TIGSource Forums

Hello Tigsfolk!


I'm starting a devlog here for The Brontosaurus Milk Crisis, a game I'm cooking up with a little personal challenge behind it.


Given the recent news that a few browsers are dropping UnityWebPlayer support I'm gonna take my first stab at using the WebGL protocol and see what I can squeeze out of it.  Also I gotta keep in mind file-size limits for various hosting sites, I'm basing my limit on NewGrounds's 80mb limit so that's gonna be the ceiling for this build...if any other sites have higher limits...great!, if not then maybe I'll ask permission for a fat little game file.


I've also found that audio quality goes right down the toilet after a WebGL build so on top of Audio files inflating that file size like no other element it seems there are bound to be compromises and workarounds in the sound department.


The UnityWebPlayer ran like a top last I used it, never uploaded WebGL but I've seen WebGL run like shit with what appeared to be less than I'm putting forward...optimization techniques to apply, learn and then apply what I learned in the process.
Seriously I want this to run as smooth and as fast as my experiences with UnityWebPlayer.


Finally I want a satisfying longer than average (I'm thinking about two-ish Mario64 levels worth of content), lush environments, ascetically pleasing visuals, various yet-to-be-specified mechanics...basically a good lil' game.


So basically my self challenge is...

1: Under 80mb file-size

2: Runs and sounds nice.

3: An enjoyable, well rounded game.


So off to work I go it seems...


As for the game itself and what it's all about well...between the title, the link to my video-log below and the GIFs below that y'all are going to guess at or infer the details until I start posting them.


Vlog #1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAtQLfWtxUc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAtQLfWtxUc)


Almost posted before mentioning this is going to be a free game.  Aside from the WebGL I'm releasing a companion downloadable version on Itch.io which will also be free.  Maybe after this is done I'll take a stab at the paid market with a much more polished, expanded, not limited by file-size version...but as for this one, not a dime to play.  :)


Cheers people and thanks for taking a peek at my project!  :coffee:


(http://giant.gfycat.com/RepentantSpottedGreatargus.gif)


(http://giant.gfycat.com/EducatedUnhealthyCrab.gif)

Trying to get a lil' work done in spare moments at my day job today.



I got some modeling/texturing done on my first enemy, code-named 'RollZilla'.

Sticking to my 'keep the file-size tiny' credo this guy's texture image is actually only 12x4 pixels!  I could have gotten away with 3x1 but not only is the difference negligable but any image with greater than 4x4 pixels is auto compressed upon build in unity anyway so...yeah.

Also I'm cracking up at the way this eye-method makes it look like it's eyes are watching you as the perspective moves.



It's watching you...
(http://giant.gfycat.com/LankyShockingFoal.gif)

So I got my 'Rollzilla' fully animated and partially programmed.

In their current half-done state combat with them is friggin' terrifying!


 :epileptic: :epileptic: :epileptic:
(https://giant.gfycat.com/ImperfectPortlyBelugawhale.gif)
 :epileptic: :epileptic: :epileptic:

I could have sworn I posted a GIF of the Zen lil' waterfall area here... :shrug2:


Oh well here yah go.

"A removed, redundant GIF"


edit: Okay I feel dumb, that one was in the first post.


Here's one showing the view from the lip of the volcano instead.

(https://giant.gfycat.com/GleefulFatArmyworm.gif)

The queen brontosaurus takes little notice of the tiny beings below...her current walk cycle is of more concern to be honest.

I just love the name. I'll follow you for that.

Glad to hear you dig the name and I'll try to make this worthwhile to follow for yah.  :)



The name is essentially the premise of the story.

One day while attending to the duties of milking the local brontosauruses (brontosauri?) to feed his tribe, our protagonist finds a never before seen enormous brontosaurus and dares to milk it.  Unfortunately an absurd of amount of milk is released and floods the planet. 
Now our prehistoric hero must try to resolve and account for his poor decision in a changed, tumultuous, diluvian world.

