PDA

View Full Version : Multiplexity: Rezolver



jdarling
06-02-2007, 02:50 PM
Its still just a working title, proposed by one of my co-workers, but I have my design doc about 1/3 complete. Since others are being so kind as to give us a look into their games I thought I'd do the same. Here is a short bit of info, followed by the link to the still in development Design Document.

The goal of the game will be to work the player though multiple levels of the game. Each level will consist of a randomly generated maze with a puzzle at the end of it.

Players will need to navigate the maze fighting enemies to receive pieces of the end puzzle and clues as to how to solve it. Players will need to collect all pieces from the maze and then enter the puzzle room in order to solve the puzzle. It is not necessary for players to collect all puzzle clues to enter the puzzle room.

Once a player has solved the levels puzzle then they will be advanced to the next level of the game.

http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/Rezolver%20Design%20Doc.doc

cairnswm
06-02-2007, 03:00 PM
Quite honestly thats exactly what my first idea was :) Maze and Puzzle combination where the player has to collect pieces to build the puzzle with :)

WILL
06-02-2007, 03:44 PM
ah... I like thinking games. :)

Don't forget to submit your entries through the competition system!

jdarling
06-02-2007, 05:37 PM
Quite honestly thats exactly what my first idea was :) Maze and Puzzle combination where the player has to collect pieces to build the puzzle with :)

Just proves that great minds think alike. Looking forward to another great year of head to head development that pushes us all to be better game developers :)

jdarling
08-02-2007, 05:41 PM
Time to up the ante, here are the first screen shots out of my game. Here is a shot of the Main Menu and the Storyline Screen. In game shots are not quite ready, as right now I'm rendering everything separate to make sure that it all works together. Of course, these are just static images being displayed with a bit of raster text on top of them.

http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/ScreenShots/MainMenu.png

http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/ScreenShots/Storyline.png

BTW: Notice that I decided on my final game title :)

chronozphere
08-02-2007, 06:39 PM
Those screenies look interesting... i assume you made the background with e.g photoshop..:) How did you made those lines (is that a build-in effect or did you do that by yourself?) :P

The concept is indeed very nice and may result in an interesting game. I guess you created your own 2D engine: "Jumpstart", but it's still an alpha version. I like to know what "Jumpstart"s capabilities are and what you are planning for the future. :)

I'm looking forward to the result... good luck :wink:

jdarling
08-02-2007, 07:39 PM
Those screenies look interesting... i assume you made the background with e.g photoshop..:) How did you made those lines (is that a build-in effect or did you do that by yourself?) :P

The concept is indeed very nice and may result in an interesting game. I guess you created your own 2D engine: "Jumpstart", but it's still an alpha version. I like to know what "Jumpstart"s capabilities are and what you are planning for the future. :)

I'm looking forward to the result... good luck :wink:

The lines are added with a wind effect in an application called ArtWeaver. Its a graphics editing application much like PhotoShop, only free :)

JumpStart is the game engine that I started for last years compo. Since then its had ALOT of work done. Its a 2D engine with SDL and Lua scripting support. Optimizations in place for GL Rendering or pure SDL rendering w/o the scripter having to worry about the details. More info on JS 3 at: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/index.php

JS 4 is still in Alpha development, and a specialized fork has been created just for PGD 2007, once PGD has completed the specific changes will most likely be incorporated into the JS core.

A short list of the features of JS thus far: Sound, Music, Graphics (TGA and PNG support), Scriptable Objects, OpenGL initialization and optimizations, supports Windows, Linux and Mac (still in testing).

As for the future: Polygon collision testing is the next major thing to implement. I'm going for an approach that will handle convex or concave poly's, so its taking a bit more time then I had originally thought.

You can get some idea of how JS works by look at the sample game engine posted on my site. Granted, its no where near as advanced as JS is right now.

jdarling
08-02-2007, 09:06 PM
Minor update, I've put up a quick page for downloads at: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/

Just in case anyone wants to see whats going on.

technomage
08-02-2007, 10:45 PM
That is looking good :D.

Runs OK on my machine here. Keep it up :)

Sascha Willems
08-02-2007, 11:05 PM
Also runs nice and smooth (1000 FPS) here on my system.

AthenaOfDelphi
08-02-2007, 11:20 PM
I'm getting between 60-90 fps. Is there anyway to switch to fullscreen?

jdarling
08-02-2007, 11:58 PM
I'm getting between 60-90 fps. Is there anyway to switch to fullscreen?

While the engine supports it, I haven't yet added the option into the game :). I'll see if I can't get that into the next release, but it may be a few out, as I want it to be an option from within the game and not something that you have to change in the config file or by using a specialized batch file.

AthenaOfDelphi
09-02-2007, 12:34 AM
K, no worries hon... if you've got it planned for a later stage, don't change your plans on my account. I was just wondering whether you had/are going to implement it.

jdarling
09-02-2007, 05:12 PM
New version uploaded!

Features added:
Fullscreen mode available in options
Mouse pointer is now hidden
Fixed the bug that let you create as many players as you wanted
Other Minor bug fixes as well

jdarling
15-02-2007, 09:42 PM
Well, lots of updates made over the past few days. I've completed the backend collision system and advanced the play options. It would be nice if a few people could run it and let me know what the performance is.

BTW: If your thinking of running it on "You gotta be kidding me" get ready for a very high overhead. There are over 500,000 poly's and points that have to be generated and tested.

Homepage again:
http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/

Huehnerschaender
15-02-2007, 10:12 PM
Runs fine on my machine. FPS always pending from 333 to 500 back and forth in fullscreen...

technomage
15-02-2007, 11:16 PM
Runs OK on my machine, no errors or crashes. smooth game play :D

Robert Kosek
16-02-2007, 01:35 AM
Runs at 83 FPS windowed. :) Roughly 58-62 FPS Fullscreen due to anti-aliasing I think.

Pretty efficient. One thing to note in your readme, when you write one, is that WindowBlinds messes up the SDL window handle. So unless the application is ignored, the game cannot be played. After a few crashes, 1px tall windows, and general tinkering (while looking for a log file *tsk tsk*) I figured it out and got the thing working.

Other than that, I'm good. :D

I'd ask you some questions now about how you are using the Lua scripts, but I'll just leave that be for now and read your lua headers and such. I'll let you prioritize the competition for awhile, and then drive you crazy with questions!

I found that on normal difficulty the walking speed was a bit too slow, because it really took awhile to find my way through. In the end I gave up because I didn't want to spend so much time in an early alpha, but you've got the maze generation part down solidly!

jdarling
16-02-2007, 02:05 PM
@Robert, please ask away on questions about Lua and Pascal. I'm working on a Lua Gem for the up-comming book about Lua on how to utilize Lua within Pascal applications. So any questions that you or anyone else has just gives me more writing material :).

On the maze generation, I'm just using Prim's Algorithm to generate them. Then I'm using a fuzzy stretch to go from the generated size to the final map size (basically filling in sections of the map depending upon what the actual maze generated was). This gives a very nice effect and makes the generation quite quick.

Thanks for the heads up on WindowBlinds and SDL. I know its a skinning application, but thats about it. Wonder how it screws up SDL in the long run.

@All Thanks guys for testing so far, as I said, ALOT of work has went into the engine itself to make it as stable as possible on as much hardware as possible. Now, if I could only get myself a Mac so I can compile the engine for Mac and Linux I'd be set :).

Robert Kosek
16-02-2007, 03:01 PM
@Robert, please ask away on questions about Lua and Pascal.As you wish (http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/viewtopic.php?p=31128#31128), but I won't clutter your competition thread. :D Right now, part of my problem is figuring out just what I can script, and what is better to leave to Delphi.

WindowBlinds allows for DirectX accelerated skinning of most any application, including those not theme aware. Part of the problem is that it never works right with SDL. Either the window's canvas remains black indefinitely, or the window (minus the titlebar's size) is 1-5 pixels high. I figured it was a good thing to forewarn you.

I might know someone with a Mac who would be willing to test for you, but I'm not sure. If you'd like I'll ask him.

jdarling
21-02-2007, 08:45 PM
Site and game updated yet again. Fast link to site: http://pgd07.eonclash.com/

New screenshots are up, and the CMS for the site is now live. The actual website is still under development (as the site says). Anyways, if your keeping up, many things are in place now that were not before.

jdarling
22-02-2007, 09:00 PM
Game Updated - New Features
Just for fun, I threw in collectable hints on the first playable level and set a goal of collecting all of the hints before you can move on. Take a run through it and see what you think.

The hints that are in place, are the actual hints for level 1. Remember, according to the game design, you won't actually have to collect all of the hints to get to the next level. They just help you with the puzzle at the end. This is basically just a test of how to implement level rules that are outside of the primary game rules.

Well, on top of being able to create your character and give it a name. I'm glad to announce that now there are exits for each of the mazes (well, levels). Soon enough, the real game play should start coming together. I have to complete the first static level, add in code for generating puzzle hint interactors, and add in code for the combat system. First thing will be the static level completion, as that will affect the game tutorial :).

Check out the home page for more information and downloads: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/index.php

Huehnerschaender
22-02-2007, 09:43 PM
Nice work :)

Runs at 145 FPS in windowed mode on my machine. No crashes.

I like the style of the characters :) Did you make them?

jdarling
23-02-2007, 02:27 PM
Nice work :)
Runs at 145 FPS in windowed mode on my machine. No crashes.
I like the style of the characters :) Did you make them?

The characters are just developer holders, that is unless I don't find a graphics artist to come up with better ones. They are from an application called Charas (http://charas-project.net/). The app is for building sprite sheets for RPGMaker, but they work well for other engines as well :). Basically, I'm capturing the items from their inventory that I like to a single sheet, then at runtime I make multiple passes and "build" the actual sprite for each player and/or NPC.

I'm glad to hear that the FPS is still holding some what high, was that at the normal play level?

Robert Kosek
23-02-2007, 04:10 PM
Immediate crash on my system, running the archived copy w/o an installer. Caught the message through the console; I would suggest logging your messages to a file as well, if you are able.


Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\******>cd C:\Games\Rezolver

C:\Games\Rezolver>game
JumpStart Game Engine: v4.0 alpha - PGD Edition
Developed by: Jeremy Darling of Eon Clash
Initializing Sound Engine...
Initializing OpenGL Render Context...
Initializing Network Engine
Initializing Scripting Engine...
Loading Script: Game.scr
LUA Exception: ...Desktop\JumpStart\v4\Games\PGD07 (Rezolver)\font.lua:112: atte
mpt to index local 'f' (a nil value)
An unhandled exception occurred at $004267A4 :
ELuaException : ...Desktop\JumpStart\v4\Games\PGD07 (Rezolver)\font.lua:(112) at
tempt to index local 'f' (a nil value)
$004267A4 LUAPCALL, line 1261 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/Desktop/
JumpStart/v4/lua5.1/LuaUtils.pas
$00420DED TLUA__EXECUTE, line 141 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/Desk
top/JumpStart/v4/lua5.1/LuaWrapper.pas
$00405A5F INITSCRIPTENGINE, line 140 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/D
esktop/JumpStart/v4/lib/scriptingengine.pas
$00401286 main, line 73 of JumpStart.lpr

Closing Sound Engine...
Closing Render Context...
Closing Scripting Engine...

C:\Games\Rezolver>

jdarling
23-02-2007, 11:32 PM
@Robert, thats an odd one. Actually, that shouldn't be possible :). I wonder if you managed to get the build that I put up that had a few pieces missing. Can you try downloading whats up now (I won't update it again till tomorrow) and let me know if it works.

Thanks,

Robert Kosek
24-02-2007, 02:11 AM
Tried again, and reproduced the same error. The last build was fine for me, so I only hope you can find what has happened that changed the behavior. Good luck finding that bug, because it's downright annoying.


Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.

C:\Documents and Settings\******>cd C:\Games\Rezolver

C:\Games\Rezolver>game
JumpStart Game Engine: v4.0 alpha - PGD Edition
Developed by: Jeremy Darling of Eon Clash
Initializing Sound Engine...
Initializing OpenGL Render Context...
Initializing Network Engine
Initializing Scripting Engine...
Loading Script: Game.scr
LUA Exception: ...Desktop\JumpStart\v4\Games\PGD07 (Rezolver)\font.lua:112: atte
mpt to index local 'f' (a nil value)
An unhandled exception occurred at $004267A4 :
ELuaException : ...Desktop\JumpStart\v4\Games\PGD07 (Rezolver)\font.lua:(112) at
tempt to index local 'f' (a nil value)
$004267A4 LUAPCALL, line 1261 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/Desktop/
JumpStart/v4/lua5.1/LuaUtils.pas
$00420DED TLUA__EXECUTE, line 141 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/Desk
top/JumpStart/v4/lua5.1/LuaWrapper.pas
$00405A5F INITSCRIPTENGINE, line 140 of C:/Documents and Settings/jdarling/D
esktop/JumpStart/v4/lib/scriptingengine.pas
$00401286 main, line 73 of JumpStart.lpr

Closing Sound Engine...
Closing Render Context...
Closing Scripting Engine...

C:\Games\Rezolver>

jdarling
26-02-2007, 03:31 PM
Ok, there is a new "build" on the website. It includes a batch file called "ShowLoadInfo.bat". If you download and run the new version and it still crashes run this bat file from a command prompt. Then send me what it dumps as that will tell me exactly what and where its crashing, or at least what file(s) its attempting to load that it can't.

BTW: You need to remove ALL previous versions before installing the latest version. As some times, windows zip extractor gets confused and doesn't completely replace all of the files it should :).

Also, if your running WindowBlinds make sure and turn it off for Game.exe or you will have problems according to their faq and other posts on this site.

Robert Kosek
26-02-2007, 03:37 PM
That worked. :D

I'm not sure, I almost always delete the older versions (saving my savegames if they're there) to make certain that stuff like this doesn't happen. It could have been this, or it could have just been a minor tweak ... I really don't know.

Sascha Willems
01-03-2007, 03:06 PM
Downloaded the latest release and it's running fine on my system at around 160 fps. Looks good so far though for my tastes the walking speed is a bit to slow, especially with bigger mazes.

cairnswm
01-03-2007, 03:33 PM
<sarcasm on>
Cool the Judges are judging already!!
<Sarcasm off>

PS. I would like to see comments like this from the judges where they feel they want tot say something. It will result in better quality games! And I dont care if it helps my competition "enemies"! ie. Please make more comments like this.

Sascha Willems
01-03-2007, 03:41 PM
Well, I think it's the least I can do to try out the games available to at least tell the people wether they work on my system in advance, and not just in the comments after the deadline. That way they can try to fix it before submitting it.

And I also don't want to comment too much on the gameplay, as that could be seen as some kind of "hint" from a judge and other people may offended. So right now I'm only giving feedback on wether a game works as suspected on my system and on some minor stuff.
So you won't read something like "wow, this is awesome gameplay" or "change that to make it more fun" as that would spoil a part of the competition ;)

AthenaOfDelphi
01-03-2007, 03:52 PM
I'm not commenting for the exact reasons Sascha has outlined. I have tried pretty much every download thats been made available... had I encountered show stopping problems (like not running) I would have said something, but so far so good.

jdarling
02-03-2007, 09:17 PM
I'm happy with just getting it runs/doesn't run on my system, that at least tells me I didn't screw up too bad.

Anyways:
Good news and bad news. The bad news is that during the last backup round I lost MOST of the source code for the game :(. The good news is, that I was able to re-build the game quite quickly.

This has actually proven to be advantagious in that now levels are even more flexible. You can see this by downloading and running the latest version. There are some new options in the character customization screen, but I completely lost the interaction code that was in place. So, no dialogs telling you what to do or giving you clues. You can still walk around finding the exit and going to the next level though.

Since this still fulfills Stage 2 guidelines, I'm going to release it as is and wait until Stage 3 starts to put interactions back in. Then I'll start working on other features that will make a big difference in gameplay.

I'm getting ready to upload my final for stage 2 as I type this.

jdarling
14-03-2007, 10:25 PM
After A LOT of work and headaches the basics of combat are in place and available in the latest download. You won't see any combat until level 2, as in level 1 your goal is simply to find the exit. In level 2 you can find two MOB's to encounter then make a run for the exit. Finally level 3 is just more maze stuff. You can use the trojanhorse cheat code to start on level 2 if you want, but know that it may cause problems later on. Remember to setup your Combat Configuration using the mouse and SHIFT+ARROW KEYS before entering the combat system.

Check the project home page at: http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/

jdarling
29-03-2007, 01:37 PM
Well, the game itself isn't complete, but the engine has been successfully compiled and tested on Debian/Knopix. Since the goal of JumpStart has been to get a cross platform engine up and running, it wasn't hard to get this version done I just had to make sure that the code was stable enough :).

You have to download and install the packages for Lua 5.1 and SDL for your Linux environment, but it should (in theory) work. It worked on the two boxes I have for testing, but I forgot to write down exactly what packages you need :(.

Anyways, if anyone downloads it and gets the game up and running please let me know so I can add the distro to my list :).

Oh yeah, for some reason ZIP keeps marking the Game file as not an exe, so you will need to go in and setup your permissions to have execute rights.

Download here (http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/index.php)

jdarling
05-04-2007, 05:41 PM
If you have played my entry, then my question will make more sense. If not, well then download the latest and give it a shot. I really need some feedback on the combat system. Everything from User Testing and QA has pointed that the Combat Configuration and Combat screens are interesting ideas, but that they need some improvements.

The general argument is that it is too time consuming to setup your combat queue and that it grows so rapidly its hard to maintain. So, here are my ideas on how to fix this so far. I'd like to know what ideas people like best as well as any new ideas that I haven't thought of.

1) Instead of actually configuring your tokens you configure the token types. So you would say show me x3 plays, basic attack, and minor heal before showing me x2 plays. Then when in combat you play from them.

2) Keep the same as it is now, but lower the number of tokens you receive, make combat shorter and thus eliminate some of the problem.

3) Remember the play order that the player came in with and when they go out try to match it (almost impossible to implement perfectly).

4) Change it to something like Guild Wars where you have only 6 slots for your next combat interaction that you have to setup at the beginning of each level.

As I said, I'd love to hear what others think, as well as other suggestions. I know that this is going to take time to implement, but I'd rather get it fixed now rather then later when it will take more time.

AthenaOfDelphi
05-04-2007, 09:00 PM
The only real irritation I had with the combat system was the fact that the queue was jumbled after every fight. Whilst I don't know the in's and out's of the implementation, I wouldn't have though that making it remember the queue from one fight to the next would be too difficult. It is after all just a list of numbers.

That said, does the setting up before hand make that much of a difference? It forces you to think ahead, but you can also end up in a mess. Implementing a 'kind of' option 1 would potentially make it easier to understand and potentially more fun to play. By a 'kind of' option 1, I mean a system whereby you can pick any of your tokens at any time (within the rules). This gives you ultimate freedom, doesn't bog the player down readjusting the combat queue and can just as easily lead to bad decision making... possibly more so if you were to add a time limit to picking the tokens to play that round :twisted:

Just a few thoughts to chuck in the melting pot

jdarling
12-04-2007, 02:35 PM
Stage 4 Development Screen Shots
These shots were taken once some of the final UI design was put in place. The new combat system is shown as well as the new graphics. These new shots are compressed JPG's to help save on some bandwidth.

http://upload7.postimage.org/670977/s4MainMenu.jpg
Main Menu (http://upload7.postimage.org/670977/photo_hosting.html)

http://upload7.postimage.org/670991/s4ConfigureCombatQueue.jpg
Configure Combat Queue (http://upload7.postimage.org/670991/photo_hosting.html)

http://upload7.postimage.org/671004/s4Merchant.jpg
Approaching a Merchant (http://upload7.postimage.org/671004/photo_hosting.html)

http://upload7.postimage.org/671027/s4Combat.jpg
Combat (http://upload7.postimage.org/671027/photo_hosting.html)

More screenshots here (http://www.eonclash.com/JumpStart/v4/PGD07/ScreenShots.php)