next »

[Pemanent]

Click to play latest version!

>>>http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12949169/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html<<<

Btw, if might take a while to load even after the main menu appears, but be patient and drink something while you wait.
Controls:
Move - a and d
Pick up and set down - w
Slide - z and x

BTW THIS THREAD IS NOT CALLED BLACK DUDE

Updated 'Story line' -
You are an adventurer who comes across some strange machinery in a jungle. You decide to investigate and follow the wreckage through the jungle to see what it leads to. Obviously you must solve puzzles by moving blocks to get over obstacles along the way. This will lead you to a crashed alien spaceship. This is where Part 1 ends and Part 2 starts. All of part 1 will be in the jungle and all the puzzles will be created exactly from the calculator. Part 2 will take place in the spaceship and will be completely new puzzles. We plan to release Part 1 for free online but charge some money for Part 2. Part 2 will feature new block types and crazy shite which is still very much in the works.




Original post below


And here goes my second devlog! Huzzah!
Game - Block Dude.
Premise - Have you ever played the Block Dude game on the texas instruments calculators? Let me explain, on the Texas Instruments calculators there is a black and white game called Block Dude. Basically you stack the blocks in the level to get to the door. You can only pick up a block that is directly in front of you and you can not spin in place. Anyways. We are basically remaking that.
Team - Me and a friend! This is our first time making a game together so it will be a great learning experience!
Engine - We will be using Unity. We really are not good coders so coding an engine from scratch is way out of our league. This is really our fist time using Unity so again, it will be a good learning experience.

We have set this weekend out to jam on this game. I will be attempting to post frequent updates when we solve a big problem or add a new feature and such.

In preparation for this jam we have filled our stocks.
Thats right we bought two cookies.



At some point we want to do some concept art but we were eager to get into unity so right now we are just getting familiar with Unity and the classes and tools we have at our disposal.

We are a newb team but this should be a fun weekend! God knows we have enough Mountain Dew.

[TheZorg]

This is math class all over again... It took me about a whole school year to beat it, mainly because our teacher was getting more suspicious towards the end (we were staring at that TI-83 way too long to not be suspicious)
All the best of lucks to you guys

[tergem]

  So... much... mountain dew. Best of luck on completing the game. Have better luck on your bodies not failing from all that sugar.

I can't wait to see what you get done over the weekend, I have to finish up a project of mine for a CS final.

I honestly prefer the block switching game on the TI-83's.

[Nugsy]

There is room in that fridge for more dew.

[Pemanent]

Update Number 1.

So far we have a cute little smb esque block guy running around a test level. The movement script is nice and fluid and we found a smooth camera follow script so the camera looks at the character but is not parented to him.

Last night I had major troubles working with animations. I have a walking and an idle animation and I just couldn't figure out how to get the character to look the direction he is moving. It seemed like no matter what I did it just would not export from blender correctly. I woke up this morning and realized that I wasn't exporting the character to the right location. snarf.
This is how I feel at he moment.

But we shall continue on.

Devon (my friend/partner) is working quite successfully on a picking up script. So far when the character is touching the sphere and the mouse button is pressed then the sphere will parent to the character. Obviously we will put in some picking up animations but thats later. He has also implemented unparenting the sphere so he can effectively pick up and put down objects in the scene. I think at the moment he is working on the orientation of the character to the sphere, so it only picks it up if he is facing it.
Anyways!

Not much has changed in the dew fridge, although we did put a sandwich in it.
Oh and thanks for the 'good luck's and such.
lol Black Dude.

[Pemanent]

Update 2 - 11:35 AM

Just another update, with a video this time.

>>>>> http://www.twitvid.com/QTIXB <<<<<

The level you see there is created exactly from the TI-84 calculator.
We plan to have a classic mode created exactly from the calculator and an adventure mode with different block types and water and such.

Done
We have character animations and spinning so he is always facing the direction he is moving.
Also he will place the block in front of him.

What Next
Devon -
Can't drop cubes into walls.
Can only drop cubes when on the ground.

Me -
Giving the character legs!
Creating a door and door script for changing levels.

[im9today]

what if this was all mountain dew gamer fuel. you could have achieved so much more guys... shoot for the stars and land on the moon...

[Player 3]

what if this was all mountain dew gamer fuel. you could have achieved so much more guys... shoot for the stars and land on the moon...

For the last time, Mountain Dew is not an appropriate method of awake-keepery! Try some tea and be amazed at the results. Orange pekoe recommended.



To be honest, I'd like to try this out, but sadly, my OS doesn't support Unity.

[Pemanent]

Character update.

what if this was all mountain dew gamer fuel. you could have achieved so much more guys... shoot for the stars and land on the moon...

For the last time, Mountain Dew is not an appropriate method of awake-keepery! Try some tea and be amazed at the results. Orange pekoe recommended.



To be honest, I'd like to try this out, but sadly, my OS doesn't support Unity.

aww sad to hear. We have also talked about an ios version but thats quite a ways away. We think it would be quite popular on the app store.

hmm. tea. We will definitely try that! Tea is cheaper than mountain dew.

[DementedChicken]

I thought this thread was called Black Dude at first.

Haha!! It's not too late to change it to this!

