This is just a quick update to let people know what I'm working on.
I'm in the process of adding dwarfy goodness to the game. Dwarves are tricky because, unlike other units, they have no direct attacks. Instead dwarves will try and predict what sections of the map the player is likely to pass through and set traps there.
The tricky part for getting these dwarves working, then, is obviously getting them to lay their traps in the right spots. This is as complicated as it sounds, and probably much more so.
The one bright side to this is that with enough dwarves running around it won't matter if some of them lay traps in bad positions. As long as a few dwarves get their traps in good spots, the player won't know the difference.
Other new stuff to expect in the open beta: Overhauled AI and pathfinding, drunken dwarves, graveyards (a new building type that is beneficial towards for the player), and *MAYBE* the first boss unit for the player to summon (more on him later).
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Update! Open beta & other news
Yeah, it has been awhile. School has been extremely rough, and I've had *a lot* of trouble getting any kind of coding done in my spare time.
What have done at all recently? Well, I have managed to overhaul the AI and movement in the game to use velocity vectors. This means that the player can now shoot in 360 degrees (instead of in 8 directions, which was the case before). This also means that instead of doing a lot of resource hogging A* path finds, the AI can now use target vectors to smoothly traverse the battlefield on its own initiative. The AI still does an occasional A*, but only for more complicated paths over larger distances.
While this isn't new content, it does change the way the game plays significantly. Elves, for instance, are 100% bigger pains in the ass now that they can run away intelligently. Now they will run away before you can close in on them and will keep their distance as they rain arrowy death down on you. Luckily, your own Phantoms will do the same. I've had some trouble making Phantoms useful, and while they aren't quite there yet, they are getting there quick.
Did you say Open Beta?
Why yes, yes I did. I've given up on any kind of release schedule, as my time is just too tight. I'm not very happy with this, but that's how it goes. At any rate, I want to save the open beta for when I've ironed out a few niggling environment collision issues with the AI and have Dwarves functioning and in game. When can you expect this?
Hell if I know!
But really, I'm hoping against hope that I can get this out by next week, but we'll see.
What have done at all recently? Well, I have managed to overhaul the AI and movement in the game to use velocity vectors. This means that the player can now shoot in 360 degrees (instead of in 8 directions, which was the case before). This also means that instead of doing a lot of resource hogging A* path finds, the AI can now use target vectors to smoothly traverse the battlefield on its own initiative. The AI still does an occasional A*, but only for more complicated paths over larger distances.
While this isn't new content, it does change the way the game plays significantly. Elves, for instance, are 100% bigger pains in the ass now that they can run away intelligently. Now they will run away before you can close in on them and will keep their distance as they rain arrowy death down on you. Luckily, your own Phantoms will do the same. I've had some trouble making Phantoms useful, and while they aren't quite there yet, they are getting there quick.
Did you say Open Beta?
Why yes, yes I did. I've given up on any kind of release schedule, as my time is just too tight. I'm not very happy with this, but that's how it goes. At any rate, I want to save the open beta for when I've ironed out a few niggling environment collision issues with the AI and have Dwarves functioning and in game. When can you expect this?
Hell if I know!
But really, I'm hoping against hope that I can get this out by next week, but we'll see.
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Beta delay
Blame this one on the IRS and FAFSA.
I'm pushing the start of the Necrofrenzy beta out for another week. That means I'll send invites out on the 26th, and the beta will start on the 29th.
Sorry for the delay, but these things happen I suppose.
I'm pushing the start of the Necrofrenzy beta out for another week. That means I'll send invites out on the 26th, and the beta will start on the 29th.
Sorry for the delay, but these things happen I suppose.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Beta blues
The beta of Necrofrenzy is coming up fast, and I have mixed feelings about it.
On the one hand, I'm really excited about being able to show off my game to outside eyes for the first time. On the other hand, I'm really worried about the game's stability and playability.
What if they hate it?
What if it crashes every ten minutes?
Going beta feels like sending my kid off to preschool. I'm excited that my kid is growing up, but still... That's my baby out there!
Such is game development.
In other news, I'm coding like nuts to get the beta ready for next week. I've run into some interesting bugs that I had never even thought about, that brought into view things like memory limits for the first time in my game development life. I've learned a lot.
On the one hand, I'm really excited about being able to show off my game to outside eyes for the first time. On the other hand, I'm really worried about the game's stability and playability.
What if they hate it?
What if it crashes every ten minutes?
Going beta feels like sending my kid off to preschool. I'm excited that my kid is growing up, but still... That's my baby out there!
Such is game development.
In other news, I'm coding like nuts to get the beta ready for next week. I've run into some interesting bugs that I had never even thought about, that brought into view things like memory limits for the first time in my game development life. I've learned a lot.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Necrofrenzy Update: BETA
I've been working hard to make the new website less assy. The results so far have been mixed. I can't get the news page to work at all, so I might just link it to here. I like to cut corners that way.
On the game dev front: I need beta testers, and I need them soon. The Necrofrenzy beta should be out and ready to go by the week of the 21st (or sooner), so I desperately need to get my act together with a beta tester forum as well as just recruiting my 20 testers. Needless to say, if you are reading this then you are qualified for the beta. Leave a comment if you want in.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
mini update 2
I still haven't pulled the trigger on a website, but I will soon. I'm thinking either tonight or tomorrow.
In other news, I've got sound and a working camera into the game. I'm going to work on putting in a HUD and then I'm moving on to the level editor.
Things are chugging along. Stick around.
In other news, I've got sound and a working camera into the game. I'm going to work on putting in a HUD and then I'm moving on to the level editor.
