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hi im guy smiley

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Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Ive been a bad boy + quickly threw together another demo, I was seeing how competitive breakout/arkenoid/pong would be, you against the cpu, the one to knock out the most bricks wins (perhaps expand to 3 or 4 players).
I dont know if Ill take it further though, I dont know if the ideas got enuf merit.


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Anyways back with the shootemup game this weekend (4 measly hours today, though thats 4 more than I managed last weekend)
The aliens are coming together OK I suppose, Ive gotta work on the powerups/weapons etc more though


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@MARS_999 cheers mate

@dgreen02 cheers also, yes, that game resembles somewhat the one youre working on at the moment (Though without the vehicles) so perhaps the gameplay clicks with you

zedz

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Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Ive been slacking a bit recently
but heres another demo

www.zedzeek.com/APPS/D_UL.7z

-- aim is collect all the jewels (theyre inside the asteroids), u can drop a huimanoid to pick all the gems up

-- controls --
mouse with both mouse buttons
tab,q,a,w

Ive removed all the enemies so as not to taint other ppls ideas. Im wanting ideas from other ppl of what they think would make good aliens.
So how about it?

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

sorry no demo, actually slacked a bit over the weekend, only coded for 5 hours total.
added box2d support for the physics now (Though I still do my own collisions)

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

lying bed last night drinking some wine (to aid the flowing of the creative juices mind)
OK bugger reality + the clichedness.
How about if I add asteroids, which u shoot + they break apart to create more gems.
also limit the players lazers to only onscreen, ok which is a bit stupid since bullets dont disappear as soon as theyre not visable (whats the proverb about that tree in the woods) but it stops the player 'accidently' shooting something they cant see, i.e. aids gameplay.
Also u could have a powerup which the bullets bounce off the screens edge.
Also Now u can rotate the player's spaceship instead of having it fixed horizontally, its starting to resemble the old arcade game asteroids more than defender but shes right.

zedz

0
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

going reasonable I suppose (hopefully a big push this weekend + a new demo out), theres little men run around picking up the jewels now.
see the 100 above their heads thats their health, Im not sure what to do with this though, as it might make the game to difficult,


@AEdmonds no idea about that viruse, I downloaded the latest virusscanner + ran it on my PC, nothing found

@Programmer16 Im surprised it even worked changing those options (theyre legacy though environment mapping should work, but u wont notice anything I suspect) theres no shadowing, for this game I dont think its worth it. F3 btw changes the camera.

yes that was a bug with the stopping bullets (fixed now) it is a PITA having the terrain loop around, the arcade game defender suffered from the same problem.
cheers about the turn around speed, Ive pulled the camera out a bit more + made it lerp a bit slower hopefully thats good enuf, if next u dont think it is Ill reassess it again.

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

www.zedzeek.com/APPS/D_UL.7z ~2mb

ok heres the games state from a week ago, I havent done any programming since then due to moving + having no gear

the aim of a level is to turn the whole planet from red to green (see the radar), drop a person cause they do the turning. collect 100 bonuspoints of a color + that weapon upgrades


tab - turn
q - change weapon
space - smartbomb
mouse - controls player
left mouse button - drop humanoid
right mouse button - shoot

* Ill have to improve the graphics, i.e. make it more unified style,
* also change the aliens intelligence routines +
* physically show that the terrain has 'changed'
* do better weapons (the upgrades are non existant)
* better fx
* any other things I should do?


@Mike Bossy - all my stuff uses my own engine, I dont know if this acounts for why all my stuff has a distinctive look (or is that due to me doing most of the art)

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Only had a couple of hours yesterday but added a solid terrain ( regenerated anew with each game, now unlike defender you cant fly through the ground )

went + saw these yesterday
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Putangirua_Pinnacles
If anyones in the lower north island they are a worthwhile sight to see



Im moving tomorrow thus will be offline for a while

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

I have spent not much time spent on it recently
Ive been working on the 3d models for the game
Though I still havent got a feel or visual theme to the game
Does anyone have any ideas?, Ive heard bugeyed monsters, retro 50s sci-fi



I might have some time to program today so hopefully will get some more done

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

the games pretty sorted now basic gameplay wise
A/ first the humanoids along the bottom were your lives, they would mate + produce offspring thus more lives thus the key of the game was to protect your ppl
good idea, but to much to focus on in a fast paced action game

B/ next the roles were reversed you had to kill all the humanoids all the aliens are trying to prevent you doing this, a bit to easy though

C/ now the humanoids walk along turn the ground from red->green, the aim is to turn the whole planet to green, you can pick them up + drop them off elsewhere



