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[Ninja Dodo]

Version 11:

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v11.zip

Now with ambient friendly fish, a new alternate "Hide" level and co-op respawning, plus various tweaks and fixes...

The schools don't have proper flocking behaviour as such, but they're attracted to the player and repelled by predators (besides a nice visual effect, has the added bonus of acting as feedback on imminent danger). I'll see if I can't figure out something more sophisticated for future versions.

[Ninja Dodo]

...aaaaand a couple more tweaks.

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v11_1.zip

(fixes to scatter cooldown, improved rock avoidance, etc)

[Ninja Dodo]

New version!

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v12.zip




Added "Lost" mode - 2 players, both spawn at random positions. Your goal: get back together. [press SPACE to cycle through modes, or access Lost directly by pressing 3]

Effectively Finding Nemo: The Game, you might say. I will try to refrain from adding jellyfish or seaturtles...

Since I figured out how to do split-screen I thought I'd add it to regular co-op as well so you can separate as much as you want now, and I improved the school-fish scattering some more.

[Ninja Dodo]

Got another one:

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v13.zip

New in this version

- added font

- added score recap on game over (multiplayer) + "Retry?"

- further tweaks to AI rock escaping

- increased multiplayer zoom limit (to 1280)

- LOST: fixed bug causing split-screen to break after reset

- removed co-op split-screen

After some more testing I found that the single to split-screen switch was rather annoying so I took it out again... Only a zoom-out now to keep both players in view, which means they can't separate as far. In modes where players are meant to separate split-screen will be permanent. Also, the game now has text! I'm using it sparingly, mostly for multiplay. Still need to add a timer to "Lost"-mode and "Bubbles!" needs to recap bubble count and size...

[Ninja Dodo]

Did a new gameplay vid with some of the latest additions:





I'm trying to strike a good balance between adding some interest with the rocky obstacles breaking up the environment, without making the space so cramped that navigation becomes frustrating, favouring mostly open areas.

Might be a bit busy the next month or so but there's a few more tweaks and features I have in mind for later...

[Ninja Dodo]

Prototype version 14:  http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v14.zip

Back to working on this.

I've added AI gather points which they will circle when not doing anything else. For predators this means guarding a spot (which you can lead them away from) and for friendly fish it creates more school-like behaviour. Right now they're placed randomly but I could see using this more strategically (like blocking an entrance to a cave with a pair of circling predators)...

I refined the other modes some by removing flies in LOST (focus on finding the other player) and adding school fish in BUBBLES! that will destroy your bubble if they touch it.

Also made the switch to Game Maker 8 without too much trouble.


I'm debating whether or not to make the predators chase NPC fish as I'm not sure how to do it without breaking everything. Right now NPC fish avoid predators, but predators ignore them. If I make the school fish edible the predators would probably end up never chasing the player.

Making the player a priority target seems like it would be too noticeably odd. Why would a predator abandon perfectly good prey to chase you? Are you an especially tasty and soon to be extinct delicacy? Not sure the player would buy that.

It seems feasible enough that small fish would panic at the sight of any large movement, actual threat or no (plus serves as a warning). If I do make predators chase other fish it will probably be a third type distinct from the ambient school fish...

[Ninja Dodo]

New version!

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v16.zip


So two updates since my last post...

I've done a pass on some graphics for the rocks plus some other visual tweaks. I'm not going to do a full on art pass for now, but I'm trying out some things.

I've added hi-scores, which unlock different levels. The way the semi-procedural level-generation works is there's a template with some common patterns for each level, and a couple rules, but beyond that it's mostly random. Right now there's 3 templates.

Getting a score of 5 and 10 unlocks levels 2 and 3. This way the environment stays more or less the same for initial playthroughs to avoid confusion but becomes more varied as you get the hang of it. Going to tweak this some more.

I also added some instructions for first-time players that appear if you don't move.

[Ninja Dodo]

Playing with colours...



http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v17.zip

New in this version: various visual tweaks and additions, and some changes to level structure.

[supershigi]

I really like this... the controls actually make you feel as though you're moving as the fish.  It's very tangible.

[Nate Kling]

I love the watercolor feel to it.  I'm not sure how I feel about the rock graphics though.  Everything else is so light and elegant and the rock feels a little out of place with that I think.

[Ninja Dodo]

Thanks

Personally the games I enjoy the most tend to have a real physicality to the controls. I've tried to capture that.

@Nate: I've experimented with making the rock lighter but I haven't found anything that felt right so far. I'll have to think about this some more.