Things are chugging along. Stick around.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
First shot of Necrofrenzy Pre-Alpha
Just to prove to you that I wasn't fibbing about the pre-alpha thing. The dudes in orange are peasants, who spawn from that gigantic farmhouse in the center of the screen (which will be made smaller soon). Our necromancing hero is in the bottom right, being chased by said peasants with scyths (who always find their target, due to brilliant pathfinding). Never fear, he has spawned a zombie helper minion near the bottom center of the screen.
I tried to get a fireball in the picture, but it is hard to avoid peasants, shoot at them, and rush for the print screen button all within a fraction of a second.
I'm expanding this pre-alpha work to include my sound system and camera system, so I'm going to continue working on those before I get to the level editor.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Pathfinding Success!
I have successfully implemented A* pathfinding into my game! So far this has been my biggest challenge, and it feels damn good to have it in there and working.
With A* in the game I am extremely close to a working pre-alpha prototybe build. All that stands before me and that prototype is:
With A* in the game I am extremely close to a working pre-alpha prototybe build. All that stands before me and that prototype is:
- Collision detection.
- The player's zombie minions (both the art asset and the elementary code to make them work.
Really, that's it! So the good news is:
Expect pre-alpha build screenshots by Friday :).
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
State of the Game: Necrofrenzy
I'm going to try to make these updates at least once a week. We'll see how that goes.
I really wanted to have a prototype to show before I bothered to do an update, but it is looking like that prototype is an increasingly harder to reach goal. Don't get me wrong, I am really, really close. All I need to do is finish implementing a path finding algorithm and a playable prototype is go.
Therein is one of the funny things about game development: Few things are as easy as they seem like they should be. The path finding, on its own, isn't very hard to implement at all. The problem is that in order to get path finding to work I have to be able to feed my little minions data points, and the only way I can do that is if I can do collision detection, and the only way I can do collision detection is if I can blah blah blah blah blah. In the course of implementing this one little system I have to worry about the implementation of a dozen of other little systems, and all of a sudden my project is very hard to test and is feeling rather daunting.
The real problem, though, is lack of motivation. Being broke has been a great motivator up until now, but I've even ridden that wave to exhaustion. Another wave will come, as they always do, but I really need it to be sooner rather than later. One of the problems is that I've had to write large essays for a class, which requires me to completely switch my brain from thinking about code stuff to thinking about writing stuff. It isn't easy to jump from one to the other. I'm also hunting for a web host, and that is a whole headache that I'd rather not have to deal with.
But I will. And for all my grousing here the beta will actually be coming pretty soon, I should think. Stay tuned.
I really wanted to have a prototype to show before I bothered to do an update, but it is looking like that prototype is an increasingly harder to reach goal. Don't get me wrong, I am really, really close. All I need to do is finish implementing a path finding algorithm and a playable prototype is go.
Therein is one of the funny things about game development: Few things are as easy as they seem like they should be. The path finding, on its own, isn't very hard to implement at all. The problem is that in order to get path finding to work I have to be able to feed my little minions data points, and the only way I can do that is if I can do collision detection, and the only way I can do collision detection is if I can blah blah blah blah blah. In the course of implementing this one little system I have to worry about the implementation of a dozen of other little systems, and all of a sudden my project is very hard to test and is feeling rather daunting.
The real problem, though, is lack of motivation. Being broke has been a great motivator up until now, but I've even ridden that wave to exhaustion. Another wave will come, as they always do, but I really need it to be sooner rather than later. One of the problems is that I've had to write large essays for a class, which requires me to completely switch my brain from thinking about code stuff to thinking about writing stuff. It isn't easy to jump from one to the other. I'm also hunting for a web host, and that is a whole headache that I'd rather not have to deal with.
But I will. And for all my grousing here the beta will actually be coming pretty soon, I should think. Stay tuned.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Prepare for the Raaagh...
Hiya folks. Long time no see. I apologize for that.
But hey, I've been busy.
Introducing RAAAGH!
RAAGH (or RAAAGH, or RAGH, or whatever I choose to call it) is best described as an 80's arcade game. You play to get your personal high score. And like all good 80's arcade games, RAAGH features bullets, carnage, and an AI squad at your command.
What 80's arcade game featured an AI squad at your command? Well, uhh...
Shut up, you.
Anywho, a typical round of RAAAGH starts like this:
But it quickly devolves to this:
Sold yet? Get it HERE. I'll update this later when I can host the file myself, but for now go ahead and use the excellent (and free)filefront gamefront servers.
But Handshakes, what about Necrofrenzy?
Necrofrenzy is still very much on the way. RAAAGH was just a little project to stretch my muscles, so to speak. For RAAAGH, I used and got to know a new game engine as well as a new sound API, so now I've worked out a lot of the kinks and quirks of the development process.
And boy, were there ever some big ass quirks. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth involved in getting the sound API to function, I'll say that much.
Anywho, expect some big updates and news in the coming weeks.
Caio.
But hey, I've been busy.
Introducing RAAAGH!
RAAGH (or RAAAGH, or RAGH, or whatever I choose to call it) is best described as an 80's arcade game. You play to get your personal high score. And like all good 80's arcade games, RAAGH features bullets, carnage, and an AI squad at your command.
What 80's arcade game featured an AI squad at your command? Well, uhh...
Shut up, you.
Anywho, a typical round of RAAAGH starts like this:
But it quickly devolves to this:
Sold yet? Get it HERE. I'll update this later when I can host the file myself, but for now go ahead and use the excellent (and free)
But Handshakes, what about Necrofrenzy?
Necrofrenzy is still very much on the way. RAAAGH was just a little project to stretch my muscles, so to speak. For RAAAGH, I used and got to know a new game engine as well as a new sound API, so now I've worked out a lot of the kinks and quirks of the development process.
And boy, were there ever some big ass quirks. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth involved in getting the sound API to function, I'll say that much.
Anywho, expect some big updates and news in the coming weeks.
Caio.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Spitballing...
