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[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (1 of 1):

Finally home from vacation. I'm changing to weekly updates while the current work situation continues. Writing several daily updates is cool when you can devote 4 days a week on the game, but with the strict schedule I have to maintain now, I can't afford the distraction. At least until I hit the playable.

The last two days I have fixed bugs (as usual) and IMPLEMENTED A NEW WEAPON (well, partly implemented ).

Behold the Blade-On-A-Stick (videos):

As you can see, the attacks are only ground based right now (I still need to implement the air ones, but it should be trivial now). Also, some polish stuff, like HUD images, descriptors and level-up behavior is not yet implemented. It also clips like crazy, so I need to fix that (I have an idea that will avoid having the attack interrupted, which would be annoying).

The plan is to finish the weapon next week, along with two simple variants (plasma and electricity versions). However, I won't do what I did with the katana (the three basic versions are exactly the same except for damage type). For the blade-on-a-stick (or torch-on-a-stick for the plasma one) I will have the three versions behave slightly differently (one of them will be faster but shorter range, while the other will have longer range, but be slower and have less recovery time).

The good news is that after this weapon is finished, additional variants will be easy to implement. Right now we have katana, shield and halberd (this). The goal is to have 5 types per level for a total of 15 to 25 (depending on the final length of the game). Multiply that by 5 variations for each of those types and it should provide some cool options for randomization.

Oh, and...

I'm setting the first-playable release date for September 17TH!

I mean, I don't know if anybody is looking forward for this, but I thought I'd tell. I'm gonna need feedback, guys, this is still really early in development...

[Greg Game Man]

this is crazy good, you are pretty much my hero

feedback:
- when you turn left/right seems a bit sudden
- speed of character + these small rooms looks a bit constricting, i hope there are some larger rooms with platforms i can jump around on
- everything is hard surface and cold, something warm to contrast against all the hard shapes might feel nice (like the overgrown nature in portal2)

i'm learning C# and Unity, don't suppose you know any good resources to help learn? That game feel book looks great!

ALSO, can you talk through your art process a bit, looks like a voxel editor then you animate those parts? Aren't voxels really slow to work with, or is it nice to dodge texturing?

[Juan Raigada]

this is crazy good, you are pretty much my hero

feedback:
- when you turn left/right seems a bit sudden
- speed of character + these small rooms looks a bit constricting, i hope there are some larger rooms with platforms i can jump around on
- everything is hard surface and cold, something warm to contrast against all the hard shapes might feel nice (like the overgrown nature in portal2)

i'm learning C# and Unity, don't suppose you know any good resources to help learn? That game feel book looks great!

ALSO, can you talk through your art process a bit, looks like a voxel editor then you animate those parts? Aren't voxels really slow to work with, or is it nice to dodge texturing?

Hey! thanks for the feedback. Specially about the environmental art style. There is still a chance I will overhaul it totally once I have all the base code in place. I'm not happy with it myself.

As for learning C# and Unity... Well, my day job is teaching that... My first advise would be to learn C# only if you need it. If you are used to Java, UnityScript does just fine (Heart & Slash is coded in UnityScript due to me not being proficient at C# when I started). However, C# is an amazing language and an skill that can be transferred between several development environments. I learnt C# myself by reading C# in a Nutshell. I found the level of complexity in that book just about right for a programmer with some experience in other languages and a decent grasp of OOP.

Unity is tougher, since it's so big. I think you can only teach it to yourself by practicing a lot, since although the documentation is pretty decent, it's missing info on some quirks that you must learn by facing and fighting them. I found following the tutorials quite useless, and instead opted for programming simple games THAT WORK PERFECTLY. It's very easy to make something work OK in Unity, but to make it feel really good and polished, you need to spend a  lot of time fighting with the engine and learning its quirks and advantages.

I would suggest as an starting goal to make the coolest looking version of something like Space Invaders and struggling with it until it's pretty much perfect. For me failing to implement something until I realize what's the proper way to do it in Unity is the best learning process (I started years ago, though, when it was simpler -and that's why I used UnityScript, no C# then...) but you need to have the strength to go through with the process and never being ok with something that is not as good as you think it can be.

Of course, with H&S I'm compromising, but this is not a learning project...

On art: I find voxels super fast to work with (I use Qubicle Constructor with the Unity plugin), but realize I only use them for modelling. In engine, they are simplified into traditional 3D models. Also I animate using skeletons, no by using different voxel configurations. That could get tiring really fast.

With my workflow there's not difference between modelling and texturing, and since my models are not too complex, the pace at which I can churn out new content is incredibly fast. Voxels mean very easy measuring of distances and angles, and honestly, I find proper 3D modelling much harder. In a way, I omitted to Heart & Slash after having tested my art workflow enough and realizing it was fast enough to allow me to finish the game without very too overburdening.

Why do you think they are slow to work with?

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (1 of 2):

Argh! The forum swallowed my previous post. Anyway, I have finished the three variants of the new weapons. This time I experimented with more diverse variants (the Katana only changes the attack type).

The original Blade on a stick hits soft and medium physical attacks (low change of knockdown).

First variant, the Rocket Hammer (click for video) (inspired by GUNNM), hits faster,has longer reach and the attacks are mostly mediums and some hard:

The second variant, the Thunder Hammer (click for video), does very damaging, Hard, electrical attacks. But it has really low reach and is very slow. It damages scales to what is right now the most damaging weapon by far when properly leveled up.

These weapons are now somewhat balanced and will probably not be changed before the playable.

Speaking of that mythical first playable: It's still coming in a week, although with slightly less content than originally planned. It will include (numbers that change are dependent on the work to be done the next 4 days I can work to this before first playable):

• -Three weapons with three variants each (Sword, shield and BladeOnAStick/Hammer).
• -Three heads
• -Two to three arms.
• -One to three legs.
• -One to three bodies.
• -Levels consist of three room types with three variations each.
• -There are three enemies with three variations each.

It will of course have many bugs, and balance issues. Expect it to work, but be rough. Most importantly, there's no "end state". Once the level is fully explored there's little you can do. Missing from the first playable (in relationship to the alpha/vertical slice) are:

• -Two more enemies with variants (5 each)
• -Two more weapons with variants (5 each)
• -Add missing variants to already implemented weapons and enemies (should be easy)
• -Two more heads.
• -Two more bodies.
• -Two more legs.
• -Two more arms.
• -Secret rooms.
• -Boss Rooms. And a NPC/hint system to give guidance and direction to the playthrough.
• -Many more rooms. Number unknown, since I might revamp the whole look of this first level. I don't mind it, but it might be too dry to be the first contact with the game. We'll see.
• -Main menus and changes to current gameplay menus (I don't like how one loos and how another one looks AND works)
• -Changes and balancing to item behavior (right now I know I might want to change how shields are controlled)
• -Implementing feedback and bugfixing.

The idea is to have an alpha that has EVERY SYSTEM IMPLEMENTED AND POLISH. I want the work to be done on this from January onwards to be just content adding/polishing/balancing, with the fewest amount of system design as possible. As always, life has a way of changing plans, so who knows what will happen.

For today, I will implement one or two body parts to try to keep as close to the intended amount of content as possible.

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (2 of 2):

Well, I did finished implementing the logic for a new part, however, I'm not happy with the graphics so I will not post an screenshot yet. There's still a couple of hours work to be done on it to make it nice, but it works.

The part is question are the Resistance Bracers. There's only one type, but on spawn it selects whether it's going to be physical, electrical or plasma-based. What it does is that as long as it's equipped, it will give the player resistance to the element the bracer has. Except while on an attack. If you are hit during your own attack the extra resistance is negated.

It's very simple (that's why I chose to implement it now, with little time left on the day) but quite powerful, giving you 75% damage off at max level. That's why it chooses it's element on spawn. Only one part of each type can spawn per game and this will avoid giving the player too many, potentially too powerful, choices.

The next part I will implement after finishing this (on Saturday) will be the last type of arm, which I have just designed (and should make for some cool videos)....

[Juan Raigada]

FIRST PLAYABLE OUT!!!!!

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=36079.0

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (1 of 2):

This week I decided to react to the first feedback from the playable... Which was that a lot of people couldn't play it cause of lack of a controller.

I also decided to tackle all control issues at once. That means providing an alternate weapon selection method (how the hell I'm going to do the tutorial with two controls I don't know) and providing an alternate run method (basically giving run it's own key instead of using holding both weapon selection buttons at once). These two might be necessary for certain players, and the only reason I didn't implement them yet was the absence of a menu...

So this was no longer a quick hack to just allow M&K play, but the implementation of an in-game configurable input system. THIS IS NO SMALL TASK IN UNITY3D.

For some reason Unity does not allow you to freely go into the Input system you set in the editor and changing the key assignments (I think this is a problem, actually), so you need to keep track of all assigned keycodes within your code. Moreover, the standard catch procedure for keypresses does not identify Axis input, so you need to sample all possible ten axis individually... It's not impossible, though, and I built the framework in a day.

This brought up two problems:
1- Some of my quickly hacked together menus used random input calls that where not compatible with this new system.
2- The input config menu is a complex piece of work.

That meant the next task, before being able to release, was to implement a solid, generic menu system, and to port the two old menus into the next system. Step one is done, and one of the two existing menus is already ported. However, until I port the other one, the game is unplayable (you can't pick weapons up), so I can't release today and we'll have to wait for the weekend.

However, all this work was very useful, and the systems I brought into the game are necessary, so I didn't waste a minute.

And the menus are looking cool (even if they are not final):

Plus, they stack over each other (with coherent behavior)!!!!

So basically in two days I got over two of the biggest hurdles with Unity: the lack of a solid, easy GUI solution (I can't afford nGUI just yet) and the difficulty to configure inputs in-game (I don't want to use their launcher)...

Not bad

[Fervir]

Following.
Gotta check out the demo sometime

[Juan Raigada]

Ok, new version up, with configurable controls!

Man, it's about time Unity revises their input system. So many inconsistencies bt. keyboard and joystick. Parsing random keyboard inputs is easy enough, but the method does not work for joysticks and you have to pool every single possibility in a loop...

That means the game detects only the first joystick plugged into the computer. It could be extended, but unless it becomes a problem for some people, I'd rather not make the mess any messier...

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (2 of 2):

Ok, so now that the configurable controls/menu mess is solved, I can get back to more entertaining work. I give you the...

It should be clear what they do, but in case you are in doubt, check this

.

It's good to be back creating content. Now that the menus are done, most system work left is finishing the level generator to allow for secret/boss rooms. I'll take a while to get there, though, since I want to pour content in as fast as possible to make the game more varied (it's hard for me to value design decisions without enough content in to see the potential -or lack of it- of the game).

As soon as I post this I'll upload new version to the links in this page and in the playtesting post and update the To-Do list...

[DanielSnd]

Hey there, the game is looking great ^^
I downloaded and played a bit, and recorded that play session, sometimes it's nice to see people playing your game for the first time, it gives a special kind of feedback to see where they get confused and such ^^ I even think I found a bug on the first encounter with the Big guy.

Anyways, I uploaded to youtube as unlisted, since I don't know if you want videos to exist at this point =x sent you the link privately through private message \o cheers!

[Juan Raigada]

Hey there, the game is looking great ^^
I downloaded and played a bit, and recorded that play session, sometimes it's nice to see people playing your game for the first time, it gives a special kind of feedback to see where they get confused and such ^^ I even think I found a bug on the first encounter with the Big guy.

Anyways, I uploaded to youtube as unlisted, since I don't know if you want videos to exist at this point =x sent you the link privately through private message \o cheers!

Hey dude.

First, THANKS SO MUCH for doing this. It's so good to see people playing.

The enemy bug is known. I want to refactor some of the enemy AI (not really the AI at fault here, more like the fall state of the enemy, but it's related). However I want to tackle everything enemy related once I have the full set of five done for the first level, so I've been neglecting this.

You did find another bug. You where supposed to be brought back to the main menu after dying. Just fixed it, so it should be there for the next version.

BTW, make the video public if you want. I'm doing this devlog and there's a public playable out. I'm more interested in any comment that might come out from it than in keeping the game close to my chest...

[Juan Raigada]

PSA:

Ok, so the previous version had a bug that didn't allow you to go pass the title screen without a keyboard (the tilte screen is a placeholder, so I didn't carry the *override* for the keyboard menu -enter- into that code). So it was unplayable on keyboard.

IT SHOULD WORK NOW. New version 0.11b. Press enter on the title screen and the escape once the game is running to configure the keyboard (arrows, enter and escape to move through the menus)...

[DanielSnd]

Hey there, the game is looking great ^^
I downloaded and played a bit, and recorded that play session, sometimes it's nice to see people playing your game for the first time, it gives a special kind of feedback to see where they get confused and such ^^ I even think I found a bug on the first encounter with the Big guy.

Anyways, I uploaded to youtube as unlisted, since I don't know if you want videos to exist at this point =x sent you the link privately through private message \o cheers!

Hey dude.

First, THANKS SO MUCH for doing this. It's so good to see people playing.

The enemy bug is known. I want to refactor some of the enemy AI (not really the AI at fault here, more like the fall state of the enemy, but it's related). However I want to tackle everything enemy related once I have the full set of five done for the first level, so I've been neglecting this.

You did find another bug. You where supposed to be brought back to the main menu after dying. Just fixed it, so it should be there for the next version.

BTW, make the video public if you want. I'm doing this devlog and there's a public playable out. I'm more interested in any comment that might come out from it than in keeping the game close to my chest...

Glad to help ^^ I'll record another one with the new version later.

I changed the video to public:




About the enemy, to avoid things like that happening in my game I made the enemy AI check every few seconds if the location is still the same (save old location, check against current location), if he hasn't moved in like 5 seconds or so (probably bugged), I make him do a little jump into a random direction.

[Juan Raigada]

About the enemy, to avoid things like that happening in my game I made the enemy AI check every few seconds if the location is still the same (save old location, check against current location), if he hasn't moved in like 5 seconds or so (probably bugged), I make him do a little jump into a random direction.

Yeah, it's not a big deal. They get stuck in a constant loop triggering the fall state without moving forward. It's trivial to fix (fall should move forward, but I broke that recently), but I'm rewriting most of the code relating to enemy AI functions (the inefficiency of the state machine there being a performance hog) so I want to wait so I can tackle all problems in a coherent way. Patching things has led me to unmanageable projects before...

I reckon there's one month left till I work on that...

[laughing Frogs]

i haven't played much, i'm just saying so you know where i'm coming from, some points will be from me overlooking something obvious(and i will probably sneakily edit them out later out of embarassement)

- i don't know how or why the upgrade station works(left, right, main?), at first i  thought it was giving me a choice of items, because the actual item isn't that noticable
- the camera annoyed me, because i was expecting it to work like regular third person games,eg rotate automatically so you see the direction your walking or slashing in(but i also wanted to use the right analog stick to dodge, probably becauseof alice:madness returns)
- i really liked the health bar from the mask, so much that i think it should be standard(i think i get why it's not in there all the time, but imo it is important feedback)
- i'm pretty sure you can't play with the mouse because it isn't captured (i wanted to check right now, but forgot because i just started playing and had too much fun)
- mouse sensitivity isn't adjustable and too high
- i didn't like the beginning, i fell to my death like a dozen times, and i'm not exaggerating by much
- the help signs are really easy to overlook
- the low health warnings are nice and fitting to the theme but when you are not in combat a bit annoying("shut up game i know i'm not playing well")

again those are very first impressions, with an absent mind that just wanted to get to a fight.
btw: this game is (gonna be) so awesome.

edit: seems like i broke your game, it started me in an empty room(where the weapon usually is) with all doors closed, i restarted by using "go to main menu" and three times it put me back in that empty room

[Juan Raigada]

First of all: THANKS!!!!!!!

edit: seems like i broke your game, it started me in an empty room(where the weapon usually is) with all doors closed, i restarted by using "go to main menu" and three times it put me back in that empty room

Second person who reports this. Thought the bug was dead... Guess it came back to life...

I agree I need to implement mouse sensitivity, and mouse capturing (which I overlooked, agh!).

As to the items you get... You can have up to three weapons equipped at the same time, and switch between them with the triggers. I need a better tutorial. Nobody understands it.

The camera is the only thing I'm not sure about. It works like it other 3D brawlers, including Platinum games made stuff (without the locking onto an enemy, which might become an item later on). I'll think about it, though.

And I'll disable the warnings after a time...

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (1 of hopefully many):

Ok, so yesterday and this morning I managed to kill some bugs and implement some desired features.

I managed to:
-Kill the bug when picking up a weapon and replacing a previously equipped one with it.
-Kill the bug when a weapon would not be generated on restart (hopefully, my testing didn't reproduce it anymore).
-Captured the mouse and allowed mouse clicks to be registered in the input config menu. Playing with mouse should now be possible.
-Implemented a camera sensitivity config to allow sane speeds with camera mouse control.
-Made the low health warning disappear after three seconds and appear again when damaged further.

This should take care of most complaints/suggestions except those relating to level design/AI/tutorials (which I need to tackle in a coherent/comprehensive way).

For today and the rest of the week (that I can devote to the project) I will be implementing new bodyparts to try to approach the Alpha goal...

There's no new playable version yet. I will upload one on Tuesday night as to not overspam the playtesting forum.

[DanielSnd]

 

Awesome, will record another video-feedback tuesday night then ^^
The game was really fun already :3 excited to play more

[Juan Raigada]

Weekly Progress Update (2 of hopefully many):

I managed to kill a long-standing bug. Some parts and weapons would disappear when you died. Turned out it wasn't really a bug, but me forgetting to set some layers in Unity.

Also, I implemented the sticky-boots. These are simple wall-jumping/wall-sticking boots. The basic logic, as well as the animations are done, but it will take me until tomorrow to finish the visuals (models. effects and textures) and test it for bugs in complex environments.

Ideally I will implement at least yet-another bodypart this week (late Monday or Tuesday), to bring the to-do list in that department to 9 left (jury is still out on whether I will be able to implement an extra one -I have a very simple idea which should prove doable, but we'll see-).