It's silly as heck but I've been rolling with it for around a couple months and have grown fond of the story.



Also I finally got to use use the word diluvian in a sentence!  Yay!

Been getting incremental progress these past few days, so steady as she goes.


RollZillas now have a bit more brains and an actual rolling attack, will try to squish any in their path...

(http://giant.gfycat.com/EmbellishedSnivelingBarnowl.gif)

...they still need a few kinks worked out.


Added some generic palm trees and made a little forest...

(http://giant.gfycat.com/AdorableFarflungAbalone.gif)

...treehouses are definitely in.


Got some background work done combining certain "transitions" with the changing of background music loops.

Actually found a compression method that keeps considerable quality in a webGL build though the looping is still absolute ass.

A couple loops I've tossed together...

Caveman tribal drum loop--> https://soundcloud.com/nolocality/caveman-drum-loop (https://soundcloud.com/nolocality/caveman-drum-loop)

Minimal ambient trance-ish loop--> https://soundcloud.com/nolocality/minimal-trance-ish-ambient-loop (https://soundcloud.com/nolocality/minimal-trance-ish-ambient-loop)


Also found out recently I have considerably more wiggle-room than I thought with the file-size limit!  Seems that the upload limits are after compression!

This makes me happy as apposed to what I thought applied previously.

A shame this is a performance hit...otherwise I would have massive fields of reactive flowers.   :(

(http://giant.gfycat.com/SmoggyInstructiveAmericanindianhorse.gif)

Now THIS looks like my kind of game.

my monitor shattered.. haha good luck!

This looks pretty trippy, haha. Good luck!

Whoah!  People talking about this!

This warms my heart to read... :P ...a feeling akin to the warm, spreading embrace of peeing in a public pool.

Thanks guys  :beer:


Dude...

Dude...I can't show everything but...

(https://giant.gfycat.com/FalseUniformFoxhound.gif)

I've been chugging away at this and I'm kind of at an impasse.


As I work on the 80mb version I keep thinking about a version without limits, and I'm considering abandoning the whole challenge altogether and just making this thing as I see fit without worrying about it.

Don't get me wrong there is value in learning to work within confines but this project is growing on me and I'm starting to see that 'cutting' aspects isn't really doing justice to what I have in mind.



2 second music loops to save space when webGL builds can't loop for shit... :-X

Limiting colors and avoiding gradients out of necessity in what is turning into a pretty psychedelic game... :-X

Low poly just to...wait I love the low poly look...nevermind.



Anyone have an opinion on this?

Should I see my challenge through or unshackle this thing?  :shrug2:

the cavemans two walking frames are SO GOOD! ;D

really cool looking proto, will check on this log again!

I'm not sure what's happening, but it's definitely interesting!

You guys are awesome.



Got some texturing, modeling, animating and such done on some concept land masses and volcanic geysers.

Also started toying around with wall jumping and climbing.


(https://giant.gfycat.com/GreedySmoothEyas.gif)




Funny thing I found with the way it's currently coded is that you can run around in the tree-patch holding jump and parkour like it's nothing...


(https://giant.gfycat.com/UnimportantUnripeAlaskanmalamute.gif)


...It's pretty fun to see how long you can glide and ricochet around without touching the ground.



Also I'm done with the whole challenge thing and this most likely wont be a browser game nor will it most likely be free...(boo...I know haha)...but at least I can fit what I have in mind into this without worrying about it so down with distractions and up with more game.  :coffee:

Been an interesting couple weeks...after losing around a week and a half out of commission with a stubborn respiratory infection I'm happy to be diving back in to this.

Still just cranking out assets and testing systems to make sure they are working properly.  Ceiling climbing is in and shows promise for some interesting level-design and/or puzzles.


Also I think I'm getting closer to an overall ascetic...
(https://giant.gfycat.com/DefensiveEmbellishedCorydorascatfish.gif)
...these are the result of trying to get some background flora done...they're ferns believe it or not.

