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[r0ber7]

Hey,

As promised, I deliver unto you a new video of gameplay.
New in this video:

- caves
- locks and keys
- lighting
- powerup starry effects
- big viking ship
- blood spitting viking ghosts
- fireball upgrade
- black hole warp spell

The warp spell still needs some tweaking and optimizing. I actually had it looking a lot more  "warpy" before, but I lost that in a half-assed attempt at optimization. Slow framerate in the beginning and a few choppy frames later on is because of spiral calculations + video recording software being evil. Also the sound seems to be slightly out of sync, sorry.

Given time, I'll fix all of the above, but seeing how I promised to give you a new video this week (and I have to go to work soon),

[negativeview]

Is this how the player will be playing? The fireballs seem incredibly overpowered from watching the video. It's hard to imagine anything there being a challenge as fast as you can shoot them.

[r0ber7]

Not at all. I still have to implement a mana bar. One of those little things on the shelf... Every spell will cost you mana. So you'll be able to case a few times & have to wait (or get mana powerups, haven't decided on that yet)

This is also the third fireball you can buy. First will be one fireball, second two, third this one.

Now that you mention it, I'll be sure to implement some balancing in the next video. It's confusing.

[kamac]

Hey, the fireball effect looks great!

Althrought, warp could use some more power. 

[r0ber7]

Hey, the fireball effect looks great!

Althrought, warp could use some more power. 

Thanks. What do you mean with power exactly? Cause if I warp the entire screen I think things would get a bit too messy (you wouldn't know where to walk etc.) Also, it's young code so it'll hopefully age like a good wine.

Anyhow, I refined the warp code a bit this evening. It's more warpy now I think. Short video: 



Before, it was more like all stuff was getting pulled into one direction. Now I think it looks more as if the stuff gets swirled around before it disappears. May not look like a big difference but I just had to get it right damnit. :D
I also added pre-calculation for the x & y points of the (invisible) spirals that are used in the warp. Now it's no longer the cpu hogging beast it was before.

As for the music, I spoke to the musician today. We've set up a meeting on sunday. He told me he'd have some music ready by then, so if it sounds right I'll probably share it here. He also has acces to my "official" devlog, so it could be he posts it there before I share it.

[kamac]

Yeah, warp looks warpier now

[r0ber7]

Today:

- tweaked the fireballs a bit (there was a glitch where they'd move extra hard when the player moved).
- started on the viking world.




It's very likely that viking snowmen will make their way into the game. I also want to add snow slowly falling from the sky. Shouldn't be too hard. I've also thought of a really trippy powerup, but you'll hear more about that later. Will spend the rest of the evening improving the level editor. Cheers.

[r0ber7]

- further optimization of warp spell
- correction of glitch in landscape building
- worked on sfx a bit
- added code for ceilings (jumping through solid ground didn't feel right)
- received an e-mail that my website has exceeded the data limit 
- viking swordsmen now attack the player when he's near

[r0ber7]

Spent most of my time improving old code and working out the glitches resulting from the improvements.
Other than that, optimized the warp spell even further, improved the background graphics, and added another background layer. Before it looked like there was a flat world with some mountains in the back, now with this extra layer (and probably one more) I have parallax scrolling trees also, adding to the depth.

Background graphics still need a lot of work though, especially the mountains. I think I'll dedicate an entire day to pixeling mountains in the near future.

[r0ber7]

Added:

- sheep (friendly critters)
- wizard pushing animation
- background graphics, rocks, trees, and such

Fixed:

- glitch with rock pushing
- objects bounce off walls instead of through them

[r0ber7]

- automated parallax tree scrolling
- added another background layer
- pushing animation fully coded in
- received first music

We've decided not to share the music yet until the game has been more fully developed. Another idea has risen: a spell which makes spikes rise out of the ground. Using the same grid mechanic as the warp, the ground would rise up in spikes. First, while charging, the wiz would rise up rotating in the air. Then he comes down, making an impact on the ground and making spikes rise up. Think Matrix 3 endfight when they plummet to the ground. Boom. But before I implement that I'm making the background gfx a lot more pretty.  =D

[r0ber7]

Been out pixeling.



Sorry for the low contrast with the black, but it's supposed to be that way in the game. (It's a background. ) Oh, and context = dark blue water, hence the circles.

