next »

[Fuzz]

The old resetting bug is back in 0.41, I'm afraid!

I played 0.38 in quite a bit of depth, though, and I have to say I really enjoyed it. It has a distinctly sparse atmosphere that was unique to vector games like Battlezone and Mercenary. Controls are smooth, and I didn't find it too difficult. I did find it a little odd that you start with a surface-to-air missile, though, as you can fire this off as soon as you begin, taking out one of the motherships. I do like the sounds, anyway, and think they work well; if you do end up replacing them, I hope you'll be keeping the new ones just as lo-fi.

Also, I'm surprised no-one else has mentioned how impressive it is that you've done all of this in just 42K!

ZGame Editor.

[jph wacheski]

here is a new one,.

http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_042.zip

I finnaly got around to fixing the ground plane so it remains infinite in all directions;

    ^{Pūrṇam adaḥ pūrṇam idam
    Pūrṇāt pūrṇam udacyate
    Pūrṇasya pūrṇam ādāya
    Pūrṇam evāvasiṣyate.}

You can run at the mountains and never reach them,.  . added a camera shake effect when you take damage.., also reworked the menues a bit more,. if you use a controler you will still need to use the keyboard for the menus,. I should fix that eventually., hopefully that fixed that reset bug as well, thanks for reporting! bugs do creep back in eh,.

yeah in the 'finnal game' player will not start with full resourses, this still just a demo,. as far as the sounds remaing low-fi, I will not be 'replacing' them just tweeking stuff as they are all generated real time,. so the retro-electro style will remain intact.,   yup, that and the nice 42kb size is largely due to ZGE having keep these things in mind all along,. .

I added a purpple carrot thing to the energy nodes,. it helps show how charged the node is,. this will make sense eventually,. I hope.  I have some ideas for what they can do and how we will interact with them,. . 

[vdgmprgrmr]

Wait, what's up with enemy projectiles homing in on you? That's crap, man. If they have unlimited homing projectiles for casual use, I should too. Otherwise your game is a small ship that can hardly ever gain access to homing missiles and a weak main gun versus a self-replicating HORDE of homing-missile-firing, jumping (bullet-dodging) thingies. And that's just unfair.

Also, enemies seem to be able to fire projectiles from thin air within a few meters from them instead of just from themselves.

Also, it seems like enemies are able to shoot one more thingy at you even after death.

[Gainsworthy]

mm, i'm getting some short flickering after pressing 'enter' the first time... after that the program keeps hanging in the pause screen somehow. also when i press "resume play" over and over... 

Same here. It seems to reset everytime I press enter.

[jph wacheski]

sorry about the reseting bug,. my entire testing department has all quit,. something about never having gotten paid!    It seems the way the controler is read currently, if nothing is pluged in, it gets false positives, and thus figures your holding down the reset button,. I have to just keep that test off, when keyboard/mouse control is selected (default)., however as I am updateing the menu system currently, some problems have occured.  I'll find all my errors eventualy,. please keep reporting them,. at least the d/l is tinny! 

vdgmprgrmr- ah, I see you are a critic!  Yup, my game is a 'small ship' against a self-replicating horde,. (you may gain some more defenses, perhaps, time willing) however you main gun is not so weak, you one-shot-kill the locust,. however their shots block yours, their shots are SEMI-guided,. they creep in your general direction for the first bit of their life, then continue in that general direction.  They are relatively  s l o w, and don't go that far. Yes I found the problem with the spawning code that was involking them out of place, they all now spawn in the center of the locusts heads,. thanks for pointing that out.  As I am working/focussing on one thing, I miss so many others,. . opponents do however spawn a few shots on their demise,. that is intentional,. loaded shots are released when they burst,. however may change as I am considering a meele weapon for the player,. perhaps it will just be a faster gun that shoots shorter ranged shots,. more to come.

I'll post a new ver later today,. .

[jph wacheski]

ok, i lied this is not later that day,..    its now!

  http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_048.zip

Many things are different gameplay wise,.  you can not currently destroy the drop ship, however there is just one now. I am working on the node destruction and repair system,. so now LMB shoots the same old gun,. HOWEVER, it now depleats your Shield to do so!!  (I know you hate me, Shot and Shilds on the same resource, damn thats wack!)  There are of course lots of Nodes to access,. so remember to recharge Shots/Sheilds on the Nodes! You can move inside them now., and use the RMB to Repair them. You will notice that Repairs cost the RED resource!!  (ORANGE will likely be used to build a structure to launch the anti airship guns, etc. we'll see) 
 The game is now much less of a flatout shooting thing,. and much more move and pick and shoot frenzy,. gotta' get RED stuff to repair/build, and must keep charged up..,  Of course this is still just an in process DEMO and much will change,. . think the reset bug is fixed here as well,. 

also; you can sorta use the Build action as a Meele weapon however this is rather risky, as if the Locust fire off a volly of Sparks and you are right close like,. not good., however the non-sparking Mine like objects are easy to slap out of existance now,.

peace.

