2006 PGD Annual Competition : screenshots

[savage]

Will they stay in the "final contest state" or will you go on with development and make a real game (maybe with story, more enemys, levels etc) out of it?

I really hope that quite a few games will be completed and that some of you actually try and get them published. From the screen shots I have seen ( even though I have access to the file,s I have resisted temptation to take a peek ), there are quite a few games that could probably be sold in the $5-$20 dollar range for a download game, assuming there were polished up and completed.

[Huehnerschaender]

Dirk your Blog site is down.

Yep. Just seen it, too :-)

I have to wait, because this is a free blog site for the public. I don't host it. :evil:

[Firlefanz]

Hi!

I just saw the both Tanxwall videos and I must say they are great and absolutely looking professional. :shock: :D

The quality of the competition entrys (from what I see in screens and videos) is much much higher than I excpected. :wink:

Firle

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Firle,

today in the evening I have another surprise (video) for all who are interested in my progress.

I completed my brandnew weapon which brings new possibilities into the game, even for gameplay and leveldesign. I find it real fun and yes, I am also a little proud of it :)

I also did something on the general gameplay. The aiming is not restricted to the visible screen anymore, but to a radius around the players tank. This makes it easy to zoom further out and in, without getting an advantage or disadvantage in gameplay by the camera height (except overview of the situation of course). The game plays much "fairer" now.

And last but not least, I am nearly ready with my dynamic weather. And my trees weave in the wind now, too :wink:

[NecroDOME]

@Huehnerschaender: The space map is far from finished :S The only thing that makes it cool is the explosing ships.
I was thinking of a sun flare behind mother earth.


What are you planning to do with your games when they are finished?
Not much I think... I have plans for some sort of race game we going to build with our engine...

[Traveler]

Not much I think... I have plans for some sort of race game we going to build with our engine...

Not the best statement considering the fact that you're running for a position in next years IGF

[Traveler]

I regret my absence in the last few weeks, but I promise I'll make it up in the next couple of days 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

New video comes tomorrow. I was a little busy coding on some additional stuff for my game 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

Nothing much you haven't already seen, but put together in a small "trailer" like you know them from commercial games. Not perfect, but I am working on it if I have time :)

This one shows my new weapon, so it's worth a look for interested people :twisted:

http://www.dino-it.de/tanxtrlr.wmv

Cheers,
Dirk

[jdarling]

Huehnerschaender, excelent work on your trailer. You really should consider placing that on GameDev or other sites when you complete the game.

On a down note; I have to drop out of the competition. My son will be born in the next couple of days and I have to take care of too many family related issues to deal with :(. I still plan on completing the game when I get time again.

I'll continue to work when I have time, but I know I won't make the contest dates any more. To all of the contestents; I really can't wait to see your entries, and if you need someone to put in about 1-2 hrs a week testing let me know (thats about all I can do right now).

[Traveler]

That's pretty awesome :thumbup:

I'm so sure about the line 'you will survive' though. Right now it comes to me as if its a given fact. Perhaps something like 'you may just survive' would fit better.

Absolutely love the nuke!

PS jdarling, I'm sorry to see you drop out of the competition, but understand family has priority above all else. I hope you'll find the time to finish your entry some day.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks guys :)


jdarling: I wish you the very very best for the birth of your son! Sad that you have to drop out of the compo, but in this case, real life is much more important than any other things. I have two kids myself, so I know what kind of stuff is waiting for you, stress, stress but also much of happiness and fun.

Best wishes for you and especially for the little boy who is awaiting to see you and his mom! Best wishes also to your wife. It will be hard, but I know women seem to forget all the pain rather quickly once they have their baby in their arms :wink:


traveler: I just needed some words to do the blending :lol: There was no concept for the trailer, nor have I put much time in it. maybe half an hour including capturing the ingame scenes :wink: I did not really know what I can show you, so I thought some kind of "trailer" would be nice...

[jdarling]

Thanks guys :)


jdarling: I wish you the very very best for the birth of your son! Sad that you have to drop out of the compo, but in this case, real life is much more important than any other things. I have two kids myself, so I know what kind of stuff is waiting for you, stress, stress but also much of happiness and fun.

