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[Mr_Triage]

Rob 'em Blind is a top down, stealth action game with upgrades.  The objective is to steal the bag of money and bring it back to the van.  You have guns or you can choke out enemies.  Stealth is advised, but not necessary.


Level 1:
The Bank

   

Controls:
Movement:	W A S D
Put On Mask:	V
Draw Weapon:	G
Place / Detonate Explosive	F
Reload:	R
Switch Weapon	1-6
Shoot (While Weapon is Drawn):	Left Click
Lock-pick Door:	Hold Space
Interact:	Space
Drag Body:	Hold Space
Zoom:	Mouse Wheel
Choke Out Guard:	Space

Main Menu: Just press "Mission Select" and choose "bank_1" to begin, or just play "Level 1" from the link above.
Main Menu http://pepperbox.io/stealth/#Home

There is also a map editor here: http://pepperbox.io/stealth/map_editor.php
When you make a map, it is posted directly to the server for you (or others) to play.

There is still a lot of work I have to do on this, but I appreciate any and all bug reports / suggestions.

I re-named the game and have done a lot of work on it since I last posted it, so I started a new thread.  
Old Thread







Much thanks!

Jordan

[Quicksand-S]

Just a quick note: "Rogue" is misspelled in the title of your post.

When I tried to go through the level select, it said the map file was "undefined".

I kinda like the changes made, but I feel like the level design needs to be updated to work with them. Having the bank vault with walls you can blow up from outside the bank is weird and also shows off the problems with the AI. I just had a long stream of guards running right by me to check out the explosion and then return to the building. Maybe there should be an "area of suspicion" or something around the explosion zone, or they should actually patrol the blast area so you have to grab the money quickly before they get there.

It was also much too easy. I blew up the wall, ran into the building, took out one guard and then ran all the way around the building the other way when everyone started heading for the gunshot. No resistance at all on the way to my car. I imagine it might make sense for some guards to stick with their patrols while others go to check things out.

I didn't like not being able to cancel placing an explosive, and the default zoom level seemed a little close for me, but otherwise the game felt pretty good to play.

[Mr_Triage]

Hey Quicksand,

Thank you for taking another look at my game.  Yes, the AI definitely needs to be worked on.  I'll take care of the level select bug and update the AI.

Jordan

[Mr_Triage]

Quicksand-S,

I've fixed the problems you mentioned. 

-Guards only hear gunshots if they are close by.
-You can't use a bomb unless you purchase one.
-The end level button is fixed.
-Backup Guards aren't instantly alerted of your position.

Don't forget you have 5 different kinds of guns on keys 1-5 (#2 is silenced)

Jordan

[Quicksand-S]

Don't forget you have 5 different kinds of guns on keys 1-5 (#2 is silenced)

Five? Wow. I think I may have tried two, but I never expected there to be more than that to start with. This isn't helped by the lack of information about the weapons. I don't know which weapon is selected unless I already have a weapon out, and even then I can't always tell what sort of weapon it is until I fire.

Anyway, there's something weird going on now. I'm only getting 10-15fps even though it ran perfectly last time.

This time, all I did was use the silenced gun to shoot guys. I got to the vault and then a security camera across the room saw a body. I don't like how they have this short triangle on them that doesn't really seem to describe how much they can see. Anyway, the police were called and filed into the bank in a line, so I just used my various weapons on them. Really easy (of course 10fps made it even simpler).

I completely ran out of ammo for one weapon without knowing that I was about to, so that was a bit annoying. I almost died because of that. Some indication of low ammo, or a low clip count would be nice.

To me, this seems like a game where players should have to plan some things in advance, like which weapons to go in with. I felt so overpowered, even without buying any upgrades.

After I played, I went and looked at the upgrade screen. Then I bought everything and had money to spare. I hope these are just-for-testing prices, because they're incredibly low.

Selecting the bank on the Level Select screen still gives me an error.

[Mr_Triage]

Wow, 10-15 FPS!? That's awful, I'm sorry, I'm not sure why this is happening.  What browser are you using?  You wouldn't happen to be using any screen record software would you?  Even screen sharing on skype can slow it down.  What resolution is your desktop at?

I just now added some optimization, but even on the build you just played I was still getting an average of 60FPS on chrome with 1920 x 1200 desktop resolution.

Yes, there is a lot of balancing that I have to do and the prices are only for testing.

Clicking this gives you an error:?

It should take you to the following URL (http://pepperbox.io/stealth/game.html?volume=1.0&level=bank_1) is that correct?

You're feedback is very helpful, thank you!

Jordan

[Quicksand-S]

Wow, 10-15 FPS!? That's awful, I'm sorry, I'm not sure why this is happening.  What browser are you using?  You wouldn't happen to be using any screen record software would you?  Even screen sharing on skype can slow it down.  What resolution is your desktop at?

It's Firefox Developer Edition, which I know isn't ideal for HTML5 but it worked perfectly last time I played so I find it strange that it's running so badly now. (It's 60fps in Chrome like it is for you.)

Clicking this gives you an error:?

It should take you to the following URL (http://pepperbox.io/stealth/game.html?volume=1.0&level=bank_1) is that correct?

