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[BadgerManufactureInc]

Joseph I checked your animation which is great!!

I have decided to put my spawn demo on there now too:

http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/300709/23529_The_Excavator_090730.php

And here's an updated screenshot:

[Joseph]

Hey I got to see it finally and it looks great! Nice effects!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Thanks, I'm working hard on collisions still.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Ok alls still seems well with running in browsers etc.

Here's some more shots that I wanted to post:

[fullspectrum]

I like your music!  I spent far too much time though before I realized that I couldn't shoot things, and the explosions were being auto-spawned in the background. 

Thanks 

Good luck Bones you can do it! I think the enemies spawn and move a little fast at the mo, but I can see myself having a lot of fun with this.

[Loren Schmidt]

Yeah, I second wanting to be able to shoot things (and die). This is starting to look pretty good, I'm looking forward to the post tech demo stage. Keep it up!

At this point (granted it's a bit early to tell) I'm not seeing very dramatic variations in enemy type or behavior. The enemy attack waves are really neat, but all fairly functionally similar. It would be neat to have other elements as well, like your blue enemies, suicidal ships, large turrets, stationary enemies, and the like.

10% inspiration and 90% perspiration, they say. Some day I'm going to reword that to make it less cynical and more glamorous. Okay, how about "Being a successful artist is not a matter of talent. It's a matter of sincerity and dedication." Hmm, that's not catchy enough. 

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Thanks guys, the valuable feedback that you give me is helping this project to continue on strong.  Thanks for the encouragement too little bro.

Collision detection is the area being worked on right now, in fact I have got somebody, new, very well versed in these matters stepping in to help for now.. more on this later.  Potentially this project may disperse by involving more than one studio, like I say I willl keep you up to date on that.

@Sparky

Rest assured that there will be more variation; I'd say it's definately a habit of mine (sometimes not a good one) to focus on a single piece of functionality and put other aspects on hold.  I can be drawing lots of enemies in between the collision implemetation code development pause.

Anyway more news when I have some concrete advancements to announce.

Thanks again for looking in again, I know how valuable time is as a commodity nowadays, which is why I appreciate it all the more.

 

Badger

[BadgerManufactureInc]

THE EXCAVATOR LIVES!!!

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091019.html

Collision code was not as hard as I thought.  Don't forget we're talking literally hundreds of objects being tested every fraction of a second...

So it's not just Bullet #20 hits enemy #3, it's more a case of bullet #50 hits enemy #300.

Anwyay despite the large number of collisions being tested, familiarising myself with the concepts I used in my code, and indeed AS3 itself was what took me a couple of months.

I feel that I'm up to speed now though so sorry if anyone felt dissappointed (one or two people said they were).

Once I iron out the explosions and add a few bosses/turrets we'll be laughing.

Can't wait to get this finished now...

Oh, here is the latest build, now hosted on my own domain, showing the collision testing in action.

 

[Montoli]

Awesome!  It lives!  I was actually just wondering last week what ever happened to this project.  (I actually had assumed you'd released long ago and I must have somehow missed it...)  Glad to hear it's still going forward!  Best of luck!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Thanks again for the encouragement.. it wasn't too hard when I looked back at the code.. there' so many ways of doing stuff in AS3, I'm sure you'll agree.. but I believe in the way that I have been shown, and have finally got my head around fully understanding the source code I'm using.

I'm really looking forward to trialling your game Montoli. 

Excavator is still a good week or two away from a playable demo, which I'm also looking forward to playing at long last lol.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091024.html

Check out the demo if you want and see what you think so far... 

It is almost fun playing this now..

It's been so much fun tweaking the spawning code that I have decided to also make a 'challenge' mode with random spawning parameters, if I get time.  For now, however, I'd be best focused on getting the hud/pause menu in there, and some scrolling backgrounds now that the collision code is solid. 

The spawn formations simply have to feel right, there is no science to it, rather just play the game and see how it balances..additional enemies should help to address this. I am not writing a level editor for this game.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I should probably explain why there has been no update for the last 2 months.  First things first, my main priority has been this game, and getting the engine upgraded to AS3 has been a big step.  I am also learning about Facebook applications, and have started an RPG, but I have decided that this game is more important for now.

Enemy ships are now exploding on impact with player missiles but I really need to find a way to structure my attack formations.  Funnily (or not) enough the AS2 engine had a method to create squadrons and delete them.  I need to figure out that same procedure in AS3 now, because at the moment the demo is on loop.

