GemChase Alpha

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi people,

in the end of last week I read through the "Fly the copter" thread and played the game a few times myself... It was so addictive, while really simple that I thought about making a little and very simple game myself over whitsun weekend.

Idea is as simple as gameplay:

Collect as many gems as you can to get highscore.

There are different colors of gems:
Purple = 1 Point
Red = 3 points
Blue = 5 points
Green = 10 points
Yellow = 15 Points
Cyan = 20 Points

The gems spawn randomly (color and position).

Controls are easy, too:

Use Arrowkey to thrust... thats it.

Don't hit any walls, it will drain your life. And guess what... if life drops down to zero, you die :)

It would be nice if some of you could test this Alpha version to see if the gameplay works. The final game will have some additions like a countdown, a changing special color (the gems of that color will give double points for a while), changing levels etc...

I plan to finish the game until monday night, eventually on tuesday.

A screenshot:

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

And here is the download:
http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseAlpha.zip

Please report issues and other feedback here :)

Greetings,
Dirk

[Traveler]

I've tried your game for a bit but I'm afraid it looks nothing like the screenshot you've posted. I can see the gui, walls, the ship and even the trusters on the ship and the explosion when I die, but that's it. No background or gems are visible to me. :(

From what I can see the game does seem to work like it should though.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Alex. Thanks for testing!

Is it possible to see a screenshot? Is the glow around the gems visible? Can you collect gems even if they are not visible?

[technomage]

I tested the game here. It worked Fine , no problems :D

[Srki_82]

Hi,

everything is looking great. There is GUI, background, ship, thrusters, gems, shader is working nice, but... I can't fly. Left-right is working ok, but when I pres up nothing happens. Thruster is visible but ship is not flying.

[Huehnerschaender]

Is the ship moving left and right?

How much FPS do you have?

[tanffn]

I have the same problem as Srki_82, I can move left and right but not up though the thrusters are visible.

I get 14FPS..

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, thanks for the hint with FPS...

I think I fixed that problem.

What kind of system do you have? 14 FPS does not seem to be too much...

I will try to improve FPS...

[Srki_82]

FPS is 31.

Windows XP SP2 32bit
AMD Athlon 64 3000+, ~1.8GHz
Radeon X1300

Hope this would help :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, this helps! Thank you...

I already increased FPS from 120 to 190-200 on my system. I hope I can increase it a bit more. I think the way I render the gems is eating too much performance. It's a 3D model I render to a rendertarget and then add it to the 2D scene...

[savage]

The game works fine here as well.
FPS : 100
Nvidia 7600GT
AMD X2 AM2 4.2
1GB Ram

I really like the re-spawning effect any chance you can write up something small about how you achieve it?

[Huehnerschaender]

The respawn effect is a very small pixel shader (only 7 lines of code) which uses a normal map to distort the screen... The shader is written by Dan (the one who is making the DanJetX-component set).

I fixed some things. I think another upload will follow this evening with sound support, too.

I wish Traveler gets this one running on his machine, too!


btw: I limit the FPS to 100 in the first upload... so don't wonder why you don't get more FPS.

[Srki_82]

It's working now.

Just one question... don't you thing that gravity is a bit to strong?

[Setharian]

it's working fine...
45 FPS on my AMD Athlon 2700+, GeForce 5600 FX

[Huehnerschaender]

@srki: How did you get it working? I did not upload a new version yet!
The gravity is ok with enough FPS... I hope the new version will give you some extra FPS to play it as its meant to be.

[Srki_82]

I just restarted my computer and run only game, no background processes... FPS was almost 40 and ship could fly but gravity was very strong :)

Edit: well... it now works even if FPS is just 30!? Are you sure you didn't upload new version? :D

http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/9281/gemchaseys2.th.jpg (http://img136.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gemchaseys2.jpg)

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, I am absolutely sure :)


But I uploaded a new version NOW! :)

Changes:

- FPS should be increased
- 6 different gem models
- sound support
- multi level support (right now there are not much of levels *hehe* but you can press F5 to switch to one of 20 internal levels (most of them don't differ, its just implemented yet, no level design)
- added a countdown (which makes no sense in this state of development, but it will later on)
- Adjusted "target FPS" and movement factors, so that the game should run much smoother with low FPS...
- Gems don't spawn immediately after they were picked up... they get a random timerange (0.5 - 6.5 seconds) now to respawn

Please report issues if you have some minutes to test it :) Thanks!

[czar]

Yup I had a go - all looked fine - about 99 FPS so that was good. Like the popping in of new canisters.

Nice to play for a few mins but at the moment it is missing motivation. Safest way to play is not to start :)

I also found the background misleading - I though there was space craft lower left corner when I got there I realised it was just background texture- duh! Must get glasses.

The spray effect is also very nice.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Czar!

The background is a placeholder... Don't worry about the spacecraft :) I will make some space scenes in Max later on, but right now a placeholder must be good enough :)

No motivation, huh? Isn't it enough to play a dumb game without any goal, no levels and no highscore??? :)

I am working on this "issue" :)

[wodzu]

Hello.

I tired to run your game but I got such message:

Zugriffsverletzung bei Adresse 0000616D. Lesen von Adresse 0000616D :lol:

System:

Athlon XP 1900+
SiS 741 Graphic Card :lol:
1.5 GB RAM

[Huehnerschaender]

Hmmm... when did this error occur? Right on startup? Could you see anything other than this message on screen?

[Srki_82]

I got similar error (maybe the same) when I tried to change shader code to increase FPS.

Does SiS 741 Graphic Card support shaders?

@Huehnerschaender
Maybe you can fallback to some other effect when shader can't be used (low end graphic card, corupted shader file, etc...)? Bright glow over new created crystals may look nice :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, maybe thats the problem... I need Pixel Shader 1.4 for the effect. I thought if a video card does not support it, just nothing happens (no effect is shown)?! And in addition the game need DirectX 9.0c. I use Squall for sound, maybe thats another possible reason for the error...

The shader itself should not take much performance...
On my machine there is nearly no difference in FPS using the shader or not.

[wodzu]

I got similar error (maybe the same) when I tried to change shader code to increase FPS.

Does SiS 741 Graphic Card support shaders?



I don't think so :|
I've run some of the Applications which were using DirectX 9.0c and they worked but without effects ;)

[Traveler]

Hi Alex. Thanks for testing!

Is it possible to see a screenshot? Is the glow around the gems visible? Can you collect gems even if they are not visible?

I've tried the newest version, but I'm afraid the problem has gone from bad to worse. All I can see now is the gui. :(

The game does seem to work as I can fly (I can hear the trusters and all), and collect gems.
I've added a screenshot. I'm not sure if it helps any tho :)
http://upload8.postimage.org/547568/gemchase.jpg (http://upload8.postimage.org/547568/photo_hosting.html)

Specs: Win Vista, core 2 duo, 2gb ram, 8800 GTS

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, one of the changes from the first version to the one you tested now is that I render more things to a rendertarget. It seems that your driver for Vista does have problems with rendertargets. I will tell Dan. He knows that there are some other problems with DanJetX and Vista, so hopefully he'll fix it soon (I guess one of the problems is that he does not have access to a Vista PC).

[godbeast]

Tested, fully playable but gui isn't fully visible for me :( So I can't tell nothing about fps, but game runs smothly.

WinXP
Some pci VIA card (my temporary)
512 RAM

[pstudio]

I just tried youyr game out. There is a potential for a small fun game, but right now it's missing some things.

First of all it's to easy. I could just fly around in the same big area and wait for gems to pop up and not even get close to a wall.
The way the shpi flies invites yout to try and landt it. You can actually land the ship but then your life just counts down until you die. Doesn't make much sense to me :?
I think the game so far is lacking some sort of an action element. Something that doens't allow the player to be lame and just fly around in the same easy space.

But your game is just in alpha and is looking promising. If you work fast you can combine it with anothe game genre and submit it to the compo :P

btw. gfx is beautiful.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for testing :)

@godbeast:
Do you see just a black stripe where the GUI should be? Or is the screen "cut off" at the lower edge?

