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[J. R. Hill]

Man this really is a cool look you got here.

[Kazerad]

Call them Balls. It has a whole host of terminology associated with it. For instance:

Getting more particles: "I feel ballsier."
Encountering an enemy who has less particles: "You don't have the balls to fight me."
Taunting an enemy: "Let's have a ball."
Being overpowered by an enemy with more particles: "Oh balls."

[J. R. Hill]

YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY BALLS!!

[theparticleman]

YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY BALLS!!

This conversation seems to have taken an unexpected turn! 

Haven't had much time to work on game-related code so far this week.  I worked on lots of work related code.  Unfortunately, web services, while very useful, just aren't as fun as particle systems.  Stupid work and the lovely, lovely money you provide!  Anyway, I'm hoping to have some time this weekend to work on stuff.  My goal is to get collision detection and movement working this weekend, then start on some funner stuff like baddies and combat next week.  I'm taking the week between Christmas and New Year's off.  I'll hopefully get a good full day or two of coding in there somewhere.

Anyone else have any particle name ideas?

[Hangedman]

Plasm, sparks, glow, tide, source, shine

[saluk]

appendages, extensions, floaters, visions, particles, souls, everpresent, materia, flakes, pieces, fragments, origin, cells, atoms, motes, vapour

I do like balls though

[theparticleman]

Thanks for all the great names!  If anyone else has any more, let me know.  Now to go get my collision detection code working.  If I can make good progress on it this weekend I'll be able to post a gameplay video or demo or something.  Woot!

[J. R. Hill]

You could also add ball as a suffix to any of these other ones.

[JMickle]

You could also add ball as a suffix to any of these other ones.

i can add a ball to most things

[theparticleman]

I got some basic moving and collision detection working and made a little video of it.





Couple of questions:

• Does the guy look too small?  Most of him is covered up by the gray grass stuff.  Good or bad?
• What do you think of the bouncy movement?  I fixed it, but I almost kind of like it.  Kind of makes up for the fact that the sprite isn't animated.

My next step is to add jumping and clean up the collision detection a bit.  Then I want to make a bigger map and push out a demo so I can get feedback on the movement.

Okay one more question: Do people have a preference between .NET 2.0 and 3.5?  I'm using a few features from 3.5, but I could take them out if lots of people have 2.0 and can't/don't want to upgrade.

[Crackerblocks]

I like the bouncy movement. And I don't think he's too small. The grass also hides the lack of animation. And with jumping you'll get plenty of opportunity to see your dude. Summary: roll with it.

.NET version. I'm a programmer and I have no idea what version I have installed. Might be wise to play it safe. I find if someone can't run your game they most likely just shrug and move on to the next game.

I got some basic moving and collision detection working and made a little video of it.





Couple of questions:

• Does the guy look too small?  Most of him is covered up by the gray grass stuff.  Good or bad?
• What do you think of the bouncy movement?  I fixed it, but I almost kind of like it.  Kind of makes up for the fact that the sprite isn't animated.

My next step is to add jumping and clean up the collision detection a bit.  Then I want to make a bigger map and push out a demo so I can get feedback on the movement.

Okay one more question: Do people have a preference between .NET 2.0 and 3.5?  I'm using a few features from 3.5, but I could take them out if lots of people have 2.0 and can't/don't want to upgrade.

[theparticleman]

Woot!  I just got to an alpha demo state.  I think I have all the map tiling working and a reasonable movement and collision detection system in place.  Give 'er a spin and let me know what you think.

http://mythicant.s3.amazonaws.com/SONR_Alpha_1.zip

Any feedback anyone has would be appreciated, but I'd specifically be interested in the following items, roughly in order of importance:

• Does the game even run on your machine?  The only prerequisite should be .NET Framework 3.5.
• Does the game run at a reasonable frame rate?  The target frame rate is about 66fps.  The game will hopefully run on a variety of hardware at that speed.
• Are there any holes in the collision detection?  Can you get anywhere that you shouldn't be able to?  Do you get stuck anywhere where you shouldn't.
• How is the movement?  Arrow keys move left and right.  Space or up arrow jumps.  Does the jumping feel good?  Is the movement too slow?  The included map is just for testing.  The actual map will probably have stuff spread out a bit and will be a lot bigger.
• I went with Crackerblocks' suggestion to keep the bounce, though I did change it slightly.  Anyone have any additional comments on it?  Yea or nay?  I kind of like it, but it might be a little too epilepsy inducing.
• This is sort of a loaded question, since the look isn't anywhere close to finished, but how does it look?  Keep in mind there is no background yet.  And no particles.  And no baddies.  And the final game will probably be full screen (or at least have that as an option).  So...um...yeah.  Let me know what you think I guess.

Now on to some more fun things like baddies and particles!

[J. R. Hill]

The bounce seems either too high or too quick, but maybe just because I'm not zapping anybody yet.  Also by walking all the way to the left wall I got stuck in it.

[theparticleman]

The bounce seems either too high or too quick, but maybe just because I'm not zapping anybody yet.  Also by walking all the way to the left wall I got stuck in it.

Yeah, I was wondering if the bouncing was too fast.  Maybe I'll see what others think too.  Maybe I'll work on it after I get some other things working.

You got stuck?  Like stuck in a wall?  Or stuck in the bottom left corner "pit"?  You can get out of the bottom left corner if you jump at just the right time and bounce high enough.  If you got stuck somewhere else could you let me know where and if you did anything special to get stuck?

Thanks for the feedback!

[J. R. Hill]

In the wall, couldn't move left or right.

[theparticleman]

I haven't had nearly as much time to work on things as I would have liked, but I've gotten a few things done.  I added a background which, though you can't see it in the screenshot obviously, has a 1 layer parallax thing going on.  I also added some initial particle system stuff, which you can see in the screenshot.  It's not perfect yet, but I think I'm going to make the particles do something (other than following you around and hovering around you that is) before I tweak how they look too much more.  Let me know if you have any comments on the current look.  When I get some more functionality going I'll push out another build.

In the wall, couldn't move left or right.

That's very weird.  I've tried getting stuck but haven't been able to.  Was it a one time thing or can you reproduce it?  If you can reproduce it, can you give me some tips on what you're doing so that I can hopefully fix it?  Thanks!

Now maybe to start adding some baddies.  And maybe see if I can fix the bug jrhill found.

[J. R. Hill]

Well I can't get it to happen again so who knows!
 

[theparticleman]

Well I can't get it to happen again so who knows!
 

I think I know what the problem was.  I was doing some stupid stuff which would very occasionally manifest itself with just the player going, but reared its ugly head much more frequently when adding additional characters.  I think I fixed it so it shouldn't be a problem again.  If you do notice a problem on any subsequent builds do please let me know.



I wanted to get all the basic engine stuff going this week, but haven't gotten quite as much done as I would have liked.  But I was able to do some more work on the particles, as well as implement some baddies and allies with some basic functionality.  Here's a video of it even!





The frame rate in real life is better than it is in the screen capture, though not quite as high as I would like.  I made some speed optimizations, but need to make some more.  (Currently, the background is one huge 1600x1200 image that gets drawn every frame.  Not efficient, but easy for now.)  In the video you can see a couple of things I've had time to implement: 1) You don't start off with any particles, but the yellow guy gives you some (and then dies.  It's so sad!  ).  2) There are baddies who also have particles.  3) To make the combat a little more interesting I decided to try making it so you can put particles on offense or defense.  You can move particles back and forth between the two (as can the baddies).  It's a little hard to see in the video, but some particles spin around you (defense) and some fly towards the bad guy (offense).  4) You don't get to see it except on the very last baddie at the end, but the baddies turn to face you if you're close enough.  Yeah, I'm just that awesome!

