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[hsnabn]

Spacebar Florida

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Hi guys, I'm hsnabn, a guy who just recently started to learn to code and make games (late June 2015). I am starting a devlog for the purpose of sharing and keeping track of the development of my first game: Spacebar Florida, a top-down shooter in slow-motion.

Spacebar Florida draws lots of inspiration from games such as Hotline Miami and Max Payne. Effort is being made to ensure the combat is as visceral and fast paced as Hotline Miami while mixing it up with the slow-motion formula of Max Payne games.

Here is a new, extensive gameplay video:



Here are some screenshots:

I have released the game in the Playtesting forum: here (if I have to post the build here, just say the word). I will also release future builds in the same thread (again, if I have to post here, let me know).

Spacebar Florida is made using Duality - an excellent open-source C# 2D game engine, which is perfect for beginners and experienced users alike.

[hsnabn]

Entry 1

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Currently, I am working on these features for the game:

• Dead bodies - a much needed feature
• More enemy variants
• A new level: sort of a bank heist mission

That's just the stuff I'm working on now. I've completed a lot of things based on feedback from playtesters and some of my own things:

• New aim independent movement
• Armor pickups
• Lowered health (= quick encounters)
• Hold right mouse to enter combat mode - mode also shown on screen
• Rudimentary hit effects
• Damaged character sprites

I am trying to complete all basic features needed for enjoyable gameplay before working on anything else. These features are only sorely lacking in one department: Enemy AI.
Think of it this way: if the devil offered me ten dollars for signing a contract, but Bill Gates offered me a trillion dollars for writing simple AI code, I'd ask the devil where I'd have to sign.

Take away the AI, and I think you pretty much have a working alpha of the game! Then all it would need would be well designed levels, which is no easy task by any means, but one I'm willing to take on.

Here's a short gameplay video of the new bank heist in the works:


It's still a bit rough around the edges, so I'm going to hold the next release a bit.

[hsnabn]

So I just released the new v0.2 update! It contains many improvements and features, and can be downloaded from the link on the Playtesting thread!
New stuff include a new level (though not very large), new movement method, better bullet visibility and more!

[hsnabn]

Entry 2

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Enemy AI. It's a quite important aspect of games. For Spacebar Florida, it is slightly less important, but it does carry some weight with it. For the AI in this game, I think I'm going to go with a distance and line of sight approach. For example, take a look at this:



In this example, the enemy can only detect the player on the following conditions:

• If the player is within the red "Distance" area, this is his "hearing" range
• Or if the player is within the orange "Visibility Angle" area, when the player is within this range he can detect the player regardless of the distance to player

This is sort of like Hotline Miami, and I think it would work for this game. With this in place, I could even add a stealth system, which could allow for multiple approaches to levels! That would be very nice in this game, I think.

After the enemy AI, I'm going to expand the level a bit more. I'm thinking of a small bank heist, with the bank being the level in the v0.2 release. After taking out the enemies in the bank and picking up a bundle of cash, you have to exit the bank and go  through an alley while killing more enemies.

[hsnabn]

Just released a new v0.2.1 build, it just has some tweaks, like always-visible bullet trails and faster slow-motion. It can be downloaded from the Playtesting thread, link is in the first post!

[hsnabn]

Entry 3

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Phew. A long time has passed since the last update, and actually, not much has made it into the game. The few highlights are armored and rapid-fire enemies, delay in enemy detection/shooting, and an actual mechanic to allow level progression.
The actual level, the Alleyway Shootout, is pretty much nonexistent outside of concept designs. What's actually holding me back are my lackluster artistic skills, so I haven't got around making art for the alleyway yet. But I'm thinking of scrounging up some assets from the Internet to serve as faithful placeholders for the real thing, and actually make the level.

But that's not the purpose of this entry. Here, I'm going to share a small story of a problem I had when trying to polish up enemy-player detection. Before, the enemy would rotate in an instant, and actually fire off a shot before turning around. Well, they still do turn around in an instant, but they wait for a couple hundred milliseconds before doing so. Additionally, their "Alert" status is set at the same time now. When alerted, the delay before turning is deactivated.
There is also a delay before starting to shoot. When there is a line of sight to the player, and after turning, the enemy waits an additional delay of a few hundred milliseconds. This delay is not tied to the "turn delay", and is always on, though I'm not sure about that.

The point is, before, there were no restrictions on shooting. When I added in those restrictions the enemy would have random "hitches" in their shooting. Here's a video.
In the video, if you look closely, you'll probably be able to see the uneven delay. Actually, you might not, because the video quality isn't really top-notch. But still.
The solution turned out to be quite simple, really. The thing is, the enemy shoots only when a Raycast which looks for the player returns true. This Raycast is only a small line, so what was happening is that the bullets were actually blocking the enemy's line of sight, causing those minor hitches.
A few lines of the code in question:


The fix was quite simple:


I don't really understand this code. I deduce that the line I added ignores bullets in the Raycast, but what do I know?