I know I've whined about money before, but here I am again, broker than ever. 2011 looks to be a big year for games, and it also looks like I am going to have to sit a lot of it out (and be very choosey when it comes time to throw down my dough), and that totally sucks. Worse still, gas prices are absolutely killing me. It's bad enough that the university is robbing me blind, but now with gas the way it is I am losing money faster than ever.
For the first time ever in my entire life, money is getting to be a real issue. Like, not just my gaming fudge-money, but the money-to-make-my-car-go money. Scary.
So I was coming home from university the other day, a many miles long journey, and as I passed one of the many gas stations I routinely pass a thought occurred to me.
What if I robbed a gas station?
Nah.
And then I thought: Why exactly do I set out to make games so much? I thought about it a lot, and I don't really know.
A lot of my (douchey) game dev peers (or really, game dev betters) would be quick to explain that they do it for the artistic merit of the games they create. But honestly, that isn't it for me at all. I barely buy the whole "games as art" schtick anyway, and generally speaking the more a game touts its artistic merits the bigger piece of garbage it is (*cough* Dinner Date *cough*). I do think there is a kind of art to game design, but it is the art of making something as fun as possible, and not at all about telling a profound story or any such nonsense as that. The 'art' part begins and ends with the fun.
Again then, why do I try to make games? I guess the biggest reason is because I'm bored, and I want to make a game that I personally can play and have fun with. I also like the experience, and whether the project fails miserably (which is 98% of the time) or not I always learn TONS about programming and project management along the way.
Back to that gas station and its greedy pilfering of the beautiful green stuffings of my wallet, what if I tried to make money from my games? Is there anything stopping me? As it turns out, kind of.
The first problem that immediately arises is that I actually need a game to sell in the first place. Now, I have unbridled confidence that my latest undertaking will in fact see the light of day (and feel semiprofessional, to boot), but then my track record kind of blows. Plus, even if I get it to a releasable state, could I possibly feel confident enough to ask someone to pay money to play it?
No, I couldn't. However, I wouldn't be adverse to the idea of asking for donations if people like what they play (and, presumably, want to see more of).
The next problem is obvious, then: How do I go about doing that sort of thing?
Honestly, I don't really know. Viridian, the GameDevDad has used an organization called 8-Bit Funding to get some start-up funds for his (soon to be award winning, no doubt) iPhone game Inaria. And he has had a darn good amount of success with it. Still, I don't think it exactly suits my purposes. I don't want start-up money - Lord knows I don't need that kind of pressure.
The way I want to get money is more along the lines of how a street performer gets his. I want to pass around a virtual hat, as it were, for people to throw a buck or two into after my performance (likely a mime, feigning box entrapment).
How? I have no clue. I'm hoping there is another organization out there that suits this purpose exactly, but I doubt it. I could just set up a PayPal account tied to this blog, and direct people to here or the account after they play my game, but that brings up a monumental challenge of its own: How do I get people to even find my game in the first place?
I've always had a sort of "if you build it, they will come" attitude towards releasing my games, but then I was never worrying about making a buck at that point. Now that I am, I know that I'm going to need some attention. How? Well, Fileplanet seems pretty cool about giving front page blog space to free indie games, so that could be a start. Otherwise, I'm not really sure. ModDB recently launched IndieDB, a place to show off/recruit for/otherwise manage your game. I could do that, but I'd need to get a little more professional first... As in an actual website... Which costs money... Which I don't have... Aaaaagh!
I've got it! What if I robbed a gas station?
... It is just craziest enough to work... Lock and load.
For the first time ever in my entire life, money is getting to be a real issue. Like, not just my gaming fudge-money, but the money-to-make-my-car-go money. Scary.
So I was coming home from university the other day, a many miles long journey, and as I passed one of the many gas stations I routinely pass a thought occurred to me.
What if I robbed a gas station?
Nah.
And then I thought: Why exactly do I set out to make games so much? I thought about it a lot, and I don't really know.
A lot of my (douchey) game dev peers (or really, game dev betters) would be quick to explain that they do it for the artistic merit of the games they create. But honestly, that isn't it for me at all. I barely buy the whole "games as art" schtick anyway, and generally speaking the more a game touts its artistic merits the bigger piece of garbage it is (*cough* Dinner Date *cough*). I do think there is a kind of art to game design, but it is the art of making something as fun as possible, and not at all about telling a profound story or any such nonsense as that. The 'art' part begins and ends with the fun.
Again then, why do I try to make games? I guess the biggest reason is because I'm bored, and I want to make a game that I personally can play and have fun with. I also like the experience, and whether the project fails miserably (which is 98% of the time) or not I always learn TONS about programming and project management along the way.
Back to that gas station and its greedy pilfering of the beautiful green stuffings of my wallet, what if I tried to make money from my games? Is there anything stopping me? As it turns out, kind of.
The first problem that immediately arises is that I actually need a game to sell in the first place. Now, I have unbridled confidence that my latest undertaking will in fact see the light of day (and feel semiprofessional, to boot), but then my track record kind of blows. Plus, even if I get it to a releasable state, could I possibly feel confident enough to ask someone to pay money to play it?
No, I couldn't. However, I wouldn't be adverse to the idea of asking for donations if people like what they play (and, presumably, want to see more of).
The next problem is obvious, then: How do I go about doing that sort of thing?
Honestly, I don't really know. Viridian, the GameDevDad has used an organization called 8-Bit Funding to get some start-up funds for his (soon to be award winning, no doubt) iPhone game Inaria. And he has had a darn good amount of success with it. Still, I don't think it exactly suits my purposes. I don't want start-up money - Lord knows I don't need that kind of pressure.
The way I want to get money is more along the lines of how a street performer gets his. I want to pass around a virtual hat, as it were, for people to throw a buck or two into after my performance (likely a mime, feigning box entrapment).
