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Traveler
28-01-2006, 05:34 PM
I thought it might be a nice idea to start a thread where people can post screenshots of their entries. I suppose it could be of anything, concept, in game screenshots, storyboards whatever.

Here goes mine. Its a shot straight out of Lightwave, but I'm aiming to get my game as close to this as possible. (2d game btw)

http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgd_compo_towerBig.jpg

tux
28-01-2006, 05:46 PM
eep, i think its time i start to panic :)

Feo
28-01-2006, 06:11 PM
very nice! :o

Robert Kosek
28-01-2006, 06:23 PM
:thumbup: Wow. If you get it even half way close to that it'll be stunning!

cairnswm
28-01-2006, 06:42 PM
With a bit of luck - the first screen shots from our game engine will be out on monday evening sometime.

Kefir
28-01-2006, 07:13 PM
Oh damn... Hey, grouzd)Ev, how do you think, should we show them our screenshot. 8))

LP
28-01-2006, 08:14 PM
Traveler, that image looks amazing! I especially like shadows, something that takes several hours to render here in 3dsMax. Can't wait to see your game. :)

Clootie
28-01-2006, 08:37 PM
Hey! It's scare tactics! Traveler, you are aiming to FUD your competitors by using Lightwave editor/renderer! :lol:

EugenioEnko
28-01-2006, 09:18 PM
Hey! It's scare tactics! Traveler, you are aiming to FUD your competitors by using Lightwave editor/renderer! :lol: :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

Traveler
29-01-2006, 12:29 PM
Thanks all :D


With a bit of luck - the first screen shots from our game engine will be out on monday evening sometime.
Great! Looking forward to them :)


Oh damn... Hey, grouzd)Ev, how do you think, should we show them our screenshot. 8))
You bet, let's see what you done so far!



Traveler, that image looks amazing! I especially like shadows, something that takes several hours to render here in 3dsMax. Can't wait to see your game


Thanks! It's exactly the shadows I'm worried about. In lightwave this is quite easy. Put all objects together in a scene, add a light and hit the render button. In my game I'll have to separate these elements. I might be able to fake the shadows a bit, but they'll never look as good as these.
Ps. The grass is the killer in this scene, a 640x480 shot takes around 6 mins.


Hey! It's scare tactics! Traveler, you are aiming to FUD your competitors by using Lightwave editor/renderer!
LOL. Yeah of course :twisted:

Nah j/k I never ever want to see someone quit the compo just because I can make pretty renders in a 3D app.

Stoney
29-01-2006, 06:24 PM
Well, my turn. :)
Now I show some graphics of my RPG-styled game, 2D isometric of course. I'm using a self-developed JEDI-SDL wrapper (see my signature) for the game, the editor will be made with (Un)DelphiX. Here's the shot:
http://stein.bs-game.de/pgd/testshot.jpg
(Bad jpeg compression :( )
I'm not sure of using a simple rendered background or a tile engine instead. :?
An editor screenshot isn't ready yet, but it will look like the editor of my abadonned RTS game project: See here (http://stein.bs-game.de/mechhunter/screen6.jpg).

czar
29-01-2006, 06:35 PM
Good start however you will need to fix the background as the objects appear to float above the ground.

For your RPG have you thought how you are going to do conversations with npcs? I started a system but I made it too complex and inflexible and subseuqnetly never finished it.

LP
29-01-2006, 07:22 PM
Thanks! It's exactly the shadows I'm worried about. In lightwave this is quite easy. Put all objects together in a scene, add a light and hit the render button. In my game I'll have to separate these elements. I might be able to fake the shadows a bit, but they'll never look as good as these.
Ps. The grass is the killer in this scene, a 640x480 shot takes around 6 mins.

I think faking shadows is a common way to do it and if done right it may look very good (and difficult to notice). It also depends on the perspective the object is looked at: isometric view gives an advantage here.


Now I show some graphics of my RPG-styled game, 2D isometric of course. I'm using a self-developed JEDI-SDL wrapper (see my signature) for the game, the editor will be made with (Un)DelphiX.
The stone looks a bit like "floating" and not actually staying on the land. I'd suggest that you increase shadow intensity. If you can't make alpha-blended shadows, then at least you can apply old good 50% dithering (chessboard like, every 2nd pixel is transparent) to make it look transparent. A high resolution like 800x600 and bigger would make it almost unnoticeable.

cairnswm
30-01-2006, 06:17 AM
Here is our first screen shot. (After three days lost due to Mobile Game Dev distractions - development has started again!)

Verne-X will be a horizontal SHMUP - based on the Jules Verne Theme.

Nothin much I admit. Basically have a scrolling map, a collision detection system and an explosion maker.

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernex-sc1.jpg

I'm finding testing what I have incredibly difficult without a level editor. So toinight is level editor time. Basically making the layout of the level for now.

Traveler
30-01-2006, 09:57 AM
Looking pretty good Stoney! Are those graphics done by yourself?

Sounds like an interesting theme cairnswm. I like your new graphics as well, definitely an improvement over the old style.

cairnswm
30-01-2006, 10:10 AM
Thanks Traveller. Not sure I like the new graphics style more than the old one, but its certainly different. Comes from having a proper artist working on the graphics. I however really like Reiners graphics and will certainly use them again in the future.

Stoney
30-01-2006, 03:56 PM
Good start however you will need to fix the background as the objects appear to float above the ground.



The stone looks a bit like "floating" and not actually staying on the land. I'd suggest that you increase shadow intensity. If you can't make alpha-blended shadows, then at least you can apply old good 50% dithering (chessboard like, every 2nd pixel is transparent) to make it look transparent. A high resolution like 800x600 and bigger would make it almost unnoticeable.


You both are right. I solved this problem, as Lifepower mentioned, with alpha-blended shadows. I suprised how good it looks :D
Unfortunately I cannot increase shadow intensity without changing all light sources.


For your RPG have you thought how you are going to do conversations with npcs? I started a system but I made it too complex and inflexible and subseuqnetly never finished it.

Long chats with NPCs are not planned right now, but if I have enough time I will add simple conversations, like: "Hello, how are you?" - "Not quite good! There is an evil goblin in the forest who is insulting me all the time! Can you please kill it for me?" I thought of saving these litte conversations in a textfile and load them through arrays. I will definitely think more of this when it's time to implement quests and trading with NPCs.



Looking pretty good Stoney! Are those graphics done by yourself?


Yes. Exceptly most of the textures (like the stone texture) were taken from some freeware texture sites.
You're making pretty graphics as well. :)

McCLaw
30-01-2006, 06:10 PM
I thought it might be a nice idea to start a thread where people can post screenshots of their entries. I suppose it could be of anything, concept, in game screenshots, storyboards whatever.

Here goes mine. Its a shot straight out of Lightwave, but I'm aiming to get my game as close to this as possible. (2d game btw)



Very Nice DUDE!! :)

This compo rocks!!

Good luck on rendering it :)

JSoftware
30-01-2006, 10:18 PM
Nice screenshots you all show here! I'm finally finished with my message handler. The most extreme piece of pointer jugling i've coded to date :shock:
Vector, matrix, quaternion, cpufeatures, kernel, messagehandler, configurator and preliminary opengl rendering functionality finished. Planning to get screenshots up two days from now.

So..
Any modellers out there who want to join the winning team?! :D

cairnswm
31-01-2006, 06:52 AM
Here is the first view of the Level Editor.

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/VXEdit.JPG

jdarling
31-01-2006, 02:31 PM
Well, I haven't started on the real graphics yet, but my Sprite and Level editor are comming along quite well. Once I get the Level Editor complete and the scripting engine cleaned up I'll move on to attempting to draw (or borrow) the final graphics. Look for things to change greatly :).

Sprite Editor (or manager):
http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/SpriteEd1.png
http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/SpriteEd2.png

Level Editor
http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/LevelEd1.png

As you can see, the minimap does display much at this time, but it works and the viewing rect re-sizes and allows you to drag to other sections of the screen easily enough.

Framerate is always locked at 60 fps. I'm working on a Retro style game (think back to Zelda). Was going to do something fancier, but in the end I like the old look and feel much more. Now its time to figure out how to manage objects and placement :).

FNX
31-01-2006, 03:53 PM
Wow!
You are all working hard on the entries while i didn't yet wrote a
single line of code :P My job and MidletPascal are sucking away all my
spare time! Actually i just wrote a little particle engine for explosions...

As i said i won't compete for the deadlines anyway, i'll try to have a small
but complete game for the end of the compo.

The only "screenshot" i can submit is my avatar, our new FNX Games
character that will be starring the game ;)
If my gfx artist is going to help me i'll try to post a mochup screen of the
game!

[EDIT:] my gfx artist has just submitted this :) http://194.20.52.29/fnxgames/imgs/cosetto2b.gif

Robert Kosek
31-01-2006, 05:16 PM
Wow! Good work there Jimmy!

I really look forward to all the stuff done by this year's competitors!

Traveler
01-02-2006, 10:03 AM
Looking good cairnswm & jdarling. I wish my map editor was already that far :)

I had big plans to work on one myself last night, but I had some minor difficulties with code between D5 (EE) and D7 (PE). Something that worked great in D5 didn't in D7. At first I thought it had something to do with the code for the texture manager, I was working on in D5 (at work) because, before that everything seemed to work perfectly in D7.
After an hour or so searching I came to the conclusion that it had nothing to do with the code for the texture manager at all, but with the setLength function, I had used in something else. :doh: Somehow it seems, D7 has a different implementation or something I dunno, Anyway, I redid that whole part (for the better) but it did cost me most of the evening.

jdarling
01-02-2006, 02:00 PM
I'll trade ya, I wrote up the first instance of the actual game engine last night just to realize that I forgot to include object culling and position proper rendering :(. On top of that, I forogot to add support into my object queue for node movement :(. Oh well, its only about a day or two's worth of work to clean up my mistakes.

Course then comes the hard part, moving from completely software rendering into hardware support for rendering :). Luckily nothing in my engine knows how to actually draw itself, it calls display methods to handle that... Just have to make DirectX, OpenGL, and GDI all work the same. If I can't then I'll have to drop the idea of letting the user select the rendering device and force DirectX for the time being.

NecroDOME
01-02-2006, 04:05 PM
My entry is called SCAG that stands for SColling Action Game

Here are some screenies:

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/App_Necro3D/SCAG1.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/App_Necro3D/SCAG2.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/App_Necro3D/SCAG3.jpg

[Edit] * Sorry for the ugly shots, there's much work to be done on the modeling of the map and ships!!

They can also be found here:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Project.nss?project=App_Necro3D

(My server uses pascal script is your wondering what the extension nss is...)

Feo
06-02-2006, 06:57 PM
basic level editor
http://aw.mirg.ru/feo/ed.JPG

XProger
07-02-2006, 04:39 AM
World Editor
http://universe.mirgames.ru/img/shots/worlded_1.jpg

K4Z
07-02-2006, 10:20 AM
Main character.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v89/donuts/PGDc06-1.jpg

Traveler
07-02-2006, 04:31 PM
Oh boy http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/bouncy
I'm soo looking forward to this years entries!

Mirage
07-02-2006, 05:00 PM
How do you do this so fast? :shock:
I've started a new engine and even have no renderer yet. So I can't post any screenshots. :(
BTW, nice screens. :D

LP
07-02-2006, 06:17 PM
How do you do this so fast? :shock:
I've started a new engine and even have no renderer yet. So I can't post any screenshots. :(
Don't let the "scare tactics" prevent you from making your own entry. ;) Besides, nobody works at the same rhythm/schedule, so the "visual" stuff can come first in one project and last in another.

User137
07-02-2006, 07:25 PM
BTW, nice screens. :D
Don't be fooled by those renders. Many have posted images out of modelling programs, not rendered with their game engines yet. They may make some small 20x20 sprites out of them :wink: No worries, you are doing fine...

K4Z
07-02-2006, 11:47 PM
Heh heh, yes that shot is just another render out of Lightwave, and will be a prerendered sprite, so don't sweat it :D :D.

Huehnerschaender
08-02-2006, 12:03 AM
Hi there,

here is my progress. Today I started with a simple Leveleditor. It's not nearly finished, but the essential features are implemented (let me drop tiles on the map). The next steps are rather easy I guess.

http://www.dino-it.de/tanxLE.jpg

My game engine at work looks like this at the moment. I have to make better models, but thats not so important at this stage of the project. I spent too much time on the explosions already *lol*

http://www.dino-it.de/tanx1.jpg


http://www.dino-it.de/tanx2.jpg


Greetings,
Dirk
[/img]

czar
08-02-2006, 04:25 AM
HI Huehnerschaender
That looks rather cool. Will the battle view zoomable? The tank seems to fill quite a large part of the screen which doesn't allow for much reaction time and less planning.

