next »

[Izzimach]

I know what you're thinking: car chases, midgets, and guns.  Sorry, no.  Instead what we have is some bizarre cross between an FPS and a roguelike.

The final version is available; note that since it's an XNA game, if you haven't already run an XNA game before you'll have to install various dependencies for the XNA 2.0 Framework, discussed in the XNA forums.  I apologize for not making a proper XNA installer like the guys over in Narcoleptic Soccer Rush.

The video is

.



You have pits, magic runes, and an angry Invincible Dwarf.  You can't stop him, but  you can slow him down.  Keep him from smashing valuable Dwarven artifacts to "win".



The dwarf is invulnerable, and can tunnel straight through rock to get to his destination.


A key mechanic I wanted to try was to be able to dig anywhere.  If the Unstoppable Dwarf can just dig through solid rock to get where he wants... well, it's just in character.  And the player can improvise pits and shortcuts by digging through the level as well.

I had refrained from posting until I was sure the "digging" code would work.   It mostly works, but gets slow after you go crazy and dig dozens of holes in the walls.  Part of it is because the game is done in C# and XNA... but another reason is that the current algorithm's crap, and needs an overhaul.
 

[Izzimach]

Well, digging is implemented, and works surprisingly well.  I thought my computer would asplode trying to handle so many convex hulls, but it's no problem as long as you don't go crazy making holes all over the place.

So, take your run of the mill wall,


And dig holes in it.  You can dig anywhere at any angle, and even go into your holes and extend them.


Dig downward and make pits to impede the dwarf's progress.

Right now, he gets stuck, but once he is able to dig himself out, pits will only slow him down, not stop him.

Cuz you know, he's UNSTOPPABLE.

[seregrail7]

That's sounds pretty cool.

[Izzimach]

Well, all mechanics are in.  Some demo videos:



not that it does any good; unless you dig the pit at a steep angle, the Dwarf just climbs out.  You can, uh, ignore that tiger statue in the room 



by digging through the walls.  Also, we use the "magic barrier" to thwart the Dwarf, although only for a few seconds.

Unfortunately, when you (or the Dwarf) dig a bunch of holes in the rock, the game slows to an interminable crawl, since there are so many things to collide against.  But I'm surprised the collision code works even as well as it does.

So I have what, a week left?   Probably enough time to fix up the art, seeing as I'm using barrowed placeholders for everything in the game at this point...

[Xion]

Wow, man, this looks noice! It makes me want to try and stop that dwarf. Stop it hard!

[Izzimach]

Well, all the gameplay is basically complete.  The collision stuff is improved a bit so that frame slowdown isn't as bad, although it still chugs in places.  I've removed all the placeholder stuff and put in my own art/sound assets, which are typically not as good    Alas.

I probably won't get any more time on this project aside from some tweaks, so I'm sticking up a demo for posterity.  The keyboard controls are a little wonky--it was really designed for a gamepad, and I can't get the mouse control to not suck.

All in all, I'm pleasantly surprised that the collision and digging mechanics worked as well as they did, both from a technical and gameplay standpoint.  Making a sort of "mini Dwarf Fortress" seems doable, once I go back and improve the digging/carving code a little.

[Corpus]

Holy crap, while we all toil over a 2D engine you make... this

[Izzimach]

Alrighty,  keyboard/mouse control is fixed up, and added some text to give credit where credit is due.  I realize the use of XNA limits how many people can play it, but that's OK since skydiving babies are way cooler anyways.

[Oddball]

The controls for this were way too sensitive on my laptop. It was hard to get anywhere as a span way too far whenever I tried turning round. The dwarf was certainly unstoppable though as I only saw him once. Good stuff.

[Izzimach]

Yeah, I must have tuned some parameters using the gamepad and forgot to adjust the KB/Mouse settings.  Anyways, I updated the speed so it's quite slower now--maybe still not slow enough though

[zradick]

I like the concept of environment modification.  Opens up a lot of possibilities, but inevitably makes design challenging to avoid confusion.  I remember playing through some game that allowed you to do some limited digging on the PC 10 or so years ago...  Red something...  Anyway, it was alright, but the gimmick of environmental destruction and modification was underused (and when you did use it, things could get pretty confusing).
Cheers,
--Zack