How? I have no clue. I'm hoping there is another organization out there that suits this purpose exactly, but I doubt it. I could just set up a PayPal account tied to this blog, and direct people to here or the account after they play my game, but that brings up a monumental challenge of its own: How do I get people to even find my game in the first place?
I've always had a sort of "if you build it, they will come" attitude towards releasing my games, but then I was never worrying about making a buck at that point. Now that I am, I know that I'm going to need some attention. How? Well, Fileplanet seems pretty cool about giving front page blog space to free indie games, so that could be a start. Otherwise, I'm not really sure. ModDB recently launched IndieDB, a place to show off/recruit for/otherwise manage your game. I could do that, but I'd need to get a little more professional first... As in an actual website... Which costs money... Which I don't have... Aaaaagh!
I've got it! What if I robbed a gas station?
... It is just craziest enough to work... Lock and load.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
What I've Been Doing...
A new semester at school means new classes to bog me down and keep me from making games... Or does it?
NO! Of course not.
Lucky for me, one of those classes bogging me down is Game Development, wherein a team, armed to the teeth with ME, makes a game for a grade. The down side is that I don't have much say in the game design side of things. As such, this game will have a noticible lack of boobs and blood. The up side is that I get to do a lot of core systems coding, and that's pretty fun too.
The game is a tactical rpg ala Ogre Battle Tactics, and it has been coming along nicely. You can check out our project's SourceForge page here. I recommend that you do so. We haven't quite hit Alpha yet, but we are on target for getting there fairly soon.
This is my first time working on a game with a team (or any significant code project, for that matter). On the one hand, it blows having to go with somebody else's design. I mean it really sucks. It is totally killing me on the inside and bothers me to no end. On the other hand, it sure is great to have competant, talented artists on hand churning out content. For the first time ever, I don't have to worry about art assets at all. I can ask for a bit of art as needed, and a couple of days later I'll get it. Sweet.
The other good part about somebody else heading up the project is that there is some serious planning going on. Our team leader is a planning and documenting machine, which isn't 100% a great thing. In my experience, overplanning can be a waste of time; both because every minute you spend documenting is a minute you aren't spending on actually getting stuff implemented, and because on big projects like this things change ALL the time. Every time you hit a wall and it becomes clear that an idea isn't going to work well, all the stuff you planned that has anything to do with that idea has to be completely retooled. Me, I am more oriented towards just jumping in and getting dirty/getting stuff done, so if I was in charge there probably wouldn't be much of any planning at all.
In the end, I honestly think there is a kind of happy medium-ground between the two extremes, where stuff gets done in a practical sense according to some loose and flexible plan. Since I am the one implementing many of the big systems (and I approach the plans more as guides than as rules, pirates of the caribbean style), this is kind of happening naturally.
Other news: I've also started a new project of my own using a full fledged game framework (instead of starting from scratch with bare bones SDL or OpenGL). What this means is a lot less time monkeying around with stuff like timing and sprite animations, and a lot more time doing actual game code.
Miraculously, that project too is coming along quite briskly. I've mustered the will power to pump quite a few hours into it in just a week, and it'll hit something resembling a game with another 8 hours (hopeful programmer estimate which may be off by a factor of 10 hours or less).
Unfortunately, art is a problem as always. After about two hours of absolutely painstaking work, here is part of what I was able to pump out as the hero's sprite.
Meet your hero, the Necromancer:
What do you think? Usable, or no?
NO! Of course not.
Lucky for me, one of those classes bogging me down is Game Development, wherein a team, armed to the teeth with ME, makes a game for a grade. The down side is that I don't have much say in the game design side of things. As such, this game will have a noticible lack of boobs and blood. The up side is that I get to do a lot of core systems coding, and that's pretty fun too.
The game is a tactical rpg ala Ogre Battle Tactics, and it has been coming along nicely. You can check out our project's SourceForge page here. I recommend that you do so. We haven't quite hit Alpha yet, but we are on target for getting there fairly soon.
This is my first time working on a game with a team (or any significant code project, for that matter). On the one hand, it blows having to go with somebody else's design. I mean it really sucks. It is totally killing me on the inside and bothers me to no end. On the other hand, it sure is great to have competant, talented artists on hand churning out content. For the first time ever, I don't have to worry about art assets at all. I can ask for a bit of art as needed, and a couple of days later I'll get it. Sweet.
The other good part about somebody else heading up the project is that there is some serious planning going on. Our team leader is a planning and documenting machine, which isn't 100% a great thing. In my experience, overplanning can be a waste of time; both because every minute you spend documenting is a minute you aren't spending on actually getting stuff implemented, and because on big projects like this things change ALL the time. Every time you hit a wall and it becomes clear that an idea isn't going to work well, all the stuff you planned that has anything to do with that idea has to be completely retooled. Me, I am more oriented towards just jumping in and getting dirty/getting stuff done, so if I was in charge there probably wouldn't be much of any planning at all.
In the end, I honestly think there is a kind of happy medium-ground between the two extremes, where stuff gets done in a practical sense according to some loose and flexible plan. Since I am the one implementing many of the big systems (and I approach the plans more as guides than as rules, pirates of the caribbean style), this is kind of happening naturally.
Other news: I've also started a new project of my own using a full fledged game framework (instead of starting from scratch with bare bones SDL or OpenGL). What this means is a lot less time monkeying around with stuff like timing and sprite animations, and a lot more time doing actual game code.
Miraculously, that project too is coming along quite briskly. I've mustered the will power to pump quite a few hours into it in just a week, and it'll hit something resembling a game with another 8 hours (hopeful programmer estimate which may be off by a factor of 10 hours or less).
Unfortunately, art is a problem as always. After about two hours of absolutely painstaking work, here is part of what I was able to pump out as the hero's sprite.