Some things still to do (roughly in the order I plan to do them):

• Make it so the particles actually do damage.
• Make it so you can kill the bad guys.
• Figure out what to do if the baddies kill you.  I don't think I'll have the game end or have lives or anything like that.  I'm thinking of just sending you back a ways to somewhere you were a couple of minutes ago or something like that.  Not sure though.
• After I get all those things working I need to figure out if combat is actually any fun.  If not then I'll have to modify some stuff.
• Make a way bigger map with way more content.  I'll probably have to create an editor for this, which I've been avoiding doing so far.  I'm not sure why, as a good editor makes creating content go SO much faster.
• I need to add music and sounds and stuff.  That involves going through the sound assets from part 1 (I've mostly only looked through the graphics so far).  I want to do a new sound engine, but I have an existing one that I could use if I need to.  If anyone has good ideas for sound and music let me know.

There's also a big list of stuff I want to do, but I don't know if I'll have time or not:

• Create way more types of baddies.  I want some that have different offense/defense strategies.  I want some that change their strategy dynamically based on how well they're doing.  I also want to add some larger baddies (not oyrx's sprites probably).
• I want to make the baddies move around some.  If I get all the AI worked out for general movement in the game world I want to make some allies that can accompany you around, attacking baddies.  Like the yellow guy at the beginning, but they follow you around helping instead of just dying.
• Full screen mode.  I want to give the player the option to play in windowed or full screen mode.
• Text.  I want some in game text snippets to help explain what's going on and let the characters speak a little bit.
• Nice start up.  Everyone likes cool start up screens, right?
• Maybe some kind of saving.
• Oh, yeah.  A way to finish the game.  That might be a good idea, wouldn't it?

Well, let me know what you think of the video and if you have any ideas on the items in my todo list.  I'm hoping I can finish the basic combat stuff finished in the next couple of days, then I'll post another build I think. 

[theparticleman]

There are some benefits to waking up at 3am and not being able to go back to sleep.  It gives you some time to code!

I got some basic combat working.  You can actually kill things and they can kill you.  Here's a demo!

SONR Alpha 2

First, let me explain some things.  When you get some particles from the yellow guy, they all start out "defensive".  They will defend you when you get attacked.  To change them to "offensive" press F.  To change them back to defensive press D.  (F and D don't mean anything.  That's just where I put my hand naturally.  If you have a better suggestion of which keys to use, please let me know.)  When you die you get sent back to where you were 60 seconds ago.  If it's been less than 60 second since you've been playing you get sent back to where you started.  You can't actually die.  When you attack or get attacked your particles lose energy.  When you aren't doing any attacking your particles charge back up.

Second, I'd like some suggestions on combat.  For me it seemed fun for a minute or two, but now it seems kind of dull.  Does anyone else agree?  Is the combat fun?  Is it boring?  If it is boring, any ideas on what to do to make it more interesting?

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!


P.S.  I need to pick a better name than "particle" and start using it.  I'm leaning towards "spark", but I haven't decided yet.

P.P.S.  You know the yellow guy at the beginning?  His name is Prof.  Prof, please don't take the fact that the character that is named after you dies at the beginning as a negative comment against you.  It's really a very noble and heroic death.  Believe me.  It's supposed to be an Obi-wan Kenobi type death.  (Yes, I watched too many hours of Star Wars this last week.)  When I get some text in there it will hopefully make more sense.

[J. R. Hill]

Although it does look pretty fantastic, the combat feels really formulaic.  Basically I defend and let them attack me until they stop, then attack them until they die.  It doesn't feel like there's much skill or chance involved in it, plus it's hard to tell when you're defending or not.  (I died a few times in attack mode thinking my position was glitching until I realized I had to set it back to defend)

Here's my suggestion: right now there are only two states, attack and defend.  I suggest adding a third so you get a rock-paper-scissor effect.

Basically you'd get this:

Defend beats Attack1 - Blocks it
Attack1 beats Attack2 - Blocks it and deals damage
Attack2 beats Defend - goes through it and deals damage

Anything versus itself - nullifies each other

Attack1 stays as the swarm, but Attack2 could be like, all the balls fuse and then move to the enemy and separate inside him?


...Anyway, I'll go back to my armchair.