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[Franklin's Ghost]

Versus mode is coming along nicely, liking the look. Also like the look of the lightening power.

[eigenbom]

Oh, multiplayer, that's friggin sweet.

[Ninja Dodo]

Version 14:



Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v14.zip

So, Versus-mode.

For the moment there are no win conditions and both players can respawn indefinitely (press DOWN or S).

There is only one assisting god (controlled with mouse) and sacrifices are still shared as they are in co-op. I will have to add additional controls for a player 2 god, probably on gamepad.

The other new addition is Zeus' LIGHTNING-power.

There's no interface for choosing these yet but if you press 2 you can ZAP things to your heart's content. Make sure not to stand close... and press 1 to switch back to GRAB-power. I'm still deciding whether I want to limit this power by time or by number of hits. It seems more satisfying somehow if you can ZAP multiple things.

Probably by number is better because I don't want to encourage spamming buttons. That, or limit the amount of damage you can do in one spot. The cost in sacrifices will likely be high (zero right now for testing purposes).


I'm going back and forth on whether or not to keep the vertical panning for single/co-op. It loosens the camera up a bit, but since there's no vertical in Versus it maybe feels a bit out of place. I could restrict it only to taller vases/levels. Thoughts?

Note: If you want to test without vertical pan press NUMPAD2 after the game starts (in single/co-op) before moving.

[Ninja Dodo]

So here's a thing I didn't know until recently: The way Game Maker handles transparency, if you just copy/paste a transparent layer from Photoshop, you lose the transparency. Now, you can separately import an alpha map, OR recreate the transparancy by erasing a color in the GM editor (which is messy) but it turns out a much simpler solution is to just save to PNG and import that.



If, like me, you missed the news on the benefits of PNG, you may find this useful...

It occurs to me also that if you just want a shadow effect, you don't actually need to mess with draw modes in GM because an alpha-d PNG will do the job just fine.


So between some freelance work and finally getting around to playing Deus Ex 3 progress has been slower the last couple of weeks, but here's what I'm working on now:



A radial menu for selecting powers and a disembodied hand for the GRAB power. I'm also working on the skeleton AI some more.

[Ninja Dodo]

New video:

[r0ber7]

Liking the improved combat. Nice!

[Ninja Dodo]

Thanks.

Still needs a lot of work, but they're a bit more challenging now.

New version is up:



Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v15.zip

Powers can now be selected with a radial menu (hold RIGHT-CLICK or hotkeys 1 and 2). Skeletons can block and jump over shields, plus some other improvements.

Next version: separate p1 and p2 sacrifices in Versus and add controls for the p2 god...

[eigenbom]

Haven't played this in a while so though I'd give it a shot. You're definitely making some good progress. Here's some feedback!

No mouse please! For the god controls, why not have the hand automatically pick you up as soon as you activate the power and then use the move keys to move it around and the attack key to drop the player? For the lighting attack, you could use the move keys to select one of the enemies on screen and attack key to bring the lightning down (or cancel to cancel it.)

Personally I would like a jump key that isn't the up arrow or 'w'. Ideally it should be right next to the attack key.

The frame rate seems quite low, and so movement feels staggered.

I can run and attack and almost never get hit by a skeleton. Maybe running into a skeleton should have the effect of a weak hit on the player?

Where's the close button on the window? :D

[Ninja Dodo]

Thanks for the feedback!

I can run and attack and almost never get hit by a skeleton. Maybe running into a skeleton should have the effect of a weak hit on the player?

That is a problem. I prefer to have the skeletons not hurt on touch (except through falling damage), but I'm going to need to do some tweaks here. The goal should be that if you run straight at an alerted skeleton (that's facing you) and simply attack without blocking dodging or anything, you lose.

No mouse please! For the god controls, why not have the hand automatically pick you up as soon as you activate the power and then use the move keys to move it around and the attack key to drop the player? For the lighting attack, you could use the move keys to select one of the enemies on screen and attack key to bring the lightning down (or cancel to cancel it.)

I want to keep the mouse for 2-player (hero + god) co-op, but I've thought about having a hotkey-based alternative for solo hero players. I can't just have it pick up the player because GRAB can also be used on enemies or physical objects (rocks, spears). A solution would be to let the player cycle through possible targets as you describe for the lightning-power, though depending on the number of objects it might be too slow...

Personally I would like a jump key that isn't the up arrow or 'w'. Ideally it should be right next to the attack key.

Customizable controls are planned for later. For the time being though I could make 'Z' an alternative jump key, put drop/cancel on 'C' and have 'SHIFT' be the only bash button(s)...

The frame rate seems quite low, and so movement feels staggered.

Not sure what to do about that other than general clean up (which I try to do as I go along). There might be some gains as well if/when I switch to GM Studio (early tests seem promising but current version crashes for me, so not yet).

Where's the close button on the window? :D

This is an option you can toggle in GM. I forget why I turned this off... I suppose I thought it looked nicer without, but really it doesn't make much difference and isn't worth the loss in functionality. Fixed in the next version.

