PGDmC: Golden Labyrinth

[Traveler]

Ugh, too much time has gone passed since my previous update.
Things have progressed slowly. Among other things, I spent a lot of time redoing the robots movements as they previously were very sloppy. They would turn prematurely or turn incorrectly, driving backwards for example. In hindsight I should have opted for a whole different solution altogether. Oh well...

Something else I -again- discovered is that learning an engine or in this case an API and writing a game (with a deadline) at the same time is far from ideal. I came to a similar conclusion during a previous Ludum Dare, but the code mess you write in 72 hours is far from the mess you can create in four weeks. And so, as the game grows I find myself refactoring quite a lot. That's not necessarily a bad thing as it improves the code a lot, it's just that time could also be spent on new features.

Another interesting issue came up after creating a new level layout (the one you see below). Because the play area is larger than what you can see at any time, it is possible to move into an enemy without being able to escape in time. To counter that problem, I added a radar so players can better decide their route. What's interesting though is that it not only solved the problem, I suddenly found navigating the maze to be more fun as well.

Change list:

• overall code cleanup/refacturing
• changed movement for robots to better navigate through the maze
• created a new level
• added portals from which enemies can spawn
• added a start menu & loading-, win-, lose screens
• dots can now be picked up, plus you receive a score
• added a (bounding sphere) collision detection procedure
• added a radar so you can better see yourself as well as your enemies
• added several small updates in the editor such as a Portal cell including the option to save a small image from the map to be used as the radar background.

That's it. Only four days left now. I suppose its a good thing the weather forecast is set on rain for the coming days

Good luck with your own entries guys!

[dazappa]

Hehe, yeah I try to avoid refactoring at all costs... I have done only two small refactors (< 200 lines) when I needed to change an area of the code for new gameplay anyway.

[Daikrys]

hey looks great, cant wait to play all games after 17.

[paul_nicholls]

Looking good!

cheers,
Paul

[Traveler]

Thanks guys

While I'm not completely done just yet, things are shaping up quite well. Apart from one bug I cant seem to resolve the game works pretty well. Here's a last screenshot before the final goes up which hopefully will be in a couple hours time.

[Traveler]

Well, that's it for me. I've uploaded the final version of Golden Labyrinth. (That is to say the final version for this competition). Apart from the ftp (which will probably close soon) you can also download it from [here]

Enjoy.

[czar]

HI

I am having difficulty running your program. I am getting between 1-3 FPS according to your caption header. This is on a Windows 7 quad core with NVIDIA 9600 GT with DX10 support. I can just get past start screen but nothing really works beyond then.

[Jimmy Valavanis]

Looks great!

[Traveler]

Thanks Jimmy!

@czar : Only 1-3 fps? I'm really not sure why that is. Your hardware seems capable enough. I have tested on a radeon 2400 which is a very low end gfxcard and get ~350 fps. Perhaps it's a Nvidia thing.