What I am aiming for is to focus on 2 minute sections of gameplay at a time, I am thinking of allowing memory for up to 1000 enemies per 2 minutes (if possible).  The trick will be assigning each squadron member a formation type, a set of targets, a lifespan and so on.  Once 2 minutes are up, the game will move onto the next sequence of events.

I am having to be more efficient now that there's more enemies to keep track of.

So that's about it for now... expect more different enemy vector gfx too (each of which will have its explosion generated from its own image).  Score will be put in.  A boss will be put in, and lives.  Standard stuff really.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091024.html

It's starting to seem more like a game now, the bullets collide and explode the enemies... and I have re-structured the spawning of the bad guys so that the progression feels more like an actual level.  Soon there will be several different sprites, like in the next day or two while I look into procedural generation of the enemies.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I know that some people look upon a devlog as 'cool' or 'fashionable' but for me it's simply a way to collect my thoughts and reflect.  Development would be much slower without, and I also want to say that I don't yet profit from any kinds of blogs on the internet, so I am not writing this to increase my blog portfolio either.  Feedback is always much appreciated 

Note: bullet CODE oriented thread.

I have expanded upon the aliens abilities by adding a bunch of extra data, notably enemy bullets which I'm in the midst of testing right now.

Each alien has a firing rate and a flag to tell the program how recently it fired. Each bullet has an x and y co-ordinate, and an x and y velocity. Enemies also now have health, and a bullet damage.  It should be interesting to see how many enemy bullets the engine can handle.

Multi-dim arrays (tables of data) have a strange syntactical format in AS3, they involve nesting (I'm used to simple array creation like dim a=[10][5]).  Anyway I have got it working ok along these lines:

Code:

var bullet_xco_array = new Array(500);
 
for(var xco:int = 0; xco < bullet_xco_array.length; xco++) 
{
    bullet_xco_array[xco] = new Array(100);
}

bullet_xco_array[30][14]=25; 

trace(bullet_xco_array[30][14]); // echoes 25

I'm no stranger to multi-dim arrays, and would make these 3 dim if I deemed necessary.  Now that I know how to make 2 dim arrays I am ok, I don't really need more than 2 dimension, unless I need to optimize after adding the bullet code, in which case I'll simple re-design the aliens data-structures again.  Normally, I only delve into more than 2 dimensions if engine optimization requires me to, at the end of the day 3 dim arrays can get mighty unreadable, so 2'll do for now.

At the moment the aliens data structures look something like this:

Look away if you aren't interested in code:

Code:

//set up the first 20

for (var sp:int = 1; sp < 20; sp++) 
{  
 enemytype[sp] = 1; // REM copy 'en1.png' pixels

 enemywidth[sp]=44;

 enemyheight[sp]=39;

 spframe[sp]=sp*20;
 
 speed[sp]=45;
 
 startx[sp]=-1*(3*charWidth); starty[sp]=50; //lhs
 
 notargets[sp]=5;
 
 target_length_one[sp]=500;
 target_length_two[sp]=2000;
 target_length_three[sp]=100;
 target_length_four[sp]=1200;
 target_length_five[sp]=5000;

 distancethisstep[sp]=0; // the distance travelled to current target

 target_one[sp]=4;
 target_two[sp]=10;
 target_three[sp]=5;
 target_four[sp]=11;
 target_five[sp]=6;

 currenttargetno[sp]=0;
 currenttargettype[sp]=0;
  
 health[sp]=100;
  
 bulletfrequency[sp] = 30;
  
 bullettimesinceshot[sp] = 0; // the actual frames since the enemy shot
  
 instructions_given[sp]=0;
}

The main loop will subtract 'bullettimesinceshot' from the main counter, if the value is equal to 'bulletfrequency' then some code will be run for that enemy to shoot depending on it's type.

Now for bullet spawning, I can focus on filling in 4 the bullet arrays that I made.

Code:

var bullet_xco_array = new Array(500);
 
for(var xco:int = 0; xco < bullet_xco_array.length; xco++) {
    bullet_xco_array[xco] = new Array(100);
}
 
var bullet_yco_array = new Array(500);
 
for(var yco:int = 0; yco < bullet_yco_array.length; yco++) {
    bullet_yco_array[yco] = new Array(100);
}

var bullet_xv_array = new Array(500);
 
for(var xv:int = 0; xv < bullet_xv_array.length; xv++) {
    bullet_xv_array[xv] = new Array(100);
}
 
var bullet_yv_array = new Array(500);
 
for(var yv:int = 0; yv < bullet_yv_array.length; yv++) {
    bullet_yv_array[yv] = new Array(100);
}

Score has been added (using a TTF for now, though I plan to work with one of the fonts I designed, and translate that into the new AS3 engine too once some of the more fundamental engine gameplay has been worked on first).  I guess I will put lives in tonight, to setup for testing the enemy bullets.

