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[GedorGames]

Hello Everyone!

I am new to this forum, first let me introduce myself by saying that I am a one man company that goes under the name Gedor Games. I have been programing for about 2 years now and right now I am making my first game called Arcadium, which is the reason for this topic.

Arcadium is a brickbreaker game with the classic elements of breaking bricks but there are also levels with other goals. Use the keyboard in the menu and the mouse to control the paddle, in the password menu you can type in any number from 2 - 10 to start at another level.

I am looking for feedback on how fun it is, if the difficulty is good and also if you find some bugs or problems with it.

Features

• Three difficulty settings
• The option to play in fullscreen or window mode
• The option to turn the music on or off
• Highscoretable
• 10 levels

The game is for windows and the file size is about 63 MB

Download Link: http://www.mediafire.com/file/hpxis1us1vc60d6/Arcadium_Demo_1.exe

[GedorGames]

Happy new year everyone!

I have been working on the next section of the game which will add some new elements to the game, my plan for the game is that each new section will bring something new to the game. This section will bring bricks with more hitpoints and thus making it a little harder but at the same time you will receive the best powerups for the game which will be a great help.

Anyway here is a screenshot of the first level of the new section:

[GedorGames]

I finished a new level for my game and it is a pong level which means that you have to get the ball past the enemy player in order to win. I have some different elements for the levels besides breaking bricks and this is one of them 

[AaronB]

One of the very first games I wrote was a breakout game on the Spectrum ZX81, so I was looking forward to trying out your version.

I like the title screen - complete with retro level password option.

Selected Start New Game and everything goes into lightspeed 

Really would like to play but I just can't - it is way too fast on my system.  Check with your game editing software on how to lock the game frame rate.

 

[GedorGames]

One of the very first games I wrote was a breakout game on the Spectrum ZX81, so I was looking forward to trying out your version.

I like the title screen - complete with retro level password option.

Selected Start New Game and everything goes into lightspeed 

Really would like to play but I just can't - it is way too fast on my system.  Check with your game editing software on how to lock the game frame rate.

 

Hey AaronB!

Thanks so much for trying out my game and I am sorry that it did not work for you. Some other people who have tried the game have actually had the opposite problem that the game starts to lagg after awhile, the game works fine when I tried it out on my PC and for some people it worked. I tried to run the game in debugg mode but I could not see that the FPS where either dropping or increasing.

I dont really know why the game only works for some people and not others, It is hard to fix something when you dont know how the game runs on other peoples computers. I do know that the game runs in 60 FPS if that is to any help, I will see what I can do and maybe I can give you another version of the game and hope that it works better.

Have you tried the game more than once because one of the persons who had problem with the game lagging said that it worked perfect when he tried it again. Maybe I can make a version with the game running in 30 FPS or even lower and see if that will help, it would be really slow for me but maybe that will work better for you.

Thanks again for showing interest in the game and I hope I can get a working version for you!

[AaronB]

Some other people who have tried the game have actually had the opposite problem that the game starts to lagg after awhile, the game works fine when I tried it out on my PC and for some people it worked.

It sounds like you have a race condition between your main game loop and the mechanism used to control the frame rate.  Which game engine are you using?

[GedorGames]

Some other people who have tried the game have actually had the opposite problem that the game starts to lagg after awhile, the game works fine when I tried it out on my PC and for some people it worked.

It sounds like you have a race condition between your main game loop and the mechanism used to control the frame rate.  Which game engine are you using?

I am using Game Maker Studio, all the rooms have a room speed which is by default set to 30 which means that each second 30 steps in the game are being run. I changed it in every room to 60 in order to make the game run more smoth but I dont think that game steps and fram rate are the same thing.

[AaronB]

Turns out the problem only occurs when I'm in full screen mode - it runs just fine when windowed.  I also tried forcing vsync on the video card but that had no impact.

[GedorGames]

I have made another level with a stronger lazer powerup and also bombs that blow up bricks. I feel like my motivation to make more levels has come back again, there are so many things I have planned for the coming levels and I am sure that they will add to the gameplay
I hope you like it and if you have any thoughts and feedback on the game please let me know.

Turns out the problem only occurs when I'm in full screen mode - it runs just fine when windowed.  I also tried forcing vsync on the video card but that had no impact.

Hey Aaron!

I checked out some things in the settings and there is an option for vsync there, here is the option I used before

Alternative Synchronisation Method - In the manual it says " Change the way that vertical synchronisation works to improve compatibility and resolve any issues with stuttering or tearing that the regular v-sync may show on older machines."