Meet your hero, the Necromancer:
What do you think? Usable, or no?
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
updates
Well my semester is finally over, and my hair is just starting to de-gray itself. This was one crazy semester, and I'm not kidding when I say that I am still having nightmares about due dates and things.
But now it is all over and I have all sorts of time to muck about with my code! Kind of.
First I need to detox for a few days. Nothing but a steady diet of my favorite games and sleep. I've been playing coop Dawn of War II with my bro, coop Halo: Reach with a buddy of mine, the incredibly simple and charming Killing Floor (one of my favorite mindless shooters of all time), and a little Battle For Middle Earth (1) for nostalgia.
I got the urge to write a bit after playing the latter again. Battle for Middle Earth (BFME) is such a bold and unique RTS, I am amazed it came out of EA (by the team that used to be Westwood). There are so many cool design decisions, I don't know where to start.
I guess I'll start with this: To be fair, the game is flawed. The balance is pretty wonky, with archers, for some reason, being the end-all-be-all unit of warfare perfection. It is jarring, even maddening, to see your incredibly expensive yet deliciously menacing and massive Mummakil get put down in 5 seconds flat by two units of upgraded archers. Eww.
But I don't want to talk about that. I want to praise this game, after all. So I'll talk about how this game is so different from any RTS you've played. Mainly, this game is a siege centric RTS, like Stronghold but without any of the medieval simulation bits and instead focusing exclusively on fighting. The siege theme really makes sense when you think of it. I mean, think of the coolest, most video game worthy moments from the films. What were they? The sieges of Helms Deep and Minas Tirith, naturally. And the game does a pretty decent job of bring those epic film quality sieges to the player.
The game also does something else that I've never seen, before or since, in an RTS. It gave the AI natural emotions and behaviors. This impacts the game on both a cosmetic and gameplay level.
Cosmetically, these AI behaviors mean that your little army dudes will never just be standing around looking stiff and silly like in any other RTS. For example, if you leave your orks alone for a while they will form a ring and two of them will start sparring at the center of it. Your trolls will push and shove eachother around. If your men see a regular sized enemy from across the battlefield they will start clanging their weapons together and cheering, psyching up for the coming battle. It does a lot to make the game feel more alive.
On the gameplay side of things, units having realistic behavior can have quite an impact. Put your soldiers up against a rampaging troll and they will act afraid, and won't fight very well. Your men always do end up following your orders, but if your order is a clear suicide march then they will be a little sluggish in following your command. Set an ent on fire and he will freak out and run around to find water to put himself out in. Set a Mummakil on fire and he will go on a rampage, trying to shake off the flaming archer tent on his back.
All in all, the game is really something unique, and the design would have been worth exploring. Unfortunately, they decided that the design wasn't worth exploring at all when they made the sequel. In BFME II gone are the sieges, the behavioral AI, the everything that made BFME I fun except for the Lord of the Rings theme. BFME only got decent but not great reviews, maybe that is what prompted the developers to make BFME II a more conventional RTS in every way. Whatever the reason, if you are looking to buy the better game of the series then buy the first.
By the bye, on the code side of things: I will have an update on my Dating Sim very soon. I'm also not done with Quake - I just can't quit it.
But now it is all over and I have all sorts of time to muck about with my code! Kind of.
First I need to detox for a few days. Nothing but a steady diet of my favorite games and sleep. I've been playing coop Dawn of War II with my bro, coop Halo: Reach with a buddy of mine, the incredibly simple and charming Killing Floor (one of my favorite mindless shooters of all time), and a little Battle For Middle Earth (1) for nostalgia.
I got the urge to write a bit after playing the latter again. Battle for Middle Earth (BFME) is such a bold and unique RTS, I am amazed it came out of EA (by the team that used to be Westwood). There are so many cool design decisions, I don't know where to start.
I guess I'll start with this: To be fair, the game is flawed. The balance is pretty wonky, with archers, for some reason, being the end-all-be-all unit of warfare perfection. It is jarring, even maddening, to see your incredibly expensive yet deliciously menacing and massive Mummakil get put down in 5 seconds flat by two units of upgraded archers. Eww.
But I don't want to talk about that. I want to praise this game, after all. So I'll talk about how this game is so different from any RTS you've played. Mainly, this game is a siege centric RTS, like Stronghold but without any of the medieval simulation bits and instead focusing exclusively on fighting. The siege theme really makes sense when you think of it. I mean, think of the coolest, most video game worthy moments from the films. What were they? The sieges of Helms Deep and Minas Tirith, naturally. And the game does a pretty decent job of bring those epic film quality sieges to the player.
The game also does something else that I've never seen, before or since, in an RTS. It gave the AI natural emotions and behaviors. This impacts the game on both a cosmetic and gameplay level.
Cosmetically, these AI behaviors mean that your little army dudes will never just be standing around looking stiff and silly like in any other RTS. For example, if you leave your orks alone for a while they will form a ring and two of them will start sparring at the center of it. Your trolls will push and shove eachother around. If your men see a regular sized enemy from across the battlefield they will start clanging their weapons together and cheering, psyching up for the coming battle. It does a lot to make the game feel more alive.
On the gameplay side of things, units having realistic behavior can have quite an impact. Put your soldiers up against a rampaging troll and they will act afraid, and won't fight very well. Your men always do end up following your orders, but if your order is a clear suicide march then they will be a little sluggish in following your command. Set an ent on fire and he will freak out and run around to find water to put himself out in. Set a Mummakil on fire and he will go on a rampage, trying to shake off the flaming archer tent on his back.