@pstudio:
Thanks for the comments. I know that in this Alpha state there is not much of gameplay *hehe* I plan the finished game to have landing platforms (like the one you start on) where you can land your ship to get repaired or fueled up. The gameplay though will stay the same. Collect gems. I hope I can add some moveable obstacles in time like falling comets or moving tiles, opening/closing doors etc. All this will improve gameplay.
Right now I have just implemented level goals. Collect X gems of color Y and Z gems of color W to proceed to next level. And all this in a given amount of time. There will also be some bonuses like a random color that gives extra points when collected withing a countdown of 15 seconds.

Much work to do (more than I thought). I wanted to finish this game until tomorrow, but I doubt I can achieve this. Maybe in the end of the week (then I still needed only one week for the game, which is not much :) ).

[Legolas]

I don't know what goes wrong, but all I can see is:

http://upload8.postimage.org/549469/Immagine.jpg (http://upload8.postimage.org/549469/photo_hosting.html)

Intel dual proc. T3200, GF Go7600, Dx9c :think:

[Robert Kosek]

I'd venture to call it fun, but I get this as well. The "You have died" screen shows fine as well as the black bar at the bottom, but nothing else of course.


http://upload8.postimage.org/550265/gemthing_dud.jpg (http://upload8.postimage.org/550265/photo_hosting.html)

Oh yeah, my video card is a GeForce 7800GS.

[Huehnerschaender]

Wow... this is serious....


Legolas and Robert, which OS are you using? Vista as well?

[Robert Kosek]

Windows XP, DX9, latest patches; my drivers are 97.73.

[Legolas]

WIndows XP here too. Seems like video memory isn't "refreshed", because among glitches I can see some stuff from another app I have ran before your game

[Huehnerschaender]

I had that issue with another project. but only with 1/3 of the rendertarget... hmmm... strange strange... since it works well on my PC I think the only one who can do something about this issue is Dan. I will let you know if I changed something concerning this.

I could do without shader and then there would be no more need for rendertargets... Hmmm... I will think about this

[pstudio]

I don't know if you have an off-by-one error, but apparently you can have 0 in life and still play :eh:

An completely different thing. I've been thinking about creating a game were the control will be the same as in your game. May I ask how you do the movement in your game. I was thinking of using a vector to represent motion and one for gravitiation. Is that how you did it?

[godbeast]

Do you see just a black stripe where the GUI should be? Or is the screen "cut off" at the lower edge?

It looks like this:
http://images21.fotosik.pl/344/407b21b8483e308bm.jpg (http://www.fotosik.pl/pokaz_obrazek/407b21b8483e308b.html)

[Srki_82]

It works flawlessly at my computer. FPS is about 40, gravity is ok and every thing is showing as it should.

I have ATI video card and maybe graphic engine use some ATI extensions that are not available at NVidia graphic cards?

Huehnerschaender, what graphic card do you have? All reported graphic problems were on GeForce cards.

Edit: Ups... I forgot that you don't use OpenGL.

[Setharian]

no I have GeForce and no problems encountered....

[Robert Kosek]

no I have GeForce and no problems encountered....What drivers? Driver version is just as important as the make and model of the card you know.

[Huehnerschaender]

I don't know if you have an off-by-one error, but apparently you can have 0 in life and still play :eh:

Oh yes, thanks for that! My life value is of "single" type and if it reaches a value <1> 0 it is shown as 0 :) I will change that!



An completely different thing. I've been thinking about creating a game were the control will be the same as in your game. May I ask how you do the movement in your game. I was thinking of using a vector to represent motion and one for gravitiation. Is that how you did it?
I have 3 Vectors and 1 constant.

Position, Velocity and Acceleration = Vector
Gravity = constant

Now... in this little game I do not really need Acceleration, becaus I just set y value of Acceleration Vector to Gravity. But you will need it for other things like rockets etc.

The new position is always calculated something like this:

Velocity := Velocity + Acceleration;
Position := Position + Velocity;

Now you can change things like Acceleration or Velocity to control the movement...


@godbeast:
It seems that your video card/driver has problems with texturefonts from DanJetX. I will upload a new version tonight, which uses both, prerendered texturefonts and runtime generated fonts. It would be nice if you could test if you can read anything written on screen.

@skri: I have ATI X1600 Pro PCIE
I don't think that the issue is brand related... but I guess it is some kind of problem between DanJetX and NVidia drivers.

@Setharian:
Please tell us your driver version so we can check if there maybe is an issue with NVidia drivers.

Thank you all very much for testing!

[Legolas]

ForceWare 165.01 and BIOS video version 5.73.22.07.02 here, if it can help

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Legolas.

New upload (link is in first post).

Unfortunately no changes to the video card related issues.


- added some test levels. Collect the gems shown in UI (bottom of screen) in a given time (countdown is shown upper right, this is just a placeholder for a real countdown) to procedd to next level.

- added changing background support

- added random meteor attack (which spawns only in level where it is configured)

- added bonus colors. If a bonus color period occurs, the gems of that color give 10 extra points when collected.

- more sound, more music

- If countdown runs down to zero, game ends

I think thats it for today... I need to get up early tomorrow.

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

Hi Dirk,
I find the meteor shower a bit annoying and it really comes down to pure luck whether you survive them or not. Maybe only have them appear for a limited time if you fail to pick up certain bonuses.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hey Dom,

the game is still in Alpha state so the meteor shower spawns much too often, the meteors are too fast and the frequency of single meteors also has to be adjusted. It was added just to show it in this version. There will be some other "handicaps" which happen during gameplay. It shows just the idea.

I assume the game runs well on your machine?

Greetings,
Dirk

[savage]

I assume the game runs well on your machine?



Yes the game runs fine. No glitches to report.

[pstudio]

I just tried it out, and though I know it's still in alpha I have some thoughts.

It doesn't make sense that the metoers can fly through walls. It woulds seem naturally for me if they deflected instead. Perhaps made an explosion instead, which you don't wanna be near of.

It would be an idea, if you made sure that the game actually spawned the gems you needed. I waited 30 seconds to get 3 fuchsia gems. I died of time out :?

That's it for now.

Btw. Love your intro :P

[Huehnerschaender]

It doesn't make sense that the metoers can fly through walls. It woulds seem naturally for me if they deflected instead. Perhaps made an explosion instead, which you don't wanna be near of.

Yep, meteors will collide with walls. So you can hide under a platform during a meteor shower (reducing the risk to get hurt, but losing time)




It would be an idea, if you made sure that the game actually spawned the gems you needed. I waited 30 seconds to get 3 fuchsia gems. I died of time out :?

I know... The levels in the last Alpha are "worthless". Just a test to show what I have. I already have implemented more leveldata. I can now configure the chance of each color to spawn, and I also can configure the amount of simultanous spawns.

I had some problems with timing all the states of the game, but I am nearly done and a new Alpha will come tomorrow I guess. Now with a lot of speech-sounds (I sat the whole day recording my damn voice and changing the pitch to make it sound like I thought it should be (the UFO is steered by a green little alien, and you hear his voice during game) )

The program becomes more and more a real game each additional hour I work on it.



Btw. Love your intro :P
Thank you very much! *rofl*

[savage]

The program becomes more and more a real game each additional hour I work on it.


Does this mean we will see this as part of Valgard's Fate ;-)?

[Huehnerschaender]

*hehe*

No.


Valgards fate is still in progress, don't worry. I am just a little lazy with rendering characters animations. I want him to have a hammer in his hand which forces me to redo all animation renderings :(

This little game her was meant to be finished in a few days... ok, I did not finish it within the timerange I thought, but there are already much more features than I wanted to include. But some of them were really necessary to make it worth to be called a game.

The game will be finished within this week! There is no excuse, no reason that it will not. The only thing which may be left open are the issues on some computers... I already spent much time in them, but I did not find any fault in my own rendering procedures... I am on it on Dans forums.

[Huehnerschaender]

Good news.

I will upload a new Alpha in the evening today which hopefully resolves all problems with rendering. I also improved speed a lot! On my laptop (with a crappy ATI Radeon 9000 mobility) I now get 70 FPS. On another system with a more than outdated GeForce 2 MX 440 I still get 17-20 FPS.

[Legolas]

Good news.

I will upload a new Alpha in the evening today which hopefully resolves all problems with rendering. I also improved speed a lot! On my laptop (with a crappy ATI Radeon 9000 mobility) I now get 70 FPS. On another system with a more than outdated GeForce 2 MX 440 I still get 17-20 FPS.

