[Mystical Rug 4/7:]

Mystical Rug 4/7:

I think I've got the balloon AI to where I want it. Can't really test it as thoroughly as I want to until more of the game is completed.

Also got the archer AI in and to a workable state. I THINK it's where I want it, as well, but I need to get damage in and all that fun stuff first.

I got the terrain gen for when castles are placed working in the time since I posted here.

Archer screenie:



EDIT: This screenshot makes me really wonder if I need to resize some stuff.

I've been following this a while (not sure if I've said anything yet...have I? Not sure), and I just dropped in to say that the mining laser's gotta be broken. I used it, waited for the laser to go away, jumped into the spot where it was and died instantly (happened twice).

On a more positive note, the text boxes are looking good. Gold bits are cool. Never saw a cave-in.

I played until about 32 points or so.

The idea seems really interesting. I think it could be really fun. Just a few comments/concerns.

1. At one point, almost my entire snake turned blue and a red line showed up from the head of the snake to the edge of the screen where it was facing and didn't disappear until every part of the snake had passed the point where the head was when it showed up. This happened a few times and I didn't know what was going on.

2. The "digging" idea was kinda neat, but I didn't really understand the point of separating people like that, between only two layers (instead of, say, separating them based on how many points they have, or adding more layers than just two, or something). It just kind of seemed like a way to "cheat death" as a last second escape if you, say, get trapped in a corner on one layer, but there isn't a corner there on the second layer.

Also, on the subject of layers, I had difficulty telling which layer the pellets were on from time to time (though that may just be me), and it's a bit irritating that the "upper layer" still shows OVER the "lower layer" when you're on the lower layer, making it difficult to see at times.

3. It may just be the way it's written, but it felt as if it moved in "steps", moving everything once every, let's say, half a second, as opposed to continuously, and it made it difficult to move back and forth quickly (I had to hit two keys directly in a row [meaning BEFORE I had even moved the first time] to switch directions twice in a two-tile space).

I did enjoy the idea and hope you continue to develop it.

In specific, usernames and a leaderboard would be an awesome feature for something like this. If I got up to something like 1000 points, I'd sure as hell like it to be immortalized!

I finally got to play this with the latest Indie Royale Bundle. It's really fun, and feels smooth and well put together. I only wish I were better at it. I've unlocked 0 classes since I started playing, heh.

[Mystical Rug 3/29:]

Mystical Rug 3/29:
Demaking Magic Carpet for fun and to learn a bit.

I'm going to keep it as close to the limitations of the original Gameboy as possible, but I'm taking a few liberties (*cough*spriterotation*cough*).



You'll notice the bars at the top don't work yet. I just got the castles/forts working, and I am working on getting some AI in and getting the terrain under the terrain placed from the castles updating correctly.

All of the terrain is pretty much placeholder. I don't entirely know about the rest yet.

They Took My Home 4/5:

Started working on a game about a canine taking back his home from hunters and woodsmen. He has a weapon, but it only shoots backwards. Not much else to it but that.

The working title is They Took My Home.

Post on my blog.

So, I thought it would be interesting to make a tower-defense-ish game where you have to drain enemies of their color (and they literally drain of their color) to use as resources for building towers. So I put together a prototype, and this is it.

It's not balanced, the difficulty may be high or low, depending. The difficulty scaling consists of a spawn timer, and then two more spawn timers that are activated after you hit a certain score. The allied AI are a bit dumb. There's not a whole lot of "feedback" for when you hit something or you get hit. It may be hard to differentiate what's what in the text at the bottom...

But I hope it's at least a bit interesting.

You can get it and read about the controls on my blog.

Planned for an official PC release, but considering the response so far on Xbox we may just hand off an unsupported PC build to anyone who wants it.

Yeah, I'd want it. If it still supports local co-op, doubly so.

This looks awesome. Congrats on finishing it!

If I could afford a wireless adapter for the 360, and then XBL Gold on top of that, I'd buy it pretty quickly.

In the meantime, I'll wait out the PC version.

[Works In Progress:]

Works In Progress:

Mystical Rug: ~7%
Time Travelly Top Down Shooter: ~25%
Burn, Witch, Burn!: ~5%

Finished:

Caveman
These Tranquil Waters Shall Not Hold
Rabbiteers

Abandoned:
Note: These games may or may not ever become un-abandoned.

Sonar Game
They Took My Home
Color Defense
Lemmpong
Interstellar Planet-Ship Adventures: The Search for… $@#% Aliens!!!!!! (I think I'm done with this one. The very base of the game is flawed in a way that's hard to repair without starting over.)

Also, I want to say that I wasn't trying to make a game about dodging, but was actually trying to make a game about figuring which lines to hit to (1) stay on the screen, while (2) getting the most points.

Ah, well, in that case, it works. The only issue was it took a massive amount of effort to get knocked off screen rather than to stay on heh. Hopefully the modifications fixed that.