All in all, the game is really something unique, and the design would have been worth exploring. Unfortunately, they decided that the design wasn't worth exploring at all when they made the sequel. In BFME II gone are the sieges, the behavioral AI, the everything that made BFME I fun except for the Lord of the Rings theme. BFME only got decent but not great reviews, maybe that is what prompted the developers to make BFME II a more conventional RTS in every way. Whatever the reason, if you are looking to buy the better game of the series then buy the first.
By the bye, on the code side of things: I will have an update on my Dating Sim very soon. I'm also not done with Quake - I just can't quit it.
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Quake News
Quake project: Dead.
Well, here I am. Again.
After getting to a mostly playable state, I found that my game just wasn't all that different or fun. I blame a lack of vision, and too much focus on Quakey details like fucking around with Blender to get models in, fucking around with Worldcraft, and AI wankery. My original plan of having a running-away focused game ala Penumbra got muddied somewhere along the way, and instead I came out with a very run-of-the-mill shooter with baddies that can climb walls and stuff. Correction, an extremely fugly run-of-the-mill shooter with baddies that can climb walls and stuff.
When it became clear that I really needed to refocus on a new gameplay point, and shift the game into a more doable direction artistically, once again Blender stood in my way and kicked me in the balls.
I can't express my hate for Blender quite enough. I explored changing model formats from Quake's native and throughly awful and archaic mdls to something more like Half-Life's skeletal animation driven mdls. This requires exporting into an .smd format from Blender. My pain started here.
After much searching I found a user-made smd exporter for Blender. My only problem? It didn't work for my version of Blender. "Easy solution!" I thought, "I'll just upgrade to the newer, and therefore better version of Blender!"... WRONG! The newest version of Blender completely changes the bloody interface into something new and remarkably unintuitive, rendering most of what I learned about getting around old Blender's remarkably unintuitive interface completely moot. Still, I fought on.
I then struggled with the fan made smd exporter, which struggled back at me even more. Still, I fought through the pain for several hours and exported a nice little test model.
The next part? Getting the thing into the game. Now, the format is fully supported, keep that in mind. Anywho, hours of googling and looking for a way to get my new format into the game reveal... Nothing. It appears that nobody has any light to shed on the matter. It has been done before, so I know that it is at least theoretically possible, but I sure as hell can't figure it out. Not that I gave all that much effort into trying. The Blender-to-dpm pipeline sucks shit, I have to run my model through two different exporters to get my dpm, so by then I have no idea where the problem lies.
Bottom line, I'm done. I'm pretty sure that if I bashed my head against the wall a bit more I really could figure it out and get it in game, but I'm just not up for it anymore. I'm tuckered out, and when the fun little project that I could add little bits onto here and there turned into a monster of a project that required serious effort to tackle, I knew it was time to call it quits.
I've learned a lot, but now it is about time to shoot this baby in the crib.
*bang*
Well, here I am. Again.
After getting to a mostly playable state, I found that my game just wasn't all that different or fun. I blame a lack of vision, and too much focus on Quakey details like fucking around with Blender to get models in, fucking around with Worldcraft, and AI wankery. My original plan of having a running-away focused game ala Penumbra got muddied somewhere along the way, and instead I came out with a very run-of-the-mill shooter with baddies that can climb walls and stuff. Correction, an extremely fugly run-of-the-mill shooter with baddies that can climb walls and stuff.
When it became clear that I really needed to refocus on a new gameplay point, and shift the game into a more doable direction artistically, once again Blender stood in my way and kicked me in the balls.
I can't express my hate for Blender quite enough. I explored changing model formats from Quake's native and throughly awful and archaic mdls to something more like Half-Life's skeletal animation driven mdls. This requires exporting into an .smd format from Blender. My pain started here.
After much searching I found a user-made smd exporter for Blender. My only problem? It didn't work for my version of Blender. "Easy solution!" I thought, "I'll just upgrade to the newer, and therefore better version of Blender!"... WRONG! The newest version of Blender completely changes the bloody interface into something new and remarkably unintuitive, rendering most of what I learned about getting around old Blender's remarkably unintuitive interface completely moot. Still, I fought on.
I then struggled with the fan made smd exporter, which struggled back at me even more. Still, I fought through the pain for several hours and exported a nice little test model.
The next part? Getting the thing into the game. Now, the format is fully supported, keep that in mind. Anywho, hours of googling and looking for a way to get my new format into the game reveal... Nothing. It appears that nobody has any light to shed on the matter. It has been done before, so I know that it is at least theoretically possible, but I sure as hell can't figure it out. Not that I gave all that much effort into trying. The Blender-to-dpm pipeline sucks shit, I have to run my model through two different exporters to get my dpm, so by then I have no idea where the problem lies.
Bottom line, I'm done. I'm pretty sure that if I bashed my head against the wall a bit more I really could figure it out and get it in game, but I'm just not up for it anymore. I'm tuckered out, and when the fun little project that I could add little bits onto here and there turned into a monster of a project that required serious effort to tackle, I knew it was time to call it quits.
I've learned a lot, but now it is about time to shoot this baby in the crib.
*bang*
Friday, November 12, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
SDL Game Ahoy!
It is time to talk about the new SDL game I've been working on it. I'll break it down with just the facts, Dragnet style.
Name: Charmquest.
Genre: Fantasy RPG Dating Sim
Crimes: Being insufferably cute and nerdy as hell.
That's right, folks! My next SDL game is going to be of the dating sim variety. And this isn't just going to be an engine for dating sims, like Verily was for top down RPGs. No, this is going to be a fully loaded, fully playable game.
Its (planned) features are going to be including but not necessarily limited to:
*: Many different locations!
*: Three different gals to hit on and harass, each with a different personality!
*: Three different difficulty levels!
*: RPG style stats and character progression!
*: A combat system (type of which is undetermined, but likely turn based and Japanese)!
*: Items!
*: Witty dialogue!
*: NPCS with schedules!