Yay! Great news! I hope I can finally test your game (that could be a good marketing strategy to keep the spot on your game :mrgreen:) :drool:

[Robert Kosek]

Good news! I hope it works this time around.

Oh, and for some reason here I thought (for months now) that I had a 7800GS in my system and I realized that at the last moment I upgraded it to a 7900GS. DxDiag helps clear those issues up pretty quickly. :roll:

[Setharian]

@Setharian:
Please tell us your driver version so we can check if there maybe is an issue with NVidia drivers.
93.71 Forceware

[godbeast]

Looking forward to it! I'll test it out right away

[Huehnerschaender]

I'm going to the gym now. When I am back I will finish the new bomb item and then upload. I think upload will be in approx. 3-4 hours.

[godbeast]

Great, since there is some party in my place right now, everyone gonna check out your current release 8)

[wodzu]

Good news.
I also improved speed a lot! On my laptop (with a crappy ATI Radeon 9000 mobility) I now get 70 FPS. On another system with a more than outdated GeForce 2 MX 440 I still get 17-20 FPS.

Jut a little out of topic reflection(hope you don't mind): What happened that even a simple game can't run today in resonable framerate? Is this becasuse new DirectX doesn't support older cards? If rember corectly I could play with lower detail in Elder Scrolls 3 on Geforce 2 MX 440 with 32 MB RAM. I could also play in Need For Speed Underground on Geforce 2 MX 440 with 64 MB RAM. Those are not so old titles after all. And just for the comparision I am currently making a little RTS game and it runs now ~ 50 FPS on this GeForce (only graphics, no game logic yet) and Starcraft runs on it like a lightning regardless of number of units on the screen (not to mention I could play SC on P133 with Cirrius Logic 1 MB RAM graphics card:) ).
What happened? This is frustrating... :?

[czar]

It depends what that simple game is trying to do. If it starts using shadows, shaders etc then the frame rate will plummet on gfx cards that cannot handle those things in hardware.

[wodzu]

This doesn't convince me enough. Both of the tiles given by me used shadows. Also I compared a simple 2D game made by me to much more complex Starcraft (in therms of game logic) and I am not using any shadows not to mention shaders. What I am doing is just drawing some sprites in a loop;)

[Robert Kosek]

It's also the speed of switching images in and out of memory. The more efficiently you manage your images and rendering loops, the more efficient your program. As soon as you get to 3d you hit a new dimension (2^2 versus 2^3, remember; a potentially huge difference) and with soft shadows and shaders things really get stressed.

[czar]

wodzu, probably has a lot to do with your coding decisions. How you optimize how you manage graphics etc. You could potentially make a starcraft game or any game for that matter using Delphi. The efficiency and speed of the game are determined by other decisions. For example don't expect to make starcraft III using DelphiX.

[Huehnerschaender]

I am happy to say that the link in the first post now leads to the third Alpha version. There are many new things. Just try it out.

The "bomb" will get a new 3D model... right now its a smoke-grenade model :) Just don't bother.

To all who had renderproblems: Please report if the problems are gone now... this is one of the most important things to me this time.

And before you ask: Yes, the voice is mine :)

[czar]

Just tried it using Vista.

First screens are black - i.e. the start up screens.

I had to use the escape key to get through these screens - the game does actually start and all the effects are there. It all looks great. However, on my work vista machine I didn't get high frame rate - will try at home this evening.

[Huehnerschaender]

The first 2 screens will be replaced by intro and menu. The text shown there uses TDJXTexFont. Maybe Dan can help there again :)

How much FPS did you get?

[Robert Kosek]

Just tried it using Vista.

First screens are black - i.e. the start up screens.

I had to use the escape key to get through these screens - the game does actually start and all the effects are there. It all looks great. However, on my work vista machine I didn't get high frame rate - will try at home this evening.Ditto, though I got a high frame rate I think. The first two screens consisted of uncleared video memory, meaning things aren't being loaded/swapped correctly, followed by a playable game.

Neat spawn effect.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for the answers...

I think the easiest way will be not to use prerendered texture fonts.

But its nice to know that the game now runs on your machine Robert!

[Robert Kosek]

I'm glad it works too. Your voice(s) are hilarous! You need to record one screaming, for when the player has like 1-2 HP left. :D It'd fit perfectly!

Oh, and I'm getting 270 FPS. (EDIT: Fine, 300-400 depending on what's visible...)

[Huehnerschaender]

*hehe* Thanks! I was busy several hours yesterday to do the voice files :)
I need much more for the finished game, they repeat too often during gameplay. There are several completely missing like death or using bomb.... all that will follow this week :)

300-400 FPS is nice! I get up to 300 on my system at home.

[godbeast]

Playable and fully visible here. FPS: 30-40

[Huehnerschaender]

Great! Then I guess only Legolas and Traveler are left to report if it works now... I am very glad that the render issue seems to be solved... Thank you all for re-testing!

[Legolas]

Great! Works here too now :D

[Huehnerschaender]

Great! Thanks! 8)

[pstudio]

Is it just me, or does it go faster if you just let the ship fall than if you press the down key if you want to go downwards?

[Huehnerschaender]

You are right...
I have to redo some work on gravity calculations...

When you press down I limit the velocity to a certain value. When you press no key I just add gravity force without limiting the maximum velocity... call it a bug :)

EDIT: fixed

[Traveler]

Sorry for the late reply. I haven't touched my pc a whole lot in the last two days :? I did however read your message about the newer version, earlier today (while at the office). So right before going to bed, I thought I give it a quick go , to see if I can give you some good news as well.
Unfortunately, I cannot. :(

It appears that with each version more elements become invisible.
Whereas in my previous post I could still see gui elements, I'm now faced with a completely black screen. There's music playing in the background though, so I'm pretty sure the game is running.

[Huehnerschaender]

Screen in first post shows the new additions to gameplay:

- the bomb now is a ton with a danger/radioacitivity sign on it
- there are bonuspoint-items for 50 and 100 points
- first aid kit is now available which gives back 25% of life/health

Alle items have their own visual effect and sound.

The first 10 levels are ok now I guess...

I also added 2 "Advertisement" logos/scenes in the beginning. One for me and one for DanJetX.

Game title-screen still to be done :(

[Huehnerschaender]

Unfortunately, I cannot. :(

It appears that with each version more elements become invisible.
Whereas in my previous post I could still see gui elements, I'm now faced with a completely black screen. There's music playing in the background though, so I'm pretty sure the game is running.

Oh no. Shit!

Thanks for testing it mate!
Could you please tell me something about your PC? video card, driver, DirectX version, OS...

Anyway, you are the only one left where it does not run... so I guess there must be something special about your PC...

Greetings,
Dirk

[Dan]

I think he means the first two screens (the title screen and the menu) which are usually just black. You need to press escape twice to get to the game.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hmmm.... thats possible.

Alex, did you press ESC twice when the game started? And you need to make a 1 sec pause between the keypresses (because the scenes normally fade in/out).

Maybe you just have the problem that TextureFonts are not working on your system. The next upload will include "filled" starting scenes, so that there will be something visible in any case.

[Traveler]

Thanks for testing it mate!
Could you please tell me something about your PC? video card, driver, DirectX version, OS...

Windows Vista,
core 2 duo 2.67Ghz,
2GB RAM
NVidia 8800 GTS 320MB
Directx version 9.18.944 (publ. date 4/10/2007)

I'm currently at work, so I can't test right now, but I remember that right after starting, the screen becomes black. There's nothing visible, but I can hear music playing. I pressed escape (unsure if I pressed it twice) but that didn't seem to do anything, so I used alt-f4 to quit.

I'll try some other games from Dan's site to see if they have similar problems.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Alex.

It seems to me that you did not reach the game screen at all.

You were stuck within my intro and menu scenes because you are not able to see the text I display as placeholder for later included menu and intro.

You say you heard music. If thats all you heard you have not been into the game (you should at least hear a spoken countdown (3..2..1..go)).

Could you press ESC several times after you started the game? This should lead you to the game screen. I am sorry that the texturefonts do not seem to work properly and that you just see a black screen because of that.

[czar]

HI Dirk,

My home machine is almost same spec as Traveller - except I have the 640MB GTS

Black screen - press escape wait press escape and the game begins

700FPS

[Bijo]

Nice game, Huehnerschaender :D

Only problem I had was having to press Esc twice in the beginning.

