TIGSource Forums

This is a multi-user-adventure, based on the Nanovoid (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3670.0)-engine. All players are located in the same world and some parts of the world are blocked by special barriers which only can be removed by a team of players. And there are some boss-monsters which are also too strong for one single player.

features:

• mouse/touch/joypad/keyboard control - integrated online chat
• cross-platform: Windows / MacOS-X / Linux / iPhone / iPad (probably freeware)
• milestone-1: a player, a sword, a maze, some bats, a dragon and a treasure

Lazycow's collection of all devlog-game-animations can be found here (http://www.lazycow.de/previews/treasureline.html)
Scamper (http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?action=profile;u=4881)'s "Dungeon Theme - In The Caverns" can be found here (http://drop.io/5dizsor9844)

Do you want to contribute? Please tell me!

(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/5606/mockup1.png)  (http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7056/tldragon2.gif)  (http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7034/tlplayer4.gif)
milestone-1: mockup / early dragon test / item handling

I can identify with you situation, ive got a team project on hold too, and i often when my partner is going to get back to me with something :S

nevertheless, i eagerly await whichever of these is released first

How did I miss this? This will be a tasty appetizer for the main course that is Silverline!
 :coffee:

(http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/7056/tldragon2.gif)
I made some progress on the dragon. Here's a trailing test of the body parts - currently without head and wings. Feel appetized, Ashkin. ("appetized" might not be a real word, though)

@Alomard: I have started about 10 cooperations with artists and all lost their motivation about some weeks. Finally, I am doing the graphics myself. They might not look so good, but there's a chance that something gets finished!  ;)

Head and wings need to be drawn from different angles. Oh well... hard work...

Lookin' good.

Your graphics look just fine.

Silverline lives on!


And the name better be true to it; I expect lots of treasures (in lines being optional)!

That's awesome.

Indeed! I had once made sketches of sphere-based beings, which would have worked well with my rendering system, but I had given up since I didn't seem to be able to make them look interesting. And now comes this. Amazing and very impressive ;D

What a cool idea!  It seems like there's a lot of room to do interesting things with the multi-player aspect of it.  The dragon is looking great ^_^

Hey that's really cool

it is

shit. this is beautiful. a lo-res multiplatform multiplayer coop zeldalike dungeon romp is kind of my dreamgane.  whats it being developed in? i might be very interested in offering some artistic help with this project. but i should wait and see where it goes so as not add an 11th artist to your flop list

or we can talk about what kind of art you'd like to have

That's an awesome graphic style :handthumbsupL: :handthumbsupR:

Looking good so far!

Posting so I can follow this.

One more vote for awesomeness from me.  I am super excited for this, there are so many things to be explored in multiplayer that indie games haven't really touched on yet!

Thanks for your feedback! I am still working on this and I will try to continue with that graphics style. Although, animating that dragon might have been a bit too ambitious for me. I have failed to create flapping wings for 8 directions so far. Maybe the dragon will only walk around. Here's a one-leg-test:

(http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/2121/dwalk.gif)

@michael: Some artistic help would be great. (Watch your mailbox) Treasureline is coded in C (by using the same game core as Nanovoid and Silverline)...

@Hajo: Constructing images out of rendered objects is difficult. They always look segmented. That might be ok if the object itself is segmented. (like this: nvtentacle4.gif (http://img91.imageshack.us/img91/6199/nvtentacle4.gif)) Animating such segmented objects is a nightmare, too...

@Inanimate: There might be an intro sequence with a line of treasures  ;)

If the dragon is getting in your way, I say you leave it wingless and say it's a baby dragon or something. Then you can continue with the coding, and come back to it later.

You could have an abstract dragon, just how it is right now. I think it looks fine.

Man, this looks incredibly cool!
I agree with the last two posts, if the art gets too complicated the way you have in mind, do without it! The style that your mockup have is already good, actually as someone pointed, they seem to be 'abstract' creatures, and it works. Honestly.

(http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/5168/flaptest.gif)

Here's a test for the flying animation. I don't like it very much, but I might stick with it. Any hints how to improve it?

