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[andy wolff]

Edit: I decided to just dust off the old Windows XNA build and release it as-is for free, so here you go:



https://andywolff.itch.io/bandit-party

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Hello. I've been meaning to make this devlog for a while, but I'm not really good at maintaining devlogs so I never bothered. I expect to be able to work on this a little bit more consistently for the next few weeks and maybe months, but no promises. Forgive me for being disorderly.


Bandit Party is a game about shooting things and collecting golds with your friends. Up to four people can play together on a single screen. For now, you need an xbox controller to play, but it'd be pretty easy to add optional keyboard controls if I want to distribute this on PCs. Each player can move in any direction and shoot either left or right.

I am making it as my first project in XNA, for Super Ghosts. By the time this is done I hope to have a fairly good set of code for 2d XNA games. With the current engine I think I can pretty easily port most simple Game Maker- and probably Flixel/Flashpunk-level games, and once I learn shaders more thoroughly I should be able to port the more visually advanced ones, as well.

I'm unsure what I will do with the game once it is finished. I'm currently thinking I will put it up for a dollar on XBLIG and maybe PC

Game Modes

Most of the game is spent Prospecting, where players fight various enemies and take their golden bones. The goal is to get the most golds, but getting the most kills or triggering various special events is fun too. New characters and levels can be unlocked. Prospecting is cooperative, so players can't shoot each other. If a player dies, however, there are ways he can harass or help his living comrades.

If players are feeling especially uncooperative, they can Duel instead. I haven't done much design for this yet other than that players can kill each other.



Levels

Players choose from one of several areas of the desert to party in. Each area has a different set of environmental objects and enemies.

I currently have three areas started, though I hope to add at least two more.


 
The Cracks, in the dry desert plains. Bandits and other humans are the most common enemies here, but other animals will occasionally make an appearance. Don't get

(sorry for the poor video quality).





The Dunes, in the sandy desert. Quicksand, dust storms, living cacti, possibly sand sharks. Don't expect to actually see any dunes. Have a mockup





Above is a mockup for what I want it to look like. I've got it to generate the basic shapes and shadows of the mesa, but I haven't yet developed the cracks or various outcroppings.

The Mesas, on the flat tops of the mountains. Watch out for giant birds and parachuting bandits. Don't fall off.

The other two areas I want to add are The Streams and The Ruins. Procgen is going to be more difficult for those levels, though. I might also add a sort of super easy tutorial chicken level called The Coops.

Here's a mockup for The Streams




Miscellaneous


Character select
Pause menu
irrelevant glitch shot
first time I ran it on the xbox, on my awesometerrible tv in my college dorm room from last year
a poster

doing well in this game is harder than avoiding dysentery on the oregon trail

As for music, I don't have anything yet. I've found a couple of songs I like for the mood of the game, though. If you think you have the shenanigans to make something of similar westerny silliness, give me a shout. I need musics badly.






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvSahDSbnCE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH6q_qBYcg4#t=10s
Jerry Mickle is doing the music c:


I'll probably post new enemies and environment stuff here as I make it, and will answer any questions you have about the game as it stands. Tell me if you want videos of anything specific. If you've got an idea for something you'd like to see in the game, I'd like to hear it.

If I do end up wanting to put this out on PCs, I'm gonna need some beta testers with friends. We'll flip that bridge when we get to it, though.


Cheers

[moi]

that snake looks kinda nice

[WelcomeToAwesomeness]

  This looks wonderful! Is it going to be just local co-op, or online too?

[CK]

It's hard, very hard.

[Pemanent]

I really like that art. I think its very unique and interesting.

[andy wolff]

Thanks guys, I'm glad to see some positive reactions

Is it going to be just local co-op, or online too?

Just local. The game's spirit is much better suited toward local multiplayer. You can't very easily tackle your friends over the internet.


Today I finished shifting all sprite managing and collision code around from the old system, which required a new List<> for every new spriteclass, to a shiny newfangled one, which automatically manages new spriteclasses using a Dictionary<Type, List<>> and some weird finagling. Commenting out all the old List<> definitions left me with at least a good 100 compiler errors, but I've whittled it down to a single runtime error. I'm using a foreach loop on a List<> whose contents are changing during the loop, and it would seem c# doesn't like that very much. It's a fairly easy fix, though, so hopefully I'll actually get to make some new content tomorrow.

[BlueSweatshirt]

This all looks fantastic.
That is all.