[Huehnerschaender]

Nice game, Huehnerschaender :D

Only problem I had was having to press Esc twice in the beginning.

Thanks :)

I made some minor changes today and I also did the title/menu screen. So hopefully I can upload a BETA state tomorrow.

I don't have the time to make really cool backgrounds, so the title is not very spectacular, but good enough for a complete game made in one week :)

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

Greetings.

[Traveler]

Well, I finaly had the time to try again and it appears I was indeed a bit too quick with my judgement, last time. The escape - wait - escape scenario worked for me as well and now I´m happy to say: I can play the game!

I must say for the small amount of time, you really did a great job! From the cool spawning animation, to the superb voice effects, rounded up with a cool looking menu screen. My thumbs up! :thumbup: :D

[Huehnerschaender]

The game will be finished within this week! There is no excuse, no reason that it will not.

Well, the game as "the game-engine" is ready to go. There is nothing much I need to do on it (except if you'll find additional bugs in the next release (which will be beta)).

The only things I am currently still on are:
- some more voicefile I'd like to have in the game
- I really don't like my tiles for collidable "walls", so I am trying to do some new graphics for them, also with some variety.
- Highscore is not ready yet :(

I guess I'll upload what I have this evening as Beta-release. (unfortunately I had some family things to do, otherwise already would have finished all this).

[Huehnerschaender]

Oh, and thank you very much Alex!! (for re-testing and comments!)

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, here we go...

New upload of "complete" gameplay.

http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

There are still a few things to do but I want to know if there are any rendering problems left in this version.

Highscore system still has to be done.

At the moment there are only 8 levels. I will make more when I know that the gameplay itself is running well on different kind of machines.

And of course I would like to see some criticism and ideas. Does the game "make fun" or not, what could be done better etc...

Upload is 17 MB this time because I added 5 songs to the game.

Greetings,
Dirk

[godbeast]

Tested here, absolutely no problems, runs smoothly.
Generaly, IMO very fun and juicy game.
Good job! :thumbup:

One suggestion about gameplay - no damage is taken when I hit the "roof" (I mean the upper part of the screen, not wall). So the trick is - fly safely around it, avoid meteors and collect gems. I managed to get to the 5th level without a single scrath using that technique :twisted:

[Bijo]

Damn! This is good stuff :)

I think my only complaint would be the music in the levels. I liked the first choice, though, in the first level. It had a bit of a saddish sound.


Okay, I'm off to check out some of the other games around here.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for testing and the comments so far!


One suggestion about gameplay - no damage is taken when I hit the "roof" (I mean the upper part of the screen, not wall). So the trick is - fly safely around it, avoid meteors and collect gems. I managed to get to the 5th level without a single scrath using that technique :twisted:

In the beginning I had this damage in the game but it was a little "unnatural" feeling to get damage when you don't hit something visible. So I took it out again.

But you are right... this could be used to fly on the top the whole time without getting damage and without the need to steer your ship.... I think I will change this again... thanks for the tip!

[savage]

Hi Dirk,
After getting some mild RSI playing this with the keyboard, I thought I would ask, does it come with joystick/gamepad support?

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Dom,

what is "mild RSI"??

Joystick support is a good idea. I never thought about it, but it should be very very easy, because I already use a DirectInput component which support Joysticks and I just use keyboard right now.

[savage]

RSI = Repetitive Strain Injury :)

[Robert Kosek]

Well, first I'd have to ask Savage why he's getting into the game so much as to strain himself like that. :P I've heard of repeated-strain-injury from FPSes, but not casual games like this.

Don't tell me you do the rumba while you play...


Okay, the introduction splash screens work great, and the menu is the same old problem. Only now I have to hit space instead of escape. Oh well.

Also, you'll want to put the smoke effect behind the player ship. When you get really hurt and go really slow it is next to impossible to even find your ship under the black blotch. It kinda blends into the background.

[Bijo]

An optional AWSD control scheme would be nice too, besides the arrow keys :)

[savage]

Also, you'll want to put the smoke effect behind the player ship. When you get really hurt and go really slow it is next to impossible to even find your ship under the black blotch. It kinda blends into the background.

I agree with this. I meant to mention it.

Also when you add Joystick support, please allow the Joysick to scroll through and select the menu options. Also you much allow the user to ESC out of the 2 splash screens.

[Huehnerschaender]

Don't tell me you do the rumba while you play...


Maybe Dom likes the music? :)

Ok, I will put smoke into background, try to add WASD and joystick support...

Czar reported not be able to see the menuscreen... so I will investigate there again.



and the menu is the same old problem. Only now I have to hit space instead of escape.

which problem exactly? The trash on screen? Black screen?



Thanks for those hints :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Also you much allow the user to ESC out of the 2 splash screens.

Ehm... You already should be able to pass the splash screens using ESC... but only when fadein has finished.

[Huehnerschaender]

Found the bug with menu rendering... I didn't apply the workaround for menu screen, just for advertisement splashscreens and game screen.

@Czar and Robert

Could you please test if you are able see the menu now?

@Savage
I think I added joystick support to the game. Are you able to test it? I don't have a joystick, so it's hard for me to test *hehe* :)
Support is only in game right now! If you tell me it works I will add it to the menu, too!

EDIT: Added mouse support, too :) You can control the ship with your mouse now.

http://www.dino-it.de/gemchase_exe.zip

This URL is just the exe, so please overwrite it in the download from first post.

Thank you very much for all your efforts!!

[Robert Kosek]

Woo, finally! I see the menu! :D

What in the world is wrong with DanJetX that you have to apply a workaround?

[Huehnerschaender]

There is nothing big, just a little bug which uses a too small depthstencilsurface if the rendertarget is bigger than the backbuffer. But Dan is fixing it and he already provided the solution I am using now. Problem is that the behaviour you encountered is driver dependend.... It was not easy to find the problem because most video cards displayed everything correct... only certain drivers caused problems.


And: wooo!!! Yeah! Now I am glad, too :)

[savage]

Using the mouse makes it easier to play the game so I quite like it, but please add mouse support to the main menu as well. The mouse wheel would allow you to scroll the menus up and down and left click selects the highlighted menu option ( no need for a mouse cursor ). Right click could be used like the ESC key. Therefore you could play the whole game without touching the keyboard. Except for maybe typing in your initials for Highscores, but again you could use the mouse wheel and Left click for that if you had to.

I do have a joystick and as far as I can tell it does not work in this game.

Btw, you should be able to ESC the splash screens as soon as they appear. This is standard across all games. Most people will sit through the splash screens the first time, but when you really want to play the game again, you really don't want to see the splash screens again, so a quick way of getting through them is ideal.

[czar]

@Robert Kosek
The bug is actually to with DirectX rather than danjetx per se - and as Huehnerschaender says there is a workaround and soon a proper fix.

@Huehnerschaender
I agree I hate sitting through intro splash screens after the first time - I sit there banging the return and escape key in the hope I can get past them.

I will replay the game again this evening.

Is it not amazing how much response a project gets when it has a few obvious bugs than when it works without flaws? :)

There is probably a lesson here - if you want people to notice your game make it really good but with some annoying bugs. :D

[Huehnerschaender]

*lol*

I did not add the bugs to get attention, I swear! :)

But most of them should be sorted out now. The splash screens can now be skipped immediately by pressing ESC, the mouse control does not cause audio-problems to thrust sound anymore, everything should be visible now, etc...

I will upload a new version in a an hour or so... just want to add some additional sounds.

[Huehnerschaender]

Ok, I uploaded a new Beta version with additional voicefiles and some other little things.

still to do:
- there are situations where 2 voicefiles are played simultanously which is nonsense of course...
- smoke to background
- natural level border damages ship
- menucontrols mouse
- highscore system

I will try to do all that tomorrow. I will also buy a joystick tomorrow to add proper joystick support

http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

Greetings and have fun with the new voicefiles, me and my son had ours! *lol*

[pstudio]

I've just tried the latest release and I must say the game is to easy :)

You should create some more levels like the last one instead of looping through the levels. Else you could just go on forever until you die of thirst. :P

[Huehnerschaender]

Cool.... that means everything is working as intended :)

I know that the "game" in its actual state is too easy. 8 Levels is not much *hihi*

The plan is to find out if there are more bugs. Then design 20-50 levels, getting harder until impossible. Thanks again for testing!

