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[BadgerManufactureInc]

More screenshots...

[Zaid Crouch]

Wow, looks like lotsa progress, nice work!

One comment I would make is be careful with the players hitbox -- it seems like bullets count as hitting you even if they don't touch the sprite itself, which kinda sucks It's also hard to tell if you get hit by a bullet given they just continue through you, so it would be nice if they despawned too.

That said, I'm sure these are things that were on the way in anyways :D

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Thanks for giving the tech demo a trial Mr Crouch  :D yh things have moved on nicely with the engine. 

The hit box is way too big, I need to go over some of my new code as height and width of objects need to be incorporated into the collision tests (at present to get things running I'm using a rectangle of 40x40px or similar, this will go down to around 20x20px).

Now that I have got the basis of a game together I can start to focus on the finer details. 

One of the reasons for the gap in development was that I have been reading around the subject and seeing what is possible in Flash, my platform of preference (simply for ease of distribution).

They say that programmers spend 85% of their time reading code, I am beginning to believe that as a fact, and I never used to.

Ok, I am making some backgrounds tonight.  I'm torn between pure vector Tron-style lines, or Flat Shaded shapes akin to Every Extend.  Any ideas?  Fullspectrum?

[Bones]

This reminds me of some ships a made a long time ago.

Click the image for gameplay video.

Anyways, I thought I'd post and offer to make you some free art for you game here. 
Unless you already have an artist for this project that is.

BTW, I like how your ships explode into little pixels.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Bones, thanks for the compliment about the explosions.  I was determined to get them working. 

I am definately liking your art, the aliens you have drawn look great!!  So is it ok to use those ones?

It would be really good to have you on board, even if those sprites have already been used before, and you were planning on making some fresh ones.. my email has been pm'd over if you'd care to send some assets across.. they'd be much appreciated by me and my ever evolving engine, and great timing as I am piecing together a demo of the first level. 

I think we're seeing the same vision of a shooter when I look at your vector aliens, they are awesome, and are perhaps better realised than my own, especially the bosses I love the granular-fill pixel effect (although the smaller ones have a lot of character too) - it really adds and improves on my existing outlined vector style...

And with your input I can really see this game moving on faster than I'd hoped, so yeah, welcome to the team!  It would be a great help to have your art work and you will of course be credited in full once the game is finished.

By the way, I was thinking of single color schemes per level, green for the first level, I would be interested to hear some other opinions about what to choose in a shoot em up in this style, single/mixed palettes for individual levels? 

Also, your shooter in gamemaker looks good, are you still working on it?

Can't wait to put some of your assets in right away, I may even scrap the single palette idea if it's inconvenient as it's by no means essential.  I'd like to hear how you made those sprites too, as I've been using CAD for mine.

Thanks again man.

 :D

[Montoli]

Those are indeed sexy boss sprites!  I really dig the angular alien look on them!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I'll second that.  Bones, your vector aliens are awesome, I really can't wait to start blowing them up!! 

Here's another update:



I have got a scrolling background up and running, and have changed the enemy bullets to yellow.

I may need to re-organise some code to keep things running smootly though. I will update the demo once this has been sorted.

 

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Here's a couple more shots of the new background, Tron style, and a new enemy:

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Here is the updated demo:

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091025.html

[Bones]

Bones, thanks for the compliment about the explosions.  I was determined to get them working. 

I am definately liking your art, the aliens you have drawn look great!!  So is it ok to use those ones? :D

Ehh, I'd advise against it cause I'd rather make fresh new ones for you. 

Is it just me or can you not move in the new demo?
Also is it auto-fire on purpose? Do you plan to keep it on auto fire?
I am liking how the new enemy bullets look btw.

I added you on MSN as well, hope to hear from you soon.

I got bored started modifying what you already had.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Awesome art!!     Those adjustments to the existing sprites give them a nice lift, and already look really cool - they are going straight in for todays testing  [EDIT] one of your sprites (the smallest green one) has already been used for the updated demo - check it out, it looks great!!!



Glad to hear we can chat about the design over MSN, I will check in from time to time (computer & RAM allowing, as my system has had issues over the last few days) and will hope to speak to you on there at some stage today (give me a nudge or something if I don't respond lol).

