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[Bones]

The art is cool and all and I really like the edit as it does kind of give it some 3D appeal.
But yea, it's straying a bit far from the original style.

I don't know what is with the obsession of making everything very bright in simple pixel shmups.
Personally I don't really like gradients, I try to avoid them at all costs.
Also don't have photoshop installed, and so I have been making these ships with Windows 7 MSPaint.

[Wander]

New demo works great although the ships speed feels chuggy compared to the bullet/enemy speed but that tuning should happen once you get death in.

Here's the thing about what I was trying to do with the art:
When the ships explode, it's just pieces the same color that they are - which is comfusing visually since you want to avoid or shoot things of that color.  When you put a BG color on them, (which i did as a gradient just for interest) it sort of groups the ships into shapes that are easy to see and have a mass.

having black on the inside of the ships and the outside of the ships sort of serves to make it more confusing.

To each his own though.

It's commendable that your'e using MSpaint. 

the art looks really good but there's a sprite in the bottom right of that sheet that is preatty rad albeit more complex than the rest and probably unused?

[Bones]

Well, I think I'm going to turn all lasers white.
Because its hard to notice green lasers in a cloud of exploded pixels.

The problem with adding "more" color such as a gradient, is that when the ships were to explode.
They would not look the same as they do right now, and we kind of want to keep the whole single pallet pixels.

The only reason they are colored in black, is so they don't show up through each other.
Such as the crates which overlap.


Some new logos drawn from the original logo.

[Wander]

gotcha.

Those logos are pretty good throwbacks.  Reminds me of Zaxxon, which I played when I was a mere fetus. 

[BadgerManufactureInc]

We are going out on a limb a little with our design philosophy of minimalism and yet with an engine that wants to throw as much as it can at you.  I'd be really interested on your comments as we wrap this project up over the next month or two, leading up to Christmas.  Do keep in touch, and thanks for the interest.

On a technical aside, I coded up a scrolling map editor, even though I am not using one for this game. I wanted to put my thoughts down about the spawning once again, hopefully for the last time now.  Making the editor really helped me go over all the concepts I am using so that has helped with this project too.

As is, each alien is given a spawn frame, and the program assigns these to entire waves at a time.  At this stage, the engine states the targets for each alien too..

I want to change this; I want to separate the spawn frame assignment from the target data so that I can just state the type of alien to appear on a given frame, rather than have to state all its targets before.

This shouldnt take long to adjust, and it helps having it down on paper exactly what I intend to do.

Love the new logos Bones.  ALso, good idea about making the bullets brighter, that may help things seem less indistinguishable.  We may be able to have the ship absorb the piixel dust too - which would serve to further declutter the overall environment - I am working on it.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I have overhauled the spawning initialisation, hopefully for the lsat time.  Each alien type can have more than 1 attack formation with relative coding ease.

All that neeeds to be done is to make each type distinctive in the way that it moves and fires.  At the moment they are all perhaps too similar.  Bones & I were discussing having some that enter screen and stand still while trying to shoot you.. these would perhaps be the first type that you'll encounter (in the name of building things up pace wise).  Well, this has almost been done in the code.  Once I have that sorted we'll go through each alien types movements and firing until we have a nice balance and variation.

I'd imagine that in another day or perhaps two, the demo will be updated with the best part of a whole level.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I love that new craft man.

[BadgerManufactureInc]

I am building up level 1:

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Still havn't finished level 1, but the pace is making much more sense now.  Instead of throwing all the aliens at you in 1 minute, I have started to build it up so it starts off easier.

[superflat]

Looking and playing nice.  Think the font needs to be a fixed-width one to match the simplicity of the aesthetic.  Really needs the craft to flash white when hit.  And also the level throws too much at you too soon?  Maybe throw a few simple waves in with pauses to begin with?

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Actually keeping track of the wave number would probably help me more that being of any benefit to someone playing, so I will concentrate on essentials for now as there is still so much to do.
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/051109/72208_The_Excavator_091105.php

[fullspectrum]

I haven't been in the loop for a while, sorry!

Just to say I really like the advancements, and I'm up for creating more music for the game.

Looks like you guys have been working hard, well done!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Hey, I wanted to 'resurrect' this thread, because the engine has been rewritten from scratch.

I'll start a new thread for my new project 'SpaceGate' but in the meantime here's a taster by means of a picture or two and a video, for anyone (maybe it was just me lol) who was disappointed that this was not finished last year:












There's 5 levels each with its own boss.
Power ups increase your firepower and you can pickup nodes.

Hopefully I will have a finished product quite soon, possibly within the next month..
The next step will be to start converting The Excavator itself into my new engine.

Thanks for the patience of anyone that thought I'd quit for another hobby.
This is my passion and I hope to keep making games for ever

[Montoli]

That is looking sexy!

I especially love the little "snakes" of enemies at the beginning.  I don't know why, but I like them a lot.

Can't wait to play it!

[BadgerManufactureInc]

Thanks Montoli.
It's also nice to see someone liked my video on youtube.
I really want to give people who play it an interesting and exciting challenge.
The engine is everything I could hope for, and I think my first game release in 12 years may be about to happen..
By the way, spawning is now wave based, meaning that things are more akin to a standard vertical shooter pace wise.
I'm aiming for simple this time around, so that I can have a release under my belt before developing The Excavator which I'm already excited about now that this game is nearly done.