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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsSmash!.com (v0.35 Alpha)
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D-TurboKiller
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« on: December 04, 2010, 08:33:45 AM »

Made in Game Maker 8
Updated 20/12/2010

(NOTE: I keep the download link up to date, but this info is as old as the 1st public release and may not reflect the current gameplay at all; I'll update it properly when I have the time.)

So who are you and what is this?
I'm D-TurboKiller, an 18-year old with a strong passion for gaming. I've had close to 15 years of experience with games and by now I have a pretty decent idea of what works and what does not, and of course what is actually FUN (Gameplay over Graphics, always). I've started attending a computering course at my local university, at this time of writing I'm at my 1st year, and I can't wait to learn more about programming and computers in general.

Now then, *ahem* about the game itself: remember the good old times where you could just go crazy and shoot a ton of enemies while collecting powerups and other assorted goodies while moving through several rooms and finally defeating the boss? Well I do, Smash TV was a pretty damn awesome game, and since I've started my course I wanted to do my own little project and improve it as I go on. And this is the current result, a top-down shooter. It's somewhat ugly-looking right now and the sounds could really use improvement, as well as there being a bug or two, but what's there works and it's mostly a lot of fun right now. But of course, your opinion might vary, and I need all the Feedback I could get.


How does it play out so far?
There's currently only one mode, Random Survival. What this basically means it that you will face ever faster waves of enemies that are picked randomly, both in type and numbers. All you have to do is survive as long as possible and beat the High Scores. Simple, but fun nonetheless.
And as for your playable character? Well, the ranger has a machinegun with limited ammo and a "sniper" with unlimited ammo. Everytime you shoot, it locks your direction so you can strafe around, release to stop. You have a special move, a sentry that shoots everywhere, but disables your machinegun and replaces it with placeable mines.


Could you show us a few screenshots so we can see how it looks like?
Pretty sure I told you it looks a bit ugly, and I'm not quite sure how you'll judge the gameplay this way, but yeah, these two should suffice:


Alright, I'll try it out, where's the link?
Before you try it out, just one more thing: Press F1 for Help so you know how to play. Oh and you can see the to-do list there.
Download v0.35 Alpha (8.27 Mb): http://www.sendspace.com/file/s8aex4
I'll update it once I get a new version ready.


Any Bugs I should be on the lookout?
Fortunately, there's only a of them that I know of right now:
-Player gets stuck on walls when moving diagonally
-Enememies sometimes keep hugging walls (silly game maker step functions, should do my own AI later on)
-Mines sometimes can't get picked up (doesn't matter in v0.3)
Of course, if you know of any others, do tell me.


I can see this has potential. Is there any way I could help you out?
Why, glad of you to ask! Gentleman
First of all comes Feedback: tell me what you thought of the game, what was great, what needs improvement, etc.
Apart from that, I could really use some resources (sprites, sounds, etc.): using "developer-graphics" and standard GM8 sounds isn't exactly the nicest thing to do. If you're interested, you can start right away, as more than 80% of the sprites are 32x32 and sounds are mostly temporary until I get better ones.


Now go on, have a jolly good time for a few minutes! Coffee
« Last Edit: December 20, 2010, 07:51:11 AM by D-TurboKiller » Logged

iamwhosiam
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« Reply #1 on: December 04, 2010, 09:35:09 PM »

you really have to have the ability to shoot in one direction and move in another. It's really difficult if not.
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D-TurboKiller
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« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2010, 01:31:23 AM »

That's what I was afraid of about Direction Locking: people would either get the hang of it pretty quickly (like me), or become annoyed by it. Since I noticed it was pretty difficult to shoot diagonally I was going to implement that anyway. I'll try adding it next week and see how it works out; I just hope it doesn't cause any key-stucking.

The controls should look like this:
W, A, S, D: Shooting in the appropriate direction
Q: Toggle between Primary/Secondary
E: Special
Space: Action/Reload

Also planned for next week is a new playable class and hopefully the beginnings of a Dungeon system, as well as a few other tidbits. Until then, studying is most important Concerned
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Pocketninja
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« Reply #3 on: December 08, 2010, 12:45:15 PM »

To start: I love Smash-TV. In fact, I still play it quite often.

Now to your game Tongue

I can defiantly see the relation to Smash TV; and that's not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with taking concepts and ideas that worked well in another game and implementing them into your own. However, make your own game =]! Try and not you music or images from Smash TV; because honestly, after playing around with your game for a bit I felt compelled to go play Smash-TV Tongue! I do understand that you do have limited resources however, so maybe this will change later on. Concepts mechanics and ideas aren't harmful to acquire from other games -- just watch it on the images and soundtracks!