[czar]

Nice one Dirk, all systems go.

Just one major problem! There is no pause button. I was just about to clock the score - the highest score of all time when the phone went - needless to say my ship went down in a screaming heap.

I did have a weird "pause" it lasted about 4 seconds - then the game continued - on resumption is played a sound - not sure if it paused trying to load it or what.

Might just be nothing.

[Huehnerschaender]

Hi Czar,

thanks.

There is a pause button! Its the "Pause" button on your keyboard.

I don't know why the game stopped for a few seconds on your system... would be nice if you could "keep an eye on this". :)

[czar]

I pressed pause!

or was it printscreen?

or was it that stupid f-lock key?

was f-lock on or off?

I give up.

[czar]

I have work out the pause problem -it doesn't work until I switch f-lock on

I have it off - i.e. if I press alt-f4 it closes a window and not start a "new" whatever.

[Huehnerschaender]

I will change Pause to "P" key *lol*

[savage]

Can we also have mouse scrolling and selecting capabilities on the main menu please.

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, you can :) It's on my todo-list for today :) But first I need to get out of the office here :(

Btw, do you really think that the mousewheel is enough? I mean, there are still mouses without a mousewheel... Ok, those people can use keyboard then... hmmm... what do you think?

[savage]

If they can't have a mouse wheel they don't deserve to play your game :). Yeah if you allow Mouse, Keyboard and Joystick from the main menu, that should cover all bases.

[Huehnerschaender]

Just played the game with a joystick :)

[savage]

I've been thinking about the game and what has been bothering me about it that didn't feel quite right and I think I have it. It's the fact that you start off on flat horizontal levels. If those "platforms" had a more organic feel, almost cave like, I think the game would feel tighter.

Just a thought.

[Huehnerschaender]

I already mentioned that I don't like the tile-graphics I have. Thats a thing I want to do when gameplay is ok and no more bugs occur.

[Huehnerschaender]

A new upload tomorrow. I am too tired.

Fixed all known bugs.
Highscore system works. I only need a highscore table to display ingame and a dialog to enter your name.
Joystick, mouse and keyboard fully supported as input devices (in game and menu).

I will upload a new version when I finished the highscore table (the game already manages highscores and saves them to disk, but only with a preset name :) ).

[Huehnerschaender]

Bah, sorry for the delay. Did not had any time the last days.
I will be back on it when I got some hours of time. I guess by this week.

[Huehnerschaender]

Just to let you know that the project did not die, I post a little screenshot with the new leveltile-map-system.

I made a leveleditor and changed the whole tile-system. Now I can make cavelike levels with "rounded shapes".

As soon as I get some time I will finish this little game. Unfortunately I had other things to do in the past...


http://upload2.postimage.org/25561/gemchase.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/25561/photo_hosting.html)

[czar]

Hi Dirk,

That is looking very excellent. Now that the tour is finished you can get back to coding :)

[savage]

Very nice Dirk.

I was hoping Cadel Evans was going to win the tour, but he flaked in the mountains.

[Huehnerschaender]

Are you talking about the tour de France? *lol* I hate to watch cycling on the tv... I consider it nothing more than boring :)
In fact, I had totally different things to do :)

[czar]

That and the fact that ARD and ZDF stopped showing the tour in Germany. I was firmly for the Rabobank, I think Boogerd and Dekker did a superb job supporting the yellow jersey wearer - just a shame that Rasmussen is such a dodgy character. Mountain stages were very exciting.


I thought Cadel had zip personality :)

[pstudio]

The Tour is cr*p. With no prooves at all the yellow jersey is kicked out, practically after he've won the tour. Instead Contador wins who's involved with the Puerto case. Is that a more worthy winner?
And now it even seems, that it was Prudhomme himself that forced Rabobank to drop Rasmussen.
I like Evans and perhaps he should have won, but the best would be to just drop the tour. What's the point? Whoever is doing well, will be accused of using doping. The tour is dead. Not just because of the doping accusions and revealings, but also because of how lousy the tour administration is acting.

back to topic.
Looks great Dirk. When will we get a new playable demo?

[chronozphere]

Good job :) Very nice voice over :razz: Did you make those sounds yourself??
The game works well on my system:

Windows Viasta Ultimate
AMD 64 X2 5400+
2 Gig DDRII RAM
Club3d Geforce 8600

My FPS was 500.

The only glitch i noticed was flickering of the GUI text.
Hope you can solve it. :)

Good luck.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks guys :)


Did you make those sounds yourself??

Yep. It's my own voice *hehe*



The game works well on my system:

Windows Viasta Ultimate
AMD 64 X2 5400+
2 Gig DDRII RAM
Club3d Geforce 8600

My FPS was 500.

Thanks. Good to know! Especially because I don't own a single NVidia card. All my computers have ATI card in them.



The only glitch i noticed was flickering of the GUI text.
Hope you can solve it. :)


Hmm... this never occured here. But maybe this problem is solved by the new version of DanJetX which I am using now. Lets wait and see...



When will we get a new playable demo?
Soon. I just need to do some levels and some things I stopped at when real life caught me some weeks ago :) The highscore list for example is working, but the "enter your name"-dialog is not finished yet.

I also want to change the spawning of gems and extras. At the moment they spawn at a random place. I want to add fixed spawn points which can be set in the editor to allow better level design. +100 extra for example should not spawn right beneath the ship. It should spawn in an area which is hard to reach. At the moment there is no control about the spawnpoints of things. Thats what I want to change next. I think its very important for level design.

[czar]

The flickering text is an issue on Vista that occurred with early nvidia drivers, in my case the problem disappeared after I updated my nvidia drivers (8800gts).



=============

Vive Le Tour. It is still a beautiful sport to watch and follow.

[Huehnerschaender]

NEW VERSION

New features:

- particle system checks collisions now
- added a mine which should not be touched :)
- level editor is fully functional now. Its not included because I produce pascal code with it to let me compile the levels into the exe. Its a development tool and no goodie for the players.
- highscore list fully functional (except of encryption of highscore file)
- Tile-system for surroundings and walls
- added spawnpoints. The gems and extras now spawn at defined positions and not at a random place
- Added a little handicap for the player. The ship now uses fuel to fly. If you run out of fuel, you cannot steer anymore and fall down. You can fill up your fuel at landing zones. Just land on them.
- fixed many bugs....

Here are some screens:

http://upload2.postimage.org/134883/1.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/134883/photo_hosting.html)

http://upload2.postimage.org/134884/2.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/134884/photo_hosting.html)

http://upload2.postimage.org/134886/3.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/134886/photo_hosting.html)


And here is the download link:

http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

Have fun! bug reports and of course any comments are welcome!

PS: This demo has 9 levels... can you beat them?

[chronozphere]

The flickering text is an issue on Vista that occurred with early nvidia drivers, in my case the problem disappeared after I updated my nvidia drivers (8800gts).



Yeah you are right... yesterday i updated my drivers and the problem seesm to be solved now.

But i noticed something else:

I accidently left the DirectX debug runtimes enabled when i started your game. The DX debug runtime alway's seems to clear the backbuffer with green and pink color so the developers will see those colors when they dont clear their backbuffer properly.

So when i started the game, i saw big pink and green lines across the screen. I don't know how the render routines in DanJetX work but this might be a little glitch. :?

I think you shouldn't worrie too much because when i activated the retail version of D3D, it worked like it should ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you very much for the information.

I will take a closer look if I clear the backbuffer in all render routines.

And I am glad that the flickering text is gone now :)

[Robert Kosek]

2191 points, died on level 9 due to a meteor. For those who've been there ... I was trying to get health right on the top of the right arc.

Where'd the damage smoke go Dirk? I loved the effect, I just hated it when it obscured the ship. I like the fuel stations, though not particularly the fuel limit, and the animation on them. The mines are pretty cool. :D

Your level design has improved greatly with the irregular walls, and that makes a visual reason for the damage you take even on small bumps. I don't think the player should be penalized for bumping empty space: there's nothing there.

My only real sticking point right now is the resolution. The interface and bar at the base of the screen looks fine, but with my resolution set at 1280x1024 the ship and just about everything else looks a little too fuzzy.

[pstudio]

What? I totally missed this new download. downloading now.
Well the screenshots look good especially the middle one. It looks like the game is almost done.