In addition:



The merchant of the magic shop.



A sheep.

Today:

- did all of the above pixels plus a pinetree, but it's still WIP
- added code for friendly critters (so now I can make little villages of NPCs too =D)
- added code for automatic randomization of parallax mountains in the background
- fixed a few glitches

That's about it I think. Cia.

[r0ber7]

Didn't do too much game related stuff today. Painted one of the walls in my apartment white though.

- fixed some weird glitches
- added "in between" anims to the critter code
- improved ground tileset, looking better now
- pixeled some minor stuff

Here's a villager, old version. May change hair and colours tomorrow.

[r0ber7]

Testing out a village. I'm not satisfied with the villagers I've pixeled so far,  so they're not in there yet.

Today:

- pixeled houses, fences.
- started work on first endboss code.
- worked on the graphics for the endboss.

Here he is walking. His graphics still need a lot of work. Or is it her graphics? It's a chicken, so I guess it's a she.

[r0ber7]

Just got back from work, drew level 3 in my sketchbook while I was there. I've also coded all of the chicken's AI and attacks and so on. So I'm getting pretty close to a video of the wizard vs. viking chicken battle. If all goes well, I'll have that up and running after next week.

[r0ber7]

- fixed weird glitch with powerups (game thought coins were keys.
- fixed glitch in text system (linked to the one above)
- linked villagers to text system so they can talk
- "falling" platforms
- sound effects for chicken & egg explosions

Finished merging code of NPCs and the text system. Linked to animation, so this will make it very easy for me in the future. If I want to have, for example, a sheep herder that walks around and stops when you're nearby to tell you a story, I just have to draw his animations and edit his info in the level editor, and I'm done.

[r0ber7]

Oooooh, purple, glowing rings.

This game has a cozy feeling just from watching the graphics. I like feeling cozy. Quite hyped for this already. I had no idea there was a GLBasic, either. What's it like working with? Pure OpenGL with BASIC syntax, or simpler than that?

Oh, I love that tilted house on the slope in the last picture. The style of the entire game reminds me a lot of Snowie (the Snowball), which was a fairly popular series of Game Maker games made by a friend of mine a few years ago (also made a game about bees that I can't remember the name of), if you're acquainted with those.

Cutting to the chase, is there any demo up? I could only find a video link in the main post, but maybe I'm just terribly blind.

Thanks for the comment. Nice to get some feedback.  I looked up Snowie the Snowball but what I found didn't look like a game, more like your usual Youtube nonsense. :/

GLBasic is basically Basic running on top of OpenGL. If you buy it there's the option of using inline C/C++ code so it's possible to go more in depth. It suits me perfectly, since I had a bunch of old Amiga BlitzBasic code I wanted to port, and it just works. For me coming from a C/C++ background this is quite refreshing, not having to worry about the low level stuff. You pay for it with less depth of course, but for a game like this that's alright. Only thing I'm not so thrilled about is the limited sound commands.

Demo: working on it. As things are going I expect to be able to release the first alpha test this month. It's a busy month with christmas celebrations and all, but I'm getting close anyway. I want three levels to be in there with the chicken endboss, which I'm refining now. Also a story is starting to emerge, which needs to be coded and drawn as well. Once I've got an alpha for people to play I'll throw it into the thread title.

[r0ber7]

Today I had a day off. Result:

- added code for animated rays of light (same as in last vid, except now it morphs around as thin rays appear/disappear at random) looks quite nice.
- pixeled all remaining frames for the viking chicken
- pixeled a nest for the chicken (skulls included)
- pixeled a sheep herder / old man villager



I've set my focus on getting everything done I want to get done before a first alpha release. This list may change somewhat, but here's what's left for now.

- design level 3
- draw intro art for storyline
- set up story in game
- draw big tree for in level 2
- add HUD gfx & code
- balance things out a bit

Trying to get a public alpha out before the end of december. Wish me luck.

[r0ber7]

Had work today, but I pixeled a HUD + added code for it anyway. Also ran into a slight problem with the animated lightbeams, but I'l figure that out tomorrow.

[r0ber7]

- added mana & tweaked HUD
- pixeled more villagers
- pixeled small death anim

Villagers: