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[marcgfx]

After Gamescom I was very much aware that I had some pretty bad performance issues. I was using the GPU heavily with all the splatter effects that were left lying around. I had a simple idea, that proved to be a lot more efficient. Instead of drawing the splatter polygons every frame, I now only draw them once onto a framebuffer. This framebuffer is updated with a shader to slowly fade out the splattering over time. Works nicely, but I no longer have control of how long the splattering is visible.


After discovering the framebuffer, I tested out a new background. So far I was mixing two textures in the shader. Now I have a background texture stored in a framebuffer, that can be changed over time. Much prettier and it will also allow me to create a more interesting background. In this image you can see the background, as all the sand was blown away.


I noticed my shaders were not allowing me to create proper black. I had always been wondering why my screenshots looked a little muddy. If you check out the first image, you will see the towers are actually never really black. This was an easy fix, when I finally noticed it was my fault all along. I had actually started blaming my image editor


I redid nearly all enemy shots. They now have a black core and glow on the outside. At the same time I made a pretty big improvement for performance. I was painting nearly all shots with 2 images. One basic image and another larger one, slightly tansparent with additive blending. I merged these two images and with a bit of shader code managed to get a similiar effect (its actually better). So I halved the polygons required for the shot. Less polygons to paint and to calculate seems like a good thing.


I'm currently working on a new demo, that I would like to release at the end of the month. I've tried installing Linux via Virtualbox on my Windows system and it's sooo slow + I havent managed to transfer any files so far. Not much fun.

[marcgfx]

Working on a Linux version has seemingly brought development to a halt. I first tried installing Ubuntu on Windows using VirtualBox. It worked, but was really slow. The deal breaker was that I could not for the life of me manage to transfer files. I was lucky to find an old laptop and installed Ubuntu there. Using shared folders I nearly managed to transfer files back to Windows, but it failed. At least I managed to get the data onto my new linux system. I was able to create a working build, the FPS are horrible on the laptop though. 20 fps... I guess I will have to do some work on the shaders, as it seems the GPU is in over it's head. But it's nice to have a new weaker system to test on too.

I haven't managed to upload a build to steam yet, I'm having a hard time understanding the upload process under linux. It seems like I am only uploading an empty directory...

I've updated my homepage (still a bit wip): http://www.falkenbrew.com
Would appreciate any kind of feedback.

For some reason I'm quite high up on IndieDB and I have no idea why, but it's nice

[marcgfx]

I just came back from Ludicious and had a lot of things to do, but for some reason I could not stop myself from updating the first boss. He was perfectly fine, but I wanted to try adding some spikes to the otherwise smooth design.


If you are interested to see the evolution of this first boss check out my imgur album, I dont want to clutter the forum even more than I already have:
https://imgur.com/gallery/q8qVK

[PetSkull]

Awesome looking enemy. I really like his fluid movement

[marcgfx]

Thanks! I got quite some feedback on him, some were reminded of ferrofluids
Some did not like the fact that a lot of the outline gets absorbed by all the spikes. So I've slimmed him down a bit.

[PetSkull]

Reminds me a bit of "The Blob" from Steven King

[marcgfx]

I'm currently building some more enemies for Devader on Brutal mode. Not sure if it's good to limit them to a really tough mode though? Maybe they should be available on Hard?

The game has 5 levels of difficulty.
Easy: 3 Upgrades and less enemies at the beginning
Normal: 2 Upgrades
Hard: 2 Upgrades more enemies, all possible endings can be achieved
Brutal: even more enemies, Additional waves of attack in every level
Deity: more more, Bosses are doubled

One of the new enemies I am working on


I also need to think about a new final boss, I am just not so happy with what I have anymore. Probably I will try to do something with the newly discovered legs. I just has to look cool and creepy and should be a decent challenge. Easy

[marcgfx]

Arrived in San Francisco last night and am getting ready for GDC. If any of you fine people feel like coming by and testing Devader, my booth at GDC is PL4210.

[marcgfx]

I'm getting ready for release, if all goes well Devader will be out in mid May. Marketing is still lacking, but yeah... I hope some people will find the game interesting enough to look at.
If you want to come and talk to me, I have a discord channel set up: https://discord.gg/AWhsvN3

I recently updated the Warden, one of the turret types you can place in Devader. It used to be really small, now it looks a bit more sturdy.


I've also been working on the title screen yet again and doing tons of little tweaks and changes. Most things are working very well, but there is always something more to do.


If you are interested in a "making of" of the "Slugules" boss on imgur, would be cool if you could check it out :D
https://imgur.com/gallery/q4HES

[McMutton]

Holy shit, I love those enemy designs! The first boss looks amazing with the spikes.

[marcgfx]

Thanks McMutton
I was starting to wonder if anyone ever reads this stuff. I guess everyone here is just another dev shouting into the night :D

[sbeast]

The games coming along really well!

Will you be needing any more music for it?

[marcgfx]

@sbeast: music is covered very nicely by trommelfell https://soundcloud.com/trommelfell-mb, but thanks for asking.

Devader offers 12 special game endings. The endings are based on upgrade choices by the player, leading to different play styles. I've decided to improve on this, by making some adaptations to the levels and bosses in the later stages of the game. That means 12 new boss battles must be created... no idea if I am just out of my mind, or if this really is a good idea.



You can check out an animated version of this potential boss battle on imgur:
https://imgur.com/gallery/qTSqstn

[elosociu]

I really love the look of this.. Pretty unique, reminds me of some older games!

[marcgfx]

Thanks! I had games like Super Contra, R-Type, Metal Slug in mind while creating it and I've heard this quite a lot
It's quite interesting really, as I don't have the cool pixel art. Maybe it's the colors?

[marcgfx]

I've put myself into quite a tough position again. I want to get ready for release, but decided to add some more bosses. Devader has 12 special endings and I was thinking it would be cool to have 12 special bosses. So far it was only the player that changed, giving you different types of play style to beat the game. I just didn't feel like this was enough anymore.

So right now I am working on this new procedural boss. It's a bunch of snake like creatures that have regenerative abilities.


I created this one a few days ago.

 
If you feel like helping out on imgur, I would much appreciate that :D
https://imgur.com/gallery/Vj9op5r

[marcgfx]

Still alive!

I'm currently working on "floor is lava"-feature. Moving over it will cause damage to the player.

If you want to see a bit more details, check out the imgur album:
https://imgur.com/gallery/Jg5VmAD

[marcgfx]

I'm working on a kind of tech-background for one of the 12 special endings in the game. The background is created via shader and changes based on what gets destroyed.

What do you think?

[marcgfx]

Added some more diagonal structuring to the background. I think it looks a lot better now. The boss is still WIP, not quite sure what it will be like in the end, but I'm pretty happy with the screenshot.

[marcgfx]

There's a new demo for Devader (Win 64bit):
http://www.falkenbrew.com/demo/devader-demo-win64.zip

Still working on Mac and Linux demo. Happy about any kind of Feedback!