next »

[saluk]

Alright, thanks to one of the coolest set of mecha sprites I've ever seen (thanks for them DBB!) I am going to revive one of the oldest games I ever tried to make. It is meant to be a mechwarrior type game, with rich missions, tough choices, and some very basic rpg elements.

I'll probably cut out the rich missions, tough choices, and very basic rpg elements by the end of the competition, just to be able to finish something.

Download demo 1:
http://www.mediafire.com/?dmmnwwjkmyj

Latest shot:


I am considering doing 3d terrain somehow, but haven't gotten to that yet. I'm not sure if it's feasable, but it's worth trying The mode7 effect works pretty well with the flat terrain, and it might not be worth trying to do more there when there are other things to do.
Really no time to be fiddling with terrain at this time, considering how much more important other things are. I like the mode7 feel well enough! Some things like hills aren't perfect, but whatever.

Techs:
pygame
pyopengl
pywright - personal engine designed for graphical interactive fiction visual novels, it's been interesting retrofiting this for a complex tilemapped action game

that's a lot of py!


I also have a backup/side game idea that I will make in flixel if I have time or if the mech project fails.
I will not be having the time to do anything else besides the mech game. It's too much fun to work on to even think of other things!

[saluk]

Day ONE



First I brainstormed many many ideas, and spent a whole day or so looking through the assets. So much good stuff. I'm really blown away by the sudden explosion of free art to be used! When the compo is over, I can see this stuff cropping up for a very long time in games all over the place.

I came up with 2 solid ideas, one of them was the most interesting to me, so I went with that. Some aspects are technically challenging, so I can fallback to the simpler one if I need to. It's still early

I want to make a top-view 3d-ish mecha game, most similar to the mechwarrior game that was on SNES or the desert strike games from that era. You drive your mech around, with completely independant body and top, and 360 degrees of motion to blast stuff with. There will be some kind of rpg elements, upgrading your mech, but also slight mission branching - each mission will have multiple outcomes, and losing the mission doesn't mean the game is over. I'm planning for a very short campaign, with a few interlude missions that are mostly just talking to people. Basically, the game structure of a strategy rpg, but replace turn-based strategy with mech action.

So far, I have a mech class, which can rotate and color the body and leg unit of the sprite independantly, and animate walking around.

I had to do a lot of reading of my old code to actually use my pywright engine. It was not designed for this kind of game, but instead for interactive fiction games/choose your own adventure style. Part of the reason I chose this engine was for the cool graphics code, which is optomized to render in opengl or in software only, and handles scaling, rotating, animation etc really well. I knew it would be the easiest choice for me asset-wise for the complex, busy sprite sheets dbb provided; since I already know the format and how to tell the engine what's what. I also want to improve the engine as much as I can, and one good way to do that is to try to do something it can't really do

I really like how well the tinting works, thanks to the mecha sprites all being grey, most of the colors look like they were recolored by hand. Primaries like red and green look the best. Purple, not so much, but I'll probably not use that for real mechs

Anyway, it is already pretty fun to drive the mech around the screen, with a smooth scrolling camera, and rotate around to see all the different views. Tomorrow I will attempt to add shooting...

Oh, currently using DBB's tiles as well for the background. I made a simple level using mappy. I'm not sold on that tileset at the moment. I'm looking at a few others and also thinking about what I will do with 3d. Might go with isometric. Of course if I use 3d that will eliminate the cool software rendering mode, but if I can pull it off it will be worth it I think. I'm not going to do much else with the terrain for a while though; instead focusing on the combat and mission structure. The terrain's mostly just a backdrop anyway.

[saluk]

DAY TWO



Finally got perspective action going on. Retrofitting an engine deisgned for 2d to handle perspective = crazy. Took way too much effort. Some of the values for the viewport etc are pretty much made up, and just tweaked to be decent. If I want to change the resolution at all, I have to tweak it again. Not very happy with that, but the perspective looks cool anyway! The unexpected downside is now the maps have to be bigger, but I was planning them to be largish anyway. Still not sure what I'm going to do with the terrain.

And it still works in the trippy perspective mode, opengl orthographic mode, AND software rendering. I don't know how long I can maintain compatibility with all the modes, hehe.

