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[Bones]

TheSnidr is working with procedurally generating trees.
And I have to say, they are awesome.  
A bit large when put in the background of a screen shot but that will be sorted out.


Though it may not be as windy in game.


(this is just an overlay I haven't merged the two Game maker GMKs)

[TheSnidr]

The procedural generation system is improved each day, it now looks like this:




It's still far from finished, but I recon it'll look good

[Bones]

Progress! It's been implemented
Though there is no wind on the trees.



Until then enjoy a

.

Will release a new demo soon once I have some levels made up.
or by a release date of November 12th because it be the two year anniversary since I started working on this game concept.

[droqen]

I have seen this!

I have tried it!

It has been really fun, and each addition feels wonderful. The trees are amazing, but maybe they shouldn't poke through landscape like they do? (dunno how to avoid that though).

[Bones]

Sadly we can't make the tree's collide with the solids, or else that would be a whole lot of collision checks every step. ^^;
I've added some very basic shadows, as well as updated the HUD.

These two screenshots are different, the first shows the current (new) hand pixeled gradients which I am now using for shadows.

Personally myself I like the hand pixeled gradients as supposed to the computer generated version (image #2) which seems more like a solid darker block as supposed to a shadow.

Thoughts?
It does look a bit weird since this effect isn't cast below on the destructible rocks, and likely it wont ever.

I'm also re-thinking how to go about the tiles, I'll probably make the ground thicker then 1 row of 32x32 tiles, and give the solid walls a better feel of permanence.

As for the HUD, I gave it a small graphical update, but also decided to position it 32x32 pixels on screen.
I've noticed a few other games have their huds away from the edges of the screen to allow for more visibility above the HUD.





I have also begun working on some new level designs (making them less flat)
Attempting to work out a small learning curve for player actions, ect.
Such as conditioning the player to adjust to the way the character moves, to gather their concentration towards the goal at hand, and work on their consistency of destroying the terrain while on the move.


Also fleshing out the Chomper's AI some more.
Right now it's having a tough time returning to it's starting position when the player leaves.

The blocks the player is standing on are solid wall's with HP that break after being shot at for a bit.
Unlike the destructible tiles which break on direct impact, though the enemies will break them on contact.
These dummy walls will be spread along the level, if you keep your eye out they could give you a shortcut.


EDIT:
What's your opinion about these weird layering shadows... I can't seem to get them to work any other way
Does the tiling of the shadows seem off? Or does it work if so I'm leaving it.

[Bones]

... Kind of lacking motivation to work on this project every time my thread gets kicked back a page or two.
But I digress...
For I have some progress this afternoon along with a new video for you all.  

Shadows, Splatter effects, Splash effects, Checkpoints

Water is currently very static, so static that they way it's done I cant seem to put break-able terrain inside the water or else it wont update it's self.
So that means that water will likely just be for little pools and not full on-water levels, at least not right now.






Anybody have any suggestions or ideas from what they've see so far?
I kind of restricted myself from doing slants in that I used the default hspeed of game maker. >.<

I need to think about how I'm going to go about levels this really wont be much of a metroidvania.
But I don't want it to be too linear, I was thinking of giving two exit options which lead to different paths/levels but still eventually get you to your final destination.

[Inanimate]

I like the split path idea. It could be like Space Invaders Extreme, or... ehm... Shadow the Hedgehog... basically, they had a starting route, and it branched out to multiple areas, depending on a multitude of factors; path taken, grade gotten, etc.

[droqen]

SECRET ITEMS / DOORS FOUND whoops I left caps lock on

[Bones]

To do list:
- Work on level changing some more
- Figure out different scenarios/puzzles for each creature
- Work on making it more challenging
- Think of something to do - other then collect keys to open doors.

I haven't quite gotten the hang of warps.
Thought I had done a decent system but I made a temporary one that will work for now.
Also; Press DOWN ('S') to enter a door

  New Demo

Added since the last released demo:
- Procedural trees are in
- Simple shadows
- Better blood particle behavior
- Water effects
- Water physics
- Fine tuned the players movement

Need people to tell me how it's running on their computers, see if im getting any lag spikes from different pc builds, since I have added a lot more objects into the game.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

This is looking awesome dude.
I'm missing our collab sessions.. I need to get net again.
I think this is my favourite yet of your demos

~Badger

[AuthenticKaizen]

fantastic work!
great engine and art style.
very promising work. keep it up


played through the 2 levels without any lags.
system specs:
core duo 2 @2,66 ghz
geforce 9500 gt
2 gb ram
win 7

[Bones]

@Badger yea I'd certainly like to start up with

soon again.