Currently, the controls don't work for me. In a game like this, its essential to be able to move and shoot in different directions. I did get the hang of your current controls, however they do hinder the game-play quite a bit.

It was hard for me to further get a feel of the game-play without different controls.

I like where this is going and I see potential. Fix up those controls and ill give it a go again!

Cheers  Beer!
« Last Edit: December 08, 2010, 02:12:24 PM by Pocketninja » Logged

D-TurboKiller
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« Reply #4 on: December 08, 2010, 04:08:21 PM »

Hey, thanks for the informative post!

To be fair I was hoping this thread would die out a bit; I realized this might just be too much for me to currently bear, as my skills are quite lacking. I haven't worked out anything yet because of that, but maybe I'll give it another go if I have the time. If not, I can always do a much smaller project.

Yes, I saw how the controls were awkward to use and I planned on remaking them. Depending on how it works out, it's either mouse-aiming from here on or the classic, smash-tv style aiming. Problem is, toggleing between attacks with the latter for, say, a melee class, seems to be a bit awkward perhaps, but we'll see, I'll probably do something to fix that.

Considering there seems to be some interest in this project I'll see about revamping this project a bit, mainly the current image style as well as the sounds, will most definitely try to fit it into the retro theme. I'm hoping I can get something done before the end of the week.

Thanks guys!  Hand Thumbs Up Left Wink
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D-TurboKiller
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« Reply #5 on: December 11, 2010, 06:30:20 AM »

v0.3 Alpha released!
Download (8.12 Mb): http://www.sendspace.com/file/kfyq0t

Changelog:
-Major reworking on the shooting system: You can now shoot from all sides using separate keys without pointing to that direction first
-Improved Random Survival: 4 different rooms, survive for 2 minutes to randomly switch rooms
-You can switch weapons now instead of using secondary fire
-Camera view implemented for future larger rooms (one is available now)
-Much optimized shooting code, now more effective, versatile and hopefully bug-free (no more sniper missing bugs)
-Difficulty scale for Random Survival; Every minute, spawned enemies gain 25% more of its original health (not total health)
-Ranger now has a slightly innacurate machinegun
-Sentry was seriously improved; now has to reload (Ammo 100; UnAmmo has no effect), rotates slowly to the left and keeps firing inaccurately (twice as normal machinegun)
-Ammo indicator for sentry
-A few new and improved sounds
-Mines disabled until next release


So I've finally done it and got a new release straight out of the oven. Considering this is on DevLog now, I want to explain a few things.

What's been done and why:
First of all, you can shoot from 8 directions while moving around any way you want to. This vastly improves your ability to shoot and dodge, and is generally much more fun. Key layout has been accomodated for this. Note that Crappy keyboards may get key-stucking, mostly with diagonals. If you have a crappy keyboard and want to avoid this, try playing with a gamepad instead; use Joy2Key or similar to play with a gamepad. Shooting isn't based on incrementing/decrementing x or y values anymore, just speed, so not only it works better now, it's pretty much bug-free (no more sniper missing with small enemies). Also the "machinegun" weapon is slightly inaccurate, as I intended to.

Random Survival had quite an improvement this release, in fact I might say it's close to finished now once I add a few important elements next release. The added difficulty each minute increases enemy's health, which makes it tougher to survive, and if you hadn't noticed yet, enemies spawn ever faster over time, and you have to improve your tactics. The addition of 4 different rooms makes it ever crazier. As soon as 2 minutes pass, enemies stop spawning and an icon appears at the bottom indicating you can change rooms (with Space). Currently one of them is twice as big as normal, which should make it pretty interesting to play with.

The sentry has received quite an overhaul. Shooting in 45 degrees for each shot just doesn't cut it, and the random factor didn't feel right at all. So I went ahead and made it constantly rotate left and shoot innacurately, which made it vastly more effective but not overpowered; shots are slower and innacurate and it also needs to reload. The sentry isn't supposed to be permanent though, as you'll probably see next release. As for mines, they've been disabled for tweaking.

Lastly, I'm starting to deviate from Smash TV, as it isn't intended to be a clone but a sort of spiritual sequel to it. I've added/changed a few different sounds (with sfxr, still need to improve on some), so as to give it a more retro feel that i'm aiming for. Sadly the graphics are anything but retro for me yet, they're just weird programmmer graphics, I wish I had someone help me out with this.


So what's next?
For next release I'm finally planning on adding different classes for the game. I decided multiplayer support just isn't worth my time, so you'll be switching classes when needed. Random Survival will be completely finished, though it might need a few tweaks after that. Leveling Up will be implemented, you'll be able to obtain points which you can spend on upgrades. New weapons are a definite yes as well. I've also been wanting to implement traps since forever, so those'll be in too.