When I click that, I get a Javascript alert that says "Map file undefined.jomap was not found." which suggests that the variable for the map name wasn't set properly before the code tried to use it. This seems to be another Firefox thing, though. Works fine in Chrome, so that's probably a hint as to what the problem might be. While I can't see the level's onclick event, the actual AJAX request that's being sent is in fact using "undefined" as the level value.

Looking at the browser console, I see that "jo_store is not defined" but I dunno if that would be related to this.

Actually, it seems the error is probably your use of "innerText" when setting up the onClick events which is apparently not supported by Firefox. I've always used innerHTML, but apparently "textContent" should also work.

[Mr_Triage]

Ok so are you saying you got 60fps on Chrome too?  It must just be a firefox issue, that is helpful.  I updated it to use innerHTML and the link is working in Firefox now (regular edition).  Unfortunately, it still gets 30FPS on firefox, so I'll have to look into that further.  Thank you for pointing out the error!

[Quicksand-S]

Ok so are you saying you got 60fps on Chrome too?

Yeah, Chrome gives me a steady 60fps. In my experience, Firefox is generally worse when it comes to JavaScript speed, but I don't see why it would be quite that slow.

Maybe it has trouble iterating through that huge array of map values. It might be a good idea to treat entire walls as objects (ie. save the endpoints of the line, rather than a value for every single position). Then again, maybe I'm just reading that wrong.

It is weird, though, that it worked fine before and now it doesn't. No idea what you changed, so I don't have any thoughts on that.


Other misc optimization thoughts:

-It may also be a good idea to only draw the things that are currently visible.
-How often is raycasting being done? When I see "raycasting" in code for a game like this, my first thought is "Isn't that overkill?" but I guess it depends on how it's used. I haven't gone through everything.
-How often are your entities updating their paths?
-Maybe a squad-based system for the police would be good, so you could have the leader do the long-range path-finding while the squad just tries to find a path to their assigned position near the leader.


Bugs and Weirdness:

-I also just noticed that if I walk while pressing against a wall, my character's legs wiggle strangely.
-I put on my mask in front of a guard. He shot at me. I took it off in front of him and he apparently forgot that I was a criminal.

[Mr_Triage]

Ok, I fixed the firefox bug.  There were some hidden text objects that were affected each loop, and firefox must not handle them well.  You should get around 60fps now

They only update paths when they reach the end of their current path and raycasting is used to check if a guard can see the user character.  As for your other suggestions, I may look into more efficient wall collision checking in the future.  And I will definitely not draw things that aren't seen, that's on my todo list.

Also, I fixed both "bugs and weirdness"

I've also added a lot of small changes:
-You can reload indefinitely.
-Camera is smarter and won't show out of bounds if it can help it.
-Use Right Mouse Button to pick up guns now instead of space (although for now the player has all the guns already anyway)
-Bigger


Thank you for your invaluable feedback!

Jordan

[Quicksand-S]

Yep. I get a solid 60fps in Firefox now.

If you do change the wall setup, you could potentially avoid raycasting altogether. Just do some math to see if one line intersects another line (the side of a wall) before it gets to the player. I imagine that would be a lot faster, but there might be other trade-offs to take into consideration.

Anyway, I have some more issues to bring up:

-The weapon doesn't always accurately point toward my cursor. I tried to aim at a 45 degree angle and the gun was at maybe a 30 degree angle instead. This has happened a few times, but usually seems to correct itself when I restart the level so I'm not sure what's going on with that.
-There's a spot in the upper right quadrant of the screen that resets my game every time I click it. I'm guessing that's the "Play" button which is invisible but apparently not disabled. The Fullscreen button is, however, properly disabled when invisible.
-Heading along the wall from the bottom exit toward the car, there's a spot where I get a prompt to pick up a weapon that isn't there.

[Mr_Triage]

The weapon aim issue was caused by the changes I just made to the camera.  That is fixed now too.
I found the invisible button and fixed it.  It should no longer restart the game.

I was not able to reproduce the pick up weapon prompt.

I also made a new level called "The Compound".

Jordan

[Quicksand-S]

I was not able to reproduce the pick up weapon prompt.

After a little more investigation, it seems it's caused by the weapons that killed enemies dropped in previous games. I guess they aren't removed from the map when the player starts a new game.

I was also spotted holding a gun and the message was about a guard seeing me wearing a mask, which I wasn't.

Anyway, I like the new level. It's a lot more interesting and the patrols really make it tense in some areas. The timing was such that I ended up often picking locks just as guards were about to enter the room. They had a little trouble with one of the doors, but it wasn't too bad.

[fingerman]

Hi,

in Firefox I just had 12 FPS. The machine I was using is slighly shoddy but all the same (dual Pentium T4300).
Also, after I died this happened:


Anyway, nice, that this game is so far down the road!
I am assuming you are using placeholder images at the moment also, or is this intentionally the visual style?
I like the white van picture. Keep up the good work.

[Mr_Triage]

fingerman,

Thanks for playing!  All the graphics are placeholder,  I am not an artist, so I'm just getting the mechanics working and I'll worry about art later.  Do you happen to know anyone who could do the art?

I'm not sure why the menu.png button popped up,  that is very unusual.  Was it consistent?  If you've played an older version some files might be cached.  Could you try a hard refresh and see if it happens again?  I'm still getting 60fps on firefox so I'm not sure how it's so low on yours yet :/

Quicksand-S,

I'm glad that you're enjoying it. I'll put those bugs on my list, thanks!

Jordan