Thanks for playing the demo guys, I'm glad you like it and happy to hear that it's running smoothly.
Will be nice to hear if any people with some older builds have any problems or slow spots.

Recently I've been working on the storyline, basically a re-take of the expulsion of "Adam and Eve" except our main character's are named "Atom and Eva"
I will likely change the name of the creator from "El" to something more obviously god sounding.



By now you all know the story of Temptation... El created Atom from the dust of the ground and in his sleep, split Atom to create Eva. Atom knew that to eat from the Tree of Knowledge was forbidden. Tempted by the serpent, Eva offered Atom the fruit...

Atom knowingly chose to sin 'Cursed is the ground because of you; until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. You are dust,and to dust you shall return'. Eva was ripped out of existence from this world and forever remains, drifting through dimensional planes... Expelled from the garden and now alone Atom became increasingly rebellious. Using his obtained knowledge to create a weapon to destroy El.

[Bones]

New video!

I have finally added the ability to upgrade your gun, you can also purchase grenades as well.
Eventually you will be able to upgrade your grenade proficiencies, such as blast radius, sticky bomb, cluster grenade or missile.


Currently you don't change your weapons on the fly, you have to purchase and swap out your gun at the "Shop" area.
Enemies now drop "gems" which are known as "$cores"

As for the gun upgrades currently implemented are;
Single Shot $Free
Slow single bullet long range
-weak against enemies and terrain
-slow overheat

Double Shot $125
Average double bullets long range
-average against enemies and terrain
-average overheat

Triple Shot $300
Fast triple bullets wide range
-strong against terrain and enemies
-fast overheat

Spread Shot $400
Average triple bullets wide range
-strong against terrain/average against enemies
-average overheat

Acid Spray $350
Fast single bullet short range
-strong against terrain/weak against enemies
-slow overheat

[TheSnidr]

This is getting better and better!
The sound effects really enhances the creepy feeling already in the game. Pretty awesome story telling, can't wait to try this out!

[JoGribbs]

I just played the demo and I am in love. Can't wait to see more!

(on a side note, are those trees randomly generated? I have been trying forever to do that.)

[Bones]

I'm happy to hear it's looking good in the previous videos but I'm running into issues now...

As per usual I tend to add so much to my badly programmed games that they begin to lag.
I'm trying to isolate the issue, I have all the new weapons implemented but probably not in the most efficient manner.. Not sure if this is the issue, or if I'm creating too many bullets now and now there are too many step collisions occurring at once with the bullets or something...

Basically I have it checking in the "Left Click step event" for all the powerUp information and then shooting the proper bullets.
This could be slowing things down.

The player is now making more bullets, and the more bullets maybe too many more?...
So many possibilities as to what could be slowing me down.

This lag is basically dragging me and this project down faster then a cement anchor.  

I'm sure most all of my "scripts" occurring in each step event is not nearly as efficient as it could be if it were written my someone else.
Argh, this always tends to happen to me and my game development.



Ace Rifle, Duece Rifle, Acid Spray, Tre Rifle, Tri-Spread, Charge Cannon

I was just adding the weapon images into the game when I noticed this sudden drop in FPS from 29/30 to a 23-25 lag drop when firing around. Doesn't even seem that constructing smaller scaled levels is helping the lag issue.  
Thought that making 640x480 levels instead of 1280x1280 could have helped, but no.

Sure hope I can figure something out or this may be doomed...
Or at least a much much longer dev-process than I had anticipated.

[Adam F.]

This is looking really nice, man! A really crazy concept, too.

[TheSnidr]

Long time since update! How's it going? Have you figured out the lag problems?
This is such a wonderful concept, it can't be stopped by a simple resource leak!
Let me have a look at the file some time, and I'll see what I can do

[Nektonico]

Looks weird and wonderful. I think ill give the demo a whirl if i have time.

[superflat]

Looking hot there, Bones!