EDIT: tried it out. first the game wouldn't run because I was missing d3dx9_25.dll and the zip contained _26. However the game went smooth as soon as I found the correct dll.

A few things about the game. I think it would be nice if the game only spawned gems of the colours you were missing. Is annoying waiting for a green gem in one and a half minute :?
Do you play some alarming sound before the meteors? Can't remember, but you should make some big alerting sound, cause I don't notice the textmessage before after I've been hit :roll:
I like the fuel part but perhaps you should put a limit on refueling. Right now I don't think it makes a significant challenge that I have to refuel.
Last thing. A small bug when typing highscore. I press 'p' and a big textmessage saying 'Pause' pops up :P

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for the reports guys!!


2191 points, died on level 9 due to a meteor. For those who've been there ... I was trying to get health right on the top of the right arc.


Wow.. you are fast :)
The levels are not final. I think I will change the whole screen layout a bit. The GUI is not very nice in my opinion... The GUI will change and so the space for the level will vary.



Where'd the damage smoke go Dirk? I loved the effect, I just hated it when it obscured the ship. I like the fuel stations, though not particularly the fuel limit, and the animation on them. The mines are pretty cool. :D

Well, the damage smoke is still there, but now that you mention it... I missed to make that effect framerate independant... It runs well with VSync=off, but 60 FPS is too less to make the effect visible... I will change that of course :)



I don't think the player should be penalized for bumping empty space: there's nothing there.


If the player gets no damage he can slide along the sides without any danger... thats too easy in many situations...



My only real sticking point right now is the resolution. The interface and bar at the base of the screen looks fine, but with my resolution set at 1280x1024 the ship and just about everything else looks a little too fuzzy.
I did not make any optimization for other resolutions than 1024x768. Maybe I will add this later, which will result in bigger levels and smaller graphics....



EDIT: tried it out. first the game wouldn't run because I was missing d3dx9_25.dll and the zip contained _26. However the game went smooth as soon as I found the correct dll.

Oops... I will take a look at that!



A few things about the game. I think it would be nice if the game only spawned gems of the colours you were missing. Is annoying waiting for a green gem in one and a half minute

Thats a thing I already had in mind, but I threw the idea away, because this would affect aiming for highscores. I would set the points you can get in a level to a fixed value with this... In first level you need 5 purple gems. If I would only spawn purple gems you could only get exactly 5 points in level one.



Do you play some alarming sound before the meteors? Can't remember, but you should make some big alerting sound, cause I don't notice the textmessage before after I've been hit

I added this today.... you will like it :)



I like the fuel part but perhaps you should put a limit on refueling. Right now I don't think it makes a significant challenge that I have to refuel.

Any ideas? What would make it more challanging?



Last thing. A small bug when typing highscore. I press 'p' and a big textmessage saying 'Pause' pops up

Oops :) I guess you tried to type in "pstudio" :)

[Robert Kosek]

If the player gets no damage he can slide along the sides without any danger... thats too easy in many situations... Hehehe, make it elastic instead! :twisted: *boing -- boom!*


Any ideas? What would make it more challanging?More challenging? Hmm... I have a few ideas. Any of these could potentially do it but I'll let you pick:
Forcefields that toggle based on your score, forcing different routes.
"Phasing" walls or doors, where you must time an entry just right to get inside. (If you were to spawn gems/bonuses in one I would suggest making it of a higher value due to the challenge.)
Better meteor showers ... because lets face it, when was the last time you saw a meteor hit the ground coming straight down? They're infrequent in the first place, but the idea stands. It'd get under some of the areas and cause panic. Especially if:
Meteors have a chance to fragment into smaller ones, throwing flaming junk all over in an "area effect" rather than a direct impact.

Just a few straight from the top of my head. ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

Hehehe, make it elastic instead! :twisted: *boing -- boom!*
Hehe.... I will see how I can get a solution for the screen boundaries...


I have a few ideas. Any of these could potentially do it but I'll let you pick:

Oh, thanks, these ideas are good ones... I was thinking about doors with switches, too, but I did not had the time yet.

The question about "making it more challanging" was pointed at the refueling issue, though :) You and Peter said it is not that much challanging just to land on the platform and fuel up... so my question: How do you think it would be better?

And thanks for the comments again Robert :)

[Robert Kosek]

Oh, okay. My mind wandered and it didn't return to that topic. :P

Well, one would be to make the mass of the ship greater so it takes more fuel to keep it aloft. Right now I can "tap-hover" with almost a millimeter of fuel left and navigate level 9's top section back to the landing pad right before I hit the 0 mark. That would make it more challenging, and if you want kids to play it you might want to test that challenge out on them first.

[pstudio]

Any ideas? What would make it more challanging?
I like Kosek's idea :)
But I was also thinking that it could be more challenging if you had limited fuel resources. I'm just popping out some numbers, but let's say that the ship can contain 100l fuel. Then if the landing platform only has 200l fuel in reserves, the player won't be able to just fly around carelessly, but will have to fly strategic to save on the fuel. You could also then place some fuel tanks on hard to reach located areas.
It would probably require some tweaking with the numbers, but it would make it a bit more challeging. Its just to easy to fuel up right now.

It could also be interesting if the amount of fuel affects the ships mass and thereby its stearing capability. When fuelled up the ships will fly slow and hard to steer while it will fly fast and react fast to playes input when there's almost none fuel left.

EDIT: I just died on timeout at the first level because I couldn't get the last purple gem. :? You should make sure that the correct coloured gems at least pops up before the times run out. I collected about 20 other gems while waiting for the purple one, but it never came. I would classify this as a flaw in the game
EDITEDIT: Has anybody actually completed the ninth level? I died once again because of timeout. I was collecting gems all the time but I was still missing 7 green gems and two blue. The game only created 3 green gems on 5 minutes. You should rellay look into this Dirk ;)
I as the player didn't think I made anything wrong, but still I wan't capable of completing the game. It's a sign on bad game design according to a book I read :P

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you very much Robert and Peter... I will take care about both of your suggestions.

The gem spawning was already tweeked so that it spawns all needed gems in every case. But now I have spawn points, which are the only places for gems to spawn. Do you have any idea how I can keep the randomness and still be sure that all the needed gems spawn? I mean, what if the player has 90 seconds... flys around for 80 seconds without picking up a gem... How can I make sure, that he still can reach the goal? And do I really want that in such a case? I mean, the levels will be designed for a critical amount of time (the final levels, not the ones in this version). What if the player is idle for 20 seconds without pausing the game...

The spawnpoints are designed in the following way:
for example if I have 3 spawnpoints, then I can specify in the editor that 2 of them can hold a gem simultanously. So that the third is free in every case... this is needed to prevent the player from hanging around on a spawnpoint. The last picked up spawnpoint will never be the spawnpoint who creates the next gem... If there are more than one free spawnpoints then the game picks it randomly... but not the one which was just picked up!

So with this system... what do you think I can do to make it work?

One solution I can think of right now is the following:

While designing the levels I try to find an average amount of seconds the player will need to pick up a gem...

With this time I can now precalculate a chain of gems which will contain all needed gems and does not exceed the leveltime.

So some kind of formula would be:
Amount of gems in chain * average time <= leveltime

[pstudio]

First of all, if the player doesn't collect gems for 20 secodns its his/her own fault.
The chain could possible solve the problem. At least you will have to look at the timelimit for a level.
Perhaps you could say that it takes 6 seconds in average to collect a gem. Then when the game spawns a gem you look at how much time is left and how many gems needs being collected. If there is 80 seconds left and the player is only missing 2 gems there is no problem. You can spawn any colour you like because it is expected that the player can collect the gems and wait for new one to spawns with the right colur before time runs out.
However if there is only 30 seconds left you should make sure the right coloured gems are spawned.
You should also set a minimum seconds left (20 for instance) for the last coloured gem to be spwaned if the player collects gems with 6 seconds between. Not sure it's clear but here is an algorithm when spawning

if 'gems left to collect' * 'average time to collect gems' <= 'time left' - 'minimum time border' then
spawn right coloured gem
else
spawn whatever you feel like.

I think this could solve the problem in a reasonable way.

Btw. it would be nice with some sound indicating when there is 10 seconds left. Perhaps also when there is one, two.. minutes left.

and you may want to prevent the game from spawning bombs when the player is on the spawning point. I got a shock (ok perhaps not a shock) and thought I'd died for a second. It's a bit confusing since it explodes right away.