Oh, I also added feeblethealmighty's cool typing sound for when messages are displayed, going to use that heavily for mission objectives and stuff.

I'm not sure whether to do shooting or collision detection next. Shooting might be easier and cooler... Plus in my last diary I said I would do that next. I also need to tweak the hotspots for the mech sprites, the top half is never quite in the right spot. So much to do

[Galaxy613]

YOU HAVE TO COMPLETE THIS! 

[J. R. Hill]

This could be fantastic.

[Pencerkoff]

Hello this is Pencerkoff

Those mechs look like they belong in that environment.  They still look good when they are moving?  Or haven't you got there yet?

-PENCERKOFF

[saluk]

They look pretty good moving, there are still a lot of little things that are off. The directional view chosen doesn't quite match the actual direction they are moving, something is weird with the diagonal frames, and the body doesn't always attach in the right place. The tiles and mech were both drawn by DBB, but I don't know if he meant the tiles to be for the mech. But they looked good to me so I slapped them together I am thinking of using some of his other stuff too, like the wizard lol.

I'll have more to show in the coming days, having so much fun working on it!

[Pishtaco]

Looks good, and I love that it's made with an IF engine.

You are in the middle of a dusty plain. An enemy mech stands ten yards away from you.
>shoot mech
But you cannot see any mech.

[Pencerkoff]

Hello this is Pencerkoff

>turn on thermal imaging

-PENCERKOFF

[dbb]

 :oThis looks so cool. What does the A in ARPG stand for? Action? Asskicking? Awesome?

Re. the weirdness of the diagonal walk cycles: this could well be my fault. I didn't test all the animations as thoroughly as I ought to have done.
Re. tileset/mech compatability: yeah, I tried to keep them relatively the same scale.
Re. runtime tinting: yeah, it does look good, doesn't it? You might have problems with the firing animations, though, with all the orangey-yellow lighting. Might be better just to use separate sprites for muzzle flash (I've got some on one of the later sprite sheets, and there's several others about, too).
Re. using that tileset in 3D: Looks good so far, in a SNES mode 7 kind of way. The only bits that look weird to me are the rocky "cliff" tiles (in the top of the second screenshot).
Re. Including wizards. Oh yes please.

Anyway, I'll shut up now. In general, this rocks. Hard.

[Pishtaco]

>turn on thermal imaging
A monitor on the dashboard whirrs  and crackles into life.
>examine monitor
A sign below it reads "THERMAL IMAGE DISPLAY". The monitor is turned on.
>look in monitor
There is nothing inside the monitor.

[dbb]

>turn on thermal imaging
A monitor on the dashboard whirrs  and crackles into life.
>examine monitor
A sign below it reads "THERMAL IMAGE DISPLAY". The monitor is turned on.
>look in monitor
There is nothing inside the monitor.

> Look at monitor
It's just an ordinary computer screen
> Look at traget
There is no target in the cockpit
> Fuck you then
I don't understand what you mean

This is pretty much why I stopped playing IF.

[saluk]

>turn on thermal imaging
A monitor on the dashboard whirrs  and crackles into life.
>examine monitor
A sign below it reads "THERMAL IMAGE DISPLAY". The monitor is turned on.
>look in monitor
There is nothing inside the monitor.

> Look at monitor
It's just an ordinary computer screen
> Look at traget
There is no target in the cockpit
> Fuck you then
I don't understand what you mean

This is pretty much why I stopped playing IF.

Lol. Maybe each level will start with this

I may have given wrong impression when I said "graphical IF". I really meant those japanese style manga adventure games that focus mainly on the "F" part and not so much on the "I" part. (More specifically, the phoenix wright games (hence pyWright )) The above is pretty rad but unfortunately this particular engine does not have a parser.

I haven't run into tinting the muzzle-flash yet, but I'll look out for it. Only have made the plain gray unit fire so far.

3d tiles: I may just leave it for now. One idea is to render the map to a texture, and then texture some actual terrain that I manually create. Another is to throw out the tiles and go with rice patty, since those are actually 3d. Actually the rice patty was my first idea but I didn't feel like doing 3d when I started.

The A stands for whatever you like. I think it originally stood for action, but it could stand for Aardvark for all I care. 

I have some great plans for  , hehe.