[eigenbom]

Oh I didn't realise you could pick up enemies with the hand of god, that sounds like fun. Hmm ... well maybe you could just disable the hand of god altogether in solo play and replace it with something else (e.g., icarus wings for 10 seconds, or am i mixing my roman and greek mythos?! )

I really like the option of having the hand for a two player mode, where one player solely controls the hand and the other the warrior. Although to keep it fun for the other player you'd need the hand of god to be permanently in the scene, although maybe it powers up with kills etc until it can actually do things, left-click for grab, right-click for lighting bolts?

Yeh, not sure about the frame rate, but I have a fairly good machine so I bet something in there is going wrong.

[Ninja Dodo]

The heroes/gods-dynamic is central to the game so I definitely want to keep that in both single- and multiplayer. Powers are limited right now, but eventually there will be different gods, each with different powers.

Icarus' flying has been covered extensively in other games, so I don't really feel I have anything to add to that. If I were to do a level on the Daedalus and Icarus myth it would be a one-off thing, not a core mechanic.

Honestly it's hard not to mix Greek and Roman myth because they are mostly the same stories and characters, and sometimes the only surviving version is the Roman, but Icarus is Greek originally.

although maybe it powers up with kills etc until it can actually do things, left-click for grab, right-click for lighting bolts?

This sort of already exists in the sacrifices mechanic (each power costs wine or sheep that the hero collects) but I'm thinking of having kills also count as a sacrifice if your god is Ares (war), with the blood-thirst and all. There will be more than two god powers so I can't get around the radial menu or hotkeys.

The frame rate worries me a bit. The game runs fine on my laptop which is not exactly the fastest of systems. Keeping an eye on this.

[Ninja Dodo]

So I've been working on the god powers for player 2 and some various improvements: one of them adding the Windows buttons back in (minimize, maximize, close), but it turns out if you re-enable this it causes the game to freeze any time you use the ALT key (which I've got mapped as an alternative for "drop/cancel").

I didn't make the connection at first but this thread proved illuminating. If I have to choose between window buttons and being allowed the ALT key, having an X top right doesn't seem worth it. You can always quit with ALT-F4 or ESC, or toggle full-screen with ALT-ENTER...

[Ninja Dodo]

One year ago today I made the first post in this devlog... shortly before that first post the game looked like this, now it looks like this:



I've made some progress, but lots to do still, so back to work!

[eigenbom]

Wow congrats on sticking with it for so long! My 1 year moonman anniversary is coming up soon!

[r0ber7]

Happy anniversarium!

 

I think I keep coming back here because there are sheep. 

[Ninja Dodo]

As good a reason as any! Thank you both.

[Dugan]

Still looking great- keep up the good work!

[Ninja Dodo]

Thanks! ^^

New version:



Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v16.zip

New video:



I've added gamepad control for player 2 and separated sacrifices in Versus so that now both players can use divine powers against each other. This works in co-op and versus.

What this means is that you can now have a fully symmetrical game of versus with player 1 alternating between keyboard and mouse for hero and god control, and player 2 on gamepad for both... P1 is keyboard-only for now but I will try to have double gamepad support in the next version.

Tested this with a 360 controller.


Next version: I will try to add scoring and victory conditions.

[Ninja Dodo]

Technical sidenote: I'd been using a wired 360 controller which I bought years ago for testing initially, but as I was about ready to wrap up version 16 I went out to buy an additional controller so could I build support for double gamepads later, this one wireless. Strangely enough I couldn't get the new gamepad to work with the game at all.

Now I'm not sure if this is specific to Game Maker or to Windows, but it turns out if you have a wired 360 controller installed and later install the drivers for a wireless controller, it ALWAYS thinks the wireless is controller #2 even if it's the only controller plugged in. GM supports only two controllers so I ended up just checking for both joystick_exists(1) and joystick_exists(2) making whichever one is there gamepad #1.

That worked.

Something else I hadn't mention before: A few versions ago I simplified the co-op cam back to a single lead player. As I was testing this in version 13 by myself the semi-shared camera seemed to work reasonably well (controlling only 1 of 2 players at a time), however when subjected to a proper 2-player co-op test the camera was jerky and confusing, focus constantly switching back and forth.

It turns out (perhaps rather obviously) you really can't fake playtesting conditions, or rather: fake conditions = fake results. I've since changed the co-op cam to simply focus on the lead player, so if one dies, focus shifts to the surviving player, but the camera follows only one player at any given time.

[Ninja Dodo]

And... version 17



Download: http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/hellas/hellas_v17.zip

Bunch of changes in this version. Both players can now use gamepads and I've added scoring and a victory condition (10 helmets) to Versus-mode. I made some adjustments to the skeleton AI jumping and blocking and rewrote slope collision to be more robust (fixing a few bugs in the process).

You can now pick up vases with the GRAB-power (though they break when dropped from any height). I've gone back and forth on this because it doesn't really serve a purpose, but it is more consistent that anything not nailed down can be picked up. The one scenario where it could be useful is if you want to prevent your opponent from getting a sacrifice and you lift it into the air right from under their nose. Otherwise useless for collecting since it also costs a sacrifice to use the power.