[hsnabn]

Entry 4

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Good news! The new level I was working on is now nearly complete! The actual art and layout is done, so now all I have to do is rig up physics, put in some more objects and populate the map with enemies.

I made more improvements to the game as well. The game now shows an objective in the lower right corner, which in the first level (bank heist) will be "Pick up a bundle of cash" and when that's done, you get "Mission Complete" plastered over the screen and a new objective: "Exit the bank". This will lead you to the Alleyway level, which has the objective "Escape". I'm thinking of getting in a car to escape (but the car won't actually be drivable).

Here's a screenshot of the level layout:



It's quite small, but pretty good for the second level I've ever made.

[hsnabn]

Entry 5

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The new level is now fully completed! Plus, some new stuff: player state gets saved between levels (armor, health), and there's a new first aid kit pickup, which will restore your health. The new level is called Alleyway Shootout. To complete it, you'll need to kill all enemies on the level, then enter a car. It's quite simple, and probably won't need much effort to finish, but it's something.

Here's a video of a wacky "look at" feature I put in. It's not very smooth and needs fine tuning, but I thought it'll be good to put in there, as the Alleyway level's enemies are usually off-screen: Gfycat
Here's a much more extensive gameplay video I put up on YouTube, it shows off the two levels in the game quite well I'd say. I'm also going to link it in the first post, as it's better than the last one by a large margin:



The next public release of the game is not very far away, as I've put in everything I queued up for it. I'm thinking of taking some more screenshots and stuff, to complement the new gameplay video.
EDIT: OK, uploaded the new release!

[hsnabn]

I just took some screenshots off of the new gameplay video and decided to post them on the game's threads. They're taken from the video, which is not very high-quality, so in turn they're not very high-quality either. But they're a sight better than the old screenshots.

[hsnabn]

Entry 6

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I worked on a dash ability for the player today: Gfycat
You can see the dash right when I go into combat mode ("Combat Mode" appears on the bottom left). It's a subtle dash, but it's actually sort of useful to get out of sticky situations.
The game camera works much better now. It follows the mouse a bit, so you don't have to press a key to "look at" anymore, and I think it is absolutely brilliant.

I also recently started using source control for Spacebar Florida. It sure was a complete pain to set it up, but the project history and redundancy I get in return will be worth it, right?
The only gameplay stuff to do right now is ammo, I guess. After that, I'll look into mocking up more levels to put into the game. The content in the game is sorely lacking, but I feel I need to get the core stuff right first, before going to into content creation.

[hsnabn]

Entry 7

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Wow, it's been a long time since any updates were made here. It's actually just out of a lack of things to post, not because I'd scrapped the game. I've been working on a new level, in which you have to board a train before a time limit is reached. It starts out near the now crashed player car, which is the same car in which you escape the previous level, Alleyway Shootout. This level is aptly going to be named Rail Rush.
Here's an image I took of the nearly finished level:

Here's the actual train, which will move through the "station" at the end of the level, on the top, when a certain amount of time has elapsed:

It's all full of my MSPaint-y artistic ability, but it's OK.
There's not much in the gameplay department except a working ammo system. The player has ten shots before they have to manually reload by pressing the "R" key. Normal enemies have six shots before they reload (they hide their weapons when doing it, but it's not very obvious). The armored rapid-firing enemies get fifteen shots before they have to reload.
There's also make a nice little "shell falling on ground" sound when characters stop shooting.
That's pretty much it for now.

[hsnabn]

Entry 7

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I just did some more work on enemies' shooting logic. Well, not really. I only tweaked when they shoot, so that they shoot when they are positively facing the player.
But before that I modified the enemy rotation code to now make them visibly rotate, rather than just snap to the new direction. Here's a video: Gfycat
I've finished up the new RailRush level. It still needs some tweaks here and there, such as the time limit (yeah, there's a time limit) and enemy placements. Here is a screenshot:

The ammo display isn't in the image, because there's a teeny bug in the HUD code. I'm getting on fixing that up now. Done!
The new level will be available in the next release. I'm looking to get it out soon.

[hsnabn]

So I just released a new version, v0.4. The highlights of this release are: a new level, better enemy rotation, better camera, a new dash move, and an ammo system.
You can find the download link on the Playtesting thread.

[hsnabn]

Entry 8

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Haven't had an entry over here in a long time. It's not because I'd given up on working on it, I just ran out of ideas of things to post and how to do so.

Probably the biggest two additions in the next release are the ability to save the game and the new score system. I say "probably" because while these systems are in place, they don't really do anything meaningful. The score system, for one, is very bare, as it only counts points for kills, without taking into account mission completion and the time taken, or the style of kills and such.

I've been working on making combat much more visceral, but I haven't gone much far from adding a simple blood pool when characters die, which is kind of illogical, as blood takes time to pool. I'm going to work on adding in sprays of blood.
I've also been thinking of expanding the weapons in the game, and adding throwables, like knives and such. This would be a big addition, though, so I'm not sure how long it will take (it'll probably require devising a new weapon system).

Well, that's all for now.