[Sar]

I really meant those japanese style manga adventure games that focus mainly on the "F" part and not so much on the "I" part. (More specifically, the phoenix wright games (hence pyWright ))

As it goes, they're usually referred to as "Visual Novels". Although the Phoenix Wright games have more I than most VNs, which frequently only have sets of choices at plot-branching moments, a la Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books.

[saluk]

Fixed. I knew there was a specific name but for the life of me I couldn't remember it.

DAY FOUR



Yup, progress has slowed. To be expected, I was so inspired the first few days I was working like a madman!

I have done some very stupid ai, and some very basic shooting. The collision detection code for bullets is currently slow. To be fixed. Public demo not for some time.

I've run into the muzzle flash tinting problem. I might just not tint the mechs at all then. I think there is enough variety without them, especially considering the direction I might take the story. Positioning the muzzle flashes on top of the tint could work, but I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I need to start winding down my ambition so the project is completable.

Oh, there is also an overheating mechanic. If you shoot too much you will explode. The icon on the upper left is an indicator of how overheated you are. Will be changed for a more indicative indicator later.

I need to add explosions and particles etc; enemies just disappear when you kill them, which is pretty boring. The ai is so bad, they can't even hit you if you try to be hit.

Everything was easy and fun in the beginning, but now I'm in the everything is hard and not so fun stage :/ It might be time to take a breather from this one and switch games soon.

[Pencerkoff]

Hello this is Pencerkoff

I really hope you don't stop, your screenshots are still my favorite of the competition so far.  Instead of worrying about a visual aspects like muzzle flashes, you should perhaps focus on making something "playable" so you can post it and let people like me tell you how awesome it is.

Oh, there is also an overheating mechanic. If you shoot too much you will explode. The icon on the upper left is an indicator of how overheated you are. Will be changed for a more indicative indicator later.

That is really extreme!  Most games threaten a "cool-down" period for firing to fast, but sudden destruction is certainly more hardcore.  You'd think in the mech-warzone future they'd have engineered some fail-safes.

-PENCERKOFF

[dbb]

Everything was easy and fun in the beginning, but now I'm in the everything is hard and not so fun stage :/ It might be time to take a breather from this one and switch games soon.

But aren't you likely to hit the "hard and not so fun stage" with any game you make? I sympathise; as a non-programmer, I tend to hit this stage pretty early, and as a result I've got a shitload of unfinished Game Maker games that I shelved when I hit this stage.

But I seriously believe that if you manage to keep going, you could create something awesome. And I'm not just saying that because you're using my sprites (although, you know, it's a factor  )

[SimpleSyrup]

Don't stop or change gears! This game looks pretty cool! Here's what you need to do -- set some high level goals for the game (e.g. milestones) -- and for the first milestone make as detailed a list as possible about what you need to do to get there. Then, focus utterly on becoming a machine that crosses things off that list. Your reptilian brain will start to play a meta-game about getting things done and it will serve as a small motivational engine.

I find that when tackling an open ended project and working on things as I think of them, I tend to get into the same state as you "this is getting harder and isn't fun anymore etc etc". It seems like you just have to give yourself a point A, B, C, D ... Z to work towards at that point, in my experience (and the closer/more of those points you can define the better since your brain will feel accomplishment just for getting to one regardless of the actual effort involved, IMHO)

It's like, as soon as you stop to let yourself think "What should I do now" your brain will say "something else!" -- so you can't stop to think about that when you get into these kinds of ruts that I think most of us (?) do!

My $0.02

[SirNiko]

Re: overheat mechanic

Rather than death, you could always implement less severe punishments for overheat, such as permanent loss of the weapon, a deduction from ammo, a damage-over-time while hot, or a slow-mo effect until you cool off.

This looks like it could be fun. I'm a fan of SNES styled games.

-SirNiko

[dbb]

Listen to SimpleSyrup. He's building an MMO in a month, so obviously knows about setting goals.

Re. overheat mechanic, I personally like the idea of blowing up if you overheat, but I reckon it would feel fairer if before you reached that point a siren started going off and a big red flashing message appeared on your HUD saying WARNING! WARNING! COOLING SYSTEMS CRITICAL! or some such. That way, you could back off on the shooting if you needed to, plus it would feel extra cool and exiting if you were in a tight spot and really had to push your weapons to the max and risk exploding.