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[marcgfx]

Thanks Alain I made the lightning a while back, so I could just reuse it.

Didn't feel like coding yesterday and played around with 3D creating 4 potential new enemy types...


As everything has to fit in my ever denser texture atlas, I don't have much freedom for animations. I try to keep them very short. But for creatures that don't rotate I have a bit more leeway.
The first 15 images are for motion. The final 7 will allow to transform into a ball. I will probably use this to drop it from the sky, possibly also to transform into a secondary state.
[/img]

[marcgfx]

Stresstest? Image is 1920x1080 you can open it in a new Tab if you want to see it in full glory

[Alain]

Looks trippy :D

[JobLeonard]

I wanna see that in motion! 

[marcgfx]

ok noted. I will try to record the next test

I found a few bosses, that I never really completed. Decided to give this one a little love. I've added an intro and death animation. Doesn't do much besides shooting. But I think it should probably do some walking, make use of those trippy legs.


Was a pain getting this image uploaded. Created a new .bat file to drag and drop my mp4 on. It cuts the video and scales it to a width of 800px.

Code:

@ECHO ON
ECHO "%~1"
ECHO "%~nx1"
ffmpeg -y -i %~1 -filter:v scale=800:trunc(ow/a/2)*2 -ss 00:00:03 -to 00:00:28 -c:a copy _s800_%~nx1
cmd

[JobLeonard]

Ooooh, I love the unfolding leg animation!

[Ordnas]

I agree above, the animation is very cool.

[a-k-]

Stresstest? Image is 1920x1080 you can open it in a new Tab if you want to see it in full glory

What's the threading story here? You don't get 33 fps without Web Workers do you?

[marcgfx]

Thanks guys

What's the threading story here? You don't get 33 fps without Web Workers do you?

No story at all. My computer is not that fresh either, the 1080 graphic card is most up to date. Javascript isnt that slow anymore and I do have a lot of optimizations (there is still a lot I could do though). No GPU magic for collisions, all just one thread on the CPU using webGL.

[marcgfx]

I created these structures ages ago. They felt a little dumb in the game though, with all these pipes sticking out not doing anything. I discovered them again and thought of a way to make them more interesting. It was not that easy to achieve, as I had to extract the position data from the 3D model. Took quite some trial and error to get all the scaling + axis right, but I think it looks pretty nice now . The little dots mark the places where smoke/fire can emerge. Currently I just spawn the smoke randomly and I need to fix the drawing sequence somehow as smoke behind currently shows in front too.

[JobLeonard]

They look cool! Will they become flamethrower enemies?

[Alain]

I think these look a bit different than the other assets in your game (more full 3d and shaded)... but man, I think they are really cool :D

[marcgfx]

I am still unsure about the weapons. Flamethrowers would make a lot of sense. Problem is that I have to keep it pretty 2d in the fighting, as firing weapons from high up can be visually very confusing.

I've always had a bit of a mixture of prerendered and polygon assets, but I have always tried to keep it visually similar. Still, consistency is not my strong point and there is an issue with determining what is friend/foe for some of the assets.

Thanks for the comments!

[Alain]

I am still unsure about the weapons. Flamethrowers would make a lot of sense. Problem is that I have to keep it pretty 2d in the fighting, as firing weapons from high up can be visually very confusing.

A yes, I can see how this can be an issue. We saw taller objects in your game, but I assume they don't fire projectiles from bigger height?

[vdapps]

Hi quality FX as always, not to mention it's HTML5/WebGL.

I have a question. I see, you always add something new here and there, like game is always updated (even if game is released on Steam from 2019 ( I have a copy  )). Is this new stuff you add, for update to existing Devader (last post on Devader Steam page is from Dec 2020) or will you make this into some sort of sequel? Or you plan to stick with updating of web version of Devader for now?

[marcgfx]

@Alain: yeah, height is an issue for the player. It's just very hard to understand. I never liked projectiles with an arc in binding of Issaac, always felt a little lucky if you didn't get hit.

@vdapps: I don't really know. I don't want people who bought version 1 to not get a copy of the new version. But I think rereleasing in some form will be essential, as reviving a failed launch seems to be close to impossible. I'm considering launching on itch.io, or maybe steam demo. Sometimes it feels a little pointless what I am doing, someimes it doesn't. I just think I have not really made the most of what I have produced so far.

I've been neglecting posting for a bit, at least I took some screenshots though.

This tree like strukture enhances nearby buildings. While testing I got this connected graph. I currently think it should probably be a global enhancer making this test a little pointless, but I havent quite made up my mind.


These towers fire bullets from the top. As Devader is mostly just 2D, I had to add a new line-of-sight approach that would account for bullets fired towards the ground.


Overview of all the current building types. I'm thinking about some meta progression, where some features get unlocked while playing. Considering all the stuff I currently have, this might help ease the player into the game with fewer options to start out with. I still have find a sensible tasks for some buildings, or maybe just remove them again.

[JobLeonard]

I mean, if the game is different enough it counts as a sequel, no?

[Schrompf]

Been trying to convince Marc since forever that he should put a II on it :D

[marcgfx]

@JobLeonard: I hope so
@Schrompf: true, plus a lot of other good advice, that I've only slightly managed to follow

I think it should be a sequel, but I have not changed out all of the art so far. I've made a lot of gameplay-changes and added a buttload of stuff (tons of weapons, new enemies & bosses). I'm certainly leaning into the defending part a lot more, as the structures are a lot weaker now. In version 1 defending the structure was not really hard, it was just about surviving until the final boss is reached. The way it is now, it's easier to lose if the defensive aspect is ignored.

[marcgfx]

Mostly trying to figure out how to balance all the stuff I've made + fixing bugs. I noticed I have zero understanding of my buildings capabilities, the player is even worse off. For starters I've added some information I can toggle for the building, to see the hp/armor/dmg. Dmg is a hard one to visualize, as some dmg is dealt with explosions. Explosions have a radius + falloff to zero on the edge of the radius. I guess I will need to tell the player about both values.

I've massively lowered the hp of most of the buildings. The player only has 5 hp and it feels kind of weird to me. On the other hand buildings cant avoid dmg, so I really cant make the player as strong as the buildings.