I've chosen to do a dating sim because I wanted to make something that I figured wouldn't take too long to develope, and frankly/somewhat shamefully, I just plain enjoy the genre.
For those of you who aren't still virgins and have never played a dating sim or know how they really work, it goes like this:
Basically, you have a character with a couple of different stats that correspond to specific things. Intelligence governs how much money you can make on a job, strength determines your hitpoints and maybe your damage output, etc...
Every in-game day you have a set number of turns to do stuff (work for money, train, whatever), and you only have so many days before it is game over. To win you have to woo one of the ladies enough before you run out of days.
How does the wooing work? There are a number of ways of going about doing this, but the core idea is more or less the same. That is, by talking to the chicks you learn a little something about their personality (likes/dislikes, that sort of stuff), and later on down the line you will have to make decisions using a little deductive reasoning based on what you learned from talking to them, and your success during these little puzzles will determine how much more they like you.
So basically, the game is a turn based RPG with some puzzle elements thrown in when it comes to engaging with the gals and managing your time.
More fun than it sounds, I promise.
So anyways, I'm really coming along with the game.
Some technical talk that may or may not bore you:
I've broken the game down into different Zones. Each Zone has a sort of inventory of things I'm calling Entities. Entities are things that get drawn into the scene and can be anything from an item, to an NPC, to a sign that says "click here to go to the kitchen". The zones themselves are loaded into a Zone Manager that figures out which Zone I want to be in and loads it dynamically. I feel this solution is efficient and elegant, and I'm quite proud.
Anyway, the assets for this game are going to be a real bitch. A dating sim isn't necessarily art asset heavy (as almost everything is just a still picture), but one requirement is that you pretty much have to have hot chicks to hit on. I can't draw anything resembling any kind of chick, let alone a hot chick. I don't exactly have a solution for this, but I'm thinking that maybe I can get a bunch of anime hot chick reference images, and sort of trace out my own leggy-ladies from those. Maybe. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, though.
As for Quake Thursday: It is on this week for sure. Blame last week on Fable 3. Also, expect updates for this SDL game every Tuesday from now on.
Name: Charmquest.
Genre: Fantasy RPG Dating Sim
Crimes: Being insufferably cute and nerdy as hell.
That's right, folks! My next SDL game is going to be of the dating sim variety. And this isn't just going to be an engine for dating sims, like Verily was for top down RPGs. No, this is going to be a fully loaded, fully playable game.
Its (planned) features are going to be including but not necessarily limited to:
*: Many different locations!
*: Three different gals to hit on and harass, each with a different personality!
*: Three different difficulty levels!
*: RPG style stats and character progression!
*: A combat system (type of which is undetermined, but likely turn based and Japanese)!
*: Items!
*: Witty dialogue!
*: NPCS with schedules!
I've chosen to do a dating sim because I wanted to make something that I figured wouldn't take too long to develope, and frankly/somewhat shamefully, I just plain enjoy the genre.
For those of you who aren't still virgins and have never played a dating sim or know how they really work, it goes like this:
Basically, you have a character with a couple of different stats that correspond to specific things. Intelligence governs how much money you can make on a job, strength determines your hitpoints and maybe your damage output, etc...
Every in-game day you have a set number of turns to do stuff (work for money, train, whatever), and you only have so many days before it is game over. To win you have to woo one of the ladies enough before you run out of days.
How does the wooing work? There are a number of ways of going about doing this, but the core idea is more or less the same. That is, by talking to the chicks you learn a little something about their personality (likes/dislikes, that sort of stuff), and later on down the line you will have to make decisions using a little deductive reasoning based on what you learned from talking to them, and your success during these little puzzles will determine how much more they like you.
So basically, the game is a turn based RPG with some puzzle elements thrown in when it comes to engaging with the gals and managing your time.
More fun than it sounds, I promise.
So anyways, I'm really coming along with the game.
Some technical talk that may or may not bore you:
I've broken the game down into different Zones. Each Zone has a sort of inventory of things I'm calling Entities. Entities are things that get drawn into the scene and can be anything from an item, to an NPC, to a sign that says "click here to go to the kitchen". The zones themselves are loaded into a Zone Manager that figures out which Zone I want to be in and loads it dynamically. I feel this solution is efficient and elegant, and I'm quite proud.
Anyway, the assets for this game are going to be a real bitch. A dating sim isn't necessarily art asset heavy (as almost everything is just a still picture), but one requirement is that you pretty much have to have hot chicks to hit on. I can't draw anything resembling any kind of chick, let alone a hot chick. I don't exactly have a solution for this, but I'm thinking that maybe I can get a bunch of anime hot chick reference images, and sort of trace out my own leggy-ladies from those. Maybe. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, though.
As for Quake Thursday: It is on this week for sure. Blame last week on Fable 3. Also, expect updates for this SDL game every Tuesday from now on.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
UPDATE: Changes are a-comin'.
Yeah, yeah. It has been awhile and all that. I won't bother throwing any excuses your way, I've mostly just been lazy. I've also been incredibly busy with school, sick, and working on a new SDL game that I haven't told you about.
So I guess I will bother throwing excuses your way. Whatevs.
Work on the Quake game has been nonexistant. There is a reason for this: I'm so bored with it! One of the little truths you discovier about game development is that the hardest part (and there are plenty of hard parts) is the very end, when all major development is done.
All of the major coding is done, the asset work is all done, and the map is finished. What remains is testing and tweaking, and MAN is it a drag. This last stage of development consists of tweaking some little value in the code or piece of the map, and then testing it out. Rinse and repeat a billion times. The only challenge is to your patience, and I guess lately I've been losing that battle.
That said, I really do want to get this game out and soon. With that in mind, I'm instituting something called "Quake Thursdays" around here.
