My first finished game: bouncer

[chronozphere]

Hello everyone!

I'd like to show you the beta of my project. The game is called "bouncer" and it looks like a pong clone, but it's different. Check the screenies below:

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/7499/bouncersmall1copyyn2.th.jpg (http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bouncersmall1copyyn2.jpg)
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/1867/bouncersmall2ps4.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bouncersmall2ps4.jpg)
http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8618/bouncersmall3ww3.th.jpg (http://img149.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bouncersmall3ww3.jpg)
http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/3074/bouncersmall4rx5.th.jpg (http://img444.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bouncersmall4rx5.jpg)

Download Bouncer:

http://necrodome.homeftp.net/chronozphere/Bouncer%20v0.25b%20beta.zip(thanx michiel for hosting :razz: )
http://nathan.filesources.de/Binairies/Bouncer%20v0.25b%20beta.zip (mirror)

The goal is to stay alive as long as possible. You do not loose a life when you let the ball pass, as in the normal pong game. You only get killed when you're hit by a missile or a flammable ball. Check the ingame help for more details.

If you don't like the level's/brick patterns in this game, you might want to modify bricks.txt. It contains the patterns and you can add your own. Check the comment's in that file for more info. :)

you need to install openAL before you run the game, otherwise initialization will fail.

Please tell me whether you like it, and what framerates you get.
and If you happen to make some nice brick patterns, i would like to see them. :)

Have fun. ;)

[marmin]

This looks polished, i've only played it for a short while. Are you gonna post it on gamedev?

[chronozphere]

That's a nice idea thanx. :) but don't you need to be GD++ member to post a new "image of the day"?? :?

[marmin]

Well you have to have an account. But that's not hard to do.

[NecroDOME]

For a first approach on a game it's very nice.

The only thing I would change is the ball speed. Let it go faster in the beginning.

Anyway, nice graphics and gameplay. Gives pong a whole new concept :)

[chronozphere]

Thanx ;) Changing things like that is easy, but carefully balancing all gameplay element's is kinda hard. I didn't have enough time to do that. :)

Maybe i should include this option it in settings.ini. :razz:

[chronozphere]

Hmm.. is anyone interested in testing my project?? Only two tried. :?

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Hi hon,

Just tried your game, and I have to say, its not bad. In fact I'd go as far as saying its pretty good.

Nice simple idea. Looks nice, seems to play nice, but I do have one fairly major complaint (unless I missed it)... the lack of a single player mode.

Nice job :-)

Performance:- My machine is an Athlon 64 X2 running at 1.9GHz with 2GB RAM. OS is Windows 2000 Server. Graphics card is a 256MB GeForce 7600 GT (IIRC). The frame rate was showing around 366fps with the game configured to run at 1680 x 1050.

[chronozphere]

Thank you for the nice words. :D

Yeah... there is no single player mode. I could make one, but for now i think this project is finished. I would like to move on to the next thing. Having a single player mode is always nice, but not strictly neccesary to make it a good game. My experience with multiplayer games is that the replay-value is higher than the single player ones, so that explains my decision. ;)

[Luuk van Venrooij]

crashed on my machine. Probebly because I use vista with DX10. Here is the log:



MSG: ..:: NashaENGINE log-file ::..

MSG: Initializing NashaENGINE...
MSG: Enumerating Sound devices...
MSG: -- Sounddevice: Generic Software
MSG: 1 sound-devices enumerated!

MSG: Initializing Graphics....
MSG: Checking for hardware acceleration....
MSG: --> A hardware accelerated device was found!
MSG: Checking hardware capabilities...
MSG: Validating display mode...
MSG: Creating device....
DXERR: --> ERROR_NOT_READY & DIERR_NOTINITIALIZED
--> Direct3d-Device could not be initialized.
APP: FATAL ERROR ON INITIALIZATION: Application will terminate now....

MSG: Terminating....
MSG: ..:: Logger terminated::..

[chronozphere]

That's very weird. I've seen that error once before. But i blamed the drivers of the machine.

Can you tell me what graphics hardware you have and what driver version? Any chance you are using the latest catalyst drivers? :? Those can cause problems with my engine. :(

BTW: The resulting error codes you see in the log are returned by D3D.CreateDevice(). Are you experienced with DX? can you tell me what's going on??

[Luuk van Venrooij]

I`m using a Geforce 8800 gt with the latest drivers 169.44. And sorry can`t help you with the errors. I`m more of an OpenGL guy:D. I just started last week with D3D for my job:)

[Wizard]

Hi Chronozphere, I tried your game and found it fun to play :D It didn’t work on my work PC – it crashed and the log file said that no accelerated device was found but it works on my LapTop at around 100 fps.

I liked the graphics, keep up the good work 8)

[chronozphere]

Thanx! :) Can you tell me on what hardware it crashes? It should work, even on non-accelerated devices. :? I should do some more testing on systems without good graphics hardware.

[Wizard]

Hi on my pc at work: Intel(R)82865G graphics controller and driver version:6.14.10.3889. O/S: WinXP...


MSG: ..:: NashaENGINE log-file ::..

MSG: Initializing NashaENGINE...
MSG: Enumerating Sound devices...
MSG: -- Sounddevice: Generic Software
MSG: 1 sound-devices enumerated!

MSG: Initializing Graphics....
MSG: Checking for hardware acceleration....
WARN: --> No hardware accelerated device was found!
MSG: Checking hardware capabilities...
ERR: -->E_DEVICE_INCAPABLE: your video-card cannot support the NashaENGINE.
-->Your videohardware is incapable of running NashaENGINE.
APP: FATAL ERROR ON INITIALIZATION: Application will terminate now....

MSG: Terminating....
MSG: ..:: Logger terminated::..

[chronozphere]

Ah yeah.. i checked some of the Direct3d capabilities before actually starting the engine. My engine doesn't require a high-end GFX card, but some degree of hardware is needed in order to run it. I should have logged the reason why it isn't capable (e.g certain blending options not supported, or not enough simultanious textures etc). :)

[yassersoft]

Well Done. You are really 100 step front of me.
look at my stuff, just a piece of junk
http://www.2shared.com/fadmin/3343498/91563c64/Serpent.rar
Let me think something better.

BYEBYE

[chronozphere]

Thanks for the compliment. :D

But your little game seems like a good start. You could now add some more graphical effects and maybe a background image. I assume (by looking at the size of the executable) that you're drawing your graphics using GDI. If i were you, i would check out some cool game-engines and figure out how they work. Take your time and don't be too ambitious and your games will become more and more impressive. ;)

Good luck!

Chronozphere