When do we get to see a demo?

Huehnerschaender
08-02-2006, 07:48 AM
hi czar,

yes it already is. if you move the target cross out of the view, the camera zooms out to the maximum firing range.
a demo? don't know. if someone starts releasing demos i think i will do the same :D
but there is a lot work to do, especially collision detection algorithms.

greetings,
dirk

McCLaw
08-02-2006, 07:55 AM
hi czar,

yes it already is. if you move the target cross out of the view, the camera zooms out to the maximum firing range.
a demo? don't know. if someone starts releasing demos i think i will do the same :D
but there is a lot work to do, especially collision detection algorithms.

greetings,
dirk

Damn!!

We are building the same type of game :eek:

savage
08-02-2006, 10:08 AM
Wow the entries just keep getting better and better!

I'm glad I'm not a judge this year, sounds like it will be tougher than it was last year. I do however look forward to playing some of these demos.

I hereby put myself forward as an official beta tester :lol:. PM me and I can provide feedback on all works in progress, confidentiality guaranteed ;).

cairnswm
08-02-2006, 08:07 PM
I love working with a proper artist!

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/verneintro1.jpg

This si the mission selection screen, The screen where you select the mission in the game you want to play.

savage
08-02-2006, 09:00 PM
Can I visit FPS 107 ;)

Traveler
08-02-2006, 10:22 PM
I'm not too keen on the smoke, but the rest is looking mighty nice, cairnswm!

Huehnerschaender, yours are looking awesome too. I especially like the screenshot with the tank.

About demos. I'm not sure if I'll release a demo immediately after the deadline of the current stage, but there are definitely going to be releases a bit further down the road. I only have 3 pc to test it on, mayby four. But by releasing it, I may get more input from other users.

czar
08-02-2006, 11:37 PM
Scrap the demos - I hadn't clicked that it was for a competition when replied.

However, can't wait see the end results

cairnswm
09-02-2006, 07:03 AM
Can I visit FPS 107

Not sure you'd want to - its actually a really really boring level. In fact we on purpose forgot to add any enemies, obstructions etc. However if you finish the level we do deduct some money from your stash. :)

Oh and you cant shoot when on that level!

cairnswm
09-02-2006, 07:26 AM
Can I presume the judges will have the SDL libraries installed?

WILL
09-02-2006, 07:29 AM
Can I presume the judges will have the SDL libraries installed?
On Linux, yes. On Win32, no.

This is the usual situation for SDL though.

cairnswm
09-02-2006, 07:53 AM
Pity -that adds 600KB to my installer.

savage
09-02-2006, 09:26 AM
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to request that the judges have SDL installed. It should only take them 10 minutes to download all the required dlls.

cairnswm
09-02-2006, 09:40 AM
Just for fun:

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernexscreen1.jpg

NecroDOME
09-02-2006, 11:03 AM
Better graphics :D

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/App_Necro3D/SCAG5.jpg

Traveler
09-02-2006, 12:13 PM
Not to brag or anything, but the shots so far are of a far better quality than the ones I've seen during the GDNet compo. I wonder why...

savage
09-02-2006, 01:22 PM
I wonder why...

The 2 Ps. Passion for Pascal.

NecroDOME
09-02-2006, 05:12 PM
It's just that I have better skills in 3D max and photoshop, it has nothing to do with the engine. (in my case :P )

Now I'm gonna focus on the gameplay.

technomage
09-02-2006, 06:15 PM
Can I presume the judges will have the SDL libraries installed?

I'll of my machines will have the latest SDL libraries installed.

That said if you are planning to release the games after the compo it might be wise to include these files...

LP
09-02-2006, 06:55 PM
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to request that the judges have SDL installed. It should only take them 10 minutes to download all the required dlls.

I would still ask that these libraries to be supplied with the game or at least having instructions on where to get them. The same applies to any D3DX DLLs being used.

It is guaranteed that things that appear in my "judge specs" will be installed. Other than that, it's not for sure. I can't even say what is going to be installed on Linux, since it's very likely I'll reinstall Linux just prior the judging (my FAT got messed up because of half-dead HD, so I'll be having a "clean install").

tux
09-02-2006, 09:25 PM
heres our entry:

http://www.sulaco.co.za/rage_game_engine/torture_tank_game.htm

WILL
10-02-2006, 02:52 AM
I personally don't think it's unreasonable to request that the judges have SDL installed. It should only take them 10 minutes to download all the required dlls.

SDL on Win32 is not like SDL on Linux. There is no common API installation or package like there is for DirectX or OpenGL(in fact all versions of windows come with OpenGL and at least some version of DirecX).

SDL on Linux is just like DirectX and OpenGL where it's a common package you can just download, install and use.

Becuase SDL has no standard installation for Win32, I recommend including the DLL files of the version you use.

THATS another issue! You include the version of SDL libraries you use and you know 100% that it will work. And it's less hassle for the judges than checking for proper DLLs for 40-something submissions(40 is the total number of teams competing this year)...

It's just better to include the Win32 DLLs for everyone. Stability-safe and more user-friendly.

Traveler
15-02-2006, 11:10 PM
Now that stage 3 has commenced, lets continue the screenshots, shall we?

My previous shot was taken straight from Lightwave. Since then quite a bit has happend. Next to the obvious programming, I've spend a lot of time on graphics. So far, most of the time went into the tree(10%), (grass(tile creation in general)40%) shadows(15%), wooden tower(15%), stone tower (20%) I think I have said this earlier, but it is really amazing how much time it takes before you get a convincing landscape. Surely, I am getting better at it, but still.

Anyhow here's a new screenshot of the actual game in progress.
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgd_compo_ingame1.jpg

Btw, this image is 95% stage 2, I've only added these towers since then.
Also, in future shots, trees and buildings may increase in size due to proportion issues.

In any case, c&c's are welcomed, own entry screenshots too :)

savage
15-02-2006, 11:24 PM
Looking good, what do the red and 2 gold dots do? Is that giving away too much?

Robert Kosek
16-02-2006, 12:02 AM
:shock: Nice work Traveller! What genre will your entry be?

I think the red/yellow dots are flowers. :P But I'm probably wrong.

Huehnerschaender
16-02-2006, 12:54 AM
Traveler, I like your graphics style! I can't wait to get something playable in my hands. As someone asked before, what type of genre are you in?


I have finished my alpha blending for my map tiles in the game. Now it doesn't look so glued together anymore as you can see in the lower edges of the screenie :D
http://www.dino-it.de/screen006.jpg

I also worked on my "ugly" trees. I like them as they now are. The good thing is, the enemys can hide under them :twisted:
http://www.dino-it.de/screen009.jpg

Other progress:
I made a new enemy model, a new building model and added a big part of collision detection/response.

I am very satisfied with my progress in this short time, because my childs are both ill and they need my "entertainment", too... 8)

What about the other competitors?


Greetings,
Dirk

jdarling
16-02-2006, 02:43 AM
Well, my graphics arn't near as fancy. Course then again I'm playing on the Retro front :). Attached is a copy of the "Level Editor" and an in game shot. Since the game is running at 640x480 full screen mode (again to keep the retro feel) the screen shot is a bit small on some screens :). I've got most everything ready including that you can walk into the icons on the screen and be transported into another area or level. Now I have to get fine movement collision working and figure out a few things like what level of AI the NPC's and Enemies will have.

Editor:
http://eonclash.com/JumpStart/Editor%20Stage%201.png

In Engine:
http://eonclash.com/JumpStart/In%20Game%20Stage%201.png

Oh yeah, it might be worth mentioning that the player is the little wolf looking guy, and the robot looking thing is one of the enemy sprites.

Traveler
16-02-2006, 09:23 AM
Thanks for the feedback :)

About the gold/ red colored dots, I think I overdid the compression on the jpg's a bit. Those are actually mushrooms (but could be flowers too :)). They're supposed to be bright white and red. :)
Due to stage 2 deadline issues, I had to include them in the tree image, but in the coming versions, mushrooms, flowers etc will be seperate objects.

About genre: without giving away too much, its going to be sort of a strategy game.

At the moment there isn't really that much of a game to show. Right now, its possible to edit the map and scroll around. But thats really it.
Plan is to release a demo, when I have some enemies around, to interact with.

Huehnerschaender: I like your graphics a lot too. Especially the ground textures. How large are they anway? And I don't think your trees are ugly at all. Perhaps a tad too dark compared to the ground, but other than that, they're quite nice.

jdarling: your editor looks great. Better than mine atm anyway :oops:

Looking forward to playing both your games :)

How bout other contestants? No need to be shy 8)

Huehnerschaender
16-02-2006, 10:20 AM
Traveler:
Thanks for the feedback, too. The dark touch may come from the shadows on the ground and maybe from the JPG-compression. When it's in action, it does look quite nice I think :D But in one of the last stages I will take a look at the graphics again to make them all fitting together optical. At the moment I am more at progging gameplay than making graphics. The trees on the last screenies are the ones I like too :wink: The trees I designed before were ugly :oops:
The textures for the ground are of 256*256 size. I divide them into 16 64*64 textures and apply alpha blending to the smaller ones when it's necessary (this also gives better results with light sources).

jdarling:
your game looks to me as if you're going into RPG-direction... I was always a fan of those games. I would like to see more of it in the future!

Greetings,
Dirk

jdarling
16-02-2006, 02:22 PM
Thanks guys, both of your graphics scare the hell out of me :). I've spent ALOT of time on the editor(s), backend and scripting engine. Unfortunately I don't have any graphics experience at all :(, so I'm using canned stuff that I can find lying around.

The game is very much like the origional Legend Of Zelda. So kinda an RPG, or at least as close as the deadlines let me get. I'm well on target for phase 3 and 4, its 5 and 6 that scare me!

Can't wait to play the others myself, as they both look GREAT!

Traveler, can we run over the objects on the screen and get destruction? Like when you hit a mushroom does it go poof! I love the old games, but some of the stuff brought out in new tech is quite impressive. Land and object destruction definately makes a game more interesting. I've spent hours blowing holes in the ground on Tanks 3D!

Huehnerschaender, the idea of letting the trees cover enemies and provide hiding places is quite excelent. I played with the idea once (in isometric) of having clouds and fog banks that moved across the playing field allowing enemies (and players) to use nature as their friend instead of just an annoiance. Too bad it never came to fruition.

Traveler
16-02-2006, 02:52 PM
Dont sweat it. Good graphics still dont make a good game... (though they do sell, apparently).

My game doesn't involve destruction of land. At least not much. Perhaps small impact craters, but those'll be just textures. I'm going for a fantasy setting. So there are no tanks or other modern weaponry :)

AthenaOfDelphi
16-02-2006, 09:54 PM
Nice work everyone :-D I love some of these screenshots. I was 50/50 whether we'd enter the competition, but I can't remember the last time I had such an urge to spend the entire weekend coding :-) I'm really enjoying it and seeing what everyone else is doing and I can't wait to play some of these games.

And, here we have the first screenshots of what we've got so far.
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006/gameeditor.gif
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006/mapeditor.gif
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006/playengine.gif
(yes, a measley 20fps... its slow in Windowed mode with most of the debug stuff visible)

Keep up the fantastic work everyone, I'm loving this :-)

jdarling
17-02-2006, 03:11 PM
Dont sweat it. Good graphics still dont make a good game... (though they do sell, apparently).

My game doesn't involve destruction of land. At least not much. Perhaps small impact craters, but those'll be just textures. I'm going for a fantasy setting. So there are no tanks or other modern weaponry :)

Sorry Traveler, I don't always keep people straight in my head when I'm trying to write messages. Actually I hardly ever keep people straight in my head :). So far everyones entries look great to me.

aidave
17-02-2006, 09:22 PM
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/version03/water1-half.jpg
Blocked

Huehnerschaender
17-02-2006, 10:19 PM
Wheee... looks interesting ^^

What type of game is this? Jump and Run?

Traveler
18-02-2006, 12:08 PM
Looking good! :thumbup:

aidave
18-02-2006, 09:48 PM
i dunno what to call it
u can jump and run in it tho

8)

savage
22-02-2006, 01:32 PM
I hope some if not all of you are keeping some kind of informal development diary as it would be great to read some kind of Post Mortem about your projects after the competition is over.

Huehnerschaender
22-02-2006, 01:44 PM
Unfortunately I don't have the time to do this.
I have a fulltime job and two kids, I am happy for every hour I can put in the development of the entry (I can hardly achieve 2 hours a day and thats not that much I would really need).

savage
22-02-2006, 01:50 PM
It's just an "if you can/have the time" type scenario :).

jdarling
22-02-2006, 02:12 PM
Well seeing as my background is a BSA, I've got everything from a Design Document to a Testing Plan. Maybe I'll have to add a diary to the list of things to start keeping up to date!

michalis
22-02-2006, 02:57 PM
I hope some if not all of you are keeping some kind of informal development diary as it would be great to read some kind of Post Mortem about your projects after the competition is over.

