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Exceptional Journals (in no order): [Eliwood] [Steve Healy] [Ravuya] [Mark the Artist] [Scet] [Ysaneya] [Mayan Obsidian]
My Personal Website
| Wednesday, November 29, 2006 |
  A request and a plug | 
Posted - 11/29/2006 11:03:08 PM | A Request
My Christmas avatar is quite horrible -- programmer art anyone? -- so if anyone artistic is in the mood to create something somewhat on-topic with my journal, think about me. 
EDIT: Opted for an avatar using Mark's art; looks better than what I can conjure. :P
EDIT: Changed again. This one should do.
A Plug
Be sure to check out Drilian's wonderful 4E4 entry, Mop of Destiny! It's fun and technically hygenic!
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| Tuesday, November 28, 2006 |
| Distractions! | |
Posted - 11/28/2006 11:38:40 PM | Holiday Avatar
Nothing says 'Happy holidays!' quite like a single-cellular organism with a Santa hat. Nothing. 
On that note, I think we should have a Holiday Avatar Contest just for kicks. So far I think Gaiiden will win -- holiday ninjas own! -- but we'll see...
Stargate SG-1
Gah, I've been obsessed with Stargate SG-1 for the last few weeks! So far I've watched about 50 episodes -- er, 33.33 hours -- and needless to say, I've lost TONS of potential development time. But darnit, that's one awesome series! When I finish up Season 3, then development should resume as normal, since the fellow supplying me with DVDs doesn't have any past that season.
Oh, uh, and finals. Those are coming in the next few weeks and like to eat up time, too. Nuts.
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| Let there be light! | |
Posted - 11/28/2006 12:18:17 AM | The Weekend
I spent this weekend at home with the family for my birthday, so I didn't really get any work done. Feeling guilty about this, I sat down for 2 hours and wrote two little fun lighting-related 2D demos. Amusing!
Shadow-Fun
My first demo was to write a program that let the user move the mouse around as a light source around a bitmap-based scene. The goal was to have the scene project 2D shadows wherever a line-of-sight check failed. It mostly works, is very fast, and only occassionally misses a spot. Change the BMP scene around to see what does and doesn't work. ;)
Download Shadow-Fun
(It's shadowlicious!)
Bump-Fun
Bump mapping (of the 3D variety) is always something that has looked VERY cool, but I still haven't gone over the math of how it's done. So in an attempt to satiate that curiousity I wrote a go at 2D bump mapping. It doesn't look as nice as I would have preferred, but it's still neat to look at. Took a while to get the equation for the shadows nice and smooth.
Download Bump-Fun
(The prebuilt 'bump map' is of repeating capped-cones)
Hopefully I didn't forget any DLLs! ;)
EDIT: Ah, and I did. Reuploaded. :P
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| Sunday, November 26, 2006 |
| 19 + 1 == ? | |
Posted - 11/26/2006 12:45:31 AM | Happy Birthday
Hey, I'm 20 years old now. What do ya know? I can't wait to see what everyone got me. How about if anyone here wants to get me something, pick a luxurious item out in the Store and reply with a link to it. ;)
(Deeeelicious!)
Downloads?
(Woot!)
Post-Mortem
I've decided that I'll wait until the whole game is finished before I write the post-mortem. Sort of defies the name if I write it while the game is incomplete. :P
Feedback?
Wow, I'm utterly thrilled with the feedback I've been getting about Membrane Massacre. I know that I've really been 'tooting my own horn' here, but for such a small/simple game? Wow. And that so many people so far have actually taken the time to email me as well with their ideas/suggestions/critique, gads. It's that kind of stuff that makes me pumped to continue development and make the final release even more amazing!
Awesome art?
Indeed. Mark The Artist is wonderful. MM never looked so great!
(In return, I'll be sure to add in "Soviet Mode" in kudos to Mark (and Sapo) and Angels 22 :P)
As usual, have a good night everyone, and for stopping by to have a read. :)
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| Wednesday, November 22, 2006 |
| *blinks* Say what!? | |
Posted - 11/22/2006 10:12:27 PM | Christmas Morning!
I've got to be bluntly honest: the last 24 hours have been like one long Christmas morning. :D
Take a look at the Showcase entry for Membrane Massacre. Go. I dare you. Gah! Just shy of 300 downloads in 24 hours. I am utterly wow'd and humbled. Not too much feedback on GD.NET, but on IndieGamer.com, Allegro.cc, and TheGamingUniverse.com, I got some very good (and motivating!) feedback. (Gads, that's like 1 download every 5.1 minutes!)