I hope you're not planning to drink all that mountain dew, or you will surely die/become a vegetable.

[Theophilus]

I thought this thread was called Black Dude at first.

Haha!! It's not too late to change it to this!

I hope you're not planning to drink all that mountain dew, or you will surely die/become a vegetable.

Please. I had one can of mountain dew every day for 9 months. That's why I never slept my entire freshmen year. 

[Pemanent]

Update 3 - 5/14 8:31 PM


Quite an update to the graphics.
Added a grass texture to the ground, a dirt texture to anything your supposed to traverse over and a rust texture to anything you can pick up. Also some grass plant things which have animations.

We switched back to the no legged character because I suck at animating walk cycles, but we added the hat, because its pretty much Block Dudes only defining feature.

Devon is working on some bug fixes, including...
- if you are standing on a block and try to pick a block up in front of you then the character will pick up both the block he is standing on and the one in front of him. That is obviously wrong and needs to be fixed.
- to pick up a block you must be colliding with it, which means you must be moving forward into the block to pick it up. He is adding a range to the collision check.

He is really close to fixing those and when those get solved then we will probably upload a web build. Also I created level 2, which also is an exact replica of the level on the calculator.

We are pretty happy with our results so far considering this is the first time we have ever worked together and neither of use have ever used Unity, oh and Devon, the one doing most of the coding, has never coded in java before. So we are happy with our results!

Up next?
- block movement when attached to the character.
- ummm can't think of what next actually..... I'll just see when I get there.

We have drank a total of 9 dews. which actually is not that much.
Also we agree that we are at least 10% closer to being done.

[Pemanent]

Update 4

We finished some bug fixes which are outlined in the last post so we felt it was time for a webplayer to get some feed back.

>>> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12949169/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html <<<
Controls:
Pick Up - w
Move left and right - a and d
Jump - space

Play it! Let us know what you think! Does character movement feel good! What about picking up and setting down blocks?

Some things we are working on next.
- improve character walking animations
- Level changing when you get to the door.
- main menu stuff.
- maybe some sound ambient and possibly walking sounds.

That is all. At ease solider.

[Sakar]

Couple suggestions:
- Allow in-air movement. Feels weird not having control mid-air
- Picking up blocks seem to be activated when the button is released (if I put down a block and release W I pick it back up)

Also when falling I tried to drop a block and it vanished

[Pemanent]

- Allow in-air movement. Feels weird not having control mid-air
- Picking up blocks seem to be activated when the button is released (if I put down a block and release W I pick it back up)

Considering this is our first game I knew there would be some no brainer things that needed to be fixed. Thanks a ton for the input. Devon is changing it as I speak.

... with the kidney stones, I mean. from all that Mountain Dew.

Mountain Dew causes kidney stones?!?! Where is that tea.

[Pemanent]

We updated the build again. Link is on the first post.

We added:
- some test particle systems,
- vines
- rocks
- fixed some of the bugs pointed out by sakar. Thanks a ton.
- enabled in air movement.
- first iteration of the main menu and a level selector
- also a clock to time how long it takes for you to complete the level.
(the clock starts when the game is loaded, not the first level, so thats a bug we will fix.)
I think thats about it.

Play it, let us know what you think.

We both had a ton of fun and think this weekend went great, you might not hear from us for a while because we don't know when we will be able to get back together again, but don't worry we will meet again! We still have quite a ways to go but are really happy with the start.

[SundownKid]

Ahh, good old Block Dude. I got pretty far in that game.

This reboot is great. I think that if you're standing on top of a block, you should be able to pick it up by pressing down, and be able to drop a block in front of you even if there's not enough space and get pushed back. What would also be cool is some kind of marker/indicator for where you are dropping the block.

[Pemanent]

We have upgraded the graphics! Quite a bit. See for yourself.


Completely changed the lighting and removed the floor blocks for an actually piece of terrain. It creates a much better look. We are still working on the background assets and creating the effect of an infinite dense jungle, instead of a plane with a texture.

Also Devon implemented some code so when the player is holding a block there is a particle effect playing on the ground so the player knows where he will be placing the block.

Anyways, most of the work got done today at school. Me and Devon have a 'intern' tech class where we fix the computer problems in the district. Today the teacher let us have a lan party but me and Devon decided to work on the game.


Pretty fun, the guy all the way to the left is Devon, I'm taking the picture and that guy looking at the camera, well he is just an idiot.

Sad to say we have not updated the build yet.

[Pemanent]

I updated the build so you guys can play through the first level.
That is pretty close to the feeling we will be using for the next 10 levels.

Let me know what you think! How can I make it better?

[Pemanent]

Build link updated again.

Additions
- A wireframe box that appears in front of you when you pick up a cube so you know where it will place when you set it down.
- Changed the doors too portals (read the story info on the first page
- Updated level 2 with new assets / style.

Next?
- Level 3!
- figure out a way to hide the line between the cliffs and the ground. hmmm
- implement a block snapping thing to remove a game breaking 'cheat' (so the blocks snap on top of each other when so you can't offset them. basically forcing the player to use 3 block to create stairs instead of 2, its hard to explain. )

In other news, our mtn dew frigde is getting scarce