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[FrankForce]

I found a way to get rid of some of the banding in the gif and produce a cleaner image, here is my process...

• Instead of exporting it for Virtual Dub as a gif I export as an image sequence.
• In Gimp use File - Open as Layers then select all the images.
• Scale the image to the desired size.
• Select Filters - Animation - Optimize (for GIF)
• Export as a gif and set the delay between frames.

Also I updated Faster Blaster with the new door opening style used in my Ludum Dare game and cleaned up some of the door placement.

[ithamore]

I tried RGB and liked it. The lightning was the only part that made some serious lag on my legacy workhorse (a XP 64-bit desktop). It would mess up the timing so much with platform jumps. Everything else about the game was a wonderful experience.

As for Faster Blaster, I haven't tried the newest version yet but will soon. I have guests visiting who are occupied my work room for the time being, which limits my free time to do more strenuous work with my workhorse. I have, however, had fun using exploring the "secret" areas of the out-lands of the map.

[FrankForce]

I tried RGB and liked it. The lightning was the only part that made some serious lag on my legacy workhorse (a XP 64-bit desktop). It would mess up the timing so much with platform jumps. Everything else about the game was a wonderful experience.

As for Faster Blaster, I haven't tried the newest version yet but will soon. I have guests visiting who are occupied my work room for the time being, which limits my free time to do more strenuous work with my workhorse. I have, however, had fun using exploring the "secret" areas of the out-lands of the map.

Thanks! The lighting is a bit expensive on older machines, part of that is because I didn't have time to tweak out a low detail settings mode. I would like to do more work on it, I've had so many ideas since about how I can better explore the lighting system. Let me know what you think about Faster Blaster when you check it out, I think we've made some great progress after the last few rounds of feedback here. You will notice I've already modified the doors to open up like the ones in RGB, it's a very subtle visual touch.

[ithamore]

I will cross-test soon, since I got a win7 upgrade at a pretty penny. I, however, still prefer my workhorse, since I can multitask it better than win7.

[FrankForce]

I have been spending some more time on my game engine and just finished implementing a much better text rendering system to render text in world space using my engine's normal rendering pipeline. This is something I've been wanting for such a long time and will be used heavily in all future games.

I went through and replaced all the help boxes in Faster Blaster with world space text. This is a very new feature and kind of shoehorned into Faster Blaster right now so I'm still tweaking it but I think this is am much better way to present info to the player. There is a new build up with this and some other tweaks.

Here's an animated GIF demonstrating how the light affects the help text as it passes through the transparent door. I'm just starting to play around with all the ways to use this, also it looks amazing when normal mapping is enabled.

Direct link to latest build

[SolarLune]

Excellent lighting, as always! Really cool effects. Have you thought of projecting text as light on the wall? That could be cool visually. Also, I think the light should proceed a bit less into solid objects (the amount of lit up ground, for example). Anyway, good work.

[ｍａｓｏｎ]

I had so much fun with this. I love the lighting.

[FrankForce]

Excellent lighting, as always! Really cool effects. Have you thought of projecting text as light on the wall? That could be cool visually. Also, I think the light should proceed a bit less into solid objects (the amount of lit up ground, for example). Anyway, good work.

Thanks! The text is a very new addition to the engine, I'm still working on it. Your idea sounds interesting though, what exactly do you mean by projecting text as light? There are settings for how much light bleeds through and a ton of other settings, I've tried a few different approaches but I'm still experimenting.

I had so much fun with this. I love the lighting.

Cool, I'm glad you like it!

[FrankForce]

Bumping this because I put some more work into it...

• Better text rendering, overlay text looks much cleaner.
• Better emissive terrain rendering. There was a bug causing it to use all white rather then the texture, which was blowing out the emissive.
• When destroying terrain, if the piece left is too small then just clear the tile. Fixes issue with tiny terrain pieces being hard too see.
• Move around missile doors so player won't encounter a door that requires 5 missiles until a bit later on. I really didn't like having a 5 missile door immediately after the first missile pickup. So some doors use the single hit missile "button" style doors now.
• Some level design tweaks here and there.

I'm really excited about the new text rendering system I added to the engine. Previously I was just using crappy DirectX fonts so I had to really limit the text in the game. Now I can finally start to adding more story to my games.

[SolarLune]

Thanks! The text is a very new addition to the engine, I'm still working on it. Your idea sounds interesting though, what exactly do you mean by projecting text as light? There are settings for how much light bleeds through and a ton of other settings, I've tried a few different approaches but I'm still experimenting.

Well, like how the newer Splinter Cell games had text projected as light on walls. The text itself could be light, and your game objects cast shadows depending on their position in the text light.

EDIT: And good to hear about the better text allowing you more freedom to experiment.

[FrankForce]

Hey I wanted to announce some major updates to my game engine that I've been wanting for years now.

• Revamped the editor controls so they are easier to use and learn.
• Pop up help text when the user mouses over the various controls.
• Group select so you can use right mouse to select regions of tiles and/or objects and move them around.
• To go along with group selection there is now cut, copy, paste support.
• The cherry on top though is the undo/redo support on Ctrl+Z or Y, this will make it so much easier to edit levels.

 

For first time I can say that the editor is actually user friendly. More importantly it allows users to edit levels so much faster and with less frustration then before. I've already updated Faster Blaster with the new engine features, and started tweaking the level design a bit. You can check out the new editor by pressing F4 to toggle to edit mode.

Well, like how the newer Splinter Cell games had text projected as light on walls. The text itself could be light, and your game objects cast shadows depending on their position in the text light.

Ah, yeah I think I know what you are talking about, Splinter Cell is awesome at that. My engine doesn't project the light in 3-D but I could fake it.

[FrankForce]

Hi everyone. It's been a long time (5 years!) since I last posted about this game, but I have been continuing to improve it.  A new build is up now, and I could use a few people to help playtest it. Also, if someone with a 120hz monitor can give it a try and let me know how it runs that would be awesome, thanks!

Faster blaster is a small metroidvania game that all takes place on one gigantic map. The player's movement is very physically based with little air control. The art is 8 bit with some cool lighting effects. It takes about 1-3 hours to play through from start to finish.

Website: http://fasterblaster.3d2k.com
Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hb3ichf8svxl5ri/FasterBlaster.zip?dl=0

Here's a list of some of the biggest changes since last time...
- retweaked physics with higher gravity
- did a polish pass on the entire map both visually and usability
- map flow has been adjusted to allow more freedom after mid game
- improved gamepad support
- jumping enemies can be shot from below to do extra damage
- once you hold break, it stays down until you can move again
- retweaked final boss battle and escape sequence
- some rendering bug fixes

[CurryTime]

Oh man. As a huge Blaster Master fan, I love this! The movement looks a little unstable, but not too hard to control. Were you aiming for gameplay that requires players to manage Sophia III-esque's momentum?

[FrankForce]

Hey CurryTime, the concept was basically to make a platformer where you are a car.  So momentum is definitely a big part of it. There is also a brake if you press down that grips really well to help with fine control.

Coding and tuning the vehicle physics was definitely one of the hardest parts.