next »

[SolarLune]

Hey. So this is the official devlog for my new game that I've started, Sparky. Sparky's a game about speed, momentum, radioactive dogs, and aliens... So... Yeah.

Sparky will be a 2D action game in the vein of... I'm not even sure. I know that it'll be about exploring and traversing the alien bases in the game, and destroying aliens in an efficient, quick manner, all while keeping up momentum (hopefully).


Maybe a video would explain better. Sparky is being made with the Blender Game Engine and should be cross-platform.













1st EARLY EARLY Alpha Public Windows Demo

[Franklin's Ghost]

Video is looking really nice, like the character and idea. The ionisation is a nice touch and makes me think of the six million dollar man  Also makes me think I should try and move onto Blender from flash for my next project cause this and your soldier game are both looking great.

[Zack Bell]

This is awesome! It's actually A LOT like a small side project that I was working on a few months back.

I will be watching this! 

[keo]

you're a man of many talents
I like your sunvox tuts they were really helpful

[Kevin]

This is adorable and looks super fun. Nice work!

[SolarLune]

Thanks everyone. I really appreciate that.

Welp, I fixed a couple of game-breaking bugs - the one in the devlog, as well as one that caused Sparky to go through the ground. XD Fortunately, it wasn't that hard to fix (took a few hours). Unfortunately, it was kind of a random thing, so I can't be 100% sure it won't appear again.   I'll have to keep an eye on it, I guess.

I'm also working on the graphics a bit - trying to get a feel for the base that I'm making, as well as trying to understand how the background should be drawn.



I also switched the camera view from orthographic 2D to 3D - the difference is slight for the plane that Sparky and the tiles are on, but it will come in handy to have a full 3D environment to work with... I think. It's easy to switch back if I ever need to, though.

I added a breakable alarm light that will give you Ions, once I implement the gauge. Right now the light just spins. Also, to the right, there's a pipe that's in the foreground, obscuring the view a bit. Maybe I'll make it smaller.

[Theophilus]

can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait can't wait can wait can't wait

[eigenbom]

electric!

[SolarLune]

Thanks, you guys.

@thatshelby - I hope it's worth not waiting for.
@eigenbom - Electric, indeed.

So, I did actually get the background fixed up a bit.



It's probably too busy (and it's not even complete!). Maybe I'll darken it, too...

EDIT: Oh, yeah. I also did some coding to make it so that Sparky'll fall off a wall or ceiling if he stands still too long or stops being Ionized. An extra incentive to keep moving.

[Franklin's Ghost]

EDIT: Oh, yeah. I also did some coding to make it so that Sparky'll fall off a wall or ceiling if he stands still too long or stops being Ionized. An extra incentive to keep moving.

Like this addition and really great look for the game so far.

[SolarLune]

Thanks, Franklins Ghost.

So, I found and squashed another bug caused by careless coding. This one caused the collision detection to be less than accurate. In other news, I added a bloom shader that I had already prepared. I know that bloom's a bit overused and shouldn't be added unless it adds something to the project, so I'll leave that up for consideration (like everything else).



And that's about all that I did so fa-OHMYGOSH.



By the way, the lava's coded in kinda hamfist-ish, so I might need to go back to optimize it a bit more.

[screwtape]

Ooh, don't see that many BGE games. This looks really nice, especially that bloom effect.
There hasn't been enough ionization of dogs in games recently, keep it up!

[Dugan]

Looks cool, nice style! (and I had no idea Blender had a game engine component, thought I was looking at unity screengrabs at first)

[SolarLune]

Thanks, guys.

I lowered the opacity on the lava glow, and also turned it orange - it was a bit too red before. I think I'm going to have to actually draw the levels out on paper to figure out how they should look now.

Also, what do you all think - should I go for a Sonic Generations-style 'break stuff while boosting' mechanic, or should you have to attack? I like the idea of attacking, but it might get in the way...

[SolarLune]

Question above still stands. In the meantime, I've changed the movement code from using a collision sensing object and a raycast function to just using raycasts. The sensor object in Blender affords you more size to check for collisions against, but it doesn't return a point of intersection. The ray cast function does return said points, but has an infinitely small width. So, several rayCast functions are now used to check for the different positions under the dog (center, left, and right). It's very smooth, and much less prone to error than before, which is good. It also isn't as bad on the CPU as I thought it might be, which is also good.

I also took out that same sensor for colliding with breakable objects - just using the (same) raycast function calls to check to see if you smash against breakable objects while attacking downward (diving). It works well. No more getting stuck (I think)!

[SolarLune]

Ultra high-quality GIF, GOOOO!



... 

LOL - the GUI's working a little - your Ion bar drops when you Ionize, and builds up slowly over time. It will take a lot of time, though, which is why it's best to smash into things (like enemies) to build up your bar.

[laxwolf]

From what I can kind of see, the game looks great. I especially love the lava.

[eigenbom]

Man, gif compression makes things look really cool. :D

Nice to see it in motion. The movement and spark trails look really nice, as does the lava. Those rotating lights don't suit the scene though. Maybe they could be something dog-related, like a floating electric bone..

[Eendhoorn]

I have to say that your games look alot more interesting in motion. I saw some screenshots on Soldier Of and felt pretty "meh". But I love it now that I've seen it in motion. Sparky also looks incredibly fun. Good Job!

You probably had this question asked a million times, but is there a specific reason why you are using blender and not unity?

Keep up the good work!

[SolarLune]

@laxwolf - Thanks.

@eigenbom - Heh, maybe I should do some sort of compression on the game. :p The lights don't fit in? I thought they did... Maybe I should put them in more logical places. The middle of the road doesn't really fit, does it?

@omgnoseat - Thanks. I haven't had that question asked a huge number of times, but I have been asked it before. It's kinda hard to explain.

Basically, I feel that $1500 is just too much for what Unity Pro gives you. Soldier Of wouldn't have needed any of those features, and so could be made with Unity Free, but I use a bloom filter here in Sparky, which, to my knowledge, is impossible in Unity Free. As far as I can recall, Unity runs alright on my computer. It just didn't grab me. I don't think I liked the GUI and object placement features in the editor, but I used it for probably just an hour overall, and I'm sure I could get used to it if I stuck with it. So, I don't really have any complaints against the engine itself.

It just feels like it's too costly. I feel like I would never buy the Pro edition because I would never purchase anything for that much money outside of something that I really need, which means that I would infinitely be stuck with an engine that wouldn't get new features like dynamic shadows or anything. But on the flip side, those features are not enough to warrant $1500 to me. Also, while you're getting a game engine with those features, you would get that same engine without the $1500, so you're paying that much money for some pretty non-essential stuff.

EDIT: If they wanted to, the Unity devs could kind of merge CryTek and Unreal's licensing idea with their own - I'd be glad to pay them, say, 50% of my profits until I pay off $1500. All at once is just not gonna happen from me.

Still hard to explain, even after explaining it, heheh. I do investigate other engines, though - jME3 looks pretty powerful. I don't really know a lick of Java, but on the other hand, I could see learning...

EDIT 2: Looking at Unity now, it looks kinda good, especially this shot from Kiyaku on the Unity Forums. Knowing that that's possible in Unity's pretty encouraging.