Old vs New primal abandon dance off!

(https://giant.gfycat.com/WhisperedSmoothDuckling.gif)

I like the smoothness of cave-guy's new animation but poor cave-gal is spazzing out pretty hard at the moment...I think a bit of a redo is in order.

Yay...after more iterations than I thought I got a final 'look' for my humans!

Say hello to the opaque, tatoo'd, scribbled-textured, probably-not-the-final-iteration cave dancers.

(https://fat.gfycat.com/SimpleMiniatureFlatcoatretriever.gif)


Also wow, it doesn't feel like two weeks since last update.

Maybe next on the agenda will be getting the actual main character sprited out instead of just slapping npc sprites on the character controller  :P.

Oh well...I'll just keep on creeping along at the speed of snail, here's to a fourth quarter 2019 release!  :toastL: :toastL: :beer:

Every time I see your updates, I think of how awesome this would look as a rare, quirky, late 90's N64 game.

Is that weird? I think of odd-ball, lesser known games like Space Station: Silicon Valley and Iggy's Wrecking Ball, and this game just fits perfectly in that genre.

Kickstarted N64 Cartridge release? ;)

In any case, I'm really stoked about this. It's blowing my mind because of how "out there" it is.  Keep me posted with your updates! Consider me officially sold.

@amanfr01 That's cool to know some are looking forward to this!  :)  I'll do my best to assure it's worth playing.

Funny you mention Space Station: Silicon Valley and Iggy's Wrecking Balls,  SSSV is actually one of my faves from long ago.  It has that 'hard to put your finger on' charm on top of some great gameplay...maybe one day I'll beat it.  Last I remember I got to some difficult gorilla stage later in the game and didn't make it past that before I had to return it to Blockbuster video.
Same with Iggy's wrecking balls...didn't think much of the cover art but one day curiosity got the best of me and it turned out to be a very fun rental.


That would be cool no doubt but I'm kinda 50/50 on Kickstarter as it is.  Honestly the most use I could see getting out of KS would be another avenue to 'get the word out', money up front would be nice but putting energy towards fulfilling promises instead of towards the game itself gives me pause when I think about it.

Maaaaaaaaaybe I'll do a KS but only if the game is basically 99% complete, the goal amount would be small and I would not promise anything I wasn't 100% sure I could deliver...sadly a functioning N64 cartridge is way beyond my skills to create.


Haha we are free to be as goofy as we want are we not?  Personally I prefer something interesting to look at vs realism or cohesion.

Take a look at some of Hieronymus Bosch's paintings, (https://www.google.com/search?q=bosch&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQ9Z6R8OPKAhVD3mMKHa8ZDDUQ_AUICSgD&biw=1280&bih=612#tbm=isch&q=hieronymus+bosch) I believe his claim to fame and why he is still remembered is more based on all the absurd details and "out there" scenarios he paints rather than his skills with a brush (which is also considerable).

Now could you imagine being able to hop around one of his paintings in a game and see/interact with everything within them?

I'm not saying I'm going to have that level of detail but maybe it gives a notion of what I'm leaning towards visually.

Thanks for the kind words amanfr01 and I'll try to make this worth checking in on!

Thanks for your awesome response! The N64 Cartridge KS reward was partially me just being silly, but it is a fun thing to dream of, is it not? :P

Either way, I think you have a great vision. Referencing/drawing inspiration from Bosch is a wonderful surprise for me to discover.  Keep it up with this direction. 

Let me know if you need any opinions, thoughts, feedback, or assistance! I'm always happy to help, especially for someone who relates to my fondness of SSSV hahahah!

I remembered I was doing video logs today (something that apparently escaped my mind for over two months...), and proceeded to mumble into a mic while running around in my own game showing off it's current state of development.

Mind the music, I'll figure out my volume issues some day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln6daV_-Efs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln6daV_-Efs)

I'm getting a Gary Panter meets Nanosaur vibe from this.

Sad that you're planning to change that player character, he was growing on me.