To be honest, I do not like the dragon without head. Too abstract for the style i am up to. It will need at least a head. I would be ok for me to drop the wings, but it has to fly somehow, you know...

Also, the dragon is a key element in this game, so I cannot skip it. (the other game elements are quite simple)

I like the animation, but maybe on the downstroke some blur could make it look faster.

Why would anyone want to play as the guy with a key and not the guy with a sword?

Your opinion might change when you enter a room with 20 locked doors. (just kidding)

But seriously, that's a good point. This grab-only-one-item concept might probably not survive very long. But on the other hand, you can drop your key and grab a 2nd sword. Noone will kill you. (well, maybe someone will)

Maybe instead of a key, make it a lockpick or something.  It amounts to the same thing in the end, but it might make the one carrying it feel cooler.  You could also add a special ability to the key item, such as being able to detect hidden doors at close range.  That is also a good idea for an item on its own though... :-\

I am also a fan of the art style.  My first impression was that the end ball was the dragon's head.  I was corrected after looking at the other screenshot, but I think the dragon looks fine either way :)

This looks like a fun project.  Do you plan on having a lobby like StarCraft/Halo/etc so that players can more easily find each other?  Or do you want to keep it invite-only to help prevent hacking issues?

Have the head at static z, i.e. not moving up and down. Same for the tail or some other movement. Just a bit of lag on it would help.

@invisibleMan: Ok, a lockpick-guy is cooler than a key-guy  ;) It depends on the final game, tough. If there are lots of puzzles and only a few monsters, it might work. But if there are lots of monsters, then anyone should be able to fight them.

About the network: Actually, all player appear in the same world. And they start in the same room. (call it lobby if you want) But because of the peer-to-peer structure of the network, there's an upper limit of simultanous acting clients. I don't know what I am intending here. It should not be a problem, until the game is getting too popular.

@Alex May: Yes, good idea  :handthumbsupR:

For some reason, I thought all the different characters started out quite far from each other and had to make their way to the same spot to team up.  It'd be awesome if each person had to go through several rooms and skip a lot of interesting things because they need other people to get to them.

Then once everyone met up, they could share what they found on the way and talk about going to get it.  :wizard:

Tell me that's what you had in mind.

Actually, I wanted to create one single world for all players, like in a mmorpg. (yes, it might be an adventurous move to mention mmorpg in context with a game that only supports 16 clients at a time)

So, if you enter the game, then already playing characters are spread all over the map and you will have to find them. (probably) It remains to be seen if that single-world-plan is possible with a peer-to-peer network. (I do not have a fallback-plan, yet)

And yes, I want to include barriers that only can be crossed by a cooperating party. (e.g. puzzles) And boss-monsters should be too tough to be killed by one single character...

This looks rad.

(http://img716.imageshack.us/img716/6434/tldragon3.gif)
Here's an improved flapping animation. This time there are 8 animation frames for the wings. Dragon's head is still under construction, though...

 :-*
Beautiful.

Lovely! I'd suggest that the upwardly movement wouldn't be so smooth and happen over such a long period of time; instead, make it happen in a few frames right when the wings have flapped to the bottom-most position.

(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2366/tldragon4.gif)

A new dragon animation... This time with head, 360 degree flapping and some background pixels from Tocky.
Creating these wings was way too complicated. I have been too ambitious, something simpler would have done the job, as well. Ok, time to do some other things for the game.

@Hempuli: Yes, the z-movement was out of sync.

Holy yellow-ball-dragon!  That's an awesome dragon!  The hard work paid off that thing looks amazing! ;D

Wow, it's so smooth and so pro..
Congratulations and keep going : D!

All that work was totally worth it.

 :addicted:
Must... Kill... Must steal treasure...

Wizard!  :handthumbsupL: ;D

 :handthumbsupL: :-* :handthumbsupR:

 :handthumbsupL: >:D :handthumbsupR:

can't wait. The flapping wing looks great too.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad that most of you you like the dragon. But now to something less spectacular: Collecting items. Did you ever asked yourself... "What is a treasureline?" Here's the answer:

(http://img713.imageshack.us/img713/4527/tlplayer1nnlkoy.gif)

+1
+1
+1
+1
+1

I concur.