Best wishes for you and especially for the little boy who is awaiting to see you and his mom! Best wishes also to your wife. It will be hard, but I know women seem to forget all the pain rather quickly once they have their baby in their arms :wink:


traveler: I just needed some words to do the blending :lol: There was no concept for the trailer, nor have I put much time in it. maybe half an hour including capturing the ingame scenes :wink: I did not really know what I can show you, so I thought some kind of "trailer" would be nice...

Well this is our second (my oldest son will be 4 in September) so my wife thinks she knows whats comming :). Thanks for the congrats and words of encouragement. I just hope that they don't try and kill each other for at least a year!

[Robert Kosek]

Sorry to hear you're dropping out of the compo, jdarling, but I hope the birth goes well! :thumbup:

Dirk, nice trailer and I like the new weapon! Is it actually a nuke or just a powerful bomb? If it's a nuke you ought to work just a tad on the mushroom cloud. ;)

[WILL]

Hey guys! Just thought I'd post some encouragment. :D

You guys are gettin' closer to the final stage which is the big one... And from what I've seen just in these forums and from the results pages, you guys have really put a lot into your entries. I will be pleased to see how the end results come out. :)

:lol: and to see if I can actually run anything on my poor PIII laptop. (old old old graphics chipset)

BTW planning on getting a new beast in May... I'll be sure to play them all then! ;)

jdarling: Most importantly Big Time Congrats!!! :D Secondarily, ah poop. :P

Well if you want to... you can make one last submission with as much as you could have done in what time you have had left. It will be your last submission that gets the final grade for the May 7th end of competition deadline.

So dispite that you could not submit anything else for the rest of the deadlines, we'll simply take the last one you(your team) submitted during the whole of the competition and use that as a final scoring entry. That'll be standard across the board. And you'll get a final score anyways.

It's only right that your get the credit for your work up till now. And it also shows all the actual effort and participation that has gone into this year's competition.

[Huehnerschaender]

Dirk, nice trailer and I like the new weapon! Is it actually a nuke or just a powerful bomb? If it's a nuke you ought to work just a tad on the mushroom cloud. ;)

Thanks Robert.
It is just a powerful "bomb-drone". I think I have to make a new model for the bomb, since this one is just the model of the rockets. But it is no nuclear weapon.
The nuclear weapon is already in my head and I also mentioned it in one of the first entrys readme's. But this one will definitely not included in the compos entry due to lack of time. I have 4 different weapons now, each with its own strength. 3 different kinds of aiming with these weapons. I guess the judges will see what I am after in the end. There are some additional "nice to have" features which I am currently on (e.g there are birds flying out of trees when something explodes near the tree (and if its initialized having birds into it), but I put my main work into the menu now to reach the goals. After that I have to do some work in things which are already done, but need some polish (like collision response). And of course, I need to build the endboss, nice levels, maybe some more static content and hopefully one or two more different enemys.

After the compo I am sure I will go on with the project and add a lot of content then.

@WILL: PIII? old old video card..... hmmmmm.... maybe you have to wait till may :lol: But there is a chance that it works if you are DX9 compatible, but with very low FPS.

[savage]

Nice trailer Dirk. I also would change the end text to something like "You MUST survive" and maybe leave out the "but if you are strong bit". Again these are nice to haves and can be polisched up and worked on later.

[NecroDOME]

@jdarling: Congrads!

Anyway, time for some new screenshot of our second level

(Sun is animated)

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG17.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG18.jpg

[chronozphere]

Wow ... Those are nice screenies. :D Well done.

The rocks look nice and are well textured.
How did you make the sun and the explosions.
Are they just some blended textures or did you used any other techniques??
I'am realy curious :razz:

Keep up the good work.. everyone. ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

Yeah, looks really cool 8)

Keep it up!

[WILL]

I love those particle effects! 8)

Necro, once this competition is over you have to teach me an easy way of doing those kinda of particle effects...

[NecroDOME]

sun: a particle engine with 6 rotating particles, sun flare 2 particles renderd in front between the camera and the sun.


// Code to put the flare between the camera and sun, works perfectly
x := (Cam.X + Sun.X) / 2;
y := (Cam.Y + Sun.Y) / 2;
z := (Cam.Z + Sun.Z) / 2;


Explosions: just a gray texture blended with a bit of color.

Rocks: 3D max, make sphere, put noise on it and your done! texture coordinates are generated automaticly

[WILL]

Any tricks to the textures to make them nice as particle graphics? OR is it all in the A part of the AGBR/RBGA data?

[NecroDOME]

I currently have only 3 textures I use for particles. All in frayscale so I can coler them in-game with what ever I want :)
Noting special with the textures, it's just how to use them.

For example:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG5.jpg
This picture contains 2 different textures for particle effects: a flare and a smoke texture (in grayscale)
The flares are colord blue and put behind the little ship, the smoke textures is used for the fire and the black smoke from the fire. The smoke texture is colord orange and renderd with an aplha blend add function while the black smoke is renderd with the inverted add function of directx.
So when I make an explosion I just use the smoke texture, color it orange and scale it.
(maybe you don't see the black smoke, but in-game it's mutch beter to see).


http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG3.jpg
Some early screenshots of SCAG. Blue particles put randomly in the scene. The mines (meshes) are also part of the particle engine, only I use a mesh insteat ot billboards.
(and I haven't modified the particle engine since the first screenshots)

[WILL]

Hmm... I feel a 'How To Make A Particle Engine' article coming soon after the competition. I don't want to handy-cap your time afterall. ;)

Some really cool stuff though. I want to make a 2D version of a particle engine for my games.

My biggest issue would be with how to make the actual texture images so that they work well with the engine once I've put them in there and what do I need to do to the textures so that the black or the 'transparent' portions of the image don't show or mess up the effect.

[Huehnerschaender]

For that you should take a pen and a piece of paper and write down two blendmethods you always should support: ADD and SUB.

With this two blendeffects you can do amazing things like explosions or any shiny particles (ADD), or something like smoke, shadow etc (SUB).

The brighter the pixel in your particle image is, the more shiny (ADD) or dark (SUB) your particle will influence the background.

[WILL]

Ah.. so I'm looking at using a black matte to base my faded edges of my particles?

Considering that I rarely have tried using ADD and SUB, I'll have to make it a mission to do so in the near future... ;)

Thanks guys! 8)

[NecroDOME]

Today I have slightly modified the particle engine. Now its posible to 'connect' particle together to make a smooth line/beam/trail
Sceenshots:

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG22.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG23.jpg

And some bugs that looked realy cool:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG19.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG20.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG21.jpg

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey, good work. Looks pretty cool.

But I like the "bugs, too :lol:

[Robert Kosek]

Indeed, nice screenies! I liked "21" with the "rain" look, kinda like some sorta plasma superweapon. ;)

I'm really looking forwards to this year's entries! :D

EDIT (From Dirk's blog):

10.4.2006 - more destruction

The trees in the game are now destructable. If they are hit by a rocket, drone or cannon they will fall, with a cracking sound and smoke on the ground. Also the birds are fleeing of course :-)Post pictures, darnit! I wanna see this one! 8) :twisted:

[chronozphere]

Wow.. those FX look awesome.. how did made em?? :razz: 8)

Did you strech the particles or did you draw a lot of them in a line??

Please keep in mind that not everyone has a SLI-motherboard. Are you planning to make some options for those who need an FPS boost?? :?



Post pictures, darnit! I wanna see this one! 8) :twisted:


yeah me too... :razz:

BTW: i'am currently working on my own D3D-based 2d engine. I've already implented some basic texturing. I'am looking forward to make the particle engine, i wonder how mine will look. 8)

[Huehnerschaender]

Post pictures, darnit! I wanna see this one! 8) :twisted:


yeah me too... :razz:


I will post a little video in a few minutes. It's better than a pic, because a pic doesn't show motion oder sound :)

Btw, don't bother about the sound, I am still on it. I know that the sound of falling trees or birds are multiplied. I am on it 8)

I will add a ]http://www.dino-it.de/tanxtree.wmv[/url]

Note, that when the HUD disappears and appears again, I use my cheat to gain "some" ammo and all kinds of weapons. So don't bother about it :lol:

Greets,
Dirk

[NecroDOME]

Please keep in mind that not everyone has a SLI-motherboard. Are you planning to make some options for those who need an FPS boost?? Confused


In the menu you can select the detail. Low, medium and full.
It just reduces the particle count.

[Huehnerschaender]

Muhahaha. just checked the traffic of my site for the last months. In march I had 3GB traffic. And there is no homepage. I guess the videos are quite frequented :lol:

[Robert Kosek]

*gapes like a fish*

Can you make it so the tank can ram the trees and then they fall over? Technically a tank could take the trees easily. ;)

I'll upload the video's to FileFront. :D You guys need some publicity. It'll host the files for free with no download restrictions. Which videos in particular do you want uploaded?

[Huehnerschaender]

Can you make it so the tank can ram the trees and then they fall over? Technically a tank could take the trees easily. ;)

Surely I can. The collision is already detected, and the response could be the same as when a Cannon hits the tree. 8)



I'll upload the video's to FileFront. :D You guys need some publicity. It'll host the files for free with no download restrictions. Which videos in particular do you want uploaded?
What is this for?

Greetings,
Dirk

[Robert Kosek]

I'll upload the video's to FileFront. :D You guys need some publicity. It'll host the files for free with no download restrictions. Which videos in particular do you want uploaded?
What is this for?

If you need diskspace you can host the video's permanently at FileFront, with a 1gb upload limit or 10 hours upload time limit (for fairness). So you don't have to tie up your site if you don't want to, or cannot afford it, just a suggestion. ;)

I still have all the videos. :D

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you very much Robert :)

I think at the moment I don't need it. I have 30GB monthly traffic included in my domain-contract. So I don't think that 3GB is near my limit :wink: I just thought 3GB is quite much compared to the other months :D

Greetings,
Dirk

[Huehnerschaender]

Yeehaw... some progress of "boring" development.....

No new screenshot, but news.

Menus are done. Everything works fine

For now there are 4 Options in the main menu:

Start game, play tutorial (has to be done, menu is deactivated), options, quit tanx.

Options are saved to disk and are used immediately.

Supported until now:
- Antialiasing on/off
- Mipmapping on/off
- Lighting on/off (turns on/off using real lightsources)
- Debris collision (as suggested by savage)
- weather effects on/off
- fullscreen on/off
- particlecount high/medium/low (this can gain some real FPS)

Nothing of the above requires a restart of the game.

The settings are also availabe ingame by pressing esc.

Greetings,
Dirk *who has to sleep now*

[chronozphere]

In the menu you can select the detail. Low, medium and full.
It just reduces the particle count.




Supported until now:
- Antialiasing on/off
- Mipmapping on/off
- Lighting on/off (turns on/off using real lightsources)
- Debris collision (as suggested by savage)
- weather effects on/off
- fullscreen on/off
- particlecount high/medium/low (this can gain some real FPS)



Great.. I like to have some choice.. :) :razz:

[NecroDOME]

My choice is always: details to the max!!!

[chronozphere]

My choice is always: details to the max!!!


If i'm sitting behind a new PC.... ME TOO :lol:

But I think a smooth (25> FPS) and uglier game is better than a beautifull game wich is running <10 FPS. It just depends on the user.

[Clootie]

Supported until now:
...
- Mipmapping on/off
...
Please, NEVER turn off mipmapping!!! :evil:

[NecroDOME]

I think the best way to have a game is by the gameplay. Old games are often as fun as new games, but I do not like ugly games. I want eye-candy :)



Please, NEVER turn off mipmapping!!! Evil or Very Mad

My engine doesn't support mipmapping (yet)...

[Huehnerschaender]

Supported until now:
...
- Mipmapping on/off
...
Please, NEVER turn off mipmapping!!! :evil:

In my game I do it always... In my opinion it looks much better without mipmapping. Please notice, that my game is played from birdview! I don't have a horizon or very far away objects. Every object in the whole (visible) scene has nearly the same distance to camera. Mipmapping causes the textures to get blurred what I found more ugle than helpful in my game engines view. For first/third person games it is of course necessary to turn on mipmapping, not only for performance, but also for the visuals. In my game it is not.

But I still want the user be able to decide...

Greetings,
Dirk

[Clootie]

Please, NEVER turn off mipmapping!!! :evil:
In my game I do it always... In my opinion it looks much better without mipmapping. ...
Yes, I understand that your game is rendering objects from a "birdview". But if turning off mipmapping "enhances" IQ this means that final image will became more noisy. It can look better on screenshots, but never in animation. If you consider to increase textures quality - turn on aniso-filtering.

[Huehnerschaender]

Maybe this is a matter of personal "opinion", or maybe a matter of used hardware like display and refresh rate. It looks just better to me without mipmapping, and I am not talking about screenshots :) I cannot do anything against it.

Of course I believe in everything you say! Don't understand me wrong. But I let the user decide if it looks better or not with the option to turn it on/off. I think this way I am on everyones site.

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: I am just on my way to support different screenresolutions. It's a little hard work atm, because I didn't take care of using resolutionvariables to draw 2D stuff. I used values instead, which is now a little mess to fix. But I am on my way, so hopefully there will be another option for the user, if he likes to play in 800x600 or 1280x1024.

[aidave]

http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-hydra.jpg
Blocked Hydra boss

http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/hydra-dead.jpg
after u blow it up

[NecroDOME]

@aidave: I like the style of your game according to your screenshots. Good work :)

[savage]

Looking good AI Dave. I hope you find time to finish it.

[Huehnerschaender]

Wheee..... look great! :shock:

[aidave]

thanx !
tried fraps this morning to make this video:

blocked - boss #2 (www.sundrop.ca/files/Blocked-stage5boss.wmv)
5mb, 30s, no sound

8)

ps. the video is alot slower than the game :?

[chronozphere]

Hi, aidave, Nice movie... looks great. :razz: :toocool:

What are you planning to add to your game.
What kind of, and how many objects and enemy's will there be in the game??
It would be nice to make some rocks, so you can hide behind it or jump on it.

Keep up the good work 8)

[aidave]

of course there are rocks
and blocks! ;)
there are many
objects and enemies
and things to do.

the hydra has three attacks
one of which is a trajectory mine
even if u hide behind something it can still get ya!

[Huehnerschaender]

I agree, looks really good! :)

Keep on your work.

I am looking forward to play your final entry 8)

[Traveler]

I'm getting a 404 :(

Screenshot does look real nice though!

[chronozphere]

I'm getting a 404 :(


I've checked your link.. and it's indeed a dead one now :twisted: :(

[michalis]

Uf, stage 5 entry uploaded. Here are 2 screenshots of new level and a new bast.. I mean new enemy to fight :)

http://upload3.postimage.org/111748/castle_screen_1.jpg (http://upload3.postimage.org/111748/photo_hosting.html) http://upload3.postimage.org/111750/castle_screen_6.jpg (http://upload3.postimage.org/111750/photo_hosting.html)

[Huehnerschaender]

Michalis, looks really good :D

Will the teeth of the ghost bite? And if so, will they stick to the sword after the ghost is dying? :lol: just kidding :wink:

The screenies look much more detailed then the last one I saw. Keep on! I am also looking forward to play your entry!

[Huehnerschaender]

A low quality video of my 80% finished 2nd miniboss.
At the moment I am not able to shoot it, I am not really sure how I should let the user fire in the air.

I am considering 2 possibilities:

- Let the user shoot with the cannon like he does to fire enemys on the ground (which is easier for the player, but then gives no advantage to the miniboss flying instead of driving (except it has no collisions with the objects)).
- Let the user shoot the cannon with a special key (space or so) to fire straight up into the camera. This would come in handy because the player has to try to stay directly under the heli to shoot it, which will not be easy, because it is always trying to position itself in firing range.

I tend to the second solution. But wait and see what I implement ^^

http://www.dino-it.de/heli.wmv

Greetings,

Dirk

[chronozphere]

Hi Dirk Great movie 8)

hmmm :think: That's a hard choice:

If i where you, i would make a weapon that almost acts like all ground weapons but fires in the air. The player must collect ammo for this weapon before he meets the heli-boss. he cannot use the weapon for ground targets, and he doesn't need to stay straight under the heli. I think its a bit more realistic to let the tank shoot at the heli from a distance. If you rotate the missile a little bit to the camera (like its fired in the air), it will be a nice anti aircraft weapon.

Good luck :D

[Robert Kosek]

Excellent work Dirk, I love it! :D I also love how the chopper uses many of the player's weapons to bear. I'm looking forwards to the result!

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi again.

I nearly finished my heli-miniboss today.

I did it this way now:

The machine gun of the tank has 2 modes. Pressing spacebar switches from ground to air mode and vice versa. So the ammo of the normal machine gun is used to fire in the air. When firing in the air, the shots are leaving trails in the air with a flyby sound near the camera 8)

The heli can take off and die now (as shown in the video).
It will use its rockets only in phase two of the fight (heli got too much damage). When damaged it leaves a smoke trail. When it gets down, it looses its rotor of course, which flys into the direction of the camera (my known special touch of the game :wink: ).

For the video I just placed it on the map. In the final entry it will be posted in a well defensed enemy camp or so and it will have time to take off before it gets in range of the player.

Anyway, take a look at the video and tell me if I can do something better.
Personally I am quite satisfied with the result of the last 2 days.

Greetings,
Dirk

http://www.dino-it.de/helifin.wmv

[Robert Kosek]

Excellent! I love the looks and sounds of it all.

Visually the only thing you could improve would be to add particles that blow out from under the chopper during takeoff, and perhaps adding a visible cockpit to the model. I think you might want to increase the range of the rockets outside the standard "range" of the helicopter, just to force the player into pursuit - which could lead them into enemies and whatnot.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks :D

The cockpit is a thing I will work on if I have time. Need to change the texture. This one is just a camouflage texture without details.

You are right! I knew I forgot something. The dust on the ground when heli takes off... thats just a minute's work, because its already "done" for the falling trees.

I have to test out the distance of the rockets. The heli is not as dangerous in the video as it will be in the final release. It's just a showcase of it's AI. The damageoutput of the rockets will be much higher later on.

I will add some "basic" helis as standard enemys, so the air mode of the gun makes sense in the whole game and not just at the miniboss.

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

The propeller going towards the camera looks good. I would also have the helicopter crack in 2 when it crashes. Maybe even have a woulded pilot crawl out if you have the time, or leave that for after the comp.

Dirk and all competitors should try and agree to write a postmortem on their development efforts so that we can find out what you learnt and why you made the design and programming decision you made while developing you're entry. I'm sure most of use would benefit from your insights.

PS. Erik, we are still waiting for your postmortem from last year :).

[Eric]

Erik, we are still waiting for your postmortem from last year

hmm, was convinced I had sent it to you or WILL a few months ago... *digs sent box*... got a mail with a "postmortem.htm" attached sent on 11/01, re-sending the attachment.
Not sure it's the "compete" version though, seems to be missing a conclusion, but "went right" and "went wrong" seems to be there at least. :wink:

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Savage....


Maybe even have a woulded pilot crawl out if you have the time, or leave that for after the comp.

No, I will not :wink: I like the idea of doing such things cause it's cool, but my game has to go without any visible violence against human beings. This will be an action game without any blood or something. I was thinking about this decision weeks before and came to my personal conclusion that I want to make a funny action game without blood (I was thinking about human enemys like soldiers with MG or Bazooka, Soldiers running out of buildings or exploding tanks etc). Maybe the next project. Or maybe I decide to include violence after the compo. But I hope my game will be good enough to be worth a play without any blood.

