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TIGSource ForumsCommunityDevLogsGataela - Victorian Steampunk RPG (Graphical Demo Update Out!)
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pmarincak
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« Reply #60 on: April 03, 2016, 03:02:04 PM »

Devlog #41 - 03/04/16

There are way more battle bugs than I thought there would be for this beta release so I took a break from bug fixing to finish off this map. It's half of a dungeon. I couldn't finish it off for so long because I didn't have the dungeon mechanics coded yet to test out, but now that that's done, here it is.


It's also almost 1k layers in PS.
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pmarincak
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« Reply #61 on: April 03, 2016, 07:34:35 PM »

Devlog #42 - 03/04/16

Uh- I guess two updates today because I have visual things I can show. This is an update to the Crafting UI I posted a while ago. Along with a possible? final header for the menus? I might change the "BACK" to be an arrow instead.

My friend and I were talking about the battle UI, which led to the main menu UI, which ultimately led to this one. While talking I remembered that the crafting UI is sort of alchemy like? and that alchemy has a circle thing for it. I also remembered that alchemy has the classical elements, along with a theorized 5th element. I have 5 slots so it seemed to make sense. I made a modification to the original circle thing and stuck the slots onto it. I think it works pretty well.

I wanted to avoid using the chinese/japanese element circles because even though it has 5 elements, it doesn't really match up with the setting.

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pmarincak
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« Reply #62 on: April 05, 2016, 06:27:34 PM »

Devlog #43 - 05/04/16

So it looks like that wonderful linker error was still lingering around. I was trying to add some bug reporting options to the game since a tester was running into a bug that caused the game to crash 50%-90% of the time they changed maps. I have never run into it so I kinda needed this.

So I set up CrashRpt without any issues (I might make a post on this later for integrating with Cocos2dx but it's pretty straight-forward). When I went to test it, LNK1140: too many modules for program database; link with /PDB:NONE had returned.

So at this point, I had not added any new .cpp files. I just added a new .lib to linker's additional dependencies. Since I know, from my last post, that the modules from the .libs would not be copied into the project it meant it HAD to be something else.

Well, the other thing was obviously libcocos2d.

So I removed it all from the solution.

The default Win32 project solution looks like this:


I removed everything other than the project Gataela and added libcocos2d.lib to Linker > Input > Additional Dependencies. The lib consists of all of those other projects.

And it worked.

I think this is the end of this bug (other than if I ever make more than 4095 modules), since my .pdb after a clean-build is now 10MB compared to the 350MB or so before.

The only other thing, which I will figure out how to automate later, is that I had to copy the .dll and .pdb of libcocos2d to the folder for debugging.

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pmarincak
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« Reply #63 on: April 08, 2016, 09:30:49 PM »

Devlog #44 - 09/04/16

I've been doing a lot of bug fixes this past week and one, which is specific to the cocos2dx/box2d engine, I figured I'd mention.

The bug in question is a nasty one in that when you change scenes physics bodies can be off from their proper position. For instance, the sprite is drawn at 0,0 and the body is at 136,80 or something. This leads to enemies potentially wandering to where they shouldn't be allowed and so on. The proper positions are only updated after the node in question's (or their parent's) position is updated.

The physic body position updating is pretty straight-forward. When a body is added to a node, it has a flag that is set to "dirty" and then in the next physics world step, the body is updated to the appropriate node position.

Now, in my case, I have the map itself, and all of the events and the player and collisions are added as children to it. When it initializes it sets itself in the center of the screen for where the user is on the map. Whenever you start a new game session, or happen to change maps around 0,0 this works fine. The physics bodies are in the correct position. Yet any other time? It didn't work properly.

There are a couple odd bugs with scene transitions I've run into, so the first thing I did was disable the animation (a fade in). Thankfully, all the body positions are now working properly when you change maps. So the centering of the map is not the problem, it's something a bit deeper into the architecture. Except modifying the architecture is usually a bad idea.

So I went through the physics world and found the code where it calls the physics bodies to update. There is a flag option that, if set to true, would force the update instead of relying on the "dirty" flag. I called this method, with that flag set to true, right after the scene transition ends. And there we go, problem solved.