I now changed it to:

Use synchronization to avoid tearing - In the manual it says "This toggles v-sync on or off. Note, that if you have a game with a room speed of 120 and the player has a monitor with a refresh rate of 60, turning this option on will lock your game speed to 60 too. There is an alternative v-sync mode available should the game still have issues like stuttering or tearing even with v-sync on - see alternative synchronisation method below."

I dont know why the game had the alternative vsync method as a standard but maybe this will work, of course I dont see any difference when I play it on my PC but hopefully this version will work better for you and that you can play it in fullscreen without issues.
If you still have problems with it let me know so I can try something different in the option meny, this is very useful for me since if this works than maybe It will work for other people who have had similar trouble with it  

Here is the download link to the new version: http://www.mediafire.com/file/sxfb7z4r87r4syb/Arcadium_Demo_1_%28Vsync%29.exe

PS: This version also contains the three levels on the next section which I have showned pics of here

[AaronB]

The update worked like a charm.  The game is now smooth both windowed and full screen with no stuttering.

I like the overall presentation – the blocky feel fits in nicely with this style of game.  I thought the scrolling background would be distracting but instead it heightened the sense of activity.

One big dislike – the continual screen shake for every block collision – it was very wearisome .  I think screen shake can add a lot to the sense of impact but should be used sparingly. Perhaps when the ball has additional powers or when the 'boss brick' is destroyed.

Trying to get past the enemy is a novel idea – sort of a pong meets breakout – however, it just didn't seem to work for me.  I never felt that I had any control in tricking the AI into missing the ball, mainly because the ball trajectory is always altered by the brick collisions and the AI seems to be on rails.

It did occur to me that if I controlled both bats then this would spice things up with regards to keeping the ball in play, particularly for the 'four player' level - which would be very challenging.

[GedorGames]

The update worked like a charm.  The game is now smooth both windowed and full screen with no stuttering.

I like the overall presentation – the blocky feel fits in nicely with this style of game.  I thought the scrolling background would be distracting but instead it heightened the sense of activity.

One big dislike – the continual screen shake for every block collision – it was very wearisome .  I think screen shake can add a lot to the sense of impact but should be used sparingly. Perhaps when the ball has additional powers or when the 'boss brick' is destroyed.

Trying to get past the enemy is a novel idea – sort of a pong meets breakout – however, it just didn't seem to work for me.  I never felt that I had any control in tricking the AI into missing the ball, mainly because the ball trajectory is always altered by the brick collisions and the AI seems to be on rails.

It did occur to me that if I controlled both bats then this would spice things up with regards to keeping the ball in play, particularly for the 'four player' level - which would be very challenging.

I am really happy that the game works now and I dont have a broken demo anymore.

Thanks for your feedback, that means a lot to me and how I can work to improve it since I still have a long way to go before the game is finished.

I was going for a retro style game since my main inspiration for this game is Arkanoid, therefore the blocky style. I added the scrolling background because I did want the gameplay to feel more lively and not be so static and I think it works well.

The screen shake was a way to make the ball feel like it is really hitting everything hard and gives it more weight. It might be to much sometimes however and that was also a concern of mine, there are different levels of screen shake and destroying enemies gives the biggest screen shake while hitting the walls and player only gives small shakes. I can of course lower this on every level if it feels to much.

The pong levels where you have to beat the AI is exatly that, pong meets breakout. I wanted to have some variation to the gameplay so that my game is not just another "breakout clone game" which is why I added some other elements to it. I dont know how far you got but there are also some other levels which have other goals than to just destroy bricks. Anyway the first pong level is quite easy and you beat the ai fast by just passing all the blocks, however the levels will be more tricky with fever bricks and much harder AIs which forces you to find a good angel in order to get past them.

The idea to control more than one bat is good and I actually already have planned levels with that elements. But like you said it would be really challenging and since I am planning to make 70 levels for this game I dont want the game to be to hard in the beginning, So I save some harder elements for later  

Speaking of the difficulty, how hard are the levels? I dont want the game to be to easy which would make it boring but at the same time not to hard which would also be of putting. I made three difficulty settings so that people can adjust the difficulty to their likings. Of course there are always going to be some levels which are really easy and other leves which are hard but my goal it to increase the difficulty slowly as you progress in the game and always try to bring new things to the game to keep it interesting.