I'm using Subversion repository to develop my game (since quite some time I do pretty much everything inside version control :) ). I think that I'll just add some ChangeLog files (generated by `svn log -v .' of my game and my units) to the tar.gz that I'll upload for stage 3.

As for all the screenshots I've seen in this thread: in short, you're all doing just great !

I am quite embarassed that I still don't have some really nice sample level to show --- when it wil be ready (should be definitely before stage 3 deadline) I'll sure post some screenshots here :)

jdarling
22-02-2006, 08:21 PM
I'm running into a problem. I can't decide if I like the look of my HUD so far. It isn't complete, but you can see the Life and Power bars in the bottom right corner. In the hump in the middle of the HUD would be a text box displaying anything from communications with NPC's to movement commands (yes its very textish). Anyways, comments on the brown green and blue would be nice. That is of course if you don't mind commenting on another competors UI :).

http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/WStats.png

Huehnerschaender
22-02-2006, 09:45 PM
Well, I think the main intention should be the "optical integration" into your game. For this I think it fits your overall graphical appearance of a little "comic touch". Maybe you could do something with the brown background of your UI. For example give a little more "woodish" style by adding some texture to it.

aidave
22-02-2006, 10:20 PM
I'm running into a problem. I can't decide if I like the look of my HUD so far. It isn't complete, but you can see the Life and Power bars in the bottom right corner. In the hump in the middle of the HUD would be a text box displaying anything from communications with NPC's to movement commands (yes its very textish). Anyways, comments on the brown green and blue would be nice. That is of course if you don't mind commenting on another competors UI :).

i think the HUD looks ok
the grass really needs to be "smoother" imo
it looks too grainy
maybe try dark green instead of black dots

jdarling
22-02-2006, 11:44 PM
i think the HUD looks ok
the grass really needs to be "smoother" imo
it looks too grainy
maybe try dark green instead of black dots

Well I actually haven't used any black in any of my tiles (some colors close, but none exactly) except for transparency. The grass is one of the few tiles that I'm still spending lots of time on. I'm no graphics artist, and that makes it even more difficult. On top of that all the tiles came from a freeware library (as I said I'm no artist) and I'm having to modify them to fit my needs :).

Glad to here that you think the UI is ok thus far. I'll have to expariment with some texturing to see what I can come up with.

Nitrogen
23-02-2006, 03:13 PM
I would just make the health and mana? bars conform to the usual standards:

Red bar for health and Blue for mana/magic..
Green for stamina...

What about a brown gradient from light to dark vertically along the hud?
And then you need to fill in some of the gaps, with menu buttons, options etc, looks pretty sparse at the moment, but I know it's early in development..

Looks cool!

jdarling
23-02-2006, 09:07 PM
Well, I took the suggestions, changed the color of the health bar, and textured the UI a bit. Course it also looks like I may have to pickup an artist some place to fill in some of the animation gaps that exist. There is also a lot of things that still have to be added to the UI before the end of the Compo, but this is the basic idea.

http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/UITest2.png

Pathfinding is done, now to complete the integration of the scripting engine so that item pickup and enemy/NPC interaction is possiable. If all goes well I'll actually make Stage 3 deadline :).

Huehnerschaender
23-02-2006, 09:23 PM
To me the UI background looks much better now. I am happy to hear that you proceed well with your game, even if we are rivals *hehe*
I like the feeling that there are many people doing something in Delphi which I can take a look at in the end of the contest. Thats how I learn from others, even if they don't publish their sources, it's the ideas within their work which makes me think about my own project and what I could have done better.

I have just nearly finished my main part of AI. I don't use Pathfinding, because I can't tile my gameworld into "walkable" and "not walkable" tiles. It's full of bigger and smaller obstacles in the end, which all don't size a complete tile, so the enemys can pass the tile by avoiding the obstacle.
Till now my enemys are hunting me when I am in sight. It's really funny to see the computer steer a NPC when you programmed it yourself. There is still some random movement which makes no guarantee that the enemy for example drives left aside a tree when he follows you.
When out of sight it drives back to its starting postition. There are still some missing features, so the enemys can get stuck in a deadend, cause I didn't "taught" them to drive backwards right now.
At the moment I am investing time in powerups/pickups/special weapons. I hope I have the time to get all goals for stage 3 in time. But even if not, I will go on. I have fun in this contest! That all that counts.

Screenshots will follow. There is too much debugging stuff visible at the moment.

Greetings,
Dirk

jdarling
23-02-2006, 10:27 PM
Well, as you can see in the latest screen shot, I spend alot of time in Debug Mode. Actually up until now I've taken all shots in normal play mode as Debug mode had some rendering issues. What you can't see is the console window thats relaying messages back to me about whats going on behind the scenes. I've probiably spent too much time on the debug mode, but its helped me out leaps and bounds in the end, so if it means I cut it close or miss the Stage 3 deadline then it was worth it in the long run. I think I'll probiably be releasing the game to the public on my site at the end of the compo, but I probiably won't release the source (too many hacks). I do have plans on a complete re-write that will eventually be released to the world though :).

Your previous shots looked pretty good, and the ones on Afterwarp were interesting as well :). Hope you don't miss the deadlines.

FNX
24-02-2006, 01:29 PM
Hello,
finally i can post a screenshot of my game, code name MMT.

Actually i have a basic tile engine, main sprite handling, very basic
enemies AI and particle explosions (not yet included).

I have to do a lot of work and i'm very in late because of my job :(
If i miss the next 2 deadlines i think i'll drop the compo and post the game
"when" it will be finished.

http://194.20.52.29/fnxgames/imgs/games/mirai2.gif

savage
24-02-2006, 02:09 PM
Looks great Frederico. Looks like a Godzilla type battle is about to take place. The art style is almost Pokemon like. I really hope you find the time to submit it and get it done for the competition.

jdarling
24-02-2006, 02:17 PM
Hope that you don't miss any of the deadlines Frederico, never want to see anyone drop out, but fully understand the RL things that get in the way of game development :(.

Traveler
24-02-2006, 02:17 PM
Great graphics style! Can't wait to play it. :D
And I agree with savage & jdarling, I really hope you're able to find the time to complete it for the competition.

As for my own entry. Another -paid- project has come up that's taken nearly all of my time in the last two weeks. I do hope I'm able to continue my entry this weekend/next week. Still very uncertain whether I'll be able to make it to the stage 3 deadline, though :(

FNX
24-02-2006, 02:56 PM
Thanx guys :)

The gfx is not the final one, but it does the job.
The game is a sort of rpg_view_kill_all_monsters_on_the_screen_save_the_ city_and_so_on ;)

I hope i can finish it too (and i will) but in time for the compo final deadline!
Also because the main character came out of my brain
as a mix of Ultraman, Viewtiful Joe, Power Ranger, Kamen Rider, and all
those japanese heroes and i'd like to make it be the main FNX Games
character (ala Mario or Sonic) together with Babu from Babu Puzzle.

But actually my customers are crazy and asked for thousands of new
features on our products that make me mad during daytime so at night
my brain refuse to think about coding :P

We will see.... :?:

Huehnerschaender
25-02-2006, 05:11 PM
Hi, its me again :shock:

I promised to put new screenshots in time, but I think its better to show a little movie of the gameengine "at work". Screenshots can provide a wrong impression of the actual status.

So here is a little movie:

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

What do you think of it so far? There is still much to do (I have a very very long "wishlist") . At the moment, the powerups/pickups and other "stage 3 stuff" hold me busy.

Greetings,
Dirk

FNX
25-02-2006, 05:33 PM
I promised to put new screenshots in time, but I think its better to show a little movie of the gameengine "at work". Screenshots can provide a wrong impression of the actual status.

It IS impressive! I like very much the zoom in zoom out function to
enlarge visible field :)

AthenaOfDelphi
25-02-2006, 05:56 PM
Hi Huehnerschaender,

From all (read Spirit and I) at Outer Reaches Studios... WOW!!!

We wanna play :-D

savage
25-02-2006, 06:27 PM
I concur with the sentiments already made public. A great little video. Can't wait to play it.

Actually I've yet to see a screen shot of anything that I wouldn't mind getting my hands on.

czar
25-02-2006, 06:47 PM
Hi there Huehnerschaender,

Love the video. Gives a pretty good idea where you are headed.

As a player are you that good or are the enemies brain dead? :)
I didn't see anything shoot back at you.

I love the way the top of the tank flips up into the air when it gets destroyed.

tux
25-02-2006, 06:51 PM
So here is a little movie:

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

uh oh! i think im doomed :lol:

Huehnerschaender
25-02-2006, 07:57 PM
Hi!

Thank you very much for this very positive feedback. This keeps me motivated to go on.

czar, the enemys are not really braindead, I just did not allow them to shoot, because I am currently on collision things, and its annoying getting destroyed before you reach the objects you want to test :lol:
The enemys are aiming and hunting me (you can't see it really good in the video), but they just don't shoot.

Ok guys, kids are in bed now. I have to work on my entry again 8)

Traveler
25-02-2006, 08:06 PM
Great stuff! I was perparing for a programming session this evening, but you've given me extra motivation with this movie. :thumbup:

AthenaOfDelphi
25-02-2006, 08:07 PM
uh oh! i think im doomed :lol:

Hehee... thats exactly what we thought :-D

Huehnerschaender
25-02-2006, 08:38 PM
Guys, keep cool 8) It's not even 20% finished! It's just a "tech demo" of the engine I wrote for my entry. There is no real "game", no levels, no goals, no sound, nothing. So don't worry about screenshots or movies. It's not that good as it may seem (by now :lol: ). The movie shows nearly all I have until now, and thats not too much. I am in a real hurry to achieve goals for stage 3. So keep on your good work! I want to play as many entrys as possible when the contest is over. That's why I am doing this. I want to see your stuff to gain ideas, techniques, knowledge about gameplay etc. Again, my main enemy in this contest is the time, because I have to do all the stuff on my own, including modeling, nearly all texturing, effects etc. I loose much time on this which I should invest in programming. So I really hope to have a "complete" game in the end, but I don't bet on it.

Keep on! *back at Delphi* :)

Huehnerschaender
25-02-2006, 11:55 PM
Wheeew... I can go to bed now with clear conscience :lol: Got my first pickup/powerup working correctly. Stage 3, I am coming!

Good night :wink:

tux
26-02-2006, 05:28 PM
heres a movie of our entry.

http://files.vadertrophy.com/jon/tanks/TortureTank.wmv

we still need to add particles and kill the animation after its finished (not supported in rage3d yet :( ), also the ai are a bit braindead, cant fire and cant turn the turret properly :lol:

Traveler
26-02-2006, 05:47 PM
Goodbye screenshots,.. hello videos :D

I thought some of the screenshots were top notch, but these vids sure show an even better quality level.
Its also quite cool to watch how games progress during the competition. and with the use of these video's it's even more noticable. I sure hope we get to see more of them.
Of course screenshots are also quite welcome!

I'm hoping to get mine online as well somewhere later today or tomorrow at the latest.

Huehnerschaender
26-02-2006, 06:00 PM
Wow... The graphics are looking amazing! Yeah! I want to see more! Give it to me baby :lol:

Roll out your videos guys!

jdarling
26-02-2006, 06:04 PM
heres a movie of our entry.

http://files.vadertrophy.com/jon/tanks/TortureTank.wmv

we still need to add particles and kill the animation after its finished (not supported in rage3d yet :( ), also the ai are a bit braindead, cant fire and cant turn the turret properly :lol:

What codec did you use for compression? I can kinda see the video, but all the colors are wrong and I can't actually see anything :(.

tux
26-02-2006, 06:06 PM
What codec did you use for compression? I can kinda see the video, but all the colors are wrong and I can't actually see anything :(.

i dont know the codec. i just used windows movie maker to encode it. do you have windows media player 10?

Huehnerschaender
27-02-2006, 12:41 AM
I wonder how many competitors are still out there. There were over 40 who registered, only 20 who uploaded stage 2. There are always the same people reading and posting here in the forums. I hope we are not alone. I would like to see really many entrys in this contest. What is the progress of all the other registered people/teams?

@traveler: Where is your movie? Can't wait to see it!

Frost
27-02-2006, 06:48 AM
I hope we are not alone. I would like to see really many entrys in this contest. What is the progress of all the other registered people/teams?

Yeah you are not alone :D I read this thread (almost) every day, but I'm not sure that my entry condition allow to publish current shots or especially video :roll: May be it will be after Stage3 completion.

