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technomage
06-02-2007, 07:35 PM
OK , I'll jump on this band wagon. :D

My entry is called Brain Drain (I might change that...).

The goal is to produce a two player game. The game arena consists of 4-6 Cubes. Each cube has 4 games within them that need to be completed in order to gain control of the game arena. When a player has control of the arena (by completing all the games on the active cube) they can rotate it to pick which cube they want to play next, the other player has to play the cube opposite. The goal is to complete more cubes than the other player , once all the cubes have been completed the game ends and the person with the most cubes wins.

Now each cube contains 4 games, to start with I plan on a word search game and a version of space invaders, but it could be anything. I'm designing it so that the games are plugins so new games can be added easily. It's possible a small FPS could be written and included, but that could be added later. The games should be quick to play (under 1 minute each) to keep the action frantic.

An interesting tactical edge to the game is if Player 1 completes he/her cube before player 2, but player 2 has already completed 3 games on he/her cube. Player 1 could rotate the grid around and finish off player 2's cube and win that one too. but all is not lost, the time it takes to complete a cube is logged against each player, if the player 2 gets a cube that was completed by Player 1 already, they can gain control of that cube by completing it in a faster time.

the current design document might explain it better...

www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Documents/BrainDrain.rtf

chronozphere
06-02-2007, 09:12 PM
very nice idea's... you have carefully thought this one out. Isn't it :P

So basicly it's a whole bunch of mini-games packed together in a bigger game. With this game concept you can easily add a lot of game-genres and get a lot of points. :D Very clever.. :)

I wish you the best with this project.. hope it'll get shape soon. ;)

WILL
06-02-2007, 10:44 PM
Hrm, interesting concept Dean. I think I'll need to see this one in game form to fully understand how it will play out though.

To me it sort of seems like a party game, but for only 2 people? Still the idea of winning a bunch of mini-games to conquer territory is interesting.

But do be careful with your entry... Arcade is not one of the listed genre so it won't count as one.

Best of luck! :)

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

technomage
06-02-2007, 11:52 PM
To me it sort of seems like a party game, but for only 2 people?


Two player (for now :wink:), I'm going to put the TimeAttack mode in first though. It will be easier for the Judges to test.



But do be careful with your entry... Arcade is not one of the listed genre so it won't count as one.


I just had anoth look at the list. no space invaders.... what kind of genre would that come under I wonder. But hey if it's not on the list then it's not on the list. :?

Huehnerschaender
06-02-2007, 11:57 PM
I really don't know

- why arcade is not on the list
- space invaders would be invalid



Shooter
First-Person Shooter (Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Unreal)
Third-Person Shooter (Gears of War, Splinter Cell, Resident Evil 4)
Scrolling Shooter (Raiden, Gradius, Tryian)
Run and Gun (Contra, Strider)

If a scrolling shooter is valid, why isn't space invaders clone valid? The only difference is that in space invaders the enemys scroll and in a Scrolling shooter the background scrolls... the effect is the same! The enemys approach the player.... or am i dizzled? :)

WILL
07-02-2007, 02:21 AM
Yeah I can see the confusion there. Space Invaders by todays definition is a (single screen) Shooter so it's valid there.

Arcade was on the list before, but was quickly taken off as it can not be clearly defined now-a-days. It's too vague a category as you can now make anything into an 'arcade game' and charge people quarters for play. Then again there is the other aspect of it, it is a classical game like pac-man or Space Invaders? Or is it instead a fighting game like Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat?

See what I mean? :)

But yes, Space Invaders would likely fall under Shooter. We just don't have the single screen shooter up on the sub category list. I guess I could/should add it for clairity.

NecroDOME
07-02-2007, 09:11 AM
Sounds nice :)

WILL
07-02-2007, 04:38 PM
I've updated the chart to include the single screen shooter variety. (Space Invaders, Centipede, Galaga)

technomage
07-02-2007, 07:29 PM
Thanks WILL, full speed ahead with the space Invaders then :D.

I have uploaded my design document. It has a bit more infor than the last one. But it's basically the same.

Here is a direct link on my site.

www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Documents/BrainDrain.rtf

technomage
08-02-2007, 10:26 PM
jdarling upped the ante and posted some screen shots. So here are a few work in progress shots.

Title Screen

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrain200702081.png

Game Arena in Time Attack mode (single player)
Easy level has 4 cubes to start with.