[czar]

Hi Dirk,

Well you could have set points for the gems, then bring them up randomly and then set final time to final gem pop up time plus a certain number of seconds.

Or you could do away with time restrictions (I hate them - I am too slow) and instead have bonus points that decrease the longer you take to finish the level.

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks for the replies.

I will think about all this when I finished my new players ship... I did not like the "sprite" I rendered and today I made a low poly version of the ship and now I have a 3D model as players ship which I can rotate etc... feels much better now to steer the ship... but it's not complete yet...

[Huehnerschaender]

Hehehe... I finished the movement of the new ship and it feels completely different, even though the mechanics did not change... strange :)

The only thing I changed is that I reduced acceleration when flying up. That means, it's a little more like Robert said. You need to press up for a longer time to go up. No more uphopping by tabbing the up key and so you also need more fuel when going up, because you need to press the key longer....

I will upload a new test version now... gimme some minutes...


EDIT:

Here it is...
http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

Please let me know how you think about the new ship... :)

[Robert Kosek]

Okay.

1. The ship jitters when still.
2. The ship can be damaged when a new level starts if the prior level ended with the ship in a "humorous" angle.
3. The ship rotating horizontally (not the turning upside down or anything) gets a little distracting visually from the motion.
4. Thrusting down on pads should be programmatically disallowed -- it damages the ship.

IMO the wobbles and stutters of the ship are too frequent and fast, and the general turning speed is too fast and not quite as smooth as I would expect. Not so bad on the latter part, but the former produces flickers.

The new thrust amount makes it a little tougher, but I got finished by a meteor anyway. They now 1 hit kills?

EDIT:
You might want to try alt-tabbing and clicking the task bar entry once or twice, and then the little minimized window. You get the following screenshot which is messy. DanJetX appears to suffer the same problem as Asphyre 4.
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9392/gemchaseoopsua2.th.jpg (http://img20.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gemchaseoopsua2.jpg)

[Huehnerschaender]

1. The ship jitters when still.
2. The ship can be damaged when a new level starts if the prior level ended with the ship in a "humorous" angle.
3. The ship rotating horizontally (not the turning upside down or anything) gets a little distracting visually from the motion.
4. Thrusting down on pads should be programmatically disallowed -- it damages the ship.

2. and 4. fixed...

What do you mean with "jitters when still"? When it stand still on a platform or when it flies?

3... What do you mean? Pressing left or right?



IMO the wobbles and stutters of the ship are too frequent and fast, and the general turning speed is too fast and not quite as smooth as I would expect. Not so bad on the latter part, but the former produces flickers.

Hmmm... I made the movement to look a little comic like... like if the ship is a marionette.
What do you mean with "it produces flickers"? I can't see anything flickering here on my machine...



The new thrust amount makes it a little tougher, but I got finished by a meteor anyway. They now 1 hit kills?

Oh shit... I have an overall damage factor which I changed because the one in the previous version was much too easy... but I did not test it completely. So I must adjust the damage a meteor makes... sorry :)



EDIT:
You might want to try alt-tabbing and clicking the task bar entry once or twice, and then the little minimized window. You get the following screenshot which is messy. DanJetX appears to suffer the same problem as Asphyre 4.

Oh, I will test it... seems like an "on lost device" problem... there is already a discussion on DanJetX Forums about similar problems....


Thanks for the test Robert... would be nice if you could explain the parts a little more that I did not understand :)

Greetings

[Robert Kosek]

What do you mean with "jitters when still"? When it stand still on a platform or when it flies? Both, unfortunately. It is most visible on the platform where no motion should be that there is a tiny jitter that is slightly visible. In the air it is like the saucer is going through turbulence or something.


3... What do you mean? Pressing left or right? I don't mean pitch or yaw, but the actual top-down turning of the craft. IE, "Rotation"/"spinning" and such. Turning right and left are when it is visible in the legs seemingly rotating like an upside down merry-go-round for a few short seconds. (Mostly in the initial turn.)


Oh, I will test it... seems like an "on lost device" problem... there is already a discussion on DanJetX Forums about similar problems.... I would point out that it isn't technically a lost device. It might be a lost/recreated form handle that didn't get updated in your device. Asphyre4 has full lost device support and suffers the same problem. The only work around, the source of the issue is the VCL implementation of forms, is to directly create windows through the Windows API. That's as much I know on this subject and it is untested so far.

[Robert Kosek]

Okay, the level with 3 mines and only cyan pieces to collect needs a little tweaking. I died because I ran out of time because too few cyan pieces were generated. I made it back to the fuel pad every time, and I got every piece on the screen -- but there weren't enough cyan pieces to win that one.

[Huehnerschaender]

Both, unfortunately. It is most visible on the platform where no motion should be that there is a tiny jitter that is slightly visible. In the air it is like the saucer is going through turbulence or something.

On the platform it should just go back to a normal position and then stop turning.
The "weaving" in the air was intended. I found it funny and in my opinion it looks better than the still image I had before.... maybe some tweaking? Or so you think the ship should stand still like before?


I don't mean pitch or yaw, but the actual top-down turning of the craft. IE, "Rotation"/"spinning" and such. Turning right and left are when it is visible in the legs seemingly rotating like an upside down merry-go-round for a few short seconds. (Mostly in the initial turn.)

I still don't really understand which rotation you mean I guess :) Is it the one when you press down and the ship goes head over heels? That was also intended... Hmmmm.... I found this kind of movement funny :)


I would point out that it isn't technically a lost device. It might be a lost/recreated form handle that didn't get updated in your device. Asphyre4 has full lost device support and suffers the same problem. The only work around, the source of the issue is the VCL implementation of forms, is to directly create windows through the Windows API. That's as much I know on this subject and it is untested so far.
Hmmm... I will ask Dan about this...

Thanks again....

And the level-tweaking will be done today. I will implement a solution to always spawn the correct number of gems within the leveltime (if the player does not sleep :) )

[Robert Kosek]

On the platform it should just go back to a normal position and then stop turning.Well, just try landing and staying still. You'll noticing it rocking like a kick pushing a toy forwards and back. ;) Almost like it is trying to balance on a thin piece of paper and falling to, or away from, you.


The "weaving" in the air was intended. I found it funny and in my opinion it looks better than the still image I had before.... maybe some tweaking? Or so you think the ship should stand still like before?Nah, the weaving is fine. It's just a little too much and sometimes that movement "stutters" on my computer.


I still don't really understand which rotation you mean I guess. Is it the one when you press down and the ship goes head over heels? That was also intended... Hmmmm.... I found this kind of movement funny.No, I thought going head over heels was funny too. :D Hover straight up and go to the left; the eyes (at least mine do) expect the craft to tilt to the left to facilitate movement ... not turn around like a car would. Hehe, if you still don't get it I dunno how to reword it. It's not a big thing, just a nitpick.

[Huehnerschaender]

Ahh, ok. I think now I got it :)

I will take a look at these things... and now that I really took a close eye on the ship when landing on the platform, I can see the jittering you were talking about... it happens not everytime, but it happens... and of course this is not intended!

I will take a look at the turning aroud the y axis when steering left or right (which is what you were talking about). I guess you would expect the ship to get another angle like when you press down + left or right. Am I right?

[Robert Kosek]

Yes, kind of like the down+left/right. ;)

[Huehnerschaender]

I worked nearly the whole day on the new UI and on 3D backgrounds. I don't use the still images anymore, which wasn't mine anyway. So I made a bunch of 7 3D planets, all bumpmapped, and also the stars in the back are rotating a bit. The whole scene now seems to "live", which pumps up the visual appearance in my opinion.

The new GUI is now on the right side and I also tried to make it "nice" this time.

Here is a screenshot. More info will follow... I am tired :)


http://upload2.postimage.org/168567/scr.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/168567/photo_hosting.html)

[WILL]

Sell it! Make money! :D

[Huehnerschaender]

Money? :)

That was never my intention. I think I will have a look at the game when its finished and then consider if its good enough to make some bucks...

[Huehnerschaender]

UPDATE:

This version features:

- 3D backgrounds
- some new voicefiles
- bug fixes
- new GUI
- Gem spawn chain (every level guaranteed spawns the needed gems if the player is fast enough)
- new enemy in level 10
- Many little improvements


Get it here:
http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip (36 MB)

Comments and bug reports are welcome!