TL;DR

If your physics body positions are off from their intended position after a scene transition, extend the following method as follows:

Code:
void onEnterTransitionDidFinish() {
    //parent flags set to 1 forces the physic bodies to update positions/rotations/etc
    updatePhysicsBodyTransform(getNodeToParentTransform(), 1, 1.0f, 1.0f);
}


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pmarincak
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« Reply #64 on: April 13, 2016, 07:13:41 PM »

Devlog #45 - 13/04/16

My last round of bug fixes has for-better-or-worse been interrupted by some exciting news. There will be the Ottawa International Gaming Conference at the end of the month and the first day of the event is a public expo. So I will be showing Gataela there on the 24th (99% confirmed).

So busy times ahead for the next little while as I'm moving up all my UI updates and planned visual fixes from May to implement over the next few days. Given this is my first game conference and first time showing Gataela to the public it's a bit nerve wracking haha.

If anyone reading this has any tips for showing your game feel free to drop them off, they'd be appreciated. Smiley

And here's a temporary upgrade to the main title scene since the actual art is not done yet and the old one is more than a bit dated.

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pmarincak
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« Reply #65 on: April 29, 2016, 07:32:12 PM »

Devlog #46 - 29/04/16

I have returned back to the living (somewhat) after the expo and convention earlier this week. The time between my last post and this one was spent entirely on updating the UI and fixing up a bunch of bugs. I pretty much did double-time. I'm just hoping I won't end up getting too sick from it all.

But, in any case, I'm here to write about how the expo went (with pictures!).


A free info card I was giving away for the game.

So this past weekend (April 24) was the Ottawa International Gaming Conference (OIGC) expo. It was the first one they've hosted, the first expo I have ever attended, and the first time showing Gataela to the public. I wasn't too sure of what to expect of it all, but overall it went really well!

First of all, the expo itself was insanely busy. The facebook event had about 500 people interested, yet 2600 people ended up attending! I was standing around and talking a lot more than I was expecting. There were a lot of people from the area showing off their stuff and unfortunately I couldn't really look around all that much, but there were some projects from the local college/university game dev programs, some other small startups and companies, some individuals and a lot of artists.

The nice thing about this con was that it ended up being completely free. Free for the ones doing the showing, and free for the attendees. I think that helped a lot to get people in and walking around. That and probably the farmer's market on the other side of the building. (Lots of grandparents bringing their grandchildren around.)


My friend stopped by to take pictures and this was around 1 hour before the expo ended.

I was really concerned before the expo about people not liking the game or passing it by. RPGs are kinda hard to show - let alone make a demo for - so I ended up with just taking the next beta release and throwing a lot of polish on it. It probably didn't help that I only had a keyboard and mouse setup too, so that was some extra worry. (Plus I had no chairs to give to anyone :X)


Someone playing through the game.

Most people who came by didn't even make it through the tutorial/opening content (~5 mins of playing). This content is simply a couple cutscenes and battles. It pretty much introduces the tutorials through the story, so there isn't that much waiting around (~1 min or so). Most people unfortunately didn't get to the debate battles. I guess story stuff just wasn't what they were looking for. That or they needed a chair.

There were some people though who played for 15-40 minutes. I had a couple kids who (as their parents told me) had very little interest in games or only played things like minecraft. It was really nice to see them play so much. It was also nice to see their parents struggling to pull them away (sorry parents).

Interestingly, I had some 6-10 year olds playing the game without any issues. It was rather surprising for me since I figured all that text would likely be too difficult for them. Some of them went around talking to as many NPCs as they could. Others just skipped through it all.

It was also really nice that a lot of people got really into the game and characters so quickly! Some people even came back quite a few times. I saw someone who ended up buying the artbook showing it off to a bunch of people and redirecting them over to the table. It was also really nice that a couple of my Kickstarter backers ended up showing up, and buying the artbook. They seemed quite happy with the game so far, which I am really glad about. (My backers like to be very silent people so it's something I'm always worried about.)

I got a lot of nice comments from people, some of the most common ones were that they:
- found the game really pretty/liked the art
- liked the characters
- liked the music
- liked the UI/aesthetic
- it was fun
- hurry up and release it faster


I had a guestbook people could write in and cards people could take. I was also selling some old merch from the Kickstarter.

Overall the experience was really great. Just some observations I made and some stuff I would probably want to change in the future.