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrain200702084.png

Activating a game cube to play.

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrain200702083.png

Playing a game (a place holder game for space invaders)

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrain200702082.png

So far the game arena works OK. A few little bugs here and there that need ironing out. But it works OK. Points are assigned and the level can be completed.

Getting the arena is the easy part, writting the game plugins is going to be hard. The good news is that the plugin system works great :D so after the competition lots more plugins can be written and added to it :)

Traveler
08-02-2007, 10:47 PM
Oh my,.. you guys are going way too fast. :shock:
I dont think people were moving this fast last year.
One thing is sure though: this is going to be very interesting...

I better get my design ready real soon now :?

technomage
08-02-2007, 10:49 PM
For me it's a case of keeping the momentum going. I have very little time usually (real life stuff), but the last few days I've had a bit extra, so I'm doing all I can now :D

jdarling
09-02-2007, 12:02 AM
For me it's a case of keeping the momentum going. I have very little time usually (real life stuff), but the last few days I've had a bit extra, so I'm doing all I can now :D

Looks really good techno, can't wait to give this one a play. Course, I still have to make it through most of last years entries :(. Too little time and too much to do.


Oh my,.. you guys are going way too fast. Shocked
I dont think people were moving this fast last year.
One thing is sure though: this is going to be very interesting...

Well, I wish I could say I was ahead of the game, but really all I'm doing at this point is showing off some pretty pictures and doing a bit of map scrolling. Not exactly Quake 4 :). Course then again I'm staying with 2D this year, so Quake 4 my entry won't be :)

WILL
09-02-2007, 04:56 AM
After two years of being a judge, I'd imagine you're pretty excited to be in this year. :)

technomage
09-02-2007, 09:22 AM
I am. I was in two minds as to whether I was going to enter. But this is such a great community I couldn't not enter.

I love the way all the competitors support each other here, I don't think you get that anywhere else. :)

technomage
09-02-2007, 01:02 PM
I just posted a very early version of the application here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.zip).

This is very early, the games are not implemented yet, but I have place holders for the space invaders and the wordsearch games.

If anyone has a change to test it that would be cool. The controls are in the README.txt file.

Make sure you extract the zip file with folders, as the game needs the directory structure for find the games and assets.

Sascha Willems
09-02-2007, 01:14 PM
It won't work for me. It starts, I get the SDL window and then it throws that well known windows standard error "The application has encountered a problem and has to be closed...".

Traveler
09-02-2007, 01:17 PM
Same here...

technomage
09-02-2007, 01:18 PM
OK, something is missing, must be in the windows directory.. hang on....

technomage
09-02-2007, 01:22 PM
New version up now. I shipped the debug version of the Asset loader... doh

Traveler
09-02-2007, 01:27 PM
It's still a no go for me. :(

Has the link remained the same ?

technomage
09-02-2007, 01:28 PM
yes, can you post up the text of the BrainDrain.xml file, there should be some log info in that.

Traveler
09-02-2007, 01:30 PM
Ah,.. there's the problem :D

Cannot open file d:\Brain Drain\bin\\assets\textures\braindrain.png

technomage
09-02-2007, 01:41 PM
Cheers, that helped allot.

New version uploaded now. :D

Traveler
09-02-2007, 01:53 PM
No problem :)

It works for me now. :thumbup:

Something noticed is the fact that the mousehover is a bit off. I currently have to point and click a bit below the menu item to activate it.


(btw, I'm currently using a crappy Radeon VE gfxcard, but it still runs pretty smooth)

Sascha Willems
09-02-2007, 02:00 PM
Latest version works here too. But same as Traveler the mouse hover seems too be off abit especially the y-coords. So I also have to click a bit below to active an entry.
And the transition of the cube to the selected game also seems to run too fast and a bit out of time. If I activate the cube it zooms very fast (almost not visible) and I can actually see the game before the zoom-in is done.

technomage
09-02-2007, 02:01 PM
Something noticed is the fact that the mousehover is a bit off. I currently have to point and click a bit below the menu item to activate it.

(btw, I'm currently using a crappy Radeon VE gfxcard, but it still runs pretty smooth)

Yes, I'm still working on that, but it's fairly low priority at the moment :).