Haha this is so crazy! Very trippy.

The trippyness will make a surprising amount of sense when a certain mechanic is revealed  ;)

Feedback like this makes my day and fuels my resolve heh...thanks for the kind words sir.



I've been looking up Gary Panter since I read this, had no Idea the guy existed till now.  That is some crazy art he puts forth and I see the comparison...I'll definitely take that as a compliment.

His style reminds me of when I'll go to kill some time and look up various sections of kickstarter...in the upcoming comics section you'll find the occasional nutty style where the artist is 'just letting it all out' visually.  Good stuff man...good stuff  :P

As for Nanosaur it flew right under my radar till now, had I known it existed when it came out in 98 I probably would have had a blast with it.


 

Yeah me to, he was the first doodle I took 'all the way'.  He will live on in the game as an NPC (you might see quite a few cossack dancing cave-dudes actually) and in my signature...and in my heart.

I've been dodging getting around to doodling up the actual main character so I did something just now I haven't done before and did a bit of concept art for y'all.


Say hello to your main character in BMC...The shaman of storytelling!
(http://i.imgur.com/kEFmQbw.png)

Hope you don't mind looking at old man-backside cause you're gonna be seeing a lot of it while exploring.

"forget about all that 'keep the file size little' nonsense."

Now I'm unbelievably excited. This has such insane potential.

Work continues!   ...at a pretty slow pace lol.

Been in a bit of a slump and not getting as much done lately as I should, oddly I'm okay with this.  It's not the wisest mind-state to have but I'm kind of in the 'I've got all the time in the world' way of thinking at the moment and just putting along as I see fit.

 :shrug2: Probably better than burning myself out I would wager.


Anyhow I'm currently in the process of spriting out the main character and dayuuum is this one a different beast than random NPCs.  Where 4-5 frames for those cave-dancers is a breeze I've estimated this one to be somewhere between 60-100+ frames before completion.  I don't mind scribbling but the repetition of the same character in slightly different progressive poses wears on me, it's not going to get itself done though so onward I grind.


I've kept myself somewhat fresh with various 'little' jobs in between tedious spriting sessions such as modeling out little odds and ends (stone formations, plants, etc) for the landscapes, throwing together new songs and cleaning up old ones, tweaking AIs, taking a stab at shader code so certain sprites are treated as pseudo-3d objects as far as lighting is concerned (mild success despite having only a vague idea of how shader code works!), getting the ball rolling on text-boxes and talking with NPCs and progress on one of the main combat mechanics.


Given that I prefer to show as apposed to tell (and the above is a whole lot of telling) here's a gif of the next WIP dinosaur.

(https://fat.gfycat.com/ShimmeringLividGoosefish.gif)

This one was supposed to be an evolutionary precursor to the chicken and it took me a couple days of wondering why it looked familiar about it when it hit me...it looks more than a little like the old crested booka enemy from Earthbound.  I was gonna scrap it but then thought better of it as this is early in development and I kinda like it...just gonna have to differentiate it later.

Also this one isn't for fighting...;)


And as always I do have quite a bit of fun goofing around within my little game world...

(https://giant.gfycat.com/HairyCheapFlounder.gif)

...who needs benchmarking software when you can conjure up infinitely more taxing scenarios to brutalize your hardware.


Cheers people  :coffee: 

What's a game with dinosaurs if you can't ride them anyway?!


(https://giant.gfycat.com/OblongAgreeableBettong.gif)


:gentleman:

IT'S BACK!

I've missed seeing your surrealist experience of a game x)

Thanks there, the more I get into this the more I realize I'm a product of my times lol.  Of all the consoles I've owned I've probably sunk more hours into my old N64 than anything else and look what I end up churning out...



