Team Snuti's Progress Update

Today, we've completed and integrated most of the soundtrack and sounds into the game. Also, we have finished a large portion of the art and fixed up a few issues from yesterday.

This evening, we're focusing on getting the inventory system up and running and adding a few more assets into the game. Unfortunately, tomorrow we will be away for a day in London so we won't be able to do much on the game.

Here is a brief clip of the game play so far:

The game is taking shape

We are updating every day on our blog. Check it out: http://blog.snuti.net

Dino Road Trip is done!

It is a simple driving game, where the goal is to smash up cars with your tail and gobble up pedestrians.

Hitting people will not hurt you, but eating them will give you "boost". With a full boost meter, you can go on a rampage, to rack up the points without getting hurt!

Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B6pSRSjFGKQeZnpoTDFtUE9zR1E/edit?usp=sharing

It requires windows and java to run.

Some screenshots:

[attachment=17599:dinoShot1.png][attachment=17600:dinoShot2.png][attachment=17601:dinoShot3.png][attachment=17602:dinoShot4.png]

Just a quick update because sleep beckons me.

I've implemented a simple animation system, currently just applied to the legs of granny and the dinosaurs, so now they appear to actually walk. It's only a simple sine-wave interpolation on a loop parameterised by either time (for the dinos) or distance-travelled (for granny). It really brings the characters to life a lot more than animation-less sprites sliding around the place.

I now have support for a finite-state machine of game-states. So far I've added two new states: A start screen and a game-over screen (the latter of which may eventually show high-scores if I have time to do that, which is why I've left it so basic looking for the moment). Hopefully I'll be able to use the system to also display in-game help and to convey the storyline.

Screenshots as follows:

[attachment=17606:day-5-1.png]

[attachment=17607:day-5-2.png]

[attachment=17608:day-5-3.png]

This also represents a milestone because I have now the full life-cycle of a game: start, play, win/lose & restart. (Although an absolute win is unobtainable since the game never ends). So I actually have a viable entry off the ground!

The game isn't very fun however, not yet anyway, because it's far too easy which is not surprising: unlimited ammo with rapid fire and slow moving, slow spawning dinosaurs. But I can now focus on making things more interesting. I've been able to free up some more time this weekend too.

BTW, I'm completely blown away by Ecker's video!

It's the end of Day 6 for me and it has been a fairly productive day. Largely spent just applying some small amount of polish.

I have improved the blood system and now have blood-spray when a dinosaur is shot and the spray splats onto the ground when it lands. With enough ammo it's quite fun to just paint the floor red, which reminds me, Granny now has limited ammo and ammo pickups to boot...

[attachment=17612:day-6-2.png]

I have somewhat improved a case where dinos will pile-up on granny if she isn't shooting them down. Now, instead of over-crowding her causing all kinds of movement issues, they will spring back a bit when they collide with granny. For such a simple change it significantly improves the feel of the game for some reason.

The two major bits of polish are the cutscene system which is used to convey the story at the start and the in-game-help system which takes inspiration from World of Goo and Commander Keen by using a sign-post system to talk to the user. Signposts popup automatically when Granny walks up to them...

[attachment=17611:day-6-1.png]

I've also managed to weave a leveling system through it all. Leveling-up won't be signaled in any obvious way to the user but rather it's used to drive the balance of gameplay as granny progresses through the world (ammo-drop spawn rate, dino spawn rate, signposts, terrain complexity, etc). I haven't yet spent the time to configure levels, hopefully I'll do that tomorrow before I submit.

Tons of other things I want to do but don't have time to implement them all, here's just some:

• Configuring levels to balance the gameplay
• Music & sound
• Highscore table
• Background scenery
• Health pickups
• Money pickups
• Other types of dinos
• Decaying dinosaurs (for zombie dinosaurs they currently look remarkably intact).
• Other types & styles of weapons/bullets/firing
• Crosshair/Reticle
• Less-blocky terrain

I don't have as much time free tomorrow but think I can pick off a couple of those at least.

Don't forget to include my submission too :)