TIGSource Forums

November 29, 2011
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-added MountableBalloon and balloon classes with simple behaviors


November 28, 2011
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-made bees rotatable
-made abilites work from map to map
-fixed glitch with doors not changing map x location
-fixed glitch where new dark surface wasn't being created with new map size
-made rocks stay when moving through doors
-fixed glitch where player could send bees in air and still perform animation
-fixed glitch where if player was in water swarm would keep being disabled and creating snapplayer camera


November 26, 2011
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-created bee swarm and perfected motion.
-bees can be sent and disperse when cancelled or on collision
-made camera follow bees
-bees can't be summoned in water
-made bees appear and disappear with fade out
-made camera retract to player with new camera class
-made player default camera at game startup


November 25, 2011
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-created swarm motion


November 24, 2011
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-created square ticker class
-created fadein/out for door changes
-made it so you can toggle object visibility in level editor and subsequently in game.
-created simple rotate screen class


November 23, 2011
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-created grapple vine
-created ceiling grapple
-created floor grapple
-created vine head
-made vine draw dark
-make vine cursor snap to grapples


November 22, 2011
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-fireballs now rotate with any box2d object it's attached to


November 21, 2011
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-player now jumps out of water if swimming towards top with jump
-made it so objects draw dark now into the lighting
-fixed interpolation on circle objects so their dark image corresponds correctly to their non-dark image
-made it so game will skip frames if taking too long to update. won't consider time taken to load game or change map
-rain now looks great in dark lighting
-lightning now works with darkness
-created special lightning for darkness and rain on a map
-fireballs now rotate with boulders and move with boxes


(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/rain_-_11-6-2011.png)

(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/Lighting_3_-_11-6-2011.png)


Gameplay video with new graphics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5rw_38h9Gw

I like the pixel art! Looks cool. Is there a demo?

Hey, No public demo yet. We have an inside, team-only, early alpha demo but we want to get more done before we release a playable public demo. The game is really solid at this point, but not enough of the individual objects are coded yet to give a really impressive experience. We will be releasing a demo well before the game's release, but it might be for a limited number of people, so keep an eye out!

looks definetely interesting.
im looking forward to the demo. :)

Colour me exciterated.

wow, i love the backgrounds and the little character... not much the trees on the first screen and the mushrooms, they looks... old, i mean, like early '90 pc shareware graphics.
They're not bad but just.. less good, expecially the mushrooms, they even have a strange outline the other graphics doesn't use

Looking forward to seeing this in action, love the pixel art and can already hear the ambient music.

Wow, I like this, Ill be watching your progress! :eyebrows:

Looking pretty good. I agree with Eclipse though on the graphics.

Will physics play a role in the gameplay or is it just for visual effects?

Thanks, everyone. It's good to get some feedback and encouraging to hear people are interested. Specifically, Eclipse, thanks for the criticism. We're going to take what you said into consideration and rework those mushrooms and trees.

We're using the physics to enhance the gameplay. We'll use it for puzzle solving and action scenes, and there may even be ways to kill enemies with the physics.

Are the meteors gonna be part of the gameplay challenge? I like the meteor aspect, anyway. And the cloud graphics seem tasteful and uniform in a very positive sense, and actually, the trees too ;D
Good luck with this thing.


What-wait... That's perfectionist-thinking from my viewpoint. Probably, there are more important things to fine-tune, but that's just my opinion - and I also think the trees and mushrooms look gorgeous as they are.

Thanks for the kind words! I can be a perfectionist at times, so it's good some of our team members aren't so critical. I like the trees and mushrooms but they don't fit 100%... and while gameplay is the most important thing, consistency is important too.

I'd like to get some feedback on game-play though. It's exploration based, as I've pointed out, so there's a lot of world to discover, some problems that need to be solved the first time around, and moderately difficult puzzles and challenges. We've got a lot of the game worked out, but I'd like some fresh feedback on what the community wants to see in a game like this.

Finding the meteors will grant the player new abilities as well as immunities to the mold that came from that certain meteor. The different molds have different attributes that kill or affect you in a negative way.

Anything you guys would like to see in Moldering?

Lots of secrets and unlockables!!! I love stuff like that. Replayability is always good.

This game is giving me a massive erection.

IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN  :handthumbsupL:

edit: On a serious note, if you're gonna release a demo release it for everyone. There's no reason for hogging the awesome.

No, there are plenty of reasons, ranging from PR to ensuring you can find 'fresh' testers (who haven't seen previous versions) throughout development.

Oh, hey.

Actually, your description gave me this thought about those meteors: Some kind of meteor avoidance, avoiding them as they slam down on the ground. Especially an exploration-based game could get some extra challenge from that - I've gained a liking for pressure in these kind of games - Not sure what's wrong with me =)

Haven't posted in a while, but here's some updates!