[EDIT]
okay, that isn't all.
I am mesmerized by the effectiveness of that grass. It's like, stunning. Seriously. (this screen)

[andy wolff]

Thanks, Jackman4242. I'm pretty happy with how the 2-frame animation looks of the grass twitching in the breeze, though it could probably be a lot smoother

I did some more clean-up and engine work today (mostly I played Bastion)


Today I added a real asshole of a bandit GoldBagger who scurries around snatching up stray golds, very quickly. He'll have a chance to appear if you leave too many golds lying around on the ground at once. Looking at it now I may have put a little too much Spelunky in him, but whatever. Too much Spelunky can't be a bad thing
When you shoot him he drops one or two golds from his bag, and when he dies he sprays golds all over the place

I also just started toying around with dust effects for him and for the stampeding bison and anything else which might kick up dust in The Cracks. I don't really like how it looks now so I'll probably mock some better stuff up later. I put a little more time into it and I like it a bit better now. I'll come back to it later if I feel like it
(old)

[Evilized]

This game looks amazing, love these party games with 4 players. like those smash tv games.

[andy wolff]

I've been recovering from a tooth implant for the last couple of days, so I've been less productive than I would have liked.

Nevertheless,


I added a huge bandit with a gatling gun. He's slow, dangerous, and hard to kill, but he drops a lot of golds. Actually, he's not that hard to kill if you just focus on him for a few seconds, so I might have to add something to better protect him from a constant stream of bullets.

The tomahawk-throwing indians often follow each other in lines now

[JMickle]

andy wolff you are great at everything

[andy wolff]

Thank you, Jerry Mickle



This is the first enemy for The Dunes, a dancing cactus. It will normally be still like the other cacti, but it will occasionally dance around the screen for a bit

School started back up last week and I am pretty busy learning a bunch of stuff, so I probably won't work on this again significantly for a while

[andy wolff]

mercenariachi band. these dudes will probably be harmless until you piss one off

[happymonster]

I like the art style..

[swordpond]

This looks incredible. I love the adorable graphics. Looking forward to playing it.

[jamiebell]

Man, how I wish I was experienced in making Mexican style music, because this looks completely awesome.

I'm gonna try to give it a go tomorrow, see what I can come up with! Certainly no promises though!

[Ashkin]

SIR. This game looks cool and you should feel good about that. Keep up the good work.
buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo

[andy wolff]

Thanks, everybody. I'm glad you like the art style. If I can get you to like the gameplay half as much, I think I'll be all set.

@jamiebell: sweet. let me know if you do end up making something.

@Ashkin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_buffalo_Buffalo_buffalo. Those pesky buffalo.


Last night I found a forgotten design document, ideas.txt, from months ago. It has a ton of juicy stuff in it I'm itching to add. This is bad for my sleep schedule but probably good for you guys

Today I discovered the built-in /// XML documentation stuff in Visual Studio, and went around starting to better document the most important engine bits. I also drew a few things from the design document, including another indian:

hooray for recolors
this one shoots arrows, but they fly in arches through the air.


let me illustrate this in a magnum opus of figures:

Code:

              -->
         /'         \.
     /'                   \.
pew:                       stick

this is the first enemy which can shoot in directions other than left and right. there are also a few other interesting things about it that will piss you off really badly :>

[BlueSweatshirt]

I really hope you can release this for PC too!

[andy wolff]

I really hope you can release this for PC too!

I'd really like to. I prefer playing games on my PC because there are a number of reasons it's more convenient for me, and it is often the case that people want to play an XBLIG game but do not have an x-bok. Even so, I have three major concerns:

     -Distribution: I don't think I could/would put this on Steam, and I'm not very familiar with other good ways to distribute it. I am aware of various ECommerce services, but I'm just kind of skeptical. We'll see.

     -Compatibility: I haven't done anything yet to ensure that this runs on anything other than my own PC and Xbox 360. I'm fairly sure there are a bunch of problems with running XNA games on certain computers I would need to work around. I could do it, I'm just not going to until I get much closer to finishing the game.

     -Control: You can't really play this on a keyboard very well. The analogue movement is pretty crucial to surviving. It also plays best with three people, and having more than two on the same keyboard is generally pretty bad. I mean, it could work, but it would be nearly unplayable. I don't want to release it as a single player, keyboard-controlled game. That would be awful.


If there's enough of a demand for it to justify dealing with all of these concerns, I'll do it if I can. If I look into it more and find out it isn't all that much extra hassle, I'll probably do it anyway if I have time.

If I don't end up dealing with all that crap, I'd probably be willing to send the raw executable to a small number of people who ask for it, after explaining any problems I know about. This is related to play-testing, which I'm going to want when this gets closer to like 80-90% done.