I got around to playing this today. I think I made it to city 4 (I actually got excited when I finished it because I had thought it was city 5 heh). It felt really well done, if a bit light (a common side-effect of rapid development) and, between the light atmosphere, the fast pace, and the simple gameplay, it was really fun.

Agreed on more monsters though.

I thought the way powers worked was pretty cool. At first it didn't make sense that the more powerful powers were reserved for lower health, but I guess it was created in relation to a relative level of "survival instinct" or something similar?

Okay, first off, I'd like to say it was an interesting idea, having lines come from both sides to knock you backwards as you get hit by them.

However, in actually playing the game:

1. It wasn't apparent that hitting a line wouldn't be the end of me. Actually, when the first line hit me, I wasn't entirely sure anything had happened at all.

2. Between the auto-correction towards the center, the tiny amounts of knockback and the fact that the lines knock you in opposite directions, the game was incredibly easy. I actually had missed the fact that collecting lines gives you points (I was given points for every line that passed me, it seemed), but the game was less of an exercise in dodging, and more of an exercise in figuring out which lines to hit to stay on screen. Furthermore, I actually had to try rather hard to get myself knocked off the screen. It seemed that every time I'd get close, a huge wave of the opposite type of line would be near.

I never found a yeti, though it seemed like I came full-circle, if that's even possible, the way one of the bloodstains was placed, it seemed familiar.

The graphic style is awesome, and the mood set by it and the music are great.

Oh, when I climbed up trees, I found that wherever I was perched, I was stuck until I wanted to go down, upon which point, I had to press and hold Shift until I reached the ground. I didn't realize Ctrl did anything (I didn't read the instructions all that well). >.>

My girlfriend and I took a look at it. We came to the consensus that it looks really cool, but it's not immediately apparent that you have to hover over the monster to actually navigate the site, and there's a chance that others might just believe that there's nothing there.

Okay, I extended the view by about...125%-ish, which is a lot more than I thought it would be so, here's hoping that works.

I also managed to fix the player animation, so there's that too.

Still looking for opinions on the AI soldiers following rather than being commanded!

[Known issues with the update:]

It's been a bit of a headache, but I updated it to have the AIs follow the player. Currently, they aren't beefed up and they shoot independently of the player, but I was looking for opinions on that. I also added some (very temporary) visual feedback for time travel that goes across the screen.

Known issues with the update:

- The AIs don't follow the player very well on diagonals, and the further back ones stop moving when the player cuts across at certain angles, due to the way it's written. I don't know that that's a major issue, because they should always follow the player at x amount of distance, depending on their ID, but if I get feedback that it should be changed, I'll change it.

- If there are more than 10 AIs, they won't be assigned IDs correctly. I'm working on that one. I just hacked together something that works to make sure that I could get feedback on it.

- The view isn't extended just yet. Working on it. Might have to modify assets.

I'm not too concerned with "common". Sometimes the right mix of the most common elements can feel entirely new (examples escaping me at the moment). I'm mostly concerned with "works and makes sense". The whole time travel thing makes new features a bit concerning.

For example: If I were to put in powerups, should every unit in the "squad" get a powerup? Should only the main guy get a powerup? If you go back in time to a point where you had a powerup, should that unit get that powerup back for the remainder of the time it had, or should it give the entire squad the powerup for the remainder of the time.

If I add different guns, should it give all units that gun when it's picked up?

I've been steering clear of powerups and guns so far (what kind of powerup do you give a time traveler? Isn't "another you" good enough?), and probably will continue to, but giving more depth to it will be an interesting journey, for sure.

-Expand the view. We can't respond tactically to things we can't see.

I was worried about that. I'll get it fixed.

-Cut the ally controls. Too complex. Have him just follow you and shoot with you (possibly in sync a la Pineapple Smash Crew).

I was also worried about that. So much so that I contemplated implementing it that way before asking for feedback. >.> Especially given that the allies just "sit there" like a turret would when not being commanded, it makes more sense to set them up that way.

-When you use time travel, have the former you appear right beside you and following you already. Make him powerful enough for this alone to be a good reason to use time travel.

Okay, so they're too squishy right now. I'll see about upping their fire rate, making them follow behind the player and seeing what happens after that.

-You use time travel to get higher scores because it allows you to kill the same enemies twice.

That's about all it is right now, plus 500 points for going to the trouble. At least in some sense, it works.

-Consider having all the time traveled monsters appear in their position relative to the player 15 seconds ago instead of in their absolute positions.

They appear in the exact place they were 15 seconds ago, as does your past self. The game is set up to wipe the previous set of 15 seconds and replace. That's all it does. It's not implemented "fluidly" just yet (the wipe/replace happens every 15 seconds, as opposed to you going back a strict 15 seconds), but yeah, point being, the past you, the enemies, all in the position they were at that exact moment.

-Visually feed back when time travel has occurred. Flash the screen, perhaps freeze monsters for a moment.