Can we get each body part of the dragon casting a shadow, or is that asking too much? I think it would compliment the pseudo-3D drawing style really well, whereas the circle shadow kind of works against it.

Interesting idea...

(http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/2366/tldragon4.gif) (http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/686/tldragon5.gif)
old / new

...but then again you want to see the exact shadow of the wings, don't you?

With more detail there comes the wish for even more detail ...

The new shadow is good, since it changes with the dragons moves. I'd take the cut here and don't try to make it more realistic.

Work on the game, it looks tempting :)

Circle shadow for the wings will do. You could also try it without shadows for the wings at all.

tha's good enough, wing's shadow would be distraction really!

You could make the wing shadow circles bigger when the wings are outstretched.

I agree with him!

Sacred words, go on with the game... don't lose yourself into details!!! :D

(http://img63.imageshack.us/img63/5500/tlplayer3.gif)
It's really hard not to get lost in details, but I try. Approaching Milestone 1 now... I have finished the basic item handling: You grab an item by walking over it. And there are 2 buttons: "Action" and "Drop". Also, you see the item next to the player sprite while walking, which is a bit of a hassle while drawing the items. (I have been using overlays in the paint program to place the items) Is it ok to show the items like that? What do you think?

(http://img192.imageshack.us/img192/6596/itestx.gif)
the spritesheet

@Alex May: Yes, that's interesting. Size changing circles for the wing shadows might work. I might give it a try later, when working on the dragon again.

Think of the hassle when you want to change the sprite though, you'll have to copy/paste it over each position in the bitmap. I would set up a list of points where the item should be drawn relative to the character - you've doubtless already got something that says "if facing left, draw this first instead of second", so why not also have a lookup into a set of data points that tells you the offset to draw the sprite, and what orientation to draw? Essentially a list of hand positions and orientations.

(http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/7034/tlplayer4.gif)

@Alex May: Ok, you have convinced me. Yes, the objects can be sorted according to their orientation. (You can see that very good on the dragon's body parts, but all other objects share that behaviour, too) So, I have included an offset-table for the right-hand. Didn't I want to avoid adding details? Anyway, I hope it will pay of in the long run.

Also included: The status display. Player's health is displayed below the player sprite. That Player name is somewhat disturbing, though.

Next up: The boss fight. (Then everything's done for milestone-1. whoo hoo...)

 :handshakeL: ;D :handshakeR:

Somehow I feel there's something missing on that status display... Maybe on the right it could have who's playing, and on the left a radar to keep track of your allies.

OH GOD SO CLOSE

The UI of your game is very good, but you must add the post count to it...

...

Jokes aside, it's adorable.

@Ashkin: Empty space next to the status display could be used for the chat window, if you are concerned about that one. A radar is supported by the engine, maybe activated by a special item?

But I'm not sure about that list of active players. Are there online games that have such lists?

@CiroContinisio: "post count"...?!? Eh, I don't get it. what? what?

Its looking really wonderful Lazycow, I am getting really excited to try this out.  Keep spitting out awesome stuff!

Well, I dunno. Chat would be good.

It's a joke about this recent thread: http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=11220.0;topicseen

Hey guys,
I got something for you.

As I'm working on the music for Silverline/Treasureline I'll show you an early track. It was created for Silverline, but since it's progress is unclear, this might be used in Treasureline.

So, here is the
Dungeon Theme - In The Caverns
http://drop.io/5dizsor9844 (http://drop.io/5dizsor9844)

This is actually insanely awesome to me.  its not often you see analog-style movement in 2d games - especially pixel games.  But when you do, it always looks really awesome.  I bet you could pixel this in such a way that the balls look less apparent that they are seperate.  Makes me really want to try :S

what are you making this in, man?  I'm super jealous.

-Dan

Treasureline is done in C... (it uses a custom made game construction kit, which is still in development)

You're referring to the dragon, aren't you? I think you cannot do much with these spheres - the problems are the head and wings. (which somehow do not match that style) Anyway, if you want to pimp it up, feel free to give it a try.

You could have the outline as a separate sprite, then draw the outlines first (underneath) and the insides afterwards.

(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x197/haowan/tl.png)

Bit much maybe for the low-fi quick route you want to take, which I like btw. I think it looks fine as-is.

Did some fiddling and the described effect works better if you keep certain bits on the top layer:

(http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x197/haowan/tl2.png)

Wow, not bad! Ok, you proofed me wrong, the spheres can be improved.  ;)

But it seems even harder to me to create head and wings that can compete with that style. (at least without 3D software) Initially, I wanted to avoid that. :-\

haha this looks like it could be great! networked games are awesome, it's something besides Super Cock Blockers i can enjoy with friends at LAN parties and such

Yeah, it might prove difficult, and also end up not matching with the rest of your art, etc. I say it looks fine as it is :)

So I combined the ideas of what I was thinking and what alex suggested and made a quick edit.

(http://danfessler.com/dump/lazycow_edit1.png)

I only did one ball because I didn't have too much time, but as you can see, it can look pretty dang awesome fully textured.

Wow, this is rather awesome on all fronts, so far! Very impressive use of sprite layering, and very informative how you guys pulled that off.

Design suggestions, particuarly regarding "keyholders": rather than to have abstract keys and locks (which BTW, has been done to death, and wouldn't be any fun for that player, really), you could make different weapons or items open passages instead (puzzlesolving!), and yet still be integral to the overall gameplay.

You can also give certain creatures and enemies immunities (or a healing effect from certain "weapons"), so players with that particular kind of thing would have to play it more defensively or cautiously. You could also give players healing/immunity effects too, so they can adapt to otherwise-treacherous terrain and obstacles.

You could also consider spawning a few disposable or collectable things in rooms as well, so it's not like they're sitting around turtling and waiting for a clear path. So while some characters are "locked in combat," others can collect power-ups to support them. Variable offense/defense teamups would make for interesting gameplay, but may be tricky to execute in melee-based gameplay (unless that IS "the defense").

Finally, divided rooms/passageways, where the players must split up, cover a couple of bases together, and meet back up on the other side.

The problem with fully textured elements is when the thing is moving - as they go 'north' of other elements they will pop behind them and that'll be more visible the more busy the texture is. With the flat shaded bits, the outline idea deals with the popping as you don't see the edge of the element going behind the elements around it.

The combine idea rock my world so hard, my head explode.

Then again, it'd probably kill the artist working on this trying to match the rest of the game to that level of detail.

@CiroContinisio: I miss that counter!

@DanFessler: Yeah, nice pixels! A differnt color for the underside is a nice idea. :handthumbsupR:  But again... just bodyparts! I wonder if I should replace that dragon by a worm, then the problems will be gone. Or just constructing head and wings out of segments. Oh, I should try. Also, some test-fights indicated that it is impossible to kill such a big moving dragon with a small 16-pixel sword. Probably, a baby dragon has to do the job here...

@baconman: Hiding one single key in a multi-user game is challenging, one point for you. But I like the idea of a red key for a red door of a red castle with red dragon. And then there is a blue key for a blue door of a ... (make an educated guess) That is so simplistic. At least it is a start. Can be changed later.

@rayteoactive: What? What? Who is trying to adjust graphics if you kill artists, eh?

I am posting here just to keep an eye on this.

Very, very cool stuff.

Cute dragon  :)

I still don't like that flying animation, so back to the drawing board. Here's a walking test... Yes, the legs are missing. But most of you seem to be fans of the minimalistic solutions, I bet someone wants to see a legless dragon. Anyone?  ;)

(http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/9089/ewalk.gif) (http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/3770/tldragon6.gif)

Glad you're still working on it!

Please no, the dragon is truly awesome!!  :-*

Haha, very cute ^_^  I can't wait to see the fully textured version of the dragon as well.  Just from looking at Dan's mockup I can tell it's going to be awesome.

Wow, that's some incredible animation work. It makes me weep bitter tears for my puny efforts...

I'm keeping my eye on this!  :handthumbsupL: :eyebrows:

(http://img715.imageshack.us/img715/5607/tldragon7.gif)
"Oh look, his first steps..." Of course, this type of animation has never been done before with the construction kit, and I had to redesign the animation handling and fix the usual bugs, etc.

It seems to have some troubles when changing the walking direction, doesn't it? Also, maybe I should use legs build of 2 parts? Meh, I don't know.

@supershigi: I think there won't be a DanFessler-textured dragon, simply because my pixel skills are not good enough, but maybe there will be an AlexMay-shaded dragon   ;D

I think the problem is that he changes direction when his weight is on the wrong foot. If you think about humans walking, we tend to pivot on the leg that is on the inside of the curve.

I find the slightly-wobbly walk cycle you have no adorable, however. I could see some giant baby waddling around like that.   :)

Is this game really being programmed or are you just torturing us? D:

Good to see an update :)

Can't wait, this looks amazing.

i wanna see the whole dragon

(http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/6910/tldragon8.gif)
A new walking test with legs, neck and tail. If you observe the animation closely, you may spot some overlapping spheres from time to time. I tried to fix them with a rubberbanding algorithm, but it's not gone entirely. (seems like I have to tweak the parameters a bit more)

But you can already see where this is going to.

@Destral: Hmm... I think you're right. Fortunately, this is not really visible in this 4-leg walking test. Maybe the 2 additional legs do some magic. It even doesn't look that baby-like anymore, does it?

@Landshark: Guess so... stand by, head and wings coming soon.

@Zulli: Yes, I am really programming this. However... No, just kidding.   (Ok, you made my day)

To me it feels like his front and back legs are too close together. I'd expect a lumbering dragon to have a longer body. Looks good in the main though.

Looks good, but I liked the flying one anyway :)

Like oddball says, maybe try having two of the two-legged body bits?

I swear I can hear stomping when I watch the latest dragon animation test. :epileptic: Very nicely done.

(http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/4417/tldragon9.gif) (http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/6736/tldragon10.gif)
Yes, I forgot to set the animation delay here. But somehow, I had the feeling that you want to see this anyway.  ::)  In the 2nd animation you see a test with the new feet. Is the distance between the feet large enough now? (It does not look very appealing when I use a body with two big segments. I could make the body bigger, though. But our hero that has to fight him is only 16x16 pixels...)

Ah, yes... You get a change to see the new head of the dragon! Will it be finished soon, or is this going to be a dragon simulator? Well, we are almost there: Head and feed have to be drawn in all 8 directions (oh oh) and then I have to add some wings. (sic)

Didn't read the whole seven pages of discussion but I'd prefer a two legged dragon which walks a little upright personally. The technique is amazing anyway!

Edit: BTW: How do you make those amazing gifs?

(http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/3640/tlcrash1.gif)
"don't run into sleeping dragons"... Updates: The dragon flashes when hit. The hero loses his inventory when killed.

Some Questions: Let's remember, this will be a multi-user game, so what should happen when a player gets killed? Halve his XP, drop all items and respawn at the start point? (At least, that's my plan right now) Also, what should happen with killed boss-monsters? (i.e. the dragon) Somehow, after its death, the dragon has to be there again for the next adventure-hungry party of heroes. So maybe the corpse gets a countdown... And when it reaches zero, the dragon wakes up again?

@RotateMe: Well, for this 1st milestone, I will stick with that 4-legged dragon. But finally, there could be more dragons, and each of them should be slightly different. PS: The game engine itself can save the gameplay as gif. (nice trick, eh?)

I love how the dude dies and his stuff flies around! Get rid of the black outlines of the dust though! Looking very much forward to seeing more of this! Keep it simple and release soon (... is good advice I never follow myself).

oh wow Lazycow, this does look really good  :-*

Excellent! Awesome art style and brilliant idea!
Want to play it now!

Keep up the good work!

Tubular. Follow'ng.

I'm kind of disappointed that you got rid of the awesome fluid flying-style control.  Ah well

(http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/4076/tldragon11.gif) (http://img200.imageshack.us/img200/4308/tlcrash2.gif)
Thanks for the motivating comments!! What about a double-update?  :eyebrows:

The dragon got his revamped head and legs (in 8 directions). Also, I could track down the rubberbanding-problems. (Seems like the height of objects from the ground have to be ignored when calculating drawing-priorities)

In the 2nd cameo, you can see the sword-attack. The sword-hit transfers moving power to the victim. And it seems like you can push things around. This does not work anymore when I make the dragon heavier. (which should obviously be the case)

@RotateMe: Ok, I have reworked that dust. (You might see it again, soon) A gameplay demo should be possible this month, but only if I cut some things (wings) for the first demo...