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: Sorry for the big filesize. I need to convert some PNGs in JPGs later.

[Robert Kosek]

The level with the three mines is bugged this time around somehow. :s I played and when I had two minutes left there weren't any more gems! I still had 5 cyan to go, so you can expect the outcome.

You also might want to fix this glitch:
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/6318/gemchaseglitchvh0.th.jpg (http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gemchaseglitchvh0.jpg)

Overall it is looking really polished now, and I really like the implementation. The smoke is still on top of the player after all these weeks though. :D

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Robert...

I fixed the glitch.
The smoke already was behind the player, but I found it looking like the player was glued onto the scene when thing only happen behind him, so I changed 50% of the smoke to appear in front of him. I can vary this value to a little lower, then it will not be so much disturbing. But I really don't like the look of the complete smoke behind the player.

The bugged level had an artefact in leveldesign. There was a spawnpoint behind the GUI (which I have overseen when I changed GUI layout) *lol* Fixed that.

Thanks for the report Robert!

EDIT:

Btw, did you see the new Ini-File in the game directory? You can change the starting level in it! I will add a level-code system later.

[Robert Kosek]

The smoke already was behind the player, but I found it looking like the player was glued onto the scene when thing only happen behind him, so I changed 50% of the smoke to appear in front of him. I can vary this value to a little lower, then it will not be so much disturbing. But I really don't like the look of the complete smoke behind the player.In that case you've done well splitting it like that. Otherwise it still will obscure the player's ship. ;) However the black on black nature of the smoke on the background is slightly defeating, so you could go with a dark gray instead if you wanted to experiment.


The bugged level had an artefact in leveldesign. There was a spawnpoint behind the GUI (which I have overseen when I changed GUI layout) *lol* Fixed that. Oh. Hahaha. I saw that and thought that you slipped in the level editor. :P

You're welcome Dirk.


Btw, did you see the new Ini-File in the game directory? You can change the starting level in it! I will add a level-code system later.Yep, I spotted that when I first started playing yesterday.

[savage]

To give the ship some depth can you not fake a shadow, or will that be in congruent with what is happening on-screen?

[Huehnerschaender]

Dom, on which objects do you want the shadow to be cast on?

Robert, I will try it with a lighter smoke particle.... new update will follow in the evening.

[Robert Kosek]

In beating level 7 I started in 8 where I left 7 and blew up a mine (hurting myself) and then teleported to the launchpad. All in a split second. Might want to look into that. ;) I started pretty damaged.

Oh the irony... I just died on the last meteor on level 9 that I tried to avoid. :roll:

Level 10: Dirk, you evil madman... meteors plus "you know who" makes that level painfully difficult. I love the missiles though! Maybe it could randomly alternate between the standard, and a frag one that sends bouncy particles out that do a little damage even if it doesn't hit you. ;)

[WILL]

You could change the ratio of the 'in front' and 'behind' smoke... so that it's more like 25% in front and 75% behind so you still have the smoke emanating from the ship visually while not obscuring it as much.

As for the blocking... you could simply alpha it more as it gets higher...


So this one has a level editor huh? Hmm... alright, it's gonna need 50 new features! :twisted: I'll write them up and send you a copy tomorrow. :lol: (inside joke)

[Huehnerschaender]

@Robert:
Another little bug. On levelstartup the position of the ship is set to startingposition, but the collisionshape is not moved. So in the very first frame the ship is at the starting point and its collision shape is at the position you left the last level... fixed that. Thanks again! You wouldn't recognize it until you stop a level at a position where you hit an enemy in the next level :)

About the new enemy... its a new one, not the last :) So let us proceed slowly to more evil things :) It's already hard enough to beat level 10 (which of course is not final, just to introduce the new enemy). The weaving rocket is quite hard to assess in its movement, even if its regular, you have to quickly decide in which direction you try to avoid.

@Jason:
I already fixed the smoke problem... I like it exactly like it is now... Out of 15 smoke particles, 14 are behind the ship now... looks ok and is not obscuring the ship too much.

Which blocking are you talking about? I don't understand that...

And finally: *lol* I am awaiting the list... But... I guess I can take the last list we made one year ago :)

[jasonf]

I can't get it working at all on my work machine, an Alienware P4 3ghz, with 2gig ram and Radeon x800 Pro video card.

I get a corrupted screen and a message..


http://upload2.postimage.org/194267/bugrd.jpg (http://upload2.postimage.org/194267/photo_hosting.html)

Seems like some people have been getting similar errors but then fixed them.. I scanned the posts but didn't find a solution... any ideas?

[Huehnerschaender]

Did you download the 35MB version or did you download from the first post (which is not up to date)?

Which OS is installed?

I have a P4 2,8 Ghz, 1 GB Ram, Radeon X800 Pro (WinXP SP2) here and just tested it.. Works like a charm!

If you downloaded from the first post, please take a look at this:


http://www.dino-it.de/GemChaseBeta.zip

[Huehnerschaender]

Today I fixed some bugs mentioned here and I spent a lot of time on tweeking the visual effects by making new particle graphics trying out different blendmodes.

The result can be seen in this little video here... See me beat level 10, nearly without a scratch!

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

Greetings,

Dirk

[jasonf]

Still explodes and I have to kill it in task manager... hang on...

DirectX settings were Debug.. you might want a more elegant error trapper than is there at the moment. Each time it crashed, I had to force it to close.

[Huehnerschaender]

Yes, you are right... such things should not cause the PC to hang up... I didn't do anything on error trapping. I will add it soon, as it is an important thing.

Anyway... I still don't know what OS you are running. Drivers up to date? As I already mentioned, I have nearly the same PC standing here and the game runs well on it.

[jasonf]

Sorry, yes...
O/S XP Pro sp2
Drivers and DirectX 9.0c up to date.

Edit: Just a note to say, I did get it running in the end by using the retail settings on the DirectX drivers. Nice game, quite tricky to master but easy to pick up.

[Huehnerschaender]

So the game does not run in DirectX debug mode? Hmmm.... I think I will have to take a look at that... I never set DirectX into debug mode...

EDIT:

Ok, it really seems, that the game crashes when debug mode of DirectX is set.... The code stops in a new beta state class of DanJetX (meshes with included shaders). I will report this to Dan, maybe he can investigate this. Thanks Jason!

[Huehnerschaender]

Looooong time no information update...

This project did not die. In fact I spent a lot of time on it to improve it. The game in its state now is quite different from the first prototype, so I guess I will create a new thread for the further WIP infos soon.

Anyway, I made a simple video of the state of the game engine in its current development state.

There is still some work left before I start with leveldesign, so please take a look at this having in mind that I just want to show the new engines capabilities.

What will the final game be about?

Hmmm... in some few short sentences:
- Collect the gems with your "zap" beam.
- protect your space station from the enemys (I need to add some AI and weapons to the enemys).
- proceed to further levels.
- use things like switches, teleporters etc to get to the gems

<center><object><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/7Il7_3Kcg1M&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="640" height="480"></embed></object></center>

Greetings,
Dirk

[arthurprs]

looks pretty good

[savage]

Very very nice video indeed!

[Wizard]

Looks great!!! 8)

[savage]

I just watched it gain. Love the portal technology :o].

[Huehnerschaender]

Thank you guys :)


Dom: The portal "technology" is so simple... you won't believe it :)

[pstudio]

Looks great though it has evolved a lot since last update.

When will there be a new demo? :)

[Huehnerschaender]

Thanks Peter...


A demo will come next week I guess. I want to implement the second element of gameplay first, which is to protect your station from the enemy ships.

First step is done.... The station parts are vulnarable and can be destroyed by lasers (by your own too!).

I also added some pyro effects to the destroyed station parts :)


<center><object><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/jEEmwZkqmpM&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="640" height="480"></embed></object></center>

[savage]

I like the fact that there is friendly fire. Not enough games add this element in.

[Huehnerschaender]

*rofl* I just watched it again and realized, that I was recording sound from the microphone and not from the game itself... lol, you can hear me hammering on the keyboard :) Its the laptops Mic, so it sounds like I am hammering like an idiot, but actually this type of gameplay will not occur too much... don't worry :)

And Dom, yes.... friendly fire is a must in my eyes. This way you really have to look where and how often you fire ... make it a bit mor thrilling I guess.