I've missed updating this!   ;D


Honestly I had to go somewhat AWOL to 'level up' my coding and animation skills and I'm so very glad I did.  Finding out single line commands existed the whole time where I was doing convoluted, home-brewed workarounds that weren't even necessary.  Getting familiar with blender's pose-library system instead of eye-balling out every single little part of an animation, workflow is much, much better now.  Where once the idea of shader-code scared me to no end I'm now getting used to the odd layout and starting to realize it's pretty much the same as coding anything else...who knew?... :shrug2:


Things I've gotten done in my 'down-time':

-text management system is go.  Our protagonist will probably be of the silent variety but everyone else is likely gonna have quite a bit to say.

-context sensitive interactions are go.  The same button that you use to ride a dinosaur will likely be the same button to pluck a fruit off of a branch, or turn on the lights in a villager's hut.  I'll damned if there's going to be little exclamation marks or anything similar popping up though...that always bothered me.

-got one of the defining mechanics pretty much done.  Just gotta cook up some proper 'ammunition' before it's presentable...hopping on this one next actually.

-adjusting for the bugs that pop up.  Every step forward produces at least a few but I'm fine with this, it's getting kinda cool realizing how much faster you get in knowing how to deal with them.


I have no illusions that there will be more and more necessity for learning even more "in's and out's" of everything as this continues but that's par for the course it seems.

Oh man, this looks so wild :)
Followingggg

 :coffee: let's make this worth following then!


Okay so mechanic number one: Our shaman protagonist will be able to absorb and use 'abilities' of other things within the world.  I'm expecting that this is mostly going to come off of enemies but also expect abilities to come from objects, events, NPCs, etc...

These abilities will be used for battle, puzzles, transport, possibly story...basically I want to assure that these aren't strictly limited to combat abilities.

Each ability will have a certain amount of charges based on...uh...based on how many I decide to give it I guess  :lol:

Mechanically I've got it down to one button per 'chamber'.  When chamber 1 is empty-->pushing button 1 projects an absorption field from the player, if something absorb-able is caught in the field then it is absorbed into chamber 1 with the appropriate amount of charges then--> button 1 will now activate the ability and take off a charge, when all the charges are used up then--> button 1 reverts to absorb-mode.

Players will begin with either one or two chambers (haven't decided) and will max out at twelve.  Want those extra chambers?...explore, explore and explore some more  ;)

TLDR: glue twelve hungry Kirbys to a stick and you'll get the idea.


Anyways show>tell so here's some gifs of a few abilities...


Want to flatten things rolling-pin style?  Then absorb our friend Rollzilla's powers!
(https://giant.gfycat.com/LawfulEnviousAngelwingmussel.gif)


Missing that speed-boost from riding the Derplidoci but your mount wont fit into your path?  Absorb your mount's innate speed and have at it!
(https://giant.gfycat.com/DishonestWhichHarpyeagle.gif)


Did you find some ominously glowing meteorite hidden off the beaten path?  Absorb it and get ready to unleash a true meteor storm!
(https://giant.gfycat.com/ConsciousClassicJanenschia.gif)


Really been waiting to share this one, had the idea long ago but now it's up and running so....Yay!

Okay time to get mechanic two up and running...Cheers people!

Dusted off my video capture crap and tossed a video up showing the applications of the absorption mechanic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvuu5rYYH2k (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvuu5rYYH2k)

Now with 50% less mumbling...  :gentleman:

Enjoying going a bit overboard with my skyboxes.

(https://giant.gfycat.com/ShimmeringRaggedCrocodile.gif)

Very odd but you have my attention  :gentleman:

Whoa this is wacky as sh$t, I love it!  :handmoneyL: :-* :handshakeR:

Thanks guys!

I'm getting a bit exited lately, I'm getting close to the end of the "make sure everything works" phase.  Just gotta get mechanic two finished (it's functioning but I'm tossing together some assets to demonstrate it visually...hence the sky-box), ensure certain variables/funstions pass through scenes/transitions properly and create a game-save function.

Then onto assets and world building  ;D

I actually stumbled across the term not to long ago..."concept complete" or alpha build.  I think that %done meter on this devlog is gonna go up a tick when I hit that point.