[st33d]

The ship moves a bit quick.

I made a bullet hell shooter once and it really benefits from not having twitchy controls. You need to be able to position a ship accurately.

Otherwise looks very promising. 

[superflat]

Yeah moves very smoothly here.  Look forward to seeing a full level!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

@st33d: Thanks for trying it, and the good advice about the ship.. it does move a bit too quick, and as you say precision is very important in a vertical shmup.  I'd like to try your game sometime too if at all possible.

@Jasper: Thanks bro, I have tried it on most browser types now (IE, Safari etc) and all seems to be ok.  Thanks as well for testing it out, hope you like the explosions!!

Also more good news, I got the bullets drawing/being drawn.  The engine doesn't seem to be struggling, though it may take a while to re-structure everything to accommodate the new code.  At least it spawns bullets and moves them so far.  Here's a screen shot (at the moment I am using miniature green asteroids for alien bullets):

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Ok the aliens are shooting towards the players ship, all seems well, with no slowdown.

Here's an experiment with large bullets:



And another with small bullets:



Look away if you don't like code (again)...

This part checks if it's time to spawn a bullet, this is during looping through all enemies:

Code:

 

if(instructions_given[mvctr]>0)
{
	  
bullettimesinceshot[mvctr]+=1;
 
 
 // ENEMY BULLET SPAWN
 if(bullettimesinceshot[mvctr]==bulletfrequency[mvctr])  //time to shoot
 {
   if(enemytype[mvctr]==1)
   {
    // enemy type 1 fires 1 bullet at a time
    bulletsfired[mvctr]+=1;
    bullettimesinceshot[mvctr] = 0;
		   
    bullet_xco_array[mvctr][bulletsfired[mvctr]] = tempObject.x;
    bullet_yco_array[mvctr][bulletsfired[mvctr]] = tempObject.y;
		   
    var xdiff:Number = bullet_xco_array[mvctr][1]-charObj.x;
    //if(xdiff<0){xdiff*=-1;}
    var ydiff:Number = bullet_yco_array[mvctr][1]-charObj.y;
    // if(ydiff<0){ydiff*=-1;}
		
    xdiff=xdiff/ydiff;
    ydiff=ydiff/ydiff; //unitize velocity increments
		
    bullet_xv_array[mvctr][bulletsfired[mvctr]] = bulletspeed[mvctr]*xdiff;
    bullet_yv_array[mvctr][bulletsfired[mvctr]] = bulletspeed[mvctr]*ydiff;
    
    albullpoint.x=bullet_xco_array[mvctr][1];                      
    albullpoint.y=bullet_yco_array[mvctr][1];
	     
    canvasBD.copyPixels(albullBD,albullBD.rect,albullpoint,null, null, true); 
  
 }
}
   

And here is the part that actually moves and draws the aliens bullets:
 

Code:

for (var alnbulldraw:int=1; alnbulldraw<bulletsfired[mvctr]; alnbulldraw++)
{
 bullet_xco_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw] += bullet_xv_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw];
 bullet_yco_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw] += bullet_yv_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw];
		
 albullpoint.x=bullet_xco_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw]; 
 albullpoint.y=bullet_yco_array[mvctr][alnbulldraw];
	     
 canvasBD.copyPixels(albullBD,albullBD.rect,albullpoint,null, null, true); 
}
  
if (alien_type[mvctr]==1)
{var alnrect:Rectangle=new Rectangle(0,0,aln1Width*2,aln1Height*2);}

canvasBD.copyPixels(aAlienAnimation[alienarrayIndex],alnrect,blitPoint,null, null, true);  

I've already gone over the code needed to create extra alien bitmaps, the only extra change will be altering some of the alien bullet moving code above to test for different alien types, and then I will start creating new bullet spawn formations, I should imagine 1 for each type of alien.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Bullet spawning is moving on nicely.  I can safely say that I have fully designed the first alien type now (just about, after 3 months lol).

Here is a new screen shot:

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I have been testing out the bullet spawning code that I wrote this morning.  Everything seems to be running smoothly especially once I'd added a couple of optimizations such as missing out large sections of code for enemies that had moved off screen and likewise bullets.



I have also updated the latest build, which has score and player life, if you lose all your energy, you go back to 0 score and 100 health.

If you get time, please have a play as I would really appreciate any feedback as ever.

The latest build:

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091024.html