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[Montoli]

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!

[Montoli]

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!!

Ok, going to bed.

[eigenbom]

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

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

[Montoli]

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...)

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

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.

[Montoli]

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:



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:


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!

[johnki]

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.

[mokesmoe]

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.

[Montoli]

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.

Man, the art style is incredible
....
From the screenshots, it also looks insane. Looking forward to dodging all those bullets, heh.

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!)

[Montoli]

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.

[Montoli]

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 and after comparison of the fonts.  Comments welcome!

[Montoli]

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.

[Montoli]

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. )

[Montoli]

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.

[Montoli]

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!

[Montoli]

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!

[RCIX]

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.

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

[Montoli]

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.   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)

[Montoli]

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.

[Montoli]

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!




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.



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

[mokesmoe]

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