[Ninja Dodo]

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v17_2.zip

Minor tweaks and fixes, some long overdue. I decided to get rid of the automatic respawning in co-op (under lilies) because it was confusing and you can always add the second player back in by pressing ENTER as long as one of you survives. You still lose your points though.

I might bring it back if I figure out a way to do it more elegantly, but for now this works.

[Ninja Dodo]

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v18.zip

More tweaks and fixes, and lilies are now displaced by the player like the particles (except rotation only). Also refined predator tail movement.

[Ninja Dodo]

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v19.zip

New in this version:

I've integrated the other gameplay modes now through an in-game menu, the "Menu Cave", which you access by pressing ESC... Here you find tunnels that lead to each of the modes, or you can press ESC again to quit. I will probably make some of them unlockable eventually (but not before I figure out how to save more than one variable to a file)...

I've refined the modes a bit. LOST now starts with a bot by default if no second player is present. Pressing ENTER replaces the bot with player 2, and the game remembers the number of players between modes. BUBBLES now has a bigger level and I've put back the background particles as it seems I've fixed the crash they were causing earlier by cleaning up some other things...

[Ninja Dodo]

Version 20:

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v20.zip

Players now enter the menu from the entrance to the mode they just left, which should make the layout easier to understand. I replaced the friendly sprite in FOLLOW-mode with one more similar to the player so it's clear this is not the predator fish and the camera tracks along more smoothly now instead of being locked directly to the friendly. And a few more tweaks.


If anyone has any thoughts on how well this "Menu Cave" thing is working, or is not working, or anything else, let me know...

[Ninja Dodo]

Again with the updates!

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v21.zip

FOLLOW-mode now counts minutes survived and adds another predator/minute for extra encouragement. Because it seemed more logical, touching the level edge now destroys your bubble in BUBBLES-mode, and the debug feature of adding additional predators by pressing + is now extended to all modes (on the fence about leaving this in, leaning towards yes). This and some other tweaks.

[Ninja Dodo]

New version:

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v22.zip

Mostly tweaks and fixes this time. Added some text to the Menu Cave to make it more obvious how the menu works and where the tunnels go, and fixed a bug that was causing the view to stretch when zooming in or out: I made the mistake of assuming Game Maker would know what I meant by "zooming out 1.5 pixels" (you know, like skip a frame or something), but it turns out this works better if I make it a round number. I suppose this is indicative of the extent to which I don't understand programming...

I made some adjustments to the bot in LOST-mode, which inherited its AI from the schoolfish. Now it ignores AI gather points and doesn't avoid lilies or level edges, plus tries to reach the player when nearby (which schoolfish also do, but only when not in a gathering).

Also: changes to the camera in LOST. Fixed a bug causing it to cut to position 0,0 when player 1 dies (and only a bot remains) and changed the maximum zoom out to the singleplayer range even during multi because if you zoom out too far finding the other player becomes much too easy.


I'm thinking about what else I want to do with this before I call it finished. Right now it's looking like this:

DEFINITELY

Sound & music

PROBABLY

Another graphics pass

MAYBE

More gameplay-modes and features

[Ninja Dodo]

A minor update:

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v22_1.zip

There's a really tenacious crash that I've been trying to fix all week. I seem to have reduced its occurrence (mainly in the menu, with 2 players), but not entirely fixed it yet. It seems related to a combination of camera zooming and text fading, but I haven't been able to narrow it down further than that. In the process of trying to fix it I've made some various adjustments and streamlined a few things.

Also revised the Menu: now permanently zoomed out to give a better overview.

[Ninja Dodo]

New in this version:

- acceptable framerate

http://www.ninjadodo.net/temp/guppy/guppy_v23.zip

I recently bought a laptop which is slightly slower than my desktop and I was a little shocked at just how badly Guppy runs. I had heard of some framerate issues with the larger rock formations, but I didn't realise it was quite this bad. Given the low visual complexity of the game this is clearly unacceptable, so I've been focusing on fixing this.

I had previously implemented something for culling objects outside the screen but had decided against deactivating rocks as this caused all kinds of complications with AI getting stuck in re-appearing rocks. Now that I have a slightly better handle on how GM works I was able to more or less solve this so that now (on my laptop at least) it runs at 30 fps...

Also some various tweaks and fixes and FOLLOW-mode now records scoring.

[Ninja Dodo]

Incidentally, if anyone else has any feedback on how well the game runs for them that would be quite useful to know. The laptop I'm running it on now is 2.4 GHz with 3 GB ram so I guess for now those are the minimum specs?