next »

[Geti]

Interesting stats so far, I'm liking playtomic.
32 views for 96 plays.
9 link clicks.
86 deaths.
19,427 blocks destroyed.
Seems people like breaking the ground, which is good cause that really is all you can do.
Zombies might be coming this week, but I've got exams and should really prioritise those so it'll be late night game dev if any.

[Geti]

Mockup only, calm down.
Got the zombie sprites to a level I'm happy with without touching the palette and decided to do a mockup with them. Ended up adding some tiles, happy with the aesthetic result. Feel free to nitpick or wonder why the zombies are all planty.

Back to study, I suppose.

[Geti]

Zombies are in. AI is terrible.
It's 23:21 and I have two exams tomorrow. Argue with my logic and die.


They're really really hard to kill once they're upon you. I suggest weakening them with falls through games of chase, and caving things in on them.

Balancing is off, as you might expect. I don't even care at the moment.
Feel free to suggest balancing measures and AI behaviours. Currently there's literally 12 lines of behaviour code.

Makes the game a lot more hectic, in any case. Dig a hole, run from zombies, get killed by zombies, repeat, I suppose.

Nice screenshots would be lovely.

[The Monster King]

this looks like it could be solid gold

make it multiplayer and i marry you (or better, i dont marry you!)

having the zombies jump when you try to jump over them is the dickiest thing in the universe though

[Sean A.]

I think that if yourgonna make it a slower paced games about building defenses and surviving, then you should really have to zombies stumble slowly, also I think that would be scarier because if you can see a zombie coming and your scrambling to build your defenses in time I think it creates a cool atmosphere. Alternatively if you want a faced paced game you should increase the digging power so you can dig faster.

[Geti]

@Sean: Zombies aren't tweaked at all and the experience isn't what I have planned, don't worry.

this looks like it could be solid gold
make it multiplayer and i marry you (or better, i dont marry you!)
having the zombies jump when you try to jump over them is the dickiest thing in the universe though

Glad you like the look of it Multiplayer might happen this game, but it'll likely be local only until subsequent games that focus on multiplayer. Zombie AI will become more zombie-ish tonight hopefully, I'm planning on getting some work done.

[Geti]

Update.
Shit gets crazy, but not too crazy. You can kill the zombies kind of now, but they get a massive advantage while in-melee: no pain.

Enjoy. Zombies still don't crouch through tunnels, sadly. I'll do an AI update tomorrow.

http://losingreception.110mb.com/Prelude/

There's blood now. Imma need an anti-kids page soon, I think.

[Geti]

DONE BIG UPDATE ON SPAWNING AND SMALL ONE ON AI
they'll now follow you into tunnels, and won't do the whole spawn a million times thing. I really need to do pathfinding though <_<

[Rumrusher]

I found that a good tactic of using the fall damage and dig straight down to height is lethal range and dig out a nice hovel to stay hopefully a hard to reach one. If any thing I live underground has taught me is that when beta testing a game where you have to build traps to protect your self against a Infinite army tends to lead to figuring out ways to put less effort on surviving and more on expanding(personal metagame for these types).

[Geti]

Indeed, which is a problem. I suppose the only way to get around those sorts of tactics becoming the most viable at the moment would be to heavily reduce points for campers. I'm planning on having quiet days in the final game for building/repairs and giving the player some breathing space. There'll likely be the ability to hit the hay early for some bonus HP at the cost of possibly waking up to some zeds beating down your wall, but whatever. Working on configurable keys for those using QWERTZ layouts and getting some more graphical niceness happening (attacking anims, some backgrounds perhaps (though they'll be placeholders..)), nothing too in-depth cause I've got 3 more exams next week..

[Rumrusher]

Indeed, which is a problem. I suppose the only way to get around those sorts of tactics becoming the most viable at the moment would be to heavily reduce points for campers. I'm planning on having quiet days in the final game for building/repairs and giving the player some breathing space. There'll likely be the ability to hit the hay early for some bonus HP at the cost of possibly waking up to some zeds beating down your wall, but whatever. Working on configurable keys for those using QWERTZ layouts and getting some more graphical niceness happening (attacking anims, some backgrounds perhaps (though they'll be placeholders..)), nothing too in-depth cause I've got 3 more exams next week..

wait what?
By what do you mean reduce hitpoints for building a fort and starting a base of operations?
Do you want players to build a shoody fort spend 1 hour barely defending it and horribly die, or do you want players to build a successful fort that could last some years and look wicked cool and have a chance to screw it up on there own and horribly die?
If anything to 'punish' those who make their fall trap entrance is to add either Trees that can be used for building walls or ladders or better weapons. Leading to them to think what should come first digging down or setting up walls and build up.

[Geti]

No, I just meant reduce possible points, as in score, those things that get you valour and respect and whatnot. It's not fun standing in a hole and watching zombies fall and splatter in front of you for long anyway, but if it's a viable way to get your score onto the tables people will sit through it (or just change tabs and do something else). I'll more likely just make gibbing zombies dangerous, spreading contaminants around. I haven't even got started on that system at the moment.

