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[Will Vale]

Graphics are in and I've tweaked various gameplay elements so it's properly playable. Still no meta-stuff like menus, restarting the game, and such though.

Download here: http://www.secondintention.com/files/gasbags-v2.zip

To run it you'll need:

* DirectX
* VC 2010 redist

It looks like this now:



[Edited to change the static image to an animated GIF as per Hempuli's awesome examples]

Player 1's keys are WASD plus Q to drop bombs, E to drop caltrops.
Player 2's keys are Arrows plus right CTRL to drop bombs, right SHIFT to drop caltrops.

You can reconfigure the keys in config.ini

The idea is to destroy the other balloonist's basket with bombs, but because they bounce of the balloon, you usually need to deflate their balloon with caltrops first. When that happens they crash and you have a window of opportunity to bomb them.

If you're the one that gets deflated, hammer your up key to re-inflate your balloon and get back in the air.

There aren't any constraints on bombs and caltrops yet so it's a bit spammy, but I think it's becoming fun. I've also left the wind out in this version until I can put in a way of visualising it.

Have fun!

Will

[Will Vale]

Uploaded a new version with a handful of new bits:

* Parallax hills
* Limited ammo and recharging (fiddle with entities.ini to tweak this)
* Hacky way of drawing the joints so the balloons look more ballooney.

Download here: http://www.secondintention.com/files/gasbags-v3.zip

To run it you'll need:

* DirectX
* VC2010 redist



I think the next step is probably to make an installer - I don't know for sure if the VS2010/DX prerequisites are putting people off, but it seems like it would be better to automate all that nonsense.

Still not decided where to go with the graphics.

Will

[Will Vale]

I had a play with NSIS for the first time in about 5 years, and created an installer for the current version:

Download here: http://www.secondintention.com/files/Setup Gasbags (0.3).exe

No changes from the ZIPs in the previous post, but it will handle downloading and installing the prerequisites for you. I made the DX web setup optional (which Microsoft are very keen that you don't do) but it really is required to play the game

Please let me know if you have any problems. I tested on XP and everything installed and uninstalled correctly without leaving crap in the registry or on the disk.

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

I've started fiddling with sound by trying out irrKlang - the initial setup (playing some looping music) is really easy, but I need to bind sounds to entities and see how all that works out.

I also spent some time reading Victorian advertisements and mocked up a title screen using similar typography:



It's not quite right yet - I'm on the laptop atm. (no tablet) so the aging is just a bit of filters and gradients as opposed to something drawn. I'm also not entirely convinced by the GASBAGS font, the italics, and the last line might be a bit over the top?

Comments and suggestions most welcome, cheers!

Will

[Will Vale]

Getting a bit (very!) short of time - I've spent most of my waking time this week either working on day job work, or on my GDC talk, or on the accounts, all due at the end of the week

So progress has suffered rather. I've found some suitable music, but I need to do the menu, win/lose, etc. and then add as much niceness as possible. I'm not sure exactly when the compo deadline is on Pacific time, but my flight gets into San Francisco at mid-day Sunday and I'm hoping I can use some of the 12 hours in the air to do some coding. We'll see, I might just fall asleep...

Cheers,

Will

[Will Vale]

Well I managed to sneak a couple of hours of extra work time out of the GDC biz, so here's a finished version. It's not *very* finished, but it does work, you can win and lose, and there's jaunty music to boot:

Download Gasbags at Dawn 1.0

I had to rewrite my font code because I didn't have the tool I normally use to generate bitmap fonts on the laptop. Plus I had to buy a new power adapter since the one I brought had no earth pin Truly eleventh hour stuff

Will

[NewlandArcher]

Great style, music was a super addition. Glad to see you found a way to insult your users who merely want to quit the game, that's always nice.

Very well done, hope the presentation goes well!

[Pencerkoff]

Hello this is Pencerkoff

Hey this looks great, but I can't get it to run.  When I try to run it, I get an error message saying I need MSVCR100.dll and that I should try reinstalling.

I did reinstall but to no avail.

I'm on Windows 7

-PENCERKOFF

[Will Vale]

Thanks for giving it a try at least! The installer is supposed to download and install the VC2010 redist, but maybe something screwed up. Can you try installing:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=a7b7a05e-6de6-4d3a-a423-37bf0912db84

and running it again?

I'll double-check that I didn't break something in the install script this afternoon.

Cheers,

Will

[Pencerkoff]

Hello this is Pencerkoff

Indeed that did it.  Took a second to realize that you can stop pumping after you first get started.  I played through most of two rounds before this happened:



I think it was coincidental, but I think I hit alt on accident just before this happened.

If you fix your download, be sure to modify your first post with it at the top so no one has to search for it.

Fun game

-PENCERKOFF

[Will Vale]

Finally back in the office after GDC and a week working for a client in Berkeley, yay!

I managed to get a look at the installer last week, and it all looked as intended. I think maybe what happened is it silently failed to download the VC2010 runtime and then didn't let you know.

I've reworked the install script to ensure the prerequisites exist (or are successfully download and installed) before allowing the game files to install.

Unfortunately my hosting plan hit the bandwidth cap so there's no way to D/L the game at the moment. I should have this fixed in a day or so.

Sorry for the inconvenience, and thanks for trying it out. Do you think the pumping thing would be more obvious if the prompt was bigger? VFX/SFX might work too - if you stop hearing the noise (and 'W' then makes the burner light instead) it should be more apparent what's going on.

Cheers,

Will

[Hayden Scott-Baron]

Increpare, Terry Cavanagh, Sophie H and I tried this game.
Unfortunately we ran away when faced with the installer.

[Will Vale]

This news makes me a sad panda. I had a zip file version but then there's the issue of ensuring you have the VC2010 runtime installed.

Is there no good way to distribute C++ windows apps?

[Will Vale]

Just a quick note to add that I've uploaded the improved installer - same download link as before:

Download Gasbags at Dawn 1.0

If you were able to install 1.0 successfully, you don't need this. If you had the problem Pencerkoff reported:

Hello this is Pencerkoff
When I try to run it, I get an error message saying I need MSVCR100.dll and that I should try reinstalling.

then give the new installer a try. It'll tell you if it can't download the VC2010 redist, and make sure that it installs successfully before continuing to install the game.

@Pencerkoff: Thanks for reporting the Box2D crash - I haven't seen that before. I don't think the ALT key would matter - the physics sim runs on a fixed time step, so the Windows menu loop shouldn't get in the way of the update. I'll keep an eye out for it though.

Cheers,

Will

[Theon]

Looks quite interesting
Downloading.