[Synnah]

I didn't much like the new mechanics at first; I would charge into a group of enemies, use up all my shields by firing at them, and then die. Eventually I learned to stay close to the nodes and clear the locusts away before moving on to the next one. I still die a lot, though; I'm not nearly as good as I was previously, but I'm guessing a little balancing will help that. One thing I find now is that the locusts fire a bit too much, which often leads to a lot of wasted shots when you're trying to destroy them, as you hit their shots.

Looking forward to seeing what you do with these mechanics, though!

[jph wacheski]

Latest and greatest ver. here;

  http://iterationgames.com/vectorLocust_050.zip

Thanks for the feedback Synnah,. Yes the idea was, that since you destroy the Locusts with just one shot, their shots canceling yours would work as a bit of a shield for them,. however reading about your experiance has proded me to try leting the shots pass throught each other. (theirs are 'spark energy', and your are 'hard matter' so no problem ) it is working quite well, as they are still a bit of effort to shoot due to their incessant hopping around, danm things. I have balanced a bunch of stuff to get the gameplay a bit more to where I would like to see it end up,. as well as added some more visual indications/feedback for some of the events,. such as the Node's Cores flash colors when you fix them (and spin) or when they are hit,. etc. bit more work on the title page,. still need a menu but all in good time,. the gameplay is getting more clear, however I still have loads of work to do on this,. if people ae to figure out how to play it,. . oh there is now an audio alarm that gets faster and louder when you are low on sheild/missle power.  more to come.

[michael]

this is full , that is full,
from fullness, fullness comes out.
taking fullness from fullness,
what remains is fullness.

:O

[jph wacheski]

or Michael perhaps we should say;

^{Teotl is that which is always something other than itself. It is everything and everything is it.
 - Lady of Mazes By Karl Schroeder}

if you like that better,. it comes from the Aztec patterns,.
also, another translation of that Sanskrit could be;

    <sup>That is whole, this is whole
    From the whole, the whole arises
    When the whole is taken from the whole
    The whole still will remain

— Isha Upanishad.</sup>

It was just a comment on infinity, BTW. Relating to my implementation of the infinit ground plane, among other things.

[michael]

ekam sat vipraha bahuda vadanti
truth is one, the wise know it by many names

i love finding synonymity(now a word) between cultures


also, i motion that you must correlate every dev update with a profound proverb or mahavakya 

[Mikademus]

synonymity(now a word)

What's wrong with "conceptual congruence", "congruity" or "cultural accordance"? 

[michael]

 

[jph wacheski]

I just got the turrets working,. well the AI detecting of nearby Locusts to trigger them to fire. gotta work on the building of them a bit as they just pop up currently, should be a bit more effort,. not sure how much more I will be able to do before the deadline rolls around, but I will work to squeeze out as much as i can,.. I will post a video or a demo shortly,. currently planing to get some full (but limited) game experiance done for sunday, and perhaps do more with it after the compo.

as for the Mhavakya of the day,. lets just go with a simple but major one;
 
 Tat Tvam Asi  or in the english  "That thou art"

This one goes to the wholeism of the universe,. that fact that everything you see and know is a part of you,. or you are a part if the rest,. or there is no difference on some level, there is but one universal,. I like the Alan Watts line, that YOU are making the Sun shine, in just the same way that you are making your phisical self take breath,. in that you don't really think about beathing (yet you can think about it and control it, if you wish) and yet YOU are doing it., or is than not you breathing?

[trabitboy]

demo quite impressive so far 

[Dugan]

youtube vid looks fantastic! I`m looking forward to playing this   

[jph wacheski]

ok here is a new 5+ min gameplay video; 

 



still don't know if/how to embed here,. ?? anyone,. ? bueller,. . ?

I now have the BASICS I had hoped for, and it is working quite well IMHO.  I had wanted to do a bunch of Locust types w/ different looks and AIs,. as well as more structures for the player to construct to defend with,. but the basic idea of building and maintining the Blue Nodes is working to give that hectic "plate-spinning" feeling to the gameplay I was after and perhaps in the last couple of days I will be able to work in a few more ideas,. I like this enouph now to say I will continue working on it after the compo and perhaps release an updated and more complete ver. at some point in the future,. and then it will go comercial with a PS3 store release,. . lol.  (if only,. $1.00 per d/l and I could pay for my webhosting!)

anyway I think I will hold off on new demos till sundays 'finnal' release,. peace til underverse comes.

[nihilocrat]

Wow, that looks awesome.

You could sell that game for $5-10, at least, especially if you created a lot of levels/missions/whatever. I can't even dream of making a commercially-viable game...

[Synnah]

The video looks great! I was a little worried that getting rid of the collision with locust shots would make things a bit too easy, but you seem to have balanced it nicely. The cockpit's looking nicer now, too. I look forward to the competition version!

[moi]

That looks awesome mang