Anyways, the general suggestions that I got were pretty consistant:
- Control scheme needs an option to allow for absolute-control, rather than the current relative control. (ie. WSAD always moves you in THAT direction)
- Not exciting enough. Cells just sort of sit around and aren't aggressive enough. True.
- Graphics are ugly. Very true. :)
- Too short. Again, oh so true.
- Needs a way to gauge level destruction, to add an element of time and challenge. TRUE!
- Needs a pause button!
- Needs a menu system!
- Needs volume control!
- Mouse-wheel'ing should scroll through weapons!
- More interesting enemies! (ie. resistance to weapon types)
- More weapons!
The best part, I think, (for a developer) is that I agree with all of these. There's really a LOT of stuff that I can/should do to this game that would improve it a lot. And the best part is that I'm quite motivated to do so!
For a while now I've been a little depressed that my games have lacked a real level of polish to them, and I keep on telling myself that I'll really polish up "my next project". I've finally decided that, well, no more! I'll stick to Membrane Massacre, polish it up, and heck, maybe even see if I can take it to the shareware level. ;)
Naturally, this means a lot of work. And time. Mostly time. My code isn't the prettiest there is -- recall that I hacked this together in 15 days :P -- but I'm actually surprised at how easy it's been to add new features. I don't think expansion will be a problem, but I really really regret not doing ANY commenting. :(
In conclusion, this means that MM will be staying in the spotlight for a while longer. I'm not sure how long it will take me to do all of the polish I want to do, but it'll probably somewhere in the realm of a month or so. There's so many awesome additions I can't wait to add, so I don't foresee motivation drying up anytime soon. Especially not after the awesome reception I got from today's release!
Post-Mortem?
Oops, I've really been shirking on this. I'll be traveling home this weekend, where my non-dev PC is, so maybe I can focus on doing that. There's more than enough for me to ramble about. ;)
With that, I wish you all a good night, and I can't begin to thank all of you enough for taking the time to play Membrane Massacre. It really does mean tons to me. :)
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| Tuesday, November 21, 2006 |
| Done and done. | |
Posted - 11/21/2006 11:39:57 PM | Finished!
Well now, Membrane Massacre is finally what I consider as done. This means it's now up on the Showcase, has its Announcements thread, and a pending IotD (thanks to Ravuya). I've also tossed it up on a few other websites. There's a few new items in this newly-uploaded version, including gradient HUD-bars and cell->cell collisions, which prevent the nasty 'clumping syndrome' many of you experienced. Worth another look if you're in the mood. And of course, if you're feeling generous, you can reply to any of the above areas to express your feedback publically to 'bump' my threads. ;)
It feels awesome to finally have a nice fresh image up above on the Recent Projects area!
Next?
Off to my next project, of course! I've got a few ideas swirling around in my noggin', but nothing definite. I will, as usual, blab about it when something concrete gets developed. Since I've saturated myself in the shoot-shit-up genre pretty thoroughly, perhaps I'll opt for something a little less violent. (Or perhaps not. Blowing stuff up is pretty darn fun..)
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| Friday, November 17, 2006 |
| Membrane Massacre 1.1 | |
Posted - 11/17/2006 9:31:48 PM | Membrane Massacre :: Of Additions and Fixes
A huge thanks to everyone who gave feedback; good and bad! Thanks to the given suggestions and bug reports, I've updated the game to a hopefully improved form. Here's what's new:
- Game no longer (sometimes) randomly jumps to the end of the game.
- Ship should no longer get stuck on small clusters of pixels.
- The laser weapon now appears on the radar.
- The Boss has a much larger radar blip now.
- Radar indicators for enemies eating AND splitting.
- Enemies visibly darken before they split.
- Enemies produce a cool new sound before splitting.
- Sound effects on title screen now play properly.
- Boss now starts as idle at the middle of the stage, rather than moving towards you a bit at first.
- Laser beam now leaves a fading trail. Looks cool.
- Freeze-Count now resets on player death.
More than enough to go around. Although I asked all of you nice folks to try out the game yesterday, I must now ever-so-politely ask again. It's really important to me that all of the bugs get rooted out! :)
If you've played before, give it another go, even if it's just to see the cool new laser effect. If you haven't played, well, prepare to have some fun!