The current version just requires basic opengl 1.2 (I think), I want to keep it simple so it can be ported to the DS (when I get that working :) )

technomage
09-02-2007, 02:09 PM
And the transition of the cube to the selected game also seems to run too fast and a bit out of time. If I activate the cube it zooms very fast (almost not visible) and I can actually see the game before the zoom-in is done.

Thanks for the feedback, currently it's running at full speed, I'm going slow it down a bit fir the next release :)

technomage
11-02-2007, 11:24 AM
I just posted an updated version of the application here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.zip).

I have fixed the UI mouse hover problem and I have implemented smoother rotation of the cubes, it should be the same on most machines now (it was running at full speed, I now use a delta time to figure out how much to rotate).

Games are still not implemented, but you can fire in the space invaders game at the moment, but that is very early and obviously the graphics are ...well... pants :wink:

Huehnerschaender
12-02-2007, 10:24 AM
Hi...

somehow the cube rotation stutters on my PC... It sometimes changes from absolutely smooth to absolutely crappy scrolling without any reason.

Since you don't draw much right now, it should be absolutely smooth on my 2.8Ghz, 1GB Ram, X800 Pro 256 MB computer :) I guess you have a bug in the delta calculation somewhere...

Greetings,
Dirk

technomage
12-02-2007, 10:01 PM
Interesting......

more testing required then :wink:

Huehnerschaender
13-02-2007, 11:54 PM
I started it 2 more times today and the stuttering did not occur...

Blame me if my virus scanner or something else was working in the background. Don't know.

I will test it a few times more tomorrow...

technomage
16-02-2007, 10:37 AM
An update

the space invaders game has changed to a shoot-em up.

here are some new screen shots.

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrainArena.png

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrainIngame1.png

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrainIngame2.png

Latest Binaries can be found

here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.zip)

jdarling
16-02-2007, 02:29 PM
Not bad so far, actually once it was up and running it was fairly smooth. Few minor things, that I'm sure you have planned already:
- You really need a loading screen or transition
- Some feedback on what is happening would be nice
- When you die in the mini-game it "hangs", I mean I can still hit the close button and get prompted to close, I can even see the time moving, but I can't do anything :(
- Its REALLY SLOW to load mini-games

The sound was quite amusing, especially when holding the space bar and blowing everything up :). I did notice a few minor hickups when I did that though. So you might want to check your SDL sound buffer to make sure you can fire off a new bullet.

Overall, looking good.

technomage
16-02-2007, 03:19 PM
Thanks for the feedback.

The loading screen is planned, I'm actually not happy with the time it takes to load the arena. I have a idea about that though :D.

the panel on the right will be where the information on hwo to play the game appears, but that hasn't been implemented yet.

The sub game does not have a complete / failed message, that will show up, it looks like it hangs but in the final game the ship will be exploding :D. The timer that closes the sub game seems to have a problem :(.

The sound was bolted in this morning so there are bound to be a few "issues" :)

Anyone know any place to get some decent explosion animations? I'm going to go with animated textures rather than a particle system (it's quicker to implement).

technomage
03-03-2007, 12:02 AM
OK.Stage 2 posted

Just in case the Judges can't get to it.

In this release the load times for the arena have been improved and there are now very basic complete and failed messages for the shoot-em-up sub game.

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar

technomage
03-03-2007, 11:52 AM
As far as I can tell, your app gets the same message (unknown exception) when I select a cube, start the shoot-em-up, fail and try to leave the cube (and when I same the same message... I mean exactly the same).


Hi Athena. Any chance you can post the output from BrainDrain.xml to me.

Cheers

Dean

Sascha Willems
03-03-2007, 12:08 PM
I get an "This application has caused an error..." dialog with the abort and debug button, but even worse this occus when starting e.g. the shot'em'up and then the application exits.

I have uploaded the BrainDrain.xml here (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/BrainDrain.xml) so you can see what goes wrong.

I guess it's coming from this :

<Message>'-0.08' is not a valid floating point value</Message>

This is due to the fact that in germany the decimal separator is "," and not ".".

AthenaOfDelphi
03-03-2007, 12:13 PM
Hi Dean,

No problem, log has been sent to webmaster (Infinitespaceonline)

technomage
03-03-2007, 01:04 PM
This is due to the fact that in germany the decimal separator is "," and not ".".

DOH!!! Waring to all competetors, make sure you set the application locale information up at application start up.

Sascha - thanks for testing that. I'll try and upload a new version which sets the DecimalSeperator to '.'.

new version up on

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar

I have also re-uploaded my stage 2 entry.