I remember joking about a 2019 release date some time ago, at this point I wouldn't mind hitting that to be honest  :shrug2:

(http://giant.gfycat.com/ImaginativeMadeupEasternnewt.gif)

Dinosaurs™

So this here dinosaur will teleport evasively while slowly stalking the player before it tries to launch some entirely too big ,wobbly projectiles in their general direction.

Kinda reminds me of a more colorful Ringu.

Gotta introduce some artificial stupidity to the AI heh, in it's current form it's a big too difficult for a non-boss enemy.


(http://giant.gfycat.com/HomelyAcrobaticFlyingsquirrel.gif)

I don't think brontosauruses have mammaries

I didn't either till about five minutes ago when I googled "did dinosaurs make milk?" hoping for something silly to respond with.  A few articles later and now I'm starting to wonder. (http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2013/02/did-dinosaurs-produce-milk-for-their-young)

What an odd world we live in...

Grabbed up a lil' pseudo-bouyancy code from a previous project and tweaked it a bit for this one.

Aquatic mounts are totally in...


(http://giant.gfycat.com/SaltyTiredBluetickcoonhound.gif)

He's back! Hahahah I love it!

Aqua-mounts?! I approve. World of Warcraft style!

This is...... trippy... :gomez: :beer: :crazy: :handjoystick:

Heck yeah!  Not gonna be able to ride every dinosaur but one of these...

(http://giant.gfycat.com/SlimyBlindArchaeopteryx.gif)

...might make ocean travel a bit more interesting.



 :toastL: :beer: :toastR: :toastR:

I'm into that lava block-summoning dancer, and the general wild and wack vibe!

And Brontosaurus Milk just has such a RING to it!  :eyebrows:

Yes





Yes.

A bit wonky at the moment but she's sea worthy!

(https://giant.gfycat.com/ImmenseRecentGroundbeetle.gif)

Maybe next on the list would be to give her some proper animations.

Been busy lately knocking out a lot of the non-visual aspects of the project since last I updated this log, I imagine some would be interested in the ins and outs of it but I prefer to have something tangible to show so I'm not apt to update based purely on programming.


That said I've got quite a bit up and running:

-state machines are go for AI, the player, environmental objects, etc...

-any and all data is now managed persistently through transitions, levels, "cutscenes", shapechanging, etc...

-save/load functions are working as intended (sorry modders I opted for binary over Json for a few reasons)...

-mechanic two and the various ways to use it are going smoothly...

-functional UI is go, life-bar, text boxes and representations of the players "Absorb Chambers" done and working...


I'm getting ever closer to what I would consider a functional "Alpha build" and this excites me greatly.  It seems as I approach this milestone I'm getting more enthusiastic and thus getting more done faster than normal  ;D


The checklist till I'll consider it "Concept complete" is as follows:

-better character controller

-better camera system

-implement and test some SFX a bit more than the handful of times I've done so (it's pretty trivial tbh but I want to see how well they work with various things and situations just to quadruple-check)

-actually finish and implement the main character's animations...ppl are gonna think the orange dancing cave-dude is the protagonist if I don't finish it soon lol


I'm way overdue for a video to show and explain mechanic-two in depth but the fact is it's been good to go for awhile and I'm getting anxious to do so. 


Given that I like to leave a GIF or two and hold back details till I'm ready to present them properly I'll just leave this here with no explanation for what is seen.


Mechanic two...
(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/WhichSelfishAlpineroadguidetigerbeetle-size_restricted.gif)

As someone someone who has had a placeholder sprite for the main character for a year and a half these beginnings excite me a bit more than they probably should...

(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AstonishingSpotlessFlies-size_restricted.gif)

Also I blame the gif choppyness on my laptop btw...I usually capture them from my desktop.

I loved it!
Very charismatic.
It's fun just looking at her! :lol:

Midway through animating she hears the crowd likes her...
(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/DamagedIncompatibleBubblefish-size_restricted.gif)