I got a break from school so I worked a bit on the game. Progress is slow sometimes since I'm the only one working on it at the moment, but the game will definitely be finished... eventually.

Here's a few animated gifs I put up on the web. The speed seems to play fine in Firefox, but at least Chrome and IE seem to want to slow them down.


(http://www.projectmoldering.com/images/anim_swim_1.gif)
I finally got the swimming figured out. For some reason game developers in general appear to think swimming levels should be the most frustrating (Mario?). :P I disagree.


(http://www.projectmoldering.com/images/anim_double_jump_1.gif)
Originally the first jump was going to be the "regular" jump, and the second was going to be a spin jump, but I like it better this way. You don't see it often and I think it works for Moldering. [I'm also going to add some kind of pulse in the air at his feet when he double jumps]


(http://www.projectmoldering.com/images/anim_kick_spore_2.gif)
And this too, although I'm not going to go into too much detail about what it is or what purpose it plays. :)

James

nice work!
looks really good!

Awesome stuff! :wizard: :handthumbsupR:

Thanks guys! It's a lot of fun working on Moldering, and words of encouragement are always welcome!

Looking great, keep it up!   :gentleman:

Just a short update. I scripted out the intro cut scene and I am pretty pleased with it, if I do say so myself. The graphics aren't final, but I'm going to tweak it a bit more and extend it, and maybe I'll post a video online.

I'd definitely like to get some feedback!

Here's a teaser for one of the cutscenes. The music is original for Moldering, but keep in mind most of the graphics are placeholders. Except the house, lol :P


(http://www.projectmoldering.com/images/intro.png) (http://devblog.projectmoldering.com/post/475556927/so-heres-the-cut-scene-i-was-talking-about-the)

The quality was a little downgraded after uploading to youtube. Let me know what you guys think!

James

[P.S. Does anyone know how to embed a video into a forum post?]

This is looking pretty awesome.
Also, as far as I know you can't embed videos here. Common practice is to post a screenshot of the video with the media controls visible and make it a link to the actual video

I can't seem to figure out how to put an image in a link.

just put the url tag around the image tag, like

EDIT: Link modified



(http://www.projectmoldering.com/images/intro.png) (http://devblog.projectmoldering.com/post/475556927/so-heres-the-cut-scene-i-was-talking-about-the)

I approve. That's a pretty snazzy intro scene. Keep up the good work!  :gentleman:

Just a small update so you guys know we're not dead. We've made great strides lately in the game's actual design. We've mapped out some really great things. It's a great breather to step away from programming and to just think creatively about how the game will work out.

On other news we've been spotlighted in Pixel Prospector's '190 Free Indie Games in 10 Minutes'. As little amount of publicity it is, it's still publicity, and for that we're grateful.

We'll sure to keep you guys updated.

-James

Hey guys, check the first post for a download link to the first public demo of Moldering!!!

Please keep in mind that it serves only as a tech demo and lacks the content that will be in the actual game.

heck yeah an update. and a demo  :o

I think I explored every thing. Really nice graphics, and I love the animations. Movement physics feel very good. Lovely smooth engine :handthumbsupL:

Definite Knytt vibe, but the graphics really make it stand out.

Thanks! I'm glad you took a look at it. It's only slightly representative of the final product, but I think it's good to put it out there and get feedback.

Cool! I won't count bugs, i think you know it for yourselves (swimming up to solid room is the worst), i'll rather say it's definitely awesome and easy to play. I hope boxes will swim too but no just fall ;D
Goodj.

That's a good idea. Thanks for playing and leaving feedback!

Click at the bottom for the latest alpha build. Consider this to be a little playground to try out the new features.

A few big changes here:
1) I changed the movement a whole lot. I didn't like how easily he could get around and the controls felt floaty so I toned him down and made him more responsive/grippy. Let me know how you think it feels.

2) I added gamepad support. Currently I've only tested it for an Xbox360 controller, but it works great. Let me know if it works or not on your other gamepads.

3) I added ledge-grabbing and hook hanging. If that doesn't mean anything to you, you'll have to just try it out. :)


A few small changes:
1) I made it so that the player will snap to the contour of a slope when walking down it. This was to make it so if the player wanted to jump but was walking too fast off of a slope they still could, rather then falling off the slope as they walked down it (which wouldn't let them jump without the double jump because they were in the air). Any thoughts?

2) I also made it so the player moves slower when walking up steep slopes.