Ill try to get a demo up ASAP, though I dont know how much free time Ill have in the next few days, my bros coming for a few days + then Im moving back down to the south island. btw I just heard on the radio parts of it have moved closer to australia by 30cm last week from the large (biggest one in the world this year) earthquakes

zedz

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Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Games coming along, ok hopefully I can finish most of it this weekend
Im gonna have aliens mutate when two adults meet
circle->quad->octagon->dodecagon

also Im thinking the humanoids down the bottom 'are your lives' thus protect at all cost, they can mate + produce offspring, but youre not gonna run around doing the stargate strategy of shooting all your humanoids except one to make the game easier

btw - Im looking for some suitable freeware aracade space sounds
does anyone know of any?

zedz

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Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

seeing this article in gamasutra today

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4078/the_history_of_defender_the_joys_.php

looks like my next game to make is choosen for me, although knowing me it will metamorphise into something different.
I might go for the original's retro look, Im not sure about the controls though

note - whilst defender is the coolest arcade game ever its not my favourite

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

recently saw the docodrama the king of kong
so decided to write my own sequel to that seminal game(dk jr + dk3 arent really true sequels)
Though in saying that mine how its turned out isnt really a sequel either



its actually quite fun to play

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

new game (untitled)

finished another game that Ive been working on over the last few months.
Still not happy with the cpu hit that physx uses, true its managing 100s of shapes but still, sometimes it runs @ ~5fps

If only everyone had a cell processor in their PCs as well
actually sony etc have messed up with the ps3, nintendo have done well with the wii, pushing the wagglewand games experience, they should design games around the cpu eg lots of heavy physics, give us new experiences, in rugby parlance they dropped the ball



zedz

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Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Ive been working on heaps of various things recently

physics - tried out physX though it seems to spit the dummy with greater than 30 ragdolls at once, so I dont know

SSAO - like in the screenshot of rocks + grass (Im not sure if Ill use it though due to the performance hit, and Im not sure if it adds to the image)

DOF - same deal as SSAO, though Im thinking now perhaps try a real slight DOF, such that the user hardly notices it (ill try it out tommorrow)

friemel - speeding up + improving my old technique

light prepass - Im not sure if this is a good idea, Ill have to experiment more

zedz

0
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

a few things Ive done recently



- gotten astar working, I notice in age of mythology theyve got a crap version, Im assuming this is due to them going (if we havent found the goal in Xunits then quit), to keep the gamespeed reasonable,. I might have to do the same thing later on if the CPU becomes overloaded

- 2 sorts of peons, one gathers the resources, the other transports them to base

- youll see ive got the menu stuff down the bottom of the screen, the reason being due to perspective they cover less of the terrain thus less likely to cover units etc

- if the alien is carrying a resource when its killed then drop whatever its carrying

- if clicking on a building + alien at the same time, always select the alien

- attacking, Ive been playing around with handtohand attacks, Ive decided to go the same way as some RTS games eg AOM, an attack always hits when its started even if the opposition player has run away, looking at AOE
it looks bad when the person A attacks person B with the sword and hits even though theyre 10meters apart, the alternative is 'start attack (takes 200msec to do) in 200msec see if playerB is still in range if so do the damage else run after them and attack again
whlst on paper this sounds good it leads to situations where playerB is practically impossible to hit if theyre running away.

- I tried the total annilation clone (I thought it wasnt so good, so switch off after 5minutes) I couldnt see the option to play against the computer which is a turn off

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

ok got the resource gathering part pretty much sussed, one of the staple of RTSs
all I need to do now is
A/building
B/movement
C/fighting
D/upgrades etc
so not much



Ill have 4 resources, swig
stone (from rocks)
wood (from trees)
iron (from mine)
gold (from streams)
pretty standard

Im not sure if Ill get the peons to carry the reources back to the village before thehve officially become part of your resources

also I was toying with the idea of having male+female peons, females become pregnant thus creating the new workers/warriors. game over if no females, Though I thinking perhaps its getting to complicated.
Perhaps Ill make it so the woman do all the resource carrying + the men do the gathering (very pc)

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

lighting through the day, Im not very happy with it at present (ill work out something better later)







cheers evolutional for the suggestions
total annihilation looks good, at least looks like theres lots of fans of the game, theres even a high quality remake 'test spring', which Ive downloaded (though not tried out yet)
someone else suggested dune2, which also seems to have a strong fanbase.

to me thats the number one indication of a strong/good game. If ppl are willing to invest a lot of time, remaking, modding etc it then the obviously thought the original a great game.