The breaking heli is a thing I will include if I have the time. I also want the rotor fly back to earth while its rotation decreases. It should leave debris on the floor then. But I have to do other things first now to get the points for stage 6.

Postmortem? Hmmm..... you are not the first who asks about this :wink: Let's just wait and see if more than 2 people are interested in a pm.

Greetings,
Dirk

[WILL]

Erik, we are still waiting for your postmortem from last year

hmm, was convinced I had sent it to you or WILL a few months ago... *digs sent box*... got a mail with a "postmortem.htm" attached sent on 11/01, re-sending the attachment.
Not sure it's the "compete" version though, seems to be missing a conclusion, but "went right" and "went wrong" seems to be there at least. :wink:

Eric already sent me a copy, I just haven't posted it yet. Then again it's not from lack of trying. The article editor is down on the new site since the big hack, my old laptop took the plunge into computer heaven and the Navy has seen it fit to send me to every useless sail and tasking sucking up every drop of free time to attend to any of this... :lol:

But I'll see about getting it done once the old scripts are put into the new site and article posting is brought back up. ;)

[NecroDOME]

I have posted 3 more video's on my site. Take a look if you are interested. It just shows the gameplay.

Site:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Project.nss?project=Game_SCAG

[Huehnerschaender]

:shock:

It hurts that your game looks so great! :wink:

[savage]

I have posted 3 more video's on my site. Take a look if you are interested. It just shows the gameplay.

Site:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Project.nss?project=Game_SCAG

Looks great.
What sort of enemy AI is there?
It looks like they just come straight at you and don't try to dodge?
Also what does the teapot in the left of the screen mean?
Is the switch from side to top compulsory or can the player change that at anytime ingame/ in real time.

[NecroDOME]

Switching is not something the player can do.
The theepot is our special weapon... :)

AI, not much, ships just fly, don't try to dodge your bullets otherwise it would be too hard; but there are ships that can move aside, but it's not dodging bullets or rockets

[chronozphere]

Wow looking good :)

I like the new weapon... and the Action and the FX.

Keep it up. :wink:

BTW did you made the background-music yourself, if not where did you get it :razz:

[Traveler]

Well I guess this is it, the final week of the competition. Only 7 days to go before the judges go back into their secret chambers one more time, to prepare their final judgement.

I wish you all good luck.


And to cheer up Hue, here's a screenshot of the current state of my entry. :mrgreen:
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgdentrystage6.jpg

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey! Looks good Traveler! Nice polish since last Screenies.
That cheers me up, you are right :lol:

I don't have much new to show... I was busy fixing bugs and adding settings/options the last days.

Everything gets fixed slower than I thought. The different screen resolutions eat my time and I am not finished yet. Everytime I play I find new things misplaced by a different screen resolution. This is really annouing. But I learned from that. Next time this has to be counted in from the beginning. Never use absolute screen positions. Always calculate with the aspect ratio of the screen resolution!

[madwoody]

Think this is the last screenshot of our game because we are very near the deadline. We added a new level and offcourse with a boss in it.

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG28.jpg

More screenshots and ingame movies can offcourse be found on our site (http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Project.nss?project=Game_SCAG)

[Huehnerschaender]

Great job guys!
I am very looking forward playing S.C.A.G.

I think the judges will have a hard time to judge the entrys. What I have seen here within the contest was amazing. I am very curious about the final entrys and I swear, I will play them all until I killed the endboss and reached the ending scene.

It is really funny to see this screenshot thread and read it from the beginning again. The progress of each single game, caught in screenshots and videos is worth a second look.

Thanks to all who took part in this contest. And thanks to all who posted comments and ideas on my entry. I found it VERY helpful to post videos and screenshots of my game, even if I outed my work very early and giving those who posted nothing a kind of advantage. But I fixed many bugs since I published Betas of my game, which I wouldn't have found myself in this short time. I got tons of ideas from people who tried out my game, many of these things influenced my final product. So personally I am happy with the decision of releasing much info about my entry soon.
Thats just a little hint to those who protected their work a little like a secret.

Greetings,
Dirk