One more thing. If you know what flattr is, please use the button below. :)
DOWNLOAD: http://www.mediafire.com/?13rgsjizih503d2 (http://www.mediafire.com/?13rgsjizih503d2)
(http://api.flattr.com/button/button-compact-static-100x17.png) (http://flattr.com/thing/73855/Latest-Moldering-Build-0-0-6)



(http://projectmoldering.com/images/swim.gif)
(http://projectmoldering.com/images/hang10.gif)

Just a quick little dev update. I did a lot of optimization to this today. I profiled the project and optimized a lot of the routines that were eating up cpu cycles. Faster game = more fps = betterness for everyone! *parties*

Anyone interested in picking up some of the art for this? I tweak and polish the hell out of the gameplay, but for this project to be truly successful (I won't stop until it's the best it can be), I'll need the artwork and presentation to be polished too. Unfortunately, I suck at art, and for a great game to be truly superb it needs top presentation.

did you do the artwork currently in the game or someone else?

For a while I had a few volunteers that would come and go and contribute. Only one of them stuck around, and he's been a great help.

I also paid someone to do two of the world's tile-sets but I can't afford to put more money into a freeware project and, besides, he's not available anymore.

It's all original, but I didn't do much of it. I'm more skilled at programming and design than artwork.

Here is some gameplay footage we put together:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDpap3vddwo

If you like how it's coming out please visit:
http://www.8bitfunding.com/project_details.php?p_id=85

Been a while since I've posted here about Moldering. Been doing some really cool things. We have a new facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/projectmoldering

Gameplay video with new graphics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5rw_38h9Gw

Some new screenshots (also on the facebook page):
(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/StartworldScreenie.png)

(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/DarkForest2-1.png)


The Devblog is down for some reason, been working with our hosting company to get it up and running again. The link for that is here:
http://devblog.projectmoldering.com/

Progress on hobby games ebbs and flows. Right now things are a-flowin'.

With such a deep atmospheric perspective it really lacks a true parallax scrolling.
Otherwise, this is stunning, visually.

If you're talking about the video of that world, the parallax wasn't implemented at that time. I've implemented the parallaxing into the engine, I just need to go in and set the values for each layer.

Didn't have a whole lot of time today with school and work, but got the parallaxing looking super freakin' sweet and added some lightning and thunder to go along with the simple weather I was working on the last couple of days.

Hopefully video soon. Parallax=love.

Resolved our DNS issues and the devblog is up and running again. We'll have a snazzy new video up soon:

http://devblog.projectmoldering.com

November 6th, 2011

-reworked the camera system. It's now predictive of player
-created a mass of .ini files to allow other developers on the team to alter variables
-created three ambient lighting systems.

(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/Lighting_1_-_11-6-2011.png)
(Lighting system 1)


(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/Lighting_2_-_11-6-2011.png)
(Lighting system 2)


(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/Lighting_3_-_11-6-2011.png)
(Lighting system 3)

The first lighting system casts the layers the player is in and around into complete darkness but still allows the background and night sky to shine through. This is most representative of real life, I feel. The less ambient light there is, the more the sky and stars are visible.

The second system casts the whole world in darkness except for all lighting sources. This one might be fun to experiment with in terms of gameplay. Lightning bugs that hover and dart around, lighting the scene up as they move, would look nice here and could be used to toy with the players perception of where they should explore (or not explore). However, I personally think the first lighting system is the most aesthetically pleasing.

The third is a modified version of the second system and is a sort of hybrid of the first two. It mostly just shows the player the areas where the lights are, but also lets a little bit of the rest of the map through.


TECH:
I wrote these systems using Java2D and get decent frame rates with over 1500 objects in conjunction with the lighting system. The first lighting system is the most interesting one. Basically what's done here is upon entering the specific map, an image of all the tiles which should be cast in shadow is drawn in all black. Then the light sources are blended into this image once per frame and finally a sub-image is taken from this image of the camera's view and rendered on top of the scene. The biggest performance increase was rendering all the static objects once upon entering the frame. I will still have to draw all of the moveable objects each frame if I want them to be cast in shadow as well.

November 10, 2011:
Here's two videos to show off two of the newest features, along with some smaller updates:

#12 Moldering: Lighting Effects
(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/private/youtube1.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsD75mDUeak)


#13 Moldering: Parallaxing, Weather, Camera
(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/private/youtube2a.png) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7T6vdUSfjM)

New video. Also, check the first post of this thread for devlog updates:

#14 Moldering: Fading Caves and Ability Ring (http://devblog.projectmoldering.com/post/13048534663/fading-caves-and-ability-ring-this-video-shows)
(http://i762.photobucket.com/albums/xx270/moldering/private/vid14.gif) (http://devblog.projectmoldering.com/post/13048534663/fading-caves-and-ability-ring-this-video-shows)

Since this video three abilities have been implemented so far: Rock, Fireball, and Quake, each with their own unique use of the mouse. A video of them will come once there's enough implemented for them to interact with.

Added 8 days of devlog updates to the first post.

Also, did an interview with Grizzly Pixel:

http://grizzlypixel.blogspot.com/2011/11/interview-james-daniello-and-zach.html

looking pretty...

Thanks. I realize there hasn't been a lot about gameplay shown off here but that's what we're working on now. More updates coming soon.