I forgot to add that to known issues. I'm going to add something or other soon.

-Don't make the user click the mouse for every shot. Hold it down to fire.

Yeah, I'll change that.

On a side-note, power ups? Different guns?

[Current features:]

Play here!

So I've been working on this on and off for the week-ish, and I've gotten it to a certain playable state where it's sort of as feature complete as I really intended it to be originally, but it just doesn't feel complete and I'm running out of ideas that seem like they work.

Current features:

- A dynamic camera.

- A limited form of time travel that at can give you more power, or more opposition, depending on how it's timed.

- Semi-intelligent AI that recognize their nearest opposition, and will move towards and shoot it, depending...the melee units and the larger units just charge blindly at the player, not recognizing the existence of turrets, traps (nothing recognizes traps until they are trapped, at which point the smaller ones will shoot the traps...the larger ones don't get trapped), AI units, etc...also, AI units only move on command.

- A semi-interesting mix of dual-stick shooting, real-time tactics, tower defense, and time travel.

- Two different "towers", a turret and a trap.

- 4 different types of enemies, of varying size and behavior.

How to play:

WASD to move, left click to shoot.

If you pick up one of the black and gray upside-down J things, a turret, press E to place it. If you pick up a blue cube thing, a trap, press Q to place it.

Press Space to go back in time. It goes back 15 seconds, and 15 seconds after the jump have to have happened before you can go back again. It takes all current living things with you, including enemies. Your past self is converted into a soldier you're able to command to move around by pressing the F key. When you have multiple past selves, by default, they'll line up horizontally, but if you press Z, you can switch between the horizontal and vertical formations.

Note: For the purposes of testing out some stuff, there is a "past self" at the beginning. It also helps people who may not be able to last very long to at least get a feel for what it would act like, until I can figure out what I'm doing with the game.

You have 25 HP. Getting hit by a green small alien's shot takes 1 HP. Getting hit by a purple alien's sword takes 2 HP every second and a half that it's in contact with you. Getting hit by one shot from the larger alien's shotgun takes 3 HP. Getting hit by a fireball-thing from the massive alien takes 10 HP. If you manage to not get hit at all for 3 seconds, you'll gain back 1 HP every half a second until you return to 25 or get hit again.

Known Issues:

- Sprite work isn't done, and isn't entirely consistent.

- Plain-looking background.

- No real reason for time travel. I made it so that you'd score 500 points just for jumping back, due to the hassle it's bound to cause, but other than that, there really isn't a reason for it.

- Extending the variety of aliens would be a massive hassle, due to the way the AI that recognizes them is handled.

- Score counter is at the center of the playfield, rather than always being visible.

- No way to tell how much health past selves have.

- Static difficulty. Once you've hit the point where a "Monolith" (unanimated big guy that's only half above ground) shows up, you've seen all the more difficult it's getting right now.

----

All in all, I'd love opinions, and possibly suggestions. I've run through a few ideas and, while a few do seem do-able, I'm not sure they're entirely "good".

Thanks in advance for taking a look!

[March 2nd:]

March 2nd:

I've been picking at the coding for this a bit, but between school and a really crappy sleep schedule, I haven't had much time to sit down that it wasn't giving me massive headaches.

I've been working on implementing the multiplayer code, though, so far, it's not looking so good. I'm probably over-complicating it, but live and learn I shall.

On another topic, I've taken a look at my current system for movement/casting and I'm pretty sure that it's clunky as hell. I was hoping that it would give me room to make some puzzles more interesting by causing players to have to think out their movements in relation to other players, but now that I've been playing around with it, it's really just a major pain in the ass.

Here's what happens currently...

Say this is you: @

And this is a block: #

And this is a floor tile: .

if you make a movement like this...

Code:

....
@.#.
....

to...

Code:

....
.@#.
....

Then you would be facing in the "right" direction (I think represented by the number 1), and you could cast in that direction. Then if you were to move downwards, like this:

Code:

....
..#.
.@..

Then you would be facing down (2?), and you could cast in the downwards direction.

Each spell would be a different key, Z, X, C, and possibly V, and you'd only be able to cast in that direction until you moved again. Players wouldn't have been able to move on top of each other, and it would make puzzles more complex is what I was thinking, but looking back on it, it just looks like a tool for frustration.

So, what I wanted to know, is, if anyone's watching this devlog, would the current setup be better in theory, or would it be better to set up a "Choose spell with a certain key that either cycles through them, or separate keys, such as 1,2,3 to choose a spell, then cast by either clicking an adjacent tile or using another set of 4 keys (similar control scheme to Binding of Isaac would be the best comparison)"?

On a final note, I've decided once I get the game's multiplayer in, and a temporary background, I'm going to declare it 10% and release a "sandbox tech demo" type thing to get some opinions on how it feels overall. Hopefully by then, I'll also have some other items and spells in.