Yes, every Thursday is now "Quake Thursday". I promise to work on the Quake game for at least a couple hours, at the end of which I'll post a bunch of screenshots here on the blog to show you what I'm doing. Hopefully this will see the game to a fairly quick release.
In other news, as I stated earlier I have started work on a new SDL game. I'll give more details soon, but for now I can say that it will be a little game that should be quick and easy to produce (coding wise, the assets are scaring me a bit), and will hopefully pretty fun. I'm toying with the idea of actually selling this one, so I'm pretty excited about it.
Hmm, what else? A gaming news site called Ultima Aiera has made its way into my list of daily must-visit sites. Specifically, it has news about the Ultima series of games and about the creators who had a hand in bringing the games to life.
'How much news could there be about a series that has been dead for a decade?', I hear you ask. Well as it turns out, a pretty good amount of news can be generated about a series that has been dead for a decade. Dick. There are tons of remakes and updates to the series to be reported on, as well as hopeful (though ultimately futile) rumors of the series being continued or restarted again. But more important and interesting are the articles that showcase the old design documents and artwork from the venerable games. It makes for some good game design reading, if you are into that sort of thing.
Other cool things: In Por Ylem 2 has gone into beta, marking yet another experiment with unrestricted PVP in an MMO environment. These experiments always prove interesting. You get to see just how much crap regular players, who make up the bulk of the playerbase, can take from unabashed a-hole players, who exist for no other reason than to ruin the game experience of those regular players, before the regular players give up and leave. Once the normal players leave, the a-holes, having nobody else to torment other than eachother, themselves leave and the game collapses.
We've seen this countless times (the original UO, the original In Por Ylem, Shadowbane, Darkfall) before. Yet there is always some designer who wants to try the experiment again, I guess thinking that this time it will be different. Who can blame him? On paper the concept of near-completely unrestricted PVP is brilliant. Sadly, it just never works, mostly because there are too many players who will take advantage of the loose ruleset and use it to ruin the game for the other players.
Anywho, I don't want to get into that. So many other, better and more experienced than me, designers have gone into it before.
All I want to say is that Azaroth is taking another crack at In Por Ylem. He has brought some interesting design decisions with him, and hopefully some lessons learned from the original In Por Ylem. If anybody can get open pvp right, it's Azaroth with IPY2.
Oh, and I beat Ultima 8: Pagan. I've been playing this thing for over 15 years! Everybody will tell you about much much crap Ultima 8 was, and it does have its annoyances and plot holes. Still, it was always be my favorite (and first) Ultima, and one of the games that originally made me want to make games myself. Cheers, Pagan.
So I guess I will bother throwing excuses your way. Whatevs.
Work on the Quake game has been nonexistant. There is a reason for this: I'm so bored with it! One of the little truths you discovier about game development is that the hardest part (and there are plenty of hard parts) is the very end, when all major development is done.
All of the major coding is done, the asset work is all done, and the map is finished. What remains is testing and tweaking, and MAN is it a drag. This last stage of development consists of tweaking some little value in the code or piece of the map, and then testing it out. Rinse and repeat a billion times. The only challenge is to your patience, and I guess lately I've been losing that battle.
That said, I really do want to get this game out and soon. With that in mind, I'm instituting something called "Quake Thursdays" around here.
Yes, every Thursday is now "Quake Thursday". I promise to work on the Quake game for at least a couple hours, at the end of which I'll post a bunch of screenshots here on the blog to show you what I'm doing. Hopefully this will see the game to a fairly quick release.
In other news, as I stated earlier I have started work on a new SDL game. I'll give more details soon, but for now I can say that it will be a little game that should be quick and easy to produce (coding wise, the assets are scaring me a bit), and will hopefully pretty fun. I'm toying with the idea of actually selling this one, so I'm pretty excited about it.
Hmm, what else? A gaming news site called Ultima Aiera has made its way into my list of daily must-visit sites. Specifically, it has news about the Ultima series of games and about the creators who had a hand in bringing the games to life.
'How much news could there be about a series that has been dead for a decade?', I hear you ask. Well as it turns out, a pretty good amount of news can be generated about a series that has been dead for a decade. Dick. There are tons of remakes and updates to the series to be reported on, as well as hopeful (though ultimately futile) rumors of the series being continued or restarted again. But more important and interesting are the articles that showcase the old design documents and artwork from the venerable games. It makes for some good game design reading, if you are into that sort of thing.
Other cool things: In Por Ylem 2 has gone into beta, marking yet another experiment with unrestricted PVP in an MMO environment. These experiments always prove interesting. You get to see just how much crap regular players, who make up the bulk of the playerbase, can take from unabashed a-hole players, who exist for no other reason than to ruin the game experience of those regular players, before the regular players give up and leave. Once the normal players leave, the a-holes, having nobody else to torment other than eachother, themselves leave and the game collapses.
We've seen this countless times (the original UO, the original In Por Ylem, Shadowbane, Darkfall) before. Yet there is always some designer who wants to try the experiment again, I guess thinking that this time it will be different. Who can blame him? On paper the concept of near-completely unrestricted PVP is brilliant. Sadly, it just never works, mostly because there are too many players who will take advantage of the loose ruleset and use it to ruin the game for the other players.
Anywho, I don't want to get into that. So many other, better and more experienced than me, designers have gone into it before.
All I want to say is that Azaroth is taking another crack at In Por Ylem. He has brought some interesting design decisions with him, and hopefully some lessons learned from the original In Por Ylem. If anybody can get open pvp right, it's Azaroth with IPY2.
Oh, and I beat Ultima 8: Pagan. I've been playing this thing for over 15 years! Everybody will tell you about much much crap Ultima 8 was, and it does have its annoyances and plot holes. Still, it was always be my favorite (and first) Ultima, and one of the games that originally made me want to make games myself. Cheers, Pagan.
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