Download Membrane Massacre v1.1 (~2.9mb)
(NO PRISONERS!)
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| MEMBRANE MASSACRE! (SEMI-)RELEASED! | |
Posted - 11/17/2006 12:33:20 AM | Membrane Massacre :: Preamble
First of all, sorry about the delay! I had a few bugs to fix up, not to mention heaps of schoolwork that have been preventing me from my gamedev activities. I had initially planned to release my MM post-mortem alongside this Journal-Calibre release, but once again, free time has been rather low, so it'll have to wait. But rest assured, it'll materialize here when it's done. :)
Onward!
Membrane Massacre :: Download!
After countless hours of hard work, playtesting, and schoolwork-shirking, I present Membrane Massacre. This game was the product of me and a friend agreeing to a 'contest' between us to both finish a game in ~14 days time (originally 8, but extended because we both got overambitious :P). There isn't really a winner or loser to this contest, but rather just an excuse for each of us to get a new game completed. And with this, I'm very happy to present:
Download Membrane Massacre (~2.9mb) (Windows)
Feedback is genuinely appreciated, and much anticipated. This in-journal release is more of a private-release to catch any bugs or balance issues that still exist, before I put it up on the Showcase, and a few other websites. So input at this stage is critical, I guess is the key idea. :)
Expect a OS/X release soon, courtesy of Ravuya!
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| Tuesday, November 14, 2006 |
| Done! | |
Posted - 11/14/2006 12:23:52 AM | Membrane Massacre (thanks for the title, LachlanL! ) is now completed. I am extremely happy at the result, given the timeframe. I'm utterly bushwacked right now, but I'll post it up tomorrow alongside a juicy post-mortem for those of you craving details.
Have a great night, everyone!
(Yay! Victory! Thanks to EasilyConfused for giving me the idea of using fireworks particles for the endgame screen )
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| Monday, November 13, 2006 |
| BOSS TIME! | |
Posted - 11/13/2006 1:11:21 AM | WARNING! DANGER! INCOMING FINAL BOSS!
(Bystander: Crap he's big! And he can eat down level walls without even losing his speed!)
(Bystander: Oh gah! Don't tell me he can spawn any type of other enemy, too!)
(Bystander: Cripes, even a quadruple-blaster cannon on him!?)
(Bystander: I hope that pesky developer doesn't go and give that boss the freeze bomb, too!)
...
(Developer: )
The game is essentially done. Although the 'contest' technically has ended, I'm continuing to plow through the last bits of the game (finishing the final boss, and a victory screen). I hate breaking the rules and continuing to work on it, but darnit I'm having too much fun! Sorry splatty!
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| Compo extension-ified! | |
Posted - 11/6/2006 12:16:41 AM | Please sir, can I have some more? MOOOOOORE!?
I talked to splattergnome today about our little 9-Day Competition, and it turns out he's more or less in the same boat as me: not enough time to finish his game to a satisfactory amount. While I'm very pleased with my progress on Gone Micro, I overgauged the development time, and I really don't want to skirt around features to make it fit the original timeframe.
Long story short, we've decided to extend the contest to Sunday at midnight (again). I'm really busy at the start of this week, so I'm grateful for the extra time.
How much AI do you need to code for a unicellular bacterium?
Gah, far too much!
My plan is to have several 'types' or 'species' of bacteria, each with its own colour range, mass (read: radius) range, and a set of tendencies towards certain activities. The activities an enemy can enagage in are:
- Idle
- Attacking the cell walls (read: level bitmap)
- Chasing the player
- Fleeing from the player
- Firing projectiles at the player
Each bacteria species also has a rate at which it can eat the level at -- which, if you recall, is the enemy's goal; yours being to stop them -- and a rate at which they perform binary reproduction and split into two. This way even the idle enemies can be dangerous.
Allow me to hurl a screenshot at you, then describe today's progress:
(Hard to tell here, but these guys are viciously charging the player!)
