Adagio v2.0 Progress Update Adagio Game Website Here's an update on Adagio, the 2D scrolling shooter game that I have been working on. What's changed? Recently, I yanked out all of the SDL code and replaced it with Allegro. While SDL is pretty much equivalent to Allegro, I did notice quite a speedup as Allegro will attempt to utilize DirectDraw calls to do bitmap stretching. (This is different from SDL, which presents the DD surface as a chunk of RAM. All stretching/blitting done from there is purely software, where in Allegro, since it uses DD calls there is a chance they will be hardware accelerated.) Frame rates have increased from around 100-120fps to around 180fps on my development system when running in 2x or 3x zoom mode. Not a big gain, but I'm pleased nonetheless. Plus, Allegro has a special place in my heart, as some of my earlier DOS games were written using Allegro v2.x. :) It's great to see that it's still alive and doing well under Windows, Mac OSX, Linux, etc. I'd like to also thank Ryan Hudson for joining the team and assisting me with the artwork and level design. I have also hired a musician (Attic Rhythm Studio) and they are working on some killer music tracks! Level creation is progressing nicely. Here are some screenshots from the newest set of levels: Level 2: Jungle Level 3: Ice Wasteland Level 4: Ancient Ruins The art is still very temporary, as Ryan is getting up to speed when it comes to doing pixel art. He's an amazing artist with regular media or Photoshop and I'm helping train him on how to do low-color game art. So far I have been very impressed with what he's done. A new powerup system has been implemented. I am finally happy with how it works, and the new system will not leave the player entirely gimped if he's killed. Instead of one powerup type, there are now three. They are of three different colors: Green, cyan, and blue. When you collect the same type of powerup in a row, that weapon's power increases by one, up to a total of three. Therefore, counting your base weapon, you have a total of ten weapons, split into three classes. Here's what each powerup does: Green powerup: Spread Beam (screenshot) You start out with the zeroth powerup level of Spread Beam. As the name implies, this weapon will cover a large area of the screen and is useful for groups of enemies, but it's weak. Blue powerup: Blade Laser (screenshot) A strange weapon that you can "steer" to some degree. When powered up to max, it fires in all four directions, but like the spread beam it is weak. Cyan powerup: Wave Cannon (screenshot) This weapon is the most powerful in the game, and acts like a piercing laser. The best weapon for bosses, but the hardest to find. If you die, you lose the current weapon and revert back to powerup level zero. But if you collect another powerup of any three classes, you regain your last powerup level for that weapon. Your option (the little orb that follows you) has two modes just like in the v1.0 demo. The first is defensive, in which the orb swings around your ship, deflecting enemy shots. The second mode is different, as now it behaves aggressively. The orb will detach from your ship and then seek out enemies and attempt to ram them. It's useful, but the orb's incomplete neural network isn't very effective at picking out targets, so it might not always go after the best choice of enemies. Version 2.0 of the demo is finished, but I am not releasing it due to a major bug in the Allegro-converted code. The game will occasionally crash and I haven't traced down the cause as of yet. Since I'm so close to final release, I will probably skip releasing the demo and just release the whole game. Anyway, I'll stop rambling now. Just wanted to let you GDers know I was still working on this and have been making quite a bit of progress. :)

My website has been down for a few hours. Seems the DSL died shortly after I posted this update... I'll check out what's going on when I get home in a few hours.

"Always on" my ass...

I'd say you've done very well so far. It has a professional appearance. I like the variety in enemies and terrains as well as the artwork, all of which add to the depth of the game. I still haven't played all of it yet, but I'm looking forward to the finished product.

And if you couldn't tell by my signature, I enjoy the character design. :)

[Edited by - Weston on July 22, 2004 7:55:26 PM]