Traveler
27-02-2006, 09:23 AM
I agree with Huehnerschaender, I too really would like to see more entries. Step into the light people! Show yourselves! :D

About my vid, I had some minor troubles, yesterday. Expect one today though (around 13 hours from now)

Huehnerschaender
27-02-2006, 10:35 PM
Traveler, your time has come *rofl*

You didn't think I would miss your own deadline, didn't you? :lol:

So where is your video? :shock:

Traveler
27-02-2006, 11:31 PM
yeah, yeah I know what I said :mrgreen:

Trouble is I wanted to have everything right, well at least the most important things that is, but alas.. no such luck. But a promise is a promise so here it is:My very first stage 3 movieclip (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/flics/pgdvideostage3.avi). (divx 5.1 required)

Here's an image of the movie
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgdstage3.jpg

It is not as long as the other movies, but then I dont have much to show.
Icons on the bottom are not the correct ones and placed incorrectly, I still need to make new versions. Also, the tower is shooting in random directions, (which was one of the things I wanted to fix today) and the sprite is definitely not finished. Mouse hovers are also not entirely acurate. In short, still a lot to do for me :)

As usualy comments are most welcome

Huehnerschaender
27-02-2006, 11:39 PM
Hi Traveler,

graphics look very nice!
What I don't understand is, what type of game will this be? Is this the level editor in the vid or is it the game itself? How will gameplay be?

Greetings,
Dirk, who still wants to see more more more :lol:

Traveler
28-02-2006, 09:00 AM
Thanks Huehnerschaender,

I agree, it is all still a bit vaque (on purpose). What you see in the movie is actually a bit of both the editor as well as the game itself. As the player you don't place the trees and the sprites. Eventually the sprites will spawn by themselves and the trees (and other props) are placed by the leveldesigner. As a player you are able to build the tower and other buildings that may come with the next stages.


Anyway, how bout others. cairnswm are you up for a video (or are you still having bandwidth issues :twisted: )?

AthenaOfDelphi
28-02-2006, 09:35 AM
Traveler... looking good :-)

On the subject of screenshots etc., I totally agree with Traveler and Dirk, it would be great to see more from different teams.

We would post a small vid, but I tried fraps the other day... my machine is way way too slow as it creamed my fps. I normally get 70-75fps full screen... with fraps busy capturing... 8 frames per second :shock: Took me 4 seconds to move one square :-(

* me thinks evil thoughts *

Maybe I should bring it to work and try it out on a fast machine :-D

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 09:47 AM
Hi Athena,

you can limit the fps of the video within fraps to 25 fps. I've done that for my video, for the size will become too big otherwise (and so the PC is very busy writing frames to disk). When fraps limits the fps, the fps of the application (your game) will also be limited to 25 fps, so fraps gets more time to capture the video. If you already done this, hmmm... I guess then your PC is really too slow.

But I won't mind to see a "not creamy as butter"-video. It's better than a screenshot or nothing at all :wink:

Greetings,
Dirk

AthenaOfDelphi
28-02-2006, 10:00 AM
Hi Dirk,

I limited it to 30 fps. I will admit, that if I could get 25 fps it would be fine since when it runs in Windowed mode its rarely breaks the 25 fps barrier, but 8 frames per second... thats far from creamy... more like curdled :-D

My machine is an Athlon 800 with a 32MB GeForce 2 GTS, so it chugs quite a bit these days. I'll have to get Spirit to try it on her machine and see what kind of performance she gets. If its any good, we'll make a quick vid tonight. One thing I didn't try was actually slowing down the game itself... I can adjust the timer from the console... maybe give that a try too.

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 03:17 PM
Yehaaw.

Hard nights of work allowed my entry to make big progress for stage 3.

See the vid 8)

Dunno if it's really visible in the vid, but the addons affect players appearance a bit :D

http://www.dino-it.de/tanxstage3.wmv

Traveler
28-02-2006, 03:29 PM
Oh man that looks awesome :shock:
Way ahead of my entry, or so it seems :(

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 03:36 PM
Traveler,

what comes out in the end is what counts. I have done much work on effects right now, others do such stuff in the end. With some special effects, every video would look better than without. But they are no goal for stage 3!

And thanks for the statement "awesome" :D

JSoftware
28-02-2006, 03:39 PM
This is just amazing.

I can't wait to play these games! :D

savage
28-02-2006, 03:40 PM
I have to agree, that looks very impressive indeed!

Do I need any special graphics cards to play or will just having DirectX 9/10 be enough?

After this year's competition, you should go back and finish off last year's entry as well :).

Traveler
28-02-2006, 03:41 PM
what comes out in the end is what counts
Very true, but you are raising the bar nonetheless.

AthenaOfDelphi
28-02-2006, 03:44 PM
Oh man that looks awesome

I think that sums it up.

You know my statement earlier about wanting to see more screen shots... I've changed my mind... its thoroughly demoralising ;-) j/k

How do you do those nice explosion effects? I've been toying with using 3D effects to handle stuff like explosions etc. but I have no idea how to do them.

savage
28-02-2006, 03:50 PM
How do you do those nice explosion effects? I've been toying with using 3D effects to handle stuff like explosions etc. but I have no idea how to do them.

Looks to me like he's using a particle system with some smoke trail or blue light textures for the power up and guided missle effect. Maybe some other textures and colours for explosions.

I'm intrigued how you did it as well Dirk, so spill the beans :).

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 04:01 PM
Ehm.... Thanks for the really FAST responses to the video :shock:

Where to begin?

Savage, I use Asphyre from Afterwarp Interactive site (Lifepower) for graphics, so all you need is DirectX 9.0c at minimum and a 3D capable graphics card.

The explosions are rather simple.

In short it goes this way:

Draw a big explosion animation
Draw smokeanimation a bit nearer to the camera.
create fireparticles with velocitys and let them loose smokeparticles on their way.

Thats the normal cannon explosions. The big ones when tanks get down are the same, but I add a really big particle over the whole explosion fading in and out.

Thats all. Nothing magic :lol:

Ah, before I forget: to round up big explosions I added some cameramovement to make you "feel" the explosions a bit better. Can't wait to add sound to the stuff :lol:

In fact, it is very important how you blend the several items in the scene. I draw many things using Add-method, which gives the nicest results for lighting effects.


Athena:
"its thoroughly demoralising " <- that's definetily NOT what I want. I hope to get you motivated by showing my progress. On the other hand it motivates ME when earning positive feedback.


Savage:
"After this year's competition, you should go back and finish off last year's entry as well" <- Uhoh! I know I forgot something :lol:

Traveler
28-02-2006, 04:01 PM
You know whats worse,... that video makes me want to continue my own entry, but I have no time until tomorrow evening http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/cursin.gif

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 04:07 PM
that video makes me want to continue my own entry

Thats what all the videos should make all competitors feel like! Motivation!

I don't want to have another "started but never finished" project. I am willing to do this entry and submit a finished minigame. But sometimes I need motivation and I think everyone else needs it, too.

Imagine in the end we have 20 finished games made with Pascal! That would be GREAT!

NecroDOME
28-02-2006, 07:28 PM
Little gameplay movie. Level is not finished yet!
Triangles is the total count of triangles that the engine renders...

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/App_Necro3D/SCAG1.wmv

Still the enemy ships have 800 triangles, the player 250 :P

Happy coding!

Huehnerschaender
28-02-2006, 08:17 PM
Wow!!! Very impressive! Are you already done with your entry? :lol: Looks very very good! Keep on!

WILL
01-03-2006, 03:54 AM
yeah, yeah I know what I said :mrgreen:

Trouble is I wanted to have everything right, well at least the most important things that is, but alas.. no such luck. But a promise is a promise so here it is:My very first stage 3 movieclip (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/flics/pgdvideostage3.avi). (divx 5.1 required)

Here's an image of the movie
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/pgdstage3.jpg

It is not as long as the other movies, but then I dont have much to show.
Icons on the bottom are not the correct ones and placed incorrectly, I still need to make new versions. Also, the tower is shooting in random directions, (which was one of the things I wanted to fix today) and the sprite is definitely not finished. Mouse hovers are also not entirely acurate. In short, still a lot to do for me :)

As usualy comments are most welcome
Very nice Alex! :) Now... If you don't complete this one this time I'll be forced to beat you! :twisted:

:lol:


So far I've not seen a crappy entry yet.. nice work to all! :)

jdarling
01-03-2006, 04:37 AM
So far I've not seen a crappy entry yet.. nice work to all! :)
So you would actually tell us if our work was crap, thats nice to know. Then again the last deadline didn't take much. Personally I'm really pushing it to make this one. I'll be surprised if I don't pull a few all nighters after all dayers at work :( .

Update on my side; I've almost completed the retro-fit of the entire engine so that it fits the compo a bit better. Had to completely re-design the level system on the backend. Scripting is about complete also (for those interested, LUA won out, only problem left to fix is figuring out if a method actually exists before I try and call it :shock: ). Objects are still giving me fits :twisted: . Can't decide if they are new things or simple sprites with scripts to modify the owner, only time will tell on this one.

I'm still scared of all of the high end graphics I keep seeing, guess I'll have to kill you all on the game play side of things. Right now I have about 30 quests and 10 levels drawn up and documented out. If I can ever get the #!&@%#! engine right! I also have a special surprise if I make it to the end that should make the judges want to play for many ages after compo end (but I won't release it until then) :lol: .

WILL
01-03-2006, 07:50 AM
So far I've not seen a crappy entry yet.. nice work to all! :)
So you would actually tell us if our work was crap, thats nice to know. Then again the last deadline didn't take much. Personally I'm really pushing it to make this one. I'll be surprised if I don't pull a few all nighters after all dayers at work :( .

Oh heck no! :P I just meant it as a compliment. ;) Everyone is putting in a lot of great effort, which makes me very glad to see.

Traveler
01-03-2006, 08:36 AM
Level is not finished yet!
You could've fooled me :) Great job!


If you don't complete this one this time I'll be forced to beat you!

Hehe, having too much fun with it, so there's a pretty good chance of finishing it. :)

savage
01-03-2006, 09:23 AM
Little gameplay movie. Level is not finished yet!

Another impressive example. I like the switch from side scroller to top-down scroller, and the exploding bits are great as well.

savage
01-03-2006, 09:31 AM
yeah, yeah I know what I said :mrgreen:

Trouble is I wanted to have everything right, well at least the most important things that is, but alas.. no such luck.


Looks great Traveller. Looks like you've really taken the time to make your editor WYSIWYG. Impressive stuff!

I look forward to seeing more game play elements in future.

Can't wait to play all of these games! I'm like a kid in a sweet shop overwelmed with the idea of what to taste first. Well done to everyone! :clap:

Traveler
01-03-2006, 07:53 PM
Looks like you've really taken the time to make your editor WYSIWYG

The advantage of the type of game, plus I'm really starting to get the hang of OO Programming. Placing objects is a requirement of the game. I've simply designed my game so that I can place every object on the map. I made a main class that, among other things, takes care of that. Pretty much all other classes that require somekind of interaction with the map, like buildings, trees, sprites are derrived from that class.

Gameplay is somewhat lacking in the video I agree, I hope to (or rather, need to) improve much in that area within the next few days.

Robert Kosek
02-03-2006, 03:15 PM
Huehnerschaender, excellent video! That looks great!

Traveler, looks good, good job with the seamless tiles. ;)


I'd have posted sooner but I've not been able to bypass the main page recently.

Firlefanz
02-03-2006, 04:37 PM
Hi!

I took a look at those competition movies and I am absolutely impressed, they look all veryvery good. :D

@Huehnerschaender: If I may ask, how do you render those trees? Are they meshes modeled by a professional tool or are they created in realtime? How much do they slow the program down?

Go on, great stuff! :D

Firle

savage
02-03-2006, 05:09 PM
I'd have posted sooner but I've not been able to bypass the main page recently.

Hi Robert, could you please PM me with details with what was happening
ie. why you could not get past the main page?

Huehnerschaender
02-03-2006, 05:22 PM
@Firlefanz

Of course you can ask :D

The trees are rather simple.
They are just 3 or 4 facings drawn at different height, size and angle. I modeled a treestamp too, but since it is not visible through the leaves, I guess I will delete it from renderroutine to speed things up a little.

The trees themselves don't slow down the redering very much, because I made them as simple as possible but with exactly the look I wanted them.

There are transparent spaces between the leaves, so that you can look through it and see the ground and other things under the tree.

Note that you can use this technique only for top down view as I use it.

To use this method in e.g. first person view, you have to draw the facings vertically in different angles too. Depends on your textures.

The textures themselves can be extracted from real photos of trees or rendered in e.g. Bryce. It nearly doesn't matter. Depends on your graphic style.
Greetings,
Dirk

PS: Firlefanz: You can PM me in german too, if this is easier.

Firlefanz
02-03-2006, 06:00 PM
Hi Dirk,

thanks a lot for the info, interesting :D

Firle

aidave
03-03-2006, 05:55 AM
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/version03/blocked04.jpg
BLOCKED!

Huehnerschaender
03-03-2006, 08:33 AM
aidave: This one looks great! I can't wait to see more of it!

cairnswm
03-03-2006, 01:13 PM
We have finished the next stage of Verne-X - All the goals for Stage 3 of the contest have been met, and the level editor is starting to work really nicely!!

The game is actually prety tough the first couple of plays but gets easier very quickly. So if you die the first few times keep trying. I'm not very good at these sorts of games and I can complete the level pretty much every time now.

Stage Goals:
Add basic enemies to game engine.
- Enemies Added (Currently a Total of 4 different Enemy types)
- Mine - Does not move, does not shoot, kills player ship if touched
- Cannon - Does not move - Shoots at player
- SeaHorse - Slow, easy to kill, shoots at player
- Shark - Medium Speed, 4 hits to kill, shoots at player - tries to Ram player
- Enemy AI is built into Pascal script Files
Add player pick-up items and/or weapons to engine.
- Pickup Logic coded
- Only one pickup item implemented (A gold Coin)
- Random chance of pickup being created when enemy killed (Currently a high chance)
Design a better level to test out new features.
- Level 1 has been extended to show new features.
Provide an 'exit' for the level.
- At the end of the Level a portal has been created
- Entering the portal ends the level - returning to the Main screen
- If you cant get to the end - press F8 to kill all enemies on the level :)

Here are some screen shots:

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernescreen3-1.jpg

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernescreen3-2.jpg

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernescreen3-3.jpg


The Level editor allows level config files to be created as well as the definition of Enemies and the placement of Enemies onto the Levels. The AI scripts used for enemies are not editable (yet) through the Level Editor.

And a screen shot of the Editor - Showing the map and some objects placed on it.

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/verneeditor1.jpg

Traveler
03-03-2006, 01:28 PM
Aidave, can you tell a bit about your game? It looks quite good with the strange robotic(?) objects and airship, but I have absolutely no idea what kind of game your making.

Cairnswm, the screenshots are a bit small which makes it a bit hard to tell what exactly is going on, but I envy your progress. I made a todo list before I went to bed yesterday and within 10 minutes I already had +20 items on it. Fortunately most are little things and some are nice-to-haves but still. I'm probably busy all day tomorrow getting everything done before the deadline.

cairnswm
03-03-2006, 01:45 PM
My to do list is based on the next stage goals :)

We have a to do list of a good 50 or so items for the next stage (Ok I made up that number but its really really long) :)

Our bosses will use a different animation system. While the small monsters use a standard frame per picture system the Bosses will have animated pieces (ie they will consist of multiple images).

I havn't even started working on different weapons - currently everyone uses the same weapon and ammunition - I need new classes etc to support this as well.

We want a shopping system. In the game you get money for enemies killed and from bonus pickups, (and maybe some health pickups) - and then between levels you can buy stuff. I dont even have a Gui system in my set of libraries for this so it has to be coded from scratch! :)

My LevelEditor is quite nice now - a few small issues (like you cannot remove enemies once they have been added, and enemies take up a full 64x64 square even if they are smaller) - so more work needed here. Also the editor should be able to syntax check and debug the AI scripts (though this is probably never going to happen...)

Those are my big issues - everything else seems minor :)

aidave
03-03-2006, 09:42 PM
Aidave, can you tell a bit about your game? It looks quite good with the strange robotic(?) objects and airship, but I have absolutely no idea what kind of game your making.

in Blocked, its spirits vs the gears!

you must make cunning use of rocks, blocks
marbles and spells,
then transform and budge
to protect your wells.
spawn a weapon,
attack their base,
and take control of reality!

8)

aidave
03-03-2006, 10:27 PM
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/files/vernescreen3-3.jpg


cool!

Traveler
03-03-2006, 10:41 PM
Ahhh, I see... :eh:

Taking over control of reality eh,... with cunning use of rocks and spells, you say? Right.... thats makes perfect sense, really http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/confused.gif

jdarling
04-03-2006, 02:13 AM
Aidave, can you tell a bit about your game? It looks quite good with the strange robotic(?) objects and airship, but I have absolutely no idea what kind of game your making.

in Blocked, its spirits vs the gears!

you must make cunning use of rocks, blocks
marbles and spells,
then transform and budge
to protect your wells.
spawn a weapon,
attack their base,
and take control of reality!


Ahhh, I see... Eh?

Taking over control of reality eh,... with cunning use of rocks and spells, you say? Right.... thats makes perfect sense, really
Well you definately get an I for an Intriguing entry, I might even go as far as saying the most Intriguing (or confusing). Sounds excelent and I can't wait to play. I'm still astonished that with as many of us as there are, none of our entries are the same and few are even similar :P .

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2006, 12:04 AM
Whats going on at the video front?

Ok, then it's my turn again, if you don't mind to download 14 MB.

This one shows my progress for Stage 3 + additions from today and I am very satisfied with my progress. I added fade effects for scene change, a briefing screen, many other small things and sound for my testers *hehe* they were bothered by not really realizing when they are under fire. But now it's visible and you can hear it.

This movie comes with a full pack of action. Ehm, and.... in the end I died :lol:

There are still some minor bugs (e.g. my turret flying through the camera when I die), but they should be fixed the next days.

Today I started modeling the first boss, too. Can't wait to implement him.

Have fun!

Dirk

http://www.dino-it.de/tanxaction.WMV

PS: The sound is a little overdosed... Don't know why, must be a capturing problem.

Traveler
05-03-2006, 12:19 AM
Ohhwww that is soo cool :shock:

And here am I still working hard to get my entry finished on time at 1:18am... arghh. :fuzzy:

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2006, 12:22 AM
Thank you Traveler ^^

I wish you the very best to get the goals in time. Is there much to be done left?

Robert Kosek
05-03-2006, 12:25 AM
Wow! I can't wait for a playable demo! Great work Huehnerschaender!

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2006, 12:34 AM
Thank you Robert.

Hopefully this time I finish my project. Last years entry did never get finished due to lack of time.
But I am good in time this year. Some further stage goals are already done, even if it is not visible (e.g. I only need few lines of code from now to load as much levels as I wish, even the briefing information and map is exported from editor to game resources, so it's easy to add more levels). My biggest problem is making more game content. I'm not very good at modeling, but I have to do it all on my own (and I want it).

Hope to see more of other competitors stuff....

This contest rocks. There are so many cool projects. I hope everyone gets finished.

AthenaOfDelphi
05-03-2006, 03:41 PM
Hi all,

Congratulations to everyone who hit the stage 3 deadline... and especially to those who scored for stage 2.

I don't know about the rest of you, but yesterday was a very fraught day. Hitting the stage 3 goals was hardwork, but it was worth it, so heres some screenies. They should open full size in a new window.

Map editor with one of the scripts used in the stage 3 level
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorBridgeScript_Thumb.gif (http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorBridgeScript.gif)

Map editor showing an enemy path finder exclusion that stops them pathing into places like secrets. It also shows the movement costs system we use to create different terrain types... in this case, its hard work to get through the hedge, so you move slower (red)
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorMovementCostsPathExclusions_Thumb.gif (http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorMovementCostsPathExclusions.gif)

Another shot of the map editor, this time showing how the movment costs are used to give the effect of hills. It also shows a zone being used to start the lightning effect when the player climbs up the mountain
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorMovementCostsZones_Thumb.gif (http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/MapEditorMovementCostsZones.gif)

Shot of the play engine showing pick up objects. These are very limited at the moment, but the invis drink works.
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/PlayEnginePickingUpObjects_Thumb.gif (http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/PlayEnginePickingUpObjects.gif)

Evading the baddies after using the invis drink. The bottle in the top left corner is the invis drink. When we pick up an object, it gets stuffed onto a stack which is displayed at a nice sedate pace in the top left corner so you can see what you're picking up.
http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/PlayEngineUsingInvis_Thumb.gif (http://www.soft-answer.demon.co.uk/pgd2006stage3/PlayEngineUsingInvis.gif)

And there you have it... stage 3 completed :D But we have loads of work to do, not just with adding the stage 4 goals, but considering its meant to be an RPG, its sadly lacking in a lot of key areas, so I think a very busy 3 weeks lay ahead.

We would post a vid, but we simply don't have the hardware to cope. If one of the judges wants to give it a try, please feel free (we can suggest where to go to give an idea of what we've achieved so far) and of course, we'd like to see it first :-)

Take care everyone and keep up the good work. We're both liking what we're seeing of the other competitors, but we'd like to see more :-)

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2006, 04:21 PM
Athena, wow... it seems you put very very much effort in your editor. Looks fantastic and fully loaded with features.

I'm looking forward to see some movement in your visuals. Hopefully a judge can take a video from your entry. Lets wait and hope.

Greetings and congrats for stage 2&3, too.

Dirk

AthenaOfDelphi
05-03-2006, 06:20 PM
Athena, wow... it seems you put very very much effort in your editor. Looks fantastic and fully loaded with features.
Thanks hon, I'm finding I'm spending a lot more time on the tools than I am on the play engine... I think it would be a different case if the engine was specific to the game, but we're trying to make it flexible so we can reuse it for other games. The net result is of course that the editors have to provide an array of different features to cater for what we may want to do in the future, that said, they don't actually provide anything we aren't using for the competition.

One thing we don't lack is grand vision ;-) Although that is largely down to Spirit.. me... I'd like an easy life for a while... but hey, what fun would that be :-D


I'm looking forward to see some movement in your visuals. Hopefully a judge can take a video from your entry. Lets wait and hope.
It would be nice... screenies are ok, but you can convey much more with a vid.

NecroDOME
06-03-2006, 09:16 PM
Screenies look nice these day's :)

I'm currently working on a bone animation system, but I think I gonna need some help.

jdarling
06-03-2006, 09:22 PM
Thanks hon, I'm finding I'm spending a lot more time on the tools than I am on the play engine... I think it would be a different case if the engine was specific to the game, but we're trying to make it flexible so we can reuse it for other games. The net result is of course that the editors have to provide an array of different features to cater for what we may want to do in the future, that said, they don't actually provide anything we aren't using for the competition.

One thing we don't lack is grand vision ;-) Although that is largely down to Spirit.. me... I'd like an easy life for a while... but hey, what fun would that be :-D

I'm running into the same thing Athena, I spend about 85-90% of my time working on my tools just to spend a few minutes working on the actual game. I've even gone as far as creating 3 different types of games at the same time to make sure that the flexability is built in. I must say though, that I'm quite glad that I'm going this far out of my way, as in the end I'll have something I can re-use ALOT. In fact the LUA wrapper I have could be added to just about any application.

michalis
07-03-2006, 04:51 AM
I finally decided to post here some screenshots of my work. I'm not sure how well screenshots will show what I've done, since a lot of fun is inside the flexibility of moving and looking around --- maybe I'll prepare some movie later. My game is basically intended to be FPS but more in traditional RPG/fantasy setting, with swords, magic etc. Also I want to utilize my engine to make levels more "interactive" --- some objects on the level are able to move etc. The real intention is to put some serious storyline there, but I doubt that I will manage to do this for PGD compo. So the first result will be probably more like "Quake, but with more short-range weapons and only 2 levels" :)

It's all open-source, my game engine is in the sources on my WWW page, so you're free to take a peek. The sources specific for this game itself (along with all Blender source models etc.) will be released (probably around the end of PGD competition, in May, to not spoil the surprise too soon :) ).

As for the things I've done: all is going very well, but there are no real enemies yet. Work is in progress, and also I'm still polishing some details related to items and levels that I submitted for stage 3 deadline. I guess that next 2 months will be very very busy for me :)

OK, enough babbling. Screenshots are here. (http://www.camelot.homedns.org/~michalis/tmp/castle_screenshots/) Be patient, as the server is rather slow and screenshots are rather large.

Huehnerschaender
07-03-2006, 10:29 AM
Hey Michalis,

looks really good and interesting. I really hope you get your project finished. I personally like RPGs a lot. So please don't stop the project after compo leaving it a hack and slay game (though hack and slay is a good kind of game for this compo).

Keep on coding guy!

Greets,
Dirk

Huehnerschaender
08-03-2006, 01:15 PM
Hey people,

how is it going? Very quiet here for some days.

I don't have any screenshots by now (I am at office right now), but I can tell something about my progress.

First boss is designed and nearly full implemented in game.

It's a kind of tank with 3 attacks. Flamethrower, Forcefield which pulls you back causing some damage and turret cannon. I designed another boss, but this one was too heavy to put him into the game for stage 4 (maybe I use him for endboss).
Stage 4 just needs a miniboss and so the one I am working on is much better.
At the moment I try to find a solution to bind the boss on an event, for example open a gate when dying or something within my editor. I could code it hard, but I want my bosses to be integrated in the leveleditor, so I need some kind of script now.

How far are the others with stage 4?

Greetings,
Dirk

jdarling
08-03-2006, 02:25 PM
About 12:30 last night I found the last rendering issue in my engine:

p := Render.TileToScreen(Sprite.Location); // Should have been after MoveSprite :(
MoveSprite(Sprite);
RenderSprite(p, Sprite);

So now I'm ready to go. I just realized that my Stage 3 entry fulfilled all of the Stage 4 stuff, so I just have to migrate it from the messy non-animated version its in now into a fully animated version using the backend management classes. In short, All I have to do is finish about 100 lines of code and then its all content from here out. If I ever get a real graphics artist, I might have to change out the images, but for now the ones I have don't look bad, and they fit nicely into the storyline (actually I'll insist that the artist use them as a starting point).

Everthing looks the exact same as it did before, soon as I get it all up and working properly I'll post up a short video.

Traveler
08-03-2006, 10:22 PM
It's indeed getting a bit quiet around here. :wink:

Anyhow, my progress since last Saturday has been limited to creating graphics. Although enemies have been implemented in the game, at their current state they aren't much more than motionless images floating towards their doom (or victory, depending on the players actions :)).
With the coming deadline that has to change for sure, so I have created the first character.
Being a big Warcraft fan, I have turned to the world of Azeroth for inspiration. With reasonable success I might add :)
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/orcrender.jpg

Although in its current state still motionless, I hope to have him animated within the next few days.

(ps. current image comes again straight out of lightwave. The orc is most likely going to be reduced in size.)

Huehnerschaender
08-03-2006, 11:49 PM
Traveler, the mob looks very impressive, even if its directly out of whatever render application. Keep your style! I like this very much!!!! (as you know I am a WoW Player with his own guild, lvl 60 Priest, lvl 60 Warlock, lvl ......... etc).

So what could impress me more than this orc you made?

Great work. Now animate him! I want to see some Movement in your game. So am I right, that in your game, you as the player, has to defend a village from attacking enemys by placing some guntowers, guards etc?

When level starts the scene begins and the enemys attack and the fight will end depending how you placed your defendings?

If I am right, then this is a nice and cute idea.... don't know many games with this kind of gameplay. Keep your entire work on! I'd like to see the ideas in your head become animated on my screen!

Traveler
09-03-2006, 08:54 AM
So am I right, that in your game, you as the player, has to defend a village from attacking enemies by placing some guntowers, guards etc?

You got that exactly right :D

Hopefully within the next few days I have something more to show

NecroDOME
09-03-2006, 10:56 AM
Looks nice Traveler!

My game is still the same, but I managed to make a nice 3D animated background for the menu with my engine.

When the hanger doors open, you see a figher plane take off from wthe hanger.

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG7.jpg
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG8.jpg

madwoody
09-03-2006, 10:59 AM
kewl :P

Huehnerschaender
09-03-2006, 11:30 AM
Yes, indeed.... kewl ^^

Looks really great NecroDome...

savage
09-03-2006, 01:28 PM
I'll see your 2 kewls and raise you a kewl!

NecroDOME
09-03-2006, 01:43 PM
Thanks for the 3 kewl's :D

The ship models are the ingame models of the enemy... I still need to make a new player model.
And I need to make a nice particle effect on the take-off ship :P

Traveler
15-03-2006, 11:15 PM
This thread appears to have died off a bit, so here I am again in an attempt to get it going again. :D

As you may remember from my last post, I'm currently working to get some enemies done. The orc posted in the previous post hasn't changed much. I made some small changes, but they aren't very visible in the end result. I did give him an axe though. Can't have him walk around without a weapon :)


http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/mobscreenshot.jpg

From the (slightly resized) screenshot you might notice that its animated already. I actually had a video in mind, but its again past midnight and I really should be in bed by now, so I'll save that one for later.
The animation didn't go as well as planned though. It looked pretty decent in Lightwave, but now that've seen it in game, its not exactly it. :? They look a bit like they're floating or something. Like if they're walking faster than they're moving. It definitely needs some more work.

On another note: The whole creation process, from model to render to an actual in-game usable sprite is quite lengthy and full of obstacl.. ahem challenges. Might be worth a writing of somesort...

Huehnerschaender
15-03-2006, 11:55 PM
Hey hey,

this one looks pretty nice! It seems that you've done a lot work on your entry. Good job traveler! When do we see a new vid? :)

I myself didn't have very much time the last days. My baby became ill again (nothing serious, but babys need much attention when they don't feel good).

At least I got my miniboss in the game, made a gate which is able to be opened by some gameevent (in my case when miniboss dies), designed a new level and implemented a new powerup (repair kit) which is really needed, because I always put too much enemys on the maps to get action :twisted:

The boss is already working, only thing which needs some work is the flamethrower. It does no damage at the moment.

I found some issues in my collision response which have to be fixed, but this will be done after stage 4. No time left to toy around with such things :)

Maybe there is a new video till weekend, let's see what I get done.

Greetings, Dirk

cairnswm
16-03-2006, 04:51 AM
@Traveller

Try giving the orc a shadow ont he game screen - ven a prerenderd one if neccessary - and you'll probably find that the 'floating' problem is solved :)

Traveler
16-03-2006, 09:19 AM
Thanks Dirk :)
I hope your baby gets well soon.

cairnswm. I'm not really sure shadows will do the trick. I'm afraid the problem is in the animation itself. But, I'll give it a try nonetheless, it beats the time of creating a new animation. :)

I'll put a new video online this evening.

Huehnerschaender
16-03-2006, 09:49 AM
Traveler: Maybe it's just the relation between animation speed and spritemovement speed. Try to move the orc nearly exact the amount of pixels as his feet do in the animation. That should solve the problem. Combined with a shadow it should look ok. I will take a look at the video when you post it and then can tell you whats wrong.

Greetings,

Dirk

Traveler
16-03-2006, 10:52 PM
As promised here's the newest video (http://www.gameprogrammer.net/flics/pgdvideostage4.avi) (divx, ~3mb 30 secs)

Wish I could see more of the other entrants though. Kinda sad to see so few have replied/posted their own stuff.

WILL
17-03-2006, 12:22 AM
Mr. Traveler, I *strongly* recommend getting the stage goals completed before adjusting or tinkering with your graphics. You have over a month to get the graphics in good shape, you only have a week to complete this stages goals. Priorities, priorities, I say. :)

That said, I think it looks great. Awesome job! And I agree with William, a shadow might help to add a perspective for that 3rd dimention that seems to be missing.

jdarling
17-03-2006, 02:41 PM
Stage goals, bahh... Who needs em... Oh wait I still have to complete them myself :( . Soon as I have something showing new stuff I'll post up some screenies and I might even try a video myself :) . Right now I'm trying to fix a bunch of problems with drawing order. I have my boss in place (actually it was there in Stage 3), Death in place along with screen, ability to play multiple levels (though if you die you have to start from scratch still), now I just have to re-work the inventory and item pickup stuff. Just got the mouse working last night (woot) have to add in game events to handle it still but the code is there to support them :) .

tux
19-03-2006, 12:53 PM
i dont have any more screenshots to show :( im having big problems with trying to get ai working (even to aim towards the player) so im not too sure about beeing able to make this stage.

i did make a cool finate state machine with messaging though :)

cairnswm
19-03-2006, 06:46 PM
Quite honestly the look of the game hasn't changed since the last screen shots. The basic game is working - even AI scripting and config files for Weapons, enemies, maps etc.

So we are already at polish stage - I finished the next stage goals last week already (A boss is after all just another enemy)

:)

aidave
19-03-2006, 09:03 PM
we've built our boss
its really cool !!
a ton of work went into it,
and learnt quite alot as a result.

want to post screenshots/videos for u all BUT dont want judges to see it
( i wonder if they'll promise not to peek )

8)
+~~

Traveler
19-03-2006, 10:04 PM
How come you dont want judges to see it?

aidave
19-03-2006, 10:19 PM
to surprise them!

:hellspawn:

Traveler
19-03-2006, 10:26 PM
But we too would like to be surprised. Come on,... show us yours and I'll show you mine.





Hmm,.. guess I already am showing mine :wink:

NecroDOME
20-03-2006, 07:32 PM
I got my boss almost fully working :D

The only thing it needs is some different non-yellow projectiles that inflict more damage.

This boss has 4 weapons, 2 guns on top (always visible), 1 weapon inside. The discs open when the boss has lost half its health and a raygun that swings around.

Here are 2 shots

Ingame:
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG9.jpg

3D max rendering
http://necrodome.homeftp.net/Projects/Game_Scag/SCAG10.jpg

cairnswm
20-03-2006, 08:41 PM
Our Game (Verne-X) has just been sent in as an entry for the SHMUP-dev - Horizontal Shooter with Boss - contest.

If you want to see what we have it is now available for download from:
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/download.asp?file=files/verne-x.zip
Its the full version. There is one decent level with a boss so far. Try the Earth level for the full experience :)

As usual I am having terrible results with sound. The Sound can be surned off in the VerneX options program if it gives you problems.

NecroDOME
20-03-2006, 08:58 PM
Grapics are nice.

I got an error with the sound, but by turning it off it worked.

Some feedback: powerups are sometimes hard to pickup, try to make a bigger radius so iets easier to pick them.
Try to make your ship move smoother. a little acceleration when you move.

Nice game :)

Huehnerschaender
20-03-2006, 10:00 PM
@NecroDOME: Wow... looks impressive!

@Cairnswm:

Sound ON brings error messages at startup, game did not start
Sound OFF lets the menu appear and if I start the game, I can play for several seconds (max. 10) then screen gets black, game disappears from tasklist and I am back at my desktop. No matter if Fullscreen mode or not.

Hmmm...


Nevertheless, the graphics look really nice (as much as I can see of it).

Traveler
20-03-2006, 10:23 PM
Nice screenshots NecroDOME! The environment sure looks great.

cairnswm: My hat off to you for being the first who dares to put his entry online for others to watch and play! It beats the videos, that's for sure.

I had to play it of course, and I hope you'll permit me to place a few minor issues that may or may not already be on your todo list.

:arrow: The sound didn't work for me. In fact it gave a error on startup and it went straight back to Windows.
:arrow: There isn't a whole lot of action. I suppose levels are still in the making, but I'd add a least a couple dozen enemies.
:arrow: The collision detection seems a bit off at times. There were moments where I went straight through pickups. A bit annoying if you can't get them at a second run, as you can't scroll back.
:arrow: Also when fighting enemies, the bullets sometimes just went through them or collided in front of them.
:arrow: I can move through walls, but bullets and enemies can't.
:arrow: The background isn't tileable which becomes very apparent at some point.
:arrow: I'm able to increase the scrollspeed apparently. I'm not really sure if its because of that, but at some point all enemies got stuck in the walls.
:arrow: the ship isn't influenced by external forces like gravity. I think it would add to the game, if you don't let it stop/start all of a sudden.

aidave
21-03-2006, 12:18 AM
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-shadow-small.jpg

Traveler
21-03-2006, 08:28 AM
Wait wait, don't say it... that is... that is the shadow of your supersized enemy boss........ Right? :D

jdarling
21-03-2006, 01:34 PM
Our Game (Verne-X) has just been sent in as an entry for the SHMUP-dev - Horizontal Shooter with Boss - contest.

If you want to see what we have it is now available for download from:
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/download.asp?file=files/verne-x.zip
Its the full version. There is one decent level with a boss so far. Try the Earth level for the full experience :)

As usual I am having terrible results with sound. The Sound can be surned off in the VerneX options program if it gives you problems.

Well running on either of my systems requires the sound to be turned off (as mentioned in the Readme). Then if I run "Out of bounds" the system panics and crashes. Doesn't seem to be any collision detection for my ship, even though it kinda works on the other ships (interesting). Of final note is that when running, the only way I can get anywhere is to use the F8 cheat to kill everyone, otherwise after I've been hit about 20 times the game crashes (or at least I guess it crashes it just drops me back out to my desktop). No difference running in windowed or full screen mode.

Looks good though :)

jdarling
21-03-2006, 10:54 PM
Well I'll go second and say that there is a download of my game engine in its current working state (meaning not Stage 3 compliant but on its way to stage 4). Currently some things are disabled (player death, life etc...) due to the working nature of the backend code.

If anyone is interested you can keep up to date with my entry on the following website (still being created but at least its up and functional) and download daily snapshots as the compo goes along: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/Default.htm

Since I don't have a testing team, I'd really appriciate ANY and ALL feedback (even if its just to say that it sucks).

Traveler
22-03-2006, 08:22 AM
Great! I'll give it a go when I get back home from work :)

jdarling
23-03-2006, 07:51 PM
My entry has been updated yet again. New features, information, and a download are on its Micro-Site at http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/Default.htm

As always I'd appriciate any feedback on how it runs etc...

Traveler
23-03-2006, 08:51 PM
Totally forgotten about this, sry :doh:

Anyways, I've given your game a try and it ran pretty good. I really haven't got much to comment on as it seems to do what its supposed to do for the current and past stages (and a couple points more from later, too, I noticed)

The one thing that got me though is the slow speed at with the karakter runs. A speed increase might make it better. You also might want to look into the shooting as its not working entirely correct. Sometimes when I wanted to fire, nothing happend until I turned away. And appart from the buttons at the start, the mouse really doesn't play a part either. Left-click for pathfind didn't do much for me anyway.

Keep it up though! Looking forward to see your boss. Hope its easier to kill than the current enemies ;)

jdarling
23-03-2006, 10:29 PM
The boss is on the level already, and he is MUCH harder to kill. Course AI is still in development. I'm still going back and forth on pathfinding. Right now I'm thinking of removing pathfinding all together. The mouse is more for double clicking items (currently not enabled) to pick them up and put them into your inventory. Its also used to interact with NPC's (again not turned on right now), you click or double click an NPC and begin your "Session" with them.

Hopefully tonight I'll get the problems with the Inventory fixed (its just re-building the math behind the screen) and that will be back up. Then I'm done with Stage 4. I'll start focusing more on the NPC's and getting them to play fair.

Better AI is actually at the end of my list. As it is, the enemies are hard enough to play ball with, so I think I may leave some of them pretty dumb :).

The Jerky nature is actually on purpose, well to some extent. I really am trying to emulate the old Nintendo experience. Speed is an unfortunate side effect of the game being locked at 20fps. I could up it (heck you could to, just change it in the game editor), but I liked the slower movement :). I'll have to play with other numbers and see if anything strikes me as playable. The bigest problem I had was that at too high a frame rate it becomes un-controlable :(.

I just noticed the problem with firing, I guess I made a change in the collision code that seems to have blown everything out of the water. Now its back to do the drawing board, as the collision code is tightly incorperated into the rendering code (made sense at the time). May have to seperate it and see if I can get back to the performance I had before w/o any flicker.

Traveler, really do appriciate your feedback. Any word on framerates, or did you run it in Debug mode? The config app gives you quite a bit of freedom (windowed, debug, memory debug, etc...) and the editor should allow you to change just about anything that you would like to change (I hope).

Thanks, again!

Huehnerschaender
24-03-2006, 12:13 AM
OMG!!! :shock: Do we already have the 24th of march?

My job got me the last days and I was not able to do very much for my compo entry. I have to do a lot of work tomorrow to get my entry at "Stage 4-ready" state. I think everything I need is already implemented, but there are some things I have to fix to get the judges the feeling of playing a game and not only a mixture of all possibilities my engine has right now, as I always design my "levels" to test everything out.

So right now its 1:00 in the morning and I'll stop working now. Need some sleep. :?

Todo list for tomorrow:
- design stage 4 level
- bring building creation of the 2 new buildings in the level editor to be able to show all 3 different buildings I have now.
- enable collision for miniboss when he dies (don't need it when he's alive, because of his "knockback" attack)
- fix minor issues to make the game as fun as it can be at this stage.


And now some news about my development:
- Work in progress and nearly finished: a new kind of weapon/pickup. This one kicks ass, I swear :)
- Leveleditor up to date (added Miniboss, new pickup (repair kit), 2 buildings (tomorrow))
- Added new feature to Level Editor. You now can set the values for life, possesion of powerups and amount of ammo for the player at start of a level. This gives new options in level creation (e.g. start nearly dead with few ammo, briefing says you reached the enemy camp after a hard fight and you have to repair and get a bunch of ammo to defeat the enemys in the camp)
- level briefing and overview map are now exported from level editor into game ressource file.
- level editor is able to create any amount of levels and store it into game ressource file. Would I release a version with leveleditor, you could add levels and levels and levels, each with briefing and overview map.
- optimized the ground-drawing code.... I now get about double of fps.
There is still need of optimisation, but atm it's much better than before.


Ok, it's late... I have to go to bed now....

And jdarling: I did not have time to test your entry out. I will test it right after stage 4 submission. I am a little in a hurry with my own entry....


Greetings,
Dirk

jdarling
24-03-2006, 03:28 AM
Actually Stage 4 brings a question to my mind. I would really like to leave Item pickup and usage out of my Stage 4 entry, I had them in Stage 3 but they are getting a bit of a re-vamp for Stage 5. Since the Stage 4 guidelines don't require Item Pickup specifically would this be ok?

jdarling
25-03-2006, 03:49 AM
My stage 4 entry is in and uploaded to the micro-site for the JumpStart project. I've still got alot of work to do on the final Item engine, but I did manage to get them back in for Stage 4 again. Hopefully in the next week all of the item engine will be complete and ready to go. Then its on to the magic engine and completion of the game in general. Everything is in place except for the sound and music (though the support is there, I just have to complete the integration into the editor) for the engine to be considered complete. In fact if you wanted you could write an entire game in JumpStart right now.

Hope everyone makes Stage 4 and can't wait to see more of others projects. Come on guys don't stop posting, lets get this compo rolling again.

AthenaOfDelphi
25-03-2006, 08:29 AM
I wish I could, unfortunately, we've not got anything new to show :-(

Our entry has had to take second place to my car the last couple of weeks as no car = no job. So today, its a mad dash to the deadline. Still... nothing like a bit of pressure :-D

chronozphere
25-03-2006, 08:21 PM
Hi!

Those screenies and videos are so cool. I''m impressed. :o :) I'm looking forward to the actual games.

And i would like to join a contest in the future. :)

jdarling
25-03-2006, 10:15 PM
Hi!

Those screenies and videos are so cool. I''m impressed. :o :) I'm looking forward to the actual games.

And i would like to join a contest in the future. :)

As your reading through pay close attention, two of us have already posted up WIP's of our games and I know we both want feeback :).

Huehnerschaender
26-03-2006, 12:38 AM
Oh boy, I missed some things on my "ToDo" List for stage 4. Still only one building... Some minor issues still exist.... but who cares... its stage 4, not stage 6. I have enough time to polish everything.

Today I submitted a 2 level entry. First level to practice controls and then the stage 4 level with miniboss.

Right after submission I started to reinvent my load and save procedures of levels. I need a better structure for storage to have more possibilities in my editor.

There are so many ideas I'd like to bring into the game, but I guess I have to make a list and whipe out everything I cannot achieve until the end of the contest. And maybe I go on with the project after the contest and fulfill my dream of completing a full game on my own.

I will post a new video when I fixed the most important things on my list.
And of course, I can't wait to show you my new weapon, which is still in "WIP"-state.

So have a good night. I think I can sleep well knowing that I got a miniboss in my game and the player is able to die :lol:

Dirk

AthenaOfDelphi
26-03-2006, 12:53 AM
This deadline has made it clear to me that there are some serious issues with how I'm working out coordinates and scrolling, plus like you Dirk, we have a huge list of things we need to add, still stage 5 shouldn't be too much hassle, so I can hopefully concentrate on rewriting our rendering and movementt related routines and implementing all the 'missing' features required to make a decent RPG.

Congrats to everyone else who made the stage 4 deadlines :-)

Now if only we had our stage 3 scores ;-)

Traveler
26-03-2006, 01:16 AM
Again a late night work, even though I thought this time would be easy. :)
Fortunately next round is going to be a lot easier. Current stage already has 5 playable levels. (Well, actuall more, but it gets too hard after five).
Next stage means more towers, upgrades and enemies.

I too hope we get to see stage 3 scores soon now.

chronozphere
26-03-2006, 08:37 AM
@Cairnswm: Your game looks pretty cool, graphics are nice. I turned the sound off, because Huehnerschaender and NecroDome mentioned a problem with the sound. The rest looks cool :). I've already completed the air planet, but halfway the water planet, i was kicked out of the game :(.

Good luck with getting the sound working.

@JDarling: Your game also looks nice. The graphics are simple but well drawn. I also like the editor much.:P :) I wonder what's on your TODO list.

jdarling
26-03-2006, 07:49 PM
@JDarling: Your game also looks nice. The graphics are simple but well drawn. I also like the editor much.:P :) I wonder what's on your TODO list.

My current TODO list is as follows:
* Complete Inventory System and get useable items working again :)
* Complete main town graphics
* Complete AI for enemies (right now its all random)
* Complete Level 2 and Level 3 as well as items to let you into them
* Complete the Underground Town (hmm... thats not quite giving away too much)
* Complete NPC system
* Get the frigging quests in, I have them planned but they require everything else to be in place before I can do them.
* Closing sequence
* Opening sequence
* Credits screen
* Sound and Music (I'm using procedural hopefully, but if not I have recorded sounds and midi's I want to use)

I think thats everything, or at least the high points :). Glad to see everyone is doing well thus far and can't wait to play more of the entries.

Huehnerschaender
27-03-2006, 06:02 PM
Hi there,

time for a new video.

Today I've finished something I really wanted to have in my game. WEATHER!

And yes, it looks really nice in my opinion.
The video shows the following:
Manually started rain, manually stopped rain
Manually started snow, manually stopped snow
The miniboss from stage 4 opening a gate to the levelexit when he dies.
I also added some new sounds, but a few are still missing.

In the final release, you can say within the editor, if it is a rainy level or snowy level etc. The weather then will be dynamically start and stop raining or snowing. In some cases only some raindrops, in other cases a heavy thunderstorm.
The weather effects are somewhat blurry in the video due to the compression and "heavy movement" of the scene. Ingame they are much nicer :)

Ok, here we go again, it's raining men.... halleluja 8)


http://www.dino-it.de/tanxweather.WMV

Hope some others post their progress, too :wink:

Greetings,
Dirk

chronozphere
27-03-2006, 07:07 PM
Video (wheather feature) looks promising, despite the compression. :)

i wonder what the system requirements for your game are??

Robert Kosek
27-03-2006, 07:08 PM
Wow, very cool, Dirk!

So far I'm liking it, what are you planning for it thus far?

Huehnerschaender
27-03-2006, 07:19 PM
Chronozphere:
It is playable on a Geforce 2 MX :D

even if you only get 15 FPS on slow machines, the game is still playable. I tested on about 10 different hardware specs right now. Geforce2 MX was the oldest video card I could find and it was running at about 20 FPS on it.

I think the CPU should have at least 1Ghz, but I have to test this out a little more, because nearly all machines I tested on had 2 Ghz CPU in it.

On my machine I get between 80 (worst case) and 250 FPS, but I have a X800 Pro installed, which I cannot call "the standard".

The game supports only one resolution at the moment, 1024*768. Maybe there are possibilities to get some more FPS on older cards by supporting lower resolutions, but I don't think I can manage this for the compo. There are too many other things left to do.

Robert:
I don't know... finish the compo goals and then if I have the time, make a real game out of it, with tons of levels and content *dreaming*

Traveler
27-03-2006, 08:29 PM
And yes, it looks really nice in my opinion
Not only in your opinion :) It looks really nice! Although at some points it seems like a blizzard instead of a simple snow fall. :)

chronozphere
27-03-2006, 08:58 PM
It is playable on a Geforce 2 MX Very Happy


Allrighty than 8) I have a Geforce 2 MX/MX 400:D
I know this GFX card is able to deal with Call of duty. (Old but still powerfull enough :lol: ).
Ohw... i've also have a 500Mhz cpu. :cry: Maybe there is a small chance to get 15 > FPS. Hope so!!



I think the CPU should have at least 1Ghz, but I have to test this out a little more, because nearly all machines I tested on had 2 Ghz CPU in it.


I would like to test your game on my machine, and show the FPS, when your game is finished :D.

Huehnerschaender
27-03-2006, 08:59 PM
:D

Happy to read only positive feedback so far :)


Traveler:
The weather has different stages. Snow and rain can achieve 4 different strenghts. The strongest rain e.g. will cause lightnings and thunder etc.

For the video I cycle through all phases, so what you call blizzard is really heavy snowfall indeed :wink: But I am also able to just let some snowflakes fall from heaven... that's what I wanted, dynamic weather.

I will add some real lightnings instead of the white flashing scene in a while... Maybe I let the ambient get darker before it starts raining (a shadow of a big cloud darkening the ground would be nice 8) )

Greetings,
Dirk

Huehnerschaender
27-03-2006, 09:00 PM
I would like to test your game on my machine, and show the FPS, when your game is finished :D.

Thats fine!! I always need some information on how it works on different systems. Thanks in advance :D

chronozphere
28-03-2006, 05:53 AM
Thats fine!! I always need some information on how it works on different systems. Thanks in advance Very Happy


Maybe it's a good idea to 'not only show' the fps, but add some more game information. e.g. Use F11 to toggle this information and if on, show it in the top-left corner of the screen or in a log file. :)

I dont know if this is neccesary for your game but it might give a more accurate idea of how the game is running. Then you might detect some bottlenecks, problems on specific machines or maybe even BUGS. ;)

AthenaOfDelphi
28-03-2006, 09:05 PM
Hi all,

Just thought I'd post a quick progress update on our entry.

In case you missed my post earlier in this thread, the stage 4 goals made it clear to me that there were some serious problems with how I was handling the location of things within the engine.

After much deliberation post deadline on Sunday, I came to the conclusion that a rewrite was in order to properly take into account the location of everything relative to the map.

So I'm now frantically trying to write a new play engine. I don't think it will take too long as those of you who read this thread a lot will know that like some of the other competitors its actually our tools that have taken most of the time to write.

Hopefully, this time around, now I understand the requirements of the engine more, I won't make such a hash of it :-)

As a side issue, I'd love to know how many teams actually active. Theres been a steady decline in the number of submissions for each stage and its kind of got me wondering how people are still actively participating in the competition.

Cairnswm: I had a quick look at Verne-x... pretty neat. Nice graphics. I found the pickups were a real bugger to pickup though, but I think someones already mentioned that. I didn't try the sound because I'd read there were some problems. Apart from that, I don't think I had any issues with it.

jdarling: I also had at look at the Chronicles of Faelen... its also pretty neat. I'm guessing the download on your webby didn't include the stage goals as I couldn't find anything to pickup. I didn't experience any issues except a little bit of slowdown when there were a few enemies on screen (My machine is an Athlon 800 with 1GB RAM, 32MB GeForce 2 GTS).

Dirk: I'm liking the look of Tanx more and more. Watched the video... nice weather effects. Thats one of the things I had planned to include in our engine. I already have a lightning effect and an earth quake effect, but I can't make rain :-)

Keep on coding everyone... can't wait to see the finished products :-D

jdarling
29-03-2006, 02:29 PM
jdarling: I also had at look at the Chronicles of Faelen... its also pretty neat. I'm guessing the download on your webby didn't include the stage goals as I couldn't find anything to pickup. I didn't experience any issues except a little bit of slowdown when there were a few enemies on screen (My machine is an Athlon 800 with 1GB RAM, 32MB GeForce 2 GTS).

In the underground cave their is a silver bot with blue armour that moves like a bat out of hell and hits like a ton of bricks (seariously he kills you in 3 hits if he happens to run you over). Killing him will get a Minor Health Potion. Double click it to pick it up. [I] for inventory and you can move it around. I (much like yourself) have been re-writing much of the background and engine stuff so right now you can't actually use the Health Potion :), but no fear Stage 5 will bring it.

Unfortunately I'm not sure that I'll have everything in place that I wanted in place for the finals :(, don't care as I'll still submit what I have. Basically my problem comes down to ability to draw. I don't have it.

Good Luck on your backend re-development and I hope to see you at the end. Will be nice to see/play another RPG (if mine ever gets to the point I can call it an RPG :) )

Oh also, thanks greatly for the play. I'll see what I can do about lots of enemies clogging up the FPS.

Huehnerschaender
01-04-2006, 11:12 AM
My Tanx now leave tracks in the dirt behind them, which will stay the whole level 8)

Also my gunshots are modified a little with another particle effect and they also leave their "tracks" on the ground.

Now I am trying to do some optimization on the ground alphablending. When this is done I go over to the menus and settings.

Here is a little screenie:

<center>http://dino-it.de/tracks.jpg (http://dino-it.de/tracks.jpg)
(Click to enlarge!)</center>

Greetings,
Dirk

Traveler
01-04-2006, 11:40 AM
That sure is looking mighty good!

I'm curious though as to how you did the lighting, is that one big image blended over the explosion effect? The top of the walls appear not to be affected by it. Was it done on purpose?

Looking forward to playing your game!

Huehnerschaender
01-04-2006, 03:39 PM
Thanks Traveler.

You are right, it is a particle, just "a little" oversized. :)

And I draw it at a little too low height. I change this, but it is no problem ingame. you won't recognize it in the action 8)

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: I wonder if I can manage to let the player destroy the buildings and/or walls :twisted:

Robert Kosek
01-04-2006, 05:37 PM
....

Destroyable walls and buildings? :shock: If you do so, then you gotta explain how you're juggling it all without slowing the game down!

Huehnerschaender
01-04-2006, 07:37 PM
Robert, indeed I tried around a bit today with the destruction of my walls. I want the wall to be indestructable normally, because they are needed for leveldesign. BUT, if I can say in the leveleditor, that special walls are destroyable, then I can design my level like I want. And I can even make it necessary for the player to get the rocket launcher for example, before he can go on, because he has to destroy a cracky wall to go on.

I am nearly finished with all this. I need some more crap flying around when the walls explode etc. But it already works for the "common" walls.

Hmmm... Here is my progress of today 8) Tracks in the dirt and cracky walls :wink:

For testing purposes, all of the common walls are cracky in the video. This will be set in the level editor later on.

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

Robert Kosek
01-04-2006, 08:39 PM
Awesome! You best write a post mortem, yah hear me?! :D

Huehnerschaender
01-04-2006, 08:48 PM
There is nothing special to the most things in my game, believe me :)

Robert Kosek
01-04-2006, 09:09 PM
Heh, sorry, I don't believe it. Not yet anyway. ;)

Huehnerschaender
02-04-2006, 03:58 PM
This was a "level" once :lol:

http://www.dino-it.de/walls.jpg

As you can see my "crap" is now flying around leaving wall rocks on the ground. That's what I wanted, but I need your opinion. The rocks don't have collision detection right now. I don't want the game loose too much realism just because you can drive through the rocks. But I also don't want the engine to calculate too much collision stuff. What do you think, would it be ok if I let the player drive through the rocks?

And another thing I've done today is the gunfire. I spent half an hour on drawing it. This is now used by alle enemys and the player. I did not like the smoke to be all when someone shoots 8)

Please tell me what you think about the collisions. I also was thinking about the rocks themselve being destroyable and then vanishing into smaller rocks which doesn't matter to the optics when you drive "through" them.

AthenaOfDelphi
02-04-2006, 04:44 PM
Looking good Dirk.

If the rock issue was my choice, I'd probably age the rocks and have them disappear unless they serve a purpose. Kind of stay solid for a while and then as they age, they start to flash/alpha blend away.

Just my thoughts :-)

I've just spent most of the day chasing a weird bug, that I believe is a compiler issue related to the handling of overloaded functions or empty constant arrays of constants passed as parameters to overloaded functions. Alot of wasted time, so I'm no where near back on track... yet :-)

Still... I have a working console :-D

savage
02-04-2006, 05:34 PM
I agree with Athena, for the time being, have the rocks stay for a short period of time and then disappear.

I think in the long term you should certainly keep your options open and maybe have the collision detection for the crumbled rocks turned off for now, and see if later on you can add it in, possibly after the competition. If you find that before the competition ends you have a few spare FPS that could be used up with collision, you can then just turn it on.

The third option is to of course have a "Debris Collision" flag that can be set in the options screen/config file. That way those with powerfull enough machines can have the pleasure of realism and those who have lower end machines can still play the game without that bit of collision detection to slow them down.

Huehnerschaender
02-04-2006, 06:29 PM
Thanks for your opinions. All your proposals make sense and are good solutions for the "problem". I will see what I can achieve this evening. I don't want to spent another day for just the debris thing.

Huehnerschaender
03-04-2006, 11:00 AM
I added the collision for the debris yesterday and it does not seem to affect the FPS, even if I have 20 or 30 walls destroyed. Only the drawing of much more models (debris) is affecting the performance a bit, but not that much that I decide to put it out of the game, for it makes really fun to destroy things :) And on the other hand the destroyable walls is just a feature for level design. Not every wall is destroyable. only few where it makes sense for level progress.

But I need to let the debris also be destroyable, because they are "flying" randomly and in bad cases they fall onto the ground where the hole in the wall is so that the player can't drive through the new way because the debris is lying there :lol: So one more hour of work and then it's "perfect".

Greetings,
Dirk

chronozphere
03-04-2006, 02:39 PM
Your screenie looks great, man 8)

but FPS is -12. what's goin on?? :lol:

Huehnerschaender
03-04-2006, 02:48 PM
but FPS is -12. what's goin on?? :lol:

:lol: :lol:

It's an issue while taking screenshots. The FPS is constantly 60 on my machine (VSync on) and 90-250 FPS (VSync off). 8)

Traveler
03-04-2006, 02:48 PM
That's probably his secret feature: reversed gameplay :mrgreen:

Traveler
03-04-2006, 02:49 PM
Oh man,.. you posted at the very same moment :shock:

Huehnerschaender
03-04-2006, 02:51 PM
:lol: reverse gameplay! I remember this from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Cool feature, but not necessary for my entry :wink:

Huehnerschaender
03-04-2006, 11:11 PM
Hi again ^^

before I go to bed I post another video which shows my behaviour of cracky walls when they are under fire. For me it's ok now and I can begin to make my menu and settings to achieve the stage 5 goal. But for now it's sleeping time :shock:

Have fun:

http://www.dino-it.de/tanxwall2.wmv

Dirk

PS: I guess it will be no problem to let the big debris crumble to much smaller ones which don't need collision but stay visible to make it look better.

savage
04-04-2006, 08:44 AM
Looks very very nice Dirk.

I have 2 suggestions
1. When the walls turn to debris, rather than just having 1 sound ( currently an explosion I think ), it would be nice if you could mix in the sound of the walls cracking a fraction after the explosion sound happens.

2. I don't know about anyone else, but I find the font a little hard to read. Maybe I need to actually play the game to get used to it, but from the video I find certain letters a little confusing.

Keep up the excellent work.

Huehnerschaender
04-04-2006, 09:11 AM
Thanks for the advices Savage.

The sound is not finished. There are many sounds missing which I still have to find on the internet or create myself. I know that I have some crumbling sounds somewhere. Of course they will be added to such explosions :)

You are right with the font. But I find it fits to the tanks-theme. The infos on picking up items and finishing levels etc will stay the same as they are I think. Maybe I change them, but this depends on the time remaining for the compo (the pickup infos for example are prerendered images, which will need some time to exchange). But if there are any messages (I am thinking about a tutorial with some more text) they will be made in another font, which still fits to the theme, but is much more clear to read (Bank Gothic e.g.).

chronozphere
04-04-2006, 12:42 PM
That's probably his secret feature: reversed gameplay Mr. Green


Haha... lol :lol: :lol:

Again.. a great video. ;)

You must have tons of webspace to put al those vidoe's on. :razz:

Huehnerschaender
04-04-2006, 01:37 PM
No, I have about 150 MB I guess... when it expires I will delete the older ones... :roll:

aidave
05-04-2006, 05:05 PM
http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash-half.jpg (http://air.sourceforge.net/images/blocked/boss-smash.jpg)

Blocked boss for stage 4!

to defeat the gearboss you must destroy his wheels first.

:pirate:

Traveler
05-04-2006, 06:22 PM
Its getting old, but still: It's looking great! I'm very much looking forward to playing the entries :D

Huehnerschaender
05-04-2006, 09:09 PM
Yeah, WOW!! Looks really great! I am very curious on how the entrys gameplay is. There are some games that seem to have the potential of commercial games.

And unfortunately there are so few people showing their progress here... Who knows what else is in the competition?

Aidave: Any chance to see a video of your game?

NecroDOME
05-04-2006, 09:44 PM
@aidave: Yes, I whant to see the action also!

@Tanx video: Impressive :D

We are currently working on a second and third map and also tweaking the user interface.

.S.C.A.G. will have a simple shop to buy weapns and health.

Happy coding!

Huehnerschaender
06-04-2006, 08:34 AM
@NecroDOME: Your screenshot section shows a very nice space level *wow*

A question to all competitors:
I see many very very good entrys here, and I never thought that "hobby" pascal programmers could do so nice games in such a short time. What are you planning to do with your games when they are finished?

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?

savage
06-04-2006, 08:37 AM
Dirk your Blog site is down.