Things done well
- had cards of the game so people could take to follow up later (also people love free stuff)
- had a slideshow with concept art, in-game shots and so forth on a third monitor
- had enough content for the demo so that people who wanted to stay longer could have stuff to do
- had a copy of the character art book people could flip through and read
- the slideshow monitor was off to the very edge of the table row and faced outwards, people walking by/around the corner could see it easily
- bringing the extra merch and pricing it at "easy to pay" numbers (ex. $2, $5, $20, etc.) (I ended up selling all my artbooks!!)

Things to Improve
- get some chairs or request extra chairs
- when no one was playing on the machines I should've had a video play or something with in-game footage
- make some premade file saves so that if people just wanted to run around and kill stuff they can
- set up the free cards and such at the end of the table or a place with a lot of "traffic flow"; the middle of the table ended up getting clogged with people asking questions or flipping through the artbook

I think one of the things that this expo has convinced me to do is to release a free demo of the game when I get around to Steam Greenlight later this summer/fall. Seeing so many people enjoy the game thus far was really great, and I've been sitting on the fence about a demo for greenlight for the past few months. Hopefully everything will end up being worth it.

The only downside of the expo was that I didn't get everything I planned for this month done, so the completion percentage didn't increase as much as usual. Hopefully all of that will be fixed up in the next month but for now I'm rushing to fix the few bugs a couple people found while playing so I can get the next beta out more-or-less on time. Then I'm gonna to take a break. A nice couple of days off from deving (minus project management stuff). Then back to work!
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pmarincak
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« Reply #66 on: May 05, 2016, 12:22:24 PM »

Devlog #47 - 05/05/16

The new beta release is finally out!

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pmarincak
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« Reply #67 on: May 12, 2016, 07:42:43 PM »

Devlog #48 - 12/05/16

I'm back to working on interior maps. This is part of a library.

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dxman
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« Reply #68 on: May 13, 2016, 06:42:11 PM »

Hi. Looking nice so far, and good to see you're making steady progress.

If I might make a suggestion, maybe consider changing the colors for the curtains and the carpet. As it stands, those and the bookshelf all sort of blend into each other. Perhaps a deep red or purple?
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pmarincak
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« Reply #69 on: May 14, 2016, 06:49:27 PM »

Hi. Looking nice so far, and good to see you're making steady progress.

If I might make a suggestion, maybe consider changing the colors for the curtains and the carpet. As it stands, those and the bookshelf all sort of blend into each other. Perhaps a deep red or purple?

Thanks Smiley

I ended up changing the purple on the curtains to be darker (and to also match the carpets better). I'm trying to keep the purple because it matches the flag colors better (and this is an official building).

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pmarincak
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« Reply #70 on: May 28, 2016, 02:57:12 PM »

Devlog #49 - 28/05/16

Haven't posted for a while; been busy creating maps and adding them into the game for the next beta content. I'm hoping to finish most of that off this weekend so I can go back to bug fixes and then adding more content. In the meantime, here's some more interior layouts I've been working on.









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pmarincak
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« Reply #71 on: June 07, 2016, 05:38:44 PM »

Devlog #50 - 07/06/16

Been busy with new story content so not too much to show about that. I've taken today to start thinking about various polishing improvements to make, ranging from clipping when you enter tall grass to footstep sfx, and ambience. I've also been looking at that post-processing stuff and I think I have a solution. For now though I started working a bit on updating the walk cycles.

Gataela uses a 3-frame walk cycle right now so I've been thinking for a while to get that updated. Unfortunately I haven't done sprite animations for a very long time. If anyone has any feedback it'd be appreciated. Smiley


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pmarincak
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« Reply #72 on: June 10, 2016, 12:46:43 PM »

Devlog #51 - 10/06/16

Finally finished off Myranova Smiley It was surprisingly more time-consuming than the other cities I've done.

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pmarincak
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« Reply #73 on: June 17, 2016, 05:19:13 PM »

Devlog #52 - 17/06/16

Been adding in story events and so on for the last little bit. They're finally in so I've shifted to adding enemies and NPCs. I've also managed to fix a few bugs.

Overall, the number of bugs have been decreasing with each build and they don't appear to be rearing their ugly heads later on, so I'm glad on that end. Because of that, I've been looking to my improvement list for the next beta round. I'll be going back to more technical fixes, and probably figuring out how to fix the collision system or switch it out. The lack of CCD is starting to become a problem, and most users report walking along edges as "janky".