Sascha Willems
03-03-2007, 02:31 PM
Are you sure that you uploaded the correct version? I still encounter the same problem.

technomage
03-03-2007, 09:07 PM
Forgot to rebuild the game plugins. They needed the same code in them :oops:

New verison up now.

technomage
15-03-2007, 11:08 PM
Well

Jasonf asked for some screenies. I managed to get started on the WordSearch sub game and here is a screen shot. Thanks to Nitrogen for his wonderful font Studio which is being used for the sub games :).

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Screenshots/BrainDrainIngame3.png

I have also put up a new build for people to play with

http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar

(Sascha - fix you get some time can you test this on your setup please)

Sascha Willems
15-03-2007, 11:20 PM
Sadly the old problem still persist. As soon as I want to start the shoot'em'up I get an "This application has caused an error"-dialog. But somehow it's not happening when I start the puzzle subgame.

But I tried several times and it seems you do something problematic with render-to-texture, cause at some point I got this in my log :


<LogEvent><Type>Error</Type><TimeIndex>00:18:29</TimeIndex><Location>GameState.Render</Location><LineNumber>0</LineNumber><Message>ErrorAccess violation at address 696746E7 in module 'nvoglnt.dll'. Read of address 0000051C</Message></LogEvent>

Which hints at some invalid stuff you're doing. I'm doing RTT myself in all different kinds (plain glCopyTexImage, pixelbuffer, frame buffer objects) and never had any problems. Maybe post how you do RTT (I guess you do the subgames with RTT) and I can take a look at it.

technomage
16-03-2007, 12:13 AM
I'm not using RTT??? I use the glSissor to mask of part of the screen for rendering, but I do that the same way for both sub games.

It must be bomething to do with the model loader. The wordsearch game does not use models, so that must be the only difference.....

I'll take another look at my model loader.

Thanks for re testing :)

technomage
16-03-2007, 07:37 PM
Version 1.4 uploaded

I have put in some specific error handling in the game rendering system to track down the bug.

new version avaialble here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar)

Sascha Willems
17-03-2007, 05:34 PM
Same problem, I've uploaded the log here (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/braindrain_log.xml) hopefully it'll help you track down the bug.

AthenaOfDelphi
17-03-2007, 05:54 PM
I'm getting the same problem I reported in the stage comments (Fail the shooter, let it time out itself, by that I mean let it return to the cube itself, and then try and exit the cube with X. If I press X as soon as I failed the shooter, the problem doesn't occur).

The log is here (http://athena.outer-reaches.com/BrainDrain.xml).

technomage
17-03-2007, 10:24 PM
new version avaialble here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar)

technomage
17-03-2007, 10:41 PM
I'm getting the same problem I reported in the stage comments (Fail the shooter, let it time out itself, by that I mean let it return to the cube itself, and then try and exit the cube with X. If I press X as soon as I failed the shooter, the problem doesn't occur).

The log is here (http://athena.outer-reaches.com/BrainDrain.xml).

I found the problem with this Athena, it will be fixed on the next upload :)
As a result I also fixed the bug where you complete a sub game but it just hangs..

Sascha Willems
17-03-2007, 10:54 PM
Very odd, as I'm developing with OpenGL too and have zero problems on my GF7900.

But I did some further debugging using glIntercept and the log stops a line after glDrawElements, so maybe you're doing something not 100% valid when drawing the interleaved arrays? Maybe just add a second renderpath that uses display lists or better forgett vertex arrays and directly use VBOs.

technomage
17-03-2007, 11:19 PM
I pulled all the VBO code out thinking that was the problem, For this project I can probably fall back on Display lists. But this might have an impact on my InfinitEngine which I am working on as it used simialr technology.

I'll re-write the engine to just use glVertex / glTexCoord etc rather than vertexarrays and we'll see if it makes a difference.

glIntercept eh. I just downloaded it, looks like a really cool piece of software and it's free :).

Thanks for debugging Sascha, I really appriciate it :D

technomage
17-03-2007, 11:35 PM
OK, pulled the vertex array stuff, I'll have to figure that bug out later.


new version 1.5 avaialble here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar)

This should fix your problem Sascha, and it should also fixed the failed and exit cube bug found by Athena.

Other bugs such as the cubes and arena;s sometime keep rotating are still present though.

