next »

[BlueSweatshirt]

Ikr?
I totally laughed out loud to myself when I saw that.

Maybe there's some secret sorcery magic in hats. 

[Ashkin]

Case in point: Team Fortress 2.
 

[BlueSweatshirt]

Indeed...
Damn those party hats. 

---

Yet another small teaser for the future:


I'm working on implementing more weapons into the game. 

[Xion]

this is looking nice mang. Can't wait to play it.

[BlueSweatshirt]

I hope I can satisfy your guys' expectations. 
No. I want to BLOW THEM AWAY. 

Currently doing memory cleanup with my game.
It uses about ~20 mb of ram on average. Is this good/bad?

[EDIT]
I think I'll also need to add a preloader, even though the game is like 200 kb in size. Any good examples on setting one up with FlashPunk? Aside from knowing the syntax, I'm a total AS3 noob.

[EDIT2]
Finished the the spear weapon!

[Daniel Seabra]

I saw you post in my thread so I thought I'd help a little.

This project looks incredibly awesome. The art is cool, and I love how he is facing diagonally, even though it is a bit unsettling at first. The banner is super cool. I'm not sure about that HUD though. I kinda dislike the random diagonal lines. I dunno, might be just me.

As to the hats thing, everyone loves hats, in real life and in games. It's just that they are pretty expensive in real life so you just have to simulate wearing them (especially for us indie folks - we are penniless most of the time [unless you are like Notch or something])

Anyway, looks wonderful so far, great stuff. I'll keep a tab on this one for sure.

Quests? Missions? Random name generators? Paths? Grass? Ocean (boats? Please?) Exploration? Weapons? STUFF?!

Edit: Just clicked notify. Will follow.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Wow, a fan. 

Don't know about oceans, boats, or exploration. Buttttt, yeah!

Do you mean the gray vertical lines on the top-right?
There are EXP bars there for your weapon level-ups. I wanted to make the end-point of the bars in a minimalist way. Although, I suppose I could throw them out if they're not very attractive. It's pretty close to the edge of the screen, anyway.

I'm up for any hat suggestions, by the way.
And I guarantee I'll include the ability for custom hats.(I'll package a template along with the game) I'll make it really expensive though, so you have something to work up for! 

[EDIT]
ffffff...
I've never worked on a project so big that one code file has almost 1000 lines.

[Daniel Seabra]

Heh, one thing in Scratch had 2,679 lines. My coding was terrible back then. Good thing I left Game Maker. I didn't mean the EXP lines, those are fine, I meant the diagonal lines on the health and (mana?) bars. I think they look ugly, I'd rather just have a solid bar.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Ohhhh, hm.

I'll experiment with that. 

Thanks.

I'm currently working on the 'first' mission level for my game!
I might integrate my random cave generation, we'll see. I fear I'd end up copying It's a Frickin' Cave too much if I did that, though. 8D

[BlueSweatshirt]

Hey guys--

I really need some advice.

I need to decide what I want the mission structure to be like in my game.
There are a few available options I've thought up:

1) Cave Generator
All of the missions would be based on the cave generator I developed. Missions would probably more generic-- Just get down as far as you can. Gogo adventure into the depths.
Pros

• Variety
• Flexibility
• Replayability

Cons

• Less mission objective variety
• Unbalanced scoring(some people may get easier caves, etc.)
• Less visual variety(unless I made multiple generators)

If the cave generator is successful, it might lead to me making multiple generators for venturing into different areas. Mountains, fields, forests, etc. But that's a really big far cry.

2) Hand-crafted Levels
All mission levels in the game would be made by hand. For each mission type, it'd be linked to a level and an objective. Objectives could be to retrieve an item, guard a point(like a door or wall under attack), or simply just to defeat all enemies.
Pros

• More controlled, streamline experience
• Mission variety
• Aesthetic variety

Cons

• Time consuming
• Gets boring fast(maybe)

If I were to do this, I think I'd at least make some kind of attempt to let users make their own levels. I'm using Ogmo right now for it, so it'd be just as easy as throwing you guys that package of mine.