Thanks for the compiment about the bullets - they do look nicer now.  The idea is to have other lazer bullets that will rotate to their velocity (lines rather than dots) but I will get onto that. 

You have to click the mouse to start the demo!! Sorry, that feature will be removed once the intro screen is up lol.  I forget do click myself sometimes. 

Not sure if that's what you mean by not moving (I have also fixed the game loop since the addition of the background) but thanks for the heads up and please let me know of anything that seems an issue in the engine as I aim to eradicate any issues and bugs before claiming it's done or trying to release it.

I am also really looking forward to getting more of your new work to use, Bones.

Autofire is there for testing purposes, I have been focusing on core functionality.  Stuff like a preloader and help screen can now start to be finalised as well as the control system.

The latest demo (091025) should have been linked to the html.

Here is the link again:

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091025.html

You have to click the mouse first to start playing!! lol Also I am still playing with the main loop, since adding the background so bear with me as I sort that out today.

I have made several other optimizations to the code now so things seem even smoother and I am also going through it with a fine comb, hunting around for any arithmetic that doesn't need to be done, and bypassing it with 'if' statements.

I will spend today building up the first level, making it start easier, and designing several more attack waves, leading up to a boss, for which I will start coding some simple AI.  There is, however, one adjustment to the target data array that I need to make before taking that plunge into sequence design, which should further optimize the main loop as a nice side effect.

It should be fun making new bullet spawning patterns too (now that I know my engine can cope).

[Bones]

Glad you like them.
I guess I'll just keep making more then. 


Mini-boss some assembly required, batteries not included.

I'll probably just update this specific post with any new updates I have.
So that way you can see where I am at, at all times.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Awesome, Bones.

I'm just putting some final touches on the updated code, then I should expect to have a few more of those in the game by tonight.

 

Ugh.. just had another system crash, something in my house is shorting the computer. On the plus side I have made the code much more efiicient, and there is no longer any restriction on no. of targets/overall path length.

I'm still really happy with the new assets, thank you Bones!! Can't wait for more..

Here's a new screenshot:

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I may have to change my motto to 'my computer switches off every few hours' and if this keeps up i'll consider buying a new power supply.

It just switched.  It's definately electrical, as I have to unplug the wall socket for a minute before it allows me to switch it back on again.

Oh well, at least the engine is moving on, and thank goodness for Xbox Live in the meantime lol.

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091026.html

Currently each alien is given a spawn frame.  This wil become a spawn list, I am changing this now to make level creation easier.

If no-pne comments on the speed, I guess I can assume that it runs at least relatively smoothly.. lol

[mokesmoe]

I had a similar problem with my old computer, but replace "every few hours" with "every few minutes". I only needed to unplug my comp for about 10 seconds to be able to start it up again though. A new power supply fixed the problem. (although it still sucked, so I got a new computer) It was pretty funny actually. I got the power supply off a friend's computer that had a broken hard drive, but it was too big for my comp. I eventually took off the front plate of my computer, so I could have my cd drives stick out of the front to make room for it.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Really hoping it doesn't come to that.  I am updating all my virus scanners right now just in case it's software related, but having to buy a new system would be more than a nightmare.

I think it's heat realted having the system right next to a radiator while near the floor (on a trolley type rack) does def not help!!

Trouble is, making one small mis-type with this engine can create crazy amounts of endless loops, what with alien bullets and all..

The engine is working out nice, I am in the process of ironing 1 last bug out.

I also updated the player ship to one of Bones' cool drawings.

 

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Another screen shot, while I am working on the new alien data...

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Ok, thanks to Bones this game has made another Spartan leap forwards today... here's how it's looking (updated to follow probably tomorrow now, hopefully including boss):

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Things have turned out so well with the new gfx that I have gone ahead of myself and created another demo for tomorrow lol:

http://www.badgermanufacture.com/The_Excavator_091027.html

The screen shot shows how it has come on.  Note all the bullet spawning is the same, I will be making each craft have a unique firing method tomorrow.

[Bones]

Tonights updates, a chain enemy, some turrets and some more ships.