AthenaOfDelphi
18-03-2007, 10:54 AM
It does appear to have fixed the crash I reported when you wait for a failed shooter game to end itself. But, performance wise it seems quite a bit more jumpy than previous versions.

technomage
18-03-2007, 12:22 PM
That will be the removal of the VertexArrays :(

I suspected this will happen, hopefully putting in DisplayLists will speed things up a little bit, but your not going to get the same performance as vertex arrays of Vertex Buffer Objects. I'm stuck as we don't know why the vertex arra/VBO code was crashing on Sascha's machine.

Sascha Willems
18-03-2007, 03:53 PM
The new version now works fine over here!

And as for Display Lists : They actually will be faster or at least the same speed as VBOs/VAs. Cause most cards store them internally as VBOs but for display lists the card can also rearrange them in a way to optimize state changes (like texture changes). So display lists should be as good as VBOs.

technomage
18-03-2007, 07:30 PM
Hurrah :!: :!: Thanks goodness for that :D Thanks Sascha, you made my weekend :).

I will need to find out what the problem is with the way I do VBO's and vertex arrays though. It could cause me problems in the future.

technomage
21-03-2007, 10:39 PM
First draft for Stage 3.

This version has an implemented WordSearch Game in it as well as the shoot-em-up.

new version 1.6 avaialble here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar)

Other bugs such as the cubes and arena;s sometime keep rotating are still present though.

Traveler
21-03-2007, 11:23 PM
Works for me.

Both the fighter as well as the word game, played without problems. I sometimes had the feeling bullets went through the enemy fighters, but I suppose thats still a work in progress.
The grid in the word game wasn't drawn properly either (the last row was missing), but that too is probably easy to fix. I had no problems solving the game.

I wonder about the words in the word game though. Are you going to be using those in the final version, too? I consider my English to be adequate, but I had to look up at least 5 of those in the dictionary. :?

Anyway, keep it up.

Huehnerschaender
22-03-2007, 08:55 AM
Both games worked for me, too with the same "problems" Alex already mentioned. The cubes still seem to rotate very very long until they stop, but you already mentioned that this bug still exists.

I found the word search game a bit hard to keep track of, because the white letters mixed with the blue letters made it hard to recognize words when you already solved some words. Maybe it would be better not to use white color for solved words, but a little lighter blue than unused letters.

technomage
22-03-2007, 09:43 AM
Thanks for thefeedback guys, I agree on the white letters, I'll sort that for the next build :D

jdarling
22-03-2007, 02:23 PM
I finally got around to running this one again. Only a few minor things; Loading of the shooter was very slow, and I actually thought it had locked up. The grid on the word puzzle was off by one row (it doesn't extend to the bottom of the field), and it took me a while to get used to the controls :). Finally, the only true bug I found, when I beat the shooter, I had the space down. Got the completed screen, and then went back to the main menu. Thats when I let my finger off the trigger, only the sound didn't STOP. Not so much a really bad thing, but very annoying, I had to restart the app to shut the sound off.

In general, looking good.

technomage
24-03-2007, 11:38 AM
Uploaded Stage 3 Entry.

new version avaialble here (http://www.infinitespace-online.net/PGD2007/Release/BrainDrain.rar)

I fixed the cubes/arena rotating bug in this release. But I still haven't implemented the display list stuff yet, so performance will still be a bit slow on older machines.

technomage
13-05-2007, 08:04 PM
Sorry for the lack of updates here. I'm afraid to say I have no time to do any work on my entry for the competition, basically I have had no time since about a week after stage 3 finished and I lost a shed load of time trying to debug errors found on the Judges machines that don't appear on my machine here.

There are allot of things going on in real life at the moment, and as such I've had to cut down my PC time to almost zero (bar checking e-mails and doing the odd 15-20 mins on the DelphiGamer site in my lunch hours).

I checked in this morning to find I had missed the stage 5 cut off asd well.:shock:

I'll still post what work I have done at the end, maybe sometime in the future I'll be able to finish what I started. :think:

technomage
03-06-2007, 12:14 AM
Well I've done it. I posted my entry for the final Judging.

I did some clean up work today and some work on the general graphics and sound. It's not great but it's there.

Here are some final screenies.

http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain1.png
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain2.png
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain3.png
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain4.png
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain5.png
http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/files/201/braindrain6.png