LachlanL - the overlays are drawn over the terrain (ie QUAD_STRIP using return_terrain_height(x,z) to get the height) u can see the red clipping through the terrain just to the right of the sword cursor.
though this is only a debugging mode so not important, I only done to visualize why the ppl werent behaving as they should.

zedz

0
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

info for beginners, always try to have something onscreen that lets u visually see
whats going on, save so much time with debuggging etc
eg the following, green == visual/reaction range, red = attack range
diference in attackrange cause one has a bow+arrow + the other a sword


Ive decided not to do 'fog of war' two reasons

A/ makes it easier for me, not having to worry about it
B/ Ive never liked it in other games + turn it off if possible (I assume the alien AI is not so restricted)

I dont think this is gonna make a differnce for my game as unlike standard RTSs the roles of player vs computer are not equal, i.e the player is the only one that mines resources etc

Implemented a dial (below in screenshot) nicked from the game knightlore, this lets u see what time of the day it is, the monsters raid at dawn + at dusk aka D+D.
hopefully this should create some tension, i.e. gotta get that tower built before night falls

btw, any RTS or similar games I should really play.
Ive tried AOE2, age of mythology,settlers2+3,warlords battlecry 3 + warcraft2

zedz

3
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Ive been working on the menu's etc + the building construction etc, just added height to map tonight (Ill make it so players move different speeds over the terrain)

Ive been looking at some other RTS's (nick some ideas)

aoe (age of mythology) - not as good as aoe2 (which was good apart from the trebucts which spoiled the gamebalance, + lack of AI, though all rts suffers from this), this game is definitively lacking polish (esp compared to other rts titles eg settlers,warlords) perhaps this is due to it being their first 3d game in the series.
one thing Im gonna nick from them is having the 'board' rotated 45degree's on the y axis, I was gonna do this first but thought it looked very unprofessional, but seeing how this + aoe2 does it + they got high reviews apparently reviewers dont care to much.

also on a design note, one thing Ive done, I dont distinguish between say buildings + ppl, this is something I would of done years ago (+ they often say to do in text books)
eg
class Vehicle {};

class Building : public Vehicle {}
class CHaracter : public Vehicle {}

but being a wiser programmeur now I find this a bad idea for numerous reasons eg software is constantly in flux, u can guarantee youve change some 'fixed' ideas.
eg building ok they dont move right, a month later, hey itll be cool to have a howls moving castle option, bugger Ive goto go back + change code.

zedz

3
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

shit a major undertaking
all this building of building + attacking crap
shit I think the best course of action is just to do it

progress report 0.5 percent

btw alexmoura thats a valid point about maximizing the 'front line' Ill keep that in mind (hell perhaps I will go for a bar along the bottom)
ultimatly the num1 consideration is making the game players happy

zedz

2
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

working on the sidebar, one of the most important elements in a RTS, one thing I cant understand is why often in RTSs etc they usually have the bar along the bottom of the screen?
Perhaps the reason is cause windows etc have their bars along the bottom, I have mine on the side, which make far more logical sense. I suppose tradition stops them from changing to a better method.
The above point is even more valid now that squashedscreen monitors ae becoming more commonplace



another thing to worry about is how to draw the bar
A/ fixed size
B/ scaled size

both have their advatnages/disadvantages
most games use #A, the main problem with that though is on 640x480 the bar is huge, on 2560x1600 the bar is tiny.
#B is easier so Ill go with that but perhaps will change over to #A later

Theres a lot of gameplay elements that need to be done
Ive decided to keep it as simple as possible + only have the 4 main stats that u can change
strength
dexterity
intelligence
speed

actually an old mate of mine would be good at this, I can imagine him literally spending days balancing all the stats permutations

zedz

1
Journal of zedz
 

new project

my last games basically finished,
so Ive started work on a new one.

Its gonna be a pretty generic RPG/RTS, Ill hopefully do quite a bit over easter (enuf to release the first demo)

zedz

3
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

Q/ which one these meshes requires the more computing power


yes its fatty from doom3 :)

AKA - still having problems skinned exporting meshes cleanly, 3dmax (old version) loves to ignore my weighting values, whilst a bad workman blames their tools in this case I believe Im justified in mny appropriation

zedz

0
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

gah rant - spent at least couple of hours over the weekend trying to make a skinned mesh with an old version of 3dmax, a right royal PITA vertices were getting bone weights even though they were not inside the bones influence region, I had to manually change some of the weights one at a time, even then not ever vertex would behave, from what Ive seen using bones seem very buggy. perhaps a new version has improved things. Ill have to have a check for some better software, having animated meshes is a huge improvement (though Im not sure if having ~500 skinned characters onscreen is gonna be feasible) though I can prolly reduce some of the vertice counts of some of my models, they are far to high at present.

tried out spotlights tonight
I dont think they improve the look that much

A/ youve gotta make the scene dark so they become halfway visable (or else use really bright spotlights)
sticking them in front of the nanoship like proper headlights + tilting slightly down)

using one as a shoplight to highlight the ship + whatevers before it


NOTE - both of these shots are choosen (i.e. I made 10s of screenshots only to find the majority its hard to showcase the spotlight)
in short I dont think Ill bother, bah thats the second visual thing in a row Ive done only to discard

zedz

0
Journal of zedz
 

Untitled

I dont think Im gonna bother with shadows
cause they dont really add much to the picture visually or informationally(?) as the action takes place on a 2d plane, in fact they can be distracting


zedz

2
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