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[andy wolff]

trying to figure out what i want to do for the black powder bomb explosion,
anim sketch 1:


anim sketch 2:

probably i'll end up with something very bubbly with lots of instances of smaller smoke puffs and maybe some shrapnel particles




edit:
smaller smoke puffs like this:

[Happy Shabby Games]

Here's a nice compact explosion tut JWK5 did. I'm stoked on the game so far Andy 

[andy wolff]

Thanks, yeah, that's a pretty good tutorial

I should have mentioned, I'm specifically trying to make it look like an actual black powder bomb explosion. I've drawn quite a few explosions in my time, but this one is a bit strange for me because it needs to be so smokey. Because of all the smoke, the motion eases outward very sharply, then fades away slowly. I can't have it fade away all that slowly because that would mess up the pace of the game.
 The first one I posted above is definitely closer to that, but I'd like to make it look more forceful before I start adding detail. I might experiment a bit more but I think probably I'll cut the black powder bomb since my efforts would be better spent on other things

[Happy Shabby Games]

Oh okay gotcha. In that case I like the first one better. The only thing that looks kind of weird is the smoke, but what you said in the OP(

probably i'll end up with something very bubbly with lots of instances of smaller smoke puffs

) will probably do the trick pretty well.

My uncles used to make those with 2 liter soda bottles for the 4th of July. So stinkin' loud.

[Ashkin]

The second sketch is great, I love how 3D it looks. However, if you want to make it look more like the video, I suspect working with tendrils of smoke going out from the bomb rather than one sphere.

[andy wolff]

I did some work on this last night and tonight in between serious homework sessions

The black powder bombs are functionally in, though I still want to do more aesthetic work on them

(old and not a very good screencap because it doesn't show the enemies getting killed by the explosion, and the bomb doesn't disappear)

Bison spawning is back in (it hadn't been since the new events system)

Chiefs spawn from teepees now. Next I'll make them teleport and be generally more menacing

Enemies kill each other now, with certain exceptions (indians don't kill each other). Bisons don't mow people down yet, but I'll add that soon. An enemy will only drop gold when it dies if a player has hurt it at least once.
Having the enemies kill each other is really cool. After you die, it's kinda fun to just watch them wander around and shoot each other occasionally. I intend to add more interesting interactions between them in the distant future

I'm hoping tomorrow to finish the last major parts of the first level, which consists mainly of getting the snakeboss to spawn in some archaic, significant way, and work out a better way to kill it

I had an interesting idea for replacing the player zombies with ghosts which can possess enemies with minimal control (you might only be able to tell the enemy when to shoot or something), but I need to think about it more. It might be an unlockable option. If I get it to work well it could be really cool

[08--n7.r6-79.84]

i came

[andy wolff]

I appreciate your venereal explosion



stuff today:

jumping bandits bounce off and hurt enemies they land on

wrote a dirty solution for enemies walking through cacti and teepees (they enforce a minimum distance when overlapping). it's probably badly inefficient and may slow the game on the xbox, but it runs fine for now. i might exempt bison from this so that they just trample over and flatten everything like they don't even care.

bison hurt other enemies if they run into them. I might make them flatten grass as well, though that will be really inefficient

I thought a lot about lock and key mechanics in game design (considering whether I should have unlockable things or do something potentially more interesting). I haven't come to any conclusion about it other than I should think about it more and maybe experiment a bit before serious development either way. I also thought a lot about having the enemies hurt each other, and I'm liking it more and more


I really badly want to finish the first level. There aren't that many things left to do for it and I keep telling myself I could do it in one night, but for all the other things I have to do. It is most bothersome

[jmac]

Really impressive work, it's been great seeing everything come together.

[andy wolff]

Added bandits which bring in the black powder bomb, place it, then scramble
Made the Chief teleport when shot
Made the snakeboss spawn, made it more possible to defeat it. Raised my max score to nearly 400 golds

The Cracks are basically finished. I'm not going to add anything more to the normal play on the level, though I might make a some edits to existing stuff later

well, I still need to add sound to most of the stuff in there. I think I'll continue to ignore it for now, though.

[andy wolff]

mummies that spew poison when hurt
poison clouds will poison cacti and possibly other things

definitely going to try more visual styles on the poison cloud, but for now I'm focusing on getting as many enemies functioning in as possible

[BlueSweatshirt]

It's weird but also cool how the shadows have more contrast to the ground than the actual objects do.

[andy wolff]

a mummy lassoed a sheriff and is using him to sandsurf

I did some code profiling and figured out that the bison caused slowdowns on the xbox not because of the dustclouds, but because of their collision checks with every other enemy. I was able to make those functions about twice as efficient, and the slowdown doesn't seem to happen anymore, though I suspect that more optimization might be warranted

It's been a pretty tough and busy ~month since my last update. I've got a week or two left before summer, but hopefully I'll have a summer internship or job, so I don't know if I'll have any more time to work on this then than I have now

[HarrisonJK]

I hadn't seen this before but now I love it

[by MSLF]

This stuff is awesome. Subscribed to you on youtube and looking for any future updates/playable versions!

[electrolyte]

Only just seen this thread and everything my eye's are seeing my head is saying MoOarrr!!

[andy wolff]

Hey, it's good to see more interest in this, even though I haven't had time to work on it much for so long. The term ends this week, so you can expect to see some more stuff soon

[fentlewoodlewix]

I did some work on this last night and tonight in between serious homework sessions

The black powder bombs are functionally in, though I still want to do more aesthetic work on them

(old and not a very good screencap because it doesn't show the enemies getting killed by the explosion, and the bomb doesn't disappear)


I had an interesting idea for replacing the player zombies with ghosts which can possess enemies with minimal control (you might only be able to tell the enemy when to shoot or something), but I need to think about it more. It might be an unlockable option. If I get it to work well it could be really cool

this last feature sounds completely awesome!

that you can become a ghost on death and control enemies, there is certain personality type that could get great satisfaction from this in a multiplayer game.

[andy wolff]

Sean: Yeah thanks, I think it could be very interesting.


Some more stuff for The Dunes today:

Mummies' lassos break on cacti and trees now. They'll also break on other players, so you can help each other out

First pass on the sand shark frames

First pass on the crow frames. Most of the time the crows are still, either gliding or perched on a tree, but they occasionally flutter a bit


Movement AI for the crows isn't in yet, partially because I haven't yet decided what they should do, so this is just me controlling one directly.

[Franklin's Ghost]

Such great characters and animations.