@DanFessler: What do you mean? The 360 degree moving? I have intentionally disabled this, because the player can only move in 4 directions. There's probably no technical reason. So what about the new 8-way-walking of the dragon?

Golly. Those legs are adorable, Lazycow. I still think a different head-shape would work better, though. ;)

This is rapidly shaping up into the finest isometric non-interactive dragon simulation of all time.

Though adding a game on at some point could also be fun.

Amazing, I'm really looking forward to that! The new dragon looks awesome! Will you release the code? I'd like to have a look at the drawing function of this dragon there ;)

(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/705/head2anim.gif)
@Inane: Yes, I remember... like this?  :o

(http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/1773/tldragon1.gif)
@RotateMe: Handling these bubbles is not really that difficult. Let's look at the very first dragon-test. The 1st tail-bubble just follows the body-bubble. And the 2nd tail-bubble the 1st tail-bubble, etc. The next (and final) step is to take a look at the angle between the bubbles and adjust the position if the angle gets too big. divide et impera.

I think that head is a bit big.

Sounds indeed not too hard, also I was rather wondering about how you determined what has to be displayed first but felt stupid when I realized you probably just have to sort them by their y-arguments?

Dudes, I'm back on TIGsource after a ton of time and the game isn't finished yet?! It's on of the sweetest looking games around here, finish it already!

I second this!

This is a team project. (feel free to contact me if you want to contribute)
Nevertheless, I will continue working on it next year. Thank you for your continuing "support" :gentleman:

I didn't want to sound harsh, everybody has its business to mind first. :gentleman:

(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/5745/simshot3.png)

This time, I tried to compile it for the iPhone simulator. (doubling the graphics, because of the small display) But how do I control my hero without a joypad?

I have tried some RPG's on the iPhone, and these virtual joypads are sometimes really evil. (and sometimes only a bit evil) On "100 Rogues", you move your hero by touching to the moving destination, which works much better, but then again you cannot see the screen because your hand is in the way.

Any suggestions? What is your prefered controller on the iPhone?

I always thought of an intended cross pad and buttons on the bottom of the screen in a non-transparent section of it to slightly resemble a Game Boy. Or would that be a demonic method like the virtual joysticks?

I always prefer controls that embrace the iPhone's touch interface and utilize what sets it apart from other systems, instead of taking the lazy man's route and using virtual d-pads/joysticks. Of course there are some scenarios where they are useful, but it should be a last resort (IMHO). Removing the barrier of a d-pad/joystick and interacting with the game directly can lead to a more immersive experience if done properly, especially if you can make the player interactions mimic the character interactions. Examples could be slashing across an enemy to attack, holding up a shield to defend, drawing the AOE of a spell.

I've played a game, one of those dual-joystick shooters- depending on where you touch the screen with your thumbs, it would create the joystick there and you could slide your thumb from there, then when you lifted your thumb and placed it somewhere else, the joystick would be created there.
Also, Treasureline for iOS? I would pay good money for this :-* :handmoneyR:

(http://i.imgur.com/WjIvk.gif) (http://i.imgur.com/2VVMM.gif)
new - old

This is a test to change the player sprite from 16x16 pixels to 16x24 pixels. The new sprite also has 8 moving directions now, instead of 4. Better?

(it has the same head as the old silverline-graphics. So if the Silverline-project gets revived, it will be not too difficult to update the Silverline-graphics. Just in case...)

I thought this was dead!  :o

Just went through all the pages of this devlog and it's nice to see this is still going, project is looking great. Also like the new character sprite. Think the 8 moving directions will work nicely.

No, but it's frozen... I don't know what I do next, Treasureline or a plattform game...

please, please, please finish this. I'll personally fund it.

I sent you an email!

Wow, can I quit my job now?  :lol:

Seriously, it is not aborted, just frozen...

Wow, nice work on the dragon, the game looks like it could be awesome fun