Also, you do realise trees for wood and mining for stone for construction is planned, 15 weapons so far are planned (with more as fun options come to mind), and that ladders fall under construction, right? It's not just going to be digging like a mole into the ground for long. I want the player to survive for days or weeks (in game, that is, maybe up to 8 hours over a few sessions irl before shit gets crazy or food is really hard to come by) if they get really good. There will also be escape conditions (at least, they're planned for somewhere in the distant future) for an end of game bonus (surviving vs not surviving).

Anyway:
Update with key config, anims, and placeholder backgrounds.
A few things tweaked:
you dig faster (this is similar to how the shovel will function for digging)
zombies don't take as much fall damage
a few small AI tweaks (nothing useful)

Todo over the next few days: bodies (that stack up and decay) and inventory (just empty hands and pick for now, that'll take a PITA amount of spriting anyway with the system I have planned but will make implementing new items a breeze)

I've got to go study, but I'd like some feedback, ideas for backgrounds, etc.

[Geti]

Oh, some people have been having issues with lockups btw. Try wiping your save data in options if that happens, it likely means you've got missing key data (which is reset upon wiping).

[Geti]

UUUP-date.
A few tweaks, bodies, some particle changes. Playing with a friend got fucking frantic trying to get some body piles happening. You'll be able to walk on them at some point btw, just need to sort various thangs therein. More concerned with items, which I'll do wednesday evening after EXAMS ARE FINALLY OVER.
Things to expect by, like, thursday midday:

-shovel
-machete
-empty hands _not_ being default or able to do stuff to terrain.
-a more interesting terrain gen, though I'm actually thinking of going all streamed levels on this, at the cost of a restricted viewport most likely (extra calls -> I want to keep lag down on netbooks etc). I'm pretty sick of flatlands, I assume you are too, so I'll get some hills and shyte going like in ilopocalypse.
-flocking for zombies

Also fixed the bug with space not registering in the keyconfig area for those who got angry at that.

[Rumrusher]

well count this on me playing with out knowing what is ahead.

but I can rest knowing the only down side to that is lack of points which would be easy to rack back up once a Safe means are made.
I wonder if digging can be used for landfill as well, idea might lead to cave in base traps and air locking breach areas.

[Geti]

Yep, you'll be able to drag bodies around to prevent spike pits from filling up too quickly, or quicklime them away. You might end up with garbage from somewhere else, I suppose (food tins and the like) which could be a pain to deal with in various situations, but because it's quite a boring task I definitely won't make it very central to the game.

[Geti]

There totally isn't and update to level generation or anything. Nuh-uh.

Bodies may behave badly for a while, I really can't be assed getting collision happening with them now, because every time I try I end up with a pile of bodies that writhes about <_< Weapons might happen tonight though, or tomorrow at some point. Have some personal stuff being shitty at the moment so it might be delayed though.

[Rumrusher]

I like to introduce you to GardenAura
so far this is the main entrance you can see I had to claw through some zlevels of dirt with my bare hands to set up this up. I could have fell into the magma( which was one Zlevel below which you can't see here but trust me it's Magma! I can feel it burning my cat leather boots!) I'm going to add several rooms for my stocks and a military traps. Once that is settled maybe start up growing crops and go in the craft biz who knows which Human would buy 5 platinum for a doodad made out of severed Goblin hand and rock. I do, the ones foolish enough to come here they believe ANYTHING a hermit dwarf in a haunted woods will say ! Yet before I can do that I'm stuck some levels below!
Installing a stair well would be hazardous now for the Gobbos would get me. That and this place has no wood for miles, oh well best wait for the migrant wave to come so I can use them for slavelabor and protection Praise Armok!

  Uhh yeah I got carry away there. So how would one be able to drag bodies when you add it in?

[Geti]

Heh, I'm kind of glad you were able to get carried away, it's early days. It's nice that there's some form of DF feel, too.

Dragging bodies will be done with the "secondary action" button (default c for now) when using empty hands. They'll be treated like other "unstowables", such as crates, big rocks, powder kegs and the like, where you can carry them around but can't put them into your inventory.

[Geti]

SHOVEL ITEM IS IN
http://losingreception.110mb.com/Prelude/

I'll tweak it quite a lot from now, but I really can't be fucked editing the alignments anymore, so I'll modify the sprite to deal with clipping issues and whatnot later. There have been a few tweaks on the zombies too. I'll do a lot more work this evening, probably get the machete done, but for now I'd love feedback on what's good and what's bad about the shovel. Keep in mind that it's not meant to be a very effective zombie killing tool, more of a quick knock back while you gtfo.

Known issue mentioned on the page but badly explained: I haven't updated the options page to tweak your controls for switching item, they default to A and S (think of them as L and R keys on a gameboy) and it loops around. Currently, though, there's only empty hands and the shovel, so I'm assuming you'll just want to use the shovel anyway.

Other known issue: The shovel can dig through a wall from the wrong side if there's a weaker material on the other side of it and you get up close to the wall. The feasibly means you can batten zombies through a wall for a few seconds before the wall breaks. I'll fix this when I shorten the sprite a little and pull in some alignment variables, but as of now they look like [[0,0],[0,1],[-2,1]] but a lot longer and less pleasant numbers and I'm sick of them, so I figured I'd give you a look.