In the meantime, here's a fountain:

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pmarincak
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« Reply #74 on: June 24, 2016, 12:57:48 PM »

Devlog #53 - 24/06/16

New beta release is new Smiley

In other news, I'm going away for 2 weeks to visit my sister and going to do a huge rewrite boot camp while I'm there. I'm hoping to finish updating the script for the rest of the game, along with the debates. I'm also planning to put in more mystery/detective elements so I've been doing some research on that.

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pmarincak
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« Reply #75 on: July 01, 2016, 09:04:49 AM »

Devlog #54 - 01/07/16

Happy Canada Day! We've finally passed 75% complete and we got previewed (+ an interview) with Digitally Downloaded!

Ps. Writing hell is still on-going. I have my regrets.
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pmarincak
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« Reply #76 on: July 12, 2016, 06:14:20 PM »

Devlog #55 - 12/07/16

I'm back from my sort-of-vacation-but-not-really and have started to work on fixing collision problems. Ever since I upgraded Cocos2dx and switched the physics engine from Box2d to Chipmunk I've been having an array of issues involving tunneling, corners snagging and making the player move janky, and so on. I've started work on fixing that today.

I'm sticking with Chipmunk over Box2d because it generally performs better, it's integrated well with Cocos2dx in the form of callbacks, and a lot of effort has already gone into getting everything to work with it. Plus, switching between the two physics engines is not as easy as just toggling a flag.

And so with all of that, I went to work on fixing things today. A common complaint I've found with both Chipmunk (and Cocos2dx by extension) is that there's overlap/tunneling. The only suggestion Cocos2dx forums has given is to increase the updateRate of the world, or the number of substeps, or even the speed of the world. These suggestions might be useful if involving a bullet of some sort, but my characters are moving very slowly. After a lot of searching through the Chipmunk engine itself, I came across a mention of some global variables.

Quote
cpFloat cp_collision_slop: The amount that shapes are allowed to penetrate. Setting this to zero will work just fine, but using a small positive amount will help prevent oscillating contacts. cp_collision_slop defaults to 0.1.

cpFloat cp_bias_coef: The amount of penetration to reduce in each step. Values should range from 0 to 1. Using large values will eliminate penetration in fewer steps, but can cause vibration. cp_bias_coef defaults to 0.1.

Now, these names are from an older version of Chipmunk, so it took a bit of searching through files, but I found they had been renamed in the cpSpace header. So I tried looking through the Cocos2dx documentation to find a way to access them and, unsurprisingly, they were inaccessible. This is not the first time there's been attributes hidden through the engine, so, suffice to say, I went and edited it. (Hurray for open source!)

I reset the physics world to use default values, and only changed the collision slop to 0, since this seemed to be the issue. I don't want any overlap.


Which is working pretty well as intended!

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pmarincak
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« Reply #77 on: July 18, 2016, 08:04:24 PM »

Devlog #56 - 18/07/16

Some updates on things. I've been fixing all of the collisions for the past week for not only the player but also the npcs and enemies. Thankfully, I've finally fixed everything... probably. At the very least, the player isn't getting stuck on things and the npcs aren't walking through collisions anymore. Plus I've migrated the action button to use the collision boxes, so it's better optimized and, well, fixed.

With collisions fixed I'm going to finally add in the Crafting System. I'm slightly concerned that I may have to make adjustments to the save file structure though.

Other than that, I'm thinking of maybe writing something up on the Cocos2dx forum about the collisions. It's a very common complaint? topic? with the physics objects overlapping.
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pmarincak
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« Reply #78 on: July 25, 2016, 01:12:48 PM »

Devlog #57 - 25/07/16

I've been working on adding the crafting system over the past week and fixing more collision bugs. It's surprising how many have appeared just by changing one line of code. It's not related to the collision slop, but rather a line in Cocos2dx itself which allows for the physics bodies to affect the objects they're attached to. Unfortunately, uncommenting this out has led to entities sliding around and teleporting around the map as the scene loads. I'm trying to find a good way to go about fixing this without having to modify the game engine again.

But yes, the crafting system. It's rather straight forward and is about halfway implemented at the moment. I have mainly the UI left to deal with, except I wanted to tinker around with UI elements again. Leading to some new UI mockups which are not 100% done yet, but I think they're much better.





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« Reply #79 on: August 02, 2016, 03:36:09 PM »

Ugg, I hate those minute little engine bugs that you keep having to work around and seem to stick around way longer than they ought to.
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