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[andy wolff]

When he's lifting his legs back to kick up, you eased too far, so they slow down too much -- that's where you lost your 'oomph'.

yeah, I think this was the problem.
And moi, yeah, that probably doesn't help. But a guy as huge as this one can get away with having a short midsection and legs
I deleted two of the kick-up frames and added one to the landing follow-through, and it seems better now. Thanks for the help, everybody
new old
I'm gonna start on the other anims for this guy now, and I'll clean it all up some more when I've got decent roughs for all of them

[Cellusious]

Cool style.

[andy wolff]

mockup of his ball and chain weapon

some more roughs
the royal silly crabwalk.
throwing the ball.
chains between him and the ball will be programmed in so I didn't bother putting them into this rough

I'm gonna try one where he spins it over his head
edit: ^ maybe after I program the rest in

added the chain weapon to the other anim. iffy about it as is but i can change it later

[Belimoth]

I am excited.

[DrDerekDoctors]

I have no idea why I haven't replied to this thread so I can be kept up to date with it. The game looks ACE!

[andy wolff]

thanks

here's a video. he's still far from finished and there are some tiny glitches but i'm happy with how the ball and chain is looking so far

[Ashkin]

Looks great!

[Franklin's Ghost]

Looks awesome, nice job with it and love the way you can shoot the guy in the foot or the ball. Was a great idea.

[xix]

that looks really good. i like how he doesn't just turn into the falling animation after getting shot in the foot. maybe if you time it right and hit his other foot while he's jumping then he'll fall? and then get bonus damage for headshots on the ground?

[andy wolff]

maybe if you time it right and hit his other foot while he's jumping then he'll fall? and then get bonus damage for headshots on the ground?

Yessir, I'm doing exactly that. Everything's done except getting shot in the head, actually dying, and the AI to drive it all. The ball throw and pull looks a lot nicer ingame than I thought I'd be able to get it when I was doing the animations. Expect a better video when it's done (probably sometime before Thursday, if all goes well)

I worry that players who haven't seen this devlog (hopefully the majority of players) won't think to shoot the other foot and his head, though. I've been trying to come up with a good way to help them along in this regard, but I haven't come up with anything I liked yet.
I suppose I could make it easy to hit the second foot, but that would make it too easy to kill him if you know the proper method. I could tell an indian to tomahawk his jumping leg once to show people how to do it if they survive without doing it for long enough, I guess. Actually yeah, maybe I'll do that.


In other news, I signed up to exhibit this at the Boston Festival of Indie Games on Sept 22nd, so show up (it's free!) if you want to play this with me or other festival-goers before release (unless I get booted because the demo I submitted doesn't run or something o: )

[xix]

Players will always want to shoot.

[andy wolff]

My flatmate brought his lab partner over and they played this for an hour and a half, and had a great time.
It feels really good to watch people have a lot of fun playing your game. Also I took some good notes. And yeah, xix, you're right, players do always want to shoot. They were both just spamming bullets everywhere


Had a few hours tonight to squeeze in some work on this, so I finished off the last bit of stuff on the Bandit King before I can write his AI.


I can run this dissolve effect from basically any sprite. Would it look good with anything else, do you think?

[Inanimate]

Mummies? Anything undead?

[DrDerekDoctors]

Very cool effect! Although I'm not sure about how it seems to de-res just before it happens. Is that because you're breaking it up into squillions of particles?

[PowRTocH]

Love that effect.

I want to build a fortress of boss skulls.

[kamac]

squillions of particles?

Doesn't seem like squillions of particles  

Let's say his image is even 128 x 64 and that he's filling 70% of the image (non-transparent pixels). He'd have to use ~5500 particles then (assuming not all the particles are visible at the same time)
Hm, if he uses point sprites, then it's 5500 vertices. Seems legit!

.. Or it's just shaders with proper transformation matrices.
Or he modifies the image itself?

Too many questions, so few answers 

[andy wolff]

Very cool effect! Although I'm not sure about how it seems to de-res just before it happens. Is that because you're breaking it up into squillions of particles?

Actually I'm not yet sure why it's doing that. I am breaking it up into ~3770 particles (frame size of image is 65x58), but they should theoretically appear exactly the same as the normal image before they move. I'm either creating them improperly or it's some display weirdness having to do with them being so small. I think both are equally likely because I coded this at 3am and there are some display hiccups I haven't yet fixed where a sprite sometimes draws a row or column of pixels from an adjacent frame.

I could reduce the number of particles by making them bigger and not making ones for the transparent parts of the frame (or just do it with a shader like kamac said), but this runs fine for now so I'm not worried about it.

I want to build a fortress of boss skulls.

Good idea, maybe I'll have that be one of the super rare levels that can be generated, like the golden cactus

Mummies? Anything undead?

Hmm yeah, the mummies really don't look great blinking out, so this might be a good fit. I'm also thinking of putting it on the chief's teleport to make it so players can actually avoid him when he's teleporting.


edit: I tried making the particles 2x2 instead and it doesn't de-res now, which suggests it actually was the display hiccup thing. It still doesn't appear exactly the same, but it's much better

[Ninja Dodo]

Really liking the detail you're putting into this. Cool dissolve effect.

[andy wolff]

Slapped some rough AI onto the Bandit King and tested him out. I'm calling him finished for now, I think

[oyog]

...they played this for an hour and a half, and had a great time.

I can't wait to be playing this for an hour and a half and having a great time. 

Also, I'd like to request a PC build. In fact, I demand it. It is of vital importance.