pre-release

And that is it. That is all. It's almost done.
In the meantime, working on this has finally inspired me with a 7DFPS idea

so GO GO GO

So this is actually almost done, bugs are all gone, it's now currently a matter of getting the other gamemodes in and getting the menu work done.

I'll be finishing it very soon! Unless I actually come up with an idea for 7DFPS. But if I do, I will use working on this as a break from that, which is generally very productive.

If you'll excuse me, I was possessed to write a story of sorts and wrote a few thousand words in an hour so I'm going to keep doing that because I have no idea what's going on

i have no ideas for 7dfps at alllllllllllllllll

We shall see, as it runs into the problem of what button numbering etc one's controller uses.

Anyway, fixed dumb control issues thanks to help.
Today I added kill and death counts. This was a lot more annoying than it sounds, as I used to use a family system (all things that hurt red are 'hurtred' family) but that didn't allow for specific object type checks so I tried a few elegant methods and they didn't work so I just did the slow but functional method, as I should've.
There will be 3 gamemodes in the release version, based around the three tracked stats.
Mastery, where your score is scrolls and use abilities to get to scrolls
Conflict, where your score is strikes (kills) and you use abilities to fight
and Shadows, where you have a limited number of lives and you use abilities to get away/fight back

Names pending something better I dunno

Almost there.

When it's done I'm going to tell everyone I know and ask them to tell people. So if you're looking to try this, please consider giving it a real go as versus games don't get any noise unless people give it a fair shake

P100 was probably the only one that actually excited me. Co-op pikmin bmup with Kamiya at the helm. Sign me up. The rest is all decent but ehh. Same for the other companies.

I've never been one for believing trailers. A lot of this E3 was "That'll be cool if it's not an outright lie" which is a depressing standard actually

[Left to do:]

Figured it all out. Agh. Got it sorted, unearthed another bug, solved that one too with some work and input.

Almost done.

Left to do:
Splash screens
Control screens/instructions
Win screen coding
-------------------
Escape command to win screen/forfeit command
Coding for alternate scoring methods
Mode select
Better player selection (allow less than 4P, allow any combination of chars)

The stuff below the line can easily be done after I release it, but it might be better not to ask people to look a second time and just to have all those features present in the first release.

Ottawa represent.

But mostly just



and



Really not too bad, lots of trees everywhere, and some interesting variety, but the urban sprawl gets blander daily.

Stumbled on adding keys. It's working properly for one player, and not at all for the others and I can't find any possible reason why it would be the case.

Nevertheless, I soldier on. Added the victory screen, which will show scrolls, kills, another stat (based on gamemode) and ranking, so I'll have the setup for multiple gamemodes ready to go!

If you know anything about Construct, or can maybe even just be a fresh set of eyes, here's my desperate shouting into the void about it on the Scirra forums http://www.scirra.com/forum/plugin-input-system-v096b-21-03-2011-keyb-mouse-joy_topic40990_post331715.html#331715

XBLA.

Controller plugin swapped out for better general input.
Keys mapped for all 4 players, but getting them fully implemented will take more work.

Twinstick and one button. On the controller, it's sticks and R, but I'll try to make that customizable.

Keys are WASD + FCVB + E , IJKL + -P[] + O, UpLeftDownRight + ;.Rctrl/ + Rshift, and 5123 + /789 + 6 (numpad). I'm using raw inputs so I can use the numpad and all that. Anyway, I don't expect anyone to play with insane patterns like those, although they're welcome to try.

Tempted to bundle in J2K preset

Also added a bit of groundwork for the other gamemodes and cleaned up some loose ends.

Definitely worth getting for any one of them. Also, some gooood soundtracks

Well, it's made in Construct (DirectX). So it may not run at all in OSX.

As for the controllers...
I'm currently using a controller plugin designed around 360 controllers: has all the axes etc premapped, for simplicity's sake. I'm going to be swapping that out for another input system I dredged up that just maps to buttons and axes regardless of controller type. On top of that, I plan to add key controls even if key ghosting is a concern, so people can Joy2Key (or equivalent) to their heart's content.

Hi folks

Today I went to the Ottawa Game Conference. Was pretty good time. I did go to some sessions, but I mostly kicked back with the Dirty Rectangles bros and worked on Yamato. I can work nonstop and work well when I'm with other people who are interested and open to discussion, especially about games. So we jammed all day and it was smooth sailing.

Added death stun/invincibility.
Added last sounds and music.
Added win screen (that does nothing yet).
Doubled resolution of character sprites and animations.
Fixed a dozen bugs.

Tested game with some people, and got some great responses. Also made some good contacts.
Good times.

Game's almost done, and I'll be releasing it when it's finished 1.0. Just a 2-4 player attack-'em-up. And then I'm going to keep working, adding other gamemodes, etc, and hunting down the remaining weird UI bugs.

The initial version will only have controller controls, because the keys have to be hardcoded separately. Also, I don't even know how keys, because it's twinstick. But anyway, yeah.
I hope some of you will help me test it after release, even if it is a versus game: find some people who can play it with you.

Thanks for all the encouragement and input; I'm going to bed now. Back at it tomorrow.