Today was basically the "get as much enemy-related work done as possible" day. First I tackled the rest of the physics:
- Enemies are now 'pushed-back' based on how powerful the weapon you used on them is
- Enemies now collide with the level, bouncing off walls and edges with proper reaction physics (and jiggling abroad)
- Fixed a few not-note-worthy bugs related to the enemies (involving mass-level-digestion, getting stuck on screen edges, and a culling issue)
- Some nice particle effects on the level as the enemies chomp their way through it
On a side note for the last item, it's particularly neat to watch several bacteria group together at one wall edge and use their collective digestion powers to gnaw through the wall at a rather alarming rate. Since enemy death isn't implemented yet, I spent most of my time running away and trying to hide from the enemies, which proved to be a fun minigame in itself. (Hmm, maybe I'll have to add a Survival mode, a la Ravuya's "Glow" )
I did say tentative!
Still no good ideas for the final name of the originally tentative title, "Gone Micro". I'm wide open for suggestions, so toss any you have my way. All I could conjure was "The Micro Avenger", and that's just plain not cool. Neither is "Micro Management". :P
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| RUN FOR IT! | |
Posted - 11/5/2006 12:55:19 AM | THEY'RE COMING!
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| Saturday, November 4, 2006 |
| Ungh. Thor so tired. Thor smash! | |
Posted - 11/4/2006 1:26:20 AM | Phew. That was the best 6-consecutive-hour coding session I've had for a long time!
The main reason for this was to attempt to catch up to where I should be right now. No development was done on Wednesday -- I instead blitzed all of my remaining assignments for the week to clear up the rest of the time 'till the contest ends -- but on Thursday I just got plain lazy and didn't push myself to code. So today was plain mad. Mad!
A few new items to mention:
All five of the weapons that will be appearing in the game are now implemented, complete with all associated sound effects. Although they are all originally taken from findsounds.com and modified to various extents, I'm pretty happy with the level of consistancy I've managed with them. As for the weapons themselves, I'm damn happy with the result that the Laser brings, and the final weapon that I'm sure you'll all enjoy.
About 1.5-2 hours of this development spree were lost during my plight of changing my recursive sprite/particle manager to an iterative one, after Ravuya shared some stack-related wisdom with me. There were some devious bugs to hunt down, but now the game is running even faster (belting ~8000 particles with no notable problems on my 1.8ghz) and not crashing. At first I thought the reason for the original crashing (which originally led me to the iterative approach instead) was because I had too many particles, but this test led me to believe otherwise. Nuts.
I'm still not sure what the problem was, but now that the iterative method is in and functioning without flaw, I'm not too worried.
Oh yes, let's not forget about the Laser (which looks/feels even cooler in action!):
If you remember my past entry, I was pondering on what I could use for the last weapon for the user to wield. Sir Sapo, LachanL, and Darkcampainger offered some good material, but in the end I caved and implemented: The Freeze Bomb:
This one was tricky to implement, and also looks even cooler in action. Spawning the ~360 projectiles wasn't a big deal, but the system that takes a collision with the map and builds an 'ice root' during runtime looks really really groovy. Each ice root also branches itself off a certain number of times (as do the children they spawn). This weapon will perform this cool effect, and temporarily freeze enemies that are struck by the wave. Worth noting this gun took over an hour to fully implement, hehe. :)
As is also visible, the HUD is now also underway. Icons now exist and have been added for all five weapons (Blaster, MGs, Missiles, Laser, Freeze Bomb), and you can cycle through your weapons with the right mouse button (left mb for firing). The mouse cursor is now an actual crosshair rather than a boring white circle.
All in all, things are really coming together, and I'm extremely happy I decided to take on this project. And of course, big thanks to splattergnome (who still hasn't updated his journal with his progress) for suggesting such a contest to me! I've been having a lot of fun with Gone Micro, and learned some nifty things along the way, too.
Also: splatty informed me that his computer was borked during the first four days of the contest, so we've agreed to allot him an additional four days to make up for his loss. I wouldn't feel right having an entry that had four days over his, so I'll just stop my development on Sunday, and he'll go until Thursday. His game seems to be shaping up well, from what I've heard about it! :)
The battle plan: Saturday will (hopefully) see the full implementation of the enemy bacteria. From the cool cell physics I have planned, to AI/pathfinding, to gooey destruction. And the completion of the HUD. Sunday will be about wrapping up loose ends, and implementing the actual game logic (level selection, gaining new weapons, ammo pickups, bacteria invasion waves, title screen, etc). It's going to be as hard as heck, but I'm confident that I can pull this game off in time.
And I absolutely can't wait to show it to all of you, of course!
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"Good night, Monster Land."
"Good night, brave warrior."
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