3) The final option:
That is, mix the two. Have a 'cave' dungeon to explore, along with streamlined 'field missions'. This option is definitely the most work, and it may end up creating a fragmented experience, and possible deprecate the standard missions after only a few play throughs. If I'm going to do this I'll have to make the caves and field missions very different, so that doing both types of missions has some benefit that the other does not. Tons of balancing issues here, getting the caves to an acceptable difficulty rate in respect to the missions. And, like I said, it might end up just being messy and unintuitive.

[AndrewFM]

If you do a mix of the two, I'd make it so that all randomly-generated dungeons are only accessible post-game (for completionist purposes, or for people who just want to keep playing the game without doing another playthrough). So you play through all the manually made dungeons as part of the storyline, and then after beating them all, and finishing the game, you can continue conquering the infinitely-many procedurally generated dungeons.

If I were to do this, I think I'd at least make some kind of attempt to let users make their own levels. I'm using Ogmo right now for it, so it'd be just as easy as throwing you guys that package of mine.

This is an excellent idea. A lot of people love level editors, and love making levels for fun. During the beta/demo phases of the game, you could throw the Ogmo project files out there for people to play around with.

This one guy I know had set up a system like this for his project. He made a level editor with object/tile handling, and a simple scripting language for NPCs/Signs/etc. He handed it out to a few people to help him make levels, and within a week, there were already over 250 maps made for the game

[BlueSweatshirt]

Hmmm~
I see no harm in releasing a level editor. Plus a lot of people are already familiar with Ogmo, hoorah!
I'll just have to put some kind of dynamic level loading feature into my game. I figure it won't be too difficult.

Also,
The game doesn't work on any kind of storyline, or linear progression at all. Sorry that wasn't clear-- The game is very arcade style, and you do missions for a score.

[AndrewFM]

Oh, right... I didn't read the first post closely enough. Maybe you could have a number of pre-made dungeons included in the game, but then also have a level editor packaged with the game. If it's not too technically complicated, people can make dungeons, and then upload them to some server, and you can go somewhere in-game to play other people's dungeons that they've uploaded.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Sadly, I'd need a server structure for that. I own no kind of webserver.

Furthermore, then that'd breach on account systems, data security, etc etc. And I'm not ready for that yet.



I considered it.

Kind of just, a pain in the ass.


I'm leaning towards option 3 in the long run, I guess.
I think it'd be best to give the player structured missions first. That way I can do a bit of indirect hand-holding at the beginning of the game, before I throw them into the wild.

[BlueSweatshirt]

You guys get one, but only one, hint at what I'm working on right now:




Mmmmhmmm. 

[Landshark RAWR]

there aren't any shadows because the walls are short enough to see over?

[BlueSweatshirt]

Failure of a cave, I guess. 

updates:
-added enemies
-added multiple floors with scaling difficulties
-balanced the scaling difficulties
-got annoyed at the random nature of random generation, and facepalmed

[EDIT]


Lighting coming soon,
maybe.

[BlueSweatshirt]

Updates for today!

I did a lot of audio and visual work today. I put in many sound effects, and added several animations. On the left of the above screenshot, you can see the enemy death animation.(quite nice in motion, I must say)
I tweaked my cave generation, and added the wizard into the generation process.
Added scoring, and a level indicator, so you can see how far down in the cave you are.

The farther down the cave you go, the enemies get stronger.(they level up just like you!)

Today I figured out what to do with the slime outlines! I changed the slimes to make them vary between each other. Some will have higher damage, some more health, and some will move faster. Their outlines are different accordingly. Oh, and if a slime is efficient enough in all three of the above stats, they will show up as a "super slime", twice the size, and give much more exp/score points.

More visual polishing, content(player weapons, maybe another enemy), and a bit more balancing... And I'll be releasing the first alpha!

Oh, and, I still need background music for this game. 

[BlueSweatshirt]

Alright, lots of structure has been added to the game.

I've got my generator finished, and The Pocket is nearly complete.(although a bit lonely and lifeless right now)

Hats and high scores are also saved now, if my game gets popular enough I'll look into online high scores.

Still need to work on those custom hats and the Fez, and finish the other two weapons.

Then alpha! ITS REALLY CLOSE! EVERYONE GET EXCITED! NOW! 

[Ashkin]

I am PUMPED
My loins are GIRDED
I AM READY TO BEAT UP SOME SLIMES WHILE WEARING HATS