One thing that I have struggled with is how to not make the ball get stuck inside the bats or getting pushed in between the walls and bats. I have solved it now but the cost of that is that the ball sometimes gets weird bounces, for example I have programmed that the balls direction always aims for the middle if it collides with both the player and the wall in order to prevent it from getting stuck or caught in a endless bounce loop in the corner.

The problem is that the player can move much faster than the ball which causes several hits on the ball, I have fixed this by making the ball jump to a position where the player can no longer hit it and always go up but you can still hear on the sound effects that it hits more than one time and also that the ball goes up instead of sideways which does not look natural

Do you remember how you did when you made your game and if you had difficulty with this too?

Once again thank you for your feedback and help on how to make the game run more smooth, this was a great help to me  

PS: For now I use the password screen to select levels so if you dont wanna start from the beginning every time you play it you can just type in the number of the levels you wanna play, since there are 13 levels now you can just type in 2 - 13 to start at any level you like and the game will start at that level and proceed onwards.

[AaronB]

The problem is that the player can move much faster than the ball which causes several hits on the ball, I have fixed this by making the ball jump to a position where the player can no longer hit it and always go up but you can still hear on the sound effects that it hits more than one time and also that the ball goes up instead of sideways which does not look natural

Do you remember how you did when you made your game and if you had difficulty with this too?

The ZX81 had all of 1KB of RAM and character based graphics giving you a screen resolution of 64 × 44 pixels. Needless to say my collision algorithm was pretty simple.  The game had one endless level where the rows of bricks would slowly move down the screen towards you (kinda like space invaders).  The longer you played the faster the bricks would advance.

The issues you are encountering are primarily due to the ball speed remaining constant. For realistic collisions you would combine the instantaneous velocities of the bat and the ball.  For your game constant ball speed is desired, so you will need to have a workaround.  Finding the point of collision and positioning the ball to that point will give the most realistic results and help get the ball away from the bat.

With regards to getting the ball stuck, this really comes down to how the physics engine handles multiple object collisions in a single frame. The general approach is to resolve the first collision (position and velocity) and then use the new position/velocity to resolve the second collision, with all calculations being done in the same time instance.

Finally, to prevent repeated collisions with the same object is pretty simple - if the ball velocity is moving AWAY from the colliding object then just skip the collision algorithm. This should also help with the stuck ball syndrome.

[GedorGames]

The problem is that the player can move much faster than the ball which causes several hits on the ball, I have fixed this by making the ball jump to a position where the player can no longer hit it and always go up but you can still hear on the sound effects that it hits more than one time and also that the ball goes up instead of sideways which does not look natural

Do you remember how you did when you made your game and if you had difficulty with this too?

The ZX81 had all of 1KB of RAM and character based graphics giving you a screen resolution of 64 × 44 pixels. Needless to say my collision algorithm was pretty simple.  The game had one endless level where the rows of bricks would slowly move down the screen towards you (kinda like space invaders).  The longer you played the faster the bricks would advance.

The issues you are encountering are primarily due to the ball speed remaining constant. For realistic collisions you would combine the instantaneous velocities of the bat and the ball.  For your game constant ball speed is desired, so you will need to have a workaround.  Finding the point of collision and positioning the ball to that point will give the most realistic results and help get the ball away from the bat.

With regards to getting the ball stuck, this really comes down to how the physics engine handles multiple object collisions in a single frame. The general approach is to resolve the first collision (position and velocity) and then use the new position/velocity to resolve the second collision, with all calculations being done in the same time instance.

Finally, to prevent repeated collisions with the same object is pretty simple - if the ball velocity is moving AWAY from the colliding object then just skip the collision algorithm. This should also help with the stuck ball syndrome.

Skipping the collision when the ball is moving away from the colliding object is something I have thought about, the problem I have is that it sometimes is hard to check if the codes I try work since some of these collisions are hard to trigger.
I also notice that when the ball hits the wall sometimes the ball bounce back in the same direction it came from which must be some sort of collision bug with the program.
Anyway thanks for the tips, I will try this out now.

[GedorGames]

So this is another defend level where you control two paddles, it is a little harder than the previous one and you have to react fast and try to trick the enemy paddles in order to defeat them.

[GedorGames]

Hello everyone!

I have been sick so therefore I have not been able to work so much with my game recently but now I have completed the next level at least. This level has the best powerup in the game which is a bigger ball which destroys everything in one hit, this will probably be the last powerup I will make for the game. I also plan to have some powerdowns that make something bad to happen, I will try to add more elements to the levels and to keep the levels good looking and interesting.