If I have enough time, I might also start implementing the promised Dungeon System and also the Shop system, for weapon upgrades and whatnot.


As usual, report any feedback and bugs, and have a good time  Coffee
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D-TurboKiller
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« Reply #6 on: December 20, 2010, 08:32:53 AM »

v0.35 Alpha Released!
Download (8.27 Mb): http://www.sendspace.com/file/s8aex4

Changelog:
-Final shooting mechanics: Mouse shooting implemented, previous mechanic removed
-Major improvement on weapon handling, can now use different weapons on different slots (currently does nothing)
-Weapon 1 Secondary Fire: Shotgun, low range, half damage, but shoots 16 pellets instead of 1 bullet
-Weapon 2 Secondary Fire: Grenade Launcher, decent damage, bounces off walls, consumes all ammo
-Weapon 1 Primary Fire tweaked: faster, more accurate, uses same pellets as shotgun, but with original damage
-Weapon 2 Primary Fire tweaked: Sniper, click to fire, double damage when clicked over enemy, after 3 hits (a hit is counted after 5 steps) from an enemy or wall it disappears
-Weapon 2 now consumes ammo
-Sentry activated by pressing 1
-Sentry now only lasts 30 seconds, can only deploy 60 seconds after removed
-Sentry bullets can now ricochet on walls twice before destroying themselves
-Explosions are now transparent
-Fixed reloading all weapons when only one is being reloaded
-Fixed changing weapons while reloading
-Fixed not being able to change rooms again on Random Survival, as the counter didn't reset
-Fixed missing wall collisions on one random level
-Fixed sniper not having the new shooting mechanic


I actually didn't initially plan on releasing this, but I wanted to show this project was well alive and in progress.


What's been done:
Alright, most noticeable change in this release, WASD movement and mouse shooting has been added! This is actually how I wanted it to be in the first place, as the previous control schemes were experiments to see how decent it would play out. Turns out the current scheme was the best one by far, as expected, since the first scheme made diagonal shooting hard and turning around quickly almost impossible, and the second scheme was generally innefective and not as much fun due to key-stucking. Instead, the new scheme allowed me to implement secondary fire again, weapon changing (more on that below), and also saved me about a hundred lines of code.

The most important change (and the one you won't notice yet) is weapon handling. As soon as I get them done, you can grab new weapons when you see them; this took me several attempts to get it right and decently code-effective, but it was well worth the time.

Both weapons now have a Secondary Fire, making them 2 weapons in one! Weapon 1 has an excellent shotgun, even with half the damage and low range it remains a deadly close-range weapon. Weapon 2 has a Grenade Launcher, hold and release as usual, but it can bounce off walls and doesn't hurt you in the explosion; I think it needs a few tweaks though, it's not quite as effective as I thought.

Other important changes are tweaks and fixes. I felt Weapon 1's Primary fire needed to be faster and more accurate (a minigun is planned, by the way), though it's harder to land those shots as the bullets are much smaller. Weapon 2's Primary Fire eventually ended up being a sniper with a few interesting things: it can go up through only 3 enemies (wall hits count as 1 hit each 5 steps), but if you target over an enemy with your crosshair and shoot, that enemy will receive double damage! The sentry is finally temporary and definitely effective now, as shots can bounce off walls twice. Asides from these, I fixed some silly issues that were there partly due to forgetfulness and not enough testing.


What hasn't been done:
New Classes. I'm definitely not going to start on these until I'm sure I finish the Ranger Class first, as it'll be the basis for all the other classes. Probably one of the last things I do before I start designing Story Mode.

Leveling Up. This is being pretty hard to add, as I have to design a menu in-game without disturbing the gameplay, I figured out that last one but I need a decent design that shows the evolution tree for each weapon, shows their current stats, and shows what happens when you attain an upgrade.

Random Survival isn't finished yet. This is because I need Leveling Up and the Shop System to be implemented first. I should probably postpone the other modes as well, as this'll also be a basis for the others.

New Weapons. I was adding the weapon change system beforehand, so this'll be the first thing I'll do for next release.

Traps. Thought about spikes and fireballs, but I need a few more before I start adding them in. Also reminds me that I should add a few puzzle elements as well.


So what's next?
If all goes well? All of the above, except for the new classes. Later on I'll start deviating it from the Smash TV clone that wasn't meant to be and remove the non-original content such as the menu and music, with at the very least temporary ones. And if doesn't turn out bad, I'll be replacing the current health system with a more rpg-ish